Ghosts and paranormal activity in ED & PR

[El Pibe]

Now, and without recourse to [insults], can you back you position with anything other than bluster ... please.

Serious academic research has been done and probably still is being done into various aspects of parapsychology, including by controlled experimental methods.

>>in other words bluster

I really find it hard to understand why some people on here who clearly have no knowledge whatsoever of research methodology, and are unable to understand why their logic in attempting to present an argument is flawed, have to mock any aspect of the so-called paranormal.

>> insult

Nobody would ever have found out anything about the world if everybody took that kind of approach. There are many aspects of quantum physics which could be mocked on exactly the same sort of basis - being quite unbelievable from a "normal" world view - yet I don't see that happening. Strange, eh.

>> non sequitur and flawed straw man (as jeremy points out that behaviour was predicted by mathematical models and reproduced and observed in a laboratory)

Sooooo, about that evidence duckie.....

[El Pibe]

ho hum

[Sue]

Please read my post above.

As soon as I have time I will look things up.

And yes, take it as an insult if you like, it was also a true statement of my position.

Anybody reading through this thread can see how many times you insulted me, but maybe that doesn't count.

Anyway post away now, because I have other rather more rewarding things to do today :)

[El Pibe]

I really don't think I've insulted you once, if I have I genuinely apologise.

If someone could point to the insults to provide evidence......

[TE44]

Try again, link to "does Telepathy conflict with Science" last one didnt wor.

http://realitysandwich.com/161239/does_telepathy_conflict_science/

This piece mentions scientists who believe psi phenomena

maintains the theory of quantum physics.

[fabfor]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> I really don't think I've insulted you once, if I

> have I genuinely apologise.

>

> If someone could provide some evidence......

I posted a link to peer reviewed research conducted under accepted scientific parameters.

That was yesterday at 8.37am. It took you just half an hour to download and study several PDF documents, check that they were reputably published and follow through by rejecting all of them!

Could it be that you simply don't want to see evidence?

Unfortunately, that's not paranormal!

[Jeremy]

"My research on telepathy in animals, summarized in my book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home" ...

Surely only a matter of time before this becomes an essential text in schools and universities around the world...

[El Pibe]

I did indeed have a quick swizz of a number of those papers (I couldn't find one more recent that 2009).

I couldn't find any mention of peer review or links to papers supporting or recreating the results in isolation.

The conclusions drawn in the papers themselves repeatedly stated that the above-chance effects could have been down to telepathy or there may have been other explanations.

All told it wasn't very emphatic or convincing of telepathy as either the having any bearing on the tests or even existing.

[Jeremy]

A Filmed Experiment on Telephone Telepathy with the Nolan Sisters .. "By chance, about 25% of the guesses would have been correct... We conducted 12 trials in which the participant and her callers were 1 km apart. Six out of 12 guesses (50%) were correct. "

Exactly what reputable peers agreed that a set of 12 (TWELVE!!!) trials is adequate?

 

[aquarius moon]

Nothing personal Sue, but as an observer rather than a contributor to this thread, I find your attitude a little bit harsh.

As far as I can see, there were no personal insults from EP and the patronising was only done in a light-hearted manner. He made a comment early on, that you didn't agree with and from then on, you were quite narky when replying back.

Just saying....

[fabfor]

Fair enough, EP, I accept that you took the trouble to read some of it. Sorry I doubted it.

The fact that they were published in reputable journals (I provided a link to wiki to clarify this) means that they were peer reviewed - it's a condition of publication.

Yes, as you point out, other possible explanations were mentioned, which hints at some level of integrity- not at all charlatan - esque.

And isn't it significant that test after test gave a higher than chance result. Together, they represent evidence- perhaps not conclusive but evidence none the less.

I foresee all the facile ripostes to this but so it goes...

I'd also like to hear your views on the methodology - loopy or legit, dodgy or daring?

[El Pibe]

I'll be honest, given his reputation I was pleasantly surprised, he seemed rigorous, he stated caveats potential flaws issues he had, indeed with the methodology.

