[FairfieldLife] Re: Ganesh
Reminds me sort of the problem an early SIMS guys used to jokinging interject at opportune times: What are you going to do when Ganesh starts walking through the walls? Offer Him tea? And a sweet cookie or two. I dunno. I would think he may well prefer a few slices of betal nut and a quaff of bhang. And maybe a draw off his dad's favorite chillum. Maybe you guys are seeing that effeete whispy poser who masquerdes as Ganesh. The one AoE Ladies like so much. :) I think that they're fonder of his trunk than they are of his personality.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ 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. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. And that precedent could pose problems when it comes time to splice in several extra frames of someone at mid-hop to show the expected result of hovering. And we all *know* how bad that would be for the fate of the world! People would think that hopping was all that was going on and not flock to these all-important courses. What are you *thinking*? You must be one of those anti-TMers we hear so much about here. :-) More seriously, I think new has made the point that one can interpret science to show anything one wants. That's one reason I've never been impressed by the TM science. It is belief-driven as opposed to truth-driven. There is no desire to show what really happens, only what is *expected* to happen.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
he Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. That's the same old tired misinterpretation of Patañjali! Everyone should believe by now, that the demonstrative pronoun te in te samaadhaav upasargaa... apparently refers MAINLY to the siddhis mentioned in the previous suutra. Why would Patañjali present e.g. tha flying suutra (aakaasha-gamanam) *after* that disclaimer, if it applied to all the siddhis? if you tell your child not to put the hand in fire, shouldn't you tell/show the child what fire is? Exactly. It's possible that the Yoga Sutras are a discussion of a number of real phenomena, *without* any instructions as to how they are performed. His warnings about the obsessability of the siddhis are pointed and IMO accurate -- just look at the rush to consider them misinterpretations by those who have become obsessed.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: he Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. That's the same old tired misinterpretation of Patañjali! Everyone should believe by now, that the demonstrative pronoun te in te samaadhaav upasargaa... apparently refers MAINLY to the siddhis mentioned in the previous suutra. Why would Patañjali present e.g. tha flying suutra (aakaasha-gamanam) *after* that disclaimer, if it applied to all the siddhis? if you tell your child not to put the hand in fire, shouldn't you tell/show the child what fire is? Exactly. It's possible that the Yoga Sutras are a discussion of a number of real phenomena, *without* any instructions as to how they are performed. His warnings about the obsessability of the siddhis are pointed and IMO accurate -- just look at the rush to consider them misinterpretations by those who have become obsessed. By the way, before someone rushes in to accuse me of bashing TMers, the those who have become obsessed above refers to Maharishi, not Card. I am not the Sanskrit scholar that Card is, but I find it difficult to believe that the Yoga Sutras contain actual instructions for how to perform the siddhis. Such techniques were and are taught orally or via direct transmission, as part of an initiation that has been *earned*. And as Bharitu would probably confirm, the earning part isn't easy, and doesn't involve coming up with the asking price. But I don't know. All I know is that the energy field surrounding someone who is really able to perform certain siddhis is *completely* different than the energy field that surrounds a TMer prac- ticing the corresponding TM siddhis. I personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
On Nov 24, 2006, at 5:00 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. And that precedent could pose problems when it comes time to splice in several extra frames of someone at mid-hop to show the expected result of hovering. And we all *know* how bad that would be for the fate of the world! People would think that hopping was all that was going on and not flock to these all-important courses. What are you *thinking*? You must be one of those anti-TMers we hear so much about here. :-) More seriously, I think new has made the point that one can interpret science to show anything one wants. That's one reason I've never been impressed by the TM science. It is belief-driven as opposed to truth-driven. There is no desire to show what really happens, only what is *expected* to happen. Interestingly much TMO research seems to use a faux null hypothesis -- probably because earlier critics lambasted them for their lack of a null hypothesis. New Morns astute observation just points out that this central flaw of TM, belief-based research, while they now do contain a token null hypotheses, are just that: tokens.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip I am not the Sanskrit scholar that Card is, but I find it difficult to believe that the Yoga Sutras contain actual instructions for how to perform the siddhis. Such techniques were and are taught orally or via direct transmission, as part of an initiation that has been *earned*. And as Bharitu would probably confirm, the earning part isn't easy, and doesn't involve coming up with the asking price. I'm not sure either that the Yoga Sutras contain actual instructions for how to perform the siddhis, but then I'm not sure that's how MMY would describe the instructions. According to MMY, actual *performance* of the siddhis depends on the condition of the individual nervous system. As MMY teaches Patanjali, one practices the siddhis sutras to purify the nervous system with the goal of developing Unity consciousness; performance of the siddhis is a sort of byproduct, not the end in and of itself. As to the tradition of oral instruction, I sure wouldn't know how to *implement* Patanjali's instructions simply from what he wrote (I'd have to depend on a translation, of course, but I'm dubious that I'd be able to figure it out even if I were intimately familiar with the original Sanskrit). It was MMY's oral explanations of how to perform samyama on the sutras that made it possible for me to follow Patanjali's instructions. And I suspect that may have been Patanjali's design, to make his own instructions obscure so as to ensure that personal oral teaching and guidance were required. But I don't know. All I know is that the energy field surrounding someone who is really able to perform certain siddhis is *completely* different than the energy field that surrounds a TMer prac- ticing the corresponding TM siddhis. Have you ever been around a TMer who was able to perform those particular siddhis on the same level? If not, it isn't surprising that the energy fields would be different. It may be that a person's energy field reflects the condition of the nervous system on which performance depends. Again, it's really important to remember that as MMY teaches Patanjali, the goal of practice is not to perform siddhis but to develop consciousness. It may be the case that, to the extent that the various warnings in the literature are valid, what they're warning against is attempting to learn to perform siddhis as an end in itself. I personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 snip And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the course from 10/mo to 20/, as an outlier. Thats convenient. Actually that would be 10 and 20 per week, not per month. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. Actually, statistically speaking, anomalous events are just that, anomalous, and may *not* be relevant when one is considering longer-term trends. This is from the article new morning cites: Park asserts that levels of violence actually increased to record levels. He confuses homicides which accounted for only 3% of violent crime in Washington during 1993 with violent crimes in general. Park asserts that the murder rate soared during the experiment, and claims that participants in the project seemed serenely unaware of the mounting carnage around them. It is true the murder rate did not drop during the course as we acknowledged in the initial research report and in the published study but the facts were very different. For six weeks ending the month before the experiment, from mid-March through April, homicides in Washington averaged ten per week. Beginning one week after the course and for twelve weeks thereafter, homicides also averaged ten per week. During the eight weeks of the experiment, in June and July, the average was again ten per week except for one horrific 36-hour period in which ten people died. Apart from this brief episode, which was a statistical outlier, the level of homicides during June and July of 1993 was not significantly higher than the remainder of the year. According to his article, Park apparently took his lead on the murder issue from a Washington Post reporter who had been impressed that the one 36-hour period had led to a sudden doubling of the murder rate that week. The reporter, and Park, did not notice that the very next week the murder rate dropped from its common rate of ten by more than twice that is, the totals went up to 20 one week and down to 4 the next. This is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. The average incidence of murder in Washington was little more than one per day, and with numbers as low as this, as Park and all scientists know, random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages. As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
The Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. Yeah, I wouldn't say 'Hindu Philosophy' as such a thing does not exist!!! In Sri Vidya the sidhis are in the outer bhupur meaning that they are ones furthest and most outward contact with the objectified world. Thus, perfection is ones constant state of interface with the world. That's Sri Vidya! Maybe that's also MMY's path being related to Sri Vidya.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 snip And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the course from 10/mo to 20/, as an outlier. Thats convenient. Actually that would be 10 and 20 per week, not per month. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. Actually, statistically speaking, anomalous events are just that, anomalous, and may *not* be relevant when one is considering longer-term trends. This is from the article new morning cites: Park asserts that levels of violence actually increased to record levels. He confuses homicides which accounted for only 3% of violent crime in Washington during 1993 with violent crimes in general. Park asserts that the murder rate soared during the experiment, and claims that participants in the project seemed serenely unaware of the mounting carnage around them. It is true the murder rate did not drop during the course as we acknowledged in the initial research report and in the published study but the facts were very different. For six weeks ending the month before the experiment, from mid-March through April, homicides in Washington averaged ten per week. Beginning one week after the course and for twelve weeks thereafter, homicides also averaged ten per week. During the eight weeks of the experiment, in June and July, the average was again ten per week except for one horrific 36-hour period in which ten people died. Apart from this brief episode, which was a statistical outlier, the level of homicides during June and July of 1993 was not significantly higher than the remainder of the year. According to his article, Park apparently took his lead on the murder issue from a Washington Post reporter who had been impressed that the one 36-hour period had led to a sudden doubling of the murder rate that week. The reporter, and Park, did not notice that the very next week the murder rate dropped from its common rate of ten by more than twice that is, the totals went up to 20 one week and down to 4 the next. This is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. The average incidence of murder in Washington was little more than one per day, and with numbers as low as this, as Park and all scientists know, random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages. As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results. The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. 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 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. snip As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results. The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? In any case, it's been my impression that the study design used quite sophisticated statistical methods (such as time-series analysis) for evaluating trends over a five-year period so as to try to isolate variations that had no explanation other than that of the presence of the experimental group. (This was rarely reflected in media accounts, however.) What kind of study design would you have used that would have avoided these sorts of questions?
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured It was not a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured. It was a spike occurring during a 36-hour segment of that period (as I said). The immediately following week, while the course was still going on, there were far *fewer* murders than normal, so the average number of murders per week over the duration of the course remained the same as usual. a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. Even overlooking the fact that certain kinds of anomalies are, indeed, statistically insignificant (as the TM researcher new morning cited who was defending the study pointed out, this was such a case, given the small total number of murders in proportion to the *much* larger total number of violent crimes whose rate was being studied), no, the spike in the murder rate isn't at all like what you say. The D.C. study did not claim to have successfully eliminated violent crime in D.C. on a permanent basis; it claimed to have been responsible for a temporary overall decline in the total number of incidents of violent crime compared to what would have been expected for that period if the course had not taken place, and it *did* count the spike in the number of murders per week. The claim is that the spike, given the very small percentage of incidents of violent crime that murders always represent (there are over 10 times fewer murders than there are assaults), was not significant with regard to the overall decline in the number of violent crimes during the study period. This was in response to the ignorant claim by a critic that the spike completely invalidated the results of the study.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip Or perhaps MMY is correct, and perfection of any siddhi is a sign of enlightenment. I'd like to read the exact quote in context. Do you have it available please? Nope. OK- I guess then my second avenue of inquiry would be for you to say what you think Maharishi meant by a sign of enlightenment. I think he meant a sign of pending enlightenment, but since you can't produce the quote, we'll have to be content with our respective interpretations. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Ganesh
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Speaking for myself, I'd believe that I saw someone hover, but I'd be uncertain as to whether what I'd seen had happened in gross physical reality. Reminds me sort of the problem an early SIMS guys used to jokinging interject at opportune times: What are you going to do when Ganesh starts walking through the walls? Offer Him tea? And a sweet cookie or two. I dunno. I would think he may well prefer a few slices of betal nut and a quaff of bhang. And maybe a draw off his dad's favorite chillum. Maybe you guys are seeing that effeete whispy poser who masquerdes as Ganesh. The one AoE Ladies like so much. :) Woot! LOL! JohnY
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Peter: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. What kind of study design would you have used that would have avoided these sorts of questions? As Peter and I have pointed out, from somewhat different angles, (without putting words in Pete's mouth, here is my view), the study period needs have some variation in the independnet variables, particularly the ME parameters. The goal of any regression analysis (Poisson regression was used in this study) is to explain (quantitatively) variations of the dependent variable (crime in this case), by the independent variables(IV). Without some strong variation in the IVs, then variation in the DV is not explained -- and the study reveals little. While a full interuption of the ME is one approach, as Peter has suggested, it could also simple be varying the number of YF, say 500, 1000, 2000, 500 or so, in two-four week segments. And / or the hours of YF. And the length of the study should be sufficient to capture variations in the control variables with the DV (crime). That is, without the ME variable(s), the control variables should well explain variations in crime. Some reasonable time period is necessary for that. Two months is insufficient to capture seasonal effects prevelant in crime analysis. And a multi-year study would be superior to a single year study. And/or several such longer-term independent studies over different time periods in different locations. In this contexrt, strong variation (or interuption) of the ME variable(s) over many months, if not several years, would do several things. First, it would allow a test of the square root effect. Crime reduction should quadruple as the group size doubles (after some threshold.) Second, if there is no change in the size or intensity of the ME variable(s), then there is not much to demonstrate in its ability to explain variations in the DV (crime).* There will at best be weak correlation of ME to crime if crime (controlled by other IVS) is flucuating over time, and ME is not. All of the ME studies I have seen are basically one dose/intervention studies. Which is a bit like testing a drug with one dose on one patient. Its exploratory at best. It may provide some plausibility evidence as justification for real, further, longer-term studies where variation in the intervention IV is structured to vary strongly over a long-period. As an aside, looking at this from another angle, a way of testing a single or repeated impact of a intervention factor with a set magnitude/intensity is with a dummy variable, 1 or 0, depending if the factor is on or off. Having several intervention points is far superior to one intervention as are all the ME studies. Better yet, is to to beyond dummy variables, having actual variations in the ME variable(s), size and intensity. Over a substantially long period to capture and contol for seasonal factors. --- *the DV in this context is already well controlled for other factors by the other IVs (such as temperature, income, demographics, employment levels, lagged abortion rates, etc.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. -- Benjamin Disraeli --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured It was not a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured. It was a spike occurring during a 36-hour segment of that period (as I said). The immediately following week, while the course was still going on, there were far *fewer* murders than normal, so the average number of murders per week over the duration of the course remained the same as usual. a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. Even overlooking the fact that certain kinds of anomalies are, indeed, statistically insignificant (as the TM researcher new morning cited who was defending the study pointed out, this was such a case, given the small total number of murders in proportion to the *much* larger total number of violent crimes whose rate was being studied), no, the spike in the murder rate isn't at all like what you say. The D.C. study did not claim to have successfully eliminated violent crime in D.C. on a permanent basis; it claimed to have been responsible for a temporary overall decline in the total number of incidents of violent crime compared to what would have been expected for that period if the course had not taken place, and it *did* count the spike in the number of murders per week. The claim is that the spike, given the very small percentage of incidents of violent crime that murders always represent (there are over 10 times fewer murders than there are assaults), was not significant with regard to the overall decline in the number of violent crimes during the study period. This was in response to the ignorant claim by a critic that the spike completely invalidated the results of the study.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 snip And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the course from 10/mo to 20/, as an outlier. Thats convenient. Actually that would be 10 and 20 per week, not per month. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. Actually, statistically speaking, anomalous events are just that, anomalous, and may *not* be relevant when one is considering longer-term trends. This is from the article new morning cites: Park asserts that levels of violence actually increased to record levels. He confuses homicides which accounted for only 3% of violent crime in Washington during 1993 with violent crimes in general. Park asserts that the murder rate soared during the experiment, and claims that participants in the project seemed serenely unaware of the mounting carnage around them. It is true the murder rate did not drop during the course as we acknowledged in the initial research report and in the published study but the facts were very different. For six weeks ending the month before the experiment, from mid-March through April, homicides in Washington averaged ten per week. Beginning one week after the course and for twelve weeks thereafter, homicides also averaged ten per week. During the eight weeks of the experiment, in June and July, the average was again ten per week except for one horrific 36-hour period in which ten people died. Apart from this brief episode, which was a statistical outlier, the level of homicides during June and July of 1993 was not significantly higher than the remainder of the year. According to his article, Park apparently took his lead on the murder issue from a Washington Post reporter who had been impressed that the one 36-hour period had led to a sudden doubling of the murder rate that week. The reporter, and Park, did not notice that the very next week the murder rate dropped from its common rate of ten by more than twice that is, the totals went up to 20 one week and down to 4 the next. This is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. The average incidence of murder in Washington was little more than one per day, and with numbers as low as this, as Park and all scientists know, random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages. As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results. I DO think the gang shooting should be considered significant. That was my point. My initial take that the gang shooting was excluded was based on the fact that it was termed an outlier -- often excluded in my experience from datasets as part of the data validation process. And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of accounted for such outliers. At least three things trouble me about the explanation. First, my take was that the outlier was excluded from the analysis. Thats what is often is done with outliers -- such as some huge spike in data from equipment glitch -- having nothing to do with the study variables. Thats the first analysis step in any study -- validation of the data. In re-reading the paragraphs, its ambiguous as to whether the outlier was actually excluded from the analysis. If it was excluded, (which was my take upon writing the original post, I do not feel that there was sufficient explanation as to why the gang-shooting was so extraoridnary out of the ordinary that it should not be included. Second, a key premise of the rebuttal was that temperature nailed variations in crime. It was said to be a very tight fit to the sesonal crime data. This is key in distinguishing ME from some other factors in crime reduction. Yet, with a deeper look, there is still huge variations in crime, even after crime has been controlled by temperature (and other factors). Thus, it points towards other possible major factors which have not been controlled for in the core crime model (without ME).
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured It was not a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured. It was a spike occurring during a 36-hour segment of that period (as I said). The immediately following week, while the course was still going on, there were far *fewer* murders than normal, so the average number of murders per week over the duration of the course remained the same as usual. a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. Even overlooking the fact that certain kinds of anomalies are, indeed, statistically insignificant (as the TM researcher new morning cited who was defending the study pointed out, I was not defending, nor attacking the study as a whole. I was raising some concerns in the rubuttal points raised by Rainforth. this was such a case, given the small total number of murders in proportion to the *much* larger total number of violent crimes whose rate was being studied), I am not sure I made this point in my prior posts, but did just now in a new post. no, the spike in the murder rate isn't at all like what you say. If the gang-shooting was excluded from the study, that does look like excluding data that contradicts ones premises. Not a good thing. As I have said, I dislike -- and dispute the reasonablness of -- the study's pooling all three crimes, for the precise reason that it does muddle the effects of ME on murder (and rape). The D.C. study did not claim to have successfully eliminated violent crime in D.C. on a permanent basis; it claimed to have been responsible for a temporary overall decline Quite a small one, 10-15% or so. It raises questions, how big must ME be to cause substantial reductions in crime. in the total number of incidents of violent crime compared to what would have been expected for that period if the course had not taken place, and it *did* count the spike in the number of murders per week. The study may have, or may not have. Its ambiguous to me. But as the study was done, its irrelevant -- per pooling.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. -- Benjamin Disraeli ROFTL! Translation: Barry discovered that he hadn't got his facts straight and hopes quoting this old chestnut from Disraeli will somehow make readers think he knew what he was talking about all along. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured It was not a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured. It was a spike occurring during a 36-hour segment of that period (as I said). The immediately following week, while the course was still going on, there were far *fewer* murders than normal, so the average number of murders per week over the duration of the course remained the same as usual. a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. Even overlooking the fact that certain kinds of anomalies are, indeed, statistically insignificant (as the TM researcher new morning cited who was defending the study pointed out, this was such a case, given the small total number of murders in proportion to the *much* larger total number of violent crimes whose rate was being studied), no, the spike in the murder rate isn't at all like what you say. The D.C. study did not claim to have successfully eliminated violent crime in D.C. on a permanent basis; it claimed to have been responsible for a temporary overall decline in the total number of incidents of violent crime compared to what would have been expected for that period if the course had not taken place, and it *did* count the spike in the number of murders per week. The claim is that the spike, given the very small percentage of incidents of violent crime that murders always represent (there are over 10 times fewer murders than there are assaults), was not significant with regard to the overall decline in the number of violent crimes during the study period. This was in response to the ignorant claim by a critic that the spike completely invalidated the results of the study.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, amarnath [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason Spock jedi_spock@ wrote: Well Sir barry, I think Jim is correct. The Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. That's the same old tired misinterpretation of Patañjali! Everyone should believe by now, that the demonstrative pronoun te in te samaadhaav upasargaa... apparently refers MAINLY to the siddhis mentioned in the previous suutra. Why would Patañjali present e.g. tha flying suutra (aakaasha-gamanam) *after* that disclaimer, if it applied to all the siddhis? if you tell your child not to put the hand in fire, shouldn't you tell/show the child what fire is? But you wouldn't call fire perfect if it were something to be avoided at all costs.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason Spock jedi_spock@ wrote: Well Sir barry, I think Jim is correct. The Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. That's the same old tired misinterpretation of Patañjali! Everyone should believe by now, that the demonstrative pronoun te in te samaadhaav upasargaa... apparently refers MAINLY to the siddhis mentioned in the previous suutra. Why would Patañjali present e.g. tha flying suutra (aakaasha- gamanam) *after* that disclaimer, if it applied to all the siddhis? It isn't even clear that it's a disclaimer or a warning against doing them, as opposed to a technical description of what's involved in practicing the sutras. As a technical description, it dovetails perfectly with MMY's teaching about samyama. Which is, of course, how he arrived at the practice, I'm certain.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 24, 2006, at 5:00 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. And that precedent could pose problems when it comes time to splice in several extra frames of someone at mid-hop to show the expected result of hovering. And we all *know* how bad that would be for the fate of the world! People would think that hopping was all that was going on and not flock to these all-important courses. What are you *thinking*? You must be one of those anti-TMers we hear so much about here. :-) More seriously, I think new has made the point that one can interpret science to show anything one wants. That's one reason I've never been impressed by the TM science. It is belief-driven as opposed to truth-driven. There is no desire to show what really happens, only what is *expected* to happen. Interestingly much TMO research seems to use a faux null hypothesis -- probably because earlier critics lambasted them for their lack of a null hypothesis. New Morns astute observation just points out that this central flaw of TM, belief-based research, while they now do contain a token null hypotheses, are just that: tokens. Examples please, both of the criticism of the old research and of the new?
