Talk:Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab

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[edit] Out of sheer curiousity

Out of sheer curiousity, why is PEAR considered to be a genuine science and engineering department at Princeton, a supposidely prestigeous university? -Love, Hnoj.

  • Well there is no question that Princeton is one of the top rated schools in the world and the research that pear does has been subject to vastly more rigorous examination over the last 20 or so years than most other studies, research, labs, etc. I posted an interesting article from wired that you should check out here. Also if you get a chance it's worth reading bill Bryson's Brief History of Nearly Everything TitaniumDreads 06:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but "vastly more rigorous examination over the last 20 or so years than most other studies, research, labs" doesn't follow their research methods. Princeton *is* a top rated school, which makes this department all the more confusing.
As you can see, boasting is an important part of the "scientific argumentation" in parapsychology. Since the line of reasoning in parapsychology is "we couldn't find a natural explanation, so there probably is no natural explanation", parapsychologists need to create the impression in public that they are so immensely smart and knowledgeable that this line of reasoning is justified. It doesn't convince me. Nobody is smart enough to justify that. Especially not people who can't see that this reasoning is fallacious. --Hob Gadling 12:27, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
The reasoning appears to be sound, what I find suspect is the DATA! Have a look at http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/correlations.pdf and then tell me again what your objection is? I have to assume that the data described by this paper must be erroneous or simply faked. Either that or the world is a whole lot weirder than I thought (it's pretty weird as it is). --David Battle 02:11, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
The reasoning is not sound at all. If "we couldn't find a natural explanation, so there probably is no natural explanation" were allowed, this would lead to:
  • stupid researchers being more successful than smart ones,
  • ignorant researchers being more successful than knowledgeable ones,
  • unmotivated researchers being more successful than motivated ones.
The reason: Stupidity, ignorance, and lack of motivation can prevent scientists from finding an explanation. If not finding an explanation can be used as evidence, scientists who have those properties will be more successful. Therefore, disciplines where this reasoning is allowed will accumulate that type of scientist. And indeed, what I have seen of parapsychologists... well, let me just stress that they are not very motivated when it comes to trying to find a natural explanation. Whenever people suggest one, some parapsychologists get angry or even claim that doubting their results (i.e. not accepting their infallibility in finding explanations) is unscientific.
Regarding the data: Looks like a systematic error to me - and as I said, parapsychologists lack motivation to find those. --Hob Gadling 14:38, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that it is sound reasoning to say that "if we can't find an explanation there must not be one". What I am saying is that if they are really observing what they claim to be observing (count are higher when people are trying to "think" them higher, and lower when people are trying to "think" them lower), how can that be explained by systematic error? If there was some drift, for example, why should the drift be aligned with the desires of the "operator"? I am more inclined to believe that the data is simply being faked. It is hard to see how any kind of systematic error could consistently agree with the operator's desires. --David Battle 22:58, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I think there are always systematic errors, some smaller, some bigger. (That can be a hole in the setup, for example the boss walking to and fro between the sender room and the receptor room in a telepathy experiment and asking the receptor leading questions now and then. This will generate a small effect.) Scientists normally expect some specific result. Systematic errors are detected and removed when the result differs from the expectation. But in parapsychology, expecting results is pooh-poohed - you have to accept what you find. Therefore, systematic errors are not detected (or only when skeptics who expect a null result look at the experiments). Also, parapsychologists often say really naive things showing that they are not aware of gaping holes in their setup. Purposely faking data is not necessary. --Hob Gadling 15:01, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
The answer is money. Lots of dumb rich folks donated lots of money for dumb shit like this. Stuff like this (and worse) tends to happen in private universities. But OTOH, PEAR is a fucking joke and nobody takes them seriously. Go to Princeton's physics department and ask them about it. It's a black eye for princeton, but not as bad as being Kansas. Worse things have happened in universities, like libraries and scholarships being named after racist motherfuckers in Georgia (CHF 15:50:47, 2005-08-11 (UTC))

