It’s dogmatic comments like these that sadly lead many non-scientists to have a less than favorable view on the seeming “objectivity” of the field and its researchers.
Do you actually believe that?
That is, if a majority of scientists started instead saying “Actually, we’ve looked into this, here’s a calculation of the expected frequency of non-fraudulent positive results from properly run parapsychological experiments given an assumption of no actual parapsychological phenomena, and here’s a survey of results in the field. Notice that the actual positive results are not exceeding the expected positive results given that assumption?” (with the associated responsibility for maintaining such things instead of working on something else), you’re suggesting that a majority of the folks who dismiss the objectivity of scientists to go “Oh! Well, all right, then.” and decide the scientists really are objective after all?
That would really surprise me, if it happened. I expect instead that the majority of those folks are far more likely to continue dismissing scientists, they’ll just have some other reason for doing it.
actually, this is precisely how I would like people to discuss parapsychology.
What, are you going to defend science or rationalism using unscientific or irrational tactics just because you think that is going to work better? Even if that wasn’t detrimental to your own agenda in the long run, you would need to ask yourself at that point what makes you different from any politician defending any ideology at all.
Parapsychology isn’t “wrong” because it is obvious to the bigwigs in your camp (the “rationalists”) that it is wrong. It is “wrong” (or, unsubstantiated) because and only because positive results are not exceeding the positive results expected assuming the null hypothesis.
If positive results DID exceed these, we WOULD need to recognize there is an effect. Actually, most people here would probably just see this as proof that we do indeed live in a simulation and would actually be pretty cool with that as they had half-hoped that we did all along.
You’re making a lot of assumptions about me on the basis of, as far as I can tell, no data. (Either that, or you’re using “you” to refer to someone other than me.)
For what it’s worth, I agree that this is an excellent way to discuss unsubstantiated theories, although I would also say that after a certain point the onus is on those presenting the theory to show that their methodology and results are meaningfully different (and better) than previously disproved attempts to do the same. Otherwise, each new re-presentation of the same theory becomes, not part of the process of discovery, but rather just a tedious nuisance.
What I was doubting (and still doubt) is that doing so would change the way science is thought about among those who dismiss it out of hand.
Do you actually believe that?
That is, if a majority of scientists started instead saying “Actually, we’ve looked into this, here’s a calculation of the expected frequency of non-fraudulent positive results from properly run parapsychological experiments given an assumption of no actual parapsychological phenomena, and here’s a survey of results in the field. Notice that the actual positive results are not exceeding the expected positive results given that assumption?” (with the associated responsibility for maintaining such things instead of working on something else), you’re suggesting that a majority of the folks who dismiss the objectivity of scientists to go “Oh! Well, all right, then.” and decide the scientists really are objective after all?
That would really surprise me, if it happened. I expect instead that the majority of those folks are far more likely to continue dismissing scientists, they’ll just have some other reason for doing it.
actually, this is precisely how I would like people to discuss parapsychology.
What, are you going to defend science or rationalism using unscientific or irrational tactics just because you think that is going to work better? Even if that wasn’t detrimental to your own agenda in the long run, you would need to ask yourself at that point what makes you different from any politician defending any ideology at all. Parapsychology isn’t “wrong” because it is obvious to the bigwigs in your camp (the “rationalists”) that it is wrong. It is “wrong” (or, unsubstantiated) because and only because positive results are not exceeding the positive results expected assuming the null hypothesis. If positive results DID exceed these, we WOULD need to recognize there is an effect. Actually, most people here would probably just see this as proof that we do indeed live in a simulation and would actually be pretty cool with that as they had half-hoped that we did all along.
You’re making a lot of assumptions about me on the basis of, as far as I can tell, no data. (Either that, or you’re using “you” to refer to someone other than me.)
For what it’s worth, I agree that this is an excellent way to discuss unsubstantiated theories, although I would also say that after a certain point the onus is on those presenting the theory to show that their methodology and results are meaningfully different (and better) than previously disproved attempts to do the same. Otherwise, each new re-presentation of the same theory becomes, not part of the process of discovery, but rather just a tedious nuisance.
What I was doubting (and still doubt) is that doing so would change the way science is thought about among those who dismiss it out of hand.