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However, various portions of the data displayed a substantial number of interior structural anomalies in such features as a reduction in trial-level standard deviations; irregular series-position patterns; and differential dependencies on various secondary parameters, such as feedback type or experimental run length, to a composite extent well beyond chance expectation.The change from the systematic, intention-correlated mean shifts found in the prior studies, to this polyglot pattern of structural distortions, testifies to inadequate understanding of the basic phenomena involved and suggests a need for more sophisticated experiments and theoretical models for their further elucidation.
Although far from final and definitive, the research suggests that our minds may not be bounded by our heads but somehow extend out into the world and commingle, at least at times. "What we can interpret from our experiments is that we really are interconnected," says Roger Nelson, GCP's Director. "Human beings are simply not isolated islands of consciousness."
........... the research suggests that our minds may not be bounded by our heads but somehow extend out into the world and commingle, at least at times. "What we can interpret from our experiments is that we really are interconnected," says Roger Nelson, GCP's Director. "Human beings are simply not isolated islands of consciousness."
This is not meant to be a complete analysis, and in particular I do not cleanly separate the two papers, which are closely related and interdependent in some ways. I do attempt to separate my opinions on issues that are controversial from those generally agreed on by the scientific data analysis community.
For example, RDN finds a result in Figure 1 that is not very significant, so he looks at more data to yield the apparently more significant result in his Figure 2. I do not object to this examination of the data in ‘‘the larger context,’’ but do believe that it should be accompanied by the comment that at this step one is going outside the scope of a pre-defined hypothesis and performing exploratory analysis.
Correctly, researchers in this area address the problems of data fiddling by dividing their research into two phases: an exploratory one, where one examines data in a rather free way in order to frame hypotheses to be tested in the later phase, where completely defined hypotheses are tested against new, independent data.
After 16 years of monitoring more than 480 world events, researchers report strong evidence of some kind of transpersonal mentality that seems to emerge when many people share a common concern or experience. At such times, a global network of devices employing quantum tunneling has found weak but definite signs of coherence arising out of background "noise" or randomness.
Why? For one thing, the statistical certainty has mounted to the point that it's hard to ignore. Toward the end of 1998, the odds against chance started exceeding one in 20, an acceptable level in many disciplines. Then, with added studies, the level of certainty began to zoom. By the year 2000, the odds against chance exceeded one in 1,000; and in 2006, they broke through the one in a million level; they're now more than one in a trillion with no upper limit in sight.
This far exceeds the bar for statistical significance used in many fields, such as medicine and weather forecasting. Odds against chance ranging from 20-to-one to 100-to-one are commonly considered sufficient. The certainty level is set unusually high for the Higgs Boson; data for validating its existence are considered acceptable if they exceed one in 3.5 million. The GCP level of statistical certainty is now more than 285,000 times greater than that.
but really even if you could get it to change colors using your bodies biometrical feed output its not really that big of a deal, or at least I dont think it is.
originally posted by: Vamana
interesting stuff really but it would be better this lamp was cheaper, I mean 250$ freaking ridiculous.
Can an aspirin a day help you ward off a heart attack or stroke?
That depends.
Scientific evidence shows that taking an aspirin daily can help prevent a heart attack or stroke in some people, but not in everyone. It also can cause unwanted side effects.
According to Robert Temple, M.D., deputy director for clinical science at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), one thing is certain: You should use daily aspirin therapy only after first talking to your health care professional, who can weigh the benefits and risks.
The following is a selected list of downloadable peer-reviewed journal articles reporting studies of psychic phenomena, mostly published in the 21st century. There are also some important papers of historical interest and other resources. A comprehensive list would run into thousands of articles. Click on the title of an article to download it.
The international professional organization for scientists and scholars interested in psi phenomena is the Parapsychological Association, an elected affiliate (since 1969) of the AAAS, the largest general scientific organization in the world.
Commonly repeated critiques about psi, such as “these phenomena are impossible,” or “there’s no valid scientific evidence,” or “the results are all due to fraud,” have been soundly rejected for many decades. Such critiques persist due to ignorance of the relevant literature and to entrenched, incorrect beliefs. Legitimate debates today no longer focus on existential questions but on development of adequate theoretical explanations, advancements in methodology, the “source” of psi, and issues about effect size heterogeneity and robustness of replication.
1. The SAIC experiments on anomalous mental phenomena are statistically and methodologically superior to the earlier SRI remote viewing research as well as to previous parapsychological studies. In particular, the experiments avoided the major flaw of non-independent trials for a given viewer. The investigators also made sure to avoid the problems of multiple statistical testing that was characteristic of much previous parapsychological research.
