On Jul 2, 2011, at 4:01 AM, sparaig wrote: > Yes, it is called "researcher bias" and a huge portion of the "scientific > method" is designed to try to compensate for it.
And the only ones who get taken seriously are the ones who succeed at it, with things like double-blind studies, etc. > It's not just TM researchers who are susceptible to it. Of course not. It's just that they generally do *nothing* to compensate for it. > Every researcher needs to be on his or her guard. What I find amusing is that > no-one on this forum questions the bias of the researchers who do the > research on the buddhist techniques. Who knew there were any? Sounds like something arcane that Vaj would probably know about, but that would completely escape anyone else, including many members of the scientific community. > When people ask them if they are Buddhists, they reply that they don't > practice the whole thing, just the meditation bit. Of course, their bios > mention that they are personal friends with the Dali Lama, have been involved > with scientific research for years on behalf of the Dali Lama, See above. > and they are quoted by "practicing" buddhists as saying "I didn't need to do > research to know that this stuff works." People quoting researchers who supposedly said they don't need to do research? That would be odd, I grant you. Like to see some of those quotes. > But hey, they're not *TM* researchers so they should automatically get a > pass... Yawn, this getting tiresome, spare. See above for at least several reasons why your comment sounds silly. I submit nobody knows about these "Buddhist researchers," and that few would give them a free pass if they had access to their findings and could evaluate them. People in here have generally had decades to familiarize themselves with TM research~~such as it is~~and have come to their own conclusions (I almost wrote "confusions") concerning the methods used and other variables. Your conclusions differ~~so be it. Sal
