Evidence of miracles.

Mountainmike said:

Another thread had a curious title.

Independently REPEATABLE evidence of miracles. Which is a logical contradiction in the sense that by definition researchers cannot repeat the supernatural, otherwise it wouldn’t be supernatural.

So all that can be done is
1/ to identify evidence of the unexplained.
2/ to confirm it is inexplicable, by breaking a fundamental paradigm of science as it is known
( eg prophecy as a simple example because of time arrow, consciousness outside the brain )
3/ that there is no credible means of faking the evidence.
The only repeat possible is reassessment of evidence, not repeat the event.

But 1-3 deal only with defining something as supernatural, not a miracle which ascribes a cause.

Since God is not in the model of science , nor can science proclaim Him as a verdict, a limitation of science, not God.

So all we can do is is state
4/ it occurs in the theistic context
And
5/ the church adds other conditions too


Reality is there is a lot of such evidence.
Take miracle healings at Lourdes.
The lame walk, the blind see.

The process is massive to declare it so, from a large medical panel any qualified medic can join, most are not religious. They declare inexplicable , not just unexplained. ( Lourdes medical commission do that part )

The second declaration is by the church 4/ 5/ which is just as stringent. Many healings declared supernatural by medics, don’t pass the churches criteria as miracle. .

So what is left?
Take this. A pelvic cancer before cancers were in anyway curable had destroyed all the pelvic bone to a leg bone connected only by small amounts of soft tissue.

Journey to Lourdes healing waters.
Bone reappeared albeit a shorter leg. Pain disappeared. Cancer gone.

Appeared in serious medical journals.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/pdf/10.1179_0024363913Z.00000000015.pdf

A medical doctor Heads up the commission for typically 10 years a time.
A couple have written books.

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Ophiolite said:

Ironic, then, that your high IQ is not reflected in your ability to write grammatical - and hence cogent - sentences.

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Mountainmike said:

Study the process.
The fact that the church is not even involved until after the medical commission have spoken, open to any medical professor of high standing.

They decide against a set of criteria which are almost impossible to pass.

So no - like all those who refuse to study it before comment your characterisation of the process is way out.

Im beginning to to realise it is futile trying to have a scientific discussion with a priori sceptics who refuse to study before comment.

Have any of you actually studied the X-rays or what the learned professors said?

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Mountainmike said:

.. It doesn’t do to confuse a model of the universe with the real thing.

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Hans Blaster said:

There are no x-rays or plots or images of any kind in the article linked in the OP (to which I was replying).

The article was in a journal of medical ethics (and related things). I never implied that the church was involved, only that the journal was the primary journal of a catholic medical society. That latter fact might bias their review, or it might not. I'm actually more concerned that it was in a ethics journal and had no plots.

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Mountainmike said:

That’s a clever conclusion, since you clearly are not studying evidence!

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Clizby WampusCat said:

Ok, so I downloaded the Miraculous cure of a sarcoma... that you linked. I went through and made notes but I don't think I need to go through them at this point. When I got to the end the conclusion was this:

Micheli's sarcoma was medically certain and incurable. No curative treatment was given. Following his pilmigrage to Lourdes, the evolution of his sarcoma was suddenly modified. The cure is effective and lasting. No medical explanation of his cure can be given.

In the previous paragraph to the conclusion it says:

When a physician cannot find a satisfactory explanation, he should admit in good faith, honesty and impartiality that the phenomenon is inexplicable.

So twice in the paper it says that the phenomenon was unknown. Basically saying "we don't have an answer". How is this good evidence for a miracle?

BTW, the paper also gives 5 instances of spontaneous regression of tumors without any religious context. So it does happen.

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Mountainmike said:

Do you always limit study of a subject to the first article ( clearly just a summary in this case? ) what a shallow approach.

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Clizby WampusCat said:

Listen, you are the one that gave the reference as your source. If it is not the best evidence that is not my problem but yours. Why would you provide evidence that is not the best evidence? You made the claim, you provide the evidence. Am I supposed to spend hours investigating every miracle claim out there especially when your arguments for it being a miracle are flawed?

You have not responded to any of my posts describing flaws with your evidence and arguments. I would suggest you use the 4 sigma smarts you have to respond to the flaws I pointed out with your arguments and evidence. Or not, it is up to you.

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Mountainmike said:

Eureka. You got there.

Now reread what you have highlighted. “Medically inexplicable”
It’s all that can ever be concluded in the case of a miracle.

Something that was incurable with the medicine of the time , spontaneously, instantly , and permanently healed without any medical treatment that could have influenced it.


Occurred in theistic context. Lourdes.
No similar cases happen elsewhere

So it passed the only test possible for a prospective miracle.

Then look at the process they use, to eliminate fraud, the criteria, eg immediate cure , and most of all who approved it. No dissensions. Leurets book describes in detail how it is done.

It is the thoroughness of the process I thought deserved attention, that’s why I referred the books by those who manage it.

By way of comparison, When you buy pharmaceuticals , particularly biopharm you are trusting a review of the processes to GMP standards. The process is what guarantees the product. Ditto forensic labs used in criminology. That’s why their reports carry weight, and is why I refer their reports in other prospective miracles.

Whilst other sarcomas have healed naturally they are deemed not comparable by those who should know that.
Areas of bone structure can’t regrow. But In this case it did.

If you wanted to find the X-ray plots , you can. You haven’t tried.
You can either trust the conclusions you read , or go back to the original data if you want to criticise. You did neither.

Do you always limit study of a subject to the first article ( clearly just a summary in this case? ) what a shallow approach.

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Mountainmike said:

I have to say these threads are an eye opener.

I came for a what could have been an interesting good natured discussion on scientific evidence.

Eg if the Eucharistic miracles were faked how was it possible
How is that flesh could so intimately intermingle with bread?
Or how is that the change from bread to flesh is progressive?
How can leucocytes be present in vitro after years, a sign of life.
How can flesh test positive for DNA but refuse to yield a nuclear profile, only mitochondrial?
Repeated in places. across the world.
And so on. All good science.

I’ve discovered that none here actually study evidence, just preferring one of a list of apriori sceptic tropes however out of context or inappropriate.

Then I realised the problems:

For theists miracles are neither here nor there. If there is evidence great, it is hardly surprising , if disproven who cares? The church is just about the most sceptic agency out there.

But for sceptics ALL the evidence must be ruthless denounced by any means possible because a single instance destroys the sceptic world view.

That’s why academic institutions - take Bialystok university over Sokolka - stop at nothing to fabricate untruths to squash a perfectly good and verifiable forensic report. The behaviour of the shroud false RC daters was appalling, as any one reading Harry goves emails would discover.

Even greater in number than the badly behaved are those in academia who refuse to even look, so refuse assignments. Numerous instances occurred in the analysis of Eucharistic miracles. Why?

If it were easy to debunk, you would have thought a neo darwininian university would take great pleasure in doing so. The behaviour says the reverse. They are terrified of what they might find.

Farewell all.

I won’t be back until - and if - I see people interested in discussing the science, not imposing a priori sceptic nonsense.

There is a fascinating world out there for those prepare to take their ideological blinkers off. Even aside from theism , there is the fascinating study of consciousness outside the brain, or shared experience between twins.

As for philosophy of science? Even hawking recognised in the end that a unique scientific model isn’t possible.

That’s because the universe is infinitely more complex than we can ever perceive or model. The model we have is but a projection. Kant summed it up, but Plato said the same long before: we cannot know the reality, we observe only a shadow of it.

It’s a pity high school science hasn’t caught up with the reality of science.

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