Slashdot Mirror
Psychic Ability Claim Doesn't Hold Up In New Scientific Experiments
cold fjord writes with some stunning news from the world of science, excerpting:
"A new study has failed to find evidence that psychic ability is real. Skeptics may scoff at the finding as obvious, but the research is important because it refutes a study published in a psychological journal last year that claimed to find evidence of extrasensory perception. That research, conducted by Daryl Bem of Cornell University, triggered outrage in the psychological community when the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology announced in 2010 that the paper had been accepted for publication." Here's a link to the academic paper.
I see a flurry of dumb comments being posted on /..
I have foreseen that outcome....
Lets just see if this stops the DHS from establishing a pre-crime department.
cain and abel. I take relativity on faith.
If ESP is ever proven real, the ones that will be most interested are the physicists.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
A new study has failed to find evidence that psychic ability is real. Skeptics may scoff at the finding as obvious
No, sceptics may consider the finding plausible but will question whether the evidence supports it.
The peer review was not a double-blind study. ...
Ergo: No scientific evidence, any finite conclusion is worthless.
You fail. Thank you very much.
End of discussion.
Then again, as far as I can read out of the article, the initial experiment wasn't a double blind test either.
However, the experiments setup looks interesting and - in a fully controlled environment - could statistically prove the existence of clairvoyance.
Bottom line:
We're just as smart as before.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
A supposed scientific paper, which is claimed to prove a negative.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
That research, conducted by Daryl Bem of Cornell University, triggered outrage in the psychological community when the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology announced in 2010 that the paper had been accepted for publication."
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford
I bet psychics did not see that coming :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
That's ridiculous and you know it -- you employ psychics.
"retroactive facilitation of recall’, which examines whether performance on a memory test can be influenced by a post-test exercise."
All they are testing is pre-cognition, aka time travel of the mind, and really the least likely psychic power to exist. The ability to do this would pretty much break science.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
A "negative" finding, as you put it, is really just failure to find a positive outcome. In other words, they were not able to replicate the original study even though apparently using the same methods. This doesn't prove that psychic phenomena does not exist. But it is a data point that suggests that there are no good scientific reasons to believe in psychic phenomena.
The real interesting bit of the article is this:
That's the real controversy here. Many journals are biased against articles that describe attempts to replicate previously published results, even if the outcome is negative. This is a disincentive for scientists to engage in much of what would be very useful research.
they dont know my wife.
list Jedi as their religion on the census, and enroll in Jedi academy hoping to learn the way of the Force.... and yet when anything about psychics is mentioned, they turn all skeptic and quote James Randi chapter and verse about how psychic powers don't exist, there's no such thing as spirits, ghosts, gods, reincarnation or afterlife?
This is the really interesting (and shocking) bit of the story. One has to wonder how much real understanding of the scientific method the editors of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology really have. If they don't understand the value of independent replication - then what are they publishing ? Interesting anecdotes ?
I don't see what the hoopla is... Science never holds up in psychic experiments either.
Bem also suggested that because Ritchie, Wiseman and French are skeptical of psychic abilities, they might have unwittingly influenced their participants not to display any clairvoyance. (The computer-based design of the study, however, is supposed to help prevent researchers from biasing their participants.)
"This does not mean that psi[psychic phenomena] results are unverifiable by independent investigators, but that we must begin regarding the experimenter as a variable in the experiments that should be included in the research designs," Bem wrote.
He shouldn't be surprised if it turns out he got positive results because this applies to him too.
