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[ChairmanPoo]

I really am still pretty sure that placebos are commonly used as control groups, though the Helsinki declaration makes me somewhat less certain.

They are still used as controls very frequently, eg: if there is no alternative to what you're testing, or you're already giving the standard to both groups (so it's standard + placebo versus standard + intervention). Or if you need the control group to be with placebo for whatever scientific reasons, if the relevant Ethics Comittee agrees.

It's not ideal, nonetheless; trials vs placebo tend to overestimate the intervention's effects, so if you see a paper when they used a placebo control when they could have used an active treatment, well, you have to at least suspect that maybe the intervention looks better on paper than it actually is.

ChairmanPoo, you're evidently familiar with the Declaration of Helsinki, have you studied medicine or research?

I'm a resident physician (hematology).

[Akura]

ESP itself isn't unbelievable to me, but what IS unbelievable is that something like it could stay under the radar even now. Still, it's strange how everything I've read on the subject says that it's extremely easy, that it can be done by anybody with no special preparations in a short(10~ minute) period of focus, and you will get definitive results on the first try.

If that were the case then it would be extremely easy to verify the existence of ESP in a scientific test.

The entirety of the result is what a person perceives, and each person's perception is different, making something like that all but impossible to quantify in a scientific environment.

[Helgoland]

Right, here we go again.

Ayup. Should we limit this conversation to a total length of about seven posts?

You know about solipcism, don't you? Most if not all beliefs that we hold are 'theoretical fantasies'.

From what I've come to understand in the general sense solipcism is understanding that we make a number of assumption to make sense of our observations. Despite having insuficient information to make an incontestable conclusion, we do so anyway. I suppose it can be seen as a kind of belief rooted deep in our instincts.

However to say we make a few assumption in the process of observation is the same as everything we can possibly know is a belief seems a bit of a stretch.

Name a certain belief, then - we start out with no knowledge at all, so that stretch isn't all that big.

Pretty much - it's like the mathematically correct expression of "We need control experiments".

Erm no? It's because no measurement can possibly be perfect. At least that's how I recall it.

I'm just saying that they're similar. "No measurement is perfect" is pretty much identical to "Every experimental result has a chance of being false", if you accept a slightly wobbly definition of 'experimental result'. Even if you don't, we can apply the same idea to both - "We need more measurements to average out the errors and get a more accurate result" and "We need control experiments because each individual experiment has a chance of going wrong".

It's only boring if you don't take it as an invitation to embrace introspection, surrealism, and existential awe. Or, if you're feeling morbid and depressive and such, existential dread - same thing, only one has rainbows and trees and things. You just have to take the day-to-day as an internally consistent fragment of its own, and you're set to be as pants-on-head twisted in your take on the realness of things as you'd like!

Of course, that might also be the road to schizophrenia, but philosophers have gotten to be so safe these days, with their cappuccinos and their college degrees...

Edit: More seriously, knowing that you don't know something, and being able to produce internally consistant Gedanken, is pretty essential to producing new thought and finding ways to break past academic dogma. Yes, there is scientific consensus for certain things. Those things are probably true, whatever that means. Yes, it can be useful to follow that consensus to focus your attention into new areas. But when that well dries up, and there's nowhere else to go but fantasy, your obligation is to fantasize. The idea that we're close to understanding the way the world works is attractive, but it's as much of a dead end as the idea that we can't understand it at all. The key difference is that the latter provides new direction and movement, rather than just butterfly collections.

I meant that solipcism as a philosophical idea is pretty boring - it doesn't lead to many new insights. As a concept it's very interesting, but only when applied in moderation - the examples you named are perfect to demonstrate this.

(Also, Gedanken <=> thoughts. Yeas, I know, Everything Sounds More Philosophical in German The Gestalt of the Nietzschean Übermensch is paramount to the concept of the Ding an Sich in the Weltanschauung of the Nihilist...)

[Morrigi]

If, for the sake of argument, the existence of ESP and ghosts and such could be confirmed by scientific analysis, the only way I could see it making any sense whatsoever would be if the hypothesis about the universe being a simulation was true. Of course, that opens up a whole new can of worms.

As for aliens, I'm 99% positive that they're out there somewhere, but I doubt that they've "visited" us. That said, it's entirely possible that there's an extraterrestrial space probe out there... Watching and waiting.

 However, I think that we can be reasonably confident that any potential aliens have not been flying around interstellar space using "traditional" reaction thrusters powered by fusion or antimatter, since the drive flares would be enormous. If we're looking in the right place, we can detect something as small as the Space Shuttle's main engines firing... From across the solar system.

[Candlejack]

The entirety of the result is what a person perceives, and each person's perception is different, making something like that all but impossible to quantify in a scientific environment.

Is being able to "properly" quantify results still important even when it's obvious something is happening?

If, for the sake of argument, the existence of ESP and ghosts and such could be confirmed by scientific analysis, the only way I could see it making any sense whatsoever would be if the hypothesis about the universe being a simulation was true. Of course, that opens up a whole new can of worms.

If I tried, I could think of a physics explanation for ESP, but not ghosts.

[Leafsnail]

It's not ideal, nonetheless; trials vs placebo tend to overestimate the intervention's effects, so if you see a paper when they used a placebo control when they could have used an active treatment, well, you have to at least suspect that maybe the intervention looks better on paper than it actually is.

That's true, but mainly because the active treatment will have been tested against placebo at some point (so if your new treatment can beat the active treatment then it will naturally beat the placebo too).  Basically at some point something should have been tested against placebo to make sure it actually works.

The entirety of the result is what a person perceives, and each person's perception is different, making something like that all but impossible to quantify in a scientific environment.

Well... no, not really.  Candlejack's sources claim you can get "definitive" results.  If that's the case then it would be very easy to devise an experiment.  For instance, I could ask people to use their ESP to work out which number is on the front of a facedown card, and see if they get the right number more often than you'd expect by chance.  Unless it's one of those phenomena that mysteriously disappears if you try to measure it.

[Max White]

As far as UFO sightings go, I think they are 4/5s experimental plane sightings and 1/5 sleep paralysis.

I'm going with:
12% images in the sky due to light from the ground refracting
33% commercial planes
2% North Korea military testing
2% extra terrestrial lifeforms
1% weather balloons
50% alcohol induced visions

[Candlejack]

Well... no, not really.  Candlejack's sources claim you can get "definitive" results.  If that's the case then it would be very easy to devise an experiment.  For instance, I could ask people to use their ESP to work out which number is on the front of a facedown card, and see if they get the right number more often than you'd expect by chance.  Unless it's one of those phenomena that mysteriously disappears if you try to measure it.

I actually meant "definitive to the user". Like "what I saw just now was definitely ESP".

[Leafsnail]

So wait, what do you actually mean?  Hallucinations?

[Candlejack]

So wait, what do you actually mean?  Hallucinations?

The user gets a comparison of their vision to the target, while everyone else only gets a description of the vision compared to the target. So a much greater impression is left on the user than is left on people who are just evaluating the accuracy of the description.

[Leafsnail]

I don't understand what you just said at all.  Could you give a clear example, please?

[scrdest]

@Science and ghost sightings: apparently brains derp out with exposure to infrasound, among others making people feel anxiety and fear, and sometimes claiming to have 'seen something'. Source.

[tahujdt]

@Science and ghost sightings: apparently brains derp out with exposure to infrasound, among others making people feel anxiety and fear, and sometimes claiming to have 'seen something'. Source.

I've heard about that. They have a gun that shoots infrasound, too. It can make your headasplode.

[i2amroy]

My general take on paranormal things is summed up pretty well by this xkcd comic: