[extropy-chat] Movie: WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW!?

[Dirk Bruere]

Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 03:15 PM 11/25/2004 -0800, Adrian wrote:
>
>> The vast majority of attempts to recreate these
>> phenomena under conditions of scientific testing have
>> failed.
>
>
> What comprises a `vast majority'? More than half, clearly. More than 
> 90%? But again, if the latter, this is simply inconsistent with the 
> results found by a number of meta-analyses conducted by competent 
> statisticians during the last decade or so. In general, the effect 
> sizes remain stable, if small; the number of experiments that fail to 
> repudiate the null is about in accordance with the number one must 
> expect (due to noise, etc) in any ensemble of tests of a small-effect 
> phenomenon. Read Prof Jessica Utts on this: 
> http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/
> E.g.: http://anson.ucdavis.edu/%7Eutts/JSE1999.pdf
>
>> Furthermore, given the many many experiments that
>> have been conducted, it is expected that a few would
>> show anomalous results, even just among the legit
>> ones.
>
>
> The well-known file-drawer hypothesis. This is an ongoing discussion 
> in the scientific-paranormal community, but the consensus remains, I 
> gather, that the number of competent experiments unpublished due to 
> null results required to offset the data summarized in various 
> meta-analyses is so absurdly large that the hypothesis is itself found 
> to be extremely improbable.
>
The problem is that there has been no major progess in the field for 
decades.
There is no plausible and testable theory to explain the results, and no 
method of amplifying the effects to a real macro level.
Although, having said that I suggest you read an essay of mine 
concerning some work done in Toronto 30yrs ago (and as far as I can 
discover, not repeated or attempted again in recent years)
http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-
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