Fight: "To contend with or struggle against: fight cancer; fight temptation."
If I fight cancer, am I a religious crusader? I do actually fight cancer. That's what I do for a living.
And I'm an atheist, you dink.
Back to our argument, you seem to think that only modus ponens is viable. Well, modus tollens is just as viable.
If P, then Q. Q is false. Therefore, P is false.
If I am unable to show that "Q is false," then we are one step closer to agreeing that P might be true. This is science, at its heart. If thousands of scientists over hundreds of years are not able to show that "Q is false," no matter how many statements "If P, then Q" we come up with, which fit the theory of P, then P is a good theory.
If you disagree with these assertions then explain yourself, or walk away like a coward.
If you agree with my assertions then please appologize for being critical of my understanding of science, or explain to me how it is that I have poorly communicated my beliefs - and I will appologize to you.
Calling me a "religious crusader" apparently because I chose the word "fight" is pretty dumb. It's not a "waste of energy" to test your theory that I'm a religious crusader. Assuming I am one because you don't know any better is just laziness.
The scientific approach is to recieve a theory, and then test to see whether it is TRUE or not, not to try and DISPROVE it, or more accurately in this case, 'Debunk' it.
You test if something is true by doing everything you can to disprove it and failing. This is how the scientific method works. The act of "testing" a theory is an attempt to disprove the theory. Testing gravity is the same thing as attempting to disprove the effects of gravity - and failing.
A hypothesis must be disprovable, for it to be an interesting theory. If you can't even imagine a way in which you could disprove it, then it's nothing.
You can't disprove my theory that a blue monkey magically controls all of your thoughts. It's not an interesting theory. That doesn't mean it's not factually true - but that means that science pretty much can't say anything about it.
The whole reason people reproduce tests, is they are attempting to disprove the assertion that the original experiment is repeatable. If the experiment is not repeatable, it's not a good experiment.
Look up "contrapositive," some time.
Nothing of any use came out of debunking a theory.
I think Christopher Colombus might disagree with you. I mean, do you seriously not understand that the way science proceedes is that bad theories are replaced by better ones? The bad theories get debunked. Newtonian physics do not apply in all cases. Measuring the actual time of orbit for the planet Mercury debunks the theory of gravity, as explained by Newton and Keppler.
the so called 'skeptics'
Science is skepticism. Science is doubt. Science is a careful and measured evaluation of facts. Science is the rejection of theories which do not fit the available facts. Science is doubting the theory, and always favoring the facts. (It's also coming up with the theory - but when the theory and the facts collide, the theory loses.)
These people have no demonstrated to my satisfaction the things they claim are fact. On top of that, I believe that their theory is not disprovable.
"I cant wait to read about it in a journal I trust."
Here's my prediction: I will never read about it in a journal I trust.
I am allowed to make predictions, am I not?
Great. Now all that I'm doing is responding to everyone who's falling for the bad science. Giving up on peer review (remember, these guys claim there are 20 years of research behind their work!) is the first sign of a charlatan in scientist's clothing.
And that is where you want to be.
I may not be the most effective advocate of rationality, but I will make every attempt I can to fight irrationality.
It's fun to chase an exciting theory - but the meatheads here on Slashdot are buying this stuff hook line and sinker, before it's gone through peer review. That's irrational.
And before you get all pissy at me - yes, I accept the peer review of respected scientific journals as being a surrogate for me seeing it with my own eyes. I might not have complete faith in peer reviewed journals, but that's one hell of a lot better than believing in 20 years of experiments that have never been validated and putting a lot of stock into an un-disprovable therory.
Wow. Thanks. I'm the guy you're quoting - and you didn't have the decency to respond to me.
I will not believe it, until I can see it. Experiment with it. Test it. Do everything I can to disprove it.
What exactly is wrong with my scientific approach?
Should I believe it before it has been peer reviewed? Before I can experiment with it? Before I can test it? Before I have done everything I can to disprove it?
How is your way the thinking way? What cloak are you wearing?
You are opposed to rational thought if you think it unreasonable to insist that an idea survive critical analysis.
