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From: res@ihlpe.ATT.COM (Rich Strebendt)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Strangge results in Nature article (fallout...)
Summary: Report just published in Science News on investigation
Keywords: skepticism debunking
Message-ID: <3265@ihlpe.ATT.COM>
Date: 5 Aug 88 02:17:47 GMT
References: <2366@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1663@microsoft.UUCP> <499@metapsy.UUCP> <1681@microsoft.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 25

In article <1681@microsoft.UUCP>, gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin) writes:
> In article <499@metapsy.UUCP>, sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:
> > In article <4652@ut-emx.UUCP> ethan@ut-emx.UUCP (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes:
> > >In this case the investigating team (including Randi) seem to have
> > >concluded that no conscious fraud was involved.
> > Is there such a thing as "unconscious fraud"?
> Either Sarge is a bit slow, or he's deliberately difficult.  Obviously
> there is such a thing as unconcious fraud.  Thats why double blind
> experiments are done.  Experimenters usually *want* their experiment
> to have a particular result and when asked to make subjective judgements
> will be biased towards their goal.  That's why subjective evaluations
> (how *much* improved is the patient?) are done double blind in a good study.

The issue of Science News I just received had an article about this
controversy.  One of the statements made by the investigative team was that the
last three iterations of the experiment (out of seven done for the
investigators) were done as double blind experiments.  All three were reported
to have failed to exhibit the unusual results.

The article also says that the people at Nature were going to continue the
investigation by examining the results from the other experimenters in a
similar way to the first set of investigations.

				Rich Strebendt
				...!att![iwsl6|ihlpe|ihaxa]!res