Joe:

With all due respect, the matter of inexplicable cures ("miracles") is something that I have studied in great depth for a couple of years now. I have interviewed some hightly respected medical doctors and professors who are not in any way affiliated or connected with the Church in connection with this phenomenon.

In all of the cases I have reviewed, medical files including X-rays, blood tests, bone marrow tests, etc. exist. I have copies here. Extensive medical examinations, often spread over a 10-yar period (since the date of the cure), were conducted. I'm talking the most rigorous investigations that could be conducted, by professional scientists, many of them agnostics or civil servants who couldn't care less about a patient's religious affiliation.

We're not talking Uri Geller or Amazing Randi stuff here. We're also not talking placebo or hysteric cures, or even some weird effect of mass prayers (which in and of itself would fall under a different label).

We're talking the instant, immediate triggering of some powerful regenerative energy within the human body, capable of restoring functionality. Where does the energy come from? What triggers it? These are the questions.

There is one short, anecdotal book I do recommend, because it's easy to read, somewhat characteristic of the phenomenon, and written by the unimpeachable physiciam Alexis Carrel, a non-believer, who won the Nobel Prize for Medecine in 1912 and who, as luck (?) would have it, Carrel was the best qualified eyewitness to observe and write about this. The book is called THE VOYAGE TO LOURDES and was published in 1950 by Harper's.

We're completely off-topic now, but I'll be happy to go into more details or anwer any specific questions you may have.

JM

Okay, here's my attempt at a swingabout back toward the general direction of...umm...what were we talking about again? I mean before all the smart kids started showing off their degrees? Man there is sure irony in the fact that a four year graduate of science is simply referred to as a B.S., hmm?

Anyway, as I said above, this is my attempt to return us sort of to topic with the following observation: Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth would make a hell of a graphic novel. If you haven't read it, please do. The satire leaves Twain's more famous works in the dust. Also, he shares many of the ideas Ventura attempted to voice, but he says them with much more flair.

Anecdotal reference: The manuscript of Letters From The Earth was so volatile, Twain's daughter refused to publish it until years after he died, fearing people would mistake the writings for Twain's true beliefs. Opinions, anyone?

Donovan, who never really figured out what the F*** all them extra calculator buttons was for when he went to community college...

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I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week to make it up.- Twain

To Pat and others,

I figured I would get around to quote the second law of thermodynamics. Here goes:

"The entropy change of any system and it's surroundings considered together resulting any real process is positive approaching zero when the process approaches reversibility."

No mention of isolated systems. The only ones bringing up isolated systems are the sci-fi writers who don't understand what they read and then try to explain it to others who don't understand it either. By the way, several physics books (and there are some quite objective out there) have cited that the second law contradicts theory of evolution.

Oh, by the way, in the gobblygook of reading about these isolated systems(I do read sci-fi, you see), I came across this note: "When a system is isolated, it can not be affected by it's surroundings." So that must mean a car is not an isolated system. No general consensus about the definition of isolated systems, so it's sci-fi.

Well, back to reading punctuated equilibrium, another great piece of sci-fi work by Gould.


My best to all,

Sam

Still waiting for that explanation of how evolution and the 2nd law are contradictory ...

How about even a noncreationist scientist who suggests the 2 are contradictory?

And how about an explanation of how god is supposed to help reconcile this supposed contradiction?

...

Sam, for scientific purposes a system by it's nature has to be isolated from external influence. If there are forces acting upon the system that will effect results of caluclations then they must be included within the specifications of the system. Earth's ecology by itself without the influence of the sun, gravity, radiation, etc. cannot be considered a system unless the effects of these forces are taken into consideration.

Therefore there is no need to refer to an "isolated" system as an un-isolated one is by definition an improperly specified one.

PS> What physics books would these be? I can safely bet that you won't find any of them being used to teach even secondary level Physics here, despite the huge influence of Catholicism in Ireland.

[This message has been edited by Gwyn Boudreau (edited 10-16-1999).]

Mets win! Mets win!

Oh, sorry. Wrong board.

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"I love him like a brother. David Greenglas." -- Woody Allen - Crimes & Misdemeanors

Jim,

That's the best news I have heard! I hate the Braves!

Charles,

How does it contradict the second law? Is this a trick question?

I have yet to enter the God equation in my debunking and cynical slams against the sci fi taught in public schools.

Gwyn,

Too bad some of these books aren't in the classroom. A little truth would be nice, but the Goulds of the world remind me of the "scientists" of the 18th century who said that bleeding folks was good for them. It contributed to the death of Washington.

More cynicism next time,

Sam

Johanna said, 'I was making that point that some Christians knew about atheism because they were once believers of that but chose another path. (C.S. Lewis springs to mind.)'

It would seem to me that everybody is an unbeliever until they come to believe in one of the various religions. Unless one assumes, contrary to all evidence and logic, that babies are born believing in a religion.

I also find it curious that religious people continually insist that unbelief is a belief and even a religion. They seem to use this as some kind of putdown of atheists. It's as if they think of religion as something vaguely foolish and embarassing, and don't want to be saddled with it while their opponents are free from it.

Regarding quantum mechanics, Jeff Zugale said, 'Well, if nobody KNOWS a piece of information, does it actually exist? In my opinion, no... So, by my train of thought, even though WE can't know the position and speed of an electron simultaneously, SOMEONE must be able to -- or the electron wouldn't exist.'

This is circular reasoning, Jeff, and somewhat muddled. What is unknown is the POSITION of the electron, not the existence of the electron.

Jeff again: 'The electron has properties of charge, mass, velocity, spin, and position. WE can't know them all at once, but all that information MUST be known at once SOMEHOW or the existence of the particle would have no meaning.'

Why is it necessary for the existence of the particle to have 'meaning?'

Jeff: '...then God's all-pervasive consciousness is by that definition capable of tracking and knowing all the information about every single subatomic particle in the universe and plotting all their interactions. A truly awesome and most God-like thing.'

First, your reasoning hasn't succeeded in establishing that god is necessary for subatomic particles to exist. Secondly, the god's role your describing is trivial and utterly predictable-- the probability of an electron's position can be precisely calculated.

Throughout history, all manner of phenomena have been attributed to god. As scientific knowledge has increased, the god explanation has always given way to detectable physical causes. That's why the practice of science is inherently atheistic, even when the scientists themselves are religious. Using god as an explanation of a natural phenomenon is a non-answer, a dead end.

I find it ironic, also, that we are now attributing to god phenomena that we would not be capable of knowing existed, if it weren't for science.

JM: Regarding the remarkable cures; just because a phenomenon is investigated by an agnostic, that's no guarantee that it has been investigated adequately.

For example, Arthur C. Clarke investigated firewalking for one of his television shows on the supernatural. He admitted his failure to find any scientific explanation for the phenomena.

However, two subsequent investigators figured it out, and managed to do some firewalking of their own, without the requisite psychic powers. What they learned was that glowing embers, even though they're hot enough to burn your feet, are poor CONDUCTORS of that heat. Brief contact with the embers usually does not cause burning-- although practicing firewalkers occasionally get a burn or two.

If you're convinced you've really got some evidence, you should check out the Amazing Randi website, http://www.randi.org -- which describes the $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge, a prize the be awarded to 'any legitimate demonstration of paranomal ability under test conditions.' You could buy a lot of comics with that!

>>It would seem to me that everybody is an unbeliever until they come to believe in one of the various religions. Unless one assumes, contrary to all evidence and logic, that babies are born believing in a religion.<<

Most children are raised in a faith, yes. I was referring, instead, to people who espouse atheism only to later adopt belief in God.

>>I also find it curious that religious people continually insist that unbelief is a belief and even a religion. They seem to use this as some kind of putdown of atheists. It's as if they think of religion as something vaguely foolish and embarassing, and don't want to be saddled with it while their opponents are free from it.<<

This is completely unrelated to what I was saying. I am not putting anyone down, no matter what they believe, nor am I embarrassed to identify myself as a Christian. Beyond correcting these bizarre mis-interpretations, though, I don't have any interest in participating further here; I'd rather talk comics.

Johanna

Joe:

You don't seem to quite grasp what I'm talking about, probably because, like some specialized areas of science, it doesn't make headlines, especially in the US.

(The only report I remember seeing/reading on this topic in the US was one done by 60 MInutes a few years ago, in fact.)