Sorry - I just realized how dumb I was to respond to this point the way I did...
You're calling things ludicrous while people are still in the process of framing the tests.
No, I'm saying it's ludicrous to believe in things (especially this stuff), while people are still in the process of framing the tests.
Plus, they're not framing (presenting) the tests in a peer-reviewed way. Plus, their 20 years of prior work all suffer from the same problems. Plus, this new stuff is not disprovable.
You're calling things ludicrous while people are still in the process of framing the tests.
Did you read their web pages? They claim the guy off the street stuff (influencing the RNG with his mind) has been "well known" for 20 years. Twenty years! They're not still framing the tests - they are off the deep end. They named their group after the theory which is not disprovable, and which you yourself say you think "they're stretching it a little" to make.
I am only so rabid (and you're right to criticize me for that), because of the loving adoration which the Slashdot crowd is pouring on them. I'm criticizing them for that.
We're idiots. Honest to god, trust me on this - we know two things: jack and squat.
No more are you able to verify their results than I am able to disprove them.
But when an online news magazine has the inside scoop on an undisprovable theory which radically changes our view of the universe, I cry "bullshit."
The popular belief here is that the human mind cannot affect anything in the physical universe outside of the direct influence of the body to which it is attached. You have obviously 'bought' into this belief and refuse to test it against recorded observations.
I am not going to trust these knuckleheads to test it. Put a little bit of peer review in the mix, and I'll pay a bit more attention.
And honestly, you're not going to go out and build one of these things and run the maths against it either - so don't play high and mighty, bub.
Attacking the data because you don't like it is irrational.
Believing in the data (let alone the theories) because you "like the idea that they may be onto something" is just as irrational. And actually, that's all I'm trying to get people to do - stop believing it. Test it, fine. Test it. But don't buy into it, because some group got published in a non-peer-reviewed rag.
Re-read the other responses here - people are falling over themselves to believe this stuff. That's what I'm attacking.
This presupposes that you are able to observe and test everything.
No, it says that I can only know for sure that which I am able to observe and test. If I can't observe it and test it, then I can't know for sure it's true. Why are you pretending that's hard? Doing anything else is irrational.
It also presupposes that you actually CAN disprove every false assertion.
No, it says that only disprovable theories are interesting. Do you really not understand the difference?
It also fails to take into account the quantum nature of the universe, where an assertion can be simultaneousl true AND false.
Until it is observed. Then the states collapse. And?
The difficulty here is that of framing the experiment to provide conclusive data.
Absolutely right, and brilliantly said. This theory is so bad that it can't be disproved.
Note, I'm not even talking about the data, which you believe in and I do not. I'm talking about the theory of how this data got there. The theory is so bad that it can't be disproved.
That doesn't mean it's for certain factually false, but that means that the way the theory is framed, and based on our current abilities, we are incapable of disproving the theory. Is it maybe something to mull over? You betcha! IF the data holds out.
But it won't. That's my bet, and I'm sticking to it.
OK, now take the opposite viewpoint.
In all of this, you want me to assume the blue monkey - that the 65 really are producing the same data, that they really are responding in concert dozens of times in a two-year period and doing so only when it coincides with major world events.
No. That's precisely what hasn't been shown to my satisfaction.
And then build on top of that their conjecture that it's global human consciousness affecting these devices backwards in t
RTF web site. They say that they discovered this "guy off the street" effect 20 years ago, and that nobody can disprove it or explain it. On top of those clay feet, they've built all of this.
Well, first - the AC who responded to your post was brilliant. You should read what they wrote again.
Second, this article is flamebait. Propping it up with "keep an open mind" is playing along with their silly game. Hell, everyone responding to this article is falling prey to the trolling effect. We should all just walk away and stop feeding the troll.
I did RTFA and I did read a large chunk of their FWWW. See the AC's post again for my opinion on their writing.
propose your own alternate theory
Okay. Bad science is being done. They're either outright faking their numbers, someone is secretly tweaking their numbers, or they're doing the standard bad science practice of throwing away the majority of the false positives that they don't like.
