Dr Steve Novella and The (Pseudo?)Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

[Open Mind]

Dr Steve Novella has responded to this topic.

Response from Dr Steve Novella .....
2) Randi's testing. Again - this is not presented as laboratory research. It is simply testing claims made by psychics, dowsers, etc. It is they who are making the claims, and they agree to the protocol, including the threshold for what is positive. In the preliminary test the threshold is not 1/1000, as is claimed. We used a 1-5% threshold for ours. But of course, you can't give a million bucks to 1/20 people on average who make a claim. The final test has to be statistically rigorous.

Frankly, I do not believe this When Ted Dace asked Randi the requirement for passing the preliminary, 1000 to 1 odds were quoted. Do you have 1-5% anywhere in writing from Randi, or does the bar move arbitrarily up and down? If Randi had done anywhere near the 'plentiful and bountiful' number of cases implied on your programme, with pass requirement odds as low as 1 in 20, some of those 600 (or more?) applicants would have passed. Of course they could not pass the preliminary because they were not actually tested, apart from the few, extremely few.

This JREF challenge is not science, it is clearly political and biased, a technique to influence public opinion. Therefore, why shouldn't true skeptics also reason the possiblility applicants judged to have the least chance of success were the ones JREF preferred to do preliminary tests upon?

[Ersby]

Where did 1-5% come from? I thought Steve said you couldn't test this at 1 in 20?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Ersby

Where did 1-5% come from? I thought Steve said you couldn't test this at 1 in 20?

He meant test after preliminary....

Steve Novella wrote 'In the preliminary test the threshold is not 1/1000, as is claimed. We used a 1-5% threshold for ours. But of course, you can't give a million bucks to 1/20 people on average who make a claim. The final test has to be statistically rigorous.

[skidoo]

Originally Posted by skidoo

Er, scientific skepticism is a term I would expect anyone serious about these debates to be familiar with. The Wikipedia entry explains it as well as anyone:

Scientific skepticism...is a scientific or practical epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence.... Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our right to claim knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Scientific skepticism utilizes critical thinking and attempts to oppose claims which lack suitable evidential basis.

Huh? How do you "contrive" a noise argument in this context? Scientists had a theoretical model of the sun that predicted more neutrinos impacting the earth than what they were actually seeing. And in fact, after evaluating all of the evidence over time, the scientists actually self-adjusted one of their most fundamental models to account for apparent neutrino mass.

So the subject of your analogy is actually a great example of scientists at their non-dogmatic, evidence-based, peer reviewed best. When there's a compelling argument for pursuing a particular line of reasoning, you can bet some enterprising Nobel-hopeful somewhere will go after it. In the case of the neutrinos, a tiny effect size wasn't the issue. They had plenty of other evidence supporting their model of the sun, but they began to suspect that their fundamental understanding of the neutrino was incorrect after they were just unable to get the sun model's predictions to jive with detected neutrinos (even after totally re-doing the sun model a few times).

This is irrelevant. The physical model -- all of its parts intricately interrelated -- makes predictions. About neutrinos, among other things. Those predictions come true. Repeatedly. And when there is a discrepancy, the model is updated if necessary.

Look, you're ultimately trying to argue that even if a line of inquiry presents only the tiniest sliver of a shred of hope for an explanation of this nonsense that is life, it's worth pursuing. I can dig that motivation. But I think that that hope might be blinding you to the reality of the situation.

There really is nothing there. No one is conspiring to squelch a bunch of positive psi experiment results. The fruits of psi research through history simply are what they are: Non-existent.

No response?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by skidoo

No response?

Skidoo, to be honest I didn't think it was worthy of a response.

(Misinterpretation 1) I did not ask you for a definition of 'scientific skepticism', I clearly asked you to name 'scientific skeptics' and their published research.

(Misinterpretation 2)

Huh? How do you "contrive" a noise argument in this context? Scientists had a theoretical model of the sun that predicted more neutrinos impacting the earth than what they were actually seeing. And in fact, after evaluating all of the evidence over time, the scientists actually self-adjusted one of their most fundamental models to account for apparent neutrino mass.

Skidoo, the analogy here could be pseudo-scientists (having done half baked research) also are contriving a noise theory. The evidence for psi has been reported by scientists (who have done the better research) for 80 years in labs (parapsychology) and even longer outside labs (psychical research) . It is just matter of time before psi is accepted.

This is irrelevant. The physical model -- all of its parts intricately interrelated -- makes predictions. About neutrinos, among other things. Those predictions come true. Repeatedly. And when there is a discrepancy, the model is updated if necessary

You just are looking mid process. Psi will most probably be one day be accepted, probably when some other stronger (non-psi) phenomenon is eventually discovered modifying theoretical physics, making predictions about the existence of psi.

There really is nothing there. No one is conspiring to squelch a bunch of positive psi experiment results. The fruits of psi research through history simply are what they are: Non-existent.

