Hand Bent Spoon said:
How exactly does one control for the fact that someone, somewhere in the world may be praying for those in your control group? You can't, can you?
In Dr. Targ's study, it was apparently assumed that everyone would get some "background" prayer. That was OK, apparently.
This isn't anything to do with religion, quite frankly. It's magic.
Now one of the things about magic is that it ought to be done in secret. This is so that if the magic is offended, it won't know who to take its revenge on (on whom to take its revenge... ed.)
The next thing about magic is that it won't work if you peek.
Dr. Targ violated both these precepts. She was openly doing a scientific study to prove that magic is effective (i.e. she was peeking). Naturally, under these circumstances, the magic took great care to ensure that the whole thing was fouled up. Nevertheless, she then fiddled the statistics so that it looked as if she had proof that the magic
did work - thus negating the intent of the magic, which would obviously be
not to appear to be working during such a study.
Is it any wonder at all that events proceeded as they did? It's the solidest proof I've ever seen that magic is real.
Why on earth are they wasting money on this nonsense? By the way, have you seen
Phil Stevens' article, which was written before the denouement of the Targ thing. I believe he has another piece out more recently, but I don't have the url.
Rolfe.