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snipI personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool. Kind of an odd thing to hear coming from you Turq. I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali I find an incredible statement coming from you, having said that you don't believe Maharishi is enlightened. That an unenlightened person could equal the cognitions of a legendary saint in just a few years, by trial and error, seems highly unlikely to me. Impossible actually.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 snip And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the course from 10/mo to 20/, as an outlier. Thats convenient. Actually that would be 10 and 20 per week, not per month. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. Actually, statistically speaking, anomalous events are just that, anomalous, and may *not* be relevant when one is considering longer-term trends. This is from the article new morning cites: Park asserts that levels of violence actually increased to record levels. He confuses homicides which accounted for only 3% of violent crime in Washington during 1993 with violent crimes in general. Park asserts that the murder rate soared during the experiment, and claims that participants in the project seemed serenely unaware of the mounting carnage around them. It is true the murder rate did not drop during the course as we acknowledged in the initial research report and in the published study but the facts were very different. For six weeks ending the month before the experiment, from mid-March through April, homicides in Washington averaged ten per week. Beginning one week after the course and for twelve weeks thereafter, homicides also averaged ten per week. During the eight weeks of the experiment, in June and July, the average was again ten per week except for one horrific 36-hour period in which ten people died. Apart from this brief episode, which was a statistical outlier, the level of homicides during June and July of 1993 was not significantly higher than the remainder of the year. According to his article, Park apparently took his lead on the murder issue from a Washington Post reporter who had been impressed that the one 36-hour period had led to a sudden doubling of the murder rate that week. The reporter, and Park, did not notice that the very next week the murder rate dropped from its common rate of ten by more than twice that is, the totals went up to 20 one week and down to 4 the next. This is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. The average incidence of murder in Washington was little more than one per day, and with numbers as low as this, as Park and all scientists know, random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages. As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results. The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed Where is such a thing discussed? The research took several years to complete because they wanted years of post-test-period data, IIRC.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason Spock jedi_spock@ wrote: Well Sir barry, I think Jim is correct. The Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. That's the same old tired misinterpretation of Patañjali! Everyone should believe by now, that the demonstrative pronoun te in te samaadhaav upasargaa... apparently refers MAINLY to the siddhis mentioned in the previous suutra. Why would Patañjali present e.g. tha flying suutra (aakaasha-gamanam) *after* that disclaimer, if it applied to all the siddhis? In my opinion, it DOES apply to all the siddhis. They are obstacles [to be overcome] to samadhi. A test of, or way of proving (in the original sense of the word), samadhi.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 snip And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the course from 10/mo to 20/, as an outlier. Thats convenient. Actually that would be 10 and 20 per week, not per month. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. Actually, statistically speaking, anomalous events are just that, anomalous, and may *not* be relevant when one is considering longer-term trends. This is from the article new morning cites: Park asserts that levels of violence actually increased to record levels. He confuses homicides which accounted for only 3% of violent crime in Washington during 1993 with violent crimes in general. Park asserts that the murder rate soared during the experiment, and claims that participants in the project seemed serenely unaware of the mounting carnage around them. It is true the murder rate did not drop during the course as we acknowledged in the initial research report and in the published study but the facts were very different. For six weeks ending the month before the experiment, from mid-March through April, homicides in Washington averaged ten per week. Beginning one week after the course and for twelve weeks thereafter, homicides also averaged ten per week. During the eight weeks of the experiment, in June and July, the average was again ten per week except for one horrific 36- hour period in which ten people died. Apart from this brief episode, which was a statistical outlier, the level of homicides during June and July of 1993 was not significantly higher than the remainder of the year. According to his article, Park apparently took his lead on the murder issue from a Washington Post reporter who had been impressed that the one 36-hour period had led to a sudden doubling of the murder rate that week. The reporter, and Park, did not notice that the very next week the murder rate dropped from its common rate of ten by more than twice that is, the totals went up to 20 one week and down to 4 the next. This is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. The average incidence of murder in Washington was little more than one per day, and with numbers as low as this, as Park and all scientists know, random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages. As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results. I DO think the gang shooting should be considered significant. That was my point. Yes, I believe I said I'd like you to say what you thought was wrong with the explanation as to why it should not be considered significant. snip In re-reading the paragraphs, its ambiguous as to whether the outlier was actually excluded from the analysis. Yeah, I don't think it was excluded. If it was excluded, (which was my take upon writing the original post, I do not feel that there was sufficient explanation as to why the gang-shooting was so extraoridnary out of the ordinary that it should not be included. Remember, what the guy is defending against is the accusation by the critic that the 36-hour spike in the murder rate meant the whole study was a complete failure. What he's doing is explaining why it didn't mean that at all. On the other hand, the numbers involved wouldn't be enough to significantly affect the results even if the murder spike *had* been included. Second, a key premise of the rebuttal was that temperature nailed variations in crime. It was said to be a very tight fit to the sesonal crime data. This is key in distinguishing ME from some other factors in crime reduction. Yet, with a deeper look, there is still huge variations in crime, even after crime has been controlled by temperature (and other factors). But not as huge as the drop in the rate during the course, right? Thus, it points towards other possible major
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 snip And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the course from 10/mo to 20/, as an outlier. Thats convenient. Actually that would be 10 and 20 per week, not per month. It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. Actually, statistically speaking, anomalous events are just that, anomalous, and may *not* be relevant when one is considering longer-term trends. This is from the article new morning cites: Park asserts that levels of violence actually increased to record levels. He confuses homicides which accounted for only 3% of violent crime in Washington during 1993 with violent crimes in general. Park asserts that the murder rate soared during the experiment, and claims that participants in the project seemed serenely unaware of the mounting carnage around them. It is true the murder rate did not drop during the course as we acknowledged in the initial research report and in the published study but the facts were very different. For six weeks ending the month before the experiment, from mid-March through April, homicides in Washington averaged ten per week. Beginning one week after the course and for twelve weeks thereafter, homicides also averaged ten per week. During the eight weeks of the experiment, in June and July, the average was again ten per week except for one horrific 36-hour period in which ten people died. Apart from this brief episode, which was a statistical outlier, the level of homicides during June and July of 1993 was not significantly higher than the remainder of the year. According to his article, Park apparently took his lead on the murder issue from a Washington Post reporter who had been impressed that the one 36-hour period had led to a sudden doubling of the murder rate that week. The reporter, and Park, did not notice that the very next week the murder rate dropped from its common rate of ten by more than twice that is, the totals went up to 20 one week and down to 4 the next. This is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. The average incidence of murder in Washington was little more than one per day, and with numbers as low as this, as Park and all scientists know, random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages. As I said in an earlier post, I'd sure like new morning to elucidate what he thinks is wrong with this explanation of why the fact that the murder rate jumped during one 36- hour period should not be considered significant with regard to the overall study results. I DO think the gang shooting should be considered significant. That was my point. My initial take that the gang shooting was excluded was based on the fact that it was termed an outlier -- often excluded in my experience from datasets as part of the data validation process. And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of accounted for such outliers. It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). At least three things trouble me about the explanation. First, my take was that the outlier was excluded from the analysis. Nope. Thats what is often is done with outliers -- such as some huge spike in data from equipment glitch -- having nothing to do with the study variables. But not in this case. nowhere does the report say the 20-murder week was excluded. Thats the first analysis step in any study -- validation of the data. In re-reading the paragraphs, its ambiguous as to whether the outlier was actually excluded from the analysis. If it was excluded, (which was my take upon writing the original post, I do not feel that there was sufficient explanation as to why the gang-shooting was so extraoridnary out
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. If gang-fights were a very very rare phenomenon, and it was one death, perhaps declaring it an outlier might in rare cases be justified. But gang violence is part and parcel of the urban landscape. And given it was 10 deaths, its hardly a small speck out on the fringe. And the next wek, there were 4 murders instead of 20. Still a fringe, IMHO.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. :-) If this surge lasts 36-hours and isn't repeated for the rest of the 8 week period under study, then it is plausible that it is an anomoly.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured It was not a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured. It was a spike occurring during a 36-hour segment of that period (as I said). The immediately following week, while the course was still going on, there were far *fewer* murders than normal, so the average number of murders per week over the duration of the course remained the same as usual. a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. Even overlooking the fact that certain kinds of anomalies are, indeed, statistically insignificant (as the TM researcher new morning cited who was defending the study pointed out, I was not defending, nor attacking the study as a whole. I was raising some concerns in the rubuttal points raised by Rainforth. I don't think I suggested you were either defending or attacking the study, did I? this was such a case, given the small total number of murders in proportion to the *much* larger total number of violent crimes whose rate was being studied), I am not sure I made this point in my prior posts, but did just now in a new post. You didn't address the point previously, no. But it strikes me as the most important part of his rebuttal of the claim that the fact that a murder spike occurred completely invalidated the study results. no, the spike in the murder rate isn't at all like what you say. If the gang-shooting was excluded from the study, that does look like excluding data that contradicts ones premises. Not a good thing. In the first place, I don't believe they *did* exclude the murder spike. But in the second place, the spike was so small in terms of the overall violent crime numbers, it wouldn't have affected the overall results to any substantial degree, would it? Maybe a fraction of a percentage, I'd guess, no? And in the third place, even if they did exclude it, it wouldn't be at all parallel to Barry's attempted analogy, for the reasons I specified. Apples and kiwi fruit.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snipI personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool. Kind of an odd thing to hear coming from you Turq. I don't see why; my stance on the siddhis hasn't changed since 1978. I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. ...I find an incredible statement coming from you, having said that you don't believe Maharishi is enlightened. That an unenlightened person could equal the cognitions of a legendary saint in just a few years, by trial and error, seems highly unlikely to me. Impossible actually. Then we are agreed. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip to This makes sense to me as a criticism of the study design. Why they chose to lump all violent crime together isn't entirely clear, but I can't imagine they did this because they *expected* the murder rate to spike and *wanted* to submerge it. I suspect they did it because it wouldn't sound as impressive, PR-wise, to claim a decline merely in assaults, as opposed to a decline in all violent crime; and to do studies on all three types of violent crime separately would just have been too complicated. You're not suggesting that the *purpose* of the study was PR, are you? Just joking. *Of course* the purpose of the study was PR. That's why a lot of people don't take these studies seriously, and lump them in with the types of studies paid for by tobacco money. Not to be argumentative but to explain, I'd love to see serious studies about the value of meditation. They could help to convince more people to try it. But when the study is done by Brand X, *promoting* Brand X, I don't think I'm wrong to be a little skeptical. I was serious about the Disraeli line. IMO *most* statistics can be twisted to say what- ever you want them to say. When I read some of the press releases about the IA course, I'm sometimes reminded of the possibly-apocryphal story of the report in Pravda of a two-team hockey match between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. In the recent hockey tournament, the Russian team came in second, whereas the American team came in next to last.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajranatha@ wrote: On Nov 24, 2006, at 5:00 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Yeah, new...it's perfectly legitimate to not count an anomalous event like *that*! What are you *thinking*? If you bitch about something as miniscule as disregarding data because it doesn't fit the all-important expectations, why you could set a precedent. And that precedent could pose problems when it comes time to splice in several extra frames of someone at mid-hop to show the expected result of hovering. And we all *know* how bad that would be for the fate of the world! People would think that hopping was all that was going on and not flock to these all-important courses. What are you *thinking*? You must be one of those anti-TMers we hear so much about here. :-) More seriously, I think new has made the point that one can interpret science to show anything one wants. That's one reason I've never been impressed by the TM science. It is belief-driven as opposed to truth-driven. There is no desire to show what really happens, only what is *expected* to happen. Interestingly much TMO research seems to use a faux null hypothesis -- probably because earlier critics lambasted them for their lack of a null hypothesis. New Morns astute observation just points out that this central flaw of TM, belief-based research, while they now do contain a token null hypotheses, are just that: tokens. While Vaj is welcome to draw his own conclusions from my observations, I should clarify that my comments did not, per se, IMO, points out that this central flaw of TM, belief-based research, while they now do contain a token null hypotheses, are just that: tokens. I have no beef with the null hypotheses the researchers set up for the DC experiment -- that the ME will not effect crime rates. Nor do I issues with the alternative hypothesis they sought to establish by statistically rejecting the null hypothesis. I do however, have some issues with their methodology and data treatement as discussed in recent posts. Examples please, both of the criticism of the old research and of the new?
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. Sorry, strike moodmaking above. Not the same thing at all. I was writing faster than I was thinking. The analogy of Dumbo's feather is better, as is placebo, because the effects in both cases are *real*. Dumbo could really fly. The person given a sugar pill really does get better. Moodmaking, as it is commonly known in TM circles, implies that the effects might not be real, just imagined. I believe that people have genuine experiences as a result of practicing the TM siddhis. I'm just not convinced that the TM siddhis cause those experiences.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: snip In re-reading the paragraphs, its ambiguous as to whether the outlier was actually excluded from the analysis. Yeah, I don't think it was excluded. If it was excluded, (which was my take upon writing the original post, I do not feel that there was sufficient explanation as to why the gang-shooting was so extraoridnary out of the ordinary that it should not be included. Remember, what the guy is defending against is the accusation by the critic that the 36-hour spike in the murder rate meant the whole study was a complete failure. What he's doing is explaining why it didn't mean that at all. On the other hand, the numbers involved wouldn't be enough to significantly affect the results even if the murder spike *had* been included. But, IMO, each crime type should have been analyzed separated. Average or summing, while ok as a summary device, hides what really happened across the three distinct crime types. And swallows murders. Second, a key premise of the rebuttal was that temperature nailed variations in crime. It was said to be a very tight fit to the sesonal crime data. This is key in distinguishing ME from some other factors in crime reduction. Yet, with a deeper look, there is still huge variations in crime, even after crime has been controlled by temperature (and other factors). But not as huge as the drop in the rate during the course, right? Well, I am going by the graphs (and commnets in the rebuttal) not the actual data. And they are a bit fuzzy. So to answer your question specifically above, I am not sure. My point is that if there was a doubling one week, and a halfing the next, you have very flucuating data. The more fluctuation, technically, the higher the standard deviation in the data, essentially the larger the change is required to show significance. And the impact, other than in 1-2 weeks, looks pretty modest. And the fact that there was a big drop in cime in 1-2 weeeks and not others is unexplained -- and adds the premise of a highly fluctuating sea of crime rates. And a more difficult situation to distinguish an ME. You can see a small object floating on the water in a very calm sea. It disappears when the seas fluctuate a lot -- aka are very choppy. Thus, it points towards other possible major factors which have not been controlled for in the core crime model (without ME). This raises serious questions to whether it was ME or other uncontrolled for factors that were driving the changes. And/or there simply is a lot of static, unexplained or random variations in the crime rate. In either case, its a difficult base case from which to clearly isolate an ME during the period of its intervention. What about the fact that there is normally such a small number of murders (only 3 percent of violent crime in 1993 as a whole)? Is it not the case that, as he says, with numbers as low as this...random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages? His point is valid, but off the main point, IMO. If you average 10 murders a week, and you get 20 in a particualr week, its not an aberation to say murders doubled in that week. Where his point would have relevance is in murders in a small town like FF. If there is one every five years, and you get one this year, the percentage increase for the year is 500% (if you used the average of 1/5th). Or god forbid, two in one year: 1000% That is a distorted view, IMO. In any case, I'm not sure in what way your second objection relates to the point he was trying to make, i.e., that the spike doesn't affect the study's conclusions. I was commenting on the 3-4 paragraphs you provided, and asked for comment on, not just that one point. If I got off point, sorry. But I don't see where. Third, the rebuttal reinforces the fact that murder, rape and assualts, were summed. These are qualitatively different acts. At a minimum, separate analysis of each type of crime should have been analyzed. If only one or two types of violent crime went dowm and the other(s), did not, it raises quesions as to why, and IMO, would place doubt on ME. By averaging, with assaults being by far the highest category, the study becomes essentially a study on assaults. Effects on murders and to a lesser degree, rapes, are submerged. This makes sense to me as a criticism of the study design. Why they chose to lump all violent crime together isn't entirely clear, but I can't imagine they did this because they *expected* the murder rate to spike and *wanted* to submerge it. I am not sure pooling was part of the pre-study study design. There can be a lot of leeway if reporting results. I suspect they pooled results because it gave a clearer less ambigous picture. That is, I suspect murder eitherwent
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snipI personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool. Kind of an odd thing to hear coming from you Turq. I don't see why; my stance on the siddhis hasn't changed since 1978. Nor your success with them apparently... I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. You have missed the point of the siddhis, which is to practice them innocently, without any expectation of a result. It is the expectation of a result that interferes with the result of a sutra actually, so if I or anyone else were moodmaking, there would be no results to report! If you are familiar with the practice of sanyama, you would see these mechanics as obvious, and a direct repudiation of your statement about moodmaking or Dumbo's feather. Sorry to say, you don't know what you are talking about here.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: I DO think the gang shooting should be considered significant. That was my point. My initial take that the gang shooting was excluded was based on the fact that it was termed an outlier -- often excluded in my experience from datasets as part of the data validation process. And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of accounted for such outliers. It was NOT excluded from the data. If you know that from the study it self, please clarify. from the rebuttal, it is ambiguous, IMO. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). Which supports my view of highly fluctuating, high variance data, for which control variables were not well explaining. And that is a more difficult platform from which to establish the effect of a new variable. At least three things trouble me about the explanation. First, my take was that the outlier was excluded from the analysis. Nope. Thats what is often is done with outliers -- such as some huge spike in data from equipment glitch -- having nothing to do with the study variables. But not in this case. nowhere does the report say the 20-murder week was excluded. The rebuttal or the actual study? To me, the rebuttal implies it was excluded. At best its ambiguous. Unless the study explicityly shows that gangland shooting included, I say its still ambiguous. All this would be easily addressed if MUM would simple post all data and workpapers on a ME site. Thats the first analysis step in any study -- validation of the data. In re-reading the paragraphs, its ambiguous as to whether the outlier was actually excluded from the analysis. If it was excluded, (which was my take upon writing the original post, I do not feel that there was sufficient explanation as to why the gang-shooting was so extraoridnary out of the ordinary that it should not be included. Second, a key premise of the rebuttal was that temperature nailed variations in crime. It was said to be a very tight fit to the sesonal crime data. This is key in distinguishing ME from some other factors in crime reduction. Yet, with a deeper look, there is still huge variations in crime, even after crime has been controlled by temperature (and other factors). Thus, it points towards other possible major factors which have not been controlled for in the core crime model (without ME). This raises serious questions to whether it was ME or other uncontrolled for factors that were driving the changes. And/or there simply is a lot of static, unexplained or random variations in the crime rate. In either case, its a difficult base case from which to clearly isolate an ME during the period of its intervention. The guys who did the study are available for talking to via their email and telephone numbers. I've spoken to various TM resarchers directly over the years. Why haven't you bothered, rather than posturing on FFL? I am not posturing. I read the rebuttal yesterday, with quite an open mind, expecting to hear great things from Rainforth, and was surprised at the weaknessses, IMO, that I found. I posted them i) for general interst and discussion, ii) clarification, iii) to articulate a thought I can come back to. In the past, I have forwarded some things to Hagelin and DOJ with no response. I did today get a nice letter from Mario O. in response to a copy of my recent blog post that I emailed him. Perhaps I will explore him as a conduit for ME study clarifications. Which is all I have been seeking with my questions. I am glad you have had good response from researchers. My impression is that it was sort of a dead file situation. Third, the rebuttal reinforces the fact that murder, rape and assualts, were summed. These are qualitatively different acts. At a minimum, separate analysis of each type of crime should have been analyzed. If only one or two types of violent crime went dowm and the other(s), did not, it raises quesions as to why, and IMO, would place doubt on ME. By averaging, with assaults being by far the highest category, the study becomes essentially a study on assaults. Effects on murders and to a lesser degree, rapes, are submerged. True, but the study points out that these are the most violent, and possibly the least affected, by the ME, at least in the short term. But why should that be the case. That is, if murders and rape did not go down, they should specifically address that in the research -- in instead of smothering/pooling it -- and in refining
