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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.
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
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 ?
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
"Precog" is what most of your forebrain is doing most of the time, modeling, predicting, mostly guessing. Those of our ancestors who were best able to use their powers of prediction to successfully reproduce have been "genetically selected" against those who weren't as good.
If there were a mechanism that truly allowed us to know, or guess with better than statistical odds, the outcome of events in the distant (2 seconds or more) future, that would be an awesome advantage which should rapidly spread through any gene pool, unless the established social order burned them as witches or some-such all too believable tragedy.
Maybe, like life itself, precog is just a very very rare alignment of complex chemical or maybe quantum phenomena... given the billions of years of evolution that have passed without it becoming prominent on Earth, I think the odds of it emerging during my lifetime are.... remote.