|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Dec 20, 2015 13:04:42 GMT 10
This has to be embarrassing . . . if you’re an atheist. A new study performed at the University of York used targeted magnetism to shut down part of the brain. The result: belief in God disappeared among more than 30 percent of participants. That in itself may not seem so embarrassing, but consider that the specific part of the brain they frazzled was the posterior medial frontal cortex—the part associated with detecting and solving problems, i.e., reasoning and logic. In other words, when you shut down the part of the brain most associated with logic and reasoning, greater levels of atheism result. You’ve heard the phrase, “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”? Apparently we can now also say, “I have too many brains to be an atheist.” For a group that makes so much noise vaunting its superior prowess with logic and reasoning, this study has got to be quite a deflator. For a group that claims to be rooted primarily in logic and reason, and to exist for little reason other than that they have used logic and reason to free themselves from belief in God and, as they allege, superstition and fairy tales, this study is the equivalent of a public depanting—i.e., the would-be emperor’s got no clothes. The Daily Mail reports: The study was carried out by Dr Keise Izuma from the University of York and Colin Holbrook from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). They recruited 38 participants with an average age of 21, to take part in the study. Each of these participants said they held significant religious beliefs, and the majority held moderate to extremely conservative political beliefs. . . . The findings, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, reveal that people whose brains were targeted by TMS reported 32.8 per cent less belief in God, angels, or heaven. Despite the clear correlation between disabled reasoning and atheism, the scientists demurred from drawing that conclusion. Instead, these secularists found a way to spin the results against religion: Dr Izuma said: “People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems.” . . . “As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death.” Dr Holbrook added that the findings are consistent with the idea that regions of the brain that have evolved to deal with threats are “repurposed” to also produce ideological reactions. In other words, these scientists are arguing what Dawkins, Dennett, and other new atheists have been arguing: religion (“ideology”) has hijacked a part of the brain that originally “evolved” to solve only real-world problems. When confronted with problems that they determined would involve abstract answers—death, afterlife, or even political issues like immigration—this part of the brain draws from its ideological beliefs in order to confront perceived “threats.” This spin is absurd, if for no other reason than the blindness of the blind guide: importing the ideology (hello!) of Darwinism to formulate a tortured explanation of the otherwise clear implication of the study. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7). For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:18–20). Perhaps in feeling the need to confront the “threat” of God, these professors crafted a conclusion that relegates Him to an ideological meme that hijacked (“repurposed”) a part of the brain that more properly should be attuned to hunting and gathering, avoiding potholes, and finding ways to pay your student loans (these studies require huge grants and high tuitions, after all). The problem is, this laughably transparent attempt to exalt evolution and downplay the existence of God has one major flaw: it proves that the best way to get there is to turn off reasoning and logic—the very part of the brain that does the very tasks they wish to exalt. You can’t have it both ways, atheists. Reason and logic exist because the God of the Bible exists. What this study proves is not that any hijacking took place, but that a tremendous suppression is taking place: of that which must be presupposed. Without the God of the Bible, reasoning would be impossible. Thank you to Izuma and Holbrook for showing us this strong relationship between the two. Christians can further rest content understanding what we’ve believe all along: the existence of God and the use of logic and reasoning are hard-wired and inseparably intertwined in the brains of every human being. americanvision.org/12630/atheists-embarrassed-study-proves-atheism-uses-less-brain-function/ |
|
|
|
Post by pim on Dec 20, 2015 17:57:23 GMT 10
I agree the story reeks of the gentle plop plop plop of bullshit.
|
|
|
|
Post by KTJ on Dec 20, 2015 19:05:25 GMT 10
You need to be an extremely gullible person to blindly believe in an imaginary god you cannot see, hear, feel, taste, smell or measure.
|
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Dec 21, 2015 4:34:26 GMT 10
I agree the story reeks of the gentle plop plop plop of bullshit. Be dismissive if you want, but a study is a study. |
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Dec 21, 2015 4:37:02 GMT 10
In other words, when you shut down the part of the brain most associated with logic and reasoning, greater levels of atheism result.
