Wowbagger Reviews a Pro-Parapsychology Book

[Wowbagger]

At long last my long-awaited review of the book Outside the Gates of Science: Why it's time for the paranormal to come in from the cold, by Damien Broderick, is published.

The review can be found, here: http://www.mitchlampert.net/News.aspx?R=191
Comments, of course, can be posted on this thread. (My own comment system is still not running, at the moment.)

Sorry it took so long. This thing actually went through several drafts. Originally, it examined a lot of its claims, chapter by chapter. But, the analysis seemed to be getting overly redundant. So, I restructured it to have a section called "What Mainstream Science Strives For" at the top, and have everything else refer to it. Then, I decided to shorten the thing, by getting rid of most of the chapter-by-chapter commentary, and only focus on a few of the "best" claims.

When the Print-Friendly version is printed, it now comes out to about 8 pages. The previous version would have been about 15 pages. The article is still somewhat redundant-sounding, in a couple of spots, but it easily could have been a lot worse.

Enjoy!

(Expect a review of The Skeptic's Dictionary to be provided by another member of this forum, eventually.)

 

[Typicallucas]

Interesting book review. Thanks for taking one for the team!

 

[Limbo]

Wowbagger,

Thank you very much for the effort you have put into your review. I must say I didn't expect you would go through quite so much.

I haven't had quite enough time to digest it yet. However, this morning before work I took the liberty of e-mailing a link to your review to Damien Broderick. Here is his response. He has given me permission to post it.

A skeptic who accepted the challenge of reading it has posted a review. Do you have any comments?

"The one experimental design Mitchell Lampert discusses and illustrates is Professor Ertel's numbered-ball drawing test. His treatment of this unusual set of results is revealing. He reproduces four of the five figures or matrices included in the book. Of one, he acknowledges that "Oh, sure, it looks like a nice pattern," while carefully omitting the second of the two most striking results shown on p. 250.

Then he asserts that "for every nice chart like that, there are hundreds of 'patternless' ones, from other subjects, and even other attempts from the same subject." What is the basis for this crucial falsifying claim? None is suggested. Actually, referring to the striking figure Lampert admits is "a nice pattern," the book states explicitly: "Nor was this... a trick of the eye found after trawling though a huge hidden stock of obviously random results" (p. 251). He ignores Ertel's statistical analysis.

Indeed, in a stroke of unintentional comedy, the third of the three remaining figures Lampert displays to show that "most of them were rather unremarkable" is a *random control*, as the book clearly labels it: "one of Ertel's computer simulations of 2,880 double-handed draws" (p. 251). Lampert observes: "If parapsychology wants to claim that psi is a genuine scientific phenomena, they are going to have to find some way to strengthen its "signal" from the noise." If he wishes to demonstrate that the evidence adduced in the book is meaningless, he'll have to do better than deliberately or carelessly mixing together signal and noise." -Damien Broderick

 

[Wowbagger]

Deliver this message to Damien:

I find it amusing that the harshest criticism you had to offer was of the pictures I chose. Okay, fine. I will post more images from the experiment, if you wish (and if Ertel is willing to provide any), including that one you think I "carefully" omitted from page 250.

I did not bother commenting on Ertel's statistical analysis, because it was meaningless. If he cannot develop a method for reliably reproducing the results, he has no business parading this as a genuine scientific endeavor. You seemed to miss the whole point of the "What Mainstream Science Strives For" section.

 

[Limbo]

Deliver this message to Damien:

I find it amusing that the harshest criticism you had to offer was of the pictures I chose. Okay, fine. I will post more images from the experiment, if you wish (and if Ertel is willing to provide any), including that one you think I "carefully" omitted from page 250.

I did not bother commenting on Ertel's statistical analysis, because it was meaningless. If he cannot develop a method for reliably reproducing the results, he has no business parading this as a genuine scientific endeavor. You seemed to miss the whole point of the "What Mainstream Science Strives For" section.

I don't want to pester him. I'm sure he's a busy guy. He has a link to this thread through your review, and so if he wishes to follow this thread and respond to your message he is free to e-mail me.

 

[Ersby]

I'm not sure what those charts are saying. What do the different sizes/colours mean?

 

[Wowbagger]

I'm not sure what those charts are saying. What do the different sizes/colours mean?

The first chart is easy: Phyicists predicted the cosmic background radiation should have a perfect "black-body curve", and that is exactly what they found.

