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Old 12-22-2005, 02:15 PM
pineapple888 pineapple888 is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 65
Default Re: Meta-Analysis Reminder/Update

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Shh, you've made me go on another downswing now. Damn you.

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There is a serious point here - Irie, have you considered Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?

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Please enlighten me?

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The Heisenberg formula itself is highly technical, but a more general principle is that:

"The act of observing an object changes the behavior of that object."

A tragic example is when the writer Jon Krakauer went on an Everest climb *and told everyone there he was writing a book about it*.

The professional guides whose living depended on getting people to the top *may* have made a marginal decision to attempt the summit *because* they were being observed more intensely than usual.

Of course, it ended up that a bunch of people died.

The implication here is that the subjects in Irieguy's experiment may be trying to impress him, playing a different style than usual, and therefore the Abominable Snowman is getting them.

Irieguy was smart to promise to keep the results anonymous, but he will still know... and the pros might feel they let the group down somehow by contribuing their crappy results... which might make them go on tilt during a bad run to "catch up"... which might lead to even worse results.

Not saying any of this is true, but it's certainly possible.
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