Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

I do have one question... how would a conservative school board, school system and teacher treat a philosophy of science class such as Hans described? I'm asking in all sincerity since I've no experience dealing with conservative school systems????

Since they lost the evolution debate, the fundamentalists have been trying to get these disclaimer notices on science textbooks that says evolution is only a theory and not a fact and some have suggested handing out materials to students that discuss the "weaknesses" of evolution. This is what fundamentalists mean whey they want to "teach the controversy." They don't want to have an actual philosophical debate on it; they just want to teach how the fact of evolution is "flawed."

 

Also... and I'm asking this very seriously because I just simply don't know. Don't high-school and middle-school science teachers have to have some kind of degree in sciences to teach? And if so... that leads me to ask.... how do you get a degree in science (of any kind) and still remain a literalist, fundamentalist????

I don't know, but Micheal Behe somehow managed to do it.

 

 

 

I really am asking this in all sincerity - I'm not trying to make people angry. But... are there really a lot of fundamentalist, literalist science teachers in the more conservative areas (like the south)???

Speaking from when I was in high school, the teachers weren't neccessarily crazy but evolution was a hush hush subject you weren't supposed to talk about. In fact, we never even covered the subject of evolution once when I was in school and I had to learn about it on my own. I learned more about evolution from reading Dawkins on my own than I did in my high school biology class, although they had a bible "history" class where the bible was taught as literal historical fact. I don't know what they're like now as that was several years ago and my English textbook in college actually states intelligent design is just an opinion and not a real theory, so I don't know what it's like nowadays.

[PaulQ]

I understand this is an old topic, but it's been pinned. I attempted to read through the replies and thought about what I would post and which I would respond to, as this topic interests me greatly. Then I decided the best approach is to respond to the original article which spawned the first post.

 

Whether intentional or not, this article is misleading. It set off a few red flags in my own critical mind as I read it, and I would like to share those with you.

On a bright spring day, Schlitz is leading Teena and J.D. Miller down a path to the laboratory at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, north of San Francisco. Schlitz is the president of the institute, which conducts research on consciousness and spirituality. The Millers have been married a decade and their affection is palpable — making them perfect for the so-called Love Study.

 

Straight away, we see that they sought out the "Perfect" candidates. This isn't just any random sampling of couples in love, so already things are starting to look fishy.

 

Schlitz takes Teena into an isolated room, where no sound can come in or go out. Teena settles into a deep armchair as Schlitz attaches electrodes to her right hand.

 

It's not really explained why it's necessary that an isolated, sound-proof room is necessary, because so far the test really hasn't been adequately explained.

 

"This is measuring blood flow in your thumb, and this is your skin conductance activity," the researcher explains. "So basically both of these are measures of your unconscious nervous system."

 

My guess is that it's actually measuring the pulse rate in the thumb, and the resistance the skin has to electric current, which can be affected by a great many things.

 

Schlitz locks Teena into the electromagnetically shielded chamber, then ushers J.D. into another isolated room with a closed-circuit television. She explains that the screen will go on and off. And at random intervals, Teena's image will appear on the screen for 10 seconds.

 

First she's isolated from sound, now she's electromagnetically shielded. Again, the purpose of using an electromagnetically shielded chamber isn't really explained. Further, J.D. also needs to be in an isolated room, which doesn't seem necessary at all. Neither does a closed-circuit television showing Teena's image. Couldn't J.D. just be outside of the first isolated room, looking at pictures for the experiment? It appears they're trying to impress with a show of technical know-how for no apparent reason.

 

"And so during the times when you see her," she instructs, "it's your opportunity to think about sending loving, compassionate intention."

 

Is this supposed to be like prayer?

 

As the session begins, Dean Radin, a senior scientist here, watches as a computer shows changes in J.D.'s blood pressure and perspiration. When J.D. sees the image of his wife, the steady lines suddenly jump and become ragged. The question is: Will Teena's nervous system follow suit?

 

No; the real question is, why didn't they get the JREF involved and try for the million dollar challenge? If this was successful, they would win that cool million.

 

"Notice how here … see, there's a change in the blood volume," says Radin, pointing to a screen charting Teena's measurements. "A sudden change like that is sometimes associated with an orienting response. If you suddenly hear somebody whispering in your ear, and there's nobody around, you have this sense of what? What was that? That's more or less what we're seeing in the physiology."

