Talk:Global Consciousness Project/Archive 3

Incorrect Criticisms

I've checked out some of the material in the criticism section. The following is wrong: "the GCP claims that changes in the level of randomness seen in the EGG data hours and even days before the attacks were themselves caused by the attacks". The citation reference for this points to [1] but when I checked it out it appears that GCP is not claiming that changes in randomness before the events were caused by the attacks. Correlations in the data are noted but they do not claim causal relationships. I propose that this criticism is removed. Comments anyone? Gonefishingforgood (talk) 20:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As there appear to be no objections I'll implement this change.Gonefishingforgood (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I note that Simon has reverted my change without explaining why - the citation does not claim what is stated in the criticism - Please explain why you insist on saying it does...Gonefishingforgood (talk) 23:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

To avoid any further revert-restore cycles with this one I've left the criticism in, but I've changed the wording slightly to ensure that it reflects what the cited paper actually says - the GCP is not claiming that changes in randomness before 9/11 have a causal relationship with the event, they have just noted the correlations.Gonefishingforgood (talk) 23:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

New Page

http://gcp.grama.co/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.112.85.24 (talk) 17:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Data Dredging

Hi, a number of editors have removed the data dredging link because they consider it to be irrelevant - I concur with this. It appears to be a single editor who is restoring this (and has, I think, now exceeded the WP:3RR rule). I'm therefore going to remove the data dredging link again - anyone who wishes to include this link should justify it and provide a citation in the talk page. Thank-you. Gonefishingforgood (talk) 19:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

IT was I who restored it. That was my first revert of the day. I am now on Revert 2. How is that violating WP:3RR? Simonm223 (talk) 21:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that WP:3RR applies to a 24-hour period. I apologise if I'm mistaken and WP:3RRdoes not apply to your recent reversions, but with the greatest respect, you have to admit that you have insisted on inserting the "data dredging link" (without any clear justification) a large number of times over the last few days. Several editors have removed it on the basis that it isn't relevant - if you check out the GCP methodology this criticism really doesn't apply. I'm reverting this until someone explicitly and conclusively states on the talk page how GCP is "data dredging". Gonefishingforgood (talk) 22:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

An IP editor and you are not several. For all we know you could be the IP editor. Simonm223 (talk) 22:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Firstly please assume good faith, I really am trying to constructively improve this article and apply a NPOV. I've intervened because the edit warring which you've been involved with appeared to be exacerbating the issues rather than improving matters. Secondly if you check back through the history you'll note that this link has been removed by several accounts not just IPs - LuckyLouie on 31st December being the most recent. The data dredging accusation has been clearly discounted in earlier discussions on the talk page, so I'm unsure why you're insisting on its inclusion. Would you mind explaining please?. Gonefishingforgood (talk) 22:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It's funny hearing WP:AGF from an editor who accused me of violating WP:3RR before my second revert. Simonm223 (talk) 22:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

As the edit history shows, I made no edit to the article on 31 December. Maybe you mean the Talk Page? In any case, considering the nature of sourced criticism regarding the GCP, data dredging may apply, however the issue of including a link to it is the least of the article's problems. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Two people edited the page on Dec. 31; me and an IP editor. The IP editor accused me of inserting a marxist bias (go figure) and started randomly reverting me regardless of what I edited. And I agree with Lucky Louie both that, considering the nature of sourced criticism regarding the GCP data dredging does apply and that the issue of including the link is of minimal importance overall. Still, as I said previously, a single editor and an IP editor who may or may not be that editor represent consensus to the same extent that one edit in a 24 hour period represents a WP:3RR violation. Simonm223 (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am happy to apologise if I've misunderstood the situation, you're the experts on WP policy, I'm just trying to improve the article's quality and neutrality. The edit warring is certainly a mess and it's increasingly difficult to unpick who is responsible for what. What is clear is that a number of editors believe that data dredging is irrelevant (this is also clear from the earlier discussions on the Talk page), Lucky Louie just thinks it "may be" relevant, and it appears that only Simon insists on it's inclusion but doesn't explain why (other than he agrees with Lucky Louie!!!). Surely the burden of proof requires you to clearly justify this negative criticism? Gonefishingforgood (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC).

No answer? I'll leave the data dredging link in for the time-being, pending a comprehensive justification for its continued inclusion...Gonefishingforgood (talk) 23:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A year and a half is sufficient time to justify leaving data dredging. No response was made. I removed it for lack of relevance. Tr0798 (talk) 14:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

{undent}You were bold. I reverted. The burden lies on you to justify your bold edit (removing data dredging) not on me to justify my reversion. Is that clear enough for you L*****d? Simonm223 (talk) 15:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I am suspending all involvement in this article as the last comment by Simonm223 reveals personal information about me and is therefore in violation of WP:Harassment and WP:Privacy policy. I very much regret that my good faith efforts to improve this article have met with such behaviour. Gonefishingforgood (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Simonm223 has now made the matter worse by accusing me of subterfuge. For the record I changed my account name in good faith (and in full compliance with WP Username Policy) some time ago as I was unhappy that my username contained my personal name and could be misused. It had nothing to do with GCP and the previous changes made with that username are now attributed to Gonefishingforgood in the history, so there is no question of subterfuge or any form of sock puppetry. So Simonm223's accusation of dishonesty is groundless and actually exacerbates the harassment. I did at one point wish to exercise my right to vanish as I have become so disillusioned with bad behaviour by editors on Wikipedia - but I then reconsidered as I thought that, maybe, I could make some improvements. How wrong I was... Gonefishingforgood (talk) 17:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a past username. I revealed no personal information about you. Simonm223 (talk) 17:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A past username which I changed, in accordance with Wikipedia rules, in order to protect my personal information. What business is it of yours? I have to say that I am shocked at the lengths you will go to to maintain your POV. I think my decision last year to exercise my "right to vanish" was correct - it is clear what Wikipedia is becoming. You accuse me of introducing a pro-GCP bias - what I have actually been attempting to do is to reverse an anti-GCP bias, which is something different entirely. As I've said fairness and neutrality were my only motives. Well, you can go ahead and make whatever edits you like now as this is my final edit - fortunately many people now realise Wikipedia articles cannot be relied upon. Gonefishingforgood (talk) 18:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I honestly don't know why you chose to change your username two months ago. However considering your claim that it was to take a permanent wikibreak is evidently false (else we would not be having this conversation) it causes me to suspect subterfuge. I know, AGF but that went out the window when you started making baseless accusations against me.Simonm223 (talk) 18:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Project aim

The introduction of the paper defines the aim of the project as follows :

The Global Consciousness Project (GCP, also called the EGG Project) is a parapsychology experiment begun in 1998, described as an attempt to detect potential interactions of "global consciousness" with physical systems.

From this sentence it is impossible to guess what is the aim a such a project, because :

• "global consciousness" is not defined
• what kind of interactions they intend to detect
• with which physical system ?

Thanks for clarifying.

--Houtisse (talk) 13:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The very next sentence of the lead makes it clear:

• "global consciousness" = widespread emotional response or focused attention by large numbers of people.
• what kind of interactions they intend to detect = potential anomalies in output
• which physical system = hardware random number generators

- LuckyLouie (talk) 15:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The criticism of May and Spottiswoode

Perhaps someone could clear up the following for me:

The criticism of May and Spottiswoode hinges entirely on the facts that (a) there is no plausible underlying theory to explain what is happening, and (b) that spikes and fluctuations are to be expected in any random distribution of data. From this, however, it seems to be implied that the data are meaningless, or not statistically significant.

If May and Spottiswoode are accusing Nelson et al. of data dredging, this should be mentioned explicitly in that section. Otherwise, May/Spottiswoode's ex post facto analysis does nothing to undermine the fact that (if true) Nelson et al. (a) pick their data blindly and (b) record that data regardless of randomness/uniformity of result.

That is, any reservations as to the implausibility of Nelson et al.'s underlying theory--so-called "global consciousness", which I agree is implausible--doesn't mean squat vis-a-vis the statistical significance of their results, which seem wholly consistent with standard scientific practice.

In other words: is this a criticism of experimental design, or just an ad hominem against Nelson et al. (and their underlying theory) masquerading as a criticism of the experimental design?

Thanks for your time. 69.196.178.88 (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact that their paper isn't even published (let alone peer-reviewed) doesn't help their case much either. 69.196.178.88 (talk) 00:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

So here's another way to look at it: in the next paragraph, we see the claim that "Spikes and fluctuations are to be expected in any random distribution of data, and there is no set time frame for how close a spike has to be to a given event for the GCP to say they have found a correlation."

Fair enough.

However, if the fact that 'spikes and fluctuations are to be expected in any random distribution of data' invalidates the significance of the GCP's results, it does so for science in general—or at least any science based on researchers (a) predicting deviations from null hypotheses, (b) blindly selecting units of data to analyze based on an underlying model (even if as yet unproven), (c) retaining both (i) results which conform to and (ii) results which deviate from a null hypothesis, yet (d) finding that far more of those blindly selected results deviate with directionality than should occur if the null hypothesis were true.

