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Originally Posted by Venom  Especially here, you're doing that again, and on top of that, you give to the guy a paper to read for the next week, but when he's criticising the paper you gave him, then you switch to other papers. Come on. That's just not fair play. Tell him: "I expect you for next week to know by heart every single papers Sheldrake published on that or I will say that you're a close-minded skeptics". |
I'm also left wondering what the point of asking for peer-review if you are going to ignore it.
Dr Wynne gave constructive criticism that should be welcome. It is the exact same criticism that would have been obtained if the paper were submitted to a relevant high status peer-reviewed journal.
A real scientist goes back and does more experiments to answer constructive criticisms. Crackpots whine about Big Science.
I find it hard to believe that the parents were completely blind to the comings and goings of their daughter. For a start her return times were not randomly spread throughout the day.
In some double blind controls when there is a possibility that blinding is lost it is cutomary to test to see how well blinding is maintained. For example you can ask the patients whether they think they are in the mahnet group or the sham magnet group in a study testing the efficacy of magnets for treating arthritis.
Why not ask the parents what time they think their daughter is going to come home to test to see whether they really were completely blind. It is simply not good enough to simply assume that they were. If the trials were truly randomised then this would not be necessary.