What is commonly called ESP has been under study by human beings for well over a century. Many claims have been made, many fads and frauds have come and gone. The anecdotal evidence of such exceptional human functioning is staggering and reaches into every human culture from the present into antiquity. Spanning the gulf of human activity from sport to religion and from philosophy to science. I have always found it odd that despite the fact that even the most current thought on consciousness can not explain its origin and function; we continue to view the core of our very being as something deterministic. This seems to be a common theme in the biological and psychological sciences. I see no need for a leap of faith. I'm an atheist. However I do think that it is time for the biological and psychological sciences to catch up with physics. Science also suffers from as much dogmatic attitudes as does religion. There have been many important studies by a variety of scientists with different approaches over the years that indicate that there is a deeper understanding to be had of our own nature. I think its time to stop picking teams and strong view points and to instead approach the understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe with open minds. Just a thought...
"Psychic Network Goes Out of Business Due to Unforeseen Financial Difficulties"
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Lets see....urin and ink under high pressure is the punisment for writing piss in gods mind,
foul smelling black eyed witches!
Apparently using quantum entangelment, and manipulating individual atoms,
and some sort of of........subconcious version of a hexidecimal editor!
What starts out as editing of rts savegames... transfers to other areas
Qupid,Qubits and Armor online
New Orleans,Haiti, Fuk us him a, notoriious Tetrado Toxin using areas(Vodoo)
Christchurch New Zealand(zombie movies) profiting from tetrado / living dead.
Its a mistake trying to somhow integrate the torture religion Vodoo into Christianity!
Sane Peter(Holy Peter, it says so on the paycheck, if you read between the lines!)
and in the newsgroups........say it aint Peter!
Damn. Thanks for ruining my day.
they dont know my wife
O.O
The past 100 years hasn't produced any repeatable high quality studies showing any psi effects exist.
If psi was a drug, the results are so terrible there is no way it would ever be considered for use.
But they will continue to go around in circles data mining to find anomalies to study then abandoning that modality once it cant be replicated.
If psi was real, the mechanism would be truely astounding. Physists would really have their work cut out for themselves. Strange they have never seen anything that could possibly support any psi phenomenons :p
Go in and tell them you have no money. Ask them for the winning lottery number, and tell them you will be back the next day to pay them.
Am I the only one thinking Peter Venkman testing the effects of negative reinforcement on ESP ability?
Placing value on scientific finding is like placing value on the prediction of your dung coloration per-processed. Just because they cant scientifically prove there is no such phenomenon, doesn't mean there is none, it just means that man isn't bright enough to create an experiment that can.
Compare this to something like climate science where both the data and the models are private.
Your data to support this argument? There's tons and tons of data and source code you can download...who doesn't share?
that's nonsense and they know it, while under the influence of LSD I was telepathic, I could from reality by thinking about objects and yes "reality" would change, physically. Not hallucination. They use the word hallucination to cover up the power of the mind. ESP, telepathy, are all possible in humans, you just have to have an augmented mind to be able to realize that fact. The scientists measuring this can't grasp it because they are too book minded, what they teach in school.
"Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?"
I'm not saying I believe in psychics, but:
There are so many facets to supposed psychic powers that you can't simply ask them to predict the next card out of a deck or what the next dice roll will be to disprove them.
Most supposed pre-cogs claim to only get mere glimpses of the future, not 20/20 vision of it.
Compare this to something like climate science where both the data and the models are private. Kind of scary when a pseudo-science is practicing better science that "real" science.
I generally agree, but bear in mind that this is strongly dependent on agency supporting the research. NASA, for example, requires the publication of both methods and data. Hence if you want to replicate GISS, you can, or you can write your own alternative from the same data. HADCRUT, OTOH, has notoriously failed to provide full access to its source data and methodology. GISS is NASA, HADCRUT is whatever the hell supports climate research over in England. Different rules.
As I noted above, there is a lot of top-level pressure being exerted to change this (I've participated very briefly in some of the discussions) not just in climate science but in e.g. medical research where the costs of junk science and non-reproducible results or overt fraud are lost lives and billions of dollars. The problem is the journals -- they are not publicly funded, and have their own rules about publishing stuff on the side of the actual articles, plus the eternal paywall problem (where we the people pay for the research, but somehow have to pay again on an individual basis in order to read the publication of the results). The solutions to this sort of problem are all at least as bad as the problem itself -- I mean we don't really want the government in charge of the journals, do we? And yet neither is it reasonable for us to pay twice for the work they publish. And nobody has a good funding model that keeps the journals running independently without having individuals or institutions pay, even if a lot of what they use to pay with is (in the end) government grant money plus overhead galore. It's not a simple problem, although I think that we could solve it a lot of different ways if we really tried.