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The guys who did the study are available for talking to via their email and telephone numbers. Can you post, or send me such. And URLS for any of the studies on line. And any datasets for such.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: Even overlooking the fact that certain kinds of anomalies are, indeed, statistically insignificant (as the TM researcher new morning cited who was defending the study pointed out, I was not defending, nor attacking the study as a whole. I was raising some concerns in the rubuttal points raised by Rainforth. I don't think I suggested you were either defending or attacking the study, did I? Sorry, i read it a different way first time areound. I now get what you were intending to say. In the first place, I don't believe they *did* exclude the murder spike. But in the second place, the spike was so small in terms of the overall violent crime numbers, it wouldn't have affected the overall results to any substantial degree, would it? Maybe a fraction of a percentage, I'd guess, no? Yes, in the study as is. But not if the murders were analyzed separatly whcih they should have been,IMO.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. :-) If this surge lasts 36-hours and isn't repeated for the rest of the 8 week period under study, then it is plausible that it is an anomoly. If it was not repeated over the next two, or past two years, I might consider it an anomoly, and outlier that could be excluded.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
snipI personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool. Kind of an odd thing to hear coming from you Turq. I don't see why; my stance on the siddhis hasn't changed since 1978. Nor your success with them apparently... Well, since I haven't practiced the TM siddhis since 1978, that would make sense. :-) But in the time since I have experienced a few minor siddhis, as well as having witnessed a few major ones. They're fun, but like you I don't confuse them with self realization or mistake them for it. I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. You have missed the point of the siddhis, which is to practice them innocently, without any expectation of a result. That is possible. When it comes to investing my time in a spiritual practice, I'm a results kinda guy. It is the expectation of a result that interferes with the result of a sutra actually... It never interfered with the minor siddhis I was able to perform in the time since I stopped prac- ticing the TM siddhis. You might be onto something with regard to them. ...so if I or anyone else were moodmaking, there would be no results to report! I corrected this misstatement of mine in an earlier post. I shouldn't have used the word 'moodmaking.' I believe that your experiences were real; as I said before I am just not convinced that the cause of the experiences was caused by the TM siddhis. Triggered as a result of the feather of practicing the TM siddhis, yes, but caused by it...I'm not sure I buy that. If you are familiar with the practice of sanyama, you would see these mechanics as obvious, and a direct repudiation of your statement about moodmaking or Dumbo's feather. Sorry to say, you don't know what you are talking about here. I retracted 'moodmaking.' I still believe firmly that Dumbo's feather is an applicable analogy.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip to This makes sense to me as a criticism of the study design. Why they chose to lump all violent crime together isn't entirely clear, but I can't imagine they did this because they *expected* the murder rate to spike and *wanted* to submerge it. I suspect they did it because it wouldn't sound as impressive, PR-wise, to claim a decline merely in assaults, as opposed to a decline in all violent crime; and to do studies on all three types of violent crime separately would just have been too complicated. You're not suggesting that the *purpose* of the study was PR, are you? Partly, of course. As you know, MMY at that that point was still hoping to convince governmental and other institutional funding for large groups. Just joking. *Of course* the purpose of the study was PR. That's why a lot of people don't take these studies seriously, and lump them in with the types of studies paid for by tobacco money. Guilt by association. Perfectly respectable pharmaceutical companies pay for studies of their new drugs as well, and they're taken quite seriously by the FDA. Not to be argumentative but to explain, I'd love to see serious studies about the value of meditation. They could help to convince more people to try it. But when the study is done by Brand X, *promoting* Brand X, I don't think I'm wrong to be a little skeptical. Of course independent studies would be more impressive. But studies by the promoters are almost always the first step. If they're good enough, then independent researchers may want to try to replicate them. I was serious about the Disraeli line. IMO *most* statistics can be twisted to say what- ever you want them to say. So it was a serious non sequitur. I see. The point, of course, is that you got most of your facts wrong about the murder spike, so your exceedingly unpleasant comments about it to new morning were way, way off target, as was your subsequent attempt at an analogy. It isn't exactly breaking news that statistics can be twisted. You found something you thought indicated twisting, but since you were all mixed up about the circumstances, citing the old Disraeli quote, which we've all heard many times, was entirely irrelevant as a response to my post.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip True, but the study points out that these are the most violent, and possibly the least affected, by the ME, at least in the short term. But why should that be the case. If you're washing a pot, the baked-on grease takes the most scrubbing to remove. That is, if murders and rape did not go down, they should specifically address that in the research -- in instead of smothering/pooling it -- and in refining the theory. Rapes did go down (he says that in the rebuttal). The actual research paper *did* address the murder anomaly in detail and at some length. They didn't try to shove it under the rug.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Ganesh
--- jyouells2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Speaking for myself, I'd believe that I saw someone hover, but I'd be uncertain as to whether what I'd seen had happened in gross physical reality. Reminds me sort of the problem an early SIMS guys used to jokinging interject at opportune times: What are you going to do when Ganesh starts walking through the walls? Offer Him tea? And a sweet cookie or two. I dunno. I would think he may well prefer a few slices of betal nut and a quaff of bhang. And maybe a draw off his dad's favorite chillum. Maybe you guys are seeing that effeete whispy poser who masquerdes as Ganesh. The one AoE Ladies like so much. :) Woot! LOL! JohnY I think the real Ganesh would kick are skinny white boy asses with one tusk behaind his back, so to speak. 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 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Remember, what the guy is defending against is the accusation by the critic that the 36-hour spike in the murder rate meant the whole study was a complete failure. What he's doing is explaining why it didn't mean that at all. On the other hand, the numbers involved wouldn't be enough to significantly affect the results even if the murder spike *had* been included. But, IMO, each crime type should have been analyzed separated. Yes, I understand your objection on those grounds. But it doesn't address my point about the way the study *was* done. snip And the impact, other than in 1-2 weeks, looks pretty modest. And the fact that there was a big drop in cime in 1-2 weeeks and not others is unexplained Wasn't their explanation that this was when the largest number were participating? I thought that was mentioned in the rebuttal. -- and adds the premise of a highly fluctuating sea of crime rates. Well, but murder was the *only* rate that fluctuated in a way inconsistent with the study hypothesis. snip What about the fact that there is normally such a small number of murders (only 3 percent of violent crime in 1993 as a whole)? Is it not the case that, as he says, with numbers as low as this...random fluctuations can appear extremely high when listed as percentages? His point is valid, but off the main point, IMO. If you average 10 murders a week, and you get 20 in a particualr week, its not an aberation to say murders doubled in that week. No, and he certainly doesn't deny that murders doubled in that week (the additional ones coming in a 36-hour period). All he was doing in the part of the rebuttal I quoted was pointing out why that spike didn't invalidate the rest of the study. Where his point would have relevance is in murders in a small town like FF. If there is one every five years, and you get one this year, the percentage increase for the year is 500% (if you used the average of 1/5th). Or god forbid, two in one year: 1000% That is a distorted view, IMO. I don't see why the point doesn't also have relevance for the murder spike in the D.C. study, if to a less extreme degree. In any case, I'm not sure in what way your second objection relates to the point he was trying to make, i.e., that the spike doesn't affect the study's conclusions. I was commenting on the 3-4 paragraphs you provided, and asked for comment on, not just that one point. If I got off point, sorry. But I don't see where. That was the only point he was making in what I quoted! snip By averaging, with assaults being by far the highest category, the study becomes essentially a study on assaults. Effects on murders and to a lesser degree, rapes, are submerged. This makes sense to me as a criticism of the study design. Why they chose to lump all violent crime together isn't entirely clear, but I can't imagine they did this because they *expected* the murder rate to spike and *wanted* to submerge it. I am not sure pooling was part of the pre-study study design. There can be a lot of leeway if reporting results. I suspect they pooled results because it gave a clearer less ambigous picture. No, they were following the pre-study design as closely as they could; the protocol specified the total number of all violent crimes and said nothing about studying each type separately. Pooling was what they explicitly said they were going to do. I have a copy of the original protocol, but all my TM-related papers are in storage where I can't get at them easily. The fact that they drew up, in consultation with an independent review board, a protocol before the study commenced, and publicized it widely, was a big deal; this was designed specifically to address the kind of drawing-the-target-around the-arrow questions you're raising. I don't think they felt bound by any pre-study articulation of thier analysis plan. They very much *did* feel bound by it, actually. And it would have been silly to state we are not going to look at each crime by itself. I suspect they did it because it wouldn't sound as impressive, PR-wise, to claim a decline merely in assaults, as opposed to a decline in all violent crime; And that murders and/or rapes went up. Sure. But my point is, they *expected* them all to go down. snip Anyway, I'm *still* not clear why you think his explanation for why the spike didn't invalidate the study, as the critic claimed, lessens his credibility, I raised three points in the above post, and several more in a prior post, that I thought were weak. Regardless of why they were being raised. None of your points, as far as I can tell, addressed your stated distrust of his credibility specifically on the basis of his explanation for why the spike didn't
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. Sorry, strike moodmaking above. Not the same thing at all. I was writing faster than I was thinking. The analogy of Dumbo's feather is better, as is placebo, because the effects in both cases are *real*. Dumbo could really fly. The person given a sugar pill really does get better. Moodmaking, as it is commonly known in TM circles, implies that the effects might not be real, just imagined. I believe that people have genuine experiences as a result of practicing the TM siddhis. I'm just not convinced that the TM siddhis cause those experiences. Do you think Patanjali's techniques are also a placebo? If not--or even if so--isn't it of interest that someone you consider to be unenlightened could have dreamed up something that created a placebo effect equivalent to what Patanjali's techniques do? That was, I think, Jim's point. In any case, with phenomena of this kind, it almost doesn't matter whether it's a placebo effect or not. The important aspect is the effect itself. When the whole thing is purely subjective anyway, the term placebo becomes meaningless.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Jim wrote: ...so if I or anyone else were moodmaking, there would be no results to report! I corrected this misstatement of mine in an earlier post. I shouldn't have used the word 'moodmaking.' Applies equally to the notion that they're a placebo effect, of course, so your correction doesn't change Jim's point.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip You have missed the point of the siddhis, which is to practice them innocently, without any expectation of a result. That is possible. When it comes to investing my time in a spiritual practice, I'm a results kinda guy. Why would that keep you from investing your time in the TM-Sidhis??