Oh, wait... you're not interested in being constructive, only in 'debunking' those things with which you irrationally disagree.
You are absolutely right. I am not interested in constructing ludicrous theories. I am only interesting in disproving things. After I've disproven everything false, what I am left with must be true. That is the heart of rationality, and the scientific mind.
As for me having 'bought it', I didn't express a position for or against their conclusions. Only suggested it's more scientific to keep an open mind and see what analyses of the data reveal.
The best thing all of us can do is to scream two words: "PEER REVIEW!" I suspect that very, very few of us are equipped to be able to properly debunk this.
Now, see, you went and got all pissy again when I said "debunk this," didn't you?
You can only trust something, when people who are properly equipped to debunk it can't debunk it. And that might even take years in some cases, because people haven't figured out yet how to disprove something. But I don't think that's going to be the case here.
Oh, and when I want to accomplish anything in life, I keep my mind open to ALL possibilities.
That is simply not true, and if you didn't learn with the blue monkey example, then I'll have to try again.
Look up cargo cult science.
When you try to accomplish balancing your checkbook, do you keep your mind open to the possibility that aliens are changing your memory of what you've spent?
When you are doing your taxes, do you keep your mind open to the possibility that you have multiple personality disorder and don't realize it, and that your other personalities might have jobs and incomes that you should report?
When you are dating a woman, do you consider the possibility that she's a man - and maybe that makes you gay, because you enjoy kissing him so much - and maybe that makes your whole life into a lie?
When you are driving down the road, do you consider the possibility that you live in a simulated universe, created to study you personally, because you are the last human alive - and all the other drivers, and all the other people in the world are simulations, just to perpetuate your belief that you live around other humans?
When you eat chinese food do you consider the possibility that between your mouth and your stomach, someone has installed a matter transporter to steal your sweet and sour chicken, and that's why you get hungry again in a half hour?
When you solve a rubik's cube, do you consider the possibility that the faces of the cube have remained fix, but that you've fundamentally twisted the entire rest of reality with your hands, slaughtering billions of intelligent life forms throughout the universe?
Of course not. These are all ridiculous. You don't give "more weight" to the more probable ones, you don't consider the bullshit ones at all. Maybe that's a mistake - but it's a hueristic that keeps you well and bloody alive.
You go with the more probable solutions, until it becomes apparent that they're not working.
Your memory is probably fine, you probably don't have multiple pe
KENT: Staring at static on TV for hours at a time. Listening to washing machines. Did you really think these stories wouldn't get out?
ELLIE: I was looking for patterns in the chaos!
The difference between fiction and reality is that reality measures up to scientific scrutiny by your peers. Until these guys make good with their findings in a way that their peers can repeat and measure, they'e just listening to washing machines.
You'd think the Slashdot crowd would be slightly more skeptical.
This whole thing reminds me of a study I vaguely remember reading about.
Take any event (lighting strikes?, etc) with a certain random distribution - Poisson distribution with a peak around 2.5 seconds - or something like that - and ask someone to control it with their minds. People end up believing that they're making it happen. Their mind is kind of tricked into believing in the bio-feedback of events with that distribution.
How do I know the events weren't being triggered by the folks? Because they were tape-recorded, and played back by the researchers. And yet, each person in the trial ended up with the impression that, yes! they really were impacting the device!
Can someone find a reference for this study? I'd love to be able to refer to it.
Third, the only thing that would make fortune telling legitimate would be if they had real predictive power. The cause of their real predictive power wouldn't increase or decrease that legitimacy at all. Not one iota. But fortune telling lacks predictive power, so it's illegitimate. (Compared to casual observation, or maybe a therapist.)
Assuming something is true definitely makes it seem more plausible. P(a | a) = 1.
If only we can figure out how to reverse the process - make a black box that causes people to pay attention to something. Think of the advertising money!
No - the heart of their claim is that some guy off the street can use ESP to affect the RNG - regardless of distance.
Until they prove that (peer-reviewed in a respected journal), this is all just psychic masturbation.
The difference between astronomy and astrology is that one has predictive power (the motions of the planets and other celestial boddies) and the other is printed under Garfield.