So yes, climate policies e.g. the "Carbon Tax" are enormously expensive, catastrophically expensive -- we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars a year, even more if they were fully implemented on a global basis -- so expensive that it actually becomes difficult to see how any plausible climate catastrophe hypothesized and projected to occur in 80 or 90 years could possibly compare to the catastrophic costs of the measures being taken to avoid it. The science projecting "catastrophe" is far from "settled" or universally accepted, in part because it is difficult -- the Earth's climate system is described by the coupled Navier-Stokes equation from hell, and is where Chaos theory was discovered -- and yet we find ourselves paying far more in the state of California alone to cut down on CO_2 emissions than it would cost to completely rebuild after a dozen catastrophic hurricanes. Common sense is lost in the circus of Chicken Little, with its "overheated" rhetoric. But this is just one manifestation of a far more general problem with the current science funding model, the constraints of the ivory tower (University system) and the journals.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
You do realize Non-locality of Mind has already been proven, right?
See the documentary "The Quantum Activist". It features Dr. Amit Goswami, Ph.D, retired, Professor of physics at the University of Oregon's Institute of Theoretical Science for 30 years, so its not like it features some unknown nut-job.
Well worth watching.
Of course anybody with a hint of scientific curiosity, as I define as a genuine adherence to the search of knowledge through science/the scientific method, should conclude that this would only further SUPPORT the idea that no such thing exists [as opposed to adhering to the idea that it PROVES it outright exists, or doesn't exist], given how we don't know what methodology and technology will come out in the future, and what they will show about the human brain, or other areas of scientific study - look at our study of our universe, and how what we thought was proven before was contradicted in many areas.
tl:dr: Remember the difference between outright proving, and providing strong support for and idea
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
All the real psychics never admit to being psychic. They win in vegas or the lottery or the stock market and keep their mouths shut.
Because they can also see being cut up into little slices and studied by someone if the world ever really gets proof they are psychic.
This guy apparently stars in "science" videos for nut job cults:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Goswami
So he supports and probably is some nut job.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
What the hell is a 'retired' PhD? Did he have to give his sheepskin back? It's not like the military where you resign your commission.
And, looking at his Wikipedia page, I'd have to agree with you that he's not 'some unknown nut-job'. He appears to be a well known nutjob.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They were in front of a computer. Are you worried that the computer knew which words were control or not?
I'm not saying it's true or that I believe, but given that roughly 75% of the universe is composed of stuff we can't measure - dark matter and dark energy - I'll still give it a bit of room for consideration. There's so much we don't know.
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
I don't think ESP is real either, but the journal editors had first class reasons to reject the replication-failure paper. The sample size of each replication was 50. They tried 3 times, for a total of 150. It is very hard to prove a null hypothesis--this is not the same as failing to support a research hypothesis. Roughly, the quality of support for a research hypothesis is measured in terms of Type I error, which is assessed by p levels (e.g., p LT .05). The quality of support for a null hypothesis (and not everyone agrees that this is possible in principle) is measured in terms of Type II error, or the power of a statistical test. The power of a test depends on the sample size, the expected effect size, and which statistic (e.g., r, t) is in use.
A replication test of the original ESP paper must have substantial power because the expected effect size is, well, zero. To find a tiny effect size, which would be the fair design, requires more than N=50. Doing the same underpowered study three times doesn't help very much, but even N=150 wouldn't be decisive.
