Comment on Can a reasonable person genuinely believe in ghosts?
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 9 hours agoConfirmation bias is when the outcome could be adequately explained by luck.
In the topic of near death experiences, if there are 1,000,000 near death experiences and 100 involve someone “knowing something they shouldn’t be able to”, those 100 cases are more likely to be remembered or recorded as significant than the other 900,000 cases. This can lead to an apparent statistical significance in correctly knowing “unknowable” information, when really it’s just people “guessing” correctly.
The “black swan” scenario is a bit different but it would be something like if you are more likely to record a swan sighting if the swan is black, you will significantly overestimate the frequency of black swans.
Im not saying the cases of apparent supernatural effects should be ignored, I’m saying they need to be taken in the context of all similar events, including the mundane, to understand if there even is an effect (knowing something that shouldn’t be possible) or if it’s just a handful of lucky guesses.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 5 hours ago
These are nowhere near the real numbers. No one could realistically conduct a study on near death experiences that included 1,000,000 participants
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
That’s a rough estimate of mine on how many near death experiences might have happened, studied or not, and that’s why it’s such a problem to only focus on the anecdotal cases that get recorded because they are interesting.
A proper study doesn’t need to include 1,000,000 cases, but it does need to ensure that it doesn’t have bias in the cases it does include.