 

It's also sometimes associated with, well, just about anything. An itch on her nose, perhaps.

 

An hour later, Radin displays Teena's graph, which shows a flat line during the times her husband was not staring at her image, but when her husband began to stare at her, she stopped relaxing and became "aroused" within about two seconds.

 

How many times was this measured? Over what period of time? How many misses were there? Critical details are missing.

 

After running 36 couples through this test, the researchers found that when one person focused his thoughts on his partner, the partner's blood flow and perspiration dramatically changed within two seconds. The odds of this happening by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results.

 

Based on what I've read, the people conducting the experiment probably don't even know what a double blind experiment is.

[Shyone]

Based on what I've read, the people conducting the experiment probably don't even know what a double blind experiment is.

Without direct access to all of the details of the experiment, I hesitate to be critical of their methods, but I would say that, if this was done correctly, and if it can be reproduced, then James Randi owes the researchers $1,000,000.00.

 

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.

[PaulQ]

Based on what I've read, the people conducting the experiment probably don't even know what a double blind experiment is.

Without direct access to all of the details of the experiment, I hesitate to be critical of their methods, but I would say that, if this was done correctly, and if it can be reproduced, then James Randi owes the researchers $1,000,000.00.

 

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.

 

I feel it's a safe bet that the reason why we are not provided access to all of the details of the experiment is because the people conducting the experiment are intentionally deceitful.

[Legion]

I don't know about this experiment. And frankly, I don't care about it. The title of this thread is...

 

Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens

 

What makes a scientific theory reductionistic is the mathematics used to model a natural system. Namely, if calculus, the mechanics first developed by Newton, is employed in the description of a natural system then the theory is reductionistic. However we can still have mathematical models of natural systems which employ entirely different mathematics. Therefore, reductionism is not a scientific given.

[PaulQ]

I don't know about this experiment. And frankly, I don't care about it. The title of this thread is...

 

Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens

 

What makes a scientific theory reductionistic is the mathematics used to model a natural system. Namely, if calculus, the mechanics first developed by Newton, is employed in the description of a natural system then the theory is reductionistic. However we can still have mathematical models of natural systems which employ entirely different mathematics. Therefore, reductionism is not a scientific given.

 

Albert Einstein was quoted as saying, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." Since reductionism and materialism are just that, the premise on which the title of this thread is based is inherently flawed and incorrect.

[Legion]

Albert Einstein was quoted as saying, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." Since reductionism and materialism are just that, the premise on which the title of this thread is based is inherently flawed and incorrect.

If you are assserting that the mathematics that reductionists use (Newtonian mechanics) to model natural systems is the only valid mathematics for modeling then you are simply mistaken. There are multitudes of mathematical branches and any or all of them may be employed to model natural systems.

[PaulQ]

Albert Einstein was quoted as saying, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." Since reductionism and materialism are just that, the premise on which the title of this thread is based is inherently flawed and incorrect.

If you are assserting that the mathematics that reductionists use (Newtonian mechanics) to model natural systems is the only valid mathematics for modeling then you are simply mistaken. There are multitudes of mathematical branches and any or all of them may be employed to model natural systems.

 

The only thing I am asserting is the fact that the title of the thread is inherently flawed. Anything that is a refinement of our everyday thinking can be accepted as a scientific given, including reductionism and materialism.

[Legion]

If you are assserting that the mathematics that reductionists use (Newtonian mechanics) to model natural systems is the only valid mathematics for modeling then you are simply mistaken. There are multitudes of mathematical branches and any or all of them may be employed to model natural systems.

 

The only thing I am asserting is the fact that the title of the thread is inherently flawed.

Um, no it is not. I just explained above why it is not flawed.

[PaulQ]

If you are assserting that the mathematics that reductionists use (Newtonian mechanics) to model natural systems is the only valid mathematics for modeling then you are simply mistaken. There are multitudes of mathematical branches and any or all of them may be employed to model natural systems.

 

The only thing I am asserting is the fact that the title of the thread is inherently flawed.

Um, no it is not. I just explained above why it is not flawed.