'....the overall results of parapsychological experimentation are indicative of an anomalous process of information transfer, and they are not marginal and neither are they impossible to replicate. In the face of this, the critic who merely goes on asserting there is no evidence for psi is using a tactic reminiscent of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s former information Minister, in blindly asserting there are no American troops in Baghdad....'
Dr Adrian Parker, 'A compendium of evidence for psi'

[skidoo]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Skidoo, to be honest I didn't think it was worthy of a response.

Oh that's nice.

(Misinterpretation 1) I did not ask you for a definition of 'scientific skepticism', I clearly asked you to name 'scientific skeptics' and their published research.

It was clear from your earlier post that you didn't know the definition of scientific skepticism, and it's clear from this post that you still don't. Please try again.

(Misinterpretation 2)

Skidoo, the analogy here could be pseudo-scientists (having done half baked research) also are contriving a noise theory.

What? This just doesn't parse. Let me help you out here.

You're saying that Dr. Novella et al are dismissing positive psi effects as noise ("contriving a noise theory"), when in reality there could be something there. You're attempting to support this position by comparing psi to solar neutrinos. You're saying that the inconsistent test results that found "hidden" neutrinos could have been dismissed as mere noise and those smallest neutrinos would have been consigned to eternal obscurity.

This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the solar neutrino problem. It wasn't the case that these scientists were detecting neutrinos they weren't expecting. They had the solar model, they were expecting to find a certain number of neutrinos, but they found far less. So they hunted. In other words, your analogy is inappropriate. Not that it would've helped your argument anyway.

The evidence for psi has been reported by scientists (who have done the better research) for 80 years in labs (parapsychology) and even longer outside labs (psychical research).

80 years, and so much to show for it....

It is just matter of time before psi is accepted.

Uh-huh. Sure.

You just are looking mid process. Psi will most probably be one day be accepted, probably when some other stronger (non-psi) phenomenon is eventually discovered modifying theoretical physics, making predictions about the existence of psi.

There's this teapot I'd like to tell you about. It's in outer space. I'd like you to research it. I'd like you spend lots of money researching it. Sure, there's absolutely no evidence for it beyond meaningless anecdotes and a few dim telescope images taken by some sketchy "astronomers" (images that all reasonable people can't help but note look suspiciously similar to the Crab Nebula). But I want you to dedicate your resources to it just the same.

'....the overall results of parapsychological experimentation are indicative of an anomalous process of information transfer, and they are not marginal and neither are they impossible to replicate.

Then why aren't they being studied? Because the potential implications are just not very interesting? Come on, seriously.

In the face of this, the critic who merely goes on asserting there is no evidence for psi is using a tactic reminiscent of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s former information Minister, in blindly asserting there are no American troops in Baghdad....'
Dr Adrian Parker, 'A compendium of evidence for psi'

You're joking right? You're dredging up that crap Adrian Parker paper that was published by (guess who?) Adrian Parker? Any opinion (Dr. Parker's or anyone else's) based on that demonstrably shoddy meta-analysis (want examples?) counts for squat.

[David Bailey]

Skidoo,

I will tell you why very few researchers study ψ-phenomenta - in fact I wrote about it in my thread ψ-shy. As soon as you try to publish work that is supportive of ψ, you are shunned by the rest of the scientific community. Look at what happened to Jacques Benveniste - a man who was a well respected scientist until he entered forbidden territory.

There would be plenty of laboratories that could do a replication of the presentiment experiment - very few do, because if they got a positive result they would either have to bury the data or face the loss of all their grants!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I will tell you why very few researchers study ?-phenomenta - in fact I wrote about it in my thread ?-shy. As soon as you try to publish work that is supportive of ?, you are shunned by the rest of the scientific community. Look at what happened to Jacques Benveniste - a man who was a well respected scientist until he entered forbidden territory.

And possibly until he started running homeopathy experiments with lousy controls. But I await further evidence that water is an intelligent liquid and that chemical processes can be transmitted electronically.

There would be plenty of laboratories that could do a replication of the presentiment experiment - very few do, because if they got a positive result they would either have to bury the data or face the loss of all their grants!

I love how parapsychology has its very own conspiracy theory.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Paul,

I don't want to get into the water with memory issue, but assuming he made a mistake, did he deserve to be treated like that? Also, if the bio-assay that he and others were using was faulty, shouldn't others have wanted to investigate the anomaly if only to protect other experiments! Remember, if there had been an interpretation of this experiment that was non-paranormal, his results would have been accepted without challenge.

Quite regardless of the truth of his claims, don't you think the message has got through to the rest of the research community. I don't know if you yourself, do research, but if you do, would you risk studying anything that might give a paranormal result?

David

[davidsmith73]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

And possibly until he started running homeopathy experiments with lousy controls....

What about the two indepdendent replications? Would you consider them as evidence or would you rather depend only on the negative results from Horizon and others?