Talk:TM-Sidhi program/Archive 7

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Names for Maharishi Effect

We have new text saying that other names for ME include "Maharishi Technology of Unified Field". However, I have also seen TM referred to as MTUF, as well as the TM-Sidhi program. I am not sure that we want to call the Maharishi Effect the MTUF. It more that the MTUF creates the ME. --BwB (talk) 15:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

An explanation can be found here [1] --BwB (talk) 15:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This reference would seem to clarify that MTUF refers to the TM-Sidhi Program in general and the Flying Technique in particular. While TM has to do with contact with the underlying Unified Field, MTUF clearly refers to "enlivening" or "moving" the Unified Field. I therefore agree with BwB that if the Maharishi Effect exists at all (I'm dubious), the MTUF (the unification and enlivening of consciousness by maintaining Samadhi (the Unified Field) while the body is active) is what causes it. David spector (talk) 19:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure both of you know better than I. Here are some quotes from a recent article:

• "Just 100 experts, trained in the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, are sufficient to create a strong harmonious and friendly atmosphere for the whole island," said Theodore M. Pizanis, Director of the Cyprus Association for the Advancement of Science of Creative Intelligence.
• A number of international and local experts will speak on the mechanics of Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, described as "a time tested scientific knowledge proven to produce enormous benefits for the individual and society".
• Akis Christophides, a dental surgeon in Nicosia, pointed out that the Technology of the Unified Field is a technology of consciousness. "The effect of the technology lies in the collective consciousness of the whole population. Over fifty studies have shown that group practice of the technology causes quality of life indices to go up, negative trends in society like crime and accidents to go down and even terrorism and war to abate," he said.
• According to the Journal of Social Behaviour and Personality, there is a link between the Unified Field Technology and feelings of contentment and happiness among the population.
  • "100 yogic flyers could bring peace to Cyprus" Stefanos Evripidou. Cyprus Mail. Nicosia: Sep 30, 2009.

So it sounds like it's a synonym for TM-Sidhi itself.   Will Beback  talk  21:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, TM-Sidhi = MTUF --BwB (talk) 12:10, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's how I read it in Orme-Johnson et al 1988; "The collective practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field by a group of experts, numbering approximately the square root of one percent of the ...population" led to societal improvements (the Maharishi Effect).

By the way, if we want to include the first use of the term "Maharishi Effect," according to the same article, "This phenomenon was named the "Maharishi Effect" by the first investigators to study it: Borland and Landrith, 1976") As far as I can determine, Borland and Landrith was never published but is contained in the collected TM research papers, so probably not citable. I really hate citing things secondhand, but that may be the only way to cite it if we think it's important enough to include. Woonpton (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Woon. The ME was first introduced for the effect of TM only in US cities where 1% of pop. were doing TM. After the TM-Sidhi program was introduced the sq. rt. 1% ME was presented. Do not have sources for that yet, but working on it. --BwB (talk) 10:43, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I've added it to the text.   Will Beback  talk  22:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Lynne McTaggert material

I think this sourced material was removed without discussion. Seems like it should be put back. TimidGuy (talk) 12:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

See [2]. If someone wants to properly summarize her views without plagiarism then I don't object.   Will Beback  talk  12:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll rework this and re add.(olive (talk) 01:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC))

Concept

I removed the sentence "It is believed by proponents that a minimum of about 100 practitioners is needed to achieve coherence.[47]" from the Concept section. The quote from Alexander is in reference to the Middle East project and not a general principle. It is my understanding, and I may be wrong, but even a couple of folks doing TM-Sidhi together creates a small ME. --BwB (talk) 12:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's the entire paragraph:

• The square root of 1% effect is said to be produced through "group dynamics of consciousness." It is proposed that a minimum “critical mass" of coherently interacting people is required before this amplification effect can be reliably observed. In a community of 100, both 1% and the square root of 1% would equal one person. Clearly, this would not even constitute a group! None of the over twenty square root of 1% studies accepted for publication in Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program, vol. 4, was on a population smaller than a million because it was decided that small groups of less than approximately 100 may not reliably produce such amplification effects.

