American Psychological Association to publish controversial 'PSI' paper

[Telarus]

http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf


Sticking this here so I can read it when I'm not all feverish.

[Requia ☣]

I'm now envisioning an experiment where people are asked to chose the left or right box, one of which will have the erotic images and, one of which will have horrible mind rending things selected by Roger, and seeing which one gets picked more often.  

Not done reading, but this is... interesting.  In particular the powers he's proposing actually have a reason to exist from a natural selection standpoint*.  Assuming he's not faking the data or lying about his methods, this actually holds up so far.  A great deal of repetition is necessary.

*Apparently my confidence in the theory of evolution is higher than my confidence in the laws of physics, interesting.

[Cramulus]

I, for one, am really excited that an established psychologist who already has a lot of credibility is looking at these things. It's difficult for parapsychologists to be taken seriously by mainstream psychological researchers because

(a) so many parapsychologists use really weird unproven explanations for the effects they find
(b) most parapsychologists don't have any cred in mainstream circles

the word Parapsychology itself makes a lot of psych researchers roll their eyes.. which is sort of sad because when paraspsychologists DO find something interesting, there are no ... hmm... social instruments for mainstream science to detect it. I think Bem's credibility will go a long way here.

[Requia ☣]

Psych researchers rolling their eyes at parapsychology has more to do with ~80 years of parapsychologists failing to produce any repeatable experimental results before the rest of the psych community said 'fuck it, get out'.

This paper isn't the same tired old debunked ideas being dragged out again, but new ideas that might be correct, and at the least require new debunking.

[Jasper]

Freely admitted, I did roll my eyes-  As a psych major, I'm definitely chagrined by the effect unscientific claims have had on the overall credibility of psychology as a science.  But if the paper turns out to be an appropriate application of psychological science with compelling results, I will accept them.  Plan to read this after school.  Maybe do a write-up?

[LMNO]

I'm wondering if the experiments have the rigor of a "hard science" experiment (physics, etc), or if it's a tightly controlled "correlation" experiment.

[Jasper]

No behavioral science can be as rigorous as a phys or chem experiment, ever.

[LMNO]

I suppose.  Plus, as noted above, what is being suggested violates known physical laws; I'm guessing no one attempts to reconcile this.

[Jasper]

I'll try to post a write-up tonight.

[Richter]

No behavioral science can be as rigorous as a phys or chem experiment, ever.

Which is why it's important to do so with a very objective viewpoint and careful methodology including multiple levels of blinds and controls.  You literally CAN see diffferent results dependign on whether or not you're looking for them, when psychology is involved. 

Correlation is NOT relationship, as the professors made certain to demonstrate to us in school, due to the daunting number of factors invovled if nothing else.

Especially with parapsychology, even valid results with solid experimetnal design may be discarded, simply for the prejudice against the field, and biased view from a "Scholarly", "Scientific" community.  (Which REALLY irks me.)

[Jasper]

Psych experiments are particularly hard because of "realism".  Like in the Asch conformity test with the glasses that was mentioned recently?  People will behave differently with regard to how they expect you to expect them to act.  Which is Fucking Frustrating.  QM is downright obliging by comparison.

[Requia ☣]

What exactly do you mean by a correlation experiment?  The only things like that in psychology that I'm aware of are questionnaire relationship type deals (IE, people with high scores on the authoritarian construct correlate to high aversion on INC-NON humor, stuff like that).  The two experiments I've read so far aren't anything like that.

[Jasper]

A lot of them are basically creating an environment, providing a stimulus, and observing behaviors. 

[LMNO]

What exactly do you mean by a correlation experiment?  The only things like that in psychology that I'm aware of are questionnaire relationship type deals (IE, people with high scores on the authoritarian construct correlate to high aversion on INC-NON humor, stuff like that).  The two experiments I've read so far aren't anything like that.

I meant "When we do X, we get Y."


As opposed to "Because of Z (which works because of A and B), when we do X, we get Y."



Fucking violation of physical laws, how do they work?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Psych researchers rolling their eyes at parapsychology has more to do with ~80 years of parapsychologists failing to produce any repeatable experimental results before the rest of the psych community said 'fuck it, get out'.

This

This paper isn't the same tired old debunked ideas being dragged out again, but new ideas that might be correct, and at the least require new debunking.

And that.