From: rdnelson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger D. Nelson)
Subject: Re: Was How to Handle Scientific "Unorthodoxy"
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:35:38 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.150229.9424@mail.cornell.edu> phydeaux@guru.med.cornell.edu (Dave Weingart) writes:
[using a wider screen than the 80 cols that is more typical, resulting
in hard-to-read text, much of which I have deleted]

[The following is part of what I had said responding to his, as it turns out,
quarrelous query about telepathy not following the inverse square law.]

=|> skeptic may conclude that the effects are spurious.  In the case of data
=|> produced in well controlled experiments, such an approach is
=|> unwarranted, not least because it assumes the data are defective rather
=|> than the (implicit) theory.  A more rational approach requires a search for
=|> accomodation, which may ultimately require a new (or more likely a
=|> broadened) theoretical model. 
=
=Not necessarily.  Remembering the point in the stuff you deleted (just to reiterate
=for those who had the good taste not to read my original followup), science is
=conservative _because_ new results should be interpreted of what is known first, and
=then only when _that_ fails should should new theories be proposed.  

RN:  This is easy to agree with, especially since the explanation 
for the conservatism is tautological.  My point is that it is bad
science to reject data simply because they don't fit a current world
model, and to assume incompetence or fraud as the explanation for the
data; this is especially the case if such judgements are made by people
with little or no direct knowledge of the research.  

=What becomes a
=problem is when you can't even have a basis for controlled experimentation (i.e.
=psi "experiments" when data are discarded because "the subject was having a bad day"),
=you have nothing to theorize about.  Skeptics will assume (and rightly so)
=that something that has no relation to what is known is most likely error or outright
=fraud.  

RN:  It should be obvious that the above remarks are a straw man in 
the context of my statement about data from well controlled experiments.  
Further, these remarks are so disjointed logically that it is tempting 
to assume they were given little thought.  

=(Frankly, from having people claim psychic abilities to me, only to have
=them refuse to demonstrate them (or fail when they try), I suspect that if psi
=power is out there, it's bloody damned rare....maybe 1 in a million at tops -- given
=the overwhelming amount of fraud out there, why bother spending research time?)

RN:  Because depending on "people claim[ing] psychic abilities" for
information relevant to scientific questions is totally inadequate, 
whether proponents or skeptics do it.  

=The best scientist is skeptical about almost everything.

RN:  Yup.  But he/she is also willing, indeed eager to learn what there
is to inform judgements.  It is a poor scientist who is skeptical of
anything about which she/he knows nothing. 
 
=|> In any case, at this point, there is nothing much in the way
=|> of an explanation for the findings of relevant experimental research.
=|> It is worth noting that professional students of anomalies do not, in
=|> general, consider the transfer of information documented in the
=|> experiments to be energetic in principle, in part because of this
=|> apparent mismatch with the well-established inverse square law. 
=
=In other words, "We'll invent something out of thin air because if we try and used
=theoretical models that have been tested and verified, we come up with nothing more
=than the end of the bell curve."

RN:  Riiight, Dave.  You sure are quick on the uptake.

Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA