4) psychic phenomena have been proven STATISTICALLY beyond any reasonable doubt - over an over again - so much so the CIA and NSA use it as a matter of course (and books have been written about that too - maybe you should read a bit more?)

The CIA and Pentagon dropped their psychic research programs for lack of results, so much for ‘beyond all doubt’. No doubt you can point me to a couple of peer-reviewed papers demonstrating this statistical proof? Because nearly all the ones I’ve seen (where they bothered to record any statistics at all), do the usual trick of testing a thousand people, finding those few individuals who did substantially better than chance, and then touting their results as ‘statistically significant’ (hint: not if you use the original sample size). More commonly, ‘researchers’ test one supposed psychic, don’t look for or control for trickery, then claim there is no other explanation.

5) Randi is a crook who has evaded paying out numerous times and lawsuits have been had because of that - and guess what - books have been written about it.

No doubt you can provide references to these lawsuits then. Though there would seem to be little point as, since Randi’s $1 million prize is still being offered, he obviously won them.

6) UFOs have been debunked numerous times - in fact any skeptic worth its salt has raved against UFOs - today 400 government witnesses have come forward ready to testfy under oath before congress that they have worked with UFOs and ETBs (disclosureproject.org) and the French government has finaly made its UFO related files public (in french) and the british consider doing likewise.

what in fact is the difference between a skeptic and a fundamentalist? none it appears - both have a closed loop they call mind. no new info enters there that possibly conflicts with in-loop-info. we can only wait until the last one has died. someone has said that before me and written in a book about it.

UFOs are unidentified flying objects, but that not every ‘flying object’ seen can always be positively identified is a trivial truth. All air-forces routinely record sightings whether identified or not. If you wish to assert that the sightings that are not explained are extraterrestrial vehicles, you must provide the proof.

Science works by assimilating new data and has done so for at least the last two hundred years. Theories that cannot explain the new data, such as classical mechanics, are either abandoned or restricted to the limited domains in which they remain useful approximations.

Ironically, it is you who rejected modern science, all the evidence for evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics matters not one whit to you because it is the product of people who would apply the same critical thinking that led them to these conclusions to your own pet beliefs, with devestating results.

Skeptics demand evidence, that none is forthcoming (certainly you have declined to provide any) is not proof that the phenomena in question is false, but it certainly isn’t proof that it is true.

hulitoons - 02 June 2007 07:31 PM

I’m STILL trying to wrap my mind around the idea of activating ‘unactivated dna’. 

I suppose I’m thinking along the lines of:  unactivated DNA is put out of commission because it’s no longer needed, or desired in the completed, present physiological system? 

I might be wrong about this though since DNA is hardly my forte and I’m sure that some mutations or illnesses do cause parts of normal DNA to de-activate.  But my first thoughts are that as each species evolved, wouldn’t specific DNA become unactivated?  And, if it WAS reactivated, might that not cause a de-evolutionary condition or mutation to occur?

Oh, who knows, I’ve been de-volved forever anyway…....

Do you ever perhaps think that people who feel they NEED to activate their DNA feel somewhat, inadequate in comparison to other humankind. If you need your DNA activated, what exactly about yourself do you feel needs to change?

Sounds like an inferiority complex to me

hulitoons - 02 June 2007 07:31 PM

I’m STILL trying to wrap my mind around the idea of activating ‘unactivated dna’. 

I suppose I’m thinking along the lines of:  unactivated DNA is put out of commission because it’s no longer needed, or desired in the completed, present physiological system? 

I might be wrong about this though since DNA is hardly my forte and I’m sure that some mutations or illnesses do cause parts of normal DNA to de-activate.  But my first thoughts are that as each species evolved, wouldn’t specific DNA become unactivated?  And, if it WAS reactivated, might that not cause a de-evolutionary condition or mutation to occur?

Oh, who knows, I’ve been de-volved forever anyway…....

Quite a lot of unexpressed DNA (what is commonly referred to as ‘junk DNA’, perhaps the most ill-advised scientific nomenclature since ‘big bang’ ) is from inactive human retroviruses (HIV is just the latest in a long line of these blighters) and hence hardly something you’d want activating. A noticeable proportion is made up of inactivated (by transcription errors) duplicates of other genes, activating them probably wouldn’t be to good for you either. Interestingly, since the modern theory of evolution posits that a number of novel molecular functions must have evolved from a common ancestral gene, it was expected that some extraneous copies of genes would be found in our genome. One (of many) predictions of evolutionary theory confirmed by the HGP.

samvado - 02 June 2007 12:55 PM

as with all skeptics - your assumptions are mostly wrong and you are only superficially informed (and probably not very intelligent too - and this is a statement of probability, not meant impolite)

Starting off your rebuttal with a blanket absolute concerning people is not really the best way to start off.  Since you obviously don’t know all skeptics, and since your statements are completely insupportable, it throws your reasoning into doubt right from your very first words.

1) very modern physics mostly does not work -

Very modern physics are, by definition, the newest.  Meaning that they are still being worked on and tested.  A lot of these theories predict experimental results that we simply don’t have the technology at the moment to look for.  Others involve very resource- and time-intensive tests.  “Not fully tested” does not automatically mean “does not work”.

Of course, what you’re overlooking are a lot of the less showy physics which is going on, and which has been providing plenty of test results.  Not every physics theory has to be heterotic strings or twistor space or other such ideas of all-encompassing scope.  Try looking at a lot of the electronics theory of recent years, for example, if you want working modern physics.

its latest incarnation superstring or brane theory makes no predictions

Sorry, but you’re completely wrong there.  They make all sorts of predictions about the existence and behaviour of various particles in various circumstances, of connections between different forces, and whatnot.  Many of these predictions are hard (if not impossible) to work on at the moment, but many are possible to test.  What do you think CERN has been busy on lately?  Try reading about such theories and learn something about them.  Don’t mistake your own ignorance concerning a subject for a fault in the subject itself.

books have been written about this - read them and we talk.

Books have been written about all sorts of things.  Many such books were completely wrong.  Why don’t you list some of the books you’ve read that somehow disprove all modern physics?

what works is older physics (newton et al)

Only on paper, within their own closed theoretical world.  Not in reality.  Sure, they often come up with a close enough approximation of what actually ends up happening, but there are gaps in older physics.  Which is why physics is an ongoing concern:  those gaps are being filled in.  As more theories are tested and more is learned, the answers we come up with on paper get to be closer and closer to what happens in the real world.

physics today has to make all kinds of ESOTERIC assumptions like dark matter

That’s why we have theories.  So that we can propose ideas, and then they can be worked on and tested until eventually we can find out if there’s any truth to them and whether they work or not.  And since you apparently haven’t noticed, people studying all these psychic phenomena you keep mention also make all sorts of great leaps and assumptions.

and since the fall of the expansion theory because red-shift proved to be wrong they are left hanging - books and tv-shows still talk about the big bang while insiders and people who are up to date know it to be a wrong model.

Gosh, and nobody’s bothered to notify the physicists and the astronomers that red-shift has been proved wrong!  How careless of them!

2) as good as all technology we use today only uses physics that was known 80 years ago - what happened to the application of the rest?

Sorry, but you’re only half right again.  Yes, technology uses physics that was known 80 years ago.  That’s because physics is one of those things where it’s built up gradually, one bit of knowledge leading to another, leading to another.  So the very latest discoveries are actually based on science a thousand years old.  Nor does physics somehow expire after a certain amount of time:  what’s known 80 years ago can still be perfectly good and useful today.

Your computer uses principles that were known of hundreds of years ago, such as electrical conductivity and fluid dynamics.  They may not have known why those principles worked, but they knew that they did.  Those are still perfectly valid principles.  Your computer also may use a new flat-screen LCD monitor.  How many of those do you see in pictures of the 1920’s?

