Parapsychology

[Epimethean]

Or while sitting at Cheers with Norm.

[Handprint]

"Because we only use 10% of our brains."

No, dipshit, YOU only use 10% of your brain.

lol my mom believes this. EVery time she says this I give her a look.

[reverendjeremiah]

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp

[Doubting Thomas]

"We only use 20% of our brain, so why not burn out the other 80%?" - Cheech & Chong, Let's Make a Dope Deal

[passionatefool]

Well my teacher didn't say anything about the 10% deal, though I am quite familiar with the idea...with personal experiences...oh those dark days.

Anyway he is a strong believer in the power of the mind. He is sincere about it, though that doesn't mean it is true. He read us case studies of how someone was tricked into believing he was being burned by a piece of coal but it was just ice. Because he believed in it, the part where the ice touched was burnt and swelled up with blisters just like a burn.

[The Grand Nudger]

No it didn't. We aren't very good at determining temperature which often leads to interesting things, such as a metal pole feeling "colder" than the surrounding air in the winter. Well, it isn't, but it is leaching heat faster, and so the body interprets it as such. We had a fun barracks joke, where we would put an iron in an icebath and then wake somebody up and then put the iron on his chest or leg or whatever. It works on the above mentioned limitations of our ability, visual cues, and our tendency to panic. It does really feel like the iron is hot for a bit. It doesn't blister, because believing you are being burned does not produce blisters. In any case, I mentioned this because you absolutely can trick someone into believing that something cold is extremely hot, but thoughts have nothing to do with burns or blisters.

The only piece of ice that's going to burn or leave blisters on your skin is dry ice. Your run of the mill ice cube takes a pretty long time to produce such effects (and you'd need a bit more than a coal sized chunk to do so, as your body will melt smaller chunks of ice fairly quick). This man is entrusted to be a teacher?

[passionatefool]

Lol he is actually a wonderful teacher. He got a master degree in Psychology and is a practicing therapist. He is not a bad teacher at all. Though he grew up with a preacher for a father, he turns out pretty well. He once even defined how religion is comparable to a delusion and through some of the things he said, it is almost as if he is calling BS on religion. Lol compare to all the other christian teachers, expecially the Christian science teachers? I'm not complaining about him at all. lol

[The Grand Nudger]

He should probably stick to psychology then, since he has an obvious tendency to drift into complete batshittery in other fields. How the fuck do you even get a masters without taking enough biology (or honestly...any science) to realize that this "case study" was garbage?

[thesummerqueen]

I'm more worried about his seeming inability to extend critical thinking into other areas of his life.

[passionatefool]

well I suppose it is no difference from scientists who are Christians :]