Prior post I was referring to said:
Well, first of all you were talking about computers. Now you’ve changed to RNG’s (another human technological tool) or (it would seem) to the bare natural process of atomic decay. The pseudo-random processes of computers and their logical behavior are human constructs extended into the world. The very concept “random” is human. Atomic decay is a feature of nature. Even if we accept that as truly “random” (according to our human concept) we cannot eliminate the influence of humans in the architecture of any experiment we are involved in.
....what? Computers USE RNG hardware to output a tangible value to randomization.
I said:
Because you are equating the effect observed in psi research to innate human bias. In effect, you are CLAIMING that the VALUE of human bias is EQUAL to the OBSERVED EFFECT. How is this lost on you? This is a mathematical statement, but you're now claiming that the VALUE of innate human bias is unknown.
You said:
No, I’ve always said that it’s of the SAME order of MAGNITITUDE as the effects discernible in psi experiments.
MAG·NI·TUDE
ˈmagnəˌto͞od/
- 2.
size.
"electorates of less than average magnitude"
- A NUMERICAL QUANTITY OR VALUE.
plural noun: magnitudes
"the magnitudes of all the economic variables could be determined"
SAME
sām/
adjective
adjective:
same
- 1.
identical; not different.
"she was saying the same thing over and over"
synonyms:identical, selfsame, very same, one and the same More
antonyms:another, different
- not having changed; unchanged.
"he's worked at the same place for quite a few years"
- used to emphasize that one is referring to a particular, unique person or thing.
"people will always notice if you wear the same shirt two days running"
- referring to a person or thing just mentioned.
"that same year I went to Boston"
synonyms:selfsame; More
- 2.
of an identical type; exactly similar.
"they all wore the same clothes"
synonyms:matching, identical, alike, duplicate, carbon copy, twin;
indistinguishable, interchangeable, corresponding, EQUIVALENT, parallel,like, comparable, similar, congruent, concordant, consonant
"they had the same symptoms"
I have not claimed that one can “provide a mechanism” for human bias. You are the one who appears to be claiming that this is possible (I do not think it is…in fact, I’m damn sure it isn’t). My response to you was about “mysterious acquisition of knowledge” and how the array problem shows clearly enough that “mysterious” can actually have its roots in unsuspected human bias…in this case a very SIMPLE, LARGE EFFECT of human bias.
Oh yes, I forgot. Human bias, the mechanismless, value-less, un-detectable entity that conveniently explains away parapsychology.
I fixed your last sentence, by the way, to make it scientific:
The better version said:
and how the array problem shows clearly enough that “mysterious” can actually have its roots in unsuspected human bias IN THE ABSENCE OF PROPER CONTROLS
So, here's a sum up of the argument ( because the site keeps going down ):
Kai keeps claiming that there is an unavoidable element of human bias that is not controllable no matter how hard you try to control for it. He claims that in normal situations and normal to large effect sizes; this bias does not matter very much. It would be a drop in the bucket, so to speak. However, when it comes to things with small effect sizes, like psi and the Higgs Boson, there is that element of uncontrollable human bias that is indistinguishable from the effect. So, in essence, what you're seeing in the effect ( which we call psi ), is actually human bias at work.
Above quoted is some of the issues I have with Kai's assertion. First, and foremost, he claims that innate human bias is something that is not well touched on. If Kai had properly studied scientific literature, he would be well aware that such biases are actually controlled for quite well. This is why studies use placebos, blinding, AR ( auto-randomization ), and other such protocol. Kai says that these procedures do a small amount to the overwhelming about of human bias, but they fall short of eliminating it down to negligible amounts. This, is the second problem I have with Kai's argument, as quoted above.
Kai, whether he knows it or not, is making a mathematical statement when he says that the effect size we see is the result of human bias. We'll let ES mean effect size, and HB mean human bias ( or codified behaviors ). Thus, we achieve the following equation:
ES-HB=0
Which means our two hypotheses are:
H(0) ES-HB=0
H(1) ES-HB != 0
This, in essence, means that if you know the proper amount of human bias, and the proper amount of effect size, then we can use that to verify whether or not Kai's hypothesis ( in this case the null hypothesis h(0) is Kai's ). However, Kai directly claims that this is not a mathematical issue, even though it clearly is using the definition of his words above. Kai chooses to say that HB ( human bias ) is a featureless, valueless entity. It cannot be studied, and it cannot be understood. This statement seems silly, as we're talking about it right now. Clearly it's been observed, so it can be studied.
However, for sake of keeping his argument on life support, Kai chooses to shove his hypothesis into unfalsifiability. There's no way to test whether or not Kai's hypothesis is true.
There remains a deeper issue though, and those are with the assumptions that Kai places on human bias. For instance, why would human bias lead to a positive effect. Why would human bias not work in the negative direction? For instance, the placebo effect ( one form of experimental bias ) can work in the opposite direction as well.