Stephen wrote:
> Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom_no_underscores> wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> On 5-7-2009 19:57, Darren New wrote:
>>>> Darren New wrote:
>>>> I.e., it's the same bit as prayer. Surely if 50% of the Catholics with
>>>> cancer who prayed for remission got better, and only 10% of the
>>>> non-Catholic population got better from the same kind of cancer, you'd
>>>> say "Hey, maybe the Catholics are on to something."  But when there's
>>>> no difference at all, you kind of have to discount the effacy of prayer.
>>>>
>>> Wasn't that one tested a couple of years ago? With surprising results?
>>> Anyone can find that reference?
>> It's the kind of study that always gets mentioned in churches, but never
>> referenced in papers.  I've heard countless stories of such things, but
>> never seen a reputable reference to it.
>>
> 
> But it is mentioned in papers. Is that not what faith healing and juju/Obeah is
> all about?
> Well maybe not *all*
> 
> Stephen
> 

Usually, it works more like this:

1. Someone does such a study.
2. Raw data, when "properly" analyzed shows "no" significant results, or 
involves such a small, and homogeneous group that it is basically 
meaningless (and usually contradicted by other studies).
3. All the data that contradicts the premise is thrown out, and its 
deemed a success, because what was "kept" implies it worked.

The joke being that a) this isn't how you do science, since you let the 
evidence lead, not mangle the evidence to fit the premise and b) well 
funded, well run, large scale, studies often show either "no" positive 
correlation, or worse, as in the one case, actually imply a negative one 
(the one where a patient knowing someone prayed for them indicated an 
"increase" in the odds of dying, instead of being cured, and maybe a 
slight increase in deaths from those prayed for, but who where not aware 
of someone doing so, though the statistics where a bit less certain on 
that one). But, of course, people will pick the studies that "imply" 
positive results, for the same reason that the "researchers" ignore 
negative results, to promote their presupposition that the results imply 
it actually worked. They are not interested in the evidence, just the 
conclusion (which needs to be what "they" want it to be).

In general though, *properly* constructed studies always show a lack of 
correlation between anything like prayer and actual benefits. Its 
generally only the ones done wrong, or on very small groups with a 
predisposition to react positively to the magic joojoo that seem to show 
a positive result, and then its like.. the equivalent of, "I can 
magically make a random coin toss come up heads 0.0001% more often than 
'chance'." Wow, if we all prayed we should see armies of people, uh.. a 
few, uh, maybe one or two people, walking out the door, miraculously 
cured, every.. year?! lol

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On 14-7-2009 7:07, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 12-7-2009 8:04, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> andrel wrote:
>>>> I think the difference is significant. "I don't know" implies that 
>>>> you can still look for an answer, whereas "I can't know" means that 
>>>> the search ended. The former means that you are open to suggestions 
>>>> from others who claim that they know more, whereas the latter is a 
>>>> sound basis to build your own ethics.
>>>> I don't like the "I don't care".
>>>
>>> On the contrary, how is "I can't know" a grounds to build anything?
>>
>> Easy. If you are convinced that you can not know if God exists or not 
>> (which is what agnosticism is about, all your other examples are 
>> irrelevant here), it means that you have to build an ethics that will 
>> work in both cases. You can not assume there is someone else that 
>> knows better (a god or her representative on earth), nor can you be 
>> certain that you won't be judged after death on what you did in your 
>> entire life. That means that you have to think about what you are 
>> doing and you will have to make the right choice everytime by 
>> yourself. With 'right' defined by a much broader spectrum of ethics 
>> than that of a single religion. E.g. simply defining another group as 
>> non-human won't work. (i.e. if your current social environment allows 
>> you to recognize this as an item, but that is a whole different 
>> discussion.)
>>
>> Believe me, simply being one in a crowd of atheists or believers is 
>> much more simple. (BTW I am not an agnostic, in case you are wondering).
> 
> Uh.. But, in that case, you are not basing it on the "unknowability", 
> your doing it the same way that you would if no one had ever presented 
> the idea that one existed in the first place. You might as well claim 
> that you are, "building your system of ethics on a lack of being able to 
> know if there is a tea pot in orbit." Its a meaningless statement. Well, 
> unless you where describing it to someone that insists that all of 
> creation is defined by how many invisible tea pots are orbiting life 
> bearing planets, but, then its only meaningful in context of 
> "attempting" to explain it to the person making that assertion, which is 
> basically the same thing as saying, it is meaningless. lol

I think you missed the point completely. Or perhaps it is something that 
you have to understand before you can understand it. i.e. the 
philosophical equivalent of the mathematical 'trivial'.

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On Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:02:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> True, but I was referring in mine specifically to the last sentence.
> Prior... most of them where a lot more vague about what did or didn't
> happen to you.

Perhaps, I'd have to ask my brother who's actually got a degree in this 
field...

Jim

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On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:20:26 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Of course, when you put watch parts in an environment of mutation and
> natural selection, you get watches evolving too.

There was a fascinating demonstration of this somewhere on the 'net....

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> There was a fascinating demonstration of this somewhere on the 'net....

Yeah, exactly.  Let me know if you ever find that again.

Also, the other one I was looking for was a list of plausible pairs of 
detrimental mutations that when combined gives you and advantage, so as to 
give counter-examples to the "all mutations must lead to less fitness" 
arguments.  I tried to reconstruct some from memory and imagination, but 
none of mine were even close to as convincing as the ones I found.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:19:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> There was a fascinating demonstration of this somewhere on the 'net....
> 
> Yeah, exactly.  Let me know if you ever find that again.

I think this is it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

Jim

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Stephen wrote:

> you hava a contract with a SLA?

Service level agreement?

-- 
Chambers

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On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:05:27 -0700, Chambers
<Ben### [at] gmailcom_no_underscores> wrote:

>Stephen wrote:

>> you hava a contract with a SLA?
>
>Service level agreement?

Yes, it is important in modern day life :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:40:12 -0700, Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom>
wrote:

>
>Usually, it works more like this:
>
>1. Someone does such a study.
>2. Raw data, when "properly" analyzed shows "no" significant results, or 
>involves such a small, and homogeneous group that it is basically 
>meaningless (and usually contradicted by other studies).

Referances?
If you have not read Ben Goldacre's column from The Guardian, "bad science".
http://www.badscience.net/

>3. All the data that contradicts the premise is thrown out, and its 
>deemed a success, because what was "kept" implies it worked.
>

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

>The joke being that

 [large snip]

placebo effect?

It workes you know.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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