SteveGrenard
Philosopher
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2002
- Messages
- 5,528
Somebody asked about the CONSORT guidelines and definitions in blinded studies in another thread in a now eliminated forum so I am starting a new thread here on this concept.
These standards can be found at the following website:
http://www.consort-statement.org/statement.html
Our design committee has and continues to study these for possible use in mediumship studies.
One of our members, P, says: “It is noteworthy that during a discussion of biases and inadequate concealment of medicine allocations, it is stated ‘One possible interpretation is that some trials with inadequate reporting of allocation concealment actually had faulty randomization, and faulty randomization allowed the introduction of bias.’ This type of thing also came out in CSPAN coverage of the IMCLONE hearings last year.
“Relevant to reporting on paranormal phenomena in general, I have noted, as have many skeptics, that insufficient inclusion of details of various sorts often makes it difficult to draw confident conclusions from a report. The less detail provided, the more opportunities there are to invent possible alternative explanations. Creating guidelines for adequate reporting of experiments in paranormal phenomena, analogous to or even more strict than the CONSORT guidelines, might help experimenters do a better job.
J adds: “The CONSORT Guidelines are indeed useful and would add to the credibility of any study. Given what we know about experimenter bias or unintentionally fostering one's hypothesis, double blind studies should also be a requirement. Given subjects' tendency to help support a hypothesis this problem needs to be addressed in any "good" study. That is, subjects should be blind to the condition and to the hypothesis (to the extent possible). The sheep goat effect also needs
to be considered when reporting as there are expected differences given the subjects' belief systems.”
If after reviewing these at the above website anyone has anything further on how CONSORT could be modified to fit a design to study mediumship or other anomalous or paranormal phenomena, their ideas would be appreciated.
These standards can be found at the following website:
http://www.consort-statement.org/statement.html
Our design committee has and continues to study these for possible use in mediumship studies.
One of our members, P, says: “It is noteworthy that during a discussion of biases and inadequate concealment of medicine allocations, it is stated ‘One possible interpretation is that some trials with inadequate reporting of allocation concealment actually had faulty randomization, and faulty randomization allowed the introduction of bias.’ This type of thing also came out in CSPAN coverage of the IMCLONE hearings last year.
“Relevant to reporting on paranormal phenomena in general, I have noted, as have many skeptics, that insufficient inclusion of details of various sorts often makes it difficult to draw confident conclusions from a report. The less detail provided, the more opportunities there are to invent possible alternative explanations. Creating guidelines for adequate reporting of experiments in paranormal phenomena, analogous to or even more strict than the CONSORT guidelines, might help experimenters do a better job.
J adds: “The CONSORT Guidelines are indeed useful and would add to the credibility of any study. Given what we know about experimenter bias or unintentionally fostering one's hypothesis, double blind studies should also be a requirement. Given subjects' tendency to help support a hypothesis this problem needs to be addressed in any "good" study. That is, subjects should be blind to the condition and to the hypothesis (to the extent possible). The sheep goat effect also needs
to be considered when reporting as there are expected differences given the subjects' belief systems.”
If after reviewing these at the above website anyone has anything further on how CONSORT could be modified to fit a design to study mediumship or other anomalous or paranormal phenomena, their ideas would be appreciated.