(2017-10-18, 12:26 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]It's simpler to do what I suggested earlier - just drop the part of the study which includes a confirming test in order to understand what 'disconfirmation only' looks like.
I don't see how this is, as Steve suggested, more scientifically rigorous. For example:
(2017-10-18, 12:26 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]My second example - imagine running the study looking only at whether remarkable correspondences would be produced at all in the decoy group - would be an example of a disconfirming test.
I don't get it. How is a test in isolation better than a comparative test?
(2017-10-18, 12:26 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]Wiseman looked at whether or not this signal was present when Pam was not returning home (disconfirming test).
No. Wiseman constructed an arbitrary criterion: if Jaytee went to the door at
any time before Pam was returning home, then the trial was counted as a failure.
(2017-10-18, 12:26 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]Sheldrake looked at whether the dog was at the door more when Pam was returning home (confirming test). Note that in the actual studies, Sheldrake did not examine how his test would perform when Pam was not returning home.
No again. Rupert Sheldrake
compared the scenarios of "Pam returning" to "Pam not returning" - and you have admitted that such a comparative test could be
either described as "falsifying"
or "confirmatory", because functionally both are identical - whereas...
(2017-10-18, 12:26 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]Wiseman did look at both conditions - "was the signal present?" when Pam was not returning home and was returning home.
....Wiseman weaselled his way around this by stipulating that if at any time prior to Pam returning home Jaytee went to the window, then the test was a failure. This is the height of biasing the odds in your favour. He at least accepted that the data he got in his experiment were comparable with the data Rupert Sheldrake got.
(2017-10-18, 12:26 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]Like the previous example, imagine that Wiseman looked only at whether the signal was present when Pam was not returning home, for a definitive example of a disconfirming test.
I can imagine it. Here's what I'm imagining: an utterly shitty test. Without a comparison to the scenario when Pam was returning home, it would be utterly stupid to conclude anything from
solely the results when Pam was
not returning home.
Basically, I see no argument or evidence to back up Steve's claim that parapsychology has some unique difference to the rest of science with respect to "proving" rather than "falsifying". The only examples you, Linda, have given are poor ones, since they avoid comparisons - and comparisons are how we find out which alternative is more likely. You have admitted that where there is a comparison, the test cannot be definitively described as either "confirmatory"
or "falsifying" because both are functionally identical - I would like you now to admit that non-comparative tests - where comparative tests are possible - are inferior. Can you do that?