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I believe that people have genuine experiences as a result of practicing the TM siddhis. I'm just not convinced that the TM siddhis cause those experiences. Do you think Patanjali's techniques are also a placebo? I suspect that all techniques of self realization are placebos.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I'm a results kinda guy. The result of what?
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I suspect that all techniques of self realization are placebos. The peppermint ones are best. Try to get in tha line. And that must have been quite the research designer. All placebos.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I believe that people have genuine experiences as a result of practicing the TM siddhis. I'm just not convinced that the TM siddhis cause those experiences. Do you think Patanjali's techniques are also a placebo? I suspect that all techniques of self realization are placebos. Then isn't it of interest that someone you consider to be unenlightened could have dreamed up something that created a placebo effect equivalent to that of Patanjali's techniques? That was, I think, Jim's point. In any case, with phenomena of this kind, it almost doesn't matter whether it's a placebo effect or not. The important aspect is the effect itself. When the whole thing is purely subjective anyway, the term placebo becomes meaningless.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I suspect that all techniques of self realization are placebos. The peppermint ones are best. Try to get in tha line. And that must have been quite the research designer. All placebos. Think about it. It makes creation far more interesting. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: transitional species found!
LOL Very good. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, yhvhworld [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- http://www.funpic.hu/funblog/allatok/allatok.html --- End forwarded message ---
[FairfieldLife] Doofus Report
Turq, Uneventful day in the SP500 front. And markets overall. The SP 500 opened about half a percent lower than yesterday's close. From that opening, it slowly rose back to almost yesterday's close, then slowly fell back -- kind of a shallow parabolic rise and then retreat. It ended the day, gaining overall about .1% from open to close. So there was no big selloff during market hours. (Of course all movements were on light volume --- about 1/3 of the usual.) Looking at the initial half % drop when the market was closed -- from last night to todays opening -- well that happens a lot, up and down. The half a percent is atually modest volititity. It averages about 1% between its highs and lows each day. --- btw, what was your friend's (and I know it was some girl you were trying to pick-up at a cafe, not some forum poster :) ) response to my last reply (the one with have data ..). Or was it deafening silence?
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I suspect that all techniques of self realization are placebos. The peppermint ones are best. Try to get in tha line. And that must have been quite the research designer. All placebos. Think about it. It makes creation far more interesting. :-) But dude, what if creation is a placebo?
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
Maharishi himself was given by the media an opportunity to float. He refused. Going by the Logical extention of your own arguement, nobody on this planet, walks the talks. By the logical extension of your own arguement, Nobody on this planet should teach enlightenment or religion. Vedic Philosophy is a very high sublime, Abstract philosophy. Maharishi, Unfortunately has brought in some Literal interpertations. Ram-Raj means, every human on this planet, living in perfect harmony with the Whole of Creation and in enlightenment. It does NOT mean having a ruler or king with a Tin-foil hat.!! Just imagine, if all these butt bouncers had sat silently in their own homes and concentrated all their efforts on enlightenment. The World would have seen beautiful ME effect 30 years back itself. Heaven on Earth would have been achieved 30 years ago itself. Imagine the loss of time, money and energy due to the literal interpertation of Maharishi. off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 04:39:00 - Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement? How do you know you were not self-realised? What proof do you have for this, and why can I not consider such proof yet another illusion of yours. You see, it works both ways if you want to so construe it. OffWorld And who shall make such a concrete and definative judgement that you shall pay attention to?...he that only walks and talks?...or he that can fly? OffWorld off_world_beings no_reply@ wrote: I am with you, Hermanitor. Until someone demonstrates hovering they should not try to teach about enlightenment or religion. Although I have seen big unathletic geeky ungainly blokes doing yogic hopping in such an amazingly effortless and almost floating way (and long jumps for 20 or 30 minutes) that it becomes impossible not to believe that there is something to it, that must be important. It is uncanny what I saw in England many times. This one unathletic big galoot of a guy, hopping effortlessly and big jumps, giggling, and almost oblivious to the act of hopping, the whole time for 20-30 minutes. OffWorld llundrub [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 09:07:56 -0600 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement? Yeah, I wouldn't say 'Hindu Philosophy' as such a thing does not exist!!! In Sri Vidya the sidhis are in the outer bhupur meaning that they are ones furthest and most outward contact with the objectified world. Thus, perfection is ones constant state of interface with the world. That's Sri Vidya! Maybe that's also MMY's path being related to Sri Vidya. The Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. - Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. Sorry, strike moodmaking above. Not the same thing at all. I was writing faster than I was thinking. The analogy of Dumbo's feather is better, as is placebo, because the effects in both cases are *real*. Dumbo could really fly. The person given a sugar pill really does get better. Moodmaking, as it is commonly known in TM circles, implies that the effects might not be real, just imagined. Mood-making in the context of TM refers to an imagined gneric way in which all enlightened people act. I believe that people have genuine experiences as a result of practicing the TM siddhis. I'm just not convinced that the TM siddhis cause those experiences. Er, try to be more precise in your wording. result of requires cause.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snipI personally believe that the latter are a made-up set of techniques that have nothing to do with what Patanjali was describing, but if others choose to believe that they're authentic Patanjali and derive some benefit from practicing them, cool. Kind of an odd thing to hear coming from you Turq. I don't see why; my stance on the siddhis hasn't changed since 1978. Nor your success with them apparently... I had unmistakable, repeatable and sustained experiences of siddhis doing the program, and after stopping the practice of it. For you to imply that Maharishi could equal the achievement of Patanjali ... I know you're trying to be cute, but that's not what I was implying. I don't think that the TM siddhis do anything at all; any effect is the result of the Dumbo's feather syndrome, also known as the placebo effect, also known as moodmaking. You have missed the point of the siddhis, which is to practice them innocently, without any expectation of a result. It is the expectation of a result that interferes with the result of a sutra actually, so if I or anyone else were moodmaking, there would be no results to report! If you are familiar with the practice of sanyama, you would see these mechanics as obvious, and a direct repudiation of your statement about moodmaking or Dumbo's feather. Sorry to say, you don't know what you are talking about here. That's not quite true. Awareness of the expected result is built into the sidhis practice. Of course, in the case of yogic flying, floating would preclude a placebo effect, at least according to most peopple but until then, you can't be 100% certain that hopping isn't just placebo, and certainly you can't be sure that any purely internal flavor isn't just placebo. My own take is that if it were just placebo, there would be more hopping and other flavors reported, but who can say?
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: The real problem with the study is the design itself. If it had a better design than a simple pre-post (which makes no sense for research of this sort) non of these question would be discussed. Are you saying the 36-hour hike in the murder rate *was* an anomaly and that it *was* legitimate not to take it into account? Isn't discounting a large surge in the murder rate during the period that crime was being measured a lot like saying: The IA course has successfully created a lasting state of peace, worldwide. We have not counted Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chechnya because they are anomalies. :-) If this surge lasts 36-hours and isn't repeated for the rest of the 8 week period under study, then it is plausible that it is an anomoly. If it was not repeated over the next two, or past two years, I might consider it an anomoly, and outlier that could be excluded. Seems to me that even if it was repeated occassionally (like once a year, or so, it wold still be an outlier.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: The guys who did the study are available for talking to via their email and telephone numbers. Can you post, or send me such. And URLS for any of the studies on line. And any datasets for such. http://www.mum.edu/phone/welcome.html Generally, if you are polite, they are willing to e-mail you pdfs or snaimail hardcopy of research.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of account[ing] for such outliers. It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. -- This implies that WITH the outlier included, there WAS a significant difference [higher] in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. And at best, the ME had no effect on murders. At worst, it increases them -- assuming ME is causal. So it would appear, ME is crime-stopper light. Works best, thjough modestly, on lighter-weight crimes I guess. And even then, its not a huge decrease. I wonder if SSRS or AMMA can provide a heavy duty crime fighting effect. :) By the way, I assume each diamond on chart II is one week. If so, there was a sizable drop in HRA crimes in week 9 and 10, AFTER the course. Which sort of disturbs the immediadiacy of the ME and that 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. Of course you could postulate a lag effect -- which I have for the financial markets impacts -- but then you have to discount the drops in weeks 1 and 2. Which occurred by the way, just after a large spike pre-course. So much for very strong temperature correlated crime trends. 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/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * 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/
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: The guys who did the study are available for talking to via their email and telephone numbers. Can you post, or send me such. And URLS for any of the studies on line. And any datasets for such. http://www.mum.edu/phone/welcome.html Generally, if you are polite, they are willing to e-mail you pdfs or snaimail hardcopy of research. Thanks. I may start asking some questions directly. Cordially. As I am currently doing with Mario. Do you have PDFs of any of the studies? DC in particular? I have hard-copy of quite a bit of the research, but not that one. I also have a few pdfs but not of the ME studies. Per the directory, what a walk down memory lane. Its amazing some of the people that are still / back there. (Meant in a good way).
