EdgeScience



The latest issue of the Society for Scientific Exploration's (SSE) newsletter, EdgeScience, is now available for free downloading. I have been a member of the SSE for many years because it is one of those rare scientific organizations where anomalies are recognized as being key sources of major scientific breakthroughs, rather than errors that must be quietly swept under the rug. Conservative scientists shy away from things that go "bump in the lab;" SSE members chase after them.

Comments

Dean Radin said…
Here's a good commentary on skeptical reactions to Rupert Sheldrake's work:

http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/articles/Dace_Anti-SheldrakePhenomenon.html
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Gareth said…
cool. this is always worth a read.

eight martinis also has some interesting articles:
http://www.eightmartinis.com/

as does the lucid dream exchange: http://www.dreaminglucid.com/
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Eric Lyman said…
Thanks Dean. I wish I had seen this publication before I subscribed to Scientific American last year. SA is good for things about astronomy, but when they get anywhere close to consciousness it's just the same old materialism and dogmatic skepticism.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Lawrence said…
yeah I think EgdeScience is great and the SSE and JSE of course, and it fills such an important gap and need, given the reign of the mediocre prop-up-the-status-quo rags in both popular science ie SA, National Geographic, New Scientist etc to the prof journals like Nature, Science and other specialist journals. It's why nothing changes, they don't want change.

In some ways EdgeScience and the JSE are successors to the old Zetetic Scholar, Marcello Truzzi's rag, but also very different with a different focus and format. Yet there are also similarities - high quality articles, opinion pieces and reviews from the leading researchers and commentators on the edge of science, fearlessly treading on forbidden scientific territory, walking the middle way/the razor's edge of real science, that is avoiding the perils of scientific materialism on the one hand and anything-goes-quakery on the other. If Truzzi were still alive, I am sure he would give his enthusiastic approval to EdgeScience.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Tor said…
Since we are on the topic of the SSE here, I recently read an interesting article co-authored by you Dean:

Exploratory Study: The Random Number Generator
and Group Meditation

From what I remember of the PEAR REG research, they've had something like 1 bit in 10 000 showing non-randomness, while in this study the results show about 1-10 bits in a 1000. That is an effect about 10-100 larger in this study.

Is there usually a difference in effect size between these field-reg studies and the other intention based (forcing the mean to shift) studies?

It is interesting that meditation potentially seems to enhance the effect to such a degree.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Dean Radin said…
It's difficult to directly compare fieldREG studies with lab studies because the amount of data collected is usually much larger in the former, the statistical methods used in the two designs can vary quite a bit, and the study goals are often different (e.g., testing conscious intention vs. implicit attention). I have a hunch that better results are obtained in fieldREG studies, but I haven't attempted to do any formal comparisons yet.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
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