I don't see anything in that, or in the preceding materials, to indicate that minimum critical mass is limited to that one study. They say this number was "proposed" and "decided" without clear reasoning for the decision, but that's what they say. Are there sources that contradict this paper and the 20 studies it mentions?   Will Beback  talk  13:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

They do say that the critical mass is necessary for the effect to be observed. Perhaps the ME exists with lower numbers but is too small to be observed. Are there any studies with smaller groups?   Will Beback  talk  13:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps for the studies they need at least 100 to have a marked and measurable effect on society, but the theory is that sq. rt. 1% creates the ME. Fell that that sentence I removed is not applied to the general concept. What do others think? --BwB (talk) 13:09, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

How about something like this:

• "In 1986, researchers proposed that a minimum of about 100 practitioners is needed to achieve observable coherence.[47]"

Does that cover it better?   Will Beback  talk  13:10, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Since it was a study in the Middle East, perhaps we can qualify the sentence and say ""In 1986, researchers on the Maharishi Effect in the Middle East proposed that a minimum of about 100 practitioners is needed to achieve observable coherence.[47]". Open to other suggestions. --BwB (talk) 13:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree except that they reference 20 other studies. Were all of those studies in the Middle East? And why would the location of the study matter - is there a different threshold for observability of the ME in Israel versus the Philippines?   Will Beback  talk  13:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The statement as originally worded by Will is sourced and attributed; BwB's objection seems to be that he "believes" that there is a ME effect even with only two practitioners. This is not a policy-based reason to remove material from the article, and is contradicted by the ME research reports I've read, where there has been great insistence on the effect appearing suddenly when the threshold is reached. Will's proposed wording "In 1986, researchers proposed that a minimum of about 100 practitioners is needed to achieve observable coherence.[47]" is okay, except that "researchers proposed" could be misleading in that it could suggest to readers that this was a research hypothesis that was tested empirically, when that's not the case. The quote comes from a rebuttal, not from a research article, and it's apparent from the quote that the number 100 was just picked out of the air. I'm not aware of studies with fewer than 100 practitioners, but the abstracts (or even the full studies) don't always give that figure, so it's hard to tell. I don't find the argument that this refers only to the Middle East study persuasive; it seems from the paragraph that it's intended to apply generally. Woonpton (talk) 15:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

No, my point is that the quote is about ME studies, not a general principle of the ME itself. Perhaps this sentence would be better placed in the studies section, not in the Concept section. That's my point. --BwB (talk) 17:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I'm still not sure I understand the distinction you're making between the ME that emerges from statistical analysis and the ME that exists as a concept unconnected to evidence, but I appreciate knowing that for you there is such a distinction. Woonpton (talk) 19:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Do we have any sources that talk about the minimum number of people required to achieve ME? The text quoted above indicates that one is not enough.

Another question that should be addressed in the "concept" section is the matter of distance. In the original study, published 21 years ago, the authors say:

• The exact nature of the relation of the effect to distance, however, must await further experimental clarification. p. 2669

Quite a few studies have been conducted since then, so I assume that there's been further study of the distance matter. Does anyone know of such a study?   Will Beback  talk  21:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

How about:

• For a 1986 study on the Maharishi Effect, researchers decided that a minimum of about 100 practitioners would be needed to achieve observable coherence.

I don't like anonymous "researchers", but I don't think it's helpful to list them either. Maybe "researchers at MUM" would be more precise.   Will Beback  talk  00:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice work Will. I am OK with either version. Perhaps we want to remove the word "about"? --BwB (talk) 10:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I wrote "about 100" because the source says "approximately 100". We can use that word instead. I'm not sure we can simply say "100" if the sources isn't that definite.   Will Beback  talk  11:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

OK --BwB (talk) 11:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thought I'd do Kbobb's job for him! --BwB (talk) 16:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Scientific Research on Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program: Collected Papers

• Orme-Johnson, D. W., et al.,"Longitudinal effects of the TM-Sidhi program on EEG phase coherence", in Chalmers, R.A., et al., eds., Scientific Research on Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program: Collected Papers, vol. 3, Maharishi Vedic University Press (1989) pp. 1678–1686

This paper does not appear to have been published elsewhere.[3] Is this book a reliable source for scientific research?   Will Beback  talk  00:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would be considered a reliable source, since it's self-published. TimidGuy (talk) 12:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Good, more opportunity to learn about correct use of primary sources. --BwB (talk) 15:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not just a primary source, but a self-published primary source making a claim about an objective scientific fact.   Will Beback  talk  21:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Primary Sources

I am still learning about the policies of Primary Sources, so I am opening this discussion to understand when we can and cannot use Primary Sources. We have a recent addition the the Concept section that uses a TM Movement web site as the ref:

As of 2009, seven nations had achieved invincibility through Yogic Flying and the Maharishi Effect, according to a movement website. The invincible nations are: India, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Holland, and United States of America.

