Like @Aled James Taylor says, people use the scientific process, they aren't 'science'. Of course humans can make errors. In the scientific process one expects that. It's one reason why repeatable research findings are important. It's also important we know the limitations of scientific research, and work to minimize error.
Science does not exist without people. Its reliability and integrity rely directly on people. I think it would benefit you to read this article http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/13/the-truth-wears-off Normally I summarize the links I post, or show choice quotations, buts important you read the whole thing.
It's all fantasy, huh? So I guess all these people are liars. All those who have experienced astral travel are liars. All those who claim to have seen aliens or Bigfoot are liars. All psychics are liars. I myself, who has used tarot cards and predicted future events based on a knowledge I can't explain, am a liar because other people don't believe in it, or science can't prove it, or whatever other excuse you all are giving. Sure. That sounds like a much better explanation than, "it's possible it exists."
You don't understand what is being said. Yes, people using the scientific process are fallible. That's why one needs to be cautious evaluating the evidence. The scientific process has proven itself to be the best means we have of understanding our reality. It's not a perfect process, but one works to get closer and closer to the real Universe using it. With science one gets a rover on Mars, a 95% cure rate for the most common childhood leukemia, vaccines, jets, the space station, the Internet, and on and on. Without it you get superstition and useless remedies. You fear the weather instead of understanding it. That's what science is about.
No Lea, not everyone is lying. Some people lie, but others misinterpret what they experience despite being perfectly honest about what they believe. As for possible, as I mentioned earlier, science is not about 'proving' something doesn't exist. It is about not believing things exist when there is no evidence, especially evidence one would expect to find but doesn't.
It depends by what you mean by "liar." I believe some people really did experience stimuli that they interpreted as astral travel or aliens or psychic abilities. What I would doubt is their interpreted cause for the stimuli. People are bad at interpreting the world and are liable to selective memory, demand characteristics, and other cognitive biases--conscious and unconscious--that can make them interpret their stimuli in a specific way. It sounds like you're not just saying it might exist but that it does exist. These are very different, and I think the scientific community would agree that it's possible it exists in a technical way. It's just that the chances of that are infinitesimally small, so it makes no logical sense to believe in that tiny probability when there is a much, much greater chance that it does not exist. Science is not about saying, "We've figured everything out now!" It's more like "Let's use the best assumptions about the world we have, continually test those assumptions, and change them only when the evidence tells us to."
Did you look at the article yet? As someone who is interested science, but doesn't actually do science, you should really have a look at it.
Nothing in that post is a surprise to me or my colleagues that practice evidence based medicine. I suspect this might have been an eye opener to the reporter, or maybe physicians who were puzzled by some specific results. But the idea results are ever set in stone means the person doesn't understand how we use the scientific process. As for: Ben Goldacre has been on top of this for years. I have his book, Bad Pharma, and I've met him personally and heard him speak. Plus some of my friends are involved in the 'Science Based Medicine' blog he's a part of. Those of us that understand medical research are well aware of the problems he's written and spoken about.
If you read the whole article, you'd realize the problem is at least twofold. One, people's careers depend on getting results. Many scientists, especially in competitive universities, care most about getting published. Yes, papers get peer reviewed. Sometimes its by graduate students! Also, papers get reviewed but no one is astral traveling to the author's minions lab bench to check whether those results are actually real. As long as the paper seems reasonable, and there are no internal contradictions, and it is considered significant, it's going to pass review. As for checking for repeatability, if you'd actually read the article, you'd know that's the problem with a lot of published material. It's not always repeatable. Problem number 2- which I'll just quote here: "The disturbing implication of the Crabbe study is that a lot of extraordinary scientific data are nothing but noise. The hyperactivity of those coked-up Edmonton mice wasn’t an interesting new fact—it was a meaningless outlier, a by-product of invisible variables we don’t understand. The problem, of course, is that such dramatic findings are also the most likely to get published in prestigious journals, since the data are both statistically significant and entirely unexpected. Grants get written, follow-up studies are conducted. The end result is a scientific accident that can take years to unravel." Am I saying science is BS? I make a living doing scientific research. I love "science" and I believe in it. But it's absolutely nonsensical when people put it on a pedestal. Stuff gets refuted all the time, and theories have and will continue to be disproven. I realize that last point is something you often say, but I'm not really sure how much you take those words to heart, because if you did, you'd show more of an open mind toward things.
If you listened to what I said, you'd realize I am quite familiar with the issues in the article. It's nothing new or surprising to me. And those of us who pay attention to these things are well aware of the limitations in medical research in particular. You seem to think I'm unaware, but I assure you this has been my passion for the last decade. Did you look at the Bad Medicine blog or any of Goldacre's stuff? Try this book as well, Snake Oil Science. These are the flaws with science but it's only one aspect. In addition to the problems and pitfalls, (which are extremely important, don't get me wrong), you have nothing in this world that has been more successful than when people started using the scientific process to test the things they were observing. What else do you think belongs on that pedestal?
In my understanding astral travelling is basically the severance of body and soul. Haters gonna hate but as such I view it as highly dangerous in the least, as I believe in the existence of...dark and negative forces. I believe it spells troubles when the soul is not confined within its natural habitat, the "grave" of the human body. That is not to say I do not believe in or disagree with sanctimony or elevation of the spirit. Not at all. I just think we as the humanity have a very insufficient knowledge of these matters, so one should proceed with utmost caution when dealing - or heck even debating - about it.