 

Um, yes it is. I just explained above why it is flawed.

[Legion]

If reductionism was a scientific given then this would exclude many forms of mathematics which are in fact used to model natural systems. Therefore reductionism is not a scientific given. We can do science with or without reduction.

[PaulQ]

If reductionism was a scientific given then this would exclude many forms of mathematics which are in fact used to model natural systems. Therefore reductionism is not a scientific given. We can do science with or without reduction.

 

Why do you assume that a scientific given excludes everything else?

[Open_Minded]

I understand this is an old topic, but it's been pinned. I attempted to read through the replies and thought about what I would post and which I would respond to, as this topic interests me greatly. Then I decided the best approach is to respond to the original article which spawned the first post.

 

Whether intentional or not, this article is misleading. It set off a few red flags in my own critical mind as I read it, and I would like to share those with you….

On a bright spring day, Schlitz is leading Teena and J.D. Miller down a path to the laboratory at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, north of San Francisco. Schlitz is the president of the institute, which conducts research on consciousness and spirituality. The Millers have been married a decade and their affection is palpable — making them perfect for the so-called Love Study.

 

Straight away, we see that they sought out the "Perfect" candidates. This isn't just any random sampling of couples in love, so already things are starting to look fishy.

 

It’s not intended to be a random sampling of couples, it’s intended to be a study of connectedness, that’s why they call nicknamed it “the love study”.

 

In addition, let’s assume the scientists weighted the study by finding the “perfect” candidates.

 

The final question – still needs to be answered – how are any two individuals, (whether in love or not) connected in such a way that person “B” is aware that person “A” is thinking of him/her? Classical – reductionist science does not allow for non-local connections at a macro scale.

 

 

 

Schlitz takes Teena into an isolated room, where no sound can come in or go out. Teena settles into a deep armchair as Schlitz attaches electrodes to her right hand.

 

It's not really explained why it's necessary that an isolated, sound-proof room is necessary, because so far the test really hasn't been adequately explained…

 

Schlitz locks Teena into the electromagnetically shielded chamber, then ushers J.D. into another isolated room with a closed-circuit television. She explains that the screen will go on and off. And at random intervals, Teena's image will appear on the screen for 10 seconds.

 

First she's isolated from sound, now she's electromagnetically shielded. Again, the purpose of using an electromagnetically shielded chamber isn't really explained. Further, J.D. also needs to be in an isolated room, which doesn't seem necessary at all. Neither does a closed-circuit television showing Teena's image. Couldn't J.D. just be outside of the first isolated room, looking at pictures for the experiment? It appears they're trying to impress with a show of technical know-how for no apparent reason.

 

This is pretty elementary stuff, Paul… Seriously… by isolating Teena and putting her in an electromagnetically shielded chamber the scientists are eliminating communication possibilities such as sound, cell phones (can’t be used in electromagnetically shielded chambers), and even unknown ways of perceiving through electromagnetic waves. Part of good science is to use experimentation to eliminate possibilities. By taking the time and effort to eliminate different possibilities than future experiments can continue to narrow down and hone remaining possibilities.

 

"And so during the times when you see her," she instructs, "it's your opportunity to think about sending loving, compassionate intention."

 

Is this supposed to be like prayer?

:whatever: … this doesn’t show your bias at all

 

Really who cares what you want to label it, “prayer”, “compassion”, “love” … the point is, does the receiver perceive (if only on a subtle level) that someone else is thinking of him/her.

 

I can't use quotes anymore - so Paul's comments are indented....

 

"Notice how here … see, there's a change in the blood volume," says Radin, pointing to a screen charting Teena's measurements. "A sudden change like that is sometimes associated with an orienting response. If you suddenly hear somebody whispering in your ear, and there's nobody around, you have this sense of what? What was that? That's more or less what we're seeing in the physiology."

 

It's also sometimes associated with, well, just about anything. An itch on her nose, perhaps.

 

Snide remark aside … you might want to see the following paragraph from the original article.

 

After running 36 couples through this test, the researchers found that when one person focused his thoughts on his partner, the partner's blood flow and perspiration dramatically changed within two seconds. The odds of this happening by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results.

 

Based on what I've read, the people conducting the experiment probably don't even know what a double blind experiment is.

