Is it possible for a human to Spontaneously Combust?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by GaiaGirl95, Jan 5, 2014.

  1. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

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    You can determine if fire is arson if there is residue of an accelerant. SHC implies the body's own heat source causes the body to attain such high temperatures that the body catches alight, and the body burns to ash just as if it were burnt by an external source. The organic chemicals in the body would be broken down if SHC happened and the chemicals would be synonymous as if the person were burnt by an external source. This is just common sense, try catching something alight with radiowaves (not advised) and catch the same type of objects alight with an open flame. A person who didn't see what happened wouldn't be able to tell if the object caught alight from the radiowaves or from a simple open flame.

    No one has bothered to look at the episode for themselves or even pose a good argument against Frank Baker's story aside from ''a lack of evidence'' but really you have to understand SHC is something that, even if it exists, you wouldn't be able to find evidence for anyway, at least not scientific evidence, more like witness testimony and pictures, since the evidence literally gets burnt away so there is no evidence that SHC occurred despite the circumstances being incredibly unusual, and people don't just simply burst into flames without an external source, unless there is an internal source of heat being responsible. We also cannot say that the person is lying and there's some huge conspiracy of SHC either. Occam's Razor points towards SHC being a malfunction of the body instead of a mass conspiracy of people who are all making up the same experience. There are simply too many cases to dismiss all of these as liars, and there's the problem of people opening up about something so strange, risking public ridicule when they could just lie about something mainstream science bothers to accept because it can be tested in a lab as it happens.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Not if that's what you have to say to be on TV!

    Sure, there's a chance. There's also a chance that aliens abducted him, cut him open, accidentally dropped a cautery in his abdomen during their dissection, sealed him back up, wiped his memory, then deposited him back in his chair. There's also a chance that the steampunk fairies who were having a war on his property accidentally shot him with their invisible sub-dermal flamethrower.

    Or he burned himself and lied to get on TV.

    Which of the above is more likely?
     
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  5. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

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    Doesn't matter what's more likely. In our hundreds of thousands of years of existence, it's bound to have happened for real. It just takes time, no matter how improbable. You cannot expect a population of 7 billion that this has never occurred to someone and they got the guts to go on a TV show to raise awareness to science, or to get it off their chest. Maybe because they have been ridiculed and just want someone to believe and compose them for their experience.

    If you lie on the basis of improbability to suggest he's lying then I suppose the scientists who found the Higgs boson are lying as well, I mean what are the chances such an awesome particle that gives other particles mass exists? They're most likely lying of course according to your logic.
     
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  7. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Are you sure he wasn't a fire-swallower?
     
  8. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    That is false logic.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    So you believe that even though those four events are unlikely (spontaneous human combustion, alien abduction, steampunk fairy wars and lying) all have happened for real?

    Or maybe they want to be on TV.

    No, they actually expected to find that. If they had claimed they found steampunk fairies it would be more likely they were lying.

    Quite high.
     
  10. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

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    115
    Your argument is stupid. I've explained it several times and I am not going to repeat myself. After 6 whole pages no one so far has provided a decent argument against SHC. I have previously explained enough times as to why ''ooh lack of evidence, doesn't exist'' does not work and I trust that most of you have reading skills above a 1st grader to understand.
     
  11. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    What is wrong with the "lack of evidence" argument?
     
  12. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

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    115
    Repeted ad nauseum:

    No one has bothered to look at the episode for themselves or even pose a good argument against Frank Baker's story aside from ''a lack of evidence'' but really you have to understand SHC is something that, even if it exists, you wouldn't be able to find evidence for anyway, at least not scientific evidence, more like witness testimony and pictures, since the evidence literally gets burnt away so there is no evidence that SHC occurred despite the circumstances being incredibly unusual, and people don't just simply burst into flames without an external source, unless there is an internal source of heat being responsible. We also cannot say that the person is lying and there's some huge conspiracy of SHC either. Occam's Razor points towards SHC being a malfunction of the body instead of a mass conspiracy of people who are all making up the same experience. There are simply too many cases to dismiss all of these as liars, and there's the problem of people opening up about something so strange, risking public ridicule when they could just lie about something mainstream science bothers to accept because it can be tested in a lab as it happens.

    You can determine if fire is arson if there is residue of an accelerant. SHC implies the body's own heat source causes the body to attain such high temperatures that the body catches alight, and the body burns to ash just as if it were burnt by an external source. The organic chemicals in the body would be broken down if SHC happened and the chemicals would be synonymous as if the person were burnt by an external source. This is just common sense, try catching something alight with radiowaves (not advised) and catch the same type of objects alight with an open flame. A person who didn't see what happened wouldn't be able to tell if the object caught alight from the radiowaves or from a simple open flame.

    I kept politely stating that the ''no evidence'' argument just doesn't work with SHC for the same reason you can never get evidence food was cooked by a microwave oven if you didn't see it happen.

    As for arguments, sorry but I just don't think your current arguments are any good. The ''lack of evidence'' argument has been refuted because SHC would not leave evidence of it being SHC, for common sense reasons I noted above, and how there are too many people claiming the same thing for it to be dismissed as lies, as well as why they would say this, when it would only risk them of public ridicule.

