DCP goes all-in on pseudo scientific quackery

[drumdude]

The paper is a complete joke. Here’s as close as it gets to anything of substance:

Jeanne Achterberg’s studies in Hawaii showed changes in the brain of the recipients towards whom a healer has expressed therapeutic intention.

“Each healer selected a person with whom they felt a special connection as a recipient for Therapeutic Intention. Each recipient was placed in the MRI scanner and isolated from all forms of sensory contact from the healer. The healers sent forms of (TI) that related to their own healing practices at random 2-minute intervals that were unknown to the recipient. Significant differences between experimental (send) and control (no send) procedures were found (p = 0.000127). Areas activated during the experimental procedures included the anterior and middle cingulate area, precuneus, and frontal area. It was concluded that instructions to a healer to make an intentional connection with a sensory isolated person can be
correlated to changes in brain function of that individual.”[18]

Let me stress these are but two series of studies chosen from a large and growing corpus of peer-reviewed research, these chosen because they clearly illustrate the point.

III. What is the Standard of Proof?

Today there are eight stabilized parapsychological protocols used in laboratories around the world. Each of them has independently produced 6 sigma results. Six sigma is one in 1,009,976,678 or the 99.9999990699 percentile.[19],[20] Those that have been analyzed in detail are:

Nonlocal Perception:

RV: Remote viewing
Presentiment
The Bem Future Feeling Protocol
Retrocognition/ precognition

Nonlocal Perturbation:

REG: Random event generator
GCP: Global consciousness project

The bold part is what you say when you have weak evidence and don’t want to even bother to mention it, lest your critics find out how quickly it collapses under the slightest scrutiny.

[Physics Guy]

That paper from Achterberg et al. is also available free online. You can just copy item 18 from the references list of Schwartz's paper into Google and then go to ResearchGate.

It's a weird paper. Like most pseudo-scientific experimental papers, it sometimes dumps lots of technical-sounding information but then frequently becomes vague on important details. For instance, it states that each healer was "physically and optically isolated from the receiver", but doesn't say exactly what this meant—and the quality of isolation between sender and receiver is so obviously crucial for this kind of experiment that it's weird for a paper not to explain all the isolation measures in detail. In particular it is stated that the healer was told verbally by the experimenter when to send healing intentions to the receiver, and when to stop sending. "Optical" isolation obviously doesn't say anything about acoustic isolation, and it's not clear whether "physical" isolation does, either. One can't tell from the paper whether the receiving subjects would have been able to overhear these verbal instructions. Sure, it would have been trivial to whisper and have a thick wall or even a long hallway between the receivers and the experimenters, but even if this were easy it would have been really important and a decent paper should have explained it in detail. The fact that the paper doesn't address the overhearing issue is a bad, bad sign that this wasn't a careful experiment and that the investigators just were not thinking seriously about what they were doing.

It is also mentioned that the healers were in the "control room" with the experimenter and technicians. This is only a single-blind design, not double-blind: the people taking the data know when it's supposed to be working, and when it's not, even though the subjects don't know this. It's also mentioned that the same random sequence of sending and non-sending time intervals was used for all ten subject pairs. Both of these features are obviously not as good as they easily and obviously could have been; it's weird that the experimenters didn't use different random sequences each time, and didn't separate the healer subjects from the MRI technicians who were controlling the machines that were connected to the receiving subjects. In 2005 even a lot of lay people knew that this kind of experiment is supposed to be double-blind, and yet these researchers don't even discuss the issue.

All of that's probably moot anyway, though, because the paper doesn't make clear what exactly it found. From those ten 24-minute runs, each with a different healer-receiver pair, the paper's findings consist of a two-line table listing a bunch of parameters for each of two "clusters". The paper lists a lot of acronyms for experimental and technical procedures, but does not explain what a "cluster" is. It doesn't say enough about exactly what it was trying to measure even to raise the question of whether its "clusters" might just be the patterns that an algorithm is going to find in random noise, if you make it look for patterns. It quotes impressively low "p" values, which are supposed to assess how likely a pattern is to occur by chance, but it doesn't discuss what this meant for this experiment, so you can't tell whether these p values are only low in the sense that if you flip ten fair coins in a row then you'll always get a sequence of heads and tails that only has a chance of 1 in 2^10 of occurring.

