> I wrote: 
> 
> > But the word "blind" as in "assessment of brain wave results
> > was done blindly, without knowledge of the subject from which it was
> > obtained ", does NOT appear there 

and Paul Smith replied:
 
>  I hate to put my two cents' worth in on the side of something that
>  does have a lot of signs of quackery, but just before the Results
>  section, the article does tell us that the assessment of the brain
>  wave results was done automatically by the "MERMER System data
>  analysis algorithm", rather than subjectively by researchers who
>  might know what to expect to see. 
> 

Being by nature a suspicious man, that's not good enough. Too much 
wiggle room, tweaking of parameters, whatever. The data should be 
coded, then fed into their machine by someone who doesn't know what's 
what, the data read out, decision reached, and only _then_ should the 
code be broken. Just because a machine does it doesn't absolve them 
of the requirement for double-blind assessment. Not if they want to 
convince me, anyway.


Stephen

___________________________________________________
Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.            tel:  (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology         fax:  (819) 822-9661
Bishop's  University           e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC  J1M 1Z7
Canada

Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at
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