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That too shall pass.
Mod+ 257. DR. DIANE POWELL FINDS TELEPATHY AMONG AUTISTIC SAVANT CHILDREN
- Thread starter Alex
- Start date
Typoz
Member
If the phenomena doesn't continue then there is no experiment. That would seem to make a slight difference. For example the project could be ended right there.
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I don't see how that makes any difference.
David Bailey
Member
Well since Craig seems quite annoyed by me as well, I guess I am probably taking a sensible line!
Almost all of science is about emotions. Look at the joy in the room when the Higgs was announced. Could that desire for the Higgs particle have played a part in deciding it exists - possibly - but there simply isn't such a thing as science without emotions.
David
Szechuan
New
Sound science is difficult to achieve with an unsound epistemology, and since the latter is a foundation for the former, you may want to rethink your view about 'beliefs'.
A belief is merely a proposition that one considers to be true. It would literally be impossible to do science in the absence of beliefs.
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Have you considered even for one moment that there may be no telepathy on the part of the girl? And that those around her have made a big fuss and "endowed" her with something that she does not even have. And people come from far away to experience this special endowment. And what if there is nothing there? What if it is simply an artifact of subtle cueing? Where is the cruelty then? How twisted is that storyline as the girl ages and realizes she has no endowment? Or continues to think she is telepathic when in fact she is not. Who continues to think that she can know what is in people's minds when she cannot. This is also a great possible cruelty.
Every action we take has consequences that ripple and wave from the source. We cannot know the outcome of the ripples. Anyone who is sure about something, about anything is a fool. An absolute fool.
Super Sexy
New
Excellent post, but certainty is actually very healthy and necessary. Agnosticism is not at all a virtue. You show me someone fundamentally unsure about everything and I'll show you someone who is fundamentally tormented and useless to himself and everyone else.
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I'm not sure about that. Experience says different.
Vortex
Member
The whole discussion reminds me of the Sheldrake's banned TEDx talk controversy. You may quickly recall that Sheldrake described the government funding of alternative medicine as non-existent. Critics immidiately accused him with making a false claim, pointing that, while government funding of alternative medicine is microscopic, it does exist.
So, can we say that Sheldrake made a false statement? If we are living in a computer-like, binary, algorithmic universe, we can indeed. But we're living in a humane, relative, contextual world, where our decisions and evaluations are not restricted by yes-or-no dichotomy. In an actual universe, Sheldrake's statement is almost true - a minor rhetorical exaggeration made to draw public attention to a genuine problem of ridiculously small funding of alternative research and practice.
The situation with Diane Hennacy Powell seems to be similar. The worst we can accuse her with is asking for support before providing the full range of obtained evidence. But, due to important issues of privacy, she cannot do it immidiately. Should she wait? The more time is passing, the more problems may rise: Hayley's parents losing their patience and changing their mind about participation, potential supporters losing interest and moving to something different, Powell herself losing her initial enthusiasm and feeling more and more anxiety. So, she chose to start Indiegogo campaign now, with some video extracts which she can demonstrate online. Maybe she is a bit too hasty - but, I suppose, not naive or gullible; she knows the whole of the evidence, and considers it to be strong enough to proceed. Since she is supported by a lot of quite serious people - not only by parapsychologists, but by mainstream psychiatrisits as well - I'm quite hopeful about this project.
For now, I do not make any final judgements. We certainly need more evidence. But, unless I see a refutation or failure of the whole project, I will bet on Powell and her supporters. She has already made an effort of searching beyond the "consensus reality" pushed in her mind during her psychiatric training, and has put herself under attack for such a bold search. I suppose she did so for a reason.
Super Sexy
New
Perhaps you require some examples? There are thousands...
You're the one with the absolutist position mind you. I don't think you want to do battle here. Just admit you were mistaken.
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You are the cutest, most funny pony I know. Ta Ta for now.
David Bailey
Member
I tend to dismiss that idea, because there definitely is something extraordinary about some autistic people. You only have to think about some of the musical savants. These are people who require lots of support just to deal with ordinary life, yes showed a talent for our music at an extraordinary level. Sceptics tend to just fluff over that, but maybe it is worth pausing a moment. These guys not only manage to skip most of the music tuition that would be needed for most ordinarily gifted people to get to that level, but they also seem to be pre-tuned into our western music How exactly do you come into this world severely handicapped, yet with that sort of knowledge?
Now consider the twins that Oliver Sachs described. Severely handicapped kids who couldn't be taught much - certainly not basic arithmetic - and yet could recognise 6-digit (and greater) prime numbers!
There are also reports of these people showing extraordinary levels of ψ. Bill Bryson describes one case - almost as an aside - in one of his books. This person spent all his/her time in an institution, and Bill spent some time working in that establishment. He reports how she had one date fixed in her mind, and perpetually asked what would happen after that date. As the date approached, she got more and more anxious, and on the night in question, there was a thunderstorm and the building was struck by lightening and was destroyed (I think without loss of life).
Dr Powell is aware of the fact that autistic individuals show some extraordinary abilities that seem to defy ordinary rationality, and I fully support her efforts to prove something in this case.
David
KMarantz
New
Sensible? Not hardly. You're just responding like anyone does when one's beliefs are threatened. Those of us who are in the middle get it from boths sides. And I wasn't referring to emotions coming FROM the product of science. I was referring to the emotions prior to conducting it. The obvious idea here is to avoid anything that can skew results, emotions, prior beliefs, leakage etc. So far in this experiment, these are all present.
Bruce Siegel
Member
That's complete nonsense. With experiments like Dr. Powell's that involve human subjects, downplaying the role of emotions and motivations is like doing physics without considering the effects of gravity.
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KMarantz
New
Perhaps read all of my posts regarding this and maybe you will get what I was saying.
David Bailey
Member
Feel free to threaten my beliefs, if you know what they are!
I am saying there are precious few experiments in science that are like that. Almost always, there is one outcome that the researchers hope to see. Are you telling me that the researchers at the LHC were indifferent to whether the Higgs existed or not? All the talk of science being emotion free is pure baloney.
David
KMarantz
New
Of course its not, but the less there is, the more accurate the results.
Bruce Siegel
Member
OK. So here's a chance to clarify what you mean.
If psi is a real human ability, then doesn't it make sense that like other abilities (sports, music, etc) it would manifest most robustly when subjects are highly motivated to perform?
And if that's the case, then when designing a psi experiment, wouldn't you want to create a context or environment that encourages subjects to want to do well, and to make them comfortable while being tested?
And if so, then how do you reconcile that with these statements you made:
KMarantz
New
This girl probably will never be highly motivated to perform, but that's not what I was talking about. As far as her emotions go, I was speaking about trying to work around the girl's delicate mental state insofar as avoiding traumatizing her. What I said before is that if the experiments need to take into consideration the girl's mental state and well being, the ideal test situation may not be able to be implemented, thus the results may very well be flawed.