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Post by Mr. Jon Donnis on Jun 12, 2009 9:59:48 GMT
Last week I teamed up with New Scientist magazine to conduct the first scientific experiment using Twitter. First, a huge ‘thank you’ to everyone who participated. So, what do we do and what did we find? The experiment examined remote viewing – the alleged psychic ability to “see” distant locations. The first trial was an informal affair, and involved me travelling to a secret location and then sending out a “tweet” asking participants to tweet back their thoughts concerning my location. Twenty minutes later, I sent a second tweet containing the address of a website that allowed everyone to view a photograph of the location (a weir). I also asked the participants to rate both their belief in the paranormal and the degree to which their thoughts matched the target. By Richard Wiseman Read More |
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Post by kensington on Jun 12, 2009 15:02:51 GMT
Hi there, I commented on this in the pshychic section. Excelletn experiment with a good cross section of people.
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Post by keithkeith on Jun 21, 2009 17:25:07 GMT
there has been some criticism as you would expect, mainly from the RV apologists
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Post by agentmulder on Jun 30, 2009 17:01:30 GMT
I will look forward to seeing the results formally published in a peer reviewed empirical journal - though i am skeptical that this will happen.  |
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Post by morganp on Jun 30, 2009 18:59:08 GMT
I will look forward to seeing the results formally published in a peer reviewed empirical journal - though i am skeptical that this will happen. Why would that be then? morganp |
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Post by asdfg on Jun 30, 2009 22:14:05 GMT
Wiseman has published some worthwhile research and reviews in the past but I think we need to be honest here and recognise that this study was not a scientific experiment.
It's marketing/publicity/pop science - I don't know why he's heading down this route but only he can answer that question.
I pointed out elsewhere on here that if Rupert Sheldrake had put forward an 'experiment' like this as proof of telepathy, skeptics would be laughing their socks off at it.
Now, there is a case to be made for 'pop science' as it might be a good way of engaging and attracting punters in, but we shouldn't mistake this sort of thing with real science.
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Post by agentmulder on Jul 1, 2009 11:45:53 GMT
I will look forward to seeing the results formally published in a peer reviewed empirical journal - though i am skeptical that this will happen. Why would that be then? morganp Because it hardly ever does and we have been here numerous times before. Some people are gaining a growing reputation of recently doing large media events and releases that acutally lead to no real noticable contribution to the real scientific literature or understanding in the field. As Jigsaw notes, it has merits in terms of engaging with people in a superficial manner, but there is no scientific contribution from these excersions that i can see. There are a number of people that do this sort of thing regularly, and it's becoming increasingly noticable (to me and others) that it is not so much promoting science, but more, promoting the scientist that is happening here. I have a colleage looking into this as part of a research project on how effective such methods are even in terms of its simplest aims to promote science in the public domain. When the results are published (and they will be at some future point i am sure)...well, all i can say is...."I smell drama" However, as i said previously - I look forward to the real paper. |
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Post by morganp on Jul 1, 2009 16:43:59 GMT
Fair point agentmulder. Wiseman admits that it was relatively informal and as such the results are at best interesting rather than a genuine contribution to scientific debate on the subject.
morganp
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Post by onewingedangel on Jul 4, 2009 17:19:29 GMT
But it wasn't a controlled exercise, the results were gonna come out under as he tested a vast audience of non-remote viewers. Nw, if he tested it on an even amount of people who claim they can remote view, then I would be more impressed.
As for now, just another publicity stunt in my opinion.
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