4) psychic phenomena have been proven STATISTICALLY beyond any reasonable doubt - over an over again -

No they haven’t.  Sorry.  Claiming that they have doesn’t magically create a flurry of statistical reports showing such a thing.

so much so the CIA and NSA use it as a matter of course (and books have been written about that too - maybe you should read a bit more?)

Actually, what they generally use is technology (based on modern physics), or else people simply digging around through files or peeking through windows.  When was the last time you heard of the CIA, NSA, FBI, DOD, or any other such group making any great findings based on mainly psychic phenomena?

5) Randi is a crook who has evaded paying out numerous times and lawsuits have been had because of that - and guess what - books have been written about it.

He still seems to be in business.

6) UFOs have been debunked numerous times - in fact any skeptic worth its salt has raved against UFOs - today 400 government witnesses have come forward ready to testfy under oath before congress that they have worked with UFOs and ETBs (disclosureproject.org) and the French government has finaly made its UFO related files public (in french) and the british consider doing likewise.

There is a distinction between a “UFO” and an “object created by extraterrestrial intelligence”.  How many of those reports are of the former, and how many of the latter?

what in fact is the difference between a skeptic and a fundamentalist? none it appears - both have a closed loop they call mind. no new info enters there that possibly conflicts with in-loop-info.

Again, blanket statements.  Sorry, but you can’t simply classify people into groups and say, “all people who think along this line are like this” and expect people to take you seriously.  While your generalisations may be accurate concerning a few people, there are many who will not fit in.

we can only wait until the last one has died. someone has said that before me and written in a book about it.

You may have read many books, but you don’t seem to have actually absorbed much of what the books said.  Or else you just read some really bad books.  You really seem to have formed a very odd view of physics and technology and a whole lot of other things.  Reading books does not make you an expert.  Especially not reading just the pop-science books, as you seem to have done.  It’s only a start, a way to gain information.  You also need to learn how to process the information, how to tell what information has been outdated or disproved, and so on.  Even better, you can get involved in the actual activities rather than just reading about them.  Simply reading books doesn’t really impress anybody, except perhaps for those people who never even bother to make that much effort.

Acci, this guy’s reading list extends exclusively to the books reviewed in the Fortean Times (not that I’m making fun of good old FT. I love the Foretean Times). Now I know it’s an old saying that ‘If it’s on the internet it must be true’ but maybe we have to extend that to books…;-P

And to thingummybob, I’ll say I read plenty, quite lot actually. And quite a lot of articles and books about such strange subjects. Thing is, I have the common sense to know when a book has references to non-existant or heavily debunked works that it’s a pile of mince. Maybe you should read real books?

Renquist - 02 June 2007 06:02 PM

Books mean precisely two thing- Jack and S**t. And Jack’s left town.

I suggest you look at this

samvado - 02 June 2007 12:55 PM

Charybdis - 29 May 2007 08:54 PM

We believe modern physics to be true because modern physics WORKS.  Psychic powers DO NOT WORK.  This computer you’re using is a product of modern physics.  Until such time as you can create something even 1/100 as concrete and real using your psychic powers we’ll continue to dismiss them as a fantasy.  All the wishful thinking in the world won’t make your delusion any more real.

as with all skeptics - your assumptions are mostly wrong and you are only superficially informed (and probably not very intelligent too - and this is a statement of probability, not meant impolite)

I hardly think that saying somebody is probably not intelligent is being polite.

1) very modern physics mostly does not work -  its latest incarnation superstring or brane theory makes no predictions - it is elegant but worthless - books have been written about this - read them and we talk.
what works is older physics (newton et al) - even with einstein (not so new anymore) there are mounting problems - physics today has to make all kinds of ESOTERIC assumptions like dark matter and since the fall of the expansion theory because red-shift proved to be wrong they are left hanging - books and tv-shows still talk about the big bang while insiders and people who are up to date know it to be a wrong model.

