Human Consciousness and the failure of the modern scientific community

[Late_Cretaceous]

It is also noteworthy to point out, that all too often when mainstream publications print articles about scientific research they don't always get it right. Sometimes there are silly editorial mistakes, or even the journalist's misconceptions come through, or the whole thing has been over simplified to the point of being misleading. Even encyclopedias make mistakes. This is also the case in popular scientific literature. There is a huge gap between what is published in peer reviewed journals and mainstream media or books. For me, the best approach is to take anything you read in newspapers, books or magazines with a grain of salt. If something seems odd, look it up in other sources.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

*BUMP*

Sigh. It seems that Mr. Roach has lost all interest in this thread. How many times do we see topics abandonded shortly after they have started.

 

[Jet Black]

Every single day of our lives we as human beings experience being conscious beings. The scientific community, having run into the brick wall where human consciousness is concerned, have not only (I think rightly) left off studying it, but have (I think wrongly) dismissed it as irrelevant.

To sum up, try to maintain in the forefront of your mind, when discussing things with religious folk, that science still does not have all the answers, and indeed may never have all the answers since some questions lie outside its sphere.

you haven't read "The Emperor's New Mind" by Roger Penrose have you?

and no, science only has answers to scientific questions, not answers to things like "what is the reason for life?" but then it has never claimed to.

 

[the_malevolent_milk_man]

I honestly can't figure out how I'd make even one of my simple lab reports understandable to the average person. Maybe if half of every page was dedicated to footnotes defining the words and ideas? They might be able to look at a graph and think "Ayup... it's defintely going up!" but that would be about it. Unless you have at least a basic understanding of the subject then reading a scientific paper isn't going to do you any good.

Don't really care either, if they're genuinely interested in learning about it then they can take a few days to at least learn the basics.

 

[Jet Black]

I honestly can't figure out how I'd make even one of my simple lab reports understandable to the average person.

And this is part of the problem. critics naively assume that they can understand and debunk evolution and science over a bowl of cornflakes, wheras to even understand the concepts fully, and understand where they came from and see all the evidence so you can critically examine it for yourself takes years. no insult intended, but I often find myself arguing optics and quantum mechanics with laymen. I am 24, and have two masters degrees in the field from one of the world's top universities, having devoted five years of my life to the study of pure physics and contractually obliged myself to another three (a PhD) it takes me ages to explain concepts to them, because I have seen all the evidence, and they haven't. I have no problem with people willing to learn at all, I fully support it, but to debunk is much harder than to teach, since a willing student will look things up themselves, and often does not require the rigorous analysis that a doubter will require.