I added a section referencing the controversy of their findings, as the entry looked like a standard PR piece and didn't go very much into their research. If anyone could go more in-depth as to the scope of their research, that would be wonderful :)

[edit] Stub article

I tagged this article with a parapsychology stub tag because, although it has a lot of text, there are only three sentences about the actual subject. All the rest are credits, which frankly look more like self-promotion and PBS-like kudos to financial supporters. I suspect that the choice of "parapsychology" will not sit well with PEAR supporters, because PEAR specifically claims not to be investigating paranormal behavior. But in the interest of calling a duck a duck, I suggest that this the most approrpriate category for the following reasons:

  1. The studies PEAR executes are designed to detect the use of human consciousness as a medium either to communicate information or to affect objects or electronics, deliberately ruling out the medium of either physical contact or electronic communication. These phenomena are, by definition, telepathy and psychokinesis, which are, again by definition, paranormal activities. This doesn't rule out the possibility that a natural explanation will be found, but until the medium for such anomalies is discovered, it falls into the paranormal category.
  2. The lab's title itself includes the phrase "engineering anomalies", a clear acknowledgement that they investigate phenomena that are anomalous to engineering; i.e., have no current scientific explanation. (All PEAR reports is statistical anomalies; it doesn't become science until theories are proposed, tested both for truth and falsity, and reproduced by other scientists.)

To be a non-stub article, I would suggest that there needs to be some detail about what actual tests and analyses PEAR has performed, as well as peer reviews of such tests (and not just the favorable ones). This would provide a balanced article discussing a prominent organization. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Replication

I read on Wired News that the results were replicated once but failed to be replicated any other times. The one time they were replicated it was by somebody associated with PEAR. This seems very suspious. I have to put this under "cool if true catagory" along with cold fusion. I really doubt this is true still, we should keep an open mind, just because something does not fit in with our current worldview doesnot mean it isn't true, that leads to scietific stagnation like in the dark ages. Anyways, if this is true, why do my tanks always get beat by spearmen when playing Civilization 3?

[edit] NPOV

Someone should check facts in detail, grey the redlinks to non-notable persons, and generally check for WP:NPOV and WP:VAIN problems. ---CH 00:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Ditto that. http://skepdic.com/pear.html seems to indicate that the PEAR thing isn't as cut-and-dried as it this article makes it seem to be. I suggest putting a POV tag on this article because it seems like a lot of the importance of this project's results depends on the fine details of the statistical analysis. Statistics can be used to propagate lies too. But I'm not sure I'm perfectly neutral myself, so I have refrained from putting a POV tag on this article myself. Peter 03:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I added the NPOV tag. Why does this have a tone implying this is ordinary, credible, uncontested science? Why is there no criticism section? Why nothing about the highly unusual circumstances of the project, or general reaction from the scientific and/or Princeton community? I'm going to watch this article, and hopefully help fix it over the next few days. Mycroft7 05:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't the disclaimer take care of any NPOV worries? There should be a criticism section, but that doesn't mean that what is there is POV. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 07:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, insisting that there is a "Criticisms" section in every article is kinda POV in and of its own right, and I do believe that the unambiguous disclaimer in the opening paragraph promotes a level of NPOV that is absent in 99% of Wikipedia articles. On a second note, the PEAR Lab (among other things) is notable as it is (er... I should say "was" as it just closed down) one of the only paralabs sponsored by a major university and has a large body of published research in reputable journals. If someone can find published criticism, by all means include it, but let's not make a section until there's something to fill it with. :-) אמר Steve Caruso (desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 03:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Since much criticism has been made of PEAR (that is arguably PEARs basis for relevance), its inclusion is totally relevant. Also this article, as well as Robert Jahn's page, claims that results were "statistically significant", which is a contentious claim when dealing with < 1% statistical variance, even without going into the accusations of methodological flaws, that claim is biased. The call for references would be totally appropriate, if the rest of the article had any, but to tell one side of the story without ref, and then say we should not state the other (arguably more relevant and common) perspective is not NPOV. Dgandhi360 (talk) 18:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)