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::::::Well, to start with the experiment is too vague. They look for anything they believe to be anomalous in a set of random numbers and then look around to see if it vaguely correlates to something important happening. It ''reeks'' of confirmation bias from stem to stern.] (]) 14:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC) ::::::Well, to start with the experiment is too vague. They look for anything they believe to be anomalous in a set of random numbers and then look around to see if it vaguely correlates to something important happening. It ''reeks'' of confirmation bias from stem to stern.] (]) 14:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::::It seems vague at first look, but after seeing the backgrounds of the people involved and the methodology used, it is not so easy to stick to the prejudice. They hypothesize beforehand that less randomness will be observed during the events which are known for sure to happen, like new year eves, eclipses, some gatherings, celebrations etc. And then they analyze the data and see that there were statistically less randomnesses happening during those hypothesized events. They say that those statistically less randomnesses ''may'' be correlated to the global consciousness. In order to be able to reach some definite conclusions, they need to continue to record and analyse. They also look at the data recorded during the catastrophic events (or the ones which nobody knows to happen) afterwards and see whether there is less randomness or not. ] (]) 15:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


== Hello? Confirmation bias ring a bell? == == Hello? Confirmation bias ring a bell? ==

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Pseudoscience?

I'd like to know if the fact that this article is in the 'pseudoscience' category does have any ground. As far as I know, the project does research related to statistics (which is a science). It does use abstract vocabulary at many points, but when it explains the experimental processes, it doesn't seem inaccurate or irrational to me. --TEO64X 09:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It is pseudoscience because they measure an effect, but they are not looking for an explanation, they are prepossed with the idea that it is caused by collective consciousness in the world. Science would look for explanations, EGG Project only looks at its own explanation. Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 10:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Jan Arkesteijn's definition of pseudoscience is different most peoples'. In any case, much of the GCP's analytical work is focused on understanding the structure of the data in service of explanations or at least good models to guide further research. We think of "collective consciousness" in terms of operational definitions. Analysis-based modeling and unambiguous definitions are classic hallmarks of science. Roger Nelson (talk) 15:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I did not find any information on your site that considers or investigates other explanations for this phenomenon, nor did I find any information that investigates the anomalies that are not somewhere near a major event, nor did I find any informations that would make it plausible that a random generator is in fact an antenne for consciousness, nor did I find any information about the verification and stamping of your EGGS, nor did I find any information about the trustworthiness of your partners where you place your EGGS, nor did I find any information about your efforts to see if you might be wrong. I could go on, but pseudoscience is written all over your organisation. Kind regards, Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Poor experiment design, unclear objectives for confirmation of existence of phenomenon, lack of a mechanism for the proposed phenomenon, misinterpretation of stastical data all put this into the category of pseudoscience.Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
To the best of my knowledge the effect they are hypothesising is impossible under the currently accepted laws of physics. Adding to that the poor application of the scientific process that Simonm223 noted above, firmly puts this subject in the realm of pseudoscience. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 16:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Considering precognition requires cause to come after effect, yes that is problematic. Unless, of course, they postulate that the psychic waves are the cause of the event and that's completely lacking in parsimony.Simonm223 (talk) 16:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
sometimes the mechanism needs to come later; there is no any scientist on earth who knows the exact mechanism of gravity, but humankind accepts Law_of_gravitation as a physical law and continue to use gravitational constant and gravitational acceleration in engineering calculations. Due to the fact that we don't know the mechanism yet, should we stop using them? Would you care to state specifically which part of the design of the experiment is poor, and to give an example to the misinterpretation of statistical data? Logos5557 (talk) 08:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Well, to start with the experiment is too vague. They look for anything they believe to be anomalous in a set of random numbers and then look around to see if it vaguely correlates to something important happening. It reeks of confirmation bias from stem to stern.Simonm223 (talk) 14:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
It seems vague at first look, but after seeing the backgrounds of the people involved and the methodology used, it is not so easy to stick to the prejudice. They hypothesize beforehand that less randomness will be observed during the events which are known for sure to happen, like new year eves, eclipses, some gatherings, celebrations etc. And then they analyze the data and see that there were statistically less randomnesses happening during those hypothesized events. They say that those statistically less randomnesses may be correlated to the global consciousness. In order to be able to reach some definite conclusions, they need to continue to record and analyse. They also look at the data recorded during the catastrophic events (or the ones which nobody knows to happen) afterwards and see whether there is less randomness or not. Logos5557 (talk) 15:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello? Confirmation bias ring a bell?

