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Originally Posted by Larry Boy  Well the problem is that you can't solve a scientific problem by setting up a challenge that has a ridiculous benchmark in order to secure money that shouldn't be involved in scientific research in the first place. Now I know that skeptics will say that it's just a test, it's not a research, but see my above post for my response to that. |
First of all I'm not sure I would agree the benchmark is ridiculous. Of course, scientific studies would be the optimal way to research paranormal claims, but isnt there a long history of scientific studies (similar to Sheldrake's and Radin's) being wrong as well? I recall a lot of credentialed researchers in the 70's vouching for the legitimacy of Uri Gellar's claims. Lets be realistic - there is a lot of incentive for someone to falsly claim they have abilities, and a lot of examples where people have been proven to have been intentionally deceptive.
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Originally Posted by Larry Boy Because we're talking about human performance! In no ordinary psychology experiment would you expect a near 100% hit rate. Nor would you expect a football (or soccer, in the US) player to score every time he shoots. As for the effects being small, they're even smaller in a lot of medical research, and those results are still seen as valid. |
I'm not sure that is a good analogy. Many psychics claim to have pre-cognitive abilities. I'll claim to have
post-cognitive abilities (memory). If I want to demonstrate that to someone I can have them read me a 3-digit number and I will recite it one minute later. I could do that with a 100% sucess rate. If we expand it to a 10-digit number my accuracy will go down dramitically, but still if i have the ability I am claiming I should be able to setup protocol that would give me a very high sucess rate.
As far a small effects in medical studies being valid, if the results are that small, but side effects are present I think most reasonable people would not opt for the treatement. I think that's analogous to being skeptical about a such small effect in a paranormal claim when the side effect is that it would contradict much of what's thought to be true about the physical universe.
I go back to the question... If the effect demonstrated really is that small wouldn't it be reasonable to think that some inconsistency in the controls is causing the result rather than paranormal abilities.