I remember in the past that there was a debate whether or not we could use material published on David OJ's web site. Perhaps someone can explain the difference to me in this instance. Thanks. --BwB (talk) 11:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

We can use Orme-Johnson's self-published material about himself, or about topics in which he's a recognized expert, though not about other living people. We use his website as a source here: Transcendental_Meditation_movement#Reception, for example. The globalgoodnews.com is self-published by the TMM, and so it is suitable as a source for this article, within limits. Primary sources are best used to provide illustrative details or quotes to support material found in secondary sources. As it stands now, it's a bit bare. I'll add some material from secondary sources about invincibility to set this in the proper context.   Will Beback  talk  13:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Will. I really do not have any issue with you including the material above about the invincible countries. I am just trying to learn the ins and outs of using primary sources. --BwB (talk) 15:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It's also good to keep in mind that when referring to scientific subjects or scientific research, individual research studies are considered primary sources since the authors are the people who did the research (peer review is assumed here and is not an issue in whether something is a primary source or not) and for Wikipedia purposes primary sources are ranked below secondary sources (like independent literature reviews or meta-analyses) which summarize and synthesize a number of primary sources. See WP:MEDRSWoonpton (talk) 15:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

"General Views" Stuff moved from Hagelin article

I have a couple of problems with this stuff. First, the rewrite which was inserted, and later remvoved from the Hagelin article describing Fales & Marcovsky's critique, is rather inappropriate. It puts the findings of the Middle East study in their mouths, and suggests that they find merit in the presentation of the conclusions of that study, which they most certainly do not. Second, this is not a matter of "General Views", it, is rather, a third repetition of material already thoroughly covered in this article specifically related to the Middle East study of the ME. F&M are critical of the underlying "master theory" of the ME, to which DOJ et al have replied. That is covered in 3.2 "Critique" And, they are critical of the structure and conclusions of the particular study of the ME in the Middle East, again to which DOJ et al replied. That back-and-forth is covered in 3.3 "1983 Middle East Study". Putting this material in yet a third place seems overkill, repetitive and unnecessary.Fladrif (talk) 19:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

On the narrow issue of where to put it, I was acting hurriedly and plunked it down in a section of its own when it should have been integrated with the material in "1983 Middle East Study", where we already discuss the study. Let's try to consolidate the material as much as possible to avoid repetition.   Will Beback  talk  21:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I assumed that was the case. But, seeing it in place, I think that it has been sufficiently covered in what was already in this article. Plus, the characterization of F&M's critique, including out-of-context quotes that falsely suggest that they find merit in this study is higly problematic. Hence, I deleted it.Fladrif (talk) 21:27, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I quoted Fales and Markovsky verbatim. The fact that their conclusions were negative doesn's negate their acknowledgement that the evidence was striking and in need of some kind of explanation. I made it clear in my summary of their review that they thought the prior probability of the ME effect being true was near zero. But there was more to their discussion than that. What was there previously was shallow, unclear and amounted to little more than emphasizing that Fales and Markovsky are vehemently opposed to the ME effect. Hopefully there is more to our articles than a litany of who's for and who's against!Hickorybark (talk) 20:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

You quoted them out of context in a manner which places their conclusions in false light. Given that you claim to have permission from the authors of the study to post a copyrighted image from it on Wikipedia, I have to question your objectivity and whether you have a conflict of interest with respect to this material, as the most credible explanation for how you would get that permission is that you have a personal connnection with the authors and/or the study itself. You may be one of the authors for all I know.Fladrif (talk) 21:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

(Sorry, I wrote the following this morning in response to Fladrif's first post on the subject, and then my company came and I'm just now getting back to save the page): I mostly agree with Fladrif. I do think that the treatment of the critique and rebuttal are somewhat more balanced and on-point than the other treatments we have of the same back and forth (although that's not saying much), with some quibbles about wording, for example where it says that Orme-Johnson responded to the critique with a point-by-point rebuttal (no, he only responded to selected points, and left much of the key substance of the critique unanswered). Will had proposed a major revision of the whole Maharishi Effect section, so I was waiting to see what he does; I also hoped to weigh in on how I think the critique and rebuttal to OJ 1988 should be covered, once I've absorbed the critique and rebuttal in their entirety, although it may be too late for my input by then. But I do agree that consolidating the repetitive information would be good, and it looks like Will is getting a good start on that. Woonpton (talk) 00:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I think I've done all I can for the time being. There's still the issue of some sources being re-used, but so long as the material on the 1983 study and the material on the general ME are kept separate that's inevitable.   Will Beback  talk  03:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Duval comment

