From: Daniel Norman Johnson <johnsd2@vccnw07.its.rpi.edu.its1>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated,sci.skeptic
Subject: Anthropologically observerved "super-natural events"
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 02:06:06 GMT
Reply-To: johnsd2@vccnw07.its.rpi.edu.its1
Followup-To: alt.atheism.moderated
Distribution: world
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

I'm crossposting this to sci.skeptic (in case they know anything
about this stuff) and alt.atheism.moderated, as this might just
produce a discussion there, and seems reasonable. Off we go.

In article 29956@fcom.cc.utah.edu, jhigbee@cs.weber.edu (Jonathan C. Higbee) writes:
>
>Greetings:
>
>My anthropology teacher mentioned that in her field work she
>experienced some not readily explainable things such as rain
>dances working and knives bending against sternums in Bali. She
>mentioned that other anthropologists had observed similar data;
>that when such data is observed it's usually just recorded and
>set aside, since what's observed is outside the "normal
>traditional" anthropological data.

Well that's not very nice.

>Apparently the Zuni have rain dances on a scheduled and
>non-scheduled basis. The dances my teacher observed did appear to work
>(though she didn't observe them all dilligently probably because
>there's a tendency to set such data aside as she mentioned). Mabie the 
>knife benders in Bali got ahold of Uri Gelders secret spoon bending cream,
>but maybie not. Since I'm not aware of intensive studies to verify
>the acuracy of Zuni rain dances or the integrety of the knife bending
>in Bali.  

Well, lets see what I can do. Do these dances take place during
a particular time of year? How much rain is there that time of year?
Have any statistics been compiled about this? Its very easy to remember
that time when the dancers danced and the rain fell. But when it doesn't,
well that's not so memorable.. real statistics about it thus needed.

What are the spoons made of? Where do they get them? Can ANYONE
do the spoon trick, or just initiates of some kind? Do they poke
themselves with the sharp bits? Is any blood spilt? Does this
ever fail?

>She did volonteer one possibility that perhaps group belief had
>some bearing on what actually worked in a given religion, but she
>nor I know for sure how to explain these occurances.

Nether do I. More info is needed.

>I don't know whether group belief with all participants in a given rite
>having to believe in what will happen actually explains what occurs.
>Perhaps there's extra parts to our being which we don't currently 
>understand. Perhaps science will someday describe how these seemingly 
>para-normal [yet actually fully natural] things happen

I tend to agree- there are lots of things we don't understand. That
doesn't mean we CAN'T. Maybe this is one of them.

>No doubt that some things which occur are figments of peoples
>imagination and/or religious frenzy, but is every seemingly
>super-natural occurance to be dismissed?

Not until they have been looked into, imho.

> Given sufficient
>experience in the study of different cultures, does one observe
>seemingly super-natural things not currently explainable by
>science?

I dont know. But I know it does if you have around physics researchers
long enough. :)


---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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