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Re:Rethinking the scientific method by burgerbrain on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @03:43AM (#1978456)
He mentions, among other things,studies in ESP as falling prey to this mysterious "well it worked the first time" syndrome.

Now maybe the other examples are more credible, but mixing bullshit like ESP in doesn't help your case at all.

Re:Rethinking the scientific method by michael_dorfman on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @05:30AM (#1978626)
Actually, it does. The likelihood that ESP actually works is significantly less than the likelihood of "the decline effect", which is explained by a number of perfectly rational factors (touched upon in the article.)

If you want to claim that "ESP is bullshit" (as you and I both do, I imagine), you somehow need to account for those (rare) studies which oddly enough seem to support an ESP effect at a statistically significant level. "The decline effect" goes a ways toward providing this explanation.

Re:Rethinking the scientific method by khafra on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @10:59AM (#1979410)
In other words, parapsychology is the control group for science: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ib/parapsychology_the_control_group...
Re:Rethinking the scientific method by drndown2007 on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @10:54AM (#1979392)
This article is one example (pre-cognition as opposed to ESP, but in the same vein):

http://hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/precognition-real-corn...

I think it comes down to we don't know nearly as much about our little existence as we like to think.