As you accuse me of being unobjective I'm not going to bother reading the link you posted. I've thought long and hard about this stuff for years, read all the research (even had a set of the collective papers). I've probably read it before anyway but even if I haven't everything I say about it stands: why only 20%? Why can't you see the amazing results when you look at at the actual figures? How does it work? Have we really got to rewrite physics, psychology, sociology and biology just to because of a bit of statistical jiggery-pokery? I can only assume you think I'm not objective because I don't agree with you about it.
I also don't think much of your analysis of Lawson here. If he was objective I doubt he would say that an instance of mass murder "skewed" the results. They are part of the results, like it or not. And so what if one sceptic doesn't approach it the way I do? You might be forgetting that what we are talking about is an obviously ambiguous set of statistics that supposedly means the world could be made peaceful on the basis of people jumping up and down on bits of foam. Who isn't going to laugh at that? If all you can say is that the results would have been better if some nutjob hadn't gone postal with an AK47 then it isn't a great demonstration of Heaven on Earth is it? You are going to have to do better and often and come up with an explanation that isn't a bunch of new age hogwash. Unobjective? I was curious enough to learn how to do it. But here's the clincher; Why doesn't the Maharishi Effect affect everyone? It is supposed to be the infinitely powerful unified field after all (ask Buck for details). If you want to fall back on the old TM standby of "It was a bit of unstressing" then you have to accept that the rapes and murders that did happen wouldn't have happened if the TMO weren't there. I dub it BS until there is Heaven on Earth. ---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote : Salyavin, I posted a link to the study. Have a look at it, please, in particular the explanation of the methodology. It's a lot more complicated than you think to determine whether the rate actually went down during the study period. The issue is whether, in the absence of the meditating group, the violent crime rate would have been what the researchers projected it to be statistically, or what it actually was with the meditating group. Then read the rebuttal to the Skeptical Inquirer article and tell me the author came at the research "from a position of wanting it to be true and looking for confirmation." And please note, Lawson is the one saying the results of this study were "ambiguous." Shame on the TM critics who repeatedly try to portray him as a "cult apologist." He is far more objective than you are. Ambiguous is as good as false. When you look at the actual US government data for the year, broken down week by week, you can't see any drops in crime levels, sure there are dips all over the place but the one in August is no bigger than the one in March so if you are claiming that coherence causes crime rates to drop then who was meditating in March. And the crime rate dropped significantly more the next year due to changes in policing and gentrification. It's all on the government website. The thing about sceptics is we almost always originally come at paranormal research from a position of wanting it to be true and looking for confirmation. That's true for me and Susan Blackmore and any amount of people from CISCOP. It's only the constant failure of of world to confirm whether it has provided us with any paranormal abilities to measure that gives rise to what you may think is a narrow minded sceptic. I still hope for the best though, but the TMO could make it easier by making the crime rate fall beyond the level by which they naturally fluctuate. An easily noted 80% drop for instance, that'd be more convincing. I convert for evidence. ---In [email protected], <LEnglish5@...> wrote : Teh statistic was skewed. For one week, the homicide rate was double the average. THAT was what was picked up by the press and extrapolated for the entire 8 week period. True Believers want the research to be true Skeptics are often as desperate to be sure that it is false. The reality is that the study was ambiguous, IMHO. L ---In [email protected], <mdixon.6569@...> wrote : Judy, I don't remember the details but that it was a national concern at the time on all the national news programs. It sure seems that there were more than just ten homicides. Might have been ten homicides and ten or twenty non lethal shootings in addition. On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 5:10 PM, "authfriend@..." <authfriend@...> wrote: This is a bit misleading, Mike. Rates of aggravated assault and rape decreased significantly from what would have been expected over the period of the study. Robberies stayed about the same. And the homicide rate (around 10 per week) over the eight weeks of the study was also about the same as "normal." There was a "spike" of 10 homicides over one 36-hour period (there apparently was some sort of gang battle), but the following week there were only 4 homicides. So it evened out statistically. You just happened to be there the week of the "spike." I think "shootings" would be included in the "aggravated assault" category; that rate declined significantly over the course of the study. One would, of course, have hoped that the homicide rate would have decreased, but no joy. OTOH, the homicide rate didn't increase, contrary to what some reporters claimed. Here's the text of the study as published in Social Indicators Research:: http://www.istpp.org/crime_prevention/ http://www.istpp.org/crime_prevention/ Here's an article by one of the study's authors rebutting a very sloppy article attempting to debunk the study in Skeptical Inquirer: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html It addresses the 36-hour homicide spike in some detail. I took my *flying* block in DC during the big campaign there. There was a huge spike in murders and shootings at the time. I guess the TM explanation was, *well you should have seen what it would have been like had we not been there.* On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 1:27 AM, nablusoss1008 <[email protected]> wrote: Along with the mounting medical evidence of the various health benefits of meditation, research shows group meditation can actually reduce crime rates in the greater population. http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/research-shows-group-meditation-can-reduce-crime-rates/ http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/research-shows-group-meditation-can-reduce-crime-rates/