The journal in question is one of the most prominent in psychology. Whether they publish replications or not (and they do--replications aren't done for their own sake, they are implicit in follow-up studies), they certainly shouldn't publish bad ones.
In my mind's eye I see you writing a run-on sentence in the very near future.
That will be five dollars.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Dammit Amit! You're full of shit! Still, well done on the PHD though. Very impressive!
Non-locality of Mind
Ah, is that the meaning of the phrase "He's not quite all 'there'" -points to head with a twirly finger- ?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You *do* realize that an abstract proof doesn't prove a damned thing in real life?
From his site:
"This film bridges the gap between God and Science."
Pretty much have to first prove the existence of God, don't you think?
How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together http://www.paradigm-sys.com/ ..."
"Charles T. Tart is internationally known for his more than 50 years of research on the nature of consciousness, altered states of consciousness (ASCs) and parapsychology, and is one of the founders of the field of Transpersonal (spiritual) Psychology. His and other scientists' work convinced him that there is a real and vitally important sense in which we are spiritual beings, but the too dominant, scientistic, materialist philosophy of our times, masquerading as genuine science, dogmatically denies any possible reality to the spiritual.
And see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Jahn
See also, on group think (could apply either way):
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers.html
http://disciplined-minds.com/
And on LENR / Cold Fusion as another example:
http://nickelpower.org/2011/12/30/replicators-as-if-december-30-2011/#more-227
And:
"From www.lenrforum.eu / How is it possible so many scientist be wrong ignoring LENR"
http://184.171.250.170/~lenrforu/lenrforum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40#p48
Also:
http://medicine-science.com/as-cold-fusion-events-demonstrate-modern-science-is-ruled-by-conformity-not-the-search-for-scientific-truth/
And my:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
It's one thing to say you don't have good evidence about something; it is another to generalize from that lack of evidence that something does not exists or can never exist. A really good scientist knows the difference and so can acknowledge the limits of the scientific method as a way of appreciating the universe.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I believe in ESP. Don't freak but I think what people call ESP is not magical. ESP is more like a hyperactive portion of the brain that lets you see patterns the someone else doesn't. Its not about being smarter or telepathic, its an unconscious ability to just recognize things that have happened and what will more likely happen in the near future. For all I know it could happen like a seizure.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Posting this comment before I did it.
Great link on skeptics who won't ever question the "mainstream", thanks: http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Page30.htm#RealSkeptics
To amplify it:
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Contents.htm
And see also my: http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
And check out Charles Tart writings about the limits of "scientistic" and materialistic thinking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Tart
http://www.paradigm-sys.com/
He has a new book out: "The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together"
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"I see dead paper".
Not if you are a sun worshipper
I read the review up to "primacy of consciousness." Then I realized it was yet another person confusing philosophy with hard science and I wouldn't have to read further.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
That a single study showing positive results for ESP was flawed in some way, is a natural starting position.
Ah, but Bem's 2011 paper was not flawed at all. He successfully and convincingly demonstrated his lack of understanding of statistical techniques and his ineptitude in application of said techniques. He also illustrated the failings of the peer review process in minor fields. His incompetent attempt at "validation" of ESP was the most persuasive evidence of all, in fact.
This overwhelming ignorance of statistics is prevalent throughout the social "sciences" and is almost as widespread in medical fields. Bem is not the first to misunderstand and misuse t-tests or to fail to distinguish exploratory and confirmatory analysis. Those in fundamentally innumerate fields should not play with numbers (especially using packaged statistical software) except under supervision of a qualified adult. They are emphatically not qualified to certify themselves as competent in statistics or any other area outside their specialization.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I have had whohasesp.com up for maybe 8 years now. It uses the standard five cards. The punch line is that the visitors have made under 20% over the years, about 19.90% consistently. It's likely a bias in the random number generator, but still funny.
Do you have ESP?
How was this not a double blind study? The words displayed twice were chosen at random by a computer. Do you know what double blind means?
i could have predicted that result. O wait...