I found this part most interesting...  |
|
|
|
Post by pim on Dec 21, 2015 19:40:42 GMT 10
Sorry Occam, our brains are a little addled because of heatwaves. You try enduring several successive days with maximum temps at 40 degrees or hotter. The nights are the worst. At least in winter you get to heat your house. With a heatwave down under it's true that you can turn on the aircon but with everybody doing just that, the electricity providor companies can't cope and you get "brown outs"! Today I was scheduled to do a 500 km driving trip west which entailed driving over the "Snowy Mountains" (Australia's "Rockies"!) into Victoria and then west along the Murray Valley Hwy to a pretty town called Echuca which is very cute with its paddle steamers on the Murray River and its colonial-era buildings. Problem was that the road over the mountains was closed because of bushfires (or forest fires) so I had to divert north (via Tumut and Wagga for my fellow Australians) which added over 200km extra to the driving. So I feel washed out right now and am not in the mood to debate anything!
|
|
|
|
Post by slartibartfast on Dec 22, 2015 16:59:13 GMT 10
This has to be embarrassing . . . if you’re an atheist. A new study performed at the University of York used targeted magnetism to shut down part of the brain. The result: belief in God disappeared among more than 30 percent of participants. That in itself may not seem so embarrassing, but consider that the specific part of the brain they frazzled was the posterior medial frontal cortex—the part associated with detecting and solving problems, i.e., reasoning and logic. In other words, when you shut down the part of the brain most associated with logic and reasoning, greater levels of atheism result. You’ve heard the phrase, “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”? Apparently we can now also say, “I have too many brains to be an atheist.” For a group that makes so much noise vaunting its superior prowess with logic and reasoning, this study has got to be quite a deflator. For a group that claims to be rooted primarily in logic and reason, and to exist for little reason other than that they have used logic and reason to free themselves from belief in God and, as they allege, superstition and fairy tales, this study is the equivalent of a public depanting—i.e., the would-be emperor’s got no clothes. The Daily Mail reports: The study was carried out by Dr Keise Izuma from the University of York and Colin Holbrook from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). They recruited 38 participants with an average age of 21, to take part in the study. Each of these participants said they held significant religious beliefs, and the majority held moderate to extremely conservative political beliefs. . . . The findings, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, reveal that people whose brains were targeted by TMS reported 32.8 per cent less belief in God, angels, or heaven. Despite the clear correlation between disabled reasoning and atheism, the scientists demurred from drawing that conclusion. Instead, these secularists found a way to spin the results against religion: Dr Izuma said: “People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems.” . . . “As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death.” Dr Holbrook added that the findings are consistent with the idea that regions of the brain that have evolved to deal with threats are “repurposed” to also produce ideological reactions. In other words, these scientists are arguing what Dawkins, Dennett, and other new atheists have been arguing: religion (“ideology”) has hijacked a part of the brain that originally “evolved” to solve only real-world problems. When confronted with problems that they determined would involve abstract answers—death, afterlife, or even political issues like immigration—this part of the brain draws from its ideological beliefs in order to confront perceived “threats.” This spin is absurd, if for no other reason than the blindness of the blind guide: importing the ideology (hello!) of Darwinism to formulate a tortured explanation of the otherwise clear implication of the study. