That there is no experimental evidence for psi, especially from meta-analyses [split from Rune Soup: Travelling ...]

I thought the whole idea of meta-analysis was to combine evidence for something from various sources!

David

I think you can use statistical tools to find evidence for everything. In this case the experimental tasks differ (guessing symbols, predicting future events, influencing random systems, etc.), measurement scales differ (hit rates, z-scores, deviation from chance, etc.), sources of errors differs. Without a well-defined operational measure of “psi,” those studies don’t share a common dependent variable. Treating them as if they all measure the same effect leads to an illusion of cumulative evidence.

Going back to the “(not) feeling the future” replications of Daryl Bem’s 2011 “feeling the future” experiment there’s suddenly evidence for an effect (with incredibly small effect size) in the opposite direction of Bem’s original results.

It’s time to stop beating a dead horse.

[Laird]

In this case

Which particular meta-analysis (or meta-analyses) are you referring to? Be specific.

Multiple meta-analyses have been performed for multiple different types of psi. They certainly don't all combine data from highly heterogeneous studies. The Ganzfeld meta-analyses, for example, don't.

Going back to the “(not) feeling the future” replications of Daryl Bem’s 2011 “feeling the future” experiment there’s suddenly evidence for an effect (with incredibly small effect size) in the opposite direction of Bem’s original results.

OK, let's go back there: as I pointed out to you by quoting from a referenced article, precognitive priming according to Etzel Cardeña is "[t]he only paradigm that seems to have had mostly lack of or at best mixed recent replications".

In other words: you are cherry-picking here, the exact deception you mistakenly accuse others of ("mistakenly" because it is inapplicable in that context; in demonstrating that at least one white crow exists, it is not deceptive or fallacious to select the best evidence for white crows).

It’s time to stop beating a dead horse.

Yep, it's time to stop beating the dead horse that there's not overwhelming experimental evidence for psi, especially from an equine-abuser who's admitted that he's:

not well-versed in psi.

Sbu,

Imagine that someone came up with an experiment that looked for psi in a totally objective way. It uses volunteers in a way that elimated any scope for cheating. The whole process was run by computer, and it tested whether people can feel the future even without conscious awareness. The setup would use pure random numbers (i.e. not pseudorandom numbers, that are generally considered good enough for scientific research).

Imagine that athough the effect was small, the statistics stacked up fast enough that the experimenter was soon able to publish his results, which of course caused a storm in the science world. Imagine further that other scientists tried this experiment, and they too obtained the same result.

Just think what a paradigm-smashing effect such a result would have.

Imagine that when science couldn't break this research, they just forgot about it and cat-called from the margins!

Perhaps you can think of an experiment of exactly that kind, because I can.

David

Sbu,

Imagine that someone came up with an experiment that looked for psi in a totally objective way. It uses volunteers in a way that elimated any scope for cheating. The whole process was run by computer, and it tested whether people can feel the future even without conscious awareness. The setup would use pure random numbers (i.e. not pseudorandom numbers, that are generally considered good enough for scientific research).

Imagine that athough the effect was small, the statistics stacked up fast enough that the experimenter was soon able to publish his results, which of course caused a storm in the science world. Imagine further that other scientists tried this experiment, and they too obtained the same result.

Just think what a paradigm-smashing effect such a result would have.

Imagine that when science couldn't break this research, they just forgot about it and cat-called from the margins!

Perhaps you can think of an experiment of exactly that kind, because I can.

David

One can easily imagine such an experiment - but not an experiment showing an effect in the opposite direction when replicated by other scientists. The analogy to psi stops there.

One can easily imagine such an experiment - but not an experiment showing an effect in the opposite direction when replicated by other scientists. The analogy to psi stops there.

As I understand it, there have been plenty of positive replications - can you give us a link the case(s) you have in mind?

BTW, the experiment is so simple that the result should not deviate significantly in either direction.

Suppose for example, that strongly sceptical people produce this effect, that is still evidence of a psi effect. A subject's views should not effect the output - just think about it.

David

As I understand it, there have been plenty of positive replications - can you give us a link the case(s) you have in mind?

BTW, the experiment is so simple that the result should not deviate significantly in either direction.


