Gravitational Waves Detected?

I've been thinking about Radin's work in relation to this too... LIGO has had to build these huge devices, and go to all this trouble to isolate it's equipment, and they are still just measuring in the 'classic' space-time domain... You'd have to go many orders of magnitude smaller to do summat similar at a quantum level, and frankly it seems impossible. Radin's experiments look a bit basic in comparison... :eek: indeed I'm gonna be much harsher... and say I believe his experiments are trivial and meaningless PR for the IONS business.

Well, I think IONS is almost entirely funded by charity, it doesn't have the government backing that say LIGO does, so there's only so much one can do.
 
Well, I think IONS is almost entirely funded by charity, it doesn't have the government backing that say LIGO does, so there's only so much one can do.

It is interesting where tax dollars get spent w/ respect to research compared to where they might be spent if the decision were left to public referendum.
 
Have you actually SEEN the public recently? :) Seriously, how are they equiped to make such decisions?

Absolutely, there are occasions when I feel we need an enlightened despot, or a strong authoritarian leadership to make those kind of decisions. Because the general public is quite often stupid as ****.
 
Absolutely, there are occasions when I feel we need an enlightened despot, or a strong authoritarian leadership to make those kind of decisions. Because the general public is quite often stupid as ****.

heh, your sig seems out of place then. ;-)
 
My daughter played the sound it makes for me on her iphone. LOL. She was like, "That's what it sounds like!." My daughters have a hard time understanding how someone who spends so much time thinking about the paranormal also is so skeptical of scientific announcements like this.
Especially when it's presented via sound.

~~ Paul
 
While I do think this is the real deal. We did detect a distortion of space-time and Einstein's predicted waves, I can't help but remember the "Faster-than-light neutrinos" discovered a while back that turned out to be hogwash but was all over media sites.
 
I do sympathise with those on here that suggest that there is something rotten with certain branches of science. For example the journal that published Bem's precognition work isn't prepared to publish negative replications:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-journal-of-failure-to-replicate/
Well, I guess you didn't read the comments. One of the comments gave a link to this paper - but only the abstract is available:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423692

This is a meta-analysis of 90 papers, that comes out in support of Bem.

Here is an article about retrocausality:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality

Physics actually offers tantalising clues that this is possible, and unusually (for Wiki) this is combined with a brief discussion of paranormal experiments that show this effect. Inevitably we read
Outside the mainstream scientific community, retrocausality has also been proposed as a mechanism to explain purported anomalies, paranormal events or personal events, but mainstream scientists generally[vague] regarded these explanations as pseudoscientific

This is the problem in a nutshell. - mainstream science descends to a very low level - basically name calling - when dealing with these issues, even when the fundamental physics itself is less clear!

David
 
Well, I guess you didn't read the comments. One of the comments gave a link to this paper - but only the abstract is available:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423692

This is a meta-analysis of 90 papers, that comes out in support of Bem.

Here is an article about retrocausality:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality

Physics actually offers tantalising clues that this is possible, and unusually (for Wiki) this is combined with a brief discussion of paranormal experiments that show this effect. Inevitably we read


This is the problem in a nutshell. - mainstream science descends to a very low level - basically name calling - when dealing with these issues, even when the fundamental physics itself is less clear!

David

I don't however, think that all mainstream scientists are so hard nosed, in fact, I think its mostly a select and vocal few. I have the fortune of meeting a number of PhD students and fellow masters students where I study. The ones that are actually taking science courses have told me some very interesting things, as has a physicist who lectures there. One of them told me point blank that science is actually pretty restrictive and not very creative at the moment, and could benefit from interesting ideas. It's interesting because he's heard of sheldrake (doesn't agree with him) but appreciates that he's a smart guy with interesting proposals. Another who's a neuroscience doctoral student has told me we don't have much of an idea of how consciousness arises, and the physicist likewise told me that we cannot be certain of much. (I think). In essence, most working scientists are far more humble than say Krauss, Coyne, Wiseman, etc.
 
I don't however, think that all mainstream scientists are so hard nosed, in fact, I think its mostly a select and vocal few. I have the fortune of meeting a number of PhD students and fellow masters students where I study. The ones that are actually taking science courses have told me some very interesting things, as has a physicist who lectures there. One of them told me point blank that science is actually pretty restrictive and not very creative at the moment, and could benefit from interesting ideas. It's interesting because he's heard of sheldrake (doesn't agree with him) but appreciates that he's a smart guy with interesting proposals. Another who's a neuroscience doctoral student has told me we don't have much of an idea of how consciousness arises, and the physicist likewise told me that we cannot be certain of much. (I think). In essence, most working scientists are far more humble than say Krauss, Coyne, Wiseman, etc.
This corresponds closely with what Rupert Sheldrake himself reports. He says that when he lectures at scientific establishments, people come up afterwards, and agree with him in various ways (or report personal experiences), but then say that the others in the organisation would reject such notions!

David
 
Have you actually SEEN the public recently? :) Seriously, how are they equiped to make such decisions?
Well that is an interesting question. Suppose some group proposed to spend a billion on archaeology, or chess, or bird migration. Would you feel equipped to vote or not?

