[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings (2)

[Damien Broderick]

At 01:39 PM 2/9/2007 -0500, Ben wrote in reply to John Clark:

> > if the phenomena is real they're
> > bound to catch on sooner or later,
>
>Agree, but in this case it's taking a surprisingly long time...

It's a rachet. Once the formal decision has been taken to ban papers 
on a topic, new information gets locked out of the communal flow of 
discourse *and its very absence then serves as "proof" that there's 
nothing new to investigate*. As Ben notes, some of the less august 
journals do open the gates briefly now and then, and this keeps 
things ticking over a little. This is exactly what's happened with 
psi research (which John uses as his standard example of indisputable 
bullshit). From time to time heavy-duty psychology journals publish 
papers, pro and con, such as those by Cornell University psychology 
professor Daryl Bem in Psychological Bulletin and Behavioral and 
Brain Sciences. Journals at that level do not, I observe, publish 
research papers into Tooth Fairy Electrodynamics.

> > it's flabbergasting they've managed to
> > avoid it for 17 years.

>I do find it disturbing, but it's not the MOST disturbing aspect of
>human irrationality I've come across...

Here's another instance, also drawn from psi research. Bear in mind 
that I have considerable regard for Dan Dennett, but I find this 
anecdote as revealing as John's recent outbursts. A friend, a senior 
psi researcher, told me:

<Some years ago, Ed May
and I were asked to debate Dan Dennett and Jerri Levy in front of the
assembled news executives and journalists of ABC Network.  The event
was to take place in Palm Springs, at a resort spa there and, on the
duly appointed evening, Ed and I, in fighting trim, showed up.  The
four of us each made a presentation, then critiqued one another.  It
was a decorous intellectual street brawl.  Dennett ragged on with
increasingly definitive grandiosities.  It had all become so general
that at a certain point I looked down the dais table and said to him
(which was recorded, although I do not have a copy of the tape):
"Look you  make these sweeping generalizations, but that's useless.
Since you claim to be so knowledgeable and certain, lets pick a
particular experiment, one that will represent a greater class of
work, and you tell us what is wrong with it in terms of protocol, or
analysis, and we'll respond.  That way our audience will be able to
see where the disagreements are, and they can reach their own
conclusions."

There was an expectant pause.

Then Dennett, in his most condescending tone yet, blurted out, "You
don't think I waste my time actually reading this stuff do you?"
After which he folded his arms across his chest and sat back with the
smug expression of a man who has just delivered the death blow to his
enemy.

There was a silence, which hung in the air for a beat or two, then
here and there in the room, there were first snickers, then guffaws,
until the entire room was laughing.  At first Dennett sort of preened
then, in a slow take, it dawned on him that they were not laughing at
his bon mot, but at him.  The most delicious moment, for me, came
when I noticed Jerry Levy, ostensibly changing posture, inching her
chair away from his in an unconscious gesture of distancing herself.
Dennett blushed as red as a sunset, and suddenly got up and left the
dais and the room, and would not return.  That was the end of the
debate.>

Damien Broderick