2021-08-19, 06:45 PM
How the Skeptics Lost Their Minds Over a Precognition Experiment, Craig Weiler.
A new and apparently devastating "hit piece" exposing the truth about the skeptical reactions to the Daryl Bem precognition experiments, and about the general still prevalent closed-minded skepticism about psychical phenomena. Waiting for a plausible devastating skeptical response, waiting...
The closed-minded evangelical skeptic reaction was immediate. For instance Wagenmaker's Bayesian statistical argument. It was basically GIGO. In response to rebuttal by Bem, Wagenmaker doubled down, with ultimately discredited results:
Bem’s experiment survived this challenge because the ultimate premise of Wagenmaker’s argument was clearly wrong. (He had other accusations, such as calling the experiments “preliminary”, but these also went nowhere.)
Also covered: James Alcock's futile attempt to dismiss the findings, and attempts by Richard Wiseman, Chris French and Stuart Ritchie.
A new and apparently devastating "hit piece" exposing the truth about the skeptical reactions to the Daryl Bem precognition experiments, and about the general still prevalent closed-minded skepticism about psychical phenomena. Waiting for a plausible devastating skeptical response, waiting...
Quote:"The researcher was Daryl Bem, professor emeritus at Cornell University and the landmark study was titled: Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect. It was basically a well — known psychology experiment with a couple of parameters switched so that instead of taking measurements of a subject’s physiological reactions after they were exposed to certain stimuli, the measurements were taken before the exposure. The study showed that people were subconsciously reacting to random stimuli even before they experienced it."
The closed-minded evangelical skeptic reaction was immediate. For instance Wagenmaker's Bayesian statistical argument. It was basically GIGO. In response to rebuttal by Bem, Wagenmaker doubled down, with ultimately discredited results:
Quote:"The absurd premise (of Wagenmaker's thesis) goes like this: Psychic ability is impossible. Therefore, if Bem’s experiment showed psychic ability to be real, then the very process that demonstrated this must be broken. These are the musings of people who would never, ever consider the alternative hypothesis: They. Are. Wrong."
Bem’s experiment survived this challenge because the ultimate premise of Wagenmaker’s argument was clearly wrong. (He had other accusations, such as calling the experiments “preliminary”, but these also went nowhere.)
Also covered: James Alcock's futile attempt to dismiss the findings, and attempts by Richard Wiseman, Chris French and Stuart Ritchie.
Quote:"Conclusion:
The point I want to make here, in conclusion, is that the skeptical position in regard to Bem’s experiment is all smoke and mirrors. Once you clearly see the smoke and mirrors for what they are, you see what skepticism really is: cognitive dissonance writ large. The problem here is not the study design or the number of replications or the statistics used, the problem is people: people who refuse to accept study results because they can’t ever admit they were wrong.
The discussion isn’t about science anymore. This is about zealotry. Psi is real and there is plenty of science to back it up. The objections are insulting to any sane person’s intelligence at this point and the lengths that skeptics go to in order to maintain their narrative are fundamentally dishonest. And that’s the real problem. The skepticism is less than sane and it’s time to take a much closer look at THAT problem. You can start here.
I have seen these people go to the ends of the earth and beyond, conjuring fictional narratives so that they never, ever have to concede. I’ve seen this from garden variety skeptics on the Internet and from academics. How much longer do we have to placate their delicate egos by maintaining the fiction that psychic ability isn’t real?"