--- In [email protected], "Patrick Gillam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > As far as the Maharishi Effect goes, for all the criticisms > I've heard (such as Fairfield's crime rate), I always think > back to the study published in '89 (or so) in the Journal > of Confict Resolution. That was the study they didn't > want to publish, but its methodology was so tight that > no one on the jury could find a reason to reject it. Instead > they dismissed it in an introduction that said in passing > that the results were preposterous. Now *that's* poor > science.
They didn't really dismiss it, Patrick. They were strongly skeptical, but they left the door open. The editor's introduction was actually quite fair and well reasoned. Here are some quotes: "...This hypothesis has no place within the normal paradigm of conflict and peace research. Yet the hypothesis seems logically derived from the initial premises, and its empirical testing seems competently executed. These are the standards to which manuscripts submitted for publication in this journal are normally subjected.... "...[One of the referees] discussed the research design and execution in detail, replying that `if I apply the criteria I would use to judge any other example of `traditional' research I would have to recommend publication.'...The second disdained the paper as `a logically and methodologically coherent effort to test a set of hypotheses that, to be blunt, I regard as absurd.'..." >From "TM or Not TM? A Comment on `International Peace Project in the Middle East'" by Robert Duval, also published along with the article (Duval is the first referee quoted by the editor above): "...The manuscript presents somewhat of a dilemma. On the one hand, the claimed theoretical basis for the activity described, and the results purported in the analysis, are anathema to one who considers himself a strong advocate of the application of scientific method in the social sciences. On the other hand, both the level of exposition and the application of statistical methods for hypothesis testing are commensurate with this reviewer's standards for scientific research.... "...The fundamental assumptions of a `unified field' and a `collective consciousness' are not within the paradigm under which most of us operate. Yet if one will, for the sake of argument, accept these premises as plausible, then the research conforms quite well to scientific standards.... "Here we have an unconventional piece with high-quality design and methodology....The report of the TM project remains anomalous. It is seen as sufficiently internally consistent by the JCR editorial review process to say that it conforms to acceptable standards of scientific research...." The editor also noted, "While one should have serious reservations about research originating in highly implausible assumptions, the criteria for plausibility are unclear." That's really the key point, and it's actually *very good* science to be able to recognize that "plausibility" isn't cut-and-dried, black-or-white, and that what is considered plausible tends to *change* as science progresses. > I believe there were followup articles on that study. What > did they say? Did they decide the research was indeed > preposterous? There was an attempted debunking by a skeptic in JCR some months later, along with a very good response to the debunking from the TM researchers. I'm not sure anything further appeared in JCR. Barry Markovsky (a sociologist who used to hang out on alt.meditation.transcendental) published his own critique in a different journal some years later, claiming the data had alternative explanations. I don't think the TM researchers were ever given a chance to respond. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