Assuming this is true it is still not proof that psychic powers work. I say psychic ability ALWAYS does not work

2) as good as all technology we use today only uses physics that was known 80 years ago - what happened to the application of the rest?

I’m not qualified in physics but how are you aware of “all technology we use today”? Again, assuming this is true it is still not proof that psychic ability is real.

3) although classical darwinismn is 90% wrong (and i leave 10% for microbes and the like) it has not been replaced by anything sensible and is RELIGIOUSLY taught in schools. unfortunately the most verbal opponents are fundamentalist christians who are even more stupid that those who believe in darwin. 90% of the decoded DNA is junk and the remainder is not nearly enough to explain the complexity of life - what happened to the one-gene-one-protein theory still taught at school but debunked in 2001 when the HGP finished? - so much for biology (which I studied too)

Can you explain how classical darwinism is 90% wrong? I’m a Christian but I’m not what you’d call fundamentalist. I believe in evolution.

4) psychic phenomena have been proven STATISTICALLY beyond any reasonable doubt…........

You’re either lying or you have no clue about what you are talking about. If this claim were true why don’t they offer the services of psychics at all hospitals and courts of law?

5) Randi is a crook who has evaded paying out numerous times and lawsuits have been had because of that - and guess what - books have been written about it.

I think it’s already been pointed out he still has his million dollars so he can’t have lost it in a lawsuit.

6) UFOs have been debunked numerous times - in fact any skeptic worth its salt has raved against UFOs - today 400 government witnesses have come forward ready to testfy under oath before congress that they have worked with UFOs and ETBs (disclosureproject.org) and the French government has finaly made its UFO related files public (in french) and the british consider doing likewise.

Yes, I believe in life on other planets. But could you do us the courtesy of using your psychic powers to predict the exact time and place a film crew should be at so we can see the next visit from them?

what in fact is the difference between a skeptic and a fundamentalist? none it appears - both have a closed loop they call mind. no new info enters there that possibly conflicts with in-loop-info.
we can only wait until the last one has died. someone has said that before me and written in a book about it.

Gee! I wonder where I can go with this one, “closed loop they call a mind”. Something about “glass houses” comes to mind.

samvado - 02 June 2007 12:55 PM

as with all skeptics - your assumptions are mostly wrong and you are only superficially informed (and probably not very intelligent too - and this is a statement of probability, not meant impolite)

You are a hypocrite.  Until such time as you stop making use of things given to you by science you have nothing meaningful to say against it.  Science made it possible for you to spread your lies and disinformation to a worldwide audience.  Your religion/mysticism gave you none of that, just a blind obedience to a myth.

To say that modern science doesn’t work, while sitting there communicating with us in a manner that would have been so beyond people’s experience and understanding as to have been considered magical just 100 years ago, shows that you either are unable to see just how nonsensical and contradictory your assertions are, or you have turned a blind eye to everything which doesn’t support your beliefs. 

Either way, arguing with you is a useless activity - nothing will ever make you pull your head out of the sand and face reality.  You will continue to use the products of science to bash that same science, and you will only continue making a fool out of yourself in your hypocrisy.

hulitoons - 02 June 2007 07:31 PM

I’m STILL trying to wrap my mind around the idea of activating ‘unactivated dna’. 

I suppose I’m thinking along the lines of:  unactivated DNA is put out of commission because it’s no longer needed, or desired in the completed, present physiological system? 

I might be wrong about this though since DNA is hardly my forte and I’m sure that some mutations or illnesses do cause parts of normal DNA to de-activate.  But my first thoughts are that as each species evolved, wouldn’t specific DNA become unactivated?  And, if it WAS reactivated, might that not cause a de-evolutionary condition or mutation to occur?

Oh, who knows, I’ve been de-volved forever anyway…....

