Re: [agi] Doubts raised over brain scan findings

[Richard Loosemore]

Vladimir Nesov wrote:
On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Richard Loosemore <r...@lightlink.com> wrote:
Vladimir Nesov wrote:
On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 3:03 AM, Richard Loosemore <r...@lightlink.com>
wrote:
The whole point about the paper referenced above is that they are
collecting
(in a large number of cases) data that is just random noise.

So what? The paper points out a methodological problem that in itself
has little to do with neuroscience.
Not correct at all:  this *is* neuroscience.  I don't understand why you say
that it is not.

From what I got from the abstract and by skimming the paper, it's a
methodological problem in handling data from neuroscience experiments
(bad statistics).

The field as a whole is hardly
mortally afflicted with that problem
I mentioned it because there is a context in which this sits.  The context
is that an entire area - which might be called "deriving psychological
conclusions from barin scan data" - is getting massive funding and massive
attention, and yet it is quite arguably in an Emperor's New Clothes state.
 In other words, the conclusions being drawn are (for a variety of reasons)
of very dubious quality.

If you look at any field large enough, there will be bad science.
According to the significant number of people who criticize it, this field
appears to be dominated by bad science.  This is not just an isolated case.


That's a whole new level of alarm, relevant for anyone trying to learn
from neuroscience, but it requires stronger substantiation, mere 50
papers that got confused with statistics don't do it justice.


You are missing the context:  I mentioned this because of an earlier 
discussion centered on the paper by Trevor Harley, and the follow-up 
paper that he and I wrote together.   We are only two people among many 
who are making various kinds of criticisms.  This is certainly not 
*just* a case of 50 papers which did some not very good statistics - 
taking it that way would be a complete misunderstanding of the situation.

The reason I flagged this most recent paper was that some people seemed 
to be under the impression, from that earlier discussion, that perhaps 
this was just my imagination.  I wanted to point out that there are 
increasing nummbers of people making the same Emperor-Has-No-Clothes 
complaint.

Sooner or later this will become big news in the scientific community - 
someone will write a big expose, and the neuroscience people will find 
themselves under fire for having wasted everyone's time with so much 
well-funded bogus science.  But right now we are in the early phase, 
much as was a few years ago when you could read all about the mortgage 
crisis and the financial meltdown in the left-wing press, but everyone 
else was ignoring them.  What you are getting is an inside track on this 
below-ground scandal, coming from me, a few years before you read it on 
the front pages of Scientific American or Nature.




Richard Loosemore


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agi
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