None of these points is a nitpicking. Each of them is a crucial issue that no competent study could possibly have ignored. None of these points is unfair for not giving the experimenters credit for of-course-they-did-that-properly, you-have-to-take-that-for-granted, procedures-so-obvious-don't-have-to-be-mentioned. No, there is no rule in science about taking anyone's competence for granted. Yes, the basic procedures do have to be mentioned. This was a new kind of experiment in a fringe field, not the hundredth repetition of a standard procedure following a well-known recipe. If you don't bend over backwards to document every little detail that could conceivably have been significant, you are not even trying to do serious work.

The Achterberg paper is garbage. It's also from 2005. If it had somehow been onto something, in the intervening twenty years follow-up studies would have made fMRI studies of "directed intention" into a prominent field. It would have been on TV.

If Schwartz lists this miserable twenty-year-old study as an example of growing scientific consensus, he's flat-out lying to get attention with woo. If Schwartz thought this Achterberg paper was a solid scientific landmark, he's drunk too much of his own woo and can't think straight any more. And if anyone like Peterson thinks that texts like these by Schwartz and by Achterberg et al. are credible "data", they have a lot to learn about science: not about the currently orthodox scientific theories about the world, but about how science is a serious business of hard-nosed tire-kicking scrutiny in incredible detail and not at all a formal game of authority conferred by technical mumbo-jumbo.

[I Have Questions]

I have to confess that, for years, I dismissed all parapsychological claims as baseless nonsense, unsupported by the data. That was because I was unfamiliar with the data. I’m now inclined to believe that some such things (e.g., perception at a distance, extraordinary knowing) are demonstrably real, though typically at a very weak “signal strength.” And, if they are real, then “reductive materialism” seems most likely to be false.

Next he will be claiming that people actually bend spoons with their minds.

Here's the definition of “parapsychology:”

Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc.

I may have missed something, but has Peterson really dismissed all near-death experiences as “baseless nonsense” for years?

[Physics Guy]

... demonstrably real, though typically at a very weak “signal strength.”

I'm afraid this also betrays a basic misunderstanding. Weak forces and tiny effects can indeed be demonstrated convincingly, but only by reducing all possible noise and confounding effects to the point where the signal from those effects becomes strong. A very weak signal strength means that the purported effect does not stand out clearly from background noise, but can only kind of be seen if you squint right, and could easily disappear completely if you have to add in even a slight additional background effect that you initially overlooked.

I'm not offering a counsel of perfection about how one ought to think pessimistically about weak signals. I'm saying that what "weak signal strength" means, by definition, is that you do not have demonstrative evidence. Saying that something is demonstrably real at weak signal strength is like saying that a sound is loud at low volume. It's a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps Peterson was just mistakenly using the term "signal strength", and all he meant to say was that parapsychological phenomena are small in amplitude, like gravitational waves, which are incredibly slight distortions of space that nonetheless offer dramatically clear signals to the right equipment. If that's what he meant to say about parapsychology, though, he was just wrong. Weak signal strength, in the sense of tiny signals that are barely there in a lot of noise and actually only seem to be there because people don't recognize all the noise, is exactly what parapsychology offers. Its purported data is not a bunch of tiny, subtle effects that have been clearly demonstrated.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

... demonstrably real, though typically at a very weak “signal strength.”

Perhaps Peterson was just mistakenly using the term "signal strength", and all he meant to say was that parapsychological phenomena are small in amplitude, like gravitational waves, which are incredibly slight distortions of space that nonetheless offer dramatically clear signals to the right equipment. If that's what he meant to say about parapsychology, though, he was just wrong. Weak signal strength, in the sense of tiny signals that are barely there in a lot of noise and actually only seem to be there because people don't recognize all the noise, is exactly what parapsychology offers. Its purported data is not a bunch of tiny, subtle effects that have been clearly demonstrated.

