DailyDirt: Mind And Body Interactions
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The mind works in mysterious ways. There are all sorts of studies that try to connect how the mind can affect its surroundings. Bending spoons probably won't fool too many people these days, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions about placebos and other "mind-controlled" effects. Perhaps the fundamental problem is that people in general are just inherently bad at statistics and interpreting data and correlations. Whatever the case may be, here are some quick links about mind-over-matter topics.Stress might be able to affect your genes. So far, just yeast cells have been shown to have genes changed by stress. Maybe larger organisms' genes are affected by stress, too? [url] In a 1997 survey, 18 million Americans reported having a near death experience (NDE)... and neurologists are studying the states of consciousness that can "blend" during an NDE. They might figure out how Inception really works while they're at it. [url] Conquer your fears and self-doubts with acceptance. Easier said than done! [url] Does ESP exist for predicting sexy pictures? Statistics don't lie... err, yes they do all the time. Guessing something right 53% of the time doesn't sound like ESP. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: genes, mind, statistics, stress
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Tests
Well there's your problem. Tests aren't supposed to 'attempt to prove things' they are supposed to generate impartial repeatable data. Then you are supposed to twist that data to mean whatever the hell you wanted to prove in the first place.
Damn kids letting their tests run loose again and look what it leads to. Sex. Always with the sex, these kids.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rare individuals.
My tip for life is go strait to acceptance. We do NOT live in a Black & White word. Your going to live in Orwellian times if you constantly re-enforce Thesis+Antithesis = symmetry(or believing both are true). Take a REAL look at history and you'll find the funding & political pressure originate from the same source to every world event. To what purpose? More power at the top. It doesn't take reading David Icke to figure this out, though its probably the best read if you can open your mind for 2 seconds. Happy trails.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Tests
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Tests
I'd tend to agree that this was bad peer review and failure to understand processes at work within their test.
Any computer scientist could have told them that random number generators aren't random...as they are usually based on highly non-random efforts to generate random numbers. Even PRNG/GRD and the other random seeding efforts rely on activity on the system processor/network/etc, which is not necessarily random. Only random generators that rely on truly random processes (decay of atom, cosmic radiation, etc.) can be completely random. Hence, most of these systems are called "pseudo-random number generator."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Tests
"This was stated to be statistically significant at p = .01. However, that significance level is simply incorrect. This kind of error (Type I) increases with the number of t-tests conducted, and given that there were at least seven such t-tests, then with a criterion of p ≤ .01, the actual probability associated with each of these t-tests is 1 –(.99)7 = .06, one-tailed. Thus, none of these t-tests was actually statistically significant, not even at a more generous .05 level."
From http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future
[ link to this | view in thread ]