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7). For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:18–20). Perhaps in feeling the need to confront the “threat” of God, these professors crafted a conclusion that relegates Him to an ideological meme that hijacked (“repurposed”) a part of the brain that more properly should be attuned to hunting and gathering, avoiding potholes, and finding ways to pay your student loans (these studies require huge grants and high tuitions, after all). The problem is, this laughably transparent attempt to exalt evolution and downplay the existence of God has one major flaw: it proves that the best way to get there is to turn off reasoning and logic—the very part of the brain that does the very tasks they wish to exalt. You can’t have it both ways, atheists. Reason and logic exist because the God of the Bible exists. What this study proves is not that any hijacking took place, but that a tremendous suppression is taking place: of that which must be presupposed. Without the God of the Bible, reasoning would be impossible. Thank you to Izuma and Holbrook for showing us this strong relationship between the two. Christians can further rest content understanding what we’ve believe all along: the existence of God and the use of logic and reasoning are hard-wired and inseparably intertwined in the brains of every human being. americanvision.org/12630/atheists-embarrassed-study-proves-atheism-uses-less-brain-function/Embarrassing would be quoting a study with 38 participants!  In order to have confidence that your survey results are representative, it is critically important that you have a large number of randomly-selected participants in each group you survey. So what exactly is "a large number?" For a 95% confidence level (which means that there is only a 5% chance of your sample results differing from the true population average), a good estimate of the margin of error (or confidence interval) is given by 1/√N, where N is the number of participants or sample size (Niles, 2006). The following table shows this estimate of the margin of error for sample sizes ranging from 10 to 10,000. (For more advanced students with an interest in statistics, the Creative Research Systems website (Creative Research Systems, 2003) has a more exact formula, along with a sample size calculator that you can use. For most purposes, though, the 1/√N approach is sufficient.) You can quickly see from the table that results from a survey with only 10 random participants are not reliable. The margin of error in this case is roughly 32%. This means that if you found, for example, that 6 out of your 10 participants (60%) had a fear of heights, then the actual proportion of the population with a fear of heights could vary by ±32%. In other words, the actual proportion could be as low as 28% (60 - 32) and as high as 92% (60 + 32). With a range that large, your small survey isn't saying much. If you increase the sample size to 100 people, your margin of error falls to 10%. Now if 60% of the participants reported a fear of heights, there would be a 95% probability that between 50 and 70% of the total population have a fear of heights. Now you're getting somewhere. If you want to narrow the margin of error to ±5%, you have to survey 500 randomly-selected participants. The bottom line is, you need to survey a lot of people before you can start having any confidence in your results. www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_participants.shtml |
|
|
|
Post by Yassir Rebob on Dec 22, 2015 18:08:00 GMT 10
WHO TRUCKING WELL CARES !!!!!!
|
|
|
|
Post by Yassir Rebob on Dec 22, 2015 18:10:12 GMT 10
a pretty town called Echuca which is very cute with its paddle steamers on the Murray River Half of whom which have been owned by my family, at one point or another. |
|
|
|
Post by Yassir Rebob on Dec 22, 2015 19:24:19 GMT 10
Half of whom which have been owned by my family, at one point or another. I think I was on the PS Emmylou back in the 1970's with a school trip ... would that have been one of them?  No, but the Pevensy, The Canberra, The Adelaide, and The Ranger are but four of them, of the top of my head. |
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Dec 24, 2015 7:02:07 GMT 10
Sorry Occam, our brains are a little addled because of heatwaves. You try enduring several successive days with maximum temps at 40 degrees or hotter. The nights are the worst. At least in winter you get to heat your house. With a heatwave down under it's true that you can turn on the aircon but with everybody doing just that, the electricity providor companies can't cope and you get "brown outs"! Today I was scheduled to do a 500 km driving trip west which entailed driving over the "Snowy Mountains" (Australia's "Rockies"!) into Victoria and then west along the Murray Valley Hwy to a pretty town called Echuca which is very cute with its paddle steamers on the Murray River and its colonial-era buildings. Problem was that the road over the mountains was closed because of bushfires (or forest fires) so I had to divert north (via Tumut and Wagga for my fellow Australians) which added over 200km extra to the driving. So I feel washed out right now and am not in the mood to debate anything! Canada is 'suffering' (for lack of a better word ) with a similar affliction. We've have unseasonably warm temperatures up to this point. In Ontario, at a season where we are accustomed to donning parkas, touques , and mittens I've felt fairly comfortable in a light fall jacket. I have no idea what this could mean for our changing climate. |
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Dec 24, 2015 22:05:30 GMT 10
