--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@...> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@> > > wrote: > > > > If it's overwhelming how come no-one believes it? It looks like > > > a bunch of unconvincing statistics to me, and even if it had > > > dropped by 20% the crime rates fluctuate by that much all the > > > time, if you can't tell if they're there or not it isn't of much > > > use! > > > > If you think about it a moment, you'll realize your claim > > doesn't make much sense. Non-TM-related crime rate studies > > are published all the time, so obviously there are ways to > > distinguish normal fluctuations from changes that are the > > result of specific factors (reduced crime due to higher > > numbers of police, e.g.). > > So what you need to do is explain why it drops and rises > without apparent cause and why the IA course hasn't had > the expected result. Coin tossing, I'm tellin' ya!
Different issue. > > "Looks like a bunch of unconvincing statistics to me" > > seems to me roughly equivalent in its rigor to the > > dismissal of Heinz Pagels's statements about consciousness > > and QM on the grounds that a lot of discoveries in QM have > > been made since he made the statements. > > Depends if you take into account the flippant nature of > net communication, I'm not writing a thesis here just > offering an opinion on what I've read of the ME and my > experience of paranormal research in general. Net communication doesn't have to be flippant. It's entirely possible to engage in rigorous debate in this medium. > > > And the Lebanon study was worse as one of the WPAs took place > > > in Holland and they still claimed it as proof! > > > > If you're referring to the study published in the Journal > > of Conflict Resolution, I believe you're mistaken. There > > was only one extended WPA involved, and it took place in > > Jerusalem. > > Could be mistaken, I shall check but it's a common criticism, > maybe a different course was involved. I think it must have been. > > My memory of the war isn't > > > one of conflict seperated by periods of calm so again, if you > > > can't tell they are there..... > > > > Another statement not exactly distinguished by its > > rigor. > > But you can't. "You" who? If you were to study the statistics rather than consulting your memory as to whether you had perceived periods of calm amid the conflict, you could tell they were there by periods in which there was a decrease in the number of war deaths and a reduction in war intensity. These wouldn't necessarily have registered in your mind as "periods of calm amid the conflict," but if they were strongly correlated with the number of TMers taking part in the WPA, with other variables controlled for, it would constitute evidence for the effect. And as they use this study to try and get > third world countries to sign up to TM programmes it's a > rather important point. Yes, it is. Why would a reduction in the number of war deaths and in war intensity not be a valid inducement to sign up? > > You might want to take a look at the abstract of the > > study: > > > > http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/174032?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56192438703 > > > > http://tinyurl.com/d4xxcqv > > > > It was not predicted that the WPA would result in > > salyavin remembering that there were periods of > > conflict alternating with periods of calm in > > Lebanon during the study period (August and September > > 1983). > > > > > How would it work anyway? Terms like "creating coherence in > > > collective consciousness" don't actually make a whole lot > > > of sense, what is the mechanism that can make people do > > > something different at a distance without them realising? > > > > This is a reasonable question. But the study results > > seemed to indicate there must be such a mechanism, even > > if we don't know what it is yet. > > A mechanism that overturns everything we think we know about > pretty much everything? Yup. Horrors! Good luck with that, thing is Pagel > simply echoes other physicists - the subatomic world doesn't > work like that, it isn't like you could discover new stuff > now that overturns what he knew. Well, sure it is. Don't know if the ME is an instance, but new stuff overturns what we know all the time. What we are talking about > is people in one state of mind affecting other people > at a distance and causing their behaviour to radically > alter - kill less people, have less accidents, be happier > even. And all by way of some sort of subatomic field effect > that the best physicist can't fit in to their picture of > the world, and not just fit it in they dismiss it outright. But it's not very scienific to dismiss evidence because it doesn't fit with one's picture of the world, is it? > Most times I've raised the subject with physicist I know they > just seem embarrassed but I did manage to get a conversation > going with one guy about some of Hagelins lectures about yogic > flying and he just said "he's either lying or he's delusional" > it seems there is no way the idea about cosmic consciousness > can be fitted in. Which doesn't mean it's impossible of course, > I don't know enough about it to give you an expanation I'm > afraid. > > BTW I don't disbelieve the ME or dislkike John Hagelin > vecause of my friends say so, I went of TM physics a long > time ago, due simply to the large amount of drivel I heard > when still in the movement. Can't blame you. Me, I'm not all that interested in a physics explanation for the mechanism of the ME. All I'm interested in is whether it exists. > > > At the very best the washington study is like tossing a coin > > > and getting five heads in a row, impressive but if you do it > > > 100 times it evens itself out. > > > > I forget what the p-values for the DC study were, but > > they were calculated on the basis of the results to > > be much less than a 1-in-100 chance of the same results > > occurring. > > > > > All paranormal research has > > > done this the IA course has been running for years in tandem > > > with huge groups of meditators and the yagya programme, can > > > anyone honestly say things have got better in the last 5 years? > > > And don't give me any "phase transition" crap, if that was a > > > part of the theory why didn't it happen in Washington? > > > > Over eight weeks?? > > Of course, the phase transition excuse contradicts the expected > result so if it's a part of the theory it should have happened. You wouldn't see a phase transition over that short a period. > Seems like a get out clause to me and helps render the whole thing > untestable, if you can say yes or no depending on whether you get > the result you want without first specifying the amount of > positive or negative confirmation. That's why I say it's unfalsifiable. Also, I don't believe there have been adequate numbers of participants over a sustained period in Iowa. I seriously doubt, by the way, that there will ever be truly convincing scientific evidence for the ME. Just too many variables. But I'd like to see some government take a flyer, as it were, and establish a large permanent group to see what happens. > > The fact is that the ME theory is fundamentally unfalsifiable. > > It can in principle be shown to exist (as the DC and Lebanon > > results suggested) but not *not* to exist. For example, with > > the Iowa course, we cannot know whether things would have been > > far worse if the course were not taking place. > > I don't know where you get that idea from, any theory can be > shown to be a false trail by lack of evidence. That's not the same as falsifiability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability Absence of evidence, again, is not evidence of absence. Or in this case > there is no known mechanism to explain how it might work that > doesn't contradict everything else, and the TMO doesn't offer > one that convinces people outside the movement. Agreed. > Set James Randi on it, he'll design the study to end them all > but he's looked at it and concluded it isn't worth the effort. Oh, that's impressive. No matter how elaborate a study he designed, he couldn't falsify the ME. > It would be down to the TMO to prove it and I think they've > tried with the IA course and the yagya programme and all the > many thousands of new meditators and sidhas. The coin has been > tossed a great many times now. But there are still a bunch of those apparently black swans (switching metaphors on you). What's this about "many thousands of new meditators and sidhas"? That will come as a surprise to some of the other TM critics here.