I will tell you the BIGGEST replication of the BEM experiment which UTTERLY FAILED to find positive result : CASINO. Let me repeat that again : Casino. If Bem experiment represented a real phenomena and people could "remember" the future, then the roulette game would have people winning above statistic and the casino guy rising eyebrow. The fact that this does not happen and casino would long have rised a ruccus to know why specific people win more than statistic would be known. But it is not the case.
Bottom line is Bem experiment is only an anomalous result. Without replication it is JUST a mathematical statistical anomaly. Nothing more. You would need positive well done replication to start rising an eyebrow. And the fact that the house still wins, within statstical expected value.
ESP would break a lot of pground principle, laws, and theories, from conservation of energy, transmission of information, causality. The fact alone that people studying those stuff never detected anything as such, lead me to positively state : it is almost certain to a small o in the infinitesimal that ESP power are only in the imagination of people and in the touting of scam artist. We could have missed that, but by now the last 100 years or so studying that, the last 50 years or so more carefully applying the science method on it, brought NADA, unreplicable result, result which disappear with effect size. Bem is only the latest fad. And i will rightfully name it a fad : most ESP research goes with the taste of the decade. Look it up if you think I am joking. Instead of replicating and tying to deepen or explain, researcher move onto the next fad. There has never ever been any advancement in ESP research. EVER. . They are like the homeopathy scam at the same state they were : late 19th century trying to show that something exists, against all odd and principle we know, and failing miserably.
ESP is only a dream. Or scam. But nothing real. To a very small o. You might as well search for a etapot around jupiter or staturn orbit, or a dragon in my garage.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm not sure what you mean by a "finite" conclusion, but if you think that only double-blind studies count as scientific evidence, then I suppose you don't think astronomy or particle physics or paleontology are scientific fields?
A double-blind study, when possible, is a great way -- perhaps the best way -- to investigate certain questions. That does not make it the only form of scientific evidence.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
He's in fact a well-known ignorant but arrogant person who's widely considered a nutjob.
He knows nothing about the subject, but believes that his title gives him absolute knowledge about everything.
It's a fairly common mad scientist routine, actually.
This is a google talk by a para-psychologist who is knowledgeable about statistics and actually practices scientific rigor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew
is full of naysayers who lost sight of the true goal of science - to observe, to be open-minded, and honest.
Science should never be wielded like dogma, leave that to religion.
For example:
http://web.mit.edu/randy/www/words.html
Most of these "experts" should have known better, and not gotten cocky with their current state of known science. At no point will we ever know it all. At no point can we say, we know this currently understood law of physics is 100% irrefutable. (Although it' may be 99.9% irrefutable, jus' sayin')
It just may be -however unlikely- that psychic phenomenon is real, but **extremely** rare and not really reproducible -something that can be tapped into on demand- and it's more even probable that most to all psychics are frauds, or at the very least, people who may have experienced some level of ESP once or twice but who greatly overstate their ability as something they can use when they want to, as though it were a reliable tool, a superpower even. Hah.
Of course, on the other hand... it's not good to be so open minded that yer brain falls out. Maybe it's all coincidence.
Either way, bias will always taint this subject, from one end of the argument or the other, but I predict the argument will go on for the foreseeable future.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Wanted to hire... Psychics.
Great pay.
Excellent benefits. Medical, dental, vision.
Call by phone only. You know the number to call.
You do realize Non-locality of Mind has already been proven, right?
No, it hasn't, despite what one or a few physicists might be saying.
First of all, some interpretations of Quantum Mechanics don't even accept non-locality (e.g., many-worlds).
Second, and more importantly, most interpretations don't attribute any special role to the mind. The "mind" doesn't even appear in the description of the most accepted interpretations, from Copenhagen to many-worlds to Bohm's to consistent histories.
I'm just wondering if there's anyone else who frequents Slashdot who commits the heresy of disbelief in Scientism.