The main problem really is that as much as he's convinced of the existence of telepathy he doesn't seem to have a clue how to test for it, he hasn't even convinced himself that these experiments are testing for it.

They're testing something, but damned if I know what, but certainly something experiential and psychological as far as I can see.

[El Pibe]

And I think I might be able to finally let go on this one... Thanks for the objective sense there AM.

[binary_star]

Sue Wrote:

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> You don't embark on research expecting to disprove a hypothesis, at

> least not in my experience.

If you're following the scientific method the that's exactly what you do.

"Researchers normally want to show that the null hypothesis is false. The alternative hypothesis is the desired outcome...the concept of falsification (first proposed in 1934) reduces confirmation bias by formalizing the attempt to disprove hypotheses rather than prove them."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientific_method&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop

I know it's Wikipedia but The Scientiic Method is certainly the one I was taught to use at university for undertaking psychological (including parasychological) experiments and I believe is widely regarded as best practice...?

ETA: "Proofs" exist in maths and logic, but not in science. The scientific method will never allow you to arrive at a "scientific proof" - you may be able to disprove the null hypothesis and have high confidence in your experimental one (after data analysis shows statistically significant results for example) but then you just formulate a new hypothesis for further scrutiny.

[fabfor]

Yep, It's pioneering work and no doubt others will improve on it. Earlier experiments failed to recognise the importance of a strong emotional link between subjects.

Has anyone read "The science delusion"? If so, what do you think??

[Burbage]

fabfor Wrote:

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> Has anyone read "The science delusion"? If so,

> what do you think??

Yes. It's an impressive bit of work, and he's right on many counts about the problems within science - publication bias, the way funding is allocated, fraud and so on. It's also, in part, a nice introduction to the history and philosophy of science, and a neat explorations of many of the things that we don't yet understand.

The flaw in it, however, is that he seems not to understand what science is. He kicks off with ten, very arguable, statements that he reckons the scientific community believe - what he calls 'the scientific creed' - and spends most of the book bowling anecdotes at them. That's a bit of a shame, as the assumptions are arguable at best. For example, one assumption is that scientists 'believe' that all matter is unconscious and devoid of 'inner life'. Which might seem arrogant and unsubstantiated, but the alternative is to assume that every atom has a soul and I don't see how that's any better.

A typical example of how he's gone about the project is the chapter about 'mechanistic medicine', where he argues that because 'mechanistic science' can't explain the placebo effect or why social isolation has a bad effect on health, it assumes that neither exist. But that's not the case at all, science just can't explain them yet. The effects exist, and are well-documented, which puts them a lot further up the scale than telepathy. But Sheldrake is unhappy with that and so, as in nearly every chapter, he inserts the suggestion that morphogenetic fields may be the explanation, if only science wasn't too blinkered to consider it.

The reason science appears 'blinkered' is simple enough. It's the same reason why Higgs fields get more attention than morphogenetic fields. Higgs had an actual theory, and did the sums that showed scientists what they needed to look for so that, when the technology existed, they could look for it. Sheldrake, so far, has yet to get past the hand-waving. That's why his ideas are firmly on the back-burner. If and when he, or anyone else, can produce something to work with, then I'm sure they'll receive some attention. But at the moment, there's nothing to do, and plenty of other stuff to worry about.

Science is far from perfect, and there are real problems with how resources are allocated and the way research is funded and laboratories incentivised. But the answer still isn't woo.

[fabfor]

wow! What a great critique! Thanks. I was particularly impressed by his take on memory location- not in the brain!?!!- and also the apparent 'entanglement' in crystal compounds. No woo but a wow from me.

[Burbage]

fabfor Wrote:

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> .... I was

> particularly impressed by his take on memory

> location- not in the brain!?!!- and also the

> apparent 'entanglement' in crystal compounds. No

> woo but a wow from me.