Quite frankly, the "no set time frame" objection is a massive red herring, given the fact that—regardless of randomness—the time frames were set before the raw data had been looked at. [Sidenote: a lot of hay seems to be made about the fact that Nelson et al. looked at the data afterward and hypothesized a post facto explanation for the spikes—as though no scientist ever looks at her raw data after the experiment. However, this has nothing to do with their blind selection of the time frames in the first place, and the blind sampling never in fact seems to be disputed in these inept hay-makers.] Rather, the fact that even if random, the entire set of data in the time frames selected strongly deviate in one direction implies that—if the data were indeed picked blindly, and were never rejected due to their proximity to a probabilitiy of .5—either (a) that the results are statistically significant, or (b) that Nelson et al. are in fact clairvoyant. If someone wants to claim that Nelson et al. are in fact clairvoyant and knew where the deviations in the random data would lie before they picked the time frames from which to sample the non-random data, have at it. Otherwise, the objection is a bit trite.

To reiterate, the random time-frame argument is a red herring if the data were still accepted into the experiment blindly. Consider an analogy: if I pick a random set of 100 coin tosses out of 1000 and declare that 95 of them will be "heads", I might not have had any heretofore scientific reason to pick those 100 in particular, but everyone else will be at one hell of a loss to explain how I called 95/100 heads. In a sense, the onus is on the interlocutor to explain away the violation of the null hypothesis with a competing hypothesis, and "I don't like your model" is not a competing hypothesis. Nor is "I looked at the data afterward and it was truly random". I mean, Nelson et al. explicitly claim on their site that their data is truly random overall. That is the whole point: the data is random overall, and yet they're able to blindly pick out spikes in that randomness which consistently tend to one direction. Similarly, my 95/100 calls of "heads" is still a 95/100 calls of "heads", even if there were only 500/1000 heads overall. At worst, it is an eerie coincidence, especially when I keep doing it over and over (and over) again, as seems to be occurring in the GCP. At best, though, it is statistically significant.

Or, finally, think of it this way: there is no statistical significance in truly random data. And think of it this way: this fact is never denied by Nelson et al. The entire point is not wheter the data overall are random or not, but that Nelson et al. are (a) blindly picking a very limited set of results from truly random data, and yet (b) those blindly-picked results are very much not random.

Again, it's either clairvoyance or statistical significance. Have your pick. But don't half-ass it and say "I don't like the model that leads either to proof of your clairvoyance or to the statistical significance of your results". It's a cop-out, based on a dispute with the plausibility of the hypothesis, not with the design of the experiment.

Anyhow, if these concerns aren't addressed in the objection section, I'm going to give it a solid rewrite. --217.23.4.104 (talk) 00:20, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Skeptics Dictionary

The Skeptic's Dictionary is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll. Carroll states that the book is not meant to present a balanced view - see Skeptics Dictionary. In the introduction to his website Carroll states "My beliefs are clearly that of a hardened skeptic." and "The hardened skeptic doesn’t need much more in the way of evidence or argument to be convinced that any given occult claim is probably based on error or fraud." This is clearly not a reliable third-party publication and it's use to justify the inclusion of criticism of GCP is certainly not maintaining a neutral POV. I'm removing the recent edits supported by this work. Gonefishingforgood (talk) 08:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Take it to WP:RSN. Skeptics Dictionary is a perfectly reliable source for criticism of fringe theories, which the global consciousness project clearly is. I'm restoring the edits you've removed as per WP:PARITY. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The issue has been raised before, and the decision has always been that it can be used - attribute it by all means to Carroll, but it can be used. And how in the world is removing it helping NPOV? Adding it helps NPOV, removing it doesn't. What part of NPOV do you think calls for its removal? Dougweller (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

If WP:Parity is the mandate, then why do we pre-categorize the whole subject into Wiki-Paranormal? There is no parity practice which can overcome that and that is in no way NPOV in any frame of ethics. Couple that with dead horse bashing reference from biased skeptic positions simply becomes less of a discussion of the subject and more an advertisement for the particular skeptic who is promoting themselves through a quickie trashing of a subject they could care less about. That is nothing like a NPOV balance. Finally, dedicating 2/3 of this article to how unassailable and accurate skeptic positions are is a tremendous disservice to those of us who log in to find out what the heck the subject is about, instead we get a full dose of reasons why we don't really want to know. That is not NPOV. This article is a priori propaganda, justified by the credentials of one source only, which is promoting itself and not even researching the subject at hand, when it needs to be information instead, and allow people can make up their own minds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dodger27 (talk • contribs) 07:18, 7 June 2012 (UTC)