David

Certainly - here's the link https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0335330
This study is much higher powered than Daryl Bem's original study and finds a tiny effect in the opposite direction:

An exploratory analysis of Study 1 suggested an effect in the opposite direction than was originally predicted (49.48% ± 0.26 SE; N = 37,836). Study 2 confirmed this exploratory result using a high-powered replication design (49.65% ± 0.14 SE; p = 0.013; N = 127,000).

So the odds of a hit are below chance (hence the reason I term it not feeling the future). Bem originally reported 53% - above chance, claiming precognition. This massive replication with 164,836 total trials found the opposite: performance worse than random guessing.
The rational explanation (which I favor) is - there is no real premonition effect. The original Bem study was likely a statistical fluke, publication bias, or methodological artifact.

Getting back to Dean Radin: I don't need to exhaustively address every argument in Dean Radin's meta-analyses because statisticians and researchers have already done the heavy lifting. I asked if he had written anything groundbreaking in his new book - and now I have my implicit answer by finding myself in a discussion about abusing statistics to show false effects. Radin has been credibly accused of p-hacking and HARKing by multiple researchers, and I have absolutely no interest in reading his new book where he presumably keeps beating the same dead horse.

[Laird]

I've split out this thread from Rune Soup: Travelling Ghosts Bent Spoons and the Science of Magic | Dean Radin given our rule prohibiting general debunking in the main forums, and it seems to me that general debunking is what @sbu is engaged in here.

It seems to me that his implicit claim is that there is no experimental evidence for psi that successfully survives meta-analysis, hence the way I've titled this split out thread.

If that's not your actual claim, @sbu, then clarify what your actual claim is.

Either way, it is a totally false claim, and if it is what you (continue to) claim, then you're simply ignorant, but you're apparently unwilling to correct that ignorance, so we all have to put up with it. At least it will be confined to this subforum.

[Laird]

Getting back to Dean Radin: I don't need to exhaustively address every argument in Dean Radin's meta-analyses because statisticians and researchers have already done the heavy lifting.

I asked you to be specific about which meta-analysis or meta-analyses you were referring to. Don't dodge the question.

Additionally, if you are aware of some "heavy lifting", then share it with us.

So the odds of a hit are below chance (hence the reason I term it not feeling the future). Bem originally reported 53% - above chance, claiming precognition. This massive replication with 164,836 total trials found the opposite: performance worse than random guessing.
The rational explanation (which I favor) is - there is no real premonition effect. The original Bem study was likely a statistical fluke, publication bias, or methodological artifact.

I am definitely of the mind at this point that Bem's studies have been thoroughly proven to be a dead end in terms of any kind of replicatability and discussions of paraspychology's success should be moved to other studies. It very much seems like there wasn't any kind of intentional question research practices involved in the original study, but the sheer amount of quality replicative work that have been performed by this point in response to it have thoroughly buried its results to be some kind of non-psi fluke.

I am definitely of the mind at this point that Bem's studies have been thoroughly proven to be a dead end in terms of any kind of replicatability and discussions of paraspychology's success should be moved to other studies. It very much seems like there wasn't any kind of intentional question research practices involved in the original study, but the sheer amount of quality replicative work that have been performed by this point in response to it have thoroughly buried its results to be some kind of non-psi fluke.

If further studies don't replicate Bem's erotic image experiment, they are not direct replications, they are testing some other assumptions. The attempted replication study sbu linked to above was conducted online (not in a laboratory); participants were recruited by some online recruitment service with an average age of 50 years old (not Cornell undergraduates).

Bem's experiment went and grabbed modern erotic images off porn sites that appealed to young males. Cornell reports undergrads over 25 as comprising only 2% of their population, 98% are under 25 usually between ~18-22 y/o. Bem was very specific - he found the young males that did best were high stimulus seekers. Then you've got the experimenter effect, even Dr Carolyn Watt accepts that this effect exists - an online experiment excludes that effect.

sbu also linked to another failed replication some weeks ago, when I looked at that study... they ran the experiment at the same time with all the male and female subjects together in the same room; the recruitment population pool was different from Bems and age was much higher, they also couldn't use the highly erotic images Bem used (no explanation why).