Impressed is one way of putting it. But it's still what the psychiatrists would call gibberish. To be fair, it depends a bit on what you count as a 'memory'. To some extent, memories may be shared across a culture. The internet is wonderful for that, shoe-boxes of photographs still get passed along from attic to attic, and fairy-tales are handed down from generation to generation (and form the basis of an intriguing offshoot of evolutionary theory).

And, as well as photos, there are phobias.

That's interesting because phobias, which are usually assumed to be handed down through nurture rather than nature, might also be inherited, possibly epigenetically. Sheldrake does, graciously, condescend to consider epigenetics, but only because it breaks one of the 'taboos' that he's invented. However, as it "does not challenge the materialist assumption that heredity is material", he decides it's of no value to him at all, going on to claim that it cannot explain instinctive behaviour, which must, therefore, be down to his blessed magic fields.

Which is a shame, because those who do consider epigenetics have been busy. Only a month or so ago a paper turned up (reported and referenced here) showing that a learned fear seemed to be inherited via the gametes (i.e. material), and if fear isn't instinctive, I don't know what is.

Fair enough. It's only been shown, not proven nor explained. But that's how proper science works. What happens next is that lots of scientists will carp away at it and they'll run the experiments again and see if they can get it to work, and pore over the data and scour the assumptions and propose some mechanisms (based on epigenetics, as that's what appears to be changed in the experiment), and find ways to test those and it'll all go quiet till the next bit of hoopla. It doesn't work by saying "that's not an explanation, therefore it must be down to these fancy fields I've just thought of", and it doesn't work by people claiming to have proof of anything, except in the mathematical sense. This experiment, though the results are surprising to the point of suspicion, is built on at least fifteen years of prior experiments* into epigenetic inheritance, during which time each surprising finding has been repeated, confirmed and used to support the next step in the speculative process. For it is speculative, but informedly so. It's a "we know this, so what if..." process, rather than, "maybe it's all down to something completely different that we can only vaguely imagine". That way madness lies. Or, at a pinch, religion.

Which is why I've been able to be a little naughty here. There's no suggestion, so far, that human phobias are inherited - they're firmly in the nurture box at the moment, and their inheritance a little flight of hypothetical fancy. But if the fearful-mice work turns out to have an epigenetic mechanism, then it seems plausible that human phobias might do, too. If I were a proper scientist, I'd note that idea down, design an experiment to test it and publish my results if I got any. What I wouldn't do is write a book about it first and claim it was all to do with "something beyond our understanding", as Sheldrake does. That would be a lot easier, and much more lucrative, but it's not science and it's not an explanation. It's woo.

* See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989988/ for a summary.

[binary_star]

fabfor Wrote:

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> there is clear scientific evidence for telepathy.

> The fact that they were published in reputable journals (I provided a link to wiki to clarify this) means that they were peer reviewed - it's a condition of publication.

> Any comment on the (peer reviewed) evidence, gents?

People request or provide links to "peer-reviewed" articles as if that alone will or should end the debate. Peer review does not serve that function. A couple of quotes from well respected editors of British and American peer reviewed journals:

"The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability?not the validity?of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong."

"There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print."

The first is a quote from Richard Horton. Since 1995, he has been the editor-in-chief of one of the oldest and most highly regarded medical journal's, The Lancet. It's a British peer-reviewed journal that is respected globally.

The second quote is from Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of Journal of the American Medical Association. He also happens to be an organizer of the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication.

Scientists never accept something as a truth just because it's been reviewed by their peers and neither should we.

Problems of peer review aside, Fabfor I am interested to know which of those journals you linked to you think is "reputable" and which article/study you believe demonstrates "clear evidence for telepathy"

[binary_star]

fabfor Wrote:

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Here's part of what Dr. Sheldrake had to say about it:

> Last week I took part in a public debate on telepathy at the Royal Society of Arts in London.

> My opponent was Professor Lewis Wolpert, a pillar of the science establishment.

> Prof Wolpert claimed that telepathy did not exist. He provided no evidence for this opinion.