 

Another snide remark with absolutely nothing to back it up. One of “the people conducting the experiment” is Dean Radin, a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. You don’t have to agree with his research, but his research has been published in standard peer review journals and is up for debate amongst the wider scientific community.

 

That is the whole reason I started this thread, to point out that not all scientists march lock-step behind a clock-work, reductionist view of the universe. There are many – qualified and respected – scientists who are doing the work of showing the clock-work view of the universe as flawed (at best).

 

If you disagree with Radin’s experimentation methods do the work of finding rebuttal studies in peer review journals. He puts his work out there for fellow scientists to prove wrong, as of yet, I’ve not found any experiments that successfully rebut his work (and the work of many other scientists showing non-local connections between human beings).

 

There are lots of sloppy studies on paranormal activity, but increasingly scientists are doing systematic and well run and yes double-blind studies to show that there is something happening. They use electromagnetically shielded chambers to eliminate accusations of sloppy methodology. They use standard protocol and their work is standing up to peer-review.

 

So… you don’t like the implications…. If you truly do possess a critical mind than you know that we are suppose to let the science lead us to the truth… we’re suppose to set our own biases aside and look at the facts…

 

So… have at it … you’ve got access to the internet… feel free to do the research and find the rebutting studies, the studies that debunk the work of Radin and other scientists who are working in this area.

[Shyone]

So… have at it … you’ve got access to the internet… feel free to do the research and find the rebutting studies, the studies that debunk the work of Radin and other scientists who are working in this area.

That is the crux of the matter. Scientific disciplines are self-correcting in part because one criterion of research is that it should be able to be duplicated.

 

And it is appropriate to be skeptical of something that appears to contradict physics. Telepathy has thus far not been proven to exist, and this study, while not specifically calling what they are looking for telepathy, suggests that there is some extracorporeal connection between minds not based on the usual methods of communication (verbal, visual, olfactory, touch, etc.).

 

The only thing I can imagine might be a problem is when people who research pseudoscience in a pseudoscientific manner have their studies repeated by other pseudoscientific researchers, they tend to repeat the mistakes if there is no oversight by unbiased observers. Imagine a study from the "Crystal Power Institute" showing that Crystal Power can be used to cure headaches. Or the "Bigfoot Research Institute" claming that a sigting of Bigfoot is genuine.

 

Skeptics don't debunk merely to debunk. They are looking for what may have been overlooked that could lead to false conclusions.

[Open_Minded]

So… have at it … you’ve got access to the internet… feel free to do the research and find the rebutting studies, the studies that debunk the work of Radin and other scientists who are working in this area.

That is the crux of the matter. Scientific disciplines are self-correcting in part because one criterion of research is that it should be able to be duplicated.

 

Hence the reason the original NPR news article took the time to point out the following:

 

After running 36 couples through this test, the researchers found that when one person focused his thoughts on his partner, the partner's blood flow and perspiration dramatically changed within two seconds. The odds of this happening by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results.

 

And it is appropriate to be skeptical of something that appears to contradict physics. Telepathy has thus far not been proven to exist, and this study, while not specifically calling what they are looking for telepathy, suggests that there is some extracorporeal connection between minds not based on the usual methods of communication (verbal, visual, olfactory, touch, etc.).

 

The only thing I can imagine might be a problem is when people who research pseudoscience in a pseudoscientific manner have their studies repeated by other pseudoscientific researchers, they tend to repeat the mistakes if there is no oversight by unbiased observers. Imagine a study from the "Crystal Power Institute" showing that Crystal Power can be used to cure headaches. Or the "Bigfoot Research Institute" claming that a sigting of Bigfoot is genuine.

 

Skeptics don't debunk merely to debunk. They are looking for what may have been overlooked that could lead to false conclusions.

 

The University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh are hardly the "Bigfoot Research Institute".

 

My original challenge stands...

 

So… have at it … you’ve got access to the internet… feel free to do the research and find the rebutting studies, the studies that debunk the work of Radin and other scientists who are working in this area.

[The-Captain]

That compilation and abstract from the first post was quite the interesting read. Limits of consciousness is a rather novel area of study, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on any of the published studies they mentioned (looked like a lot of positive correlations).