If I tried to draw two lines on the chart: One for what was predicted, and the other for the actual data.... they would end up being exactly the same line, anyway. Maybe I should mention that tidbit, in the article.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

You know, I think I forgot to link that second chart to the Bose-Einstein Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose–Einstein_condensate
That could help you out.

For general purposes, all you really need to know is that the chart represents a reading of detected and isolated Bose-Einstein condensate, as would be detected by predictions made in theory. But, more technical details are available in the Wiki link, and perhaps other places, if you Google the words.

(I might also be able to link you to resources from someone who once spoke about that stuff, at Dragon*Con, if I could ever manage to dig them up.)

 

[Ersby]

Oops.

I meant the ones from Ertel's experiment. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Wowbagger]

I am definately going to publish an updated and corrected version of the review. But, I might not have time to do it, tonight, since the new Terminator movie just came out. But, definately within the weekend.

Someone else notified me that I spelled Uri Geller's name wrong. (And, I should know better, I very nearly misspelled it in my thread about him.) That will be rectified, as well.

Oops.

I meant the ones from Ertel's experiment. Sorry for the confusion.

I think the way it worked was this: There are two bags with balls numbered from 1 to 5. One person would blindly grab one ball from each, and put a counter on the grid, for where they lined up. For example: If the left hand grabbed a "2" and the other grabbed a "4", it would go into the 2nd row, 4th column. The more counters, the larger the circle.

Not entirely sure what all the other stuff means, actually. The most important thing to realize is that whatever results they get, no matter how "nice" the pattern looks, can not be reliably replicated, yet.

 

[Ersby]

What was the hypothesis of Ertel's experiment? To be honest, I don't even see the nice pattern. Unless Ertel was trying to prove that the left hand tends to draw ball number 3.

 

[Wowbagger]

What was the hypothesis of Ertel's experiment?

Good question!

I believe he designed the experiment to be more "fun" for participants, than the more grueling Zenner-card approach.

My best guess is that he figured he would get better results from psi experiments, if the participants were less bored during the experiments. Which, on a face of it, is a perfectly valid hypothesis to test. The problem is that the results seem to be just as unreliable, in the end.

To be honest, I don't even see the nice pattern. Unless Ertel was trying to prove that the left hand tends to draw ball number 3.

Note the alternating large and small dots in the third and fourth rows.

I will post the other chart I "carefully avoided ", when I update the article.

Frankly, I think "nice" is a subjective term. But, even as such: If participants can reliably repeat the pattern, then he would be on to something.

ETA: It should be emphasized that Ertel was not aiming to get any specific pattern. He figured he would just have folks draw the balls from the bags, and whatever they get, they get.

 

[Limbo]

This might be of interest to you guys:

http://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/home/ertel/ertel-dir/downloads/ertelchapterwithfigurespdf.pdf

 

[Wowbagger]

This might be of interest to you guys:

http://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/home/ertel/ertel-dir/downloads/ertelchapterwithfigurespdf.pdf

Yes, I saw that. It's basically a much longer version of what I already said.

 

[Ersby]

This might be of interest to you guys:

http://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/home/ertel/ertel-dir/downloads/ertelchapterwithfigurespdf.pdf

This isn't the experiment described in the book.

 

[Ersby]

It should be emphasized that Ertel was not aiming to get any specific pattern. He figured he would just have folks draw the balls from the bags, and whatever they get, they get.

Okay. Well, then, that's not really evidence of anything. Is this presented in the book as good evidence for psi?

 

[Moochie]

At long last my long-awaited review of the book Outside the Gates of Science: Why it's time for the paranormal to come in from the cold, by Damien Broderick, is published.

The review can be found, here: http://www.mitchlampert.net/News.aspx?R=191
Comments, of course, can be posted on this thread. (My own comment system is still not running, at the moment.)

Sorry it took so long. This thing actually went through several drafts. Originally, it examined a lot of its claims, chapter by chapter. But, the analysis seemed to be getting overly redundant. So, I restructured it to have a section called "What Mainstream Science Strives For" at the top, and have everything else refer to it. Then, I decided to shorten the thing, by getting rid of most of the chapter-by-chapter commentary, and only focus on a few of the "best" claims.

