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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 01/07/2011 : 09:41:56
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The New York Times is running an article today about how the respected publication The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is publishing a peer-reviewed article suggesting scientific proof for ESP.
In addition to the interest generated from just that very assertion, there's also a lot of interest in how scientists are reacting to the very fact that this sort of article is being published. The article notes that a number of scholars "insist that its acceptance only accentuates fundamental flaws in the evaluation and peer review of research in the social sciences."
For me-- and I have no personal or professional stake in the question, so my opinion probably counts very little-- I think it's OK to put such things in there. Once published, it allows other researchers a chance to go after it and test it.
For instance, according to the article:In another experiment, Dr. Bem had subjects choose which of two curtains on a computer screen hid a photograph; the other curtain hid nothing but a blank screen.
A software program randomly posted a picture behind one curtain or the other — but only after the participant made a choice. Still, the participants beat chance, by 53 percent to 50 percent, at least when the photos being posted were erotic ones. They did not do better than chance on negative or neutral photos. |
This sounds interesting. I obviously don't have the article in front of me, and I am not an expert in statistics or the like, but I'd wager that a professional trained in such things could find flaws in this experiment and demonstrate significant flaws in the methodology and conclusions.
The upside in this is that it actually puts these ideas in the combat arena as it were, and adherents can no longer hide behind claims of conspiracy or suppression. The downside, of course, is that adherents will feel some claim of legitimization in all of this, and are almost sure to ignore future research critiquing such claims. Instead, simply getting one such publication into an established journal would be enough.
Anyhow, I thought I'd post should others be interested in discussing.
Fixed link,
Kil
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2011 : 10:00:38 [Permalink]
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Looks like Dr. Bem is still at it. Who knows? Perhaps he has something. I doubt it. Time and a good look at his controls, plus replication of his work will be telling. Last time that didn't go so well for him. Here is our last thread about his alleged precognition discoveries, from not too long ago...
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13701 |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2011 : 11:53:50 [Permalink]
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| Cune, you're missing the closing quote-char in the first URL in your post. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2011 : 16:07:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Looks like Dr. Bem is still at it. Who knows? Perhaps he has something. I doubt it. Time and a good look at his controls, plus replication of his work will be telling. Last time that didn't go so well for him. Here is our last thread about his alleged precognition discoveries, from not too long ago...
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13701
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Ah! Yes, that's the same article. I guess as it gets closer to print, it generates more hype.
The coments of Dude in your linked thread seem to be correct, though: as yet, no one can replicate Bem's experiments...
I guess depending on the number of subjects, a 53% success rate for picking which side of the screen an erotic image will appear on may just be some sort of out-lier? |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2011 : 17:35:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
I guess depending on the number of subjects, a 53% success rate for picking which side of the screen an erotic image will appear on may just be some sort of out-lier?
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Yeah. It's one of the big problems with precognition studies. They have no real mechanism or hypothesis to test for, so instead they just run lots of trials and sift through the data looking for interesting deviations from the norm, which they are bound to find if they look hard enough. It's data fishing. These deviations would only be interesting if they were persistent, but of course they never are. Someone else looks to replicate the result and what do you know? The deviation is somewhere else now. "We saw clear precognition in female subjects blindfolded on Tuesdays after a thunderstorm by .02% above chance. We hope someone further investigates this promising phenomenon."
It's total garbage.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2011 : 19:27:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
I guess depending on the number of subjects, a 53% success rate for picking which side of the screen an erotic image will appear on may just be some sort of out-lier?
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Yeah. It's one of the big problems with precognition studies. They have no real mechanism or hypothesis to test for, so instead they just run lots of trials and sift through the data looking for interesting deviations from the norm, which they are bound to find if they look hard enough. It's data fishing. These deviations would only be interesting if they were persistent, but of course they never are. Someone else looks to replicate the result and what do you know? The deviation is somewhere else now. "We saw clear precognition in female subjects blindfolded on Tuesdays after a thunderstorm by .02% above chance. We hope someone further investigates this promising phenomenon."
It's total garbage.
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Well, the real test, it seems to me, would be to bring in the same group of people. That is, the working assumption must be that only select people have this "ESP" (else, things like gambling and lotteries would have failed long ago). So once you find a group of people who score above what should be random chance, then you have to bring them back at some future date to see if they are still making predictions that are better than 50%. (And as an aside, in my mind, being right 53% of the time vs. 50% is really not very significant. Professional sports betters are really striving for a win about 55-56% of the time. So even if you had a gift to correctly see the future (or, more specifically, to correctly know the outcome of an either-or proposition) a little bit better than a guy flipping a coin, you're just not going to be able to do much with it.
I guess my point is that even if there were "ESP" but all that it amounted to picking right 53% instead of 50% of the time, then big deal. |
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justintime
BANNED
382 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2011 : 15:17:23 [Permalink]
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Don't be discouraged Cuneiformist. You are dealing with a bunch of skeptics who would have a hard time guessing the color of their sock just 5 minutes after being shown the test samples. ESP involves concentration, the ability to discern different signals and to avoid interpreting them incorrectly.
It is a talent. Even card games require some degree of probability and predictability which has to be developed either through education, training and experience.
Blindfolding the inexperienced subject might be suitable to pass a sobriety test. The focus in a sobriety test is on balance and not mental conductivity.