As skeptic James Randi (the same guy who is offering $1m for evidence of the paranormal) says: "you can't prove a negative". Even if there were a thousand studies in which not one participant demonstrated telepathy the fact remains that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

Propositional logic might lead us to the conclusion that telepathy does not exist but that's the problem with believing that inductive reasoning provides scientific 'proof' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

In any case, the burden of proof should lie with Dr. Sheldrake.

[unlurked]

The whole thing is smoke and mirrors. Utter tommyrot.

[binary_star]

fabfor Wrote:

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> I'd also like to hear your views on the methodology - loopy or legit, dodgy or daring?

The first study listed at the bottom of his page on telepathy: http://www.sheldrake.org/research/telepathy "An Automated Online Telepathy Test" can be downloaded here: http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_21_3_sheldrake.pdf

Firstly, his participants:

"Some of the first participants were SPR members...Further receivers were recruited by R.S. through his web site" and "by encouraging people who attended his lectures"

There were other participants from Germany recruited by a colleague (no other details about them) and some school children but that group ended up being discounted. So we're left with members of the society that produces the journal the articled was published in, Sheldrake fans and a bunch of people who believe in telepathy to test the existence of telepathy.

Moving on to the methodology. All of the tests appear to have been run unsupervised and: "Cheating could have been possible in several ways" which turn out to be by phoning, texting, or emailing each other during the test (remember the tests were run unsupervised).

Third the data analysis. Participants had a chance of guessing the right sender out of four 25% of the time. They were right 29.3%. Apparently statistically significant but it's not exactly mind blowing to be 4.3% more accurate than chance.

Lastly his own conclusion:

"In these unsupervised tests, the possibility of cheating cannot be ruled out, and so the present data cannot be taken as persuasive evidence for telepathy."

So he doesn't even believe this is evidence for telepathy himself.

The guy doesn't sound like a charlatan he sounds like an idiot, god knows how he managed to get a PhD from Cambridge and it's no surprise that the only people publishing this crap are not reputable journals at all but wackos peddling pseudoscience.

[fabfor]

@ Burbage:

"it's still what the psychiatrists would call gibberish".

Which Psychiatrists? In my opinion, it ties in well with Carl Jung's 'Collective Unconscious'.

And thanks for the truly fascinating article in Nature. I'm time-impoverished at the moment but can hardly wait to study it properly. For the moment, it looks like exactly the kind of research that could be used to support Dr. Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance proposal - or is it unreasonable to suggest this??

"If I were a proper scientist, I'd note that idea down, design an experiment to test it and publish my results if I got any."

Come on, be fair! It's also legitimate to collate others' research to support a new theory (actually, the idea behind Morphic Resonance predates Sheldrake).

Anyhow, I like old Rupert and admire his intellectual honesty and courage but we'll have to disagree on that, eh?

[fabfor]

Binary_Star wrote:

'Problems of peer review aside, Fabfor I am interested to know which of those journals you linked to you think is "reputable" and which article/study you believe demonstrates "clear evidence for telepathy"'

The second quote from Drummond Rennie says it all for me but I was responding to a request for peer-reviewed publications.

Re. "clear evidence for telepathy", after the dialogues I've had with forum members, I take that back. I would now say "some evidence for telepathy".

[binary_star]

fabfor Wrote:

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> Re. "clear evidence for telepathy", after the dialogues I've had with forum members, I take that back.

> I would now say "some evidence for telepathy".

Ok, fair enough - which of Sheldrake's studies (or any others for that matter) do you think demonstrate "some evidence for

telepathy" ?

I'm only asking because the Sheldrake studies you linked to could be ripped apart by schoolchildren - literally 15/16yr olds studying GCSE psychology would take issue with his methodology.

As said earlier, he seems to have no idea how to actually test for telepathy (or presumably any other parapsychological phenomena). It's impossible to tell if he is just observing known psychological effects (such as the effects of demand characteristics/participant bias) because his approach is so flawed.

He should probably take some time to properly eliminate psychological effects before attributing his results as parapsychological 'evidence' for telepathy.