The Global Consciousness Project

[Laird]

I guess it's not surprising that lies and spin are condescendingly employed with a little "lol" to defend the extent to which the earlier lies and spin had been effective (not at all) and to attempt to turn a legitimate calling-out of mendacious game-playing into a petty need to insult. Without the support of the facts, some turn to tactics like these. What is surprising is for how long this game is and has been played - without apparent fatigue. Why and to what end? Fascinating questions.

I guess it's not surprising that lies and spin are condescendingly employed with a little "lol" to defend the extent to which the earlier lies and spin had been effective (not at all) and to attempt to turn a legitimate calling-out of mendacious game-playing into a petty need to insult. Without the support of the facts, some turn to tactics like these. What is surprising is for how long this game is and has been played - without apparent fatigue. Why and to what end? Fascinating questions.

"Lies and spin" ??? What a bunch of BS. I've never lied or tried to "spin" anything. Nor do I play games. And I happen to find the name-calling quite tiresome.

Why do I bother to engage, knowing what I'll be met with? Good question. 

Linda

[Laird]

"Lies and spin" ??? What a bunch of BS.

Linda, the BS is all from you. Utter lie: "you weren't able to address the points I/we raised". I've spent many, many words addressing in excruciating detail the points you've raised, only to have you come back and either ignore what I've written or spin it away. It's not "name-calling" to point this out; it's a necessary part of withdrawal from the conversation, to make it clear that and why meaningful dialogue has become impossible.

The "flexibility" refers to the fact that - especially in the early period of the experiment - they tried different statistics for different events.

It doesn't mean that for each individual event the statistic wasn't fixed in advance of looking at the data. What they say is that the definition of the statistic, and of course the times covered by the event, were always fixed before they looked at the data.

This is what I wrote in the very first post of this thread:

But for evidential purposes, the significant data are those produced by the "Registry of Formal Hypotheses and Specifications". According to the organisers of the project, for each of a sequence of 513 events in the period 1998-2015, a statistical hypothesis was specified before the data were examined, and was then tested. In subsequent analysis about a dozen of these events were excluded because the hypotheses were poorly defined, or not defined before any of the data were seen, but for the 500 classified as "rigorously defined", the cumulative Z value was 7.31, corresponding to a p value of 1.333 x 10^-13.

http://global-mind.org/results.html

As far as I'm aware, that result remains totally unexplained by sceptics. The hypotheses were stated to be pre-specified - that is, specified before the data were examined. The specification wasn't just a vague hypothesis - it was a specific statistical test that would yield a definite Z value for the event. And it was stated that all the pre-specified events would be included, so there would be no "publication bias" in the results.

Sceptics have criticised certain post hoc analyses of particular events, such as 9-11, which in principle is fair enough. But obviously those criticisms don't address the formal registry, for which the hypotheses are stated to have been decided in advance. And sceptics tend to dismiss the whole project as a post hoc fishing expedition, which proves only that they haven't bothered to look at the protocol.

I wonder if malf could indicate whether he can see any aspect of the statistical analysis which he feels wasn't completely specified in advance - according to what Roger Nelson says - which the rest of us have missed.

I wonder if malf could indicate whether he can see any aspect of the statistical analysis which he feels wasn't completely specified in advance - according to what Roger Nelson says - which the rest of us have missed.

That was never my point. The flexibility I’m querying is around the selection of events that the analyses are applied to (according to Bancel, that’s where the ‘magic’ is happening). Looking through this thread, this was the same issue that vexed you (in discussion with Arouet) on page 3.

Linda, the BS is all from you. Utter lie: "you weren't able to address the points I/we raised". I've spent many, many words addressing in excruciating detail the points you've raised, only to have you come back and either ignore what I've written or spin it away.[ It's not "name-calling" to point this out; it's a necessary part of withdrawal from the conversation, to make it clear that and why meaningful dialogue has become impossible.

Of course the comment "you weren't able to address the points I/we raised" would have applied to whether you responded to the last post(s) made on the subject, not to a post you made over 2 months ago. Your response to my last post was "semantic obfuscation, manipulation, and (wilful?) obtuseness", which obviously makes no attempt whatsoever to address what I said. 

I also have spent many, many words addressing in excruciating detail, specific points which are subsequently ignored. Skeptiko mods, like David Bailey even made a point of deleting some of these posts so they couldn't be read. It's just something that happens on a discussion forum (well, maybe not the deletion part - that was special treatment), and one learns to accept it. If you find a discussion has become meaningless, of course it is reasonable for you to withdraw from that conversation. I frequently find myself doing this. What is unreasonable is for you to not only lay the blame for this on me, but to attribute all sorts of negative characterizations to my participation in this discussion. I am trying, in great detail and in good faith, to explain my perspective using my background knowledge and experience. Just because you don't agree with me and don't understand all that I am saying does not make what I say "spin" or a "lie" or "manipulation" or "obtuseness". 

The discussion did not stall because I am any of those things. I am not.

It is not a necessary part of your withdrawal to engage in defamation. The only necessary part of withdrawal is to simply stop responding. Common decency might require a statement that you are withdrawing, although given that you had withdrawn a couple of months ago without saying anything, and nobody was upset about it, suggests you didn't need to. 

I avoid discussion with you because you commonly resort to defamation. I don't think that is fair or decent of you, but more importantly, it poisons the possibility of reasonable discussion on a subject which greatly interests me.

Linda

That was never my point. The flexibility I’m querying is around the selection of events that the analyses are applied to (according to Bancel, that’s where the ‘magic’ is happening). Looking through this thread, this was the same issue that vexed you (in discussion with Arouet) on page 3.

malf, your point was this:
"In terms of competing hypotheses, one must be that, once presented with colossal amounts of noisy data, mathematics can always produce some statistical significance."

Do you agree that if the statistical tests were fixed in advance, such a hypothesis would in no way explain the findings?

Regarding the discussion on page 3, as I'm sure you understand very well, Peter Bancel's conclusion was that experimenter psi played a role in the selection of the events. Not that the results could be explained by "mathematics" producing significant results from "colossal amounts of noisy data".

Those are completely different explanations, and I don't believe you are genuinely unable to distinguish between them. So I don't understand why you are giving the appearance of not being able to distinguish between them.

malf, your point was this:
"In terms of competing hypotheses, one must be that, once presented with colossal amounts of noisy data, mathematics can always produce some statistical significance."

Do you agree that if the statistical tests were fixed in advance, such a hypothesis would in no way explain the findings?

Regarding the discussion on page 3, as I'm sure you understand very well, Peter Bancel's conclusion was that experimenter psi played a role in the selection of the events. Not that the results could be explained by "mathematics" producing significant results from "colossal amounts of noisy data".

Those are completely different explanations, and I don't believe you are genuinely unable to distinguish between them. So I don't understand why you are giving the appearance of not being able to distinguish between them.

I can’t understand how you don’t see the connection. Without the huge amounts of data you don’t get as many chances for (fortuitous/psi induced) statistical hits. Mathematically those choices turn out to be the most important factor.

What do you think is going on? Bancel’s ‘experimenter psi’, Radin’s ‘love’ affecting distant arbitrary electronic devices, or some sort of ‘p-hacking’?

Does anyone know if the protocols and hypothesis analysis have been through any sort of peer review?