Pseudoskepticism and scientism in action!!!

So, while searching for more news on Dr Daryl Bem's Feeling the Future paper, I found this little gem from the Why Evolution Is True blog:

In a comment on the Psychology Today article, hokum-debunker James Randi has challenged Bem to meet his conditions for demonstrating paranormal phenomena, a demonstration that comes with a million-dollar prize. Randi:

I find this to be a very interesting reader response. After the usual magnificently uninformed comments: “Time is strange, gravity doesn’t make sense, and matter is mostly empty space. There is no such thing as time. Everything, what we call past, present and future, is happening in the Now” we find far more cogent remarks, along with the suggestion that author Bem should go for my Foundation’s million-dollar prize. Of course he should, but he won’t. We’ve made him the offer, many others have, as well, but he chooses to ignore it. It’s there, it’s real, the grubbies constantly claim it doesn’t exist, but it persists. Dr. Bem, give us a call. Accept the challenge, under your conditions, thoroughly fair, proper, definitive, observed and controlled, and you don’t have to invest a penny. Isn’t that attractive to you? And just think of the book sales along with the currency. Yes, a million US dollars still buys a lot… Make us all happy, won’t you?
Hello…? Dr. Bem? You there…?

Do read the paper first if you want to take apart the study.

It is true that a user under the name of "James Randi" posted this message on the comment string of the PT website. Strangely, James Randi has made absolutely no mention of this personal challenge anywhere on his website, www.randi.org, Swift blog, or forum. In fact, Randi hasn't addressed the publication of this paper at all, which I find a little surprising, as it is a parapsychological paper getting a lot of press in a mainstream psychology journal published by the APA.

So, did the Amazing James Randi himself post this comment? Or is it far more likely that an anonymous user posted under the name "James Randi" and gave a plausible-sounding challenge. Under the structure of this website comment scheme, all that is required is a name, a valid email, and an optional link to website. Since the email itself is obfuscated, we can't see if this comment was posted by a legitimate email belonging to Randi himself. To demonstrate such a point, I posted on the WEIT website under the name of Abraham Lincoln, with a link to www.whitehouse.gov.

This is a very obvious case of a clearly atheist and physicalist-minded person overlooking an otherwise obvious gaff, because it fits nicely into their paradigm, and appeals to their belief system. This is not skepticism, this is scientism, a fallacy of reasoning, appealing to physical and natural explanations.

At least he recommends reading the paper before making criticisms of problems that have been addressed and fixed by parapsychologist decades ago. Some pseudoskeptics won't even take that much effort, as with this blatant lack of fact-checking.

Musings on Internet Privacy and the Future

An idea just popped into my head, as these things do.

We all know the world is getting smaller, and that privacy is undergoing some very interesting changes. Facebook, Youtube, twitter, silly reality shows that follow people around 24/7, everyone has a cellphone nowadays. And sure, many quip about how socializing over a screen is not the same as face to face, and that might be true, but socializing with someone over a screen is better than not socializing at all.

Clearly, people are more connected to each other at present than at any point in history.

Let's say peoples' private lives do become progressively more public. Initially, you'll see people losing jobs over embarrassing stuff that winds up on Facebook (as is already happening). But, since the amount of stupid stuff people do is fairly constant, and the amount of privacy is decreasing continually, eventually employers will have to become more tolerant or just desensitized to this, else the workforce will get dramatically thinner. Now, I'm the last person to condone stupid behavior - I hate stupid people, but beyond just being an arse, there is a whole range of quirky, odd, strange, playful, embarrassing, and emotional things that are woven into the fabric of being human.

What you are seeing is more exposure to these different perspectives, and I think people will develop a broader grasp of, "Hey, even though we're different in so many ways, we're really not all that different."

Feeling the Future - Have Scientist Found Evidence for Precognition?

Have scientists finally found replicable evidence for psychic phenomena? A social psychologist at Cornell University has conducted a series of experiments that reveal the brain may be able to anticipate future events.

Dr. Daryl Bem, a social psychologist at Cornell University, has tested over 1000 participants in nine experiments that test for retroactive, or "time-reversed," influence. In other words, the brain is reacting to events before they happen. Precognition used to be in the domain of science fiction, mutants, and superheroes, but there may be truth behind the myth. Fifty years ago, this notion was utterly unthinkable; however recent experiments in quantum mechanics are challenging our view of time and space. The effect may not be large enough to give you tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers, but experiments like this may lead the path to new discoveries in neuroscience, cognition, and consciousness research.

This is not the first time Dr. Daryl Bem has garnered attention for his parapsychology experiments. In 1994, he, along with Charles Honorton, published an analysis on the Ganzfeld experiments, one of the strictest protocols to test for the existence of telepathy. Parapsychology often gets a bad rap from mainstream science; however its experimental methodology has improved dramatically since its inception in the late 19^th century. Long gone are the days of playing cards with funny symbols on them, modern parapsychology experiments are conducted with computer systems and sophisticated equipment.

Suggested Reading:

Psychology Today: Have Scientists Finally Discovered Evidence for Psychic Phenomena!?

Bem, D. J. (in press) Feeling the Future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Caffeine Energy != Real Energy

I have a ton of energy right now and I feel like I could make reality succumb to my every thought, but alas, it's just bouncy chaotic energy of very little use. But I feel great!!! XD

boingboingboingboingboing can't focus worth crap boingboingboing

Oh man. Busy life.

So, I'm trying to piece back together all things Machina after a rather long hiatus. Life is just so crazy right now. I have lots of stuff I should be doing, and no focus whatsoever. Major ADHD. It's frustrating. I've wanted to post a vlog for the longest time, and I just haven't been able to get around to it.

On the plus side, you can now follow Machina Labs on Twitter! @machinalabs

In the meantime, check out my new favorite site by fellow PSIPOG - A State Of Mind

Yay, internet! I hope that the recent increase in fluidity of communication will bring about a resurgence in interest in all things psi. The more people curious about psi, the more we communicate and share what we learn, the more humanity grows.

Fire one!

Oh man. I've created an internet identity for Machina Labs almost overnight. That's the crazy power of the internet. I've got a youtube channel, a domain name, and now a blog. Now all I need are fans o.0

I'm waiting for peoples to contact me back so I can actually go out and have fun on Mischief Night...although honestly I'd take being home and scaring the crap out of little kids over a drinking party with a costume problem. It just seems like drinking has the capacity to make any special occasion, Halloween, prom, weddings, birthdays, groundhog day, etc, just like any other weekend.

But my friends are likely already drunk, explaining the lack of phone communication, so I'm just chilling in my room, like pretty much any night, bitching out YouTube and Adobe Premiere Elements because they're collectively being bitches.