 

Whether intentional or not, this article is misleading. It set off a few red flags in my own critical mind as I read it, and I would like to share those with you.

 

Eh, it's just a news article. If you are skeptical you might do better looking at the study itself.

[Open_Minded]

That compilation and abstract from the first post was quite the interesting read. Limits of consciousness is a rather novel area of study, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on any of the published studies they mentioned (looked like a lot of positive correlations).

 

Whether intentional or not, this article is misleading. It set off a few red flags in my own critical mind as I read it, and I would like to share those with you.

 

Eh, it's just a news article. If you are skeptical you might do better looking at the study itself.

 

Hello Captain:

 

You mentioned the compilation and abstract from the first post. I'm assuming you're talking about

 

Therapeutic Intent/Healing Bibliography of Research – by Larry Dossey, M.D., and Stephan A. Schwartz

 

Yes - it is a very interesting read and goes to my point - this line of scientific inquiry is moving into the mainstream. More and more scientists are validly pushing the envelope and questioning the standard reductionist view of our universe (and our own minds).

[The-Captain]

Apropos to the subject. Here is an article I read some time ago in Psychology today that references part of what we are discussing here.

 

Follow the link for the full article.

 

Welcome to the Mind-Body Revolution

 

By Marc Barasch, published on July 01, 1993 - last reviewed on April 17, 2006

 

Evidence that the mind and body influence each other abounds, and suggests something much stranger: that awareness isn't confined to the brain; it operates 'nonlocally,' beyond the biochemical lines between brain and, say, the immune system. This consciousness revolution is rattling the very foundation of Western medicine.

 

Anyone who didn't spend 1993 in a severely media-deprived locale—an Antarctic substation, say, or the lazily pinwheeling Russian space-lab—has probably heard the news: Rene Descartes, the 17th century mathematician who shaped the world as we know it, has been officially pronounced dead.

 

The eulogy was delivered by Bill Moyers, public television's own Piers Ploughman, via his phenomenally successful TV series and book-cum-transcript, Healing and the Mind. But in truth, the old philosophe's stiff—which had lain for three centuries in the halls of medicine like some glass-entombed Lenin—had become a bit of an embarrassment.

 

Immortalized in Bartlett's for his inscrutable, Popeye-like declamation, "I think therefore I am," Descartes was history's most persuasive partisan of the mind-body split, a bedrock notion of modern science. Mental events, the savant declared, occur in a separate domain from those of the flesh. Consciousness has no business in the mean streets of matter. As a result, medical science came to be dominated by a materialism so iron-clad that one 19th century theorist felt emboldened to quip that the mind's influence upon the mechanism of the body was like "the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine but cannot influence its machinery."

 

The problem with this is obvious to anyone who ever had an unseemly thought about their junior-high English teacher and then blushed: "The soul's passions," said Aristotle, who had it right all along, "seem to be linked with a body, as the body undergoes modifications in their presence."

 

By 1900, medical science had at least begun to suspect as much. Freud and Janet's investigations of hysterical paralysis provided a benchmark of the mind's power over the body. Dr. Walter Cannon discovered in the 1930s that the central nervous system controlled many bodily functions and suggested that it in turn was subject to a regulatory mechanism "which in human beings we call the personality."

 

Still, if anyone could be credited with shutting off the refrigeration on Descartes' mortal remains and letting the aroma of a paradigm gone bad reach science's stuffed nostrils, it is Candace Pert, Ph.D., former chief of the Brain Biochemistry Section of the National Institute of Mental Health and co-discoverer of the brain's opiate receptors. Subsequent revelations that similar docking sites for "information molecules" (or neuropeptides) were myriad as stars scattered through the bodily firmament have launched the branch of medicine known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), which is busy codifying a self-evident truth: Mind and body have their hands so deep in each other's pockets it's hard to tell whose car keys are whose.

 

So-called messenger molecules are suddenly turning up everywhere—in the brain (particularly in the centers governing emotion), throughout the immune system, and in organs from gut to gland. Our thoughts and feelings are mediated by neuropeptides; diseases secrete neuropeptides; neuropeptides may be crucial to the healing response. What Pert proved once and for all is that brain, nervous system, and immune system, far from being incommunicado, are at this very second hunched elbow-to-elbow at the espresso bar of the Chatterbox Cafe, animatedly sharing your most intimate particulars.