Embarrassing would be quoting a study with 38 participants! A Question of Sample Size: The simple question about sample size is "Was it big enough to find an effect?" The answer is not always as easy, and is often a matter of judgment. For example, when studying the effect of a weight-loss drug, a researcher may decide that a sample size of 100 people is adequate because the effect is easily measured: How many kilos did those who received the drug lose, compared with those who did not receive the drug? However, when assessing the average fruit and vegetable consumption among children who participated in a school-based intervention program, several thousand children may be needed, because the increase from such an intervention is likely to be relatively small. That is, the diets of the children in the experimental and the control groups may not differ much in terms of fruit and vegetable intake, and therefore, the effect of the intervention might not be noticed. It is easier to identify a small effect when you are looking at the results from a large sample. A small sample size, however, does not necessarily mean that the study is flawed. For example, prospective clinical nutrition studies usually have a small number of subjects because there are so many variables that need to be controlled. When reading a study, be sure to look for the rationale that the researcher used to decide on the sample size. One also should bear in mind the way in which the data collection is done. For example, in nutritional epidemiology investigating the role of food and nutrition in human health and disease, dietary consumption is frequently assessed. The complexity of the human diet makes this measurement a major challenge. The most accurate information on food intake can be obtained by food diaries or dietary records, where people record their daily dietary intake over short periods of time. Another method often used is a food frequency questionnaire. This has some limitations, as it relies on individuals recalling what they consumed previously over a period of time (e.g. months) and there may have been dietary changes in this time. These uncertainty aspects of dietary intake reports should be taken into account when epidemiological associations are reported. www.eufic.org/article/en/expid/understanding-scientific-studies/ |
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Dec 25, 2015 15:37:56 GMT 10
Forget the sample size .. What's really embarrassing is the quotation of a commentary about a study in which that commentary totally distorts the findings of the study. A person who does that, is somehow managing to wriggle under the already low expectations that we hold. I mean ... we're talking nanometres between base zero and where our expectations are sitting ... and he still squeezes ever lower!  When it comes to Occam's ...  has to be set ad infinitum.  |
|
|
|
Post by slartibartfast on Dec 26, 2015 6:53:48 GMT 10
Since when does putting up a video of a flawed study give it more credence?
|
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Jan 14, 2016 10:52:14 GMT 10
I suppose first you'd have to verify your assumption that the study is flawed. (Generally, I'd give the university the benefit of the doubt over your armchair scrutiny . -No offense intended. )
Outrage and scorn against opposing notions do not stand as counter-argument. :cool:
Besides, I never saw your ilk question the results when a study stating the contrary was uttered in 2013... Funny how that turns out, Isn't it?
Are your egos so fragile that you can't stand to fathom the notion that you may not be the smartest people in the room? :rolleyes:
Wake up call: You may not be, Deal with it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Jan 24, 2016 6:45:28 GMT 10
The criticism is not of the study ... you ... BLOCKHEAD. The criticism is of the idiot who made a complete F-up of the "analysis" ! The study itself is not that great either, but the "interpretation" is utter bollocks.  For you to quote that bogus "interpretation" is the issue here. It shows what a complete dunderhead you really are. Actually, if you read slarti's post, his criticism IS of the study. And perhaps you could discuss the alleged incongruity over intelligent discourse, in place of your usual abusive scorn. Wake up call: Inferring that others are 'dunderheads' doesn't, ipso facto, credit you with any additional mental merit. |
|
|
|
Post by KTJ on Jan 24, 2016 9:33:03 GMT 10
Who took the lid off the “idiot box”? 
|
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Feb 15, 2016 22:31:39 GMT 10
Why were you in possession of an idiot box ktj? Were you feeling lonely?
|
|
|
|
Post by KTJ on Feb 29, 2016 10:51:06 GMT 10
IDIOT....  ....please point out where I mentioned anything in my post about having possession of an idiot box.  I merely made mention about a non-specific idiot box....  |
|