I believe you are mixing up things. DNA is regularily activated for transcriptions meaning the chomosomes puff and the helix rips open and m-rna takes the info outside the nucleus to the ribosomes and with t-rna then creates the respective polypeptid. this is not what toby talks about (although he is a crook the concept he discusses may well be valid).

Toby and others asume a “higher” multi dimensional aspect of the 3-d DNA we can see under the microscope to exist. I a matter of speaking our dna would then be a 3-d projection of a n-d structure.
within those higher structures consciousness reigns supreme and is the only determining factor (it may well be in 3-d too but is camouflged by physical structures and functions).
within those n-d factors lies the real potential for our DNA - it contains all possibilities of the human “idea” (consciouness construct acting in 3-d).
In selected cases individual features have been activated but no mechanismn is known to me that can reliably repeat this. e.g. some “geniuses” calculate faster than a computer, some people never forget a detail out of their lives, some can read 2 books with their repective hemispheres synchronistically the list is long. all psy faculties, fall into this too.

it is very possible that individuals have the ability to assist others to work on those n-d aspects (just not Toby!) as there are healers and even psychic surgeons using energy methods to manipulate our bodies thru consciousness alone.

Since DNA can not be the only causative factor for whatever establishes a functioning (human) body there need to be other factors involved. “accepted” science (the type most patrons of this forum would accpt) has no answer to this. They are looking at quantum phenomena (microtubuli, bio-photons and the like), folding patterns and 3-d structures as info carriers and there are various very-early-stage theories flying around.
If consciousness is an independent force (and not generated in the brain or elswwhere physically) the options to answer this questions multiply. I have had numerous experiences that proof beyond any reasonable doubt to me that this is the case and that the consciousness that now resides within this body has resided elsewhere before (and will after death reside elsewhere again) although these time-bound ways of expression are too limited to do justice to what this force can do and “where” it can work.

trying mental techniques for influencing DNA (now also called but not limited to “activation”) makes perfect sense within this paradigm. Only those who deny their greater reality can and will deny it until they die upon which they 1) will know they where wrong and 2) cant do anything about it.

Anyone worth the name scientist would act differently. I also started out as a full metal materialist (studying biology and physics). however mounting PROOF convinced me of a far greater reality. it takes courage and some doing and a realy scientific world view to be open to things that previously did not fit the personal paradigm.

do I channel information - sure thing, we all do. nobody knows where thoughts come from. many great researchers have acknowledged intuition, dreams and in some cases plain ol’ channeling (someone speaking in their mind giving them the information they seek).

are there bogus channels? you bet. are there bogus people in all walks of life? you bet too. which brings us back to toby alexander.

on another note: this is the skeptics playgound (the hoax forum) and we may be well advised to take this discussion to more fertile grounds.
While 400 respectable ex-military or government employees may all be crooks and liars (why one asks) the skeptics can maintain their closed-loop world view indefinitely. I showed the UFO proof to people who repsonded: “although I have seen this I wont believe it” - it hurts to loose an entire world view in a few short hours and if aliens are real - then what about the rest?
some of these witnesses dont talk about UFOs in the sky where they can be debunked as baloons or clouds - they talk about real physical objects they took apart and tried to reverse engineer -

on the long run (and I mean long enough for some of us to not live any more) there will be an open contact that is undeniable. currently one still has to use ones mental facilities and THINK and do some CALCULATION in standard probability calculus.

all of you real scientists just get the 4-hour video where a SMALL sample of these men and women talk or at least watch the 1 hour press conference video (Dr. Greer) available on google video.

and for those who still think string theory is good for anything - read Pitk

samvado - 04 June 2007 10:16 AM

trying mental techniques for influencing DNA (now also called but not limited to “activation”) makes perfect sense within this paradigm. Only those who deny their greater reality can and will deny it until they die upon which they 1) will know they where wrong and 2) cant do anything about it.

Yes, I’m sure you do have some “mental” techniques (and I hope it’s not just us Australians who get that joke).