Arouet
Member
Yeah, I understand, but I don't know why you're asking me if I agree or disagree with the "Initial experimental design," because even Wiseman disagreed with it and attempted to modify it.
Yes, I know he modified it. I wrote that the protocol discussion "starts" with the initial experimental design section. I was trying to clarify that I wasn't referring to that general discussion at the beginning. It didn't occur to me that I also needed to tell you where it ended. To be clear, I meant all the bits of the paper that dealt with protocol. As well as the same discussion in Sheldrake's.
Unfortunately, he didn't stick around long enough to evaluate the modifications or get any useful data (that's not going to change, as was obvious from his long Email exchange with Alex).
Wiseman was invited by Sheldrake and Smart to do his investigation. I'm not aware (or can't recall) if there were restrictions put on him, or why there were so few trials. Are you?
Thanks for reminding me about the email exchange with Alex. I'm going to give them a look.
Sheldrake's paper discusses the noisey vs non-noisy trials.
And I'd be interested in talking about that as well!
Exactly, and the negative impact of his claims and behavior outside the paper greatly outweigh any 'contributions' in his paper.
But it shouldn't. Not from the perspective of evaluating the protocols. The experiment must speak for itself. No one has a monopoly on interpreting the results. Even Wiseman doesn't have a monopoly on interpreting his results. His conclusions become one person's opinion. Others may reach different ones. Same with Sheldrake's. That's what I'd like to accomplish in the type of discussion I'm proposing. Let's start from scratch, got through it all, and reach our own conclusions!
I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's something I would enjoy doing and would find personally challenging and rewarding. That's what I find interesting. I'm not particularly interested in the skeptic/proponent/us/them angle.