Physicists investigate the existence of nearly imaginary particles, and you don't find it abnormal or fraudulent, do you? Well, medical science also investigates numerous things that are just as strange and puzzling and (so far) without answers.

I'm not talking firewalking, spiritual healing or Philippino "surgeons" faking surgery. That, we agree, is not likely to be taken seriously by any scientist.

What I'm talking about is medical research conducted in Western Europe (mostly) on the few inexplicable cures (or as the press call them, "miracles") that happen in connection with, but not always at, certain religious sites.

From the very start, the cures of Lourdes have been investigated by a body of Doctors appointed by the French State (generally hostile to the Church). The number of cases and the quality of the medical records makes it an ideal ground for this type of research.

Medical science is only concerned with those cures that happen instantaneously, to a patient with a properly known & evidenced diagnosed condition, afflicted wih an incurable disease (tuberculosis used to be big; nowadays, it's MS or certain types of advanced cancers such as bone cancer). The patient has to experience a spontaneous, total and lasting cure.

Needless to say, cases where prior existing treatments might account for such cures are of course eventually dismissed, even when they couldn't properly account for the cure. When in doubt, the medical scientists studying this prefer to go with the easy explanation.

(Which is a shame, because I read some of the rejected files, and they still raise prodigious questions...)

These cases -- we're talking less than a hundred over the last 50 years -- are studied over periods that can exceed 10 years, in order to monitor if the cure is lasting or not.

The studies are conducted by a ad-hoc committee of medical professors specialized in the patient's condition, with no specific religious connections. I'm sure some are believers; others are not. This committee has been in existence since the late 40s by the way.

Medical papers with supporting evidence such as X-rays etc. are eventually written in medical journals. Such cures, by the way, are not uniquely connected with religious sites. There are similar cures that happen in non-religious contexts -- hospitals, usually -- but for various reasons (I can go into details) there are far fewer of them and they are not as "clear cut".

I assure you that all this has nothing to do with fraud or show business, and Randi would be quite incompetent to deal with this, as I assume he would be with a physicist researching quarks.

Medical experts do want to know how a man's pelvic bone completely destroyed by cancer (to quote but one case) can totally and in less than a week totally "regenerate". As you can see, we're not in Randi's territory here. The facts are not in question, by anyone. (I have copies of the before- and after- X-Rays by the way. So I'm not giving you second hand info.)

HOW something like this happens is what is being studied -- metabolic energy obviously plays a role (the patient is very hungry afterwards, gains weight, etc.), but we don't understand why or how.

Do not make the mistake of assuming that because we don't understand the "how" of it, the underlying phenomenon does not exist.

None of the cures studied or being studied violate the laws of science. No regrown arms or legs! Yes, the functionality of the organ is being restored, but there's no clock-turning back to a previous healthy stage. Scars remain, etc. The X-rays of the regrown pelvic area aren't a pretty sight, but the bone is back and the man is alive and walking.

The WHY it happens is where this scientific field intersects with theology.

Obviously, believers see this as a (rare) manifestation of God.

But I suppose you could just as well believe it's the Roswell Aliens randomly using some kind of energy beam to trigger a regenerative process?

Or that, somehow, like lightning striking a tree at random, the human body is capable under certain conditions that remain mysterious, to attract energy from some place that alo remains mysterious to effect its regeneration?

At this point, frankly your "god" (aliens, subconscious, mind over matter, whatever) is just as unexplainable as mine. Even by Occam's razor, the Christian God is not necessarily the more far-fetched explanation.

The reason why scientists study this is because both believers and non-believers believe that this happens within the Laws of Nature. And we want to understand what laws (or natural mechanisms) are at work here.

Sam Catalino's crackpot theories notwithstanding, the Roman Catholic Church recognized the basic scientific validity of Evolution in 1950 (under Pope Pius XII), and John-Paul II reaffirmed this position in the early 1980s, insisting that the Bible "does not teach how the heavens were made but how one goes to Heaven."

It is the same thing here: the Church is exceedingly careful not to intervene or interfere in any way with medical science and the facts it discovers, but is pleased to cast its own light on the results. You remain however free to seek other interpretations accounting for the same, undisputed facts.

JM