5-11-08 Derek Bartholomaus, IIG Interview

[Crow]

Very enjoyable interview...I wasn't sure If this guy would be like that idiot Joe Nickel (a debunker) my only real disagreement with Mr. Bartholomaus would be on the Patterson Bigfoot footage being a hoax. I want to see the actual costume used for that. Only then will I be convinced that the footage was a hoax.

[Aaron LeClair]

Originally Posted by Crow

Very enjoyable interview...I wasn't sure If this guy would be like that idiot Joe Nickel (a debunker) my only real disagreement with Mr. Bartholomaus would be on the Patterson Bigfoot footage being a hoax. I want to see the actual costume used for that. Only then will I be convinced that the footage was a hoax.

I figure the suit was trashed long ago. You'll likely never see it.

I haven't listened to the show, but thrilled the Paterson film was discussed. I was wishing Gene and David would deal with it just the other day.

Check out the Bigfoot Forums for some interesting discussion on the P/G film. They have a whole forum devoted to it which I read regularly.

[Manu]

Bartholomaus did not seem particularly open-minded. He wouldn't even consider David's reconciliation of evolution with universal intelligence; he saw it in terms of traditional narrow-minded God concepts and therefore rejected it before David could even frame the idea, which is a perfect example of how everyone's realty (everyone's!) is formed by their belief system, conscious and unconscious. And an example of "scientists" holding onto their belief tighter than most people.

The bigfoot case you mention is another example: he seemed all to quick to believe the guy who claimed he had created the hoax, with little or no investigation. He seemed strangely gullible and accepted a very low standard of proof in the case of something that supported his belief.

One of the ways this is done in the scientific community is with the very unscientific axiom: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof." I've yet to hear a scientist explain why that is true, or why a much higher than normal threshold should be required. It's obviously a protection against paradigm-breaking.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by Manu

Bartholomaus did not seem particularly open-minded. He wouldn't even consider David's reconciliation of evolution with universal intelligence; he saw it in terms of traditional narrow-minded God concepts and therefore rejected it before David could even frame the idea, which is a perfect example of how everyone's realty (everyone's!) is formed by their belief system, conscious and unconscious. And an example of "scientists" holding onto their belief tighter than most people.

The bigfoot case you mention is another example: he seemed all to quick to believe the guy who claimed he had created the hoax, with little or no investigation. He seemed strangely gullible and accepted a very low standard of proof in the case of something that supported his belief.

One of the ways this is done in the scientific community is with the very unscientific axiom: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof." I've yet to hear a scientist explain why that is true, or why a much higher than normal threshold should be required. It's obviously a protection against paradigm-breaking.

Derek was stating the standard ID/Creationists stance, not his own opinion. They say in more or less outright terms that God is the creator of life on Earth, specifically the God of the Bible. Unfortunatley, Biedny wrongly framed the question in supposing that pro-evolutionary scientists reject or dismiss the idea that the Universe "can't have an external hand". They don't, they just haven't found any compelling evidence that this is the case.

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary EVIDENCE."

[Manu]

David did not frame the question that way; in fact he was interrupted from even framing it. But I believe he did try begin by suggesting a universal intelligence that is not outside of nature or creation (and not an external hand)--a concept that is not understood by Christian fundamentalists or scientific fundamentalists, because the Judeo-Christian God is generally conceived of as outside of creation; but is more easily grasped by Chinese and Indian scientists because it is similar to Buddhist and Vedic understandings.

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary EVIDENCE."

I've heard it as "proof." But in any case, why should extraordinary claimants be held to a higher standard than anyone else?

Why is a cute aphorism given the status of a scientific law?

[Chuckleberryfinn]

Pretty dull interview, a fault of a failure of curiosity on the guest's part. He made many an asinine claim, such as that "we now know what causes out of body experiences." Absolute poppycock. Also, he stated that ID by a God is not physically possible or at least is incredibly unlikely. I'm not getting involved in the intelligent design vs evolution debate, which in my view is a dangerous instance of mutual fundamentalism, but I'd sure as hell like to know where the guest gets his facts. Science cannot prove, absolutely cannot prove, that there is no God. It cannot even ask the right question. God, if he exists, may be an unimaginable entity living outside of time and space. Trying to measure and validate his existence with tools that rely on time and space will fail. You know, all of that stuff. It's a tiring argument but a true one nonetheless.

Good point on Mr. Biedny's part in asking why the guest focuses so much on the Meier case at the exclusion of real UFO cases. Why not investigate the RB-47 case or the Zamorra case? Too big of a danger of finding something genuinely unexplainable in conventional terms?

Also, the guest follows Mr. Friedman's rules for debunking, "what the audience doesn't know I will not tell them," pretending that those Princeton random number generator studies do not show a small but measureable amount of psychic functioning.

