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From: moews_b@h-sc1.UUCP (david moews)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Weird Science (parapsychological/psi phenomena)
Message-ID: <578@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 16:06:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.578
Posted: Thu Sep 26 16:06:23 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 07:59:05 EDT
References: <580@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 71

> In article <45200019@hpfcms.UUCP> bill@hpfcla.UUCP writes:
> >I recall what Stephen Hawking said about his youthful
> >experiences with experiments in the paranormal.  He noticed that when
> >scientific rigor was enforced there were no successes, but when it is
> >was not, the number of successes jumped sharply.  Of course, there are
> >always those who will claim that scientific rigor contributes to an
> >atmosphere of disbelief in which such phenomena cannot occur.  If that's
> >not wishful thinking, I don't know what is.
> 
> Can you say straw-man?  I knew you could.

   Where's the 'straw man'? 

> ...
> 
> Apparent paranormal phenomena has been elicited in the laboratory many
> (conservatively speaking, hundreds) times under conditions most scientists
> would consider highly rigorous, particularly if they were not informed that
> the experiment were a parapsychology experiment.
  
      The point is that conditions which are rigorous for an experiment
  in the natural sciences are not rigorous enough for a parapsychology 
  experiment.  Electrons cannot attempt to cheat or violate the experimental
  conditions; people can, and they have been observed to do so in many 
  previous parapsychology experiments.  This means that the experimental
  conditions must be made much more rigorous than in other sciences (to 
  completely rule out the possibility of cheating.)

> Without knowing more about the experiments and what "enforcing scientific
> rigor" means in this case, I could not speak with any authority on why Hawking
> got the results he did.  The simplest explanation from a parapsychologist's
> point of view is the obvious one.  Hawking failed to illicit psi phenomena
> at all, and was only observing artifacts, which disappeared upon application
> of rigorous methods.

        I certainly agree with this, but it is hard to see how Hawking's 
    failure to observe "true" psi phenomena supports your claim that psi 
    phenomena exist.  Rather, it supports the claim that all observed
    psi phenomena are artifacts, since by Occam's Razor it is simpler
    to have only one mechanism for generating observed psi phenomena
    rather than two (an "artifactual" one and a "real" one).
 
> ...
> 
> Speaking of rigor, how rigorous was the experiment of "enforcing scientific
> rigor?"  Were all other factor held constant or counter-balanced?  Was
> condition order (rigorous vs. non-rigorous) counter-balanced?  Was subject,
> supervising experimenter, tabulator and scorer (whether or not these were
> different people) all blind to which condition was in effect?  If not, how
> much credence can be put in the result?  Is sauce for the goose sauce for the
> gander?  Or is rigor only required when you don't like the results?
> 		Topher Cooper

       The point is that Steven Hawking's claim	of a correlation
   of psi phenomena with lack of experimental rigor is of a different
   character than your claim of the existence of psi phenomena.  
   Hawking presumably did not make a rigorous report on "The Correlation
   of Parapsychological Phenomena with Experimental Rigor in the Area";
   rather, his correlation is mentioned in support of the claim that
   parapsychological phenomena have not yet been definitively observed.
   Even without completely rigorous experimental conditions in
   this proposed "meta-experiment", his correlation suffices to cast
   doubt on the reliability of parapsychological experiments.  It
   seems to me that such conditions would be very difficult to
   enforce anyway.  (How do you keep the experimenter from knowing
   when he's being rigorous or not? Use mental defectives?  Keep the
   experimenter confused about what he is supposed to be doing?)

                                  David Moews
                            ...decvax!harvard!h-sc4!moews
                            moews%h-sc4@harvard.arpa  


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