Science seem to be 50% wrong when it comes to something you can't really check (double personality turns out to be wrong, (man made)global warming is wrong, this psychic ability test could be wrong. Simply say there is no way to prove or disprove these things.
You win snappy come-back of the week, and it's lunchtime on Sunday for me. The rest of the world will struggle to top that.
Ever read "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"?
I only half believe in psychology, never mind the psychic bullshit. I mean psychology is really just one step away from freudian psychiatry nonsense. The whole area is hampered in becoming a genuine manture science by the fact you cant treat human beings like lab rats without getting into major ethical (and legal) issues. So although there is undeniably 'something to it' it is a far from being a genuine mature science. In my opinion it is a bit like where western medicine was a few hundred years ago.
If life had scoreboards, the only places I'd be near the top are weight, height, and cynicism.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Clueless. A skeptic wouldn't derive any of the nonsense you mention from this.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
A person deluded by a cognitive bias sharing an experience does not equal flamebait. The post is interesting even if only as an example of why people believe in such things.
2) You cannot prove that which is spiritual by science.
3) It is futile to argue the point; the only evidence you will find is evidence that there are two people at odds with each other over such a silly disagreement.
Now go get a cup of tea and relax, don't worry about this. Those of us who believe will, those of us who don't believe won't.
This sig no verb.
Princeton University has pretty much proven the power of the mind with thousands of experiments.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/experiments.html
e.g. Michael Persinger on No More Secrets - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l6VPpDublg
...they would give such a huge survival advantage to any predator or prey that developed them, that we wouldn't need to discuss the matter - we'd see them everywhere. We don't - so they don't. No further discussion required.
[And] seriously (speaking of probabilities) what are the odds that a psychologist who takes the hypothesis of precognition seriously knows either statistics or how to design double-blind experiments properly?
I am not a psychology major, but when I went to Georgia Tech a decade ago, it was part of the curriculum requirements for a psych major back then, and it still is today. Statistics is a required course for any scientific discipline at any college worth its accreditation. You can't do science if you don't know how to design an experiment or properly analyze the results. Not only is that true of all social sciences, but psychology in particular has been very closely tied into neruobiology, neurochemistry, and computer science in the past few decades and is very much on the border of "hard" science these days.
But don't let a little fact get in the way of a good prejudice against the "soft" sciences.
It's good to keep testing and experimenting in this area. It gives a fair shake of sorts to the psychic community, while continuously disproving their claims (almost wrote that as clams). Lolloplex. Yea, I'm a skeptic and don't believe it. Even as a Pagan, who'd read tarot cards, performed in circles and claimed to have a serious affinity relationship to Loki, I'd see through the bullshite when everyone in my coven would start flipping out, thinking a former member-turned enemy was putting curses on them. I got a call once: "ARE YOU FEELING ANYTHING NEGATIVE?? WE THINK WE'RE BEING PSYCHICALLY-ATTACKED BY BLAZEEBLAH!"
"Er... no?" All I could think was, "Maybe, I dunno--you're overreacting?" I guess I've always felt this way, even if I had spiritual beliefs.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
No such things as psychisc's. They are either deluded or dishonest.I am quoting the Mentaliist here
In the study of things like ESP and homeopathic remedies, a double blind experiment is essential because it is the method that controls for confirmation bias, the bete noire of this sort of research from the earliest days of e.g. the Rhine Institute and beyond. I am an expert in testing random number generators, and hence can convey an anecdote that illustrates how confirmation bias can corrupt the results even of people that are rather good at statistics. In the early days of random number testing, various people and groups published lists of "certified random numbers". These were numbers that were generated by one means or another and that had passed some modest array of tests for randomness. They'd be in compilations of tables e.g. Abramositz and Stegun or the CRC Handbook, or you could buy specialized tables. People would use them in simple Monte Carlo and so on, in the days before ubiquitous computers and software random number generators.