    A metabolic runaway event so rapid and intense that it ignites the person, possibly caused by some rare pathogen, as viruses are known to cause very high fevers and burst out of cells suddenly to do their work after incubation, eg rabies.

    A chemical imbalance that results in high concentrations of a reactive substance to be proliferated into tissues. These reactions over time generate heat because some chemicals made by cells, eg hydrochloric acid and peroxides, are very reactive and any good chemist will know what happens when you pour concentrated acid onto wool or into water.

    Food generating static electricity inside the gut, which ignites the gasses in there, possibly triggered when the bowel is irritated and becomes dry so static is more likely.
     
  13. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    And you have not provided a decent argument against alien abductions or steampunk fairy wars causing exactly the same effect.

    Exactly. Which is why steampunk fairy wars are just as reasonable an explanation. Why do you blindly cling to your outdated explanation when there are plenty of other just-as-rational explanations for what happened to him? Open your mind!
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    GG, it is up to the person making the extraordinary claim to provide the proof for that claim, not the other way around. Anecdotals are not considered proof and cannot be used as proof of the extraordinary claim.
    Sorry, but that is the way it is.
     
  15. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

    Messages:
    115
    So all these people whove experienced and witnessed SHC are all in on some big conspiracy by experiencing the same thing to try and prove SHC is real for some ubsubstantiated reason?
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    No, the experiences may appear to be real to the persons involved. But for a subjective (personal) event to be considered by science it must be repeatable and predictive. IOW, we must be able to recreate the event. If that proves impossible, the rules of science forbid acceptance of the claim as True.
    That does not mean it is necessarily false, just that it is not proven to be true.

    http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html
     
  17. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    12,738
    Frank Baker's tale is unusual in that someone else witnessed it.
    Why does the phenomenon nearly always happen when a person is alone,
    rather than with their family, in a hospital, in a football crowd etc?
     
  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    IMO, that is because it is personal "experimentation" with ignition of human methane. Every boy has heard the tale at school and no doubt a few have experimented. But experienting with methane gas is a dangerous undertaking. But "spontaneous ignition"...? Naaah.

    But then Jesus "walked on water", apparently witnessed by many.
     
  19. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    3,256
    Uh...not so much.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  20. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

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    BIG UPDATE: Frank Baker's facebook account. He uses his wifes account to speak, and he's asking for donations to seek a cure for SHC: https://www.facebook.com/rose.alsdorf

    '' here's an example of one of his posts:

    ''My name is frank baker. I am the husband of rose . I am the one you may have seen on unexplained files. Look for frank baker spontaneous human combustion on the internet. I am the only living survivor in the world at this time. I am looking for donations to help find a cure for myself and others to come in the future. This condition is very painfull most of the time. With the donations I receive, this will be used for doctors bills and lab work and other testing. They now want skin cells of my body. I am looking to find a cure for myself and people in the future. I have survived this three times. I really don't know if there will be a fourth. All donations are for SHC and finding a cure. Please help. If you email me, I will try and email you back as soon as I can. So far I have over 2000 requests. Your funds will be for a good cause. I really don't know why I survived but I did. Now its my time to try and save others by using myself, the only living person in the world to survive this by being a lab rat. Thank You and god bless Frank Baker 1889 main street Isle LaMotte Vermont 05463''

    Another post:

    ''Hi: My name is Francis Baker. I am writing this article to ask for your help. I am the only living person known to still be alive. I need donations to help find a cure for my illness. I am willing to let the doctors, and any others to check my cells and other parts of my body to find a cure. I am the only person alive, and what would be better than myself to experiment on. This could save hundreds of lives now or in the future. If you can help, please send donations to Francis Baker SHC 1889 main street Isle LaMotte Vermont 05463''

    Joined Facebook

    5 March 2012

    He comments on news articles about him and has beckoned ''non believers'' to contact him, and he offers his contact details as well. He says he has the doctor's statements of him burning from the inside out to back him up. He also asks for donations to him and his family.

    ''Hi: My name is Frank Baker. I am the one on unexplained files with Larry Arnold. Yes this really did happen to me. I have had it happen three times and lived to tell the story. I also have doctors statements to back it up. For all you non beleivers, I just hope it doesn,t happen to you. The whole story was not told on unexplained files. Most landed on the cutting room floor. I was told they could have made a hour show on Myself alone. But 15 minutes was all that could be allowed. If you have good questions or bad, You can reach me at my email at rosestik@yahoo.com or you can send me a letter at 1889 main street Isle LaMotte Vermont 05463 Thank you and god bless

    Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/spontaneous-human-combustion-mans-body-2337320#ixzz2reTPyVs3
    Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook''
     
  21. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    So??? What's to prevent ANY crank - including YOU - from doing this? Absolutely nothing, that's what.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635


    Well, the only thing more authoritative than a Facebook post is a secondhand Facebook post!

    However, he may not be taken seriously by scientists until he has a tweet.

    Ah, so he wants money! I was wondering when he'd start trying to swindle people.
     
  23. GaiaGirl95 Banned Banned

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    115
    So, is Frank Baker telling the truth?
     

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