No, because your entire argument is ad hoc.
Japan's population converged on 127.8 million? There must be 127.8 million Japanese souls (just ignore the numbers of ethnic Japanese living in the rest of the world).
The Giant Panda is dying out? Their souls must be going to their nearest relative, the Red Panda. What? The Giant and Red Pandas aren't actually closely related? Well, there must be another reason for the decline in the Giant Panda population.
The wild rabbit population in Australia increases at an exponential rate? There must be billions of rabbit souls lying around spare.
China's reported population is levelling off? Must be reaching saturation level (ignore the one child policy and the consequent under-reporting of births).
The US population boomed after WW2? They obviously gained souls from the Europeans from whom most of them descended (ignore the fact that the population of Europe boomed at the same time).
Thats an excellent point.
How about this wogoga.
If evolutionary relatedness is what determines whether your claims about saturation apply to a given person, why don't fertility rates of Japanese Americans match those of Japanese.
wogoga said:
If somebody is unable or unwilling to understand the demographic saturation theory and critical analysis of standard demography then this person is also unable or unwilling to understand "some sort of formal model" with the same content.
I read your links, I don't always agree with them afterward, but I do read them. I don't think the problem is with me if your arguments are unpersuasive.
Also, I don't doubt that the population in industrialized nations is stabilizing. But why should I believe that it is because of a finite supply of psychons versus many more mundane explanations. If there was a formal model of psychons, then that would provide a reason. I want to know why you don't consider explanations like overcrowding, poor economy, placing careers before children, widespread use of birth control, and deciding to have women later to be sufficient? What do psychons add to the traditional explanation?
wogoga said:
If you do not want to understand the simple example of Japan, where the population converged to 127.8 million (corresponding to a saturation value of 100%) or are unable to understand the premises and limitations of a statement like
* In a saturated population, a sex ratio at death of 120 man per 100 women leads to a sex rate at birth of around 120 boys per 100 girls.
then why should you accept the same information in the form of a formal system?
You can't create an entire theory from one data point. A formal model allows
you to get precise about what you mean and improve it in the future. Think of it as building a widget factory rather than building a widget. With a correct formal model you would have as many data points as you needed.
wogoga said:
If you are unable or unwilling to understand the fundamental concept of evolutionary relatedness, then why should you take seriously a formal system containing formal variables representing evolutionary relatedness?
I believe strongly in evolution and I think I'm not entirely closed to the idea of evolutionary relatedness. The beauty of a formal model is that even if I don't believe in it, the capacity of your theory to predict argues strongly that it is a worthwhile concept if not literally true.
wogoga said:
By the way, a formalised system is rather an endpoint, a recapitulation or a summary of a field of knowledge. Only after hundreds of years of geometric insights and the creation of lots of concepts, a first so-called axiomatic foundation of geometry could be created. The situation with Newton's axioms is quite similar.
Newton was 500 years ago, now there are strong models that already explain the phenomena you claim to explain, but they do it formally, while you do it informally. Getting specific about what you mean is the only way you could ever hope to challenge those theories, both in online forums and in the scientific world. Otherwise what do you really expect to accomplish?
wogoga said:
And in many cases, obscure formal systems only serve as an argument from authority. However, as an argument from authority a formal system only works, if it come from the right side. If e.g. a famous neo-Darwinian presented a formal model, you probably would accept it. However, if an outsider like me presented a more concise formal model with much more predictive power, you still would dismiss it, because you ultimately rely on the authority of official peer-reviewed science, don't you?
A formal argument is exactly the opposite of an argument from authority. A formal argument says "Here are my premises, here are my rules of deduction, here's my data, here's how I got these data,here's how these rules applied to these premises explain these data, here are my conclusions." Its like a recipe you can accept the premises or deny them , but they have been laid out explicitly, so nothing must be accepted on trust.
As for how I treat models personally...
If you have a model that explains the evidence I would look at it, as would an expert. There isn't any conspiracy here. The reason some theories aren't accepted by scientists is because some theories don't explain the evidence well.
wogoga said:
If you actually are interested in how a reincarnation theory can be used in order to predict demographic numbers and how it is possible to "independently verify" such results, then I'm glad to answer your questions. However, you should a first spend a few hours to read what I've written until now.
If it is theoretically possible for someone who is partial to your theory to independently verify your results then it should be equally easy for someone who is biased against. What I want to know is what instructions you would give to such a person. If someone has to tend to believe you to execute your instructions for verification then it stands to reason there is an inherent bias therein.
As to your writings, they are descriptive not predictive. Your writings tell a great story about how population growth rates are slowing and how psychons are responsible for this, but the story I might write for guatemala(as opposed to yours from japan) might still be about psychons but the data I use and the way I combine the data might be completely different. How do I know I've calculated the correct saturation value? Moreover how do I know that psychons are doing the limiting? Why isn't is the spaghetti monster?
Here's my explanation for slowing population growth:
Population growth rates are slowing because the spaghetti monster is hungry and he eats the fetuses of japanese pregnant women before they know they're pregnant.
wogoga said:
By examining the reasons/roots/premises of fundamental disagreements, one can learn a lot, even if the disagreements cannot be removed.
Fair enough, why psychons and not the spaghetti monster?
Plus I don't think it makes your theory look any better when you do all this equivocation; implying that if only I was ready you could share the logic of how you determine where a population will saturate. But if you don't have a consistent way of doing this, then you don't have a theory, you have a story. This sort of storytelling to explain natural phenomena instead of consistent rules to explain natural phenomena is what separates scientific reasoning from mystical reasoning.