A true scientist would remain open the possibility until it is proven or disproven.
Yes, I'm really disappointed that Marie Curie didn't spend more time investigating the possibility that a blue monkey was painting the inside of her bowls with phosphorecent dye and shining a blacklight on them. Or the possibility of a red monkey doing the same. Or the possibility of a green monkey doing the same.
Until the existance of all of these monkeys can be disproven, how can we trust any of her results?
Oh wait. That's because in order to accomplish anything in life, you close your mind to the possibilities that are so utterly improbable that they are ridiculous.
That is, until someone stumbles across a repeatable experiment that shows the effect.
These guys have to play nice with the other kids and peer-review their supposed experiment of someone intending to change the results of an RNG, and succeeding, repeatably. Until then? This is just scrounging for money and interest, by presupposing blue monkeys with blacklights.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.
A few people are doing some junk science...
Or global human consciousness is affecting random number generators in a measurable way, before events actually occur.
You tell me.
The grand-parent is correct - chosing to believe in quakery has serious ramifications. I will doubt it, until it is plain to my face. Why do you believe it, before it has been shown to your face?
And actually the first hot air balloon was launched in 1783. And Johannes Kepler's Somnium was written in 1634.
It's good to dream. It's bad to wear the mantle of science and tell people that delusions are real. (epitome of bad: What the #$*! Do We Know!? (2004))
I'm embarrassed for Princeton, getting involved in this junk.
Okay, I'm sorry, but I think this is too good to not talk about.
In my Masters program, I took a course on the Psychology of Human / Computer Interaction. We talked a lot about human performance, and the topic of pressure (stress) came up.
She drew a graph showing that human performance actually goes up as stress increases, up to a certain point, and then performance drops again.
Then she drew on top of that the same graph for an expert in the field, and talked about how their performance goes even higher, and they can handle even more stress, until finally their performance drops off again.
Right after showing us this, she reminded us to get started early on our term papers.
I raised my hand with a smirk on my face and asked, "But, from what you've just shown us, shouldn't we wait until just before the paper is due, so our performance will be higher?"
She laughed and mumbled something (possibly a curse). =)
Correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't it equally valid to say that our entire galaxy is fleeing away from this star? From the point of view of a planet (yeah, right) orbiting this star, it would seem as though they were stationary, and the entire milky way was fleeing from them.
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide. We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go 'round every two hundred million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
No, you're right. I guess it was the flood of other people who posted roughly the same thing, and the fact that you exclaimed "Good god," and how it'd make you cry that got me off on the wrong foot. *shrug*
I actually hate Enterprise. =P I watched three maybe four episodes. The opening theme song alone is enough to stun a team of oxen.
I have about 20 minutes per compile cycle, and I waste it by defending the honor of geeks who lack the language skills to defend themselves. =)
But honestly, I'd be willing to pay about $5 per new episode of The Family Guy, and about $3 per new episode of Futurama. (And Eek! the Cat, and Cupid, and The West Wing, and...) And you seemed to be attacking the whole idea of for-pay entertainment. Sure, that's a valid argument. I really honestly think it is a valid argument. But you kind of fumbled the wording, and I'm in a pissy mood - so I picked a fight with you. Sorry, buddy. =)
Slashdot Mirror
Why? Will you defend irrationality?
Fight: "To contend with or struggle against: fight cancer; fight temptation."
If I fight cancer, am I a religious crusader? I do actually fight cancer. That's what I do for a living.
And I'm an atheist, you dink.
Back to our argument, you seem to think that only modus ponens is viable. Well, modus tollens is just as viable.
If P, then Q.
Q is false.
Therefore, P is false.
If I am unable to show that "Q is false," then we are one step closer to agreeing that P might be true. This is science, at its heart. If thousands of scientists over hundreds of years are not able to show that "Q is false," no matter how many statements "If P, then Q" we come up with, which fit the theory of P, then P is a good theory.
If you disagree with these assertions then explain yourself, or walk away like a coward.
