Is it possible for a human to Spontaneously Combust?

Here's a suggestion OP. Why don't you spontaneously combust, just to prove your point? Oh wait, if you do it intentionally, it won't be spontaneous, now will it? I know. What if you got one of your friends to set you on fire, but he can't tell you where or when he will do it. It will have to be 'spontaneous' from you POV. And be sure to have your friends post the result of your fine contribution to science.
 
Frank Baker says on his facebook he's a ''lab rat'' but he says there he asks for donations for a cure for himself and other people suffering from SHC (his words), travelling and hospital bills etc. He says it's happened to him three times and that there 'may not be a fourth'. He then notes that these SHC incidents are 'painful'.
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He sold his home for 85,000 on November 27th, 2013. He hasn't posted on his facebook since November 21st.
 
Here, Frank Baker speaks of SHC and raising donations to find a cure for himself: Frank Baker posts about SHC here: https://www.facebook.com/rose.alsdorf

'''' Rose Alsdorf
13 November 2013
My name is frank baker. I am the husband of rose alsdorf. Please donate to help me in finding out what I can do to find a cure for spontaneous human combustion. I have survived three times. I am not sure if there will be a fourth. Your funding will help me and others in the future with this condition. Even if it is only a dollar, this would help a great deal. The donations will go for medical testing and traveling to different hospitals. I need your help more than you can believe. The donations will help myself and others in the future. I am using myself as a lab rat for now. Thank You Frank Baker You may see me on the internet under frank baker spontaneous human combustion. god bless ''

''Rose Alsdorf
10 November 2013
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''

''Rose Alsdorf commented on a Link.
5 November 2013
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''

''Rose Alsdorf Please donate to this cause, It is very important to frank baker and the future of people with spontaneous human combustion.''''



''My name is frank baker rose alsdorfs husband. I am the only survivor of SHC. I am looking for donations to help find a cure for myself and others in the future. This money will be used for research and medical bills. I am willing to be a lab person if the money is there for my family. To check my body cells and other medical concerns, this will involve traveling and more. They want to check me out completely, but using my own money. With your help on SHC, maybe with me they will find the answer. I am the only living survivor in the world. This has happened 3 times already. You may have seen me on unexplained files. Any amount you can donate will help. You will be maybe saving my life and many others in the future. God Bless and thank you. Frank Baker 1889 main street Isle LaMotte Vermont 05463''
 
Last edited:
GaiaGirl95,

GaiaGirl95 said:
Well, can we rule out the possibility of SHC 100%?
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No, we can't. It's very difficult to rule some things out 100%.

But you have the onus of proof the wrong way around. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. And so far, the only evidence you have provided is the self-report of one guy.

Got anything more solid than that?

GaiaGirl95 said:
You don't have any evidence he's lying.
Click to expand...

It's an extraordinary claim. So it might be a good idea for you to start by asking yourself: what is more likely? That he's lying (for the publicity, the money he makes from the story and the "donations" he gets from believers, perhaps), or that there's a new phenomenon under the sun that science can't explain?

You may say shc has no evidence but anything's possible. We do not know everything there is to know about the human body, and we're still discovering new things about metabolism.
Click to expand...

It's not true that anything is possible. Science has a pretty good understanding of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, for example. Those laws rule lots of stuff out as impossible, and that's just one example.

What you have here is an argument from ignorance. You're saying that because we don't know everything about the body, therefore we ought to believe your SHC guy's crazy story. But the fact is, we don't need to know everything about the human body to refute his claims. That's a long way down the track from where you've brought us to so far. The first, sensible, thing to do would be to establish the basic facts.

You say we don't have evidence that Frank is lying. But what (reliable) evidence do you have that he isn't making the whole story up?

GaiaGirl95 said:
Has anyone read that Huffington Post article on Frank Baker? He says he survived spontaneous combustion and his doctor diagnosed him with it, sayign he burnt from the inside out.
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SHC isn't a recognised medical illness, so no doctor worth his salt would ever make such a diagnosis. We can safely write that guy off as a quack, don't you think? That's if the un-named doctor actually exists at all.

GaiaGirl95 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Do you know of any mechanism that could possibly cause the organic chemicals in a human body to reach ignition temperature, internal to the body?

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.
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Fires always leave evidence. There are people whose jobs it is to determine the causes of fires and the points of ignition. They are there to investigate things such as the possibility of arson, for example. What do such experts have to say about supposed SHC cases?

We also cannot say that the person is lying and there's some huge conspiracy of SHC either.
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No mass conspiracy is necessary, as far as I can see. Just some deluded people, or people out to make a buck from the gullible.

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.
Click to expand...

How many examples of people who have Frank's "problem" do you know of, exactly?

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.
Click to expand...

What do you think of alien abduction? Is that real too? Because we surely can't dismiss all abductees as liars.
 
