I hope that I am not alone on this list in holding the view that allegations of
fraud in ANY area of SCIENTIFIC investigation should be taken very seriously
and should NOT be made lightly. So, let's review for the moment what has
transpired:
In a previous post Jim Clark stated:
> For a discussion of possible ways of and
>evidence for cheating in lab studies, including labs involved in
>many of the Ganzfeld studies, see Blackmore's "In search of the
>light: The adventures of a parapsychologist."
I felt that the above statement unfairly casts a pretty dark shadow, not only
on an entire area of research, i.e, the ganzfeld, but also, on the entire
already badly battered field of parapsychology and those individuals, many of
them psychologists who currently work in it. Given my familiarity with
parapsychology (relative, it appears, to the rest of TIPs members) and not
having immediate access to either edition of her books, I asked Jim for
additional clarification on Blackmore's claims. He then posted the following:
>It is not easy to isolate a few quotes. Blackmore presents a
>lengthy description of some anomalies that she observed in
>Sargent's lab (she does cite and quote from the articles Miquel
>quoted) when she visited because of her own failures to obtain
>the Psi effects that Sargent was reporting. Essentially, there
>were some indications that someone might have been controlling
>which envelopes were being selected. There was a set of
>identified envelopes in a drawer. These were supposedly used
>just to replace envelopes selected from the target pile. The
>numbers of cards remaining in the drawer after several
>experiments were inconsistent with what they should have been.
>She also reports that they found various envelopes "hidden"
>around the room, which would have been necessary if substitution
>was going on. There was also a short comment on possible
>prompting of subjects by Sargent.
First, based on Jim's clarification of his previous statement we find that
Blackmore's allegations of possible cheating apply to only one lab experiment,
possibly two (I do not know how many ganzfeld experiments she had actually
observed). Furthermore, the above characterization is consisted with my quote
of Berger's review of her first edition of the book: Blackmore observed some
inconsistencies in _one_ laboratory protocol which _could conceivably_ be
interpreted as cheating/fraud. Based on that evidence Jim states that:
>She acknowledges that what she
>observed could not account for the degree of hits obtained.
So, does Blackmore really offer "evidence for cheating in lab studies,
including labs involved in many of the Ganzfeld studies"? No. According to
Jim's posts there is evidence from one experiment (perhaps 2) in one lab that
can be interpreted as cheating or as mere procedural errors. Such evidence, in
my view, is less suspicious than, say, some of the evidence found against
Cyril Burt's which included, the exact same correlation coefficient repeatedly
found over several studies (incidentally, Jensen has argued that it may very
well be that such correlations of IQ between mono zygotic twins reared apart
represent the actual parameters of that population [Jensen, 1992]). At any
rate, Jim then adds:
>I was not referring to methodological concerns when using the
>term "cheating." Contrary to Miquel, I do not see the charge as
>a worse ethical violation than leaving Psi results to stand
>without including this hypothesis.
How can I possibly respond to this?
As David Epstein pointed out in a previous post in another reference to
research fraud (f-word) unrelated to parapsychology:
"The f-word can end a career, and thus it
can be used to intimidate researchers whose results make us
uncomfortable."
Perhaps the possibility of the existence of ESP makes Jim Clark and others on
this list a little uncomfortable?
Miguel - spelled with a g not a q
Reference
Jensen, Jr., A. R. (1992) Scientific Fraud or False accusations? The case of
Cyril Burt. In Miller, D. J. and Hersen, M. Research fraud in the behavioral
and biomedical sciences. New York: Wiley.
<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <><
Miguel Roig, Ph.D. Voice: (718) 390-4513
Assoc. Prof. of Psychology Fax: (718) 442-3612
Dept. of Psychology [EMAIL PROTECTED]
St. John's University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
300 Howard Avenue http://area51.stjohns.edu/~roig����
Staten Island, NY 10301����������
><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