Did any of these researchers bother coming up with strict standards for what defines a significant event? No, they didn't. Did they define how long readings should be considered related to those events? No, they didn't. Did the researchers account for and weigh misses the same as they did for hits? No, they didn't. Did the researchers compare those supposedly statistical readings to a random sample of readings, in order to account for random pools of apparent statistical significance? No, they didn't.

Their methodology appears strict only on the surface, but they fail to account for bias or follow all the rigors of the scientific method. So I ask you, why is the subject article not considered out-and-out pseudoscience? How is this listed alongside such things as consciousness studies and futurology?

I'm further adding a neutrality dispute flag, because criticisms and skeptical views have not been given nearly enough space in the article. 150.254.181.174 (talk) 13:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)Anon

The project actually gives thought for all of these subjects, but not necessarily very strict. The significant event definition seems most dubious, and there seems to be no real standards for it, only try at being objective. There is given thought on how long the readings should be related to the event, and the issued is adressed on the project page. Misses and weights are also accounted for. What comes to be the statistical analysis itself (excluding the subjective definition of significant event) it seems to be very rigorously controlled and mathematically sound. This of course is my impression, but the project does describe these things, so they aren't ignored.
Lists as it getting support from 75 respected scientists from 41 different nations. Of course I have no clue what the definition of respected scientist is, but in my mind with possible support from scientific community on least part of the methodology and the fact that there is documentation on these issues, it's not valid to state that none of the above subjects weren't adressed.
I agree there not being lot of criticism of the project. Especially since this kind of project will likely attract a lot of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.54.15.97 (talk) 00:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
No indication on reference page or on gcp homepage who these 75 "respected" scientists are. We should be careful about that source; let's not forget that huge list of human-cause climate change deniers who were presented as "respected scientists" and it turned out over half the list were TV weather men. Simonm223 (talk) 13:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Link between RNGs and 'global consciousness'

I have not been able to find an answer for this so far, but what does a random number generator have to do with human consciousness or traumatic global events? Why would the RNGs generate more 0s/1s in case of a global event? The GCP page talks about operators trying to influence the outcome of the RNGs, but what is the basis for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.50.207 (talk) 01:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

They suggest that if they think really hard at the numbers they will become infinitesmally less random.Simonm223 (talk) 19:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
There's no logical connection. There's no real sense in the project, it's cargo cult science. But it's a notably crack-pot project at a major university... Fences&Windows 20:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Concur entirely. If I thought otherwise there would be a PROD up by now. As has been noted previously I tend to be a bit of deletionist and tend to propose the deletion of borderline articles based on the postulate that the ones worth keeping will get fixed faster if there is a deadline.  ;) Simonm223 (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

More into the hardware setup

It seems they're summing up the results of all 65 RNGs. Or do they compare performances of each or closely located RNGs? Is there any method to "shield" these from the outside world? Are the ones protected by tinfoil hats revealing similar peaks? How about seasonal effects? Though a bit like hundredth-monkey effect, stunning I must say: "a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve". Santa Claus? Logos5557 (talk) 03:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Gathering of Global Mind by Roger Nelson, early 2002 gives some answers to the above. It seems they're able to observe locality during some major events; "Although some other cases suggest otherwise, these eclipse results indicate that the REGs are most sensitive to relatively local influences, in apparent contradiction of one of our in-going assumptions, which says that the location of events relative to the eggs should be unimportant. If this indication is confirmed in other assessments, it means that although the anomalous interaction of minds and machines that we use for our measure is nonlocal, it isn't unboundedly so. The intensity of regard, or the concentration of attention may have an effect that is stronger on machines least distant from the people who generate the group consciousness. At the same time, we must emphasize that other evidence suggests a different relationship. We have to learn much more before drawing conclusions in this deeply complex area.". They were also able to observe "less random" performances from RNGs during new year transition in a "zone by zone" fashion; "New Years, 1998, presented an excellent opportunity to test the essential notion that large numbers of us joining in a mutually engaging event may generate a global consciousness capable of affecting the EGG detectors. Of course New Years doesn't happen all at once, but again and again as the earth turns and brings the end of the old and the beginning of the new to each time zone. Our plan was to gather the data surrounding each of the midnights, and to compound all of the time zones into a single dataset that would represent a brief period marking the height of celebration -- everywhere. When this was done, the result was a spectacular confirmation of the prediction: data from the ten-minute period around midnight differed from what theory and calibrations predict, with a probability of three parts in 1000 that the deviation was just chance fluctuation. The scores were slightly, but consistently less random than at other times; they were more structured than they were supposed to be. Figure 4 shows the composite trend, which steadily departs from the expectation for a typical random walk such as that shown in the previous figure for calibration data". Contrary to the critic here, it seems that the earthquake in Turkey, 1999 resulted in deviation from randomness in the data given by RNGs; "It is worth noting that the composite of US eggs shows stronger deviation than those in Europe in Dick's detailed analysis of the Turkey quake. Interestingly, the individual egg showing the largest effect was one of the most distant, in Fiji. Interpreted literally, this suggests the opposite conclusion to that of the last example with regard to nonlocality. Again, we have much to learn before reaching strong conclusions." Logos5557 (talk) 07:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