There's newly uncovered information on Frank Baker including him asking for donations for money to find a cure for SHC and to pay for his medical testing. He's saying they want his skin cells and that he has became a ''lab rat''.

I gave the link and quotations previously. He states that he has survived SHC 3 times and that the incidents are 'painful' and that there 'may not be a fourth'.
 
GaiaGirl95,

Are you going to ignore my previous post?

If so, I won't waste my time talking to you any further.
 
James R said:
GaiaGirl95,



No, we can't. It's very difficult to rule some things out 100%.

But you have the onus of proof the wrong way around. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. And so far, the only evidence you have provided is the self-report of one guy.

Got anything more solid than that?



It's an extraordinary claim. So it might be a good idea for you to start by asking yourself: what is more likely? That he's lying (for the publicity, the money he makes from the story and the "donations" he gets from believers, perhaps), or that there's a new phenomenon under the sun that science can't explain?



It's not true that anything is possible. Science has a pretty good understanding of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, for example. Those laws rule lots of stuff out as impossible, and that's just one example.

What you have here is an argument from ignorance. You're saying that because we don't know everything about the body, therefore we ought to believe your SHC guy's crazy story. But the fact is, we don't need to know everything about the human body to refute his claims. That's a long way down the track from where you've brought us to so far. The first, sensible, thing to do would be to establish the basic facts.

You say we don't have evidence that Frank is lying. But what (reliable) evidence do you have that he isn't making the whole story up?



SHC isn't a recognised medical illness, so no doctor worth his salt would ever make such a diagnosis. We can safely write that guy off as a quack, don't you think? That's if the un-named doctor actually exists at all.



Do you know of any mechanism that could possibly cause the organic chemicals in a human body to reach ignition temperature, internal to the body?



Fires always leave evidence. There are people whose jobs it is to determine the causes of fires and the points of ignition. They are there to investigate things such as the possibility of arson, for example. What do such experts have to say about supposed SHC cases?



No mass conspiracy is necessary, as far as I can see. Just some deluded people, or people out to make a buck from the gullible.



How many examples of people who have Frank's "problem" do you know of, exactly?



What do you think of alien abduction? Is that real too? Because we surely can't dismiss all abductees as liars.
Click to expand...

James, my dear fellow, if you read the thread you'll see we've been through all this several times and the rejoinders from GG are always something like the one you have just had. We have a troll on our hands, no question.

I think this thread ran its course several pages ago and nothing further of scientific value is going to emerge.
 
Because you incorrectly assume I'm lying on this, I'll repeat:

>>>>https://www.facebook.com/rose.alsdorf <<<< - LINK TO THE FACEBOOK PAGE IN CASE YOU THINK I'M LYING AND WISH TO CHECK FOR YOURSELVES

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.
'' 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-n...#ixzz2reTPyVs3
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook''
 
GaiaGirl95,

Please respond to the points I raised in post #132.

There is no need to repost material you have previously posted. That is a form of spam which we will not tolerate.

If you will not respond to the questions and points made, I will close this thread.

This is a science forum. If you wish to stick your head in the sand and refuse to engage in discussion that might challenge the views you currently hold, I suggest that another forum may be more suitable for you.
 
That poor man. It must really suck catching on fire all the time. I sold my dog so I can give the money to the poor guy. I mean this must be true it is on facebook for crying out loud.
 
''It's an extraordinary claim. So it might be a good idea for you to start by asking yourself: what is more likely? That he's lying (for the publicity, the money he makes from the story and the "donations" he gets from believers, perhaps), or that there's a new phenomenon under the sun that science can't explain? ''

An argument from probability.
Improbable things happen.
What's more likely? That man went to the moon, something that was a huge step in that era, or that the moon landings were faked?

''It's not true that anything is possible. Science has a pretty good understanding of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, for example. Those laws rule lots of stuff out as impossible, and that's just one example.

What you have here is an argument from ignorance. You're saying that because we don't know everything about the body, therefore we ought to believe your SHC guy's crazy story. But the fact is, we don't need to know everything about the human body to refute his claims. That's a long way down the track from where you've brought us to so far. The first, sensible, thing to do would be to establish the basic facts.

You say we don't have evidence that Frank is lying. But what (reliable) evidence do you have that he isn't making the whole story up?''

Here's a question for you, why would Frank Baker knowingly risk public ridicule by proclaiming himself as a SHC survivor on TV?

''Fires always leave evidence. There are people whose jobs it is to determine the causes of fires and the points of ignition. They are there to investigate things such as the possibility of arson, for example. What do such experts have to say about supposed SHC cases?'' - The fire investigators investigating the death of Michael Farhety concluded that the open fireplace could not have caused the blaze which killed him. No accelerant was found.
 
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