3. Although, I cannot point to any obvious flaws in the experiments, the experimental program is too recent and insufficiently evaluated to be sure that flaws and biases have been eliminated. Historically, each new paradigm in parapsychology has appeared to its designers and contemporary critics as relatively flawless. Only subsequently did previously unrecognized drawbacks come to light. Just as new computer programs require a shakedown period before hidden bugs come to light, each new scientific program requires scrutiny over time in the public arena before its defects emerge. Some possible sources of problems for the SAIC program are its reliance on experienced viewers, and the use of the same judge--one who is familiar to the viewers, for all the remote viewing.
originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Pants3204
He then goes on to say they may not be due to Psi but he offers no other explanations or no other counter studies to show what may be the cause. This is him basically confirming these experiments but because he's a skeptic he can't accept the outcome.
The Scientific Status of the SAIC Research Program
1. The SAIC experiments on anomalous mental phenomena are statistically and methodologically superior to the earlier SRI remote viewing research as well as to previous parapsychological studies. In particular, the experiments avoided the major flaw of non-independent trials for a given viewer. The investigators also made sure to avoid the problems of multiple statistical testing that was characteristic of much previous parapsychological research.
2. From a scientific viewpoint, the SAIC program was hampered by its secrecy and the multiple demands placed upon it. The secrecy kept the program from benefiting from the checks and balances that comes from doing research in a public forum. Scrutiny by peers and replication in other laboratories would accelerated the scientific contributions from the program. The multiple demands placed on the program meant that too many things were being investigated with too few resources. As a result, no particular finding was followed up in sufficient detail to pin it down scientifically. Ten experiments, no matter how well conducted, are insufficient to fully resolve one important question, let alone the several that were posed to the SAIC investigators.
3. Although, I cannot point to any obvious flaws in the experiments, the experimental program is too recent and insufficiently evaluated to be sure that flaws and biases have been eliminated. Historically, each new paradigm in parapsychology has appeared to its designers and contemporary critics as relatively flawless. Only subsequently did previously unrecognized drawbacks come to light. Just as new computer programs require a shakedown period before hidden bugs come to light, each new scientific program requires scrutiny over time in the public arena before its defects emerge. Some possible sources of problems for the SAIC program are its reliance on experienced viewers, and the use of the same judge--one who is familiar to the viewers, for all the remote viewing.
4. The statistical departures from chance appear to be too large and consistent to attribute to statistical flukes of any sort. Although I cannot dismiss the possibility that these rejections of the null hypothesis might reflect limitations in the statistical model as an approximation of the experimental situation, I tend to agree with Professor Utts that real effects are occurring in these experiments. Something other than chance departures from the null hypothesis has occurred in these experiments.
5. However, the occurrence of statistical effects does not warrant the conclusion that psychic functioning has been demonstrated. Significant departures from the null hypothesis can occur for several reasons. Without a positive theory of anomalous cognition, we cannot say that these effects are due to a single cause, let alone claim they reflect anomalous cognition. We do not yet know how replicable these results will be, especially in terms of showing consistent relations to other variables. The investigators report findings that they believe show that the degree of anomalous cognition varies with target entropy and the `bandwidth' of the target set. These findings are preliminary and only suggestive at this time. Parapsychologists, in the past, have reported finding other correlates of psychic functioning such as extroversion, sheep/goats, altered states only to find that later studies could not replicate them.
6. Professor Utts and the investigators point to what they see as consistencies between the outcome of contemporary ganzfeld experiments and the SAIC results. The major consistency is similarity of average effect sizes across experiments. Such consistency is problematical because these average effect sizes, in each case, are the result of arbitrary combinations from different investigators and conditions. None of these averages can be justified as estimating a meaningful parameter. Effect size, by itself, says nothing about its origin. Where parapsychologists see consistency, I see inconsistency. The ganzfeld studies are premised on the idea that viewers must be in altered state for successful results. The remote viewing studies use viewers in a normal state. The ganzfeld experimenters believe that the viewers should judge the match between their ideation and the target for best results; the remote viewers believe that independent judges provide better evidence for psi than viewers judging their own responses. The recent autoganzfeld studies found successful hitting only with dynamic targets and only chance results with static targets. The SAIC investigators, in one study, found hitting with static targets and not with dynamic ones. In a subsequent study they found hitting for both types of targets. They suggest that they may have solution to this apparent inconsistency in terms of their concept of bandwidth. At this time, this is only suggestive.
