--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >
[...] > Peter: "In terms of 'evidence' one only has to look > at the crime rate in Fairfield and then look at the > number of meditators in the community to reject the > ME as it is currently understood." > > --pointing out that the small sample size means such > statistics are inconclusive with regard to its > validity: > > Lawson: "Fairfield (not to mention MUM itself) is > small enough that the ME effect might easily be > confounded by variables that don't effect a larger > area." Yep. The classic example was when all the toilets backed upduring the first Taste of Utopia course. If plumbing failures had been monitored during the course, the course would have been deemed a complete failure, or we could even claimthat group TM practice must lead to massive problems with pipes. > > I personally don't think it's possible to > demonstrate the ME is real conclusively even > with *large* samples, even if it *is* real, > because of the huge number of variables. But > that's a different issue. While with a small community, you can control for many more variables than you can in a larger population, the downside is what I said in an earlier post: the analogous effects tend not to show up in physical systems if the system is too small. There's no reason to assume that they will show up consistently in the ME studies, either. You have the statistical problem with large fluctuations ina small system due to random factors AND you have the problem that small physical systems that were the inspiration for the ME theory tend not to show the effect because the mechanics of small systems don't lead to the "constructive interference" effect all that reliably/noticeably. This may be part of the same issue: there's not enough interactions in the system to average out the effect of random variables. 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/