The problem is this -- by rejecting, one presumes, lists of random numbers that failed their tests, they ensured that whatever else the certified list might be, it was not random. It was not random even if the method used to generate it was a truly random process! If one applied a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to the aggregate p-values of a large number of "certified" lists and tests, that KS test would inevitably fail because by means of the accept-reject process they cut off the wings that any truly random process must have to be random. The lists were, on average, too uniform.
Even a tyro at randomness can actually understand this from a very simple example involving a single digit, but one that scales perfectly to as many digits in as many numbers as you like. I present you with a single digit of a single number, "7". Is it random?
No test applied to the number itself can tell you if it is or if it isn't. If I give you a list of digits such as 2-6-5-3-5-8-9-7-9-3-2-3-6-4 you can't tell either. Perhaps they are random. Perhaps they are a few of the digits output from an algorithm computing \pi, hardly a "random" number, although irrational. Perhaps the digits of \pi would pass any test for randomness, perhaps not. There is a finite, usually rather simply calculated, probability that a truly random generator will generate any digit string you like.
So how do we tell if the "7" above is random? The answer is so simple it is almost self-evident (after the fact). If it was generated by a truly random process, then it is a truly random number. It isn't the number itself, it is how we get it that makes it random, or not random. We can apply tests to random number generators (software or e.g. quantum hardware), determine good ones (that pass the most rigorous tests consistently) and then just take what they give us as random numbers even if a particular subsequence they output is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 and doesn't "look" random at all to our pattern-greedy minds. If the 7 above resulted from me rolling a perfectly unbiased 10-sided die that turned up 7, it is a random number. If, on the other hand, I just made it up for illustrative purposes, it is not.
The point is that there are patterns even in pure noise. Even statisticians devoted to the study of noise historically have made horrible errors by e.g. rejecting noise with patterns as being "not random enough" in spite of the fact that it was generated by a good, reasonably random source of noise. Humans are greedy the other way, and tend to observe the patterns in noise and grasp at it as non-randomness, as the basis for the inference of some underlying order. It is only by comparing the patterns observed in some experiment to the patterns observed in some control that should be pure noise that we can differentiate what is (probably) truly a signal, real patterns that justify some sort of inference, and false patterns, the sort that turn up in any sufficiently lon
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
"[I wrote: The placebo effect is real, it is actually getting stronger, and MDs regularly use it. So how can you say homeopathy, even if it were to be nothing more than the placebo effect, does not work?] ..."
Hence the importance of the double blind experiment in medicine, which can control for the placebo effect.
You totally miss my point. It is like I say, here is a design for an airplane made out of cheap easily available materials that can many people can use to fly across country (the placebo effect does heal some people, as you admit). And you say in reply, no, you can't use that airplane design because it is not made out of the right materials sold by official people in white coats who can patent it and make money off it and where it works a little more often (ignoring how many people have no access to that other form of medicine, or how that form of medicine may also introduce its own iatrogenic problems).
Consider the history of US medicine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
"One of the consequences of Flexner's advocacy of university-based medical education was that medical education became much more expensive, putting such education out of reach of all but upper-class white males. The small "proprietary" schools Flexner condemned, which were contended to be have been based in generations-old folk traditions rather than relatively recent western science, did admit African-Americans, women, and students of limited financial means. These students usually could not afford six to eight years of university education, and were often simply denied admission to medical schools affiliated with universities. While many such doctors continued to practice, they did so under proscribed circumstances and for less pay. It also made it more difficult for people of color, residents of rural areas, and for those of limited means generally to obtain medical care in any form."
And these college educated rich white men used to recommend cigarettes and infant formula and all kinds of other stuff... And then persecute those who suggested otherwise, like Herbert Shelton.
