Reply #233: Your second point, [View All]

People do observe a lot of things, and draw certain conclusions from them. That alone isn't science. That's my whole point. It isn't selling anyone short. I'm not a scientist. I don't think that means everything I've observed or any conclusions I've drawn from those observations are meaningless. I'm not selling myself short, nor am I selling anyone else short by pointing that out. I just can't pretend that any of those things I've observed or concluded are valid, scientific results. I can learn the scientific method and then go on to test those things in a scientific manner if I choose. Or I could research to find if anyone has done so. But, until I've done so, from a scientific POV it's just speculation. Conclusions based on anything outside of the scientific method isn't science. That was my point. From a scientific point of view, it is just speculation to say ESP might exist. I don't think there's really anything wrong with speculating that, or that it's meaningless. I just think it's incorrect to say that science should incorporate those speculations until they've been verified by the scientific method.

As to your first point, maybe it is just semantics, but I don't think so. It isn't necessarily complexity that holds science back. For instance, the human brain is indeed very complex, but that hasn't stopped scientists from discovering what they know so far, and it won't stop them from further discoveries. I think it's possible that there will come a day when just about everything is known about the brain. That day may never come, but I don't think it's impossible, either. What limits science more than anything else is time, manpower and funding. I don't think they're limited because the brain is so complex. In other words, the reason we don't now know more than we do is because there has been a limit on the amount of people capable of the research, and the funds with which to support them, and they've only been conducting the type of research they have been for a relatively short period of time. Fast forward 50 or a hundred years, and if there haven't been further limits of people and funding, we'll be much further ahead in our understanding of the human brain.