RE: [escepticos] Parapsicologia

["Rafael Budría García" <rbudria@...>]

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> De: Ernesto <u199873203 en abonados.cplus.es>
> A: Escepticos <escepticos en CCDIS.dis.ulpgc.es>
> Asunto: [escepticos] Parapsicologia
> Fecha: jueves 15 de enero de 1998 13:12
> 
> Sacado de The Skeptic Dictionary, de Robert Carroll
> http://wheel.ucdavis.edu/%7Ebtcarrol/skeptic/dictcont.html
> ¡Pero hay mucho más!
> 
> [Buena frase:]
> 
> "Parapsychology is unique in that it is a discipline which devotes
> most of its energy to trying to prove the existence of something it
> can't explain. Most sciences try to explain observable phenomena.
> Parapsychology tries to observe unexplainable phenomena. "
> 

 No, Ernesto, buena no.
 Es de una simetría perfecta. Es verdad y no paras de reirte.

> [Esto también tiene miga:]
> 
> "Research in this area has been characterized by incompetence,
> deception and fraud. When properly controlled experiments are done
> they have usually yielded negative results, i.e., have been unable to
> demonstrate a single clear case of psychic power or paranormal
> phenomena. But negative result studies, such as the one done by
> Richard C. Sprinthall and Barry S. Lubetkin published in the Journal
> of Psychology (vol. 60, pp. 313-18) and which was carefully and
> properly designed, are universally rejected by true believers in psi.
> Researchers who claim to have found positive results usually
> systematically ignore or rationalize their own studies which don't
> support their claims. Many, if not most, psi researchers allow
> optional starting and optional stopping. "
> 
> ["optional starting" y "optional stopping" son procedimientos que
> Carroll explica también en su diccionario]
> 
> [Sobre los resultados positivos:]
> 
> "Finding a correlation which is not what would be predicted by chance
> does not establish a causal event. Furthermore, even if there is a
> causal event, the correlation itself isn't of much use in determining
> what that event consists of. What you think is cause may be the
> effect. Or, there may be some third, unknown, factor which is causing
> the effect observed. So, the fact that a group of test subjects
> identifies correctly which of four pictures someone else has seen at a
> .36 rate when .25 is what chance predicts doesn't establish a causal
> event. Nor does it, of course, establish esp as the cause, if there is
> a cause. The event may well be causal, but the real cause may be
> something quite ordinary, such as fraud, unintentional cues, or some
> tendency to bias in the subject matters selected by chance. If other
> researchers can duplicate the results with more and more rigorous
> tests, then it will become highly probable that causal events are
> being measured. Then, the problem will be to find the cause. Maybe it
> will turn out to be a psychic force hitherto undetected by physics but
> I would not hold my breath."
> 
> [Mi inglés no llega a tanto: ¿qué es "hitherto"?]

¿Hasta ahora?


Un saludo de Rafa.