I guess the article needs a criticism section which would address issues about design of the experiment, misinterpretation of the data etc. However, the critics should be from real experts not from the ones who seem to have no background to understand and interpret what's going on.

Here; "My background is in computer science. I was doing early stuff in developing XML specifications and advanced Java application architecture, stuff that’s more conceptual rather than sitting down and programming. I was always a skeptical person, from being dragged kicking and screaming to church as a little kid through I loved reading Bigfoot stories and ghost stories and all that stuff. I went to film school, also. That was my minor, I guess, in college, was writing for film and television. So I always had these two things. I loved technology and skepticism and I loved writing and entertainment, but there was really no way to put those two things together until podcasting came out." says Brian Dunning.

Sometimes being a skeptical, who was once dragged kicking and screaming to church as a little kid, is not just enough. Skeptical people (like Scargle) mentioned in here and the papers published by The Journal of Scientific Exploration (published by Society for Scientific Exploration) would be better choices.

"Alex Tsakiris: There’s a couple of points that I just want to pull out and kind of clarify, maybe in simpler terms. One thing, this whole idea of there lacking a theory, I think that’s just ridiculous. A couple of things I want to point out. One is, there is an established theory in physics, a fundamental theory that there shouldn’t be any structure to random data. So, if you’re doing nothing else other than testing the validity of that theory, that’s a pretty fundamental kind of physics thing to do." Logos5557 (talk) 15:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you read John Allen Paulos. He is a mathematician. In Irreligion, on page 51-59 he treats interpretation of meaning in random data at some length and in plain language. There are perfectly valid reasons to criticize a design that is based around seeking patterns in randomly generated numbers. Also, on page 113-114 of the same book, he provides an experiment for creating complex patterns (by certain rather specific definitions of complexity) from completely random data.Simonm223 (talk) 16:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Luckily, I was able to take your advice and could reach pages 51-59 and 114 of Irreligion by John Allen Paulos on amazon.com. Page 113 is not available, but that does not matter in the context of this global consciousness project because; he does not attribute any statement in those pages to this project and in fact he argues coincidence on 51-59 (from a perspective of 9/11 oddities, numerology etc.) and cellular automaton on 113-114 in the way layman would grasp. As it is explained in the article, the hardware used in this project are true random number generators (electronic-noise based) not pseudo ones (softwares). There is no fixed rule (mathematical function) in action as in automatons. There is no arguable relation between coincidence, numerology etc., cellular automaton and global consciousness project. There is real statistics here. Normal distribution is a natural phenomenon and significant deviations from that may be correlated with consciousness. I suggest this presentation to the ones who want to dig a bit further. I fully agree with you on your statement that "there are perfectly valid reasons to criticize a design that is based around seeking patterns in randomly generated numbers", however I think that should come from real experts who have knowledge of statistics, not from the ones who apparently do not know the basics but instead try to synthesize some other concepts, that have no relevance, into the topic as falsifications/rebuttals. Logos5557 (talk) 19:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Of course he isn't arguing specifically about this project in his book - the book is about religion. And the part on coincidence is the one I really think you need to read. It is relevant to the discussion at hand. Simonm223 (talk) 02:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Of course he can't argue specifically about this project with that trivial stuff in his book. The second he does, he sees all his reputation buried under the well constructed valid arguments coming from real experts. If you can really specifically point why I need to read (actually I did, do I need to do something else) the part on coincidence, we can discuss in detail. Also if you can specifically point how it is related to the discussion at hand, we can see what to discuss. Otherwise, any incapable user can come and leave something (some implication, some synthesis) here which has no relevance whatsoever with the project. Logos5557 (talk) 09:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Sources

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