This reminds me of when I was in my first enlistment cycle, and I was a Signals Intelligence guy. We would ‘collect’ and ‘jam’ enemy signals through the use of some pretty sophisticated equipment. While doing so you could observe a ‘signal wave screen’ and note the harmonics of a target signal. Quite often we’d hope on a harmonic of said signal, boost it, and it’d scramble the main signal. That’s all I can really say about our electronics warfare procedures, unfortunately. But the point is a harmonic signal is incredibly weak. Like. An order or orders of magnitude weaker.

Anyway, just this morning I happened to have a copy of “The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch. I must tell you, for most this book is a formidable journey into the depths of quantum physics and its ramifications on our understanding of reality. However, I enjoy regularly engaging in intellectually rigorous work! So, with that I decided to take a break from watering my coterie of exotic plants I keep in my conservatory*, and consume the book like a mopologist consumes a plate of chicken alfredo from Carrabba's Italian Grill located in University Mall in Orem, Utah. by the way, that meal? It’s really good!

Well, what can I say about Deutsch’s work? It certainly challenges conventional wisdom - boldly asserting that reality is not only comprehensible but also comprehensible through the lens of the four strands of knowledge: quantum physics, epistemology, computation, and the theory of evolution. With wit and unyielding skepticism, Deutsch dismantles prevailing paradigms, inviting us to embrace a bold new worldview where the fabric of reality is woven with the threads of quantum strangeness and infinite possibilities! Deutsch's work is a manifesto of intellectual courage; it urges us to confront the mysteries of the universe with fearless inquiry and unapologetic curiosity. It was good!

- Doc

* as an aside, I understand for some, houseplants, especially ones displayed in a conservatory, bring theater to a living space, providing quiet company to the marginally lonely and those afflicted with the muted discontent of modern life. Perhaps they’re symbols of, and antidotes to, existential ennui - the silent mascots of the comfortably numb; vestiges of distant wildernesses never seen. So, I acquiesce to the silent judgement of those who care not for the Philodendron, Anthurium, Colocasia, Spathiphyllum, Alocasia, Aglaonema, or Amorphophallus without having read Systema Naturae cover to cover. Perhaps the Latin gets tiresome after the first round of recitation, but who can resist a Delicious Monster, Peace Lily, Chinese Evergreen, Elephant Ear, and Devil’s Tongue?

Anyway, I noticed a parasite making itself at home on my Arthurium, just sucking up resources and generally making a mess of things. It reminded me of academics who pass their time with broken promises to administrators and students alike, just gobbling away without concern for the institution or the young minds, just gobble gobble gobble! Phew! So, I picked that little sucker off and relocated it to a pile of raccoon crap where, I’m sure, it’s more at home!

[Kishkumen]

You’re on a roll, DocCam! Funny stuff indeed!

[Gadianton]

Oh look. Coincidence re-defined. With a background demonstration of gullibility.

Right, so you have to look at the data from just the right angle, not casting it out with unbelief, and those who can see it -- you've got to get rid of the K-R's here who oversell -- they can just barely see it, but it's enough to tilt the scales to faith. And that tilt to faith, is then connected to a lever 100,000 meters long to leverage that faint pulse into universe-shaking consequences.

[Gadianton]

Two hundred years of reductive materialism has failed to explain the extraordinary experiences we know as moments of genius, religious epiphany, and psychic insight....

According to philosophers of mind who reject reductive materialism, the two-hundred years has failed to explain ANY experience, such as the experience of seeing red, let alone "genius". Although, Gemli would point out there are studies linking quantities of gray matter to intelligence; and plenty of psychiatric studies can link brain chemistry to cluster A disorders, which produce "religious epiphany". Psychic insight? That may also be cluster A, the way he's phrasing it. "epiphany" and "insight" don't have to be true to the real world.

