Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudism  Designing and running experiments that rule out the criticism would be a thousand times more effective than any amount of apologetics.
For example, when Sheldrake was throwing out so many trials where the parrot didn't say any of their pre-defined keywords, he HAD to know that it would be ridiculed. |
I cannot begin to imagine
why it would be ridiculed.
Carroll says:
Quote:
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You do not need to be a trained scientist to recognize that when testing the telepathic ability of a parrot and it says nothing when the subject looks at a picture card that it should be taken as a sign that no telepathy is occurring.
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I also can't understand why it should be taken as a sign that no telepathy is occurring. So Carroll is saying that
if the parrot is receiving any sort of telepathic impression he (the parrot) will be more likely to speak than if he were receiving no telepathic impression. How does Carroll know this? What is his reasoning? So far as I can see he doesn't give any reasons. Maybe it would all be clear to me if I
were a trained scientist, but I feel somewhat doubtful.
Indeed one might hypothesis, on the contrary, that when the parrot is receiving a telepathic impression it might have a propensity to be quiet because it is thinking about the image being conveyed to it. However if receiving no telepathic impression there is that much less to occupy his thoughts, so he will be more likely to talk (as in the sense of idle chatter).
But let's for the sake of argument assume Carroll is correct. It appears to me to be a complete red herring anyway. If it is stated upfront prior to the experiments that only where the parrot actually speaks will be taken into consideration, and if the parrot says the key words corresponding to the target more frequently than could be reasonably ascribed to chance, then this clearly cannot be explained away by considering other data which was not originally meant to be included!