Another source we're omitting is Robert Duval, who wrote a critique of the Middle East study that appeared in the same issue.[4] I don't have ready access to that paper but here's what Leffler writes in an unrelated paper:

• Of course there are plenty of skeptics. For instance, Robert D. Duval, a political science professor at West Virginia University, wrote in 1988 about a study from the Journal of Conflict Resolution, "This article is of questionable value to mainstream international politics research because its basic premises are suspect. The fundamental assumptions of a 'unified field' and a 'collective consciousness' are not within the paradigm under which most of us operate." Even Duval, however, admits that "If one will, for the sake of argument, accept these premises as plausible, then the research conforms quite well to scientific standards." [5]

Orme-Johnson also quotes the paper:

• “... one may conjecture that instead of the TM-Sidhi technique influencing conflict in Lebanon, the level of conflict in Lebanon may have led the participants to hurry down to the hotel and meditate at the first sign of violence across the boarder.” 3, p. 815 [6]

If anyone can track down this paper we should include a mention of it in the discussion of the study itself.   Will Beback  talk  23:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Duval was one of the peer reviewers. His paper appeared along with the original JCR study and explained why he recommended that it be published. TimidGuy (talk) 11:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that background. If anyone has access to the paper it might be worthwhile to include his views, pro and con.   Will Beback  talk  11:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

• It's true Duval was one of the peer reviewers, and it appears to be true that he wrote his comment to "explain why he recommended that the article be published" but to leave it at that is grossly misleading, because it suggests that Duval was in favor of publication, when it's obvious from his comment that he recommended publication only reluctantly. His comment is a reflection on the deficiencies in the peer review process of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, not an enthusiastic endorsement for publication. He writes, "The disturbing aspect of this piece is not that it is in print, but that it got there via the very mechanism that, one would suppose, should have screened it out --an anonymous peer review and editorial process..." He devotes most of his comment to a listing of potential flaws and problems in the research, but adds that by the standards of the journal for acceptance, he couldn't recommend it not be published ("It is seen as sufficiently internally consistent by the JCR editorial review process to say that it conforms to acceptable standards of scientific research"). According to the editor of the journal (in an editorial comment accompanying the publication of the study) Duval in reviewing the paper "discussed the research design and execution in detail, replying that 'if I apply the criteria I would use to judge any other example of traditional research I would have to recommend publication.' He nevertheless expressed reservations about the implications this had for the conduct of scientific research and offered to write a commentary."

The problem here, as I see it, is the low peer review standards of the journal. Bruce Russet, the editor of the journal, explains those standards thus: "...the hypothesis seems logically derived from the initial premises, and its empirical testing seems adequately executed. These are the standards to which manuscripts for publication in this journal are normally subjected." These are low standards indeed. All that is required is that the ideas be internally consistent and that the research methodology and execution appear to be competent. Since the "research" consists entirely of statistical analysis, it stands to reason that if the editors really wanted a rigorous and careful peer review process they should have included at least one statistician in the review panel; instead the first version was reviewed by a political scientist and two psychologists, all of whom (according to the editor's comment) "raised various questions about the methods employed in the study." The paper was revised by the authors and resubmitted a year later, and sent out to two reviewers: the political scientist from the earlier panel (Duval) and a psychologist who hadn't been one of the earlier reviewers. Duval responded as described above, reluctantly recommending publication but asking for space to make a comment, and the psychologist characterized the paper as a 'logically and methodologically coherent effort to test a set of hypotheses that, to be blunt, I regard as absurd,' and added, "I do not trust a quasi-religious organization to conduct fair and impartial tests of the predictions of the founder of the organization." In spite of the reservations of the reviewers, the editor decided to publish the article, "also ambivalently" (I highly recommend reading the editor's comment in its entirety.) This is the peer review process that we're constantly being told has conferred the imprimatur of scientific legitimacy on this research. Woonpton (talk) 17:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Duval's comments seems like a significant point of view and should be included in our discussion of the study.   Will Beback  talk  21:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for this background on the JCR peer-review process. However, it is not for Wiki editors to be involved in the internal workings of any of these journals that published ME research. I am not sure how their policies for deciding what article to publish are any of our concern. The JCR published the study and we are using it as a ref, that all that matters. I do not think we have to include every view of every person involved in the peer review process with every study. That would be a tedious undertaking. It may also create undue POV. How do we decide what comments of what reviewer should be included and who's comments to ignore? Perhaps we would give undue weight to some reviewer's comments? I think that we will need to get input from other editors and find if there is consensus before we include too much of Duval's commentary. --BwB (talk) 11:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The journal thought this view was important enough to include side-by-side with the study, so we're not deciding its importance on our own. Have any other reviewers' comments been published in the journal?   Will Beback  talk  19:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been reading and writing and evaluating scientific and social-scientific literature for 30 years, (and have served as a peer reviewer myself) and this is the first time I have ever seen a peer reviewer ask permission to provide a qualifying comment for publication. Peer reviewers'comments are almost never published, so your concerns about giving "undue" weight to one reviewer over another doesn't really apply, but if you feel it's important to give all the reviewers' views, I suppose we could use the editor's comment, published in the same issue, where he briefly characterizes the views of all the reviewers (as I've described somewhere above, none of them an unqualified endorsement and at least one outright rejection) as well as his own ambivalence about publishing the article. I'm not sure I think that's necessary, but if you think it's important to do so in order to put this reviewer's comments in context, we could consider that. Since the comment provides some balance and context to the research, it would be a disservice to omit it, just as it would be a disservice to omit Schrodt or Fales & Markovsky or any other published criticism of the research.Woonpton (talk) 20:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Weight: criticism vs. rebuttal