When the Print-Friendly version is printed, it now comes out to about 8 pages. The previous version would have been about 15 pages. The article is still somewhat redundant-sounding, in a couple of spots, but it easily could have been a lot worse.

Enjoy!

(Expect a review of The Skeptic's Dictionary to be provided by another member of this forum, eventually.)

Good job, Wowbagger. From your description of the book, it appears the author knows his (undemanding) market, and is really only a fringe participant in the woo economy.

Certainly, judging from this book, it seems psi really is "much ado about nothing."


M.

 

[Wowbagger]

This isn't the experiment described in the book.

It is not the same experiment I pick on in my review.

The one in that PDF file describes pulling 50 balls out of a single bag (along with guessing which one will be drawn before it is).

The experiment I mention in the review involves pulling 5 balls from two different bags, and noting the patterns. (No element of guessing is mentioned.)

Both, however, were described in the book, in different places.

Okay. Well, then, that's not really evidence of anything. Is this presented in the book as good evidence for psi?

The author seems to think it is significant.

 

[Limbo]

I believe he designed the experiment to be more "fun" for participants, than the more grueling Zenner-card approach.

My best guess is that he figured he would get better results from psi experiments, if the participants were less bored during the experiments. Which, on a face of it, is a perfectly valid hypothesis to test. The problem is that the results seem to be just as unreliable, in the end.

"Just as unreliable" as what? As chance? But that isn't true. How does he reach this conclusion? He didn't ask me or Suitbert for details. In fact, he doesn't even show the basic reading skills to understand the aesthetic theory behind the test; he says "It should be emphasized that Ertel was not aiming to get any specific pattern. He figured he would just have folks draw the balls from the bags, and whatever they get, they get." He neglects to note that what the participants were aiming at was an aesthetic gestalt, not just a random scatter. As a side-consequence, some cells in the table should show a large aggregation of balls, and this can be analyzed statistically (as was done). It's clear that Lampert can't be bothered thinking any of this through." -Damien Broderick (personal correspondence)

 

[Limbo]

Wowbagger, I agree with Damien...you aren't thinking any of this through. It's obvious you're a very intelligent person, but in my estimation you're operating in debunk mode when you should be operating in a sort of grok mode. That's what is preventing you from thinking all this through, in my opinion.

In my experience, debunk mode can be rooted in fear...and fear is the mind killer. I suggest that you read the book again and this time let go of your debunk mindset. Put your mind in neutral, as it were.

Fear of Psi

[...]

"It’s obvious that many skeptics are intelligent people, and I suggest that it’s highly unlikely that these shabby criticisms of the parapsychological evidence are simply the sorts of occasional and more or less random spasms of stupidity that all persons experience sometimes. Indeed, if that’s all the criticisms were, then presumably those lapses wouldn’t occur so exclusively and so transparently in connection with parapsychology. It’s much more plausible that many skeptics are simply in a kind of conceptual panic, that in the grip of this panic their reason and integrity go by the wayside, and that their fear of psi is little different from what I felt back in 1968."

 

[Moochie]

Wowbagger, I agree with Damien...you aren't thinking any of this through. It's obvious you're a very intelligent person, but in my estimation you're operating in debunk mode when you should be operating in grok mode. That's what is preventing you from thinking all this through, in my opinion.

In my experience, debunk mode can be a fear response...and fear is the mind killer. I suggest that you read the book again and this time let go of your debunk mindset. Put your mind in neutral, as it were.

Fear of Psi

[...]

"It’s obvious that many skeptics are intelligent people, and I suggest that it’s highly unlikely that these shabby criticisms of the parapsychological evidence are simply the sorts of occasional and more or less random spasms of stupidity that all persons experience sometimes. Indeed, if that’s all the criticisms were, then presumably those lapses wouldn’t occur so exclusively and so transparently in connection with parapsychology. It’s much more plausible that many skeptics are simply in a kind of conceptual panic, that in the grip of this panic their reason and integrity go by the wayside, and that their fear of psi is little different from what I felt back in 1968."

So your religion is psi. and like other religions, you gloss over the absence of any actual evidence.

When Broderick comes up with some bona fide evidence -- evidence that will stand real scrutiny -- come back and prove us all wrong. Until then, you appear as just another TB* severely lacking in common sense.

Broderick's book is just another in a long line of puff pieces, written for TBs like yourself. It may earn him a living, but it does bugger all to advance the credibility of psi.


M.


*TB = True Believer.