If you agree with my assertions then please appologize for being critical of my understanding of science, or explain to me how it is that I have poorly communicated my beliefs - and I will appologize to you.
Calling me a "religious crusader" apparently because I chose the word "fight" is pretty dumb. It's not a "waste of energy" to test your theory that I'm a religious crusader. Assuming I am one because you don't know any better is just laziness.
The scientific approach is to recieve a theory, and then test to see whether it is TRUE or not, not to try and DISPROVE it, or more accurately in this case, 'Debunk' it.
You test if something is true by doing everything you can to disprove it and failing. This is how the scientific method works. The act of "testing" a theory is an attempt to disprove the theory. Testing gravity is the same thing as attempting to disprove the effects of gravity - and failing.
A hypothesis must be disprovable, for it to be an interesting theory. If you can't even imagine a way in which you could disprove it, then it's nothing.
You can't disprove my theory that a blue monkey magically controls all of your thoughts. It's not an interesting theory. That doesn't mean it's not factually true - but that means that science pretty much can't say anything about it.
The whole reason people reproduce tests, is they are attempting to disprove the assertion that the original experiment is repeatable. If the experiment is not repeatable, it's not a good experiment.
Look up "contrapositive," some time.
Nothing of any use came out of debunking a theory.
I think Christopher Colombus might disagree with you. I mean, do you seriously not understand that the way science proceedes is that bad theories are replaced by better ones? The bad theories get debunked. Newtonian physics do not apply in all cases. Measuring the actual time of orbit for the planet Mercury debunks the theory of gravity, as explained by Newton and Keppler.
the so called 'skeptics'
Science is skepticism. Science is doubt. Science is a careful and measured evaluation of facts. Science is the rejection of theories which do not fit the available facts. Science is doubting the theory, and always favoring the facts. (It's also coming up with the theory - but when the theory and the facts collide, the theory loses.)
These people have no demonstrated to my satisfaction the things they claim are fact. On top of that, I believe that their theory is not disprovable.
"I cant wait to read about it in a journal I trust."
Here's my prediction: I will never read about it in a journal I trust.
I am allowed to make predictions, am I not?
Great. Now all that I'm doing is responding to everyone who's falling for the bad science. Giving up on peer review (remember, these guys claim there are 20 years of research behind their work!) is the first sign of a charlatan in scientist's clothing.
And that is where you want to be.
I may not be the most effective advocate of rationality, but I will make every attempt I can to fight irrationality.
It's fun to chase an exciting theory - but the meatheads here on Slashdot are buying this stuff hook line and sinker, before it's gone through peer review. That's irrational.
And before you get all pissy at me - yes, I accept the peer review of respected scientific journals as being a surrogate for me seeing it with my own eyes. I might not have complete faith in peer reviewed journals, but that's one hell of a lot better than believing in 20 years of experiments that have never been validated and putting a lot of stock into an un-disprovable therory.
Wow. Thanks. I'm the guy you're quoting - and you didn't have the decency to respond to me.
I will not believe it, until I can see it. Experiment with it. Test it. Do everything I can to disprove it.
What exactly is wrong with my scientific approach?
Should I believe it before it has been peer reviewed? Before I can experiment with it? Before I can test it? Before I have done everything I can to disprove it?
How is your way the thinking way? What cloak are you wearing?
You are opposed to rational thought if you think it unreasonable to insist that an idea survive critical analysis.
Thank you.
I have such a hard time convincing people that the whole point is to disprove things. It did me some good to see that not everyone is crazy.
Sorry - I just realized how dumb I was to respond to this point the way I did...
You're calling things ludicrous while people are still in the process of framing the tests.
No, I'm saying it's ludicrous to believe in things (especially this stuff), while people are still in the process of framing the tests.
Plus, they're not framing (presenting) the tests in a peer-reviewed way. Plus, their 20 years of prior work all suffer from the same problems. Plus, this new stuff is not disprovable.
It's shite.
You're calling things ludicrous while people are still in the process of framing the tests.