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason Spock [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maharishi himself was given by the media an opportunity to float. He refused. Going by the Logical extention of your own arguement, nobody on this planet, walks the talks. By the logical extension of your own arguement, Nobody on this planet should teach enlightenment or religion. Vedic Philosophy is a very high sublime, Abstract philosophy. Maharishi, Unfortunately has brought in some Literal interpertations. Ram-Raj means, every human on this planet, living in perfect harmony with the Whole of Creation and in enlightenment. It does NOT mean having a ruler or king with a Tin-foil hat.!! Just imagine, if all these butt bouncers had sat silently in their own homes and concentrated all their efforts on enlightenment. The World would have seen beautiful ME effect 30 years back itself. Heaven on Earth would have been achieved 30 years ago itself. Imagine the loss of time, money and energy due to the literal interpertation of Maharishi. Most who still butt-bounce believe that they ARE working on their enlightenment. The Sidhis are primarily/only a technique for enlightenment. There's no documented health benefits to practicing them, as far as I know (though I personally find them of value for my health).
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of account[ing] for such outliers. It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. Ah you're right. Interesting that something that changed the average so slightly over a 2- week period would have a significant effect. It suggests that the murder-rate trended upward slightly even without the outler. -- This implies that WITH the outlier included, there WAS a significant difference [higher] in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. And at best, the ME had no effect on murders. At worst, it increases them -- assuming ME is causal. So it would appear, ME is crime-stopper light. Works best, thjough modestly, on lighter-weight crimes I guess. And even then, its not a huge decrease. I wonder if SSRS or AMMA can provide a heavy duty crime fighting effect. :) By the way, I assume each diamond on chart II is one week. If so, there was a sizable drop in HRA crimes in week 9 and 10, AFTER the course. Which sort of disturbs the immediadiacy of the ME and that 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. Of course you could postulate a lag effect -- which I have for the financial markets impacts -- but then you have to discount the drops in weeks 1 and 2. Which occurred by the way, just after a large spike pre-course. So much for very strong temperature correlated crime trends.
[FairfieldLife] Best Vet, Best Chiropractor, Best Doctor, Best Hang out?
All, I decided not to post until I actually arrived in Fairfield. After a long, long, journey I am finally living and working here. Problem is that I hardly know anyone... or maybe I do, it's just that I have lost touch over the years. Any info on getting connected, or anyone out there that remembers me from MIU TTC 1975, Orange County CA.(1970s), Vittel 1975 TTC, I would love to hear from you. Art Budilowsky
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of account[ing] for such outliers. It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. This implies that WITH the outlier included, there WAS a significant difference [higher] in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. I don't think anybody has suggested otherwise. This was a separate analysis, BTW. It doesn't contradict what Lawson is saying. And at best, the ME had no effect on murders. At worst, it increases them -- assuming ME is causal. So it would appear, ME is crime-stopper light. Works best, thjough modestly, on lighter-weight crimes I guess. And even then, its not a huge decrease. Gee whiz, it's a substantial decrease. Any police department that could bring about that big a reduction would be elevated to hero status. And again, the business with murders is all openly discussed in the study.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. Ah you're right. Interesting that something that changed the average so slightly over a 2-week period would have a significant effect. It suggests that the murder-rate trended upward slightly even without the outler. Lawson, this was a separate analysis, not the main analysis. It was done to answer the specific question about the nature of the murder rate. And I don't understand why you say it suggests the murder rate trended upward even without the outlier.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Best Vet, Best Chiropractor, Best Doctor, Best Hang out?
Hi Art, I don't know you but have lived in FF 26 years (undergrad and grad from MIU). Best vet - Fairfield Vet Clinic, on west Burlington (there is a meditator vet on E. Madison but he botched a kitty spay and I never went back to him, even tho' he is a nice guy) Best Chiropractor - again, not a meditator, but a real bone cracker who gets the job done and explains everything he is doing -- Dr. Hunt on S. Main (takes insurance too) - just off the square and down from Natural Selections. Best Doctor - mine is in Iowa City. If you're looking for local, maybe someone else on this list can recommend one. Best Hang Out - Revelations on N. Main - just off the square. Great atmosphere and pretty good pizza. Coffee and scones are good too. Welcome! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Art [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All, I decided not to post until I actually arrived in Fairfield. After a long, long, journey I am finally living and working here. Problem is that I hardly know anyone... or maybe I do, it's just that I have lost touch over the years. Any info on getting connected, or anyone out there that remembers me from MIU TTC 1975, Orange County CA.(1970s), Vittel 1975 TTC, I would love to hear from you. Art Budilowsky
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip My own take is that if it were just placebo, there would be more hopping and other flavors reported, but who can say? Its a formula. A formula producing specific results. You can equivocate all you want if you choose. If I put salt in my lemonade vs sugar the result will be different because the formula is different.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Best Vet, Best Chiropractor, Best Doctor, Best Hang out?
I agree with all of the recommendations below, and I would add for best doc, Veronica Butler. She practices in Ottumwa, but is a ru, has a nice way of relating to her patients, and is also a very good doctor. Some of the ones in FF can be pretty abrasive. Sal On Nov 24, 2006, at 7:39 PM, ffia1120 wrote: Hi Art, I don't know you but have lived in FF 26 years (undergrad and grad from MIU). Best vet - Fairfield Vet Clinic, on west Burlington (there is a meditator vet on E. Madison but he botched a kitty spay and I never went back to him, even tho' he is a nice guy) Best Chiropractor - again, not a meditator, but a real bone cracker who gets the job done and explains everything he is doing -- Dr. Hunt on S. Main (takes insurance too) - just off the square and down from Natural Selections. Best Doctor - mine is in Iowa City. If you're looking for local, maybe someone else on this list can recommend one. Best Hang Out - Revelations on N. Main - just off the square. Great atmosphere and pretty good pizza. Coffee and scones are good too. Welcome! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Art [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All, I decided not to post until I actually arrived in Fairfield. After a long, long, journey I am finally living and working here. Problem is that I hardly know anyone... or maybe I do, it's just that I have lost touch over the years. Any info on getting connected, or anyone out there that remembers me from MIU TTC 1975, Orange County CA.(1970s), Vittel 1975 TTC, I would love to hear from you.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings no_reply@ wrote: I am with you, Hermanitor. Until someone demonstrates hovering they should not try to teach about enlightenment or religion. Although I have seen big unathletic geeky ungainly blokes doing yogic hopping in such an amazingly effortless and almost floating way (and long jumps for 20 or 30 minutes) that it becomes impossible not to believe that there is something to it, that must be important. It is uncanny what I saw in England many times. This one unathletic big galoot of a guy, hopping effortlessly and big jumps, giggling, and almost oblivious to the act of hopping, the whole time for 20-30 minutes. OffWorld Hi, hovering has nothing to do with enlightenment. It is an indication of a clear channel within the human nervous system, though not an indicator of Self Realization. Whether or not we can manifest results of the Patanjali Yoga sutras or not has nothing to do with the complete freedom and lack of boundaries that we live when Self Realization dawns. The sutras are indications of the clarity needed to live an enlightened state and indications of good progress to that end. But they are not indications of enlightenment. From my own experience I used to have excellent results with many sutras, and I was definitely not Self-Realized! How do you know you were not self-realised? What proof do you have for this, and why can I not consider such proof yet another illusion of yours. You see, it works both ways if you want to so construe it. OffWorld I don't want to stand in the way with whatever you want to believe. :-) So perhaps this is why the common expression associated with the Yoga Sutras is that they can be a distraction. In other words, the waking state mind finds them flashy and tangible, and may be distracted from its one pointed focus on Self Realization. And who shall make such a concrete and definative judgement that you shall pay attention to?...he that only walks and talks?...or he that can fly? OffWorld I can't say. Please make up your own mind on this. Think for myself !?! Ouch. OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip My own take is that if it were just placebo, there would be more hopping and other flavors reported, but who can say? Its a formula. A formula producing specific results. You can equivocate all you want if you choose. If I put salt in my lemonade vs sugar the result will be different because the formula is different. /shrug...
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. Ah you're right. Interesting that something that changed the average so slightly over a 2-week period would have a significant effect. It suggests that the murder-rate trended upward slightly even without the outler. Lawson, this was a separate analysis, not the main analysis. It was done to answer the specific question about the nature of the murder rate. And I don't understand why you say it suggests the murder rate trended upward even without the outlier. If there was no significant change without excluding the outlier, they wouldn't have excluded the outlier.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Think for myself !?! Ouch. You still have thought-processes? Ouch...
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: And the comment, this is precisely the type of sporadic fluctuation one must account for when total numbers are small. Exlusion is a major way of account[ing] for such outliers. It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. This implies that WITH the outlier included, there WAS a significant difference [higher] in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. I don't think anybody has suggested otherwise. This was a separate analysis, BTW. It doesn't contradict what Lawson is saying. And at best, the ME had no effect on murders. At worst, it increases them -- assuming ME is causal. So it would appear, ME is crime-stopper light. Works best, thjough modestly, on lighter-weight crimes I guess. And even then, its not a huge decrease. Gee whiz, it's a substantial decrease. Any police department that could bring about that big a reduction would be elevated to hero status. Well, for what cost, is the issue. This stuff is not free -- at least in scalable quantities. From the graph II, it looks to me like about 250 assualts may have been avoided. (Lets focus on assualts for simplicity, since that is the bulk of the suggested effect.) Thats 125 assaults/mo. Regardless of DC costs, in which particpants may have payed to play, recent FF experience indicates that even paying RB for free course does not draw that many. And in urbane setings RB/incidentals would be at least more towards $1000 than $600. And if there was a desire to scale it up, a salary would be necessary to attract 2000-5000+ YF to various urbane centers. Maybe $2000/mo min, plus $1000 RB. Plus transportation, health insurance, vacation, retirement and other benefits. And administration, monitoring, research costs. But lets skip all those for now. How many YF in DC? I will assume 1000, but I think it was more (clarifications). So scalable project costs would be $3 million/month. $36 millon / year. So the cost per avoided assualt would be in the range of $24,000 / assault. Do you think there may be more cost-effective ways of reducing assualts? With more certainty -- (tried and true)? With less controversy?
