malf
Member
Well, its not always going to be stopping at the exact moment that significance is achieved, right? Nor do the calculations necessarily have to have been exactly done. A researcher could be generally monitoring the results, not necessarily performing calculations after each one. But when deciding whether to continue may be unconciously motivated by the fact that there has been a good run and can talk him or herself into stopping.
I think researcher degrees of freedom can appear in many guises, with many of them not being deliberate attempts to manipulate the results, but rather letting unconscious biases guide their decisions.
Again, the way to control for this is to set the conditions in advance.
Personally, I think that's reaching a bit.
What if some researchers are convinced that positive evidence for psi would be somehow "good" for humanity? Could that not lead to unconscious (or conscious?) decisions being made during studies.
(I know some will see this as provocative, but there appear to be many on this forum who hold that position; that physicalism is a poisonous, amoral philosophy to which to subscribe)
Also, due to the perceived rejection and marginalisation by the mainstream, there appears to be an increased motivation to produce positive psi studies. I'm not sure that this is healthy either. It appears impossible to remove emotion from this arena.