In the Washington D.C. study discussion, we devote about 45 words to Park's criticism, and then about 131 words to Rainforth's rebuttal. That's inequitable. The space should at least be equal, or greater weight devoted to the criticism than the rebuttal (since we already devote so much space to the study itself, co-authored by Rainforth).   Will Beback  talk  02:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It may not be always possible to express an opinion pro and con in exactly the same number of words. And it is not necessarily the number of words use to convey a view that matter. --BwB (talk) 11:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's exactly what we're doing, discussing objections to a study and then the rebuttals to those criticisms. To give a rebuttal without ever explaining the criticism is an obvious case of giving undue weight to the rebuttal. And the number of words do matter, as some editors here have argued repeatedly. While space is not the sole element of weight, it's the primary one.   Will Beback  talk  19:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

More to the point, we're listing Rainforth's rebuttal to some points of Park's that we don't mention. I think if we actually list Park's criticisms then it will balance out.   Will Beback  talk  03:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Very good point. However, let's not carried away with this. Perhaps we can choose the key criticisms, present them succinctly, and then counter with the rebuttal. --BwB (talk) 11:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

This brings me to something I've been thinking about. Now that I've read all of the critiques we cite, I'm frankly dismayed by how inadequately and in such an unbalanced way we've treated them. I do think Park's criticisms, though informally stated and general in nature, should be briefly covered, since his book is well-known, but there are scholarly critiques that deserve a great deal more space than they're getting (certainly more than Park) and we should be summarizing them accurately instead of just picking out bits to serve a point. We should be presenting all the important criticisms, not just the ones that the TM researchers chose to "rebut." I had always assumed, watching this article, that the reason the article didn't address the obvious methodological problems with this research was that no reliable sources address the problems, so there was no way to get at it. But no, we've got several good sources that raise all the crucial questions and criticisms, and we do a disservice to our readers by not sharing them fairly. Woonpton (talk) 04:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes this could be a good approach, Woon. How do we know what are "important criticisms"? --BwB (talk) 11:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Minimum

This is a little off topic, but I'm trying to understand this. Let's say there's a community a 100,000 and in it are 50 households in which two people meditate. While 100 is far fewer than the 1000 required to bring coherence to the entire community, can each pair of meditators bring coherence to their immediate neighborhoods of 200 people? In other words, would 10,000 people benefit from the ME created by the 100 practitioners? Do I understand the concept correctly? Or is there no effect because 1% of the entire community need to be meditating for the threshold to be met?   Will Beback  talk  12:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. I've often wondered this myself. Seems like we should see a greater effect in Fairfield. Will contact David OJ with your questions. TimidGuy (talk) 12:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I've wondered that too, after BwB said he believes even two people can have an effect, and I realized that two people practicing TM-Sidhi together meet the square root of 1% threshold for a population of 400; who's to say that N=100 is the lower limit, since that limit wasn't established empirically. But then as far as that goes, neither were the 1% and square root of 1% thresholds.

