Do You Believe in Magic?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And, if you know differently, why not put the charlatans (sorry – I mean hustlers – oops noble practitioners and miracle workers) in touch with the James Randi Educational Foundation. They are prepared to give any proven magician $1,000,000. No takers, because it’s easy to fool a rube, difficult to fool a combination of scientists and stage magicians.

One could claim that 1,000,000 $ isn't enough for a real magician...

 

[Whitemouse]

Everyone is, indeed, entitled to their opinion. They’re entitled to the facts as well, because, face it, facts trump opinion. In some peoples opinion, the world is flat, the moon landings were faked, the earth will be destroyed by a hidden planet undetectable by any means known to science (or by the Large Hadron Collider). Fortunately, a healthy dose of scepticism, and a quick check of the facts allows us to disprove many opinions.

Okay, point me to solid factual evidence that magic doen't exist.

 

[Samnell]

Okay, point me to solid factual evidence that magic doen't exist.

Sorry, but that's not how rational discourse works. Should you assert that something exists, we are not obligated to believe you. Quite the opposite, in the absence of any evidence that it does we are obliged to consider you at best mistaken. The default position is always unbelief. The burden of proof is yours.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Sorry, but that's not how rational discourse works. Should you assert that something exists, we are not obligated to believe you. Quite the opposite, in the absence of any evidence that it does we are obliged to consider you at best mistaken. The default position is always unbelief. The burden of proof is yours.

I am not sure this is entirely correct. If you have some indications that something might exist or is true, we can start with the assumption that it is true, and then try to make predictions. Then we test these predictions.

But as long as we don't have any predictions, or none of the predictions can be tested, the original theory has little merit.

 

[Samnell]

I am not sure this is entirely correct. If you have some indications that something might exist or is true, we can start with the assumption that it is true, and then try to make predictions. Then we test these predictions.

And we can't do any of that until we have some kind of indications, which have not been forthcoming. There are people who believe in many things but that is not sufficient. People believe lots of things, both now and in the past, which we are fairly certain are false.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

The default position is always unbelief. The burden of proof is yours.

Absolutely. This is a central principle of magic.

I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.

 

[Umbran]

AFortunately, a healthy dose of scepticism, and a quick check of the facts allows us to disprove many opinions.

Still, this poll is only about what people believe, not what is factually accurate, so it doesn’t really matter does it?

And we return to the note about the scientific method, and note that outside of mathematics, negative proof is generally not possible. We are fundamentally incapable of "factually" stating that magic does not exist. The non-existence of magic is not a "fact".

Sorry, but that's not how rational discourse works. Should you assert that something exists, we are not obligated to believe you. Quite the opposite, in the absence of any evidence that it does we are obliged to consider you at best mistaken. The default position is always unbelief. The burden of proof is yours.

To be exact - that is not how traditional dialectic rational discourse works. There are other modes of rational discourse that do not depend upon the pro/con dualism to explore ideas.

There is only a "burden of proof" if there is a "burden" to "prove" anything. This is a friendly discussion, not a court of law, and nobody here is under any obligation to provide you satisfaction.

 

[Whitemouse]

And we return to the note about the scientific method, and note that outside of mathematics, negative proof is generally not possible. We are fundamentally incapable of "factually" stating that magic does not exist. The non-existence of magic is not a "fact".

Exactly.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

And we return to the note about the scientific method, and note that outside of mathematics, negative proof is generally not possible. We are fundamentally incapable of "factually" stating that magic does not exist. The non-existence of magic is not a "fact".

Equally, of course, we can categorically state that the existence of magic is not a fact.

We can, however go further than this:

We can say that (for example) Astrology does not and cannot work. Every scientific test of ‘time twins’ has failed to prove any life-similarities, The observational details used by astrologers is fatally flawed, as any astronomer will tell you. And physicists have been unable to discover any ‘force’ from distant planets that could in any way affect an individual.

We can also say that every controlled scientific test on people claiming magical, mental or other ‘supernatural’ powers has failed to detect any such powers. In many cases (like a certain Mr Geller) the individual has actually been filmed faking his results, or has been unable to duplicate them in laboratory conditions.

There remains, of course, the ‘magic’ (or illuminati) argument that we’re all being manipulated by these super powerful people and that the scientific results have been manipulated to make us rational folk believe that there’s no such thing as magic. I can’t argue against that belief, because that’s conspiracy theory and as soon as I argue against it I become one of those super powerful mages covering up for their existence. Which is, of course nonsense!

Or is it?

Dunh Dunh DUNNNNNH!

 

[Umbran]

We can say that (for example) Astrology does not and cannot work.

Um, no. That's my point. You cannot say that Astrology cannot work. That'd require a negative proof.

Real science admits that there are mechanisms in the Universe it doesn't know yet. Failing to admit that you don't know everything is dogma, not science. Science is about seeking out those mechanisms of which you're ignorant.

You can say that science cannot (yet) explain how Astrology could work. You might do a study and show that correlation between astrological prediction and actual outcome is at or below what you'd expect from random chance. For any particular event, you might be able to show that events can be explained without invoking astrological influences.

But none of those actually say Astrology cannot work.