Did you read their web pages? They claim the guy off the street stuff (influencing the RNG with his mind) has been "well known" for 20 years. Twenty years! They're not still framing the tests - they are off the deep end. They named their group after the theory which is not disprovable, and which you yourself say you think "they're stretching it a little" to make.
I am only so rabid (and you're right to criticize me for that), because of the loving adoration which the Slashdot crowd is pouring on them. I'm criticizing them for that.
We're idiots. Honest to god, trust me on this - we know two things: jack and squat.
No more are you able to verify their results than I am able to disprove them.
But when an online news magazine has the inside scoop on an undisprovable theory which radically changes our view of the universe, I cry "bullshit."
The popular belief here is that the human mind cannot affect anything in the physical universe outside of the direct influence of the body to which it is attached. You have obviously 'bought' into this belief and refuse to test it against recorded observations.
I am not going to trust these knuckleheads to test it. Put a little bit of peer review in the mix, and I'll pay a bit more attention.
And honestly, you're not going to go out and build one of these things and run the maths against it either - so don't play high and mighty, bub.
Attacking the data because you don't like it is irrational.
Believing in the data (let alone the theories) because you "like the idea that they may be onto something" is just as irrational. And actually, that's all I'm trying to get people to do - stop believing it. Test it, fine. Test it. But don't buy into it, because some group got published in a non-peer-reviewed rag.
Re-read the other responses here - people are falling over themselves to believe this stuff. That's what I'm attacking.
This presupposes that you are able to observe and test everything.
No, it says that I can only know for sure that which I am able to observe and test. If I can't observe it and test it, then I can't know for sure it's true. Why are you pretending that's hard? Doing anything else is irrational.
It also presupposes that you actually CAN disprove every false assertion.
No, it says that only disprovable theories are interesting. Do you really not understand the difference?
It also fails to take into account the quantum nature of the universe, where an assertion can be simultaneousl true AND false.
Until it is observed. Then the states collapse. And?
The difficulty here is that of framing the experiment to provide conclusive data.
Absolutely right, and brilliantly said. This theory is so bad that it can't be disproved.
Note, I'm not even talking about the data, which you believe in and I do not. I'm talking about the theory of how this data got there. The theory is so bad that it can't be disproved.
That doesn't mean it's for certain factually false, but that means that the way the theory is framed, and based on our current abilities, we are incapable of disproving the theory. Is it maybe something to mull over? You betcha! IF the data holds out.
But it won't. That's my bet, and I'm sticking to it.
OK, now take the opposite viewpoint.
In all of this, you want me to assume the blue monkey - that the 65 really are producing the same data, that they really are responding in concert dozens of times in a two-year period and doing so only when it coincides with major world events.
No. That's precisely what hasn't been shown to my satisfaction.
And then build on top of that their conjecture that it's global human consciousness affecting these devices backwards in t
Why do you honor it as being "plausible"? Someone else can prove them wrong - they can't prove themselves right. Only time will tell on that one.
There is shame in quackery - because the public falls for it. The public believes in mysticism, and makes stupid decisions.
The cost is the reputation of science. The cost is the progress of rational thought.
The second part of what you said is correct: the selecting their data part.
The first part, they did a reasonable job on. Three differnet kinds of real RNGs.
But it's still crap.
I think you missed that they've got dozens of boxes around the world - and they claim that they found that one of them can predict the future.
Makes it a lot easier to get to a probability of 1, now, doesn't it?
RTF web site. They say that they discovered this "guy off the street" effect 20 years ago, and that nobody can disprove it or explain it. On top of those clay feet, they've built all of this.
Well, first - the AC who responded to your post was brilliant. You should read what they wrote again.
Second, this article is flamebait. Propping it up with "keep an open mind" is playing along with their silly game. Hell, everyone responding to this article is falling prey to the trolling effect. We should all just walk away and stop feeding the troll.
I did RTFA and I did read a large chunk of their FWWW. See the AC's post again for my opinion on their writing.
propose your own alternate theory
Okay. Bad science is being done. They're either outright faking their numbers, someone is secretly tweaking their numbers, or they're doing the standard bad science practice of throwing away the majority of the false positives that they don't like.