7. The challenge to parapsychology, if it hopes to convincingly claim the discovery of anomalous cognition, is to go beyond the demonstration of significant effects. The parapsychologists need to achieve the ability to specify conditions under which one can reliably witness their alleged phenomenon. They have to show that they can generate lawful relationships between attributes of this alleged phenomenon and independent variables. They have to be able to specify boundary conditions that will enable us to detect when anomalous cognition is and is not present.
Suggestions for Future Research
1. Both Professor Utts and I agree that the first step should be to have the SAIC protocols rejudged by independent judges who are blind to the actual target.
2. Assuming that such independent judging confirms the extra-chance matchings, the findings should be replicated in independent laboratories. Replication could take several forms. Some of the original viewers from the SAIC experiments could be used. However, it seems desirable to use a new target set and several independent judges.
Operational Implications
1. The current default assessment of the operational effectiveness of remote viewing is fraught with hazards. Subjective validation is well known to generate compelling, but false, convictions that a description matches a target in striking ways. Better, double blind, ways of assessing operational effectiveness can be used. I suggest at least one way in the report.
2. The ultimate assessment of the potential utility of remote viewing for intelligence gathering cannot be separated from the findings of laboratory research.
This is the key concept you don't seem to grasp: it's not the job of skeptics to "prove" the results weren't "psy", it's the job of the experimenters to adequately devise an experiment to rule out any other possibility than "psy" and for the wider scientific community to replicate the work. Here's the full conclusion and future works:
originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: GetHyped
Everything you posted supports Psi research.
Nope, it's not the job of Psi researchers to rule out these phantom non existent causes.
Ray Hyman's report of September 11, 1995, written partially in response to my report of September 1, 1995 elucidates the issues on which he and I agree and disagree. I basically concur with his assessment of where we agree and disagree, but there are three issues he raises with regard to the scientific status of parapsychology to which I would like to respond.
1. "Only parapsychology, among the fields of inquiry claiming scientific status, lacks a cumulative database (p. 6)."
It is simply not true that parapsychology lacks a cumulative database. In fact, the accumulated database is truly impressive for a science that has had so few resources. While critics are fond of relating, as Professor Hyman does in his report, that there has been "more than a century of parapsychological research (p. 7)" psychologist Sybo Schouten (1993, p. 316) has noted that the total human and financial resources devoted to parapsychology since 1882 is at best equivalent to the expenditures devoted to fewer than two months of research in conventional psychology in the United States.
2. "Only parapsychology claims to be a science on the basis of phenomena (or a phenomenon) whose presence can be detected only by rejecting a null hypothesis (p. 8)."
While it is true that parapsychology has not figured out all the answers, it does not differ from normal science in this regard. It is the norm of scientific progress to make observations first, and then to attempt to explain them. Before quantum mechanics was developed there were a number of anomalies observed in physics that could not be explained. There are many observations in physics and in the social and medical sciences that can be observed, either statistically or deterministically, but which cannot be explained.
So it's not the job of Scientist at the LHC to rule out any and every possibility from Higgs Boson skeptics because the skeptics would first have to present evidence that all of these other possibilities can produce the Higgs Boson. This is why they say it's a 1 in 500 million chance that it's NOT the Higgs Boson. This means there's a chance that one of these possibilities coming from Higgs Boson skeptics could be correct but the likelihood of that has to be backed by evidence not hyperbole from skeptics.
Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well-established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance...there is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data.
THIS IS A KEY!
This is because with Psi, the skeptics and blind materialist don't want to use standards that apply to other sciences. They want to apply things that have nothing to do with Science because they can't accept the conclusion. Here's more from the link you posted.
The apparent 'psi' effects are intriguing but most notably only have a very small power above background---and one which can't be enhanced and appears to go away with better experimental controls
The following is a selected list of downloadable peer-reviewed journal articles reporting studies of psychic phenomena, mostly published in the 21st century. There are also some important papers of historical interest and other resources. A comprehensive list would run into thousands of articles. Click on the title of an article to download it.
The international professional organization for scientists and scholars interested in psi phenomena is the Parapsychological Association, an elected affiliate (since 1969) of the AAAS, the largest general scientific organization in the world.
Commonly repeated critiques about psi, such as “these phenomena are impossible,” or “there’s no valid scientific evidence,” or “the results are all due to fraud,” have been soundly rejected for many decades. Such critiques persist due to ignorance of the relevant literature and to entrenched, incorrect beliefs. Legitimate debates today no longer focus on existential questions but on development of adequate theoretical explanations, advancements in methodology, the “source” of psi, and issues about effect size heterogeneity and robustness of replication.
originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: neoholographic
You mean like when the LHC researchers had to rule out all other possible explanations for the faster than light neutrino anomaly?