u/dearsomething

5,470 post karma · 25.1k comment karma · joined May 2008 · moderator

dearsomething

Michael Jordan -- the basketball player -- left a very lucrative career in basketball where he was, and still is regarded as a true expert in the field. When he left, he played baseball and was pretty terrible at it.

What career change(s)—or deviation(s)—from your primary expertise have you made that didn't really pan out? That is: Michael Jordan's Basketball career is to Michael Jordan's Baseball career as your career in [a broad domain of modeling] is to your dive into [blank].

And, why didn't it pan it?

dearsomething

Measuring the color of leaves is an objective measure. Asking people about detecting the attention from others "on a feeling" or whim or some such includes both objective and subjective (to the person being asked) information.

It's really, really hard to deal with subjective information. It's better to have an objective approach, which, in this case, means to find mechanisms and explanations of such phenomena, and, in essence, disregard the description of knowing you're being looked at "on a feeling".

dearsomething

A scientist never says something exists. A scientist conducts and experiment, or gathers a lot of data to analyze, under the assumption of a sound hypothesis, or, more is the case these days, a really good idea (when faced with more data points than a human can honestly comprehend).

When a scientist finds something, they'll tell you that data suggest the existence of x, while almost universally presuming that there is no such existence of x.

When enough (by enough, that means a lot) scientists say data suggest the existence of x, it becomes a theory.

Theory, loosely translated, means enough evidence exists where we will carry out future experiments under the assumption that the theory about x is true.

If something cannot have an operational definition, and something cannot be tested, it's not worth a scientist's time nor effort, because there is no way to approach testing such things.

dearsomething

A lot, if not most, people have felt it

Is that before or after they have talked to someone else about this "effect"?

there doesn't need to be something backed up when it's not claiming anything outside of existence of certain emotions, does there?

In science, there does.

Even the fact that there's so many questions about it should be proof that people have felt it.

Or that people are unaware of certain phenomena and the terminology to describe them.

Just because some people think there is an extrasensory way of monitoring attention directed at you doesn't mean there is.

dearsomething

This study is allowed to use 7 subjects because it's something called repeated measures design. Note line 162 from the PDF:

The effect of each drink was tested on each test subject, with a separation of five days between each test.

Also, see figure 4. By using 7 subjects multiple times, you get 7 * # of tests data points. Test samples were randomized per person, thus eliminating the potential confound of there being an influence, 5 days later, of the previous beverage.

Criticizing sample size is the new "correlation does not mean causation" comment. If you're going to criticize it, provide a power analysis to show that the detected effect is insufficient.

dearsomething

No I am not able to.

dearsomething
dearsomething

Please submit this as a question here.

dearsomething

This thread has been removed because it is a frequently asked question. See our faqs .

dearsomething

Science serves the masses while medicine serves the individual (sort of). If you're asking questions about yourself, it's not science.

dearsomething

Not the internet.