[FairfieldLife] Placebos, Hallucination and Brain Scans
Scientists demystify secrets behind hallucinations Posted on Friday, November 24, 2006 (EST) Some may call it a figment of a person's imagination while others term it as delirium, but now scientists carrying out brain scan research, have found a compelling explanation for how the human mind conjures up hallucinations. London, Nov 24: Some may call it a figment of a person's imagination while others term it as delirium, but now scientists carrying out brain scan research, have found a compelling explanation for how the human mind conjures up hallucinations. They say that what we see is driven as much by what we expect to see as by the patterns of light and colours picked up by our eyes. This top-down, not bottom-up, picture of the way vision works could explain bereavement hallucinations. Ten per cent of grieving people believe they have caught sight of the dead person. These hallucinations relate to higher cognitive functions of the brain, some of which reside in the frontal cortex, the area of decision-making. In brain scan studies reported in the journal Science, Dr Christopher Summerfield of Columbia University and colleagues in France and New York asked volunteers to differentiate between houses and faces. Signals in the frontal cortex became active whenever subjects expected to see a face, irrespective of what the actual stimulus was. These frontal regions appear to be active earlier than the parts of the brain that process vision. This backs a current theory, predictive coding, which suggests the brain has an expectation of what it will see, then compares this template with information from the eyes to determine if it is indeed seeing a face or something else. When this process goes awry, hallucinations can occur, leading to incidences of paredolia, where healthy people report seeing faces in the clouds, or on the Moon. (ANI)
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Gee whiz, it's a substantial decrease. Any police department that could bring about that big a reduction would be elevated to hero status. Well, for what cost, is the issue. This stuff is not free -- at least in scalable quantities. From the graph II, it looks to me like about 250 assualts may have been avoided. (Lets focus on assualts for simplicity, since that is the bulk of the suggested effect.) Thats 125 assaults/mo. Regardless of DC costs, in which particpants may have payed to play, recent FF experience indicates that even paying RB for free course does not draw that many. And in urbane setings RB/incidentals would be at least more towards $1000 than $600. And if there was a desire to scale it up, a salary would be necessary to attract 2000-5000+ YF to various urbane centers. Maybe $2000/mo min, plus $1000 RB. Plus transportation, health insurance, vacation, retirement and other benefits. And administration, monitoring, research costs. But lets skip all those for now. How many YF in DC? I will assume 1000, but I think it was more (clarifications). So scalable project costs would be $3 million/month. $36 millon / year. So the cost per avoided assualt would be in the range of $24,000 / assault. Purportedly the crime rate would continue to decrease the longer the group was in business. Do you think there may be more cost-effective ways of reducing assualts? With more certainty -- (tried and true)? With less controversy? I'd be willing to bet most crime-fighting programs in big cities cost considerably more than that per year over and above normal policing costs.
[FairfieldLife] Re: DC Crime Study Oddities
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip It was NOT excluded from the data. The weekly AVERAGE was the weekly average with no data excluded. The SIGNIFICANCE of the outlier was dismissed because it was only one data point amongst many and wasn't repeated and in fact was reversed the next week (20 one week and 4 the next). See footnote 3. 3. After removing the outlier of June 22, Poisson regression analysis indicated there was no significant difference in the level of homicides in June and July 1993 from the remainder of the year. Ah you're right. Interesting that something that changed the average so slightly over a 2-week period would have a significant effect. It suggests that the murder-rate trended upward slightly even without the outler. Lawson, this was a separate analysis, not the main analysis. It was done to answer the specific question about the nature of the murder rate. And I don't understand why you say it suggests the murder rate trended upward even without the outlier. If there was no significant change without excluding the outlier, they wouldn't have excluded the outlier. No capish, sorry. I'm saying they *didn't* exclude the outlier from the main analysis. They excluded it in this separate Poisson regression analysis to see what the murder rate by itself looked like without the outlier. We really need to get hold of the study to say anything coherent about it.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason Spock jedi_spock@ wrote: Well Sir barry, I think Jim is correct. The Hindu Philosophy states, Sidhis are by-products that come on its own. It also states, they are distractions that should be avoided at all costs. That's the same old tired misinterpretation of Patañjali! Everyone should believe by now, that the demonstrative pronoun te in te samaadhaav upasargaa... apparently refers MAINLY to the siddhis mentioned in the previous suutra. Why would Patañjali present e.g. tha flying suutra (aakaasha- gamanam) *after* that disclaimer, if it applied to all the siddhis? Perhaps it means: Not to get too caught up- in this ability or that ability; Before enlightenment is established... As this could certainly be one of the most damaging results... If one decides to concentrate on one particular 'power'; And use it for ego purposes, in whatever way the ego would choose- Well then, there could be a falling away from the path to enlightenment; And also an imbalance caused, as a result of compulsing on a certain result. I believe the practice of the siddhis, and the techniques as Maharishi has taught- drawing upon the Pantanjali literature, Teaches us the possiblities of human-kind's abilities to work with the natural forces, and to be able to transcend the body, and many other abilities which are mentioned in the literature. The Vedas give a detailed analysis of consiousness, and all of it's expressions, manifestations, and how they are connected to human consciousness. So, it's a double edged sword, working with the siddhis, before one is enlightened- which I suppose is where the paranoia of the movement got started, since the days, in which the siddhis were introduced. And the stability of the people involved in the practice. Because it is easy to forget that the ultimate goal is not to levitate; The ultimate goal is to realize the Self, as youself, and become enlightened. I presume the levitation sutra, has been a concentration in the group practice, not so much becuse of the actual accomplishment of levitation, per se... But because it is working with the essence of the material field, and well as gravitation- that it must 'bend' of influence the 'field of consciousness', in a way, which has an increased effect of coherence, which has been termed and known as the 'Maharishi Effect'. And because Maharishi is primarily interested in creating an effect- Then it follows that the group practice of levitation, is a way to magnify the effect of 'infusing matter with spirit'. The levitation sutra, I believe has a way of infusing the energy of spirit of atma, into the physical body. When one can endure the power of the atma completely to infuse the body completely- then levitation as well as all the other abilities would manifest spontaneously according to the need of the Atma. So, it all goes together, if we remember the goal is realization that we are Atma, soul. R.G.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Best Vet, Best Chiropractor, Best Doctor, Best Hang out?
_ From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Art Sent: Friday, November 24, 2006 7:10 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Best Vet, Best Chiropractor, Best Doctor, Best Hang out? All, I decided not to post until I actually arrived in Fairfield. After a long, long, journey I am finally living and working here. Problem is that I hardly know anyone... or maybe I do, it's just that I have lost touch over the years. Any info on getting connected, or anyone out there that remembers me from MIU TTC 1975, Orange County CA.(1970s), Vittel 1975 TTC, I would love to hear from you. Art Budilowsky __._,_.__ I agree that Revelations is the best hang out. Also Café Paradiso most mornings, especially Sundays. Two of the regulars youll see there most afternoons are Rory Goff and Tom Traynor, who occasionally post here. They are also regulars at the best hangout of all the Wednesday night satsang held at Tom Traynors each week. When you get to town, ask me for details.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip My own take is that if it were just placebo, there would be more hopping and other flavors reported, but who can say? Its a formula. A formula producing specific results. You can equivocate all you want if you choose. If I put salt in my lemonade vs sugar the result will be different because the formula is different. /shrug... and you *do* know the difference between the baby and the bathwater, right? :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I believe that people have genuine experiences as a result of practicing the TM siddhis. I'm just not convinced that the TM siddhis cause those experiences. Do you think Patanjali's techniques are also a placebo? I suspect that all techniques of self realization are placebos. If time and space don't exist or don't exist as the agency of the creation, then yes- all placebos. However, immersing ourselves in time and space as tools to explore self realization, then techniques are just that, shortcuts. If I can wait three weeks to drive a nail through a pine two by four with my hand, no technique needed, otherwise I'll use a hammer.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings no_reply@ wrote: [...] Think for myself !?! Ouch. You still have thought-processes? Not sure, it might have just been indigestion. OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jim_flanegin jflanegi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: snip My own take is that if it were just placebo, there would be more hopping and other flavors reported, but who can say? Its a formula. A formula producing specific results. You can equivocate all you want if you choose. If I put salt in my lemonade vs sugar the result will be different because the formula is different. /shrug... and you *do* know the difference between the baby and the bathwater, right? :-) Sure. I'm not suggesting anything about stopping thesidhis or not stopping the sidhis my own take is that if it were JUST placebo, you would have more placebo effects reported, more consistently.
[FairfieldLife] Re: First public claims of widespread hovering by the movement?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig sparaig@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings no_reply@ wrote: [...] Think for myself !?! Ouch. You still have thought-processes? Not sure, it might have just been indigestion. OffWorld The devas are displeased with the quality of serotonin in your stomach?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Placebos, Hallucination and Brain Scans
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Scientists demystify secrets behind hallucinations Posted on Friday, November 24, 2006 (EST) Some may call it a figment of a person's imagination while others term it as delirium, but now scientists carrying out brain scan research, have found a compelling explanation for how the human mind conjures up hallucinations. London, Nov 24: Some may call it a figment of a person's imagination while others term it as delirium, but now scientists carrying out brain scan research, have found a compelling explanation for how the human mind conjures up hallucinations. They say that what we see is driven as much by what we expect to see as by the patterns of light and colours picked up by our eyes. This top-down, not bottom-up, picture of the way vision works could explain bereavement hallucinations. Ten per cent of grieving people believe they have caught sight of the dead person. These hallucinations relate to higher cognitive functions of the brain, some of which reside in the frontal cortex, the area of decision-making. In brain scan studies reported in the journal Science, Dr Christopher Summerfield of Columbia University and colleagues in France and New York asked volunteers to differentiate between houses and faces. Signals in the frontal cortex became active whenever subjects expected to see a face, irrespective of what the actual stimulus was. These frontal regions appear to be active earlier than the parts of the brain that process vision. This backs a current theory, predictive coding, which suggests the brain has an expectation of what it will see, then compares this template with information from the eyes to determine if it is indeed seeing a face or something else. When this process goes awry, hallucinations can occur, leading to incidences of paredolia, where healthy people report seeing faces in the clouds, or on the Moon. (ANI) Based on the legends about line drawn on water plus Travis's work oncontingent negative variation, I wouldn't be surprised to see a different set of neural behaviors from enlightened individuals. IOW, enlightened people don't show nearly the predictive coding as the unenlightened, except in certain circumstances (like they have been told that the next person they will see is a specific individual)/