But the hosts are correct; at least he can express his ignorance and bias in a civil tone.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by Manu

David did not frame the question that way; in fact he was interrupted from even framing it. But I believe he did try begin by suggesting a universal intelligence that is not outside of nature or creation (and not an external hand)--a concept that is not understood by Christian fundamentalists or scientific fundamentalists, because the Judeo-Christian God is generally conceived of as outside of creation; but is more easily grasped by Chinese and Indian scientists because it is similar to Buddhist and Vedic understandings.

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary EVIDENCE."

I've heard it as "proof." But in any case, why should extraordinary claimants be held to a higher standard than anyone else?

Why is a cute aphorism given the status of a scientific law?

Biedny's uninterrupted question begins at 54:33 with a book suggestion. It's very clear what his question was.

[valiens]

I was a bit surprised he said there is zero evidence of psychic ability given the Princeton study, the military's remote viewing data, the Iceland Papers, and the work of Dean Radin.

[BrandonD]

Enjoyed the show, but felt there are a few things worth mentioning.

First of all, I'm a huge fan of the Houdini-types who want to go in and flush out the phony psychics and those who are taking advantage of people. But some things said in this interview lead me to believe that the guest is more of a debunker than a skeptic. The organization hasn't found a SINGLE mystery? And when David points out one of many legitimate mysteries, they haven't looked into it. And probably won't.

I'm assuming the guest was referring to the whole god-helmet/rotating magnetic fields thing when he made the claim that "we now know what causes out of body experiences". That's a completely false statement. Persinger's helmet, though interesting, is a very controversial topic and not conclusive by any means.

And even if Persinger's helmet was not being referred to, apparently this quote bears repeating: "The feather can induce laughter, but the joke still exists." Anyone who can't grasp the concept behind that statement doesn't understand what it means to understand, and probably shouldn't be a scientific investigator. Vaguely simulating a phenomenon doesn't explain it, and it doesn't preclude other causes of the same phenomenon, one must actually understand all steps from cause to effect if he can honestly claim to know it.

Despite bold claims to the contrary, we actually do not know what causes out of body experiences, we do not know what causes precognitive dreams, and we do not know what causes "shadow people" experiences and what not. Because we don't understand consciousness, and might never understand it, these are legitimate mysteries.

Note: A "brain fart" is a completely meaningless statement, the term was invented as an excuse to discount mysteries and not think about them. It makes people dumber every time it is uttered.

Everyone lovvvves to talk the talk, ie "humans really don't know as much about the world as they'd like to believe", but no one that I know walks the walk. Everyone is way too eager to place mysteries in the "solved" box, even when the evidence is inadequate for any sort of conclusion.

True, conclusions make us feel intelligent and safe in a scary world, because that is their purpose. It all comes down to whether a person wants to know or whether a person wants to have the feeling of knowing. You can get the feeling of knowing for much cheaper than the cost of actually knowing.

This doesn't mean that I believe OOBE's and those other things are something magical. I don't believe anything because they are mysteries. As in unknown.

Well spoken David, the comments about evolution. It is not only religious people that are opposing Darwinian evolution, that's a tactical method being used by the scientific community to make people shut up and conform.

Firstly, evolution is a huge interest of mine... when I first started learning about evolution subjects I joined a Darwinian yahoo group and an ID yahoo group. When you strip away the semantics and fluff you get this: just as there is no support for an omnipotent God as the catalyst behind human evolution, there is absolutely no support for random mutation as the catalyst. This is the key factor in evolution, religious people have the agenda of injecting God into the evolutionary process, and the Darwinians have a definite agenda of injecting randomness into the evolutionary process. Think about it: An institution that comes into existence as an opposition to another institution naturally has an agenda that specifically opposes them.

Then again there are the sensible people: evolution obviously exists, but there is no reason to place either God or randomness in the position of the hand that guides it. Evolution at its center is still a mystery.

Even further, his comments on the bigfoot film. I'll be the first to say that it may very well be a hoax, but his idea of "evidence" is actually not evidence at all. As far as I know, the film-maker has never admitted that it's a hoax, a guy came forward and claimed he was the man in the suit. Does he even have the suit? Where's the film that recreates the footage with this hoaxer? After all the time put into this film, if it was conclusively proven a hoax, this re-creation would OBVIOUSLY have been made.

What if I come forward and claim that I was the real guy who spoke at the white house dinner in 2006 and I was just wearing a Stephen Colbert suit? You can't prove that I didn't... so it must be true.

Sorry but this skeptic has the same problem as the true believers: pretending to know things that he clearly does not.

[banning]

well i think the show went well, that everyone pretty much got to say what was on their mind. I am however in doubt about a lot of what he says proves that certain things don't exist (ie the psychic portion). Idk he seems like a good level headed guy for the most part just need to do a bit more research before he stats what he feels is actual "fact"... hell im debating not posting my opinion about the show but this is the internet right? And everyones opinion matters haha.