 

I met Pert four years ago when she was in town to speak at a healing conference. I was already well apprised of the mind-body factor, having suffered a hellacious bout with cancer that was accompanied by altered states more colorful than any I'd encountered in a lifetime of Buddhist meditation. Pert was just beginning to venture forth from the autoclaved precincts of official research to more new-age venues, trying out the PNI gospel on an audience more receptive than most of her colleagues. In her flowing orange floral-print dress, slinging her pointer over her shoulder with precision rifle-drill panache, her words ricocheting in breathless spurts, she was like some hip diva of science. The next day, recognizing a kindred glimmer, we decided to play hooky from that afternoon's lectures for a picnic lunch in the mountains.

 

Though she may tone it down at phlegmier scientific gatherings, Pert at ease seems on the verge of autoelectrocution from a surfeit of cranial wattage. "Emotions exist in two realms," she told me between exclamations about the view from a dizzying curve that sent gravel rattling into our wheel rims. "One is the mind. The other is the realm of living matter. Of course, science expects you to dutifully exclude the soul. But I can't. The whole thing's vibrating back and forth. We're actually talking about music."

 

She hazarded that each neuropeptide, the first of which has burgeoned from five just a few years ago to over five dozen, may "evoke a unique 'tone' that is equivalent to a mood state." I pictured mind and body as a thousand-octave piano, with every note—from the highest glissando of altruism to the middle-C of fight-or-flight to bass-heavy autonomic arpeggios—as part of a seamless, interdigitated boogie-woogie.

 

Staggering stuff: What PNI has shown us is that the human being is a walking biological Heisenberg Principle, in which the observer's thoughts, feelings, and attitudes can have measurable effects on physical reality. Within the margins of its homeostatic aloofness, the "It" of our own biology is exquisitely responsive to the "I" of subjective experience.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199307/welcome-the-mind-body-revolution

[Open_Minded]

Apropos to the subject. Here is an article I read some time ago in Psychology today that references part of what we are discussing here.

 

Follow the link for the full article.

 

Hello Captain:

 

Thanks for the link. I did follow it to the full article and quite a long article it was. Deep within the article I found the following...

 

Nonlocal manifestations of consciousness? Have we fallen off the edge of the map? The panel's report explains that "studies in mental and spiritual healing show that the mind can somehow bring about changes in far-away physical bodies, even when the distant person is shielded from all known sensory and electromagnetic influences. These events, replicated by careful observers under laboratory conditions, strongly suggest that there is some aspect of the psyche that is unconfinable to points in space, such as brain or body, or to points in time, as in the present moment."

 

The eye comes to a screeching halt seeing such phrases laid out, neat as you please, in an official document of the United States government. These are not the florid, metaphysical ramblings of a 19th-century occultist, but the words whispered in the side corridors of the highest citadel of American rationalism: The mind, it is rumored, has escaped the brain.

 

"These ideas do have a pretty high Boggle Factor," Dossey admits, but he claims the evidence is mounting. He points to the work of William G. Brand, Ph.D., senior research associate at San Antonio's Mind Science Foundation: In a typical experiment, one person—called the "influencer"—was placed in one room, while in a different part of the building a "subject," fingers hooked up to electrodes to measure galvanic skin response, settled into a chair. At randomly selected times, the influencer tried to affect the subject's electrodermal response by, for example, visualizing the subject while repeating, "Relax ... relax...." Later analysis showed that the subject's electrodermal responses had varied at the same time as the influencer's thoughts, at a rate 43,000 to one against chance.

 

Someone let the Genie Out of the Bottle ....

[The-Captain]

Confirming what my old philosophy professor tried to tell me all along

[Shyone]

That compilation and abstract from the first post was quite the interesting read. Limits of consciousness is a rather novel area of study, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on any of the published studies they mentioned (looked like a lot of positive correlations).

 

Whether intentional or not, this article is misleading. It set off a few red flags in my own critical mind as I read it, and I would like to share those with you.

 

Eh, it's just a news article. If you are skeptical you might do better looking at the study itself.

I tried to find the original study, but the link to the journal where it was published is down and there are no other links that have any details.

 

I was looking for something with an abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion. Particularly the materials and methods.

 

I would like to know:

 

1. What measures insured lack of communication?

2. What measures constituted a positive reaction (physical parameters)?

3. What kind of "inspiration" gave the one sending the signal the time to send the signal?

4. What precisely was considered a true response? (change within what amount of time compared with initial synchronization)

 

I have a picture in my mind about how this study was conducted, and it's not pretty.

 

1. Receiving Partner informed her partner will give a "signal" and their response to the love signal would be recorded.

2. Sending partner and receiving partner told the experiment would start NOW!

3. Sending partner waits a short time and sends out love beams.

4. Receiving partner feels the love. Maybe a few seconds. Maybe a minute.

5. Experiment starts over, and.... NOW!

 

 

The whole thing taking place within about a minute. Any reaction happening after sending partner indicates his love signal sending counted as positive.

 

I would be willing to bet that they did not have any arm of the study where the husband was taken out to a strip club and the wife told he was in the next room sending out signals...NOW!

 

If they did, and the wife gave off pissed signals instead of love signals, I'd give more credence to the study.

 

There are so many potential flaws that could lead to false positive results that it is impossible to list them all, but I can't pin it down without knowing the materials and methods.

 

Anyone with details? And I don't mean the wishy washy vague descriptions given in the article posted here.

[The-Captain]

I tried to find the original study, but the link to the journal where it was published is down and there are no other links that have any details.

 

Found it. This Noetics group looks dubious but let's evaluate it together.

 

It isn't in the set up of a formal abstract, findings and conclusion and it is only detailed in the first part of the publication.

 

http://www.noetic.org/publications/shift/issue%2017/S17_Death_FRONTIERS_LoveStudy.pdf

 

1. What measures insured lack of communication?

2. What measures constituted a positive reaction (physical parameters)?

3. What kind of "inspiration" gave the one sending the signal the time to send the signal?

4. What precisely was considered a true response? (change within what amount of time compared with initial synchronization)

 

1. Ok, total separation for a 30 minute relaxation period. Told their partner would be seeing a video feed and directing thought at some point.

2. What's skin conductance?

3. I'm confused, the sender was instructed to make an intentional direction of thought, but the 10 second intervals were random. How does that work?

4. Rise in conductance over the 10 second period.

[Open_Minded]

I tried to find the original study, but the link to the journal where it was published is down and there are no other links that have any details.

 

Found it. This Noetics group looks dubious but let's evaluate it together.

 

If you're seriously interested in reviewing methodology, etc... try this article in Explore - The Journal of Science and Healing

 

The link takes you to the abstract, it's $10.00 for the full text of the study. But... if you're serious... you'll get a lot more information than from an article written for lay people.

 

Information within Explore that is available to the general public:

 

Objective

This double-blind study investigated the effects of intention on the autonomic nervous system of a human “sender” and distant “receiver” of those intentions, and it explored the roles that motivation and training might have in modulating these effects.

 

Design

Skin conductance level was measured in each member of a couple, both of whom were asked to feel the presence of the other. While the receiving person relaxed in a distant shielded room for 30 minutes, the sending person directed intention toward the receiver during repeated 10-second epochs separated by random interepoch periods. Thirty-six couples participated in 38 test sessions. In 22 couples, one of the pair was a cancer patient. In 12 of those couples, the healthy person was trained to direct intention toward the patient and asked to practice that intention daily for three months prior to the experiment (trained group). In the other 10 couples, the pair was tested before the partner was trained (wait group). Fourteen healthy couples received no training (control group).

 

Outcome measures

Using nonparametric bootstrap procedures, normalized skin conductance means recorded during the intention epochs were compared with the same measures recorded during randomly selected interepoch periods, used as controls. The preplanned difference examined the intention versus control means at the end of the intention epoch.

 

Results

Overall, receivers' skin conductance increased during the intention epochs (z = 3.9; P = .00009, two-tailed). Planned differences in skin conductance among the three groups were not significant, but a post hoc analysis showed that peak deviations were largest and most sustained in the trained group, followed by more moderate effects in the wait group, and still smaller effects in the control group.

