--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter <drpetersutp...@...> wrote: > > > The physiological/neurological research on TM has always been interesting and > legit because its just a straight measure of brain wave activity. The problem > has come in when there is an attempt to correlate these measure with complex > psychological traits. The worst is when you see a degree of hemispheric > coherence at some frequency and someone claims that this "means" that TM > allows you to use more of your brain and therefore you are "better" at > something than someone who doesn't have this coherence. The politics of > consciousness enter when the non-scientists or the either deceptive/naive > scientists make very self-serving statements regarding the research. This was > non-physiological, but it is like the latest research that, according to the > TMO, shows that TM reduces the symptoms of ADHD. Even the TM "scientist" > David Orme-Johnson claimed this and it is just patently false. The design of > the study does not allow you to conclude this at all, primarily > because there was no control group and each subject functioned as there own > control. If you know anything about research design, such a study essentially > tells you nothing other than a bunch of students over x amount of time had a > lessening of their ADHD symptoms. Why this lessening occurred, which is the > most important question, can not be concluded because no variables have been > controlled. I would love to ask David, why he believes you can conclude that > TM is the one variable that "caused" these results when not a single variable > has been controlled. >
A vaguely related thought on research and claims -- in our lives. People make a lot of claims, here and everywhere. For example some may claim that if an age difference between beer drinkers is to wide, the younger is quite subject to corruption, disruption, and even severe discombobulation. Yet, this is only a claim. Perhaps based on observation of a small sample of people. Hardly epistimologically strong. Perhaps we should run an experiment. Gather 200 women under 30. let 100 b a control group. Have Turq talk to the other 100 of them -- individually - or possibly in groups not > 3, over a beer. Let the dialogue take its course. That is, some will end in 5 minutes, some may carry on. Even for some time. Beyond breakfast. Then test all 200 women. See if there is a statistically significant difference between the control and "dosed' groups -- in psychological trauma, adoption of false ideas as beliefs (aka "been snowed", erratic behavior, problems with subsequent relations, a social closing up -- increased anxiety or fear of meeting new people, lower grades (if students), loss of job or diminishment of income, poorer athletic ability, degraded memory and cognitive function, higher blood pressure, different brain waves, depression, anxiety, etc. Until such evidence is forthcoming, it would appear prudent to take claims about the deleterious effects of such age-gapped dialogs as simply speculation, dreaming or fantasy. Regardless, in the name of science, I sugggest we all send Turq $50 to fund such research.
