RE: Get rich by predicting the future... no really, it's all in a published paper
hey @undergroundecon, thank you for your time reading through the article. While I appreciate your criticism things like "this is nonsense" isn't particularly helpful in discussing a topic.
I have stated that I am skeptical of some of the claims made by PSI, but years of research have led me to believe that there is more to this phenomenon than "nonsense".
If you are looking for evidence, I suggest that you have a look at this book http://www.deanradin.com/supernormal.htm
You are right, the sample size is not very impressive. But it would still mean that getting a hit 10 times in a row would only have a probability of in 5^10= 1/1024. That's not exactly much. Again, for more statistical significant results I would point to the book above.
The subjective description of the drawings isn't a weak point here. It was necessary in order to translate a drawing into a binary event.
Why wouldn't you be convinced by an independent replication? Scientists should always have an open (yet of course critical) mind and inquire into the unknown.
The reason that the paper is published in this journal is because in the current scientific framework it is close to impossible to get this type of research published in a so called prestigious journal. Isn't the work rather than the journal more important? And how should science advance if all ideas stem from within the accepted established framework?
As I said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. PSI is at odds with everything we understand about physics and the way the brain works, so it needs a working theory that makes testable predictions.
The slogan "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" generally makes sense. However, perhaps it is not such an extraordinary claim? One way to look at this is to think of PSI as a natural phenomena that has always existed. This line of reasoning has been explored by Rupert Sheldrake who has suggested in many experiments that PSI is a natural and not extraordinary phenomena. As evidence he points to the peculiar finding that people often know when someone is calling them on the phone or dogs know when their owner comes back home. These kinds of experiments may seem trivial, but they cannot be explained away at present as they have been replicated numerous times. For more information see his book The Science Delusion.
For present physics this may indeed seem hard to explain. But that is mostly true for classical physics. In quantum physics these kinds of phenomena are not so strange at all: instantaneous transfer of information, energy out of "nothing", even time in physics is not required to move only in one direction (as time is not found in the equations governing our reality (if I am wrong here, please correct me)).
Physics is constantly changing as can be seen through our history. It is only natural that our current way of understanding the world will be obsolete in a century. So we should be open for these kinds of things.
Hi again @tobetada, I just wanted to complement you on your rebuttal to the comment by @undergroundecon, it was very professionally done! I do not know if you are aware, and since I am fairly new I might be mistaken, but I think I read that you must spell the name of the person you are responding to exactly and put the "@" symbol in front of it or they will not be alerted that you have responded to their comment. Be a pity if you gave such a great reply and the person never knew about it and had no chance to man up to the logic:-) Have a great day!
Okay thanks for letting me know!