Oh, wait... you're not interested in being constructive, only in 'debunking' those things with which you irrationally disagree.
You are absolutely right. I am not interested in constructing ludicrous theories. I am only interesting in disproving things. After I've disproven everything false, what I am left with must be true. That is the heart of rationality, and the scientific mind.
As for me having 'bought it', I didn't express a position for or against their conclusions. Only suggested it's more scientific to keep an open mind and see what analyses of the data reveal.
The best thing all of us can do is to scream two words: "PEER REVIEW!" I suspect that very, very few of us are equipped to be able to properly debunk this.
Now, see, you went and got all pissy again when I said "debunk this," didn't you?
You can only trust something, when people who are properly equipped to debunk it can't debunk it. And that might even take years in some cases, because people haven't figured out yet how to disprove something. But I don't think that's going to be the case here.
Oh, and when I want to accomplish anything in life, I keep my mind open to ALL possibilities.
That is simply not true, and if you didn't learn with the blue monkey example, then I'll have to try again.
Look up cargo cult science.
When you try to accomplish balancing your checkbook, do you keep your mind open to the possibility that aliens are changing your memory of what you've spent?
When you are doing your taxes, do you keep your mind open to the possibility that you have multiple personality disorder and don't realize it, and that your other personalities might have jobs and incomes that you should report?
When you are dating a woman, do you consider the possibility that she's a man - and maybe that makes you gay, because you enjoy kissing him so much - and maybe that makes your whole life into a lie?
When you are driving down the road, do you consider the possibility that you live in a simulated universe, created to study you personally, because you are the last human alive - and all the other drivers, and all the other people in the world are simulations, just to perpetuate your belief that you live around other humans?
When you eat chinese food do you consider the possibility that between your mouth and your stomach, someone has installed a matter transporter to steal your sweet and sour chicken, and that's why you get hungry again in a half hour?
When you solve a rubik's cube, do you consider the possibility that the faces of the cube have remained fix, but that you've fundamentally twisted the entire rest of reality with your hands, slaughtering billions of intelligent life forms throughout the universe?
Of course not. These are all ridiculous. You don't give "more weight" to the more probable ones, you don't consider the bullshit ones at all. Maybe that's a mistake - but it's a hueristic that keeps you well and bloody alive.
You go with the more probable solutions, until it becomes apparent that they're not working.
Your memory is probably fine, you probably don't have multiple pe
KENT: Staring at static on TV for hours at a time. Listening to washing machines. Did you really think these stories wouldn't get out?
ELLIE: I was looking for patterns in the chaos!
The difference between fiction and reality is that reality measures up to scientific scrutiny by your peers. Until these guys make good with their findings in a way that their peers can repeat and measure, they'e just listening to washing machines.
You'd think the Slashdot crowd would be slightly more skeptical.
This whole thing reminds me of a study I vaguely remember reading about.
Take any event (lighting strikes?, etc) with a certain random distribution - Poisson distribution with a peak around 2.5 seconds - or something like that - and ask someone to control it with their minds. People end up believing that they're making it happen. Their mind is kind of tricked into believing in the bio-feedback of events with that distribution.
How do I know the events weren't being triggered by the folks? Because they were tape-recorded, and played back by the researchers. And yet, each person in the trial ended up with the impression that, yes! they really were impacting the device!
Can someone find a reference for this study? I'd love to be able to refer to it.
Well, one, I'd say that subtly manipulating the cosmos through chaotic interactions would be a great influential power.
Second, you can find patterns in chaos very easily.
Third, the only thing that would make fortune telling legitimate would be if they had real predictive power. The cause of their real predictive power wouldn't increase or decrease that legitimacy at all. Not one iota. But fortune telling lacks predictive power, so it's illegitimate. (Compared to casual observation, or maybe a therapist.)
Assuming something is true definitely makes it seem more plausible. P(a | a) = 1.
It's fun to believe in fairy tales.
So, there's a Superbowl effect?
If only we can figure out how to reverse the process - make a black box that causes people to pay attention to something. Think of the advertising money!
No - the heart of their claim is that some guy off the street can use ESP to affect the RNG - regardless of distance.
