[ExI] NYT reports criticisms of Precognition article

[BillK]

Journal’s Paper on ESP Expected to Prompt Outrage
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: January 5, 2011

One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a
paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for
extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.
The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but
it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to
be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in
recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?&pagewanted=all>
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The main criticisms seem to point at the statistical analysis as being
inadequate:

Quote:
Many statisticians say that conventional social-science techniques for
analyzing data make an assumption that is disingenuous and ultimately
self-deceiving: that researchers know nothing about the probability of
the so-called null hypothesis.

In this case, the null hypothesis would be that ESP does not exist.
Refusing to give that hypothesis weight makes no sense, these experts
say.
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BillK