Have you actually looked in to who runs the Skeptical Inquirer? -- a dusty philospher in an ivory tower, plus someone else with a degree in "science", a psychiatrist, and a "magician and inventor"
OffWorld --- In [email protected], new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 > > Someone brought up the name Maxwell Rainforth so I pulled up this > article. Some interesting points. > > However, look at the graphs. In the link. See how many flaws you can > find in his argument? > > Among some -- reaching conclusions based on: > > Comparing a five year graph with a one year graph. > > The five year graph is averaged. look at HRA scale. Much lower than > 1993 scale, as would be expected -- crime growing over time. But the > averaging cancels out variations in each year. Without comparing the > individual 1988-1992 annual graphs, with their inherent fluctuations, > to the 1993 graph, his argument is baseless. The fact that he does not > do that annual to annual comparision makes me assume he is hiding "the > obvious" -- annual variations will be much greater than a five year > averaged one and disprove his point. > > And of course, eye-balling, as he is asking us to do, is always good > to confirm reasonability of statistical findings. But it is not in > iteslf a statistical conclusion. He manually "centered" temperature on > top of crimes. Lots of lattitude in that to make it look "good". Thats > why statistical regression is used to find the "best" fit, not an > eyeballed fit. > > And look at march, may and oct of 93. These months also have crime to > temperature variations, although not as big as the DC project. What > explains those variations. Unaccounted factors. As may well explain > the DC variation. > > And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the > course from 10/mo to 20/, as an "outlier". Thats convenient. > > Thus far, I am not particularly impressed with the objectivity of this > guy. > > > Further for most of the experiement, there appears to have been, from > the graphs, about a 10% violent crime drop. How often does violent > crime fluctuate 10% or so from its trend. ALL THE TIME. > > Since MUM is not making the data public, its hard to fully dissect > their conclusions and to try to replicate their results -- as well as > other results using differnt model specifications and assumptions. > But they certainly make the case themselves, that the ME if it exists > -- their graphs don't tell a compelling story, per above unexplained > factors, and natural fluctions -- it is small, and not what would be > expected from all the PR. A larger, 50% drop in violent crime, or a > complete cession of it, would be "predicted" by the theory. Or > perhaps, instead of 1000-2000? YF in DC, 10,000 or 50,000 would be > required to create such noticable effects. > > > > > ======================================== > > A Rebuttal to "Voodoo Science" > by Maxwell Rainforth, Ph.D. > > The Skeptical Inquirer recently published an article by Robert Park > ("Voodoo Science and the Belief Gene" (Park 2000a) which he excerpted > from his book, "Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud" > (Park 2000b). In his book and his article, Park lampooned the > scientific research of Dr. John Hagelin and collaborators (Hagelin > 1994, 1999), myself included. Based on 41 previous studies, we > predicted publicly that a large group practicing the Transcendental > Meditation program would lower violent crime levels in Washington, DC, > by reducing stress and tension in society. During the 8-week > experiment in the summer of 1993, violent crimes against the person > (homicides, rapes, and assaults) decreased by 23% and closely tracked > the rise in the number of participating meditators. The results were > published in Social Indicators Research, a respected, peer- reviewed, > scientific journal (Hagelin 1999). > > Park's objection to our use of time series analysis is not based on > any scientific argument, but merely echoes the comments of a reporter > regarding the use of time series analysis to predict levels of violent > crime: "How could you know what the rates would have been?" But, there > is no mystery here. Violent crime levels are predictable on the basis > of temperature a fact that is well known among criminologists, and > was clearly explained at the press conference to present the research > report that Park attended, and in both the report and the published paper. > Figure 1 > > > > This shows up clearly in Figure 1, which is a graph of the Washington > data over the five years prior to the experiment (1988-1992). When > average levels of temperature and average levels of homicides, rapes > and assaults are plotted over weeks of the year, the crime and > temperature curves are right on top of each other, if the vertical > axis scales are appropriately chosen. This shows that usually the > violent crime levels were directly proportional to temperature and > therefore that violent crime could be accurately predicted from the > previous pattern in the data. The same thing happens in the first > months of 1993, but then in the middle of the experimental period > (when the meditating group was approaching its maximum size) the > violent crime curve drops well below the temperature curve and stays > down for several weeks (see Figure 2). In other words, during the > experiment in 1993, a drop in violent crime was clearly evident in the > raw data, even without using time series analysis.1 > Figure 2 >