Bems research has not been retracted by the reputable journal and the journal would not risk being ridiculed if the research was full of crap which could only further damage the reputation of the journal. Neuroscience, neuropsychology and the paranormal are gaining some grounds because of the advances in brain scanning. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2011 : 17:09:56 [Permalink]
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justintime:
Bems research has not been retracted by the reputable journal and the journal would not risk being ridiculed if the research was full of crap which could only further damage the reputation of the journal. Neuroscience, neuropsychology and the paranormal are gaining some grounds because of the advances in brain scanning. |
Actually, several psychologists have been very critical of the study itself, based on several research flaws including a gross statistical error having to do with methodology, which social psychologists, the critics say, are not well versed in. There is also a criticism of the peer review process of the journal itself with regard to this study. Some, like Ray Hyman, who is not given to hyperbole, think it's so bad that it should be an embarrassment to the journal for publishing it and he even wondered if it was a joke by Bem. Bem's study and his conclusions are not even close to a done deal. The study is mostly the subject of heavy criticism.
Why psychologists must change the way they analyze their data: The case of psi: Comment on Bem (2011).
A Bayes factor meta-analysis of Bem’s ESP claim
Yes, Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their
Data: Clari¯cations for Bem, Utts, and Johnson (2011)
and from CSICOP:
Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair
...The publication of this set of experiments will serve no one well. Parapsychology is not honored by having this paper accepted by a mainstream psychology journal. Neither does Bem’s paper serve the public well, for it only adds to confusion about the scientific case for the existence of psi. And it does no service to the reputation of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Although Bem has failed to demonstrate the existence of mysterious intellectual powers that defy the normal constraints of time and space, there seem nonetheless to have been mysterious intellectual powers at play here. I refer to the decision by the editors of an esteemed psychology journal to publish this badly flawed research article.
“Think of your data set as a jewel,” Bem instructs. However, with these nine experiments, Bem did not end up with a polished jewel. Rather, to extend his metaphor, the jewel cracked under the intense pressure used to try to shape it to fit expectation. One is left with nothing but useless fragments that reflect not the light of knowledge but the biases of the researcher.
Rhine, Schmidt, Targ, Puthoff . . . the list grows on. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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justintime
BANNED
382 Posts |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2011 : 06:58:52 [Permalink]
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Holy crap that first link made my head hurt...and not because it was so intelligent.
Second link is subscription based. |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2011 : 07:09:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by justintime
One has to when discussion the paranormal wonder how such communication can take place between subjects (telepathy) and between object to subject etc. etc. |
One has to wonder if such communications take place, first. There is no good evidence that telepathy occurs. Wondering about a mechanism is putting the cart before the horse.Jack Sarfatti is one of those 1970s-era physicists who have been trying (and failing) to give consciousness a quantum-theoretical basis, based (generally) on a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Double-Slit Experiment and an unsupported appeal to mind being something other than bazillions of gooey neuronal interactions.And? John Bell hypothesized this effect of entanglement in the 1960s, and it was demonstrated in 1994. It's still impossible to use the phenomenon to transmit any information, and brains are inhospitable to retaining specially-entangled particles even millimeters apart, so this provides no support whatsoever for anything paranormal.
Oh, also:| Neuroscience, neuropsychology and the paranormal are gaining some grounds because of the advances in brain scanning. |
No, just the first two. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2011 : 07:24:46 [Permalink]
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Jack Sarfatti blew most of his credibility when he was taken in by Uri Geller.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2011 : 09:51:41 [Permalink]
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Dave:
There is no good evidence that telepathy occurs. Wondering about a mechanism is putting the cart before the horse. |
I remember some years ago, I was directed to a site with an article about how Laetrile works, I think by its "discoverer." I pointed out to the letter writer that it really doesn't matter how it works when it hasn't been demonstrated that it works at all. And yeah, studies were done to test the efficacy of laetrile and laetrile failed to cure cancer and also posed a risk of cyanide poisoning. So the mechanism was irrelevant because the stuff doesn't work! And then there is the "What The Bleep Do We Know" movie, that shows how quantum physics makes it possible for us to change our reality for a better life. Same shit! The movie attempts to show us how to do what hasn't been demonstrated to be possible and, in fact, presented many outlandish conclusions that science in no way supports, under the guise of science.
Debunked! - What the Bleep Do We Know?
I suppose it's a great selling point to make shit up, make it sound all sciencey, and then sell it to those who are not inclined or not equipped to question what they are being sold.
And then there was "The Secret" and its claim that there is a "Law of Attraction." No such law exists. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1487 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2011 : 10:57:02 [Permalink]
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Kil, that video exposing the delusional people in the What the Bleep movie is excellent. I went to the theater to see the movie and it was quite slick. I liked that they never once showed a car even though it was filmed in Portland. And the scene where they explain the double-slit experiment is well done but claim that passive observation changes it. As the debunking video explains, to observe subatomic particles, they must be actively observed (interacted with) and that causes the experiment to change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2011 : 12:30:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by ThorGoLucky
Kil, that video exposing the delusional people in the What the Bleep movie is excellent. I went to the theater to see the movie and it was quite slick. I liked that they never once showed a car even though it was filmed in Portland. And the scene where they explain the double-slit experiment is well done but claim that passive observation changes it. As the debunking video explains, to observe subatomic particles, they must be actively observed (interacted with) and that causes the experiment to change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
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Here's my review of the movie. It seems to have been cut off near the end. I don't know why. Probably happened when it was archived, which should never have happened.
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=4136& |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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justintime
BANNED
382 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2011 : 06:45:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by justintime
One has to when discussion the paranormal wonder how such communication can take place between subjects (telepathy) and between object to subject etc. etc. |
One has to wonder if such communications take place, first. There is no good evidence that telepathy occurs. Wondering about a mechanism is putting the cart before the horse. |
Here is how a visionary put it.Steve Jobs
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," he told Stanford University graduates during a commencement speech in 2005. "You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." Steve Jobs on the Destiny Matrix we are all caught up in.
[Edited to fix quoting - Dave W.] |
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ESP proven true?