I really don't like the word 'liar'. For some reason people get so emotional over it - people who claim to have experienced NDE and walked with Jesus or saw hell fire, predicted the future, or something like that may very well believe those experiences were real. The human brain is very powerful, capable of fantastic illusions. There is always a possibility supernatural events take place. But without knowledge of them, there is no reason to think they take place, and considering how little we can demonstrate they have actually happened then saying they do not is beyond reasonable doubt. Most logical thinking people stop there, and need to have a lot shown to them to impress them back beyond the line of reasonable doubt. Also, yeah, bigfoot is a known hoax. As is the Loch Ness monster.
I didn't say they were liars. They likely believe what they're saying. I just don't believe their interpretation of the event(s) are accurate to what actually happened. Perhaps they had an out-of-body experience, but that doesn't mean their soul traveled the plains of the universe; it means their mind created a strong hallucinatory response. I've dreamed that I fought dragons in an alternate universe, but that doesn't mean my soul literally fought dragon's in another universe. I believe in Aliens wholeheartedly, so I don't know why you think I'm calling these people liars. I think it's possible that people have witnessed alien crafts. Perhaps some people have even been in the presence of extraterrestrials, but I doubt it. If their advanced enough to travel here, then they most certainly could wipe your memory. Heck, we can already give people drugs that make them forget everything that happened over a period of time. I'm not being mean, but if you can draw some cards and predict my future I'd be happy to hear it. If you can't do it consistently, though, then it's a matter of coincidence; not a supernatural ability. I'd love to be wrong. Seeing the future would be a handy skill, but I don't believe it's a natural human ability. Perhaps we'll develop a capable technology in the future. Is it possible it exists? Sure. Is it plausible it exists? Probably not. I'm not saying it is impossible that some people are legitimately psychic or can astral travel, but I strongly doubt it.
To quote Shakespeare, all life is a stage. Little do we know what's happening in the backstage, corridors and cellalrs. What ropes pull the Deus ex Machinas hoisted overhead, what happenes in a hurried manner when the curtains are drawn. It's the same illusion like with the real theatre stage; it gives the impression that beyond it there isn't anything else or, on the contrary, that the scene expands infinitely in perspective. Despite the fact that at the moment of viewing the play the spectator is encompassed by the theatre's micro-cosmos and believes that there is nothing beyond the play, at one point or another he's bound to exit the atrium and enter the lobby, then exit the lobby and end up outside of the theatre. Only then does it become obvious that the scene did not extend infinitely, that there are confines of walls within which the actual play was performed. So is it with life, I believe. We're bound to peer into the backstage.
Ok I am also one who has experience it. not just once and even tested it. let me explain I was electrocuted when I was 8 the full positive in one hand negative in the other, the full current went through me and destroyed my AV node ( Atrioventricular node) until I was diagnosed years latter I kept having heart failure, put it bluntly I would die, but not long enough to stay dead, so when I travelled out of my body I got use to it and as a test went places to see things I had not seen just before I died, neighbors yards, car garages, sure enough when I was able to walk I went to see if what I saw when I travelled, every time I saw things that only I could have if I had been there, I would tell people and thought I was having spiritual experience, once I found out about my heart attacks I realised it was NDE. my heart is now running off a pacemaker and my AV node is defunct.
I did the tests as I thought it was some type of dream, the dream started with a black dot the size of a full stop that grew until it was like 100 feet, then a white dot, hence people talk about tunnels, to me seen it a few times I say micro dots growing, you feel euphoric, then you out side your body, free to move,
Did Shirley MacLaine joint the forum? But seriously, I have suffered from sleep paralysis since early childhood. You start to fall asleep, the "sleep subroutine" starts to run... and then... there's a glitch. The subroutine gets hung up. You can't move, or sometimes you can twitch a limb or a hand feebly and only with what seems a herculean effort. You can get your eyes to open. You can mumble and even yell if you concentrate really, really hard. You're awake, but your perception of things is not normal. You always feel like you're going to suffocate because it almost always happens when you're lying on your back and your head has tipped up, chin nearing your chest, breathing passage closing. Your partner thinks you're having a bad dream and tries to wake you. If only he would understand that it takes a really good shake to ctrl-alt-delete the subroutine that has glitched. He won't do it because, even though you've told him to please do it when he sees this happen, he's afraid he'll hurt you. You sometime hear voices. You sometimes see people that clearly aren't really there in the room. Sound familiar? It's called sleep paralysis. Look it up.
I had this happen to me once maybe a decade ago. I thought an alien had teleported itself into the room and was spooning/ restraining me. There is a conspiracy theory blog I ran into about a month ago- you know the one that claims lizard people from a higher plane control everything. Supposedly, when you are in sleep paralysis (this is assuming you have a soul, and according to him not all people do) you are momentarily in a higher plane of existence, and you can actually see one of the lizard people(aliens, by the way ) sitting on your chest.
It happens to me in waves. It won't happen for months and months and then it will happen every night for two or three weeks, sometimes more than once in a night as I try to fall asleep.
Sleep Paralysis sounds terrifying. I've heard stories of people seeing a terrifying being sitting on their chest, holding their arms and legs down. Other stories of just seeing the being standing in the doorway, or next to the bed. It all sounds horrifying, and I hope never to experience it.
It's awful. Just awful. There's nothing neat-o about it. There's always an intense feeling of anxiety, of almost panic. There is often a period during an episode where you feel that you have managed to get up and move away from where you were lying, but you quickly snap back to the knowledge that no, you have not moved, it was an illusion. You're still stuck in the middle of the paralysis. I have managed to roll myself out of bed to escape out of the glitch by scooting a leg to the edge of the bed and continue scooting until the weight pulls me over. Not fun when you have tile floors. :/