It's a real problem that the author isn't clear on what he means by "explain". In the philosophical sense, explaining experience is supposed to be a similar challenge to explaining how to get an ought from an is. Dan Dennett, the famous atheist, most certainly rejects reductive materialism, as do most of the New Atheists. At the level speaking of "reductive materialism" is valid, it hardly matters if you're a reductive materialist or a functionalist when it comes to evidence of the Gemli kind -- You can reject intelligence reduces to gray matter and still believe intelligence depends on gray matter (as Dennett would). So what is the author's claim then? We really have no idea -- as stated, these comments are meaningless. Does he mean that genius doesn't depend on gray matter at all? That intelligence -- genius -- has nothing to do with brain physiology? To be clear: I mean, genius doesn't fully depend on brain physiology, even if it doesn't explain brain physiology? But unfortunately, that's not what rejecting reductive materialism means. How many times a year do I have to explain this to DCP? If he doesn't believe me, why not call up his buddy James Faulconer and have a 10 minute conversation and sort it out, so that he can at least quit making an utter fool of himself?

Here's the rub: The idiotic author has no reason whatsoever -- save his own unforgivable ignorance and stupidity -- to believe that psychic ability isn't compatible with reductive physicalism. The brain could resonate with some undiscovered ether and act as an antenna for remote imprints un the ether. Supposing non-materialism doesn't EXPLAIN anything at all, at any level, about psychic ability, even if there is a such thing.

Even in Mormonism, there is no such thing as immaterial matter -- DCP should be excommunicated for teaching false doctrine if he says otherwise -- spirit is matter, and even intelligence before the beginning or "light of truth" is matter. If all that intelligence is connected on some weird wavelength, so be it, that doesn't defy reductive physicalism, which is Peterson's primary target of disdain.

He should try to learn about a thing before criticizing it.

[Physics Guy]

I've never been clear what the "reductive" part of "reductive materialism" is supposed to mean. What would be an example of a non-reductive materialism? I'm afraid I suspect that the "reductive" part is just a weaselly way of smuggling in a straw man that nobody at all supports, not even people who would happily label themselves as reductive materialists.

I like to explain my own kind of materialism with the concrete example of a book. That avoids dealing directly with the mind, which no-one actually understands. I acknowledge that a book can contain meaning, for example a story. You will look in vain for the story, however, as a constituent of the book alongside paper and ink. The book consists of nothing but paper and ink. The detailed pattern of the ink on the paper forms the story.

If the book example becomes obscure because of the need for a reader to make sense of the pattern, I'll revert to a wave on a water surface. The wave is composed only of water molecules; its crests and troughs, and their motion, are not additional constituent substances. They are a pattern in how the water molecules move.

There are fundamentally very few distinct substances, actually. Most phenomena are patterns or processes, rather than things whose properties come from what they are made of, in kind of the way pentatonic music consists of different arrangements of the same small number of notes. This insight is what "reductionism" means to me. So I can only understand a non-reductive materialism to be one something like Joseph Smith's may have been, with many different material substances postulated, each with inherent properties that are supposed to explain particular phenomena.

In fact that approach is not so tenable nowadays, because of a point that Sean Carroll has recently made in public but that has occurred to plenty of other physicists and can, I think, be called a mainstream view.

Every kind of matter is a kind of particle, and particles are not eternal little specks of grit, but excitations of quantum fields, that can appear and disappear. It is not obvious, but it comes out as a basic consequence of combining quantum mechanics with relativity, that interactions among particles are strictly linked to their appearing and disappearing. Consequently, any form of matter that interacts with the forms of matter we know would also appear out of nothing, at least sometimes, when we smash particles together.

We've been smashing particles together very hard for many years now, in high-energy physics experiments with particle accelerators.