Whatever David OJ has to say in response to the question may be of general interest to our discussion here but can't help us with the article, since we have to rely on reliable published sources, and from what I've seen so far of his published work, I'm seeing very little that bears on this topic. In OJ et al 1988, in the discussion about the ME equation, he explains the absence of an intercept in what is apparently supposed to be a linear equation thus: "The absence of a constant term follows from the assumption that the effect vanishes (and does not diverge) as N tends to zero." The assumption must not have been tested, or surely the results would be written up somewhere (this would be a very important finding) but this assumption should have been tested before the equation was even published (that would be part of the job of peer review properly done, to ask those questions "On what basis are you assuming that the effect disappears as N approaches zero, is there an empirical, theoretical or logical basis for that assumption?" etc) and regardless, it should have been tested sometime in the 20 years from then to now. At any rate, the implication of the assumption is that the effect doesn't disappear until N is approaching zero, which would suggest that N can be a very small number and still produce the effect. Woonpton (talk) 16:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC) [added for clarity] It's not the part of the assumption that says the effect =0 when N=0 that needs to be tested; that assumption follows from the theory and hypothesis. The part of the assumption that's at issue here is "as N tends to zero" and to establish at what point the effect disappears as N approaches zero, would be a crucial and Important finding.Woonpton (talk) 16:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes interesting for us editors but not for the article unless we can get refs. Look forward to OJ's response. --BwB (talk) 20:13, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I assume your comment refers to OJ's private response to TG, not to what I've quoted from the published research report, which (summarized of course, and without my comments) would be perfectly fine for the article if we decided to include it. Woonpton (talk) 20:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

In Orme-Johnson's rebuttal to Schrodt he writes "Nor did we assert that no impact would occur below the square root of 1% threshold; it is presented as a sufficient condition for measurable improvements, not as a necessary condition for any improvement." Woonpton (talk) 18:17, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

So was he saying that there really is no threshold at all? That's quite different from what Hatcherd said in his study, which was co-authored by Orme-Johnson.   Will Beback  talk  19:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

That's what he seems to be saying there, although it differs from some of his own writings, for example the 2009 rebuttal to Fales & Markovsky, in which he writes,

"The critics assert that there is no rationale for the threshold effects in the Maharishi Effect theory, which holds that the effect will suddenly manifest in the system as a whole after 1% of the population is practicing the TM technique or group of the square root of 1% is practicing the TM-Sidhi program. Such sudden sharp changes from relatively disordered tomore ordered states are "phase transitions" which are common throughout nature" (followed by many examples of phase transition in nature).

You will have to draw your own conclusions.Woonpton (talk) 23:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems to say that the system is still disordered below the threshold for a phase transition, but that coherence is achieved suddenly once the threshold is met. If so, then there appear to be two contradictory views on the nature of the threshold.   Will Beback  talk  22:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Maps of Maharishi Effect

• 
  An approximation of the map in Hatchard 1996, centered on Skelmersdale
• 
  A similar map centered on Fairfield
• 
  Abstract version

I've prepared and uploaded these sketch maps. The first is an attempt to duplicate the map in Hatchard, which shows concentric circles centered on the location of the Yogic Flyers. The second is centered on Fairfield. Hatchard makes a point about how various circles include different populations, and therefore require different number of participants in order to meet the square root of 1% threshold. The North America map shows that to include the populations of the U.S. and Canada, it should also be necessary to include the populations of Mexico, and possibly also Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of South America. so the studies apparently disagree on the fundamental principles of the Maharishi Effect. Or, is there some element of the Maharishi Effect hypothesis that allow some populations to be excluded from the total used to calculate the threshold?   Will Beback  talk  01:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added a third illustration, which I hope captures the concept as best we understand it. The yellow triangle is the political entity in which the TM-Sidhi group is practicing, the location of their activity marked by a star. The red square and green circle are other political entities: cities, counties, states, or nations. Since "A" (AKA Anchorage or Honolulu) is within the same entity, it is included in the outcomes, even though it is farther away than other population centers. The closest other entity is the red square, and so "B" is included in a further expansion of the populations (AKA Halifax or Vancouver). The green circle is the farthest object from the center so it is included after the triangle and square, even though it has close populations. "C" (AKA Laredo) is only included in a larger total despite being closer than "A" or "B", since the borders of its overall political entity are farthest from the center. Does this explanation seem consistent with the hypotheses of OJ, Hatchard, et al. as editors here understand them?   Will Beback  talk  11:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Think you're spinning your wheels here Will. We have a study on the effects of ME on the crime in Canada. Let's just stick with the Wiki policies to decide whether or not to include in the article. --BwB (talk) 11:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Include all views, proportionate to their weight. The studies we're citing may have contradictory assertions and we need to present all significant views to the readers. Assimakis, whose credentials are unknown, has a view of the ME that may be as significant as Orme-Johnson's, but OJ has more publications to show his significance. Hatchard's diagram is based on OJ's older work, so it is also an expression of OJ's theoretical work. However OJ may have given more than one version of the hypothesis. Maharishi has also made recorded comments on the relation of the ME to international borders. That would be another view to include.   Will Beback  talk  12:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, it'd be good to clear up the matter of how distance and border effect the ME so we can get it right in the "concept" section.   Will Beback  talk  22:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, though I think it's going to be difficult to clear it up because the published explanations, even from the same authors, are inconsistent and contradictory. Woonpton (talk) 00:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Geographical distance vs borders is discussed in OJ's reply to Schrodt, which appeared in JCR and is briefly summarized in this article. It's also discussed in the JSE paper. TimidGuy (talk) 12:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Are we not making mountains out of mole hills here? Will has recently reduced the Canada study section in the article to a couple of sentenses and move it to the "other" section, thus relegating it to a fairly unimportant study. --BwB (talk) 15:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The issue of how distance and borders affect the Maharishi Effect field is applicable to many studies, not just the Canada study. We don't have to complete this today. TG was kind enough to send me some of OJ's papers that give his views on the topic, and I found a Maharishi video that addresses the issue too. We'll get there.   Will Beback  talk  18:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

