From: "Rabi Gupta" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Disconcerting the Skeptics Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 16:36:11 +0000 Organization: Intelligent Design Institute Lines: 28 Message-ID: <72ssoq$8ug$11@news-t.cmpu.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.241.180.46 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet Mail & News for Macintosh - 3.0a (366) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!rccn.net!khagarin.porto.rccn.net!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.ou.edu!news.ysu.edu!usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.erols.net!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!digex!cyclone.i1.net!uunet!in3.uu.net!news.airnews.net!cabal11.airnews.net!news-t.cmpu.net!!user There's a book of which you should be aware. Cambridge University Press has just published William Dembski's =BBThe Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities=AB. This book was ostensibly written to challenge Darwinian evolutionary theory. But it does much more, giving mathematical teeth to the types of statistical inferences parapsychologists use to identify paranormal phenomena. In particular, the book shows how to deal with statistical experiments whose p-values are extremely small (like those that regularly come up in parapsychology experiments). The response of the skeptical community has been interesting to watch. They are mainly concerned about what the book will do in the creation-evolution controversy (see http://www.junkscience.com/oct98/rudin.htm). But as you know, the same skeptics who regularly bash creationism (like Martin Gardner= , Michael Shermer, Paul Kurtz, Stephen Jay Gould, James Randi, and the late Carl Sagan) are also those who regularly bash the paranormal. These skeptic= s are frankly worried about =BBThe Design Inference=AB (cf. the ongoing discussio= n on the usenet group talk.origins as well as the reviews at www.amazon.com).= =BBThe Design Inference=AB puts paranormal phenomena on a scientific footing an= d blocks the scientific community from routinely dismissing them. This book should have ramifications far beyond the creation-evolution controversy. --Rabi Gupta