Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#1

Post by zafka » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 7:25 PM UTC

Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future
npr.org

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#2

Post by Fargren » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 7:56 PM UTC

Older discusssion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1878160

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#3

Post by zdw » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:05 PM UTC

Krulwich's NPR Science pieces has some of the best verbal delivery, storytelling form, and production values - it's worth listening to the audio version of them.

Highly recommended if you're thinking about making a podcast.

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#4

Post by garyrob » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:11 PM UTC

See http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Wag... ("Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi".) It demolishes the study referred to in the npr article.

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#5

Post by bluekeybox » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:27 PM UTC

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The classic 5% (or even 0.1%) statistical threshold is sometimes not enough. See here for an easy-to-understand example of why that is the case: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_...

In other news, capital punishment has been installed for science journalists publishing articles that contain a question in the title that can be succinctly answered with "No."

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#6

Post by simon_ » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:28 PM UTC

Perhaps NPR celebrates inverse April Fool's Day (1/4)?

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#7

Post by zafka » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:29 PM UTC

garyrob wrote: post #4

See http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Wag... ("Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi".) It demolishes the study referred to in the npr article.

So far the best line in this paper is: "Returning to Laplace’s Principle, we should obviously assign our prior belief in precognition a number very close to zero, perhaps slightly larger than the probability of, say, goldfish being able to talk"

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#8

Post by Semiapies » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:29 PM UTC

simon_ wrote: post #6

Perhaps NPR celebrates inverse April Fool's Day (1/4)?

That'd be funnier than the simple reduction of "The answer to science article titles phrased as questions is 'No'."

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#9

Post by mcritz » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:36 PM UTC

I knew this comment would be up-voted before I wrote it.

Re: Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future

#10

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 8:37 PM UTC

simon_ wrote: post #6

Perhaps NPR celebrates inverse April Fool's Day (1/4)?

[deleted]