Parapsychology has a lot of problems from a reproducible experiment POV, but many of them are due to a complete lack of theory as to how a possible mechanism for a given extra-sensory phenomenon might work. Without a working theory, how do you develop an experiment to test it?
Couple of examples to illustrate the difficulties:
I am an ancient experimenter. I have lots of black rocks. One or two of the black rocks attract one another, but the vast majority do not. (the ones that do are lodestones, natural magnets) I publish a paper saying that some black rocks attract one another. Other experimenters get black rocks and cannot reproduce my experiment. Jamius Randius says I'm a fake, and even when I demonstrate black rocks that attract one another, says I am a huckster. An investigating committee bangs my black rocks together, making them lose their magnetism, so even I cannot make them attract anymore. I lose my patron, and rocks that attract one another is branded pseudo-science.
Other experimenters try this out with other black rocks, but so few have successful results that future researchers need to depend on meta-analysis of thousands of experiments to get possibly statistically meaningful results. Statistics is hard, so the research descends into sniping about statistical techniques. (See http://therandomtexan.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-5/ for recent discussions about how p values are too loose across many disciplines.)
Second example closer to home in parapsychology. There are thought experiments proposing that all ESP related phenomena like remote viewing or telepathy may just be specific cases of precognition, since validating experimental results involves knowing the outcome at some point in the future.
Last idea: Since parapsychological phenomena (whether 'real' or not) involve people and effects at a distance, how to ensure the experimenter is not having an effect on the experiment. This is one idea behind the 'sheep/goat' effect in parapsychology (other explanation is that all sheep are cheating and all goats are honest experimenters)
it's a really interesting field that rewards study, just in terms of figuring out how to create good experiments in such a vacuum. Govt. research and specifically application to gathering intelligence has always been saddled with extremely low reproducibility but occasional spectacular successes.
Classic failure mode for companies that do not primarily write software, bur use software in their products.
We are seeing more and more of the continued use of security through obscurity followed by goggle-eyed amazement that haxors would figure out a way to penetrate the systems of the device/vehicle/airplane/whatever, finally ending in lawsuits to attempt to hide the existence of grotesque security failures.
I cannot wait for the first corporation to be sued for insecure product design.
I think there is a lot to be said for running your own email server to avoid the warrantless dragnet of stored emails at major ISP's. (assuming the ISP's will pass the port 25 traffic along)
Maybe the fiber taps at all the US based network exchange points makes running your own email server less of a defense, but at least the ISP's would not have the ability to turn over your emails all tied up with a bow.
Make the spooks work for their packets!
Re:This is what's wrong with private healthcare.
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How Doctors Die
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"Critical Care" by Richard Dooling nails this. $2-5K per day for ICU means that you do NOT let anyone code out if you can keep vital signs going in some fashion.
I think I read a SciFi story about this idea in 1964 in "Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction", December 1964 issue, called "ShortStack"
Everything old is new again.
Last time I was there, you could play with one of these at the National Cryptoglogic Museum near Ft. Meade in Maryland, URL: http://www.nsa.gov/museum/
THis place is _really_ worth a visit. The staff are all retired NSA staff and are glad to talk to you about the exhibits (now that the equipment is declassified!) They have an excellent exhibit on Cold War era supercomputers, with a Cray and a Connection Machine CM-5 on display.
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Parapsychology has a lot of problems from a reproducible experiment POV, but many of them are due to a complete lack of theory as to how a possible mechanism for a given extra-sensory phenomenon might work. Without a working theory, how do you develop an experiment to test it?
Couple of examples to illustrate the difficulties:
I am an ancient experimenter. I have lots of black rocks. One or two of the black rocks attract one another, but the vast majority do not. (the ones that do are lodestones, natural magnets) I publish a paper saying that some black rocks attract one another. Other experimenters get black rocks and cannot reproduce my experiment. Jamius Randius says I'm a fake, and even when I demonstrate black rocks that attract one another, says I am a huckster. An investigating committee bangs my black rocks together, making them lose their magnetism, so even I cannot make them attract anymore. I lose my patron, and rocks that attract one another is branded pseudo-science.
Other experimenters try this out with other black rocks, but so few have successful results that future researchers need to depend on meta-analysis of thousands of experiments to get possibly statistically meaningful results. Statistics is hard, so the research descends into sniping about statistical techniques. (See http://therandomtexan.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-5/ for recent discussions about how p values are too loose across many disciplines.)
Second example closer to home in parapsychology. There are thought experiments proposing that all ESP related phenomena like remote viewing or telepathy may just be specific cases of precognition, since validating experimental results involves knowing the outcome at some point in the future.
Last idea: Since parapsychological phenomena (whether 'real' or not) involve people and effects at a distance, how to ensure the experimenter is not having an effect on the experiment. This is one idea behind the 'sheep/goat' effect in parapsychology (other explanation is that all sheep are cheating and all goats are honest experimenters)
it's a really interesting field that rewards study, just in terms of figuring out how to create good experiments in such a vacuum. Govt. research and specifically application to gathering intelligence has always been saddled with extremely low reproducibility but occasional spectacular successes.
Classic failure mode for companies that do not primarily write software, bur use software in their products. We are seeing more and more of the continued use of security through obscurity followed by goggle-eyed amazement that haxors would figure out a way to penetrate the systems of the device/vehicle/airplane/whatever, finally ending in lawsuits to attempt to hide the existence of grotesque security failures. I cannot wait for the first corporation to be sued for insecure product design.
I think there is a lot to be said for running your own email server to avoid the warrantless dragnet of stored emails at major ISP's. (assuming the ISP's will pass the port 25 traffic along)
Maybe the fiber taps at all the US based network exchange points makes running your own email server less of a defense, but at least the ISP's would not have the ability to turn over your emails all tied up with a bow.
Make the spooks work for their packets!
"Critical Care" by Richard Dooling nails this. $2-5K per day for ICU means that you do NOT let anyone code out if you can keep vital signs going in some fashion.
I think I read a SciFi story about this idea in 1964 in "Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction", December 1964 issue, called "ShortStack" Everything old is new again.
THis place is _really_ worth a visit. The staff are all retired NSA staff and are glad to talk to you about the exhibits (now that the equipment is declassified!) They have an excellent exhibit on Cold War era supercomputers, with a Cray and a Connection Machine CM-5 on display.