Right now, US dermatologists have caused one of the greatest health disasters in US history by decades of telling people to avoid the sun without telling them how to get the right amount of supplemental vitamin D, causing untold cancers, heart attacks, autism, and probably much worse. They could cite studies, but they missed the big picture.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/news-archive/2006/professor-barbara-gilchrest/
"If you understood the nature of the double blind experiment, the statistically suspect nature of marginal or anecdotal results, and the need for plausible hypotheses to fit somehow into the framework of what we already know or be supported not by even ordinary evidence, but rather extraordinary, incontrovertible, reproducible evidence that has passed the most rigorous of public scientific skeptical scrutiny, you wouldn't be so quick to grasp at the straws of implausible, almost certainly incorrect ideas."
If you research the topic, you'd see that very few medicines are much better that placebos (a few like antibiotics or phage therapy are big exceptions). Even treatments that show a statistical difference often in absolute terms may help very little more than a placebo (think of anti-cancer drugs that extend life a couple months on average). This is especially true in the entire field of psychiatry. A 1% difference in outcomes for a treatment over a placebo can be statistically significant with a large population size and so enough to get a drug approved as better than a placebo (especially if you throw out the disconfirming studies), but it may still be not worth the trouble (or side effects).
"That you are so eager to do so says more about you and your penchant for wishful thinking and confirmation bias than it does abo
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"MDs have extensive training on the importance of nutrition, lifestyle,"
Citation needed. How many hours out of their medical training does the average MD have in these topics? Factoid for you to start with if you want to talk BS:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/83/4/941S.full
"A total of 106 surveys were returned for a response rate of 84%. Ninety-nine of the 106 schools responding required some form of nutrition education; however, only 32 schools (30%) required a separate nutrition course. On average, students received 23.9 contact hours of nutrition instruction during medical school (range: 2-70 h). Only 40 schools required the minimum 25 h recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. Most instructors (88%) expressed the need for additional nutrition instruction at their institutions. "
That's 25 hours out of how many thousands?
Anyway, I could go point by point though the rest of this, but I won't. :-)
But a few comments anyway.
First off, the lung cancer may be more from vegetable deficiency disease and iodine deficiency disease and vitamin D deficiency disease and other messed up social processes leading to distress than from smoking. I'm not saying smoking is good for you generally, of course, but consider:
"Why I Recommend to NOT Stop Smoking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9DZBzKppHQ
Ask your wife, outside of an initial patient intake interview, how many minutes can her practice let her spend actually with a patient per visit? I doubt the average is higher than ten minutes. How can that result in good outcomes? It's like schools. No matter how well the staff means, the overall institutional dynamics prevents really good stuff from happening for most people most of the time.
Contrast with:
http://www.patchadams.org/
"The Gesundheit! Institute is a project in holistic medical care based on the belief that one cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the family, the community, the world, and the health care system itself."
Or read the last chapter of:
"Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future" by M.D. Andrew Weil
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Our-Health-Matters-Transform/dp/B004KAB3U2
I'd just suggest you, your doctor, and your wife read "Eat To Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD and you'll see why sending a patient to the hospital for heart disease may someday be considered malpractice. :-)
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart disease to begin with, and if they get it, aggressive nutrition is the most life-saving intervention. And it is free."
Here are a collection of links I put together about wellness:
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823
See especially this on losing weight:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
I feel 20% of what most MDs do is miraculous (e.g. burn care, reattaching severed limbs, therapies for genetic defects, etc.), even if much of the other 80% is probably misguided (the part mostly about treating the symptoms of malnutrition, and where a good alternative practitioner probably does better). The problem is being able to learn which is which... So, this is not to disagree with that aspect of your point about homeopaths.
By the way, strep throat may be a sign of vitamin D deficiency and other nutritional deficie
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I was quite skeptical but you were totally right about the NASA data and programs being available. They are a bit of a mess but they are there. I stand corrected I shouldn't have used climate science as an example as that just got the political factions out warring. My point was really just that I was happy to see that although the original topic is likely psuedo-science it was published in such a way as to be reproducible (the study, not necessarily the result) and you don't see that in a lot of things labeled real science.