In his 2009 "Reply to Critics", Orme Johnson quotes a paper published 19 years earlier:

First, in the forty studies in this area, the √1% formula has been consistently applied based on quantification of the surrounding population in terms of political units—cities, states, nations—rather than purely on geographical distance, which ignores these community boundaries (e.g., Dillbeck et al., 1987; Dillbeck et al., 1988). These political units reflect greater homogeneity, closer personal ties, more frequent interactions, and stronger internal lines of influence (cultural, emotional, and economic, as well as political) than those across boundaries and hence cannot be ignored in calculating the pattern of “spread” of predicted coherent effects on collective consciousness and behavior. . . . Our common experience with such everyday field effects as transmission of radio or television waves tells us that local conditions (including weather, the terrain, and other electromagnetic sources, such as power lines) affect patterns of transmission across large areas. The proposed intimate connection between consciousness and the unified field would support similarly uneven patterns of influence due to local boundaries in collective consciousness. (Orme-Johnson et al., 1990: 759)

In the first sentence he seems to be saying that since 40 previous studies used political boundaries to define their their study areas then the political boundaries must be significant. He then goes on to hypothesize on why boundaries might be relevant. However they doesn't seem to be any evidence that the hypothesis was ever tested. Since most statistics of the type used are compiled according to political units, it's easy to see why the studies were structured to use those units as the study areas. But those studies do not prove that the political boundaries have any significance in and of themselves. Meanwhile in 2006, Maharishi stated that if Yogic Flyers are positioned near a border the radius of their influence will "go to the other country". He does not say anything about how that influence would prefer to stay within borders containing people of "greater homogeneity, closer personal ties, more frequent interactions, and stronger internal lines of influence". So there are a couple of sources. I'll keep looking for more.   Will Beback  talk  22:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

During the period of study there were two large assemblies of TM-Sidhi program participants nbot held in Fairfield, Iowa but which were were of sufficient size to have a predicted influence on Canadian quality of life according to the square root of one percent figure. The first assembly was in The Hague, Holland in late December and early January 1985 (about 6500 participants). The second assembly was in Washington D.C. in July of 1985 (about 5500 participants). To include the hypothesized influence of these two large assemblies together with the Iowa group, the number of participants in each assembly was added to the as the square root of (N₁² + N₂²), where N₁ is the number of participants in Fairfield and N₂ is the number of participants at the other location. This gives us a single number for a given day reflecting the combined influence of the two groups under the assumption that each groupinfluences a population proportional to the square of the group's size.

If I read this correctly, Assimakis says that the influence on the population of Canada of a group in Washington D.C. is the same as that of a group in Holland, despite the obvious difference in distances. (The Hague is about 2500 miles from the nearest part of Canada, while D.C. is less than 300 miles from the Canadian border.) And both of those are equal to the influence from Fairfield, about 500 miles away from the border.) It also follows that if the effects are additive then eight groups of 1000 would have the same effect as one group of 8000 or 80 groups of 100. Does anyone else know of a different interpretation?   Will Beback  talk  00:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Carla Brown's Harvard dissertation

