74. Dr. Dean Radin And Dr. Roger Nelson Respond to Global Consciousness Project Criti

[Miguel]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Alex, this is a trivial point but why call it 'skeptics vs believer debate' ...also similar wording on your current Skeptiko webpage design too.

How about asking believers about their skepticism for a change. EG: Nelson could've been asked why he rejects the evidence for retro-PK. Obviously he must do so or else the experiment and interpretation do not make sense.

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

To be a skeptic requires doubt, I didn't hear much doubt in the opinions of Brian Dunning who speaks extremely confidently and from what he said seems to be teaching people to dismiss claims using purely a-priori belief/reasoning ...Brian is therefore a disbeliever more than a skeptic.

Brian Dunning has lots of doubt. After looking at the information relating to the Global Consciousness Project he found little to substantiate the claims -- indeed he found little in the way of claims, other than that we're all connected, man -- and he seriously DOUBTS that there's anything to it. He's allowed to be confident in his views, given the fact that he's properly done the research.

If he had skeptically investigated the claims and found them worthy, and spoke confidently about the quality of the hypothesis (contrary to Alex's continued assertion, saying something will happen but we don't know what or why is most definitely NOT a scientific theory), would you be criticizing him or praising him as a REAL skeptic? My guess is the latter, because you'd say loudly and proudly that finally there's a real skeptic, not a pseudo-skeptic, because when you say pseudo-skeptic, Open Mind, you're talking about someone who disagrees with you, and nothing more.

[hoggworks]

Alex, how much do you know about statistical analysis? I ask because you seem to genuinely not get Brian's point about the way in which the GCP seem to be crunching their numbers. Specifically you didn't seem to understand why retrodicting and searching for patterns after the fact is a bad idea. Also your comment about expecting random to be evenly distributed random made me think this (this level of understanding seems to be Sheldrake's, as well, especially in the context of his telephone telepathy experiments).

[alextsakiris]

Guest: Roger Nelson,nbsp; formally of Princeton's Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab, joins Alex Tsakiris to discuss how skeptics view the Global Consciousness Project.nbsp; The episode ...

Click here to read more ...

[Miguel]

Having read a bit on the GCP site I must say: Wow.
Half the time I had to remind myself that these people are for real and serious and that this was not just a hoax by some statistic nerd.

[Icculus]

This was quite an eye-opening podcast. It seems that when the Fundamentalist Skeptics are confronted with something that they can't dispense with using their normal checklist of generic skeptical arguments, they run and hide.
By the way, I'm not knocking the "generic skeptical arguments". They do a lot of good in our society as a whole....and probably can legitimately explain away 95% of "paranormal" claims (if not more).
But, in the case of the troublesome "other 5%", when the other side pushes back with a cogent & data-supported argument, they'd rather fold up like broken lawn chair than concede one inch of ground. Because even one iota of a concession would endanger their belief-system.
It reminds me of a Creationist being confronted with proof of evolution or of the age of the earth.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Icculus

This was quite an eye-opening podcast. It seems that when the Fundamentalist Skeptics are confronted with something that they can't dispense with using their normal checklist of generic skeptical arguments, they run and hide.

If you think this is so, then you aren't paying attention. Many claims have been investigated in quite some detail. Perhaps you think people should waste their time investigating every claim in great detail.

~~ Paul

[LeoM]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Here is the paper where they question their own results on remote viewing (sorry, not RNG). See particularly section IX.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/jse_papers/IU.pdf

~~ Paul

Hello Paul,

According to a member on the Jref Forum called davidsmith73 he points out that the data doesn't show that the results drop to null when objective analysis is thrown into the mix.

PEAR remote viewing - what the data actually shows - JREF Forum

He also links to a site that is a critique to the above paper you linked too.

Princeton [PEAR] Remote-Viewing Experiments -- A Critique

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Indeed, there has been much discussion about whether they got any results or not. The discussions will continue until everyone tires of the subject. I predict that no useful technology involving RNGs will appear.

~~ Paul

[fabkebab]

I listened to this podcast, and thought a bit about Brian's comments-

I think his approach is reasonable, insofar as he is not willing to get dragged into a debate about a topic in which he lacks expertise - What you could say is that he is the "mouthpiece" of skepticism, not necessarily investigating and reaching his own conclusions, but gathering up the arguments of skeptics on a myriad of topics and presenting them to his audience (of which I am one) in a concise, entertaining way.

In contrast, Alex's podcast is more about a journey, where Alex's own curiosity leads the topics that get investigated, even if it takes him into areas where he is (I would guess) not totally comfortable with the scientific analysis- A good example was in the discussion with the australian skeptic/mentalist - where discussions about statistical methods seemed to be confusing.

For my part, I also consider myself a "searcher" - someone who wants to "follow the evidence" - and I love what you are doing Alex so please dont stop!

There is one thing that popped up in this couple of podcasts, which I have heard before - its the skeptical view that the data cant be significant because there is no theory - WHAT RUBBISH!! -

There was no "Theory of evolution" when Darwin started noticing similarities between species and minor adaptations

There was no "Theory of relativity" when people first realised they were having trouble pinning down the speed of light/speed of the earths movement through the ether.

You dont need a theory to record and register significant scientific data - you only need a theory when you start to try to explain it

There were a few other things which stuck out (for example, I wondered how monte carlo analysis would help Dr Nelson as a reference - or even a useful tool- , since that itself is based on random numbers and presumably would suffer the same non-randomness that his global consciousness equipment does)- hey I am rambling -

Keep searching and "following the data"