[extropy-chat] ESP controls

[Damien Broderick]

At 01:37 AM 2/11/2007 -0500,  John K Clark wrote:

>  ESP "research" is even worse; the idea that a
>control experiment is a luxury and not a necessity.

Could you elaborate on that, John? Which psi experiments do you mean 
that have no controls?

Presumably not the bulk of the PEAR REG trials, where the 
long-established protocol is specifically designed with no optional 
stopping, and with ternary target conditions (higher than chance, 
lower than chance, baseline or no effort), and those mutually 
controlling conditions augmented by calibration runs of the REG while 
nobody is making any psi attempts.

I could list other controls for different protocols, but I'd prefer 
to learn precisely which experiments you're talking about. Or will 
you default to your fallback position of "Jahn and the others are 
probably just inventing their data"? Or Dennett's dynamite rebuttal, 
which I cited the other day: "You don't think I waste my time 
actually reading this stuff do you?"

Damien Broderick