Until they prove that (peer-reviewed in a respected journal), this is all just psychic masturbation.
The difference between astronomy and astrology is that one has predictive power (the motions of the planets and other celestial boddies) and the other is printed under Garfield.
A true scientist would remain open the possibility until it is proven or disproven.
Yes, I'm really disappointed that Marie Curie didn't spend more time investigating the possibility that a blue monkey was painting the inside of her bowls with phosphorecent dye and shining a blacklight on them. Or the possibility of a red monkey doing the same. Or the possibility of a green monkey doing the same.
Until the existance of all of these monkeys can be disproven, how can we trust any of her results?
Oh wait. That's because in order to accomplish anything in life, you close your mind to the possibilities that are so utterly improbable that they are ridiculous.
That is, until someone stumbles across a repeatable experiment that shows the effect.
These guys have to play nice with the other kids and peer-review their supposed experiment of someone intending to change the results of an RNG, and succeeding, repeatably. Until then? This is just scrounging for money and interest, by presupposing blue monkeys with blacklights.
And you bought it.
I'm not sure what causes people to be so immediately defensive.
Because, sometimes, people abuse science for their own insane ideas?
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.
A few people are doing some junk science...
Or global human consciousness is affecting random number generators in a measurable way, before events actually occur.
You tell me.
The grand-parent is correct - chosing to believe in quakery has serious ramifications. I will doubt it, until it is plain to my face. Why do you believe it, before it has been shown to your face?
And actually the first hot air balloon was launched in 1783. And Johannes Kepler's Somnium was written in 1634.
It's good to dream. It's bad to wear the mantle of science and tell people that delusions are real. (epitome of bad: What the #$*! Do We Know!? (2004))
I'm embarrassed for Princeton, getting involved in this junk.
Okay, I'm sorry, but I think this is too good to not talk about.
In my Masters program, I took a course on the Psychology of Human / Computer Interaction. We talked a lot about human performance, and the topic of pressure (stress) came up.
She drew a graph showing that human performance actually goes up as stress increases, up to a certain point, and then performance drops again.
Then she drew on top of that the same graph for an expert in the field, and talked about how their performance goes even higher, and they can handle even more stress, until finally their performance drops off again.
Right after showing us this, she reminded us to get started early on our term papers.
I raised my hand with a smirk on my face and asked, "But, from what you've just shown us, shouldn't we wait until just before the paper is due, so our performance will be higher?"
She laughed and mumbled something (possibly a curse). =)
Correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't it equally valid to say that our entire galaxy is fleeing away from this star? From the point of view of a planet (yeah, right) orbiting this star, it would seem as though they were stationary, and the entire milky way was fleeing from them.
Right?
Come on! You gotta do the whole thing!
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Now you're getting reasonable with me?
Don't you know anything about Slashdot?!
No, you're right. I guess it was the flood of other people who posted roughly the same thing, and the fact that you exclaimed "Good god," and how it'd make you cry that got me off on the wrong foot. *shrug*
I actually hate Enterprise. =P I watched three maybe four episodes. The opening theme song alone is enough to stun a team of oxen.
I have about 20 minutes per compile cycle, and I waste it by defending the honor of geeks who lack the language skills to defend themselves. =)
But honestly, I'd be willing to pay about $5 per new episode of The Family Guy, and about $3 per new episode of Futurama. (And Eek! the Cat, and Cupid, and The West Wing, and...) And you seemed to be attacking the whole idea of for-pay entertainment. Sure, that's a valid argument. I really honestly think it is a valid argument. But you kind of fumbled the wording, and I'm in a pissy mood - so I picked a fight with you. Sorry, buddy. =)
Cheers.
Fine, I'll put it this way...
You seem to be enthused about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie (from other posts on Slashdot).
How much do you think that's going to cost per hour to produce?
Okay, now how much per hour is Enterprise going to cost to produce? 1/10 the price?
Now, you think HHGTTG is more important than cancer research or a deserving charity, but Enterprise is not? How exactly is that?
Good god people, what's this world coming too?