Does the Human Body Store Electrical Charges?

You are absolutely right!

A thousand or more folks coming up with at least a thousand or more different anecdotal stories about a thousand different watches indeed points to a problem.

I just don't think it points to a problem with watches or human bodies storing electricity.

j.

Jack,

You're falling into one of the subtle traps of anecdotal evidence. A thousand anecdotal incidents of people having failing watches shows nothing but that a thousand watches failed. The method that collected these incidents is the only thing that correlates these watches together. All machines will fail given enough time and a lack of timely maintenance. This magical and mysterious phenomena ( I'm getting scared now) has a name in Physics. It's called entropy. Getting back to my point, gathering a collection of unexplained failures together and saying that there must be a problem is false. There need not be a problem at all. The unexplained failures them selves can be in one of many categories:

1. An explanation was not sought out.
2. The explanation was obvious, possibly embarrassing but forgotten.
3. The explanation was obvious only to a trained eye, and no trained eyes were available.

So to jump to the conclusion that a problem must exist is itself a false conclusion. Anecdotal evidence leads to avenues of investigation, but they do not prove anything themselves. With so many coincidences that naturally occur in all phenomena, to say any occurrence happens from a particular cause requires careful separate examination.

To paraphrase the scientific philosopher, Hume. Real knowledge requires the gathering of data to find a hidden trend. A theory must then be molded to explain that trend. Then separate testing of new data must reveal that same trend to make real knowledge. For data without theory is trivia. Theory without data is Bu!!$h!t. (I wonder if Penn & Teller ever used this in their show.)

Redfred,

Was I really that obscure?

What I meant to imply was that the problem was in their heads not in reality as you said. "The method that collected these incidents is the only thing that correlates these watches together" i.e., their false mental conclusions.

A method that in some schools is called impressionism as you may well know.

You do an excellent and scholarly job of getting at that problem.

'With so many coincidences that naturally occur in all phenomena, to say any occurrence happens from a particular cause requires careful separate examination."

Let me take it a bit further. All events in real time are coincidental. It is only our minds, validly or not, that select out some of those coincidental events and give them a special attribution. Again, and we agree, all things are coincidental.

Who are Penn & Teller?

j.

Ok, this is now an OT of an OT but an answer to a specific question.

Penn & Teller are an unusual pair of illusionist, magicians. What makes them unusual is that they explain some classic illusionist tricks like Sawing people, but like any quality magicians some illusions like catching a bullet will not be explained. They also have a show on Showtime called Bulls**t. Here they "discuss" Creationism.

To all................... This is definitely OFF TOPIC!

Hello sceptic,

Yes I fully understand what you say. And of course this book is published around the world so may have differing covers? As I say I do not believe in anything 'religious' or ghosts etc.

This book, from what I have read on the review seems to put things in some kind of order, and is not trying to 'sell' some weird new 'science'! It does not try to inform others and grab people so as to speak like a 'Cult". It would take the earth to move to change what I know about 'proper science' and the way the natural world works, including all the Elements in the Periodic Table.

I simply do not understand how a person cannot understand about a particular 'religion', right? Then they are 'converted'? It simply does not make sense to me. I think those kind of people 'need' something because they are scared of dying, or they are completely false. Take care. If you are interested in this book then why not start a thread? I am interested but only to read the book. As it is not an 'e' book if I decide to get it I will need to get the book, not a printed copy on-line, if you see what I mean? Take care.............

Hello TVP45,

Oh come on, you tell us part of the story and leave us dangling! Only joking.

Take care my friend.

Do you mean the story about the guy hit seven times? He was a park ranger. His story is here. My sister knew him fairly well, but I didn't run into him until after hit number 6. He was slightly eccentric, but I don't know if the lightning did that. But, after all that, he became obsessed and dejected over a woman and shot himself.

Sceptic,

I suspect with a name like that you won't object to my scepticism as to your questions as to "...people who have this problem of stuffing up electronic gear by touch or proximity been sensitized as described above?"

If you are an engineer and have some sense of the science upon which engineering rests, you should know that simply raising such a question gives credence to such unfounded claims.

Science requires that before doing so there be material evidence, not simply unfounded anecdotal assertions by one or another nut case (Nut case because without hard evidence "nut case" is all that is left).

If you are not an engineer or scientist it is possible to see how you could so err.

Redfred has, in an earlier post, shown very well the mental traps that catch the unwary.

Are you an engineer or scientist?

j.

Hi Jack Jersawitz

Are you an engineer or scientist?

Retired mechanical engineer as shown under my name.

I was simply taking the claims made by others as honest and would like some explanation.

I find it hard to believe that there are mysterious, undetected, undescribed or mystical forces at work.

If enough info comes to light, perhaps a reasonable explanation can be arrived at, but I would need very solid evidence to even consider "little green men" or mystical forces. I find it hard to believe in either and have yet to see solid evidence of such things.

Hello sceptic,

"little green men" or mystical forces.

To post # 177............. In engineering there is ALWAYS a reason, and no mysteries.

Well put BTW!

If something cannot be explained, then the engineer is not experienced enough. Get another engineer.

Prove your hypothisis that anything you havn't heard of, does not exist.

Prove it!

That demand put that baldly proves everything I say about your notions.

j.