How would you vote if you had a chance to vote on a next generation LHC if your tax dollars were to be used? This one was a snip at $13.25 billion, so the next one would need to be bigger and cost considerably more!

Do you really think the politicians who decided to spend that sum of money had any more idea what it would deliver?

David
 
I don't however, think that all mainstream scientists are so hard nosed, in fact, I think its mostly a select and vocal few. I have the fortune of meeting a number of PhD students and fellow masters students where I study. The ones that are actually taking science courses have told me some very interesting things, as has a physicist who lectures there. One of them told me point blank that science is actually pretty restrictive and not very creative at the moment, and could benefit from interesting ideas. It's interesting because he's heard of sheldrake (doesn't agree with him) but appreciates that he's a smart guy with interesting proposals. Another who's a neuroscience doctoral student has told me we don't have much of an idea of how consciousness arises, and the physicist likewise told me that we cannot be certain of much. (I think). In essence, most working scientists are far more humble than say Krauss, Coyne, Wiseman, etc.

Increasingly it seems to me skeptics are this large in-group that works for its own audience. It's kind of like publications for political extremes, people go to hear the echoes but outside of those places you find more discussion.

I mean at one point Novella says:

This is one of those claims in which it is fair to say, if we know anything in science, we know that this is impossible. This is reversing the arrow of causation. To say that such results are a paradox is an understatement.

As David notes googling "retrocausation quantum mechanics" or quantum time backward suggests this may not be as certain as he thinks? Also Wheeler's claim that the past isn't set until observed would also seem to put the quoted statement into question?

IIRC there other ways to explain precognition besides violating this arrow...and without any model of causation last I checked it's odd to try and assert the arrow is even definitive. Beyond Physicalism even includes a chapter by the physicist Henry Stapp wherein he offers some possibilities within largely standard physics for precognition (just accept the consciousness causes collapse interpretation).

And of course causality itself lacks a definite scientific or philosophical understanding, as has been discussed recently.

Specifically regarding Novella's attempt at a smear attack:

Did the journal publish successful replications (which as David notes do exist) but not the failed replications, or just no replications in general regarding Bem's work?

Do they publish replications in general, but refused to for Bem's work?

Novella himself makes note of certain embarrassing failures such as failure of replication in psychology.

Beyond replication there seems to be a sample size problem? ->

Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience


A study with low statistical power has a reduced chance of detecting a true effect, but it is less well appreciated that low power also reduces the likelihood that a statistically significant result reflects a true effect. Here, we show that the average statistical power of studies in the neurosciences is very low. The consequences of this include overestimates of effect size and low reproducibility of results. There are also ethical dimensions to this problem, as unreliable research is inefficient and wasteful. Improving reproducibility in neuroscience is a key priority and requires attention to well-established but often ignored methodological principles.

Novella seems to try single out Bem's research, but it seems this is a much more pervasive problem. I would question whether it makes parapsychology as a whole a "rotten branch" as that would depend on some independent criteria one can use to compare difference branches with?
I know Sheldrake has also gone into the credibility problem science faces so I don't think parapsychology is trying to shy away from this problem?

In fact I'd be more concerned by some of issues he mentions that affect us more than the reality of minimal precognition:

In 2011, German researchers in the drug company Bayer found in an extensive survey that more than 75% of the published findings could not be validated.

In 2012, scientists at the American drug company Amgen published the results of a study in which they selected 53 key papers deemed to be “landmark” studies and tried to reproduce them. Only 6 (11%) could be confirmed.

Makes you wonder what the skeptic groups were doing when all this bad science was happening...

Additionally there's a Sheldrake podcast where discusses the file drawer problem where only positive results are published. He also argues parapsychology has actually led the sciences in dealing with some of this stuff. (He also mentions retrocausation and presentiment experiments.)

Perhaps parapsychologists might actually help clean out the rot from the other branches of science that have embarrassed themselves?
 
Well that is an interesting question. Suppose some group proposed to spend a billion on archaeology, or chess, or bird migration. Would you feel equipped to vote or not?

How would you vote if you had a chance to vote on a next generation LHC if your tax dollars were to be used? This one was a snip at $13.25 billion, so the next one would need to be bigger and cost considerably more!

Do you really think the politicians who decided to spend that sum of money had any more idea what it would deliver?

David

If you gave people a choice between another collider and Psi research, I'm betting many would choose the latter.

IMO certain research should continue regardless of public choice, but as a grant writer and former clinical researcher I'm kinda amazed where American tax dollars at least go when it comes to research.
 
Well, I guess you didn't read the comments. One of the comments gave a link to this paper - but only the abstract is available:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423692

This is a meta-analysis of 90 papers, that comes out in support of Bem.

Heh. Bem is the lead author on the meta-analysis so support for Bem is not unexpected. Moreover, a meta-analysis is likely to come out supportive if negative studies struggle to get published,

In fact there is evidence that Bem has personally acted to block publications of negative replications:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/15/precognition-studies-curse-failed-replications
 
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