PEAR Labs closes/relocates

Thanks to Sclerotic-Rings for the head's up. Princeton's Engineering Anomalies Research Lab is closing due to lack of funds, 28 years after its inception.

The group studied whether consciousness affected random events on a large statistical scale. They found minute but statistically significant influences from human thoughts, or (take your pick) statistical anomalies in their data. They published peer-reviewed articles about their work, and also published later work that failed to confirm their original work.

In the end, they say they have proven that consciousness does play a role in random events, denying the current state of physics that allows for no mechanism for such an interaction. I say that they may have valid arguments against current physics, however they fail to do the thing that real scientists do: propose an alternate hypothesis that can be further tested. To me they are no better than those who support Intelligent Design. I agree entirely with IDers' claim that Darwinian Evolution has flaws - (1) Punctuated Equilibrium has supplanted Darwinian evolution, so they're really barking up the wrong tree, but (2) Irreducible Complexity is something that is not well-explained by any of our evolution models. However, by failing to propose an alternative scientific hypothesis that does fill in the gaps of evolution, ID fails to be science. Similarly, it appears that consciousness could affect random events, but the PEAR Labs researchers fail to to propose any mechanism by which it might do so.

Until then, I will remain skeptical.

And to round off this discussion with a little humor...