Conclusions

 

Directing intention toward a distant person is correlated with activation of that person's autonomic nervous system. Strong motivation to heal and to be healed, and training on how to cultivate and direct compassionate intention, may further enhance this effect.

 

You can also find more information at National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine

 

Hope this information helps...

[The-Captain]

The link takes you to the abstract, it's $10.00 for the full text of the study. But... if you're serious... you'll get a lot more information than from an article written for lay people.

 

You can also find more information at National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine

 

Ah thanks, with the full title I was able to find it in my Uni library's database. Looking over the full version now, unfortunately I can't link or reproduce that here.

 

Edit: So far I have one question, where is the control group? It seems all three groups were told to direct intention. Shouldn't one have simply done nothing?

[Open_Minded]

Ah thanks, with the full title I was able to find it in my Uni library's database. Looking over the full version now, unfortunately I can't link or reproduce that here.

 

Edit: So far I have one question, where is the control group? It seems all three groups were told to direct intention. Shouldn't one have simply done nothing?

 

I suppose it depends on how one defines control group. I found another article, written by Radin himself. He viewed the 3rd group (where both partners were healthy). Following is some of what he wrote:

 

Participants were assigned to one of three groups. Two of these groups consisted of adult couples, one of whom was healthy and the other was undergoing treatment for cancer. The healthy partners in one of these groups, called the “trained group,” attended an educational program on the cultivation of compassionate intention, defined as the act of directing selfless love and care towards another person. They practiced this intentional meditation for three months before they came to the lab to be tested with their partner. The healthy partners in the “wait group” came to the lab with their partner before taking the training program, and the third group consisted of healthy couples without special training, practice, or motivation other than curiosity.

 

When a couple arrived at the lab, the experimenters attached electrodes to each person to monitor five physiological variables. In this brief report we will mention the results of just one measure: skin conductance. The receiver was asked to relax for 30 minutes in a reclining chair inside the IONS double steel-walled, shielded chamber. The receiver was told that the sender would be viewing his or her live video image from a distant location for an unspecified length of time, and at random intervals, and that during those periods the sender would make a special intentional effort to mentally connect. Neither the sender or receiver knew in advance that the intentional periods were 10 seconds in length, and no one, including the experimenters, knew when the intentional periods would occur because they were randomly determined by a computer.

 

The hypothesis was that the sender’s intention would cause the distant receiver’s sympathetic nervous system to become activated. We also explored the role of motivation and training in modulating the hypothesized effect.

 

A total of 36 couples participated in the study: 12 in the trained group, 10 in the wait group, and 14 in the control group. Analysis of data combined across all couples showed that the receiver’s skin conductance substantially increased over the course of the average 10-second intentional sending period (p = 0.00009). A half-second after the sender began to direct intention, the receiver’s average skin conductance began to rise. It continued to rise and peaked at the end of the 10-second period, then it began to decline. This is most unexpected because when a person is asked to relax quietly in a shielded room with no external stimuli, their skin conductance normally just declines, indicating relaxation.

 

Comparison of the receivers’ skin conductance across groups revealed that receivers in all three groups responded when their partner began sending intention, but the controls’ response subsided after 4 seconds, the wait group’s response subsided after 5 seconds, and the trained group’s response subsided after 8 seconds. These observations suggest that training plus motivation was more effective than just motivation, and motivation more effective than mere interest.

 

Again - the reason for publishing in a peer-review journal is so that other scientists can critique (and try to reproduce) your work. I'm not a scientist and I'm not defending - or promoting - Radin's definition of a control group. My point all along has been that serious scientists are studying these things and putting their findings out there to be tested and reviewed by their peers.

 

Radin, and the other scientists involved in this study hold themselves to standard scientific protocol ... and more importantly... they are not the only scientists pushing the edges of this research and publishing their work for peer review. That is why my original post linked readers to Therapeutic Intent/Healing Bibliography of Research

 

This realm of research is happening more and more frequently, and like all other scientific research, it will have to stand up to the scientific review process. Mistakes will be made, just as in any other area of science, other scientists will refine the experiments and improve on the process. In the end, only time will tell how it all plays out....

 

But... my humble take on it is simple... no one is going to be able to put this particular Genie back in the bottle.