If there were extra kinds of matter that were somehow responsible for ESP or whatever, they would have to interact at least somewhat with the kinds of matter we know, or nobody would ever be able to move their mouths made of protons and neutrons and electrons to declare what they had learned from telepathy. But if extra ESP matter interacts with ordinary matter, then we would have seen it by now in places like CERN.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Every kind of matter is a kind of particle, and particles are not eternal little specks of grit, but excitations of quantum fields, that can appear and disappear.

I think this is the nitty gritty here, PG. DCP literally doesn’t understand just how weak these fields are. So, in order to conduct remote viewing, you’d have to boost the ‘signal’ of the ‘immaterial’ wavelengths so hard on the things you’re trying to remotely view, or whatever other childish wish-wish games DCP believes in, that it’d fry those things, and most likely your things, too. I don’t understand how remote viewing could be happening without irradiating the entire Earth. I dunno know, I’m not the Holiest Ghost.

Speaking of remotely viewing things… I have a genuine Yayoi Kusama painting hanging next to my toilet, somewhat appropriately I admit. This painting was on display at Le Consortium, Dijon, France in 2006 when I came across it, and being the easily manipulated consumerist I am, I quietly slipped the art under my rain coat, tugged smartly on the brim of my trilby, and smuggled it home. Oddly, I never saw any headlines about a theft happening at the museum, so I assume museum officials thought the art not worth missing, put in an insurance claim for €2.60, and called it a day.

Why bring up my affinity for theft and a love of cheap, easily ideated and produced art? Well, I suppose it’s because I was ‘remotely viewing’ DCP’s blog about some BS ideas he lifted and plopped down on his Patheos page, a website so rote, so bereft of design that it could accurately be described as the Big Lots of websites. If you ever want some crap to hang on your walls, and your budget is twenty bucks, well Big Lots is your place.

Be that as it may, I was reading some article about something on DCP’s Big Lots web page, I dunno, I already forgot the topic, and decided to read the comments section, hoping that a faithful reader might offer up something a little more palatable than raccoon crap, and noticed a ‘Dr. J’ posting this after having asked another reader, essentially, what their credential are:

“I just wanted to get a sense of your scientific grounding. Having asked, I should also answer: In my early medical career, I led cancer therpay randomized controlled trials for a very large multi-center trials group. At the time, I was a professor in a department of biostatistics at a major university -- I have an advanced biostatistics degree, in addition to my medical degree. I then led a clinical research center for several decades. I'm an old guy, but currently have several academic appointments (a main one, that pays, plus several other adjunct appointments); plus advise a number of national governments on health policy and health care reform, from the perspective of evidence-based medicine.

I asked because knowing your background informs my understanding of your critiques of scientific articles in the peer-reviewed literature, especially in those circumstances when you don't include specifics...”

Nice. Dr. J just dunked on that guy. He also inadvertently dunked on the blog’s proprietor. What a world we live in!

Anyhoo, I was on the toilet, thanks to a cup of ‘Biohazard Ground Coffee’, no kidding, there’s really a ‘Biohazard Ground Coffee’, glancing at my stolen Yayoi Kusama art in between intense intestinal cramps from having read that blog this morning, and it occurred to me that Kusama incorporated similar elements from the Bauhaus into her works, infusing them with bold patterns and repetitive motifs. She admired the Bauhaus' commitment to breaking down boundaries between different art forms, echoing its interdisciplinary approach in her own diverse oeuvre spanning painting, sculpture, performance, and installation. Despite emerging from different cultural contexts, she embraced the Bauhaus’ principles, so she not only paid homage to a seminal art movement but also continued its legacy of pushing artistic boundaries and challenging conventional artistic norms.

And there’s a lesson there. Does one have to be a medical professional who “led cancer therapy randomized controlled trials for a very large multi-center trials group” to understand that remote viewing would irradiate the entire earth and create another extinction-level event? No! One can blend their training with the common sense of a thief who steals art from French museums and realize one is so full of raccoon crap one’s eyes have turned brown!

As the French say, “Tenter de comprendre la physique revient à poursuivre des ombres dans un labyrinthe d'équations.”

- Doc “I believe Kusama would think my theft of her art would be art itself” NC4Me