What about also including Carla Brown's Harvard dissertation that studied the responses to the hypothesis? She conducted semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 35 people regarding how they assessed the JCR study. The interviewees included peer reviewers, newspaper reporters, Congressmen, policy analysts, activists, lobbyists, and diplomats.TimidGuy (talk) 12:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume "also" means "in addition to giving a fair treatment to published critiques" although I'm not sure what useful information that would add. How all these people, most of them I'd guess not experts in statistics or in scientific methodology, "assessed the JCR study" would be completely irrelevant to a scientific debate, which is what we as an encyclopedia are (or should be) covering here, in the form of reliable sources. An unpublished dissertation generally isn't considered a reliable source for scientific or scholarly information; it's even more primary than most of the sources we're using. Woonpton (talk) 14:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The last discussion I saw on the reliable sources noticeboard, for those who think their input is valuable, was that doctoral dissertations may qualify as reliable sources, but need to be used with caution.[7][8] (However, I don't think that dissertations by students of MUM and MERU should be included as they lack independence.) Brown's dissertation is copied incompletely on one of David Leffer's websites.[9] Brown concludes that, out of a 35-person Middle East policy network, only one person (a lobbyist) believed the results of the study. I think this dissertation has a significant point of view and it should be mentioned also, but without giving it undue weight. A sentence should be able to cover it adequately.   Will Beback  talk  18:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

All right, I withdraw the objection, as long as the source isn't used to establish a scientific finding but simply to summarize a sampling of opinion, and I agree, a sentence should do it. Woonpton (talk) 18:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Good compromise folks, thanks. --BwB (talk) 21:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed text:

• Carla Brown, a graduate of Maharishi University of Management, wrote her doctoral dissertation for the Graduate School of Education of Harvard University on the reception of the study among 35 peer reviewers, newspaper reporters, Congresspeople, non-governmental policy analysts, activists, lobbyists, and members of the U.S. diplomatic community. Of those, most were "unprepared for the description of reality" in the study and only one, a lobbyist, said she believed the results of the study.

It's actually two sentences, one for the nature of the thesis and the other for the conclusion.   Will Beback  talk  22:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems fine to me, Will.(olive (talk) 02:13, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

Nice! --BwB (talk) 10:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Will, but I'm not sure that accurately represents the finding. I believe that a major finding of the study was that the majority of those interviewed responded emotionally rather than objectively. TimidGuy (talk) 12:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say I looked at this quickly when tired and didn't look far enough. TG is right. The study and its findings are more complex than we are saying here, so I'd like to look further today and see if we can add more accuracy to Will's sentences. I'm adding here the part of the study which suggests applications of the study findings because it gives a sense of the study's range. (olive (talk) 14:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

In observing the ways in which members of the foreign policy network assessed International Peace Project in the Middle East, I found that a small subset followed scientific evidence where it led or at least considered it and gave it as much or more weight than their own predilections. Another larger subset gave greater weight to their own values: within the imposing constraints of their jobs and overwhelming amounts of information, they found the study profoundly out of place with the hard realities of conflict and with the political realities of the Middle East as they defined them. In observing the contrast between those who were more likely to consider the IPPME research in the future and those who were not, I found a structure of concerns that was more than a collection of individual filtering mechanisms. This community-wide net of tacit assumptions was highly articulated and actively used. Most respondents identified with them fully, while some few acknowledged these assumptions but easily put them aside when confronting new and unusual scientific findings.

Nope. I reluctantly agreed to citing this as long as the source isn't used to establish a scientific finding but simply to summarize a sampling of opinion, and I agree, a sentence should do it. The source should not be used to establish a "major finding," or any finding, for that matter. The rule in the world of scientific research is that if a dissertation has merit, it will be published. If it hasn't been published, it doesn't exist. I'm aware that Wikipedia rules in some cases are more lenient than academic rules, but as support for a finding, for analysis, I don't see support in policy for using an unpublished dissertation as a source.

When I withdrew my objection above, I was taking Will's word for the discussions on the RS noticeboard, but have now read those discussions carefully. Yes, people seemed to say in general that dissertations and theses can be used with caution on a case by case basis, but when it came to the specific source at hand in the examples he links to, the dissertation was removed from the article as a result of the noticeboard discussion.Woonpton (talk) 17:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with it being shorter, just has to be more accurate.(olive (talk) 18:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

You seem to have missed my point. My objection isn't to length, but to the use of the source to back up a finding or analysis; an unpublished dissertation isn't a reliable source for that. Woonpton (talk) 18:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a discussion of emotion in the conclusions. The main issues that seem to appear are concerns about the legitimacy of the theory or study, and its relevance to the work of the individual network members, and how those contribute to the filtering out of unconventional ideas. The issue of filtering is covered by the second sentence. I suppose we could add a few words on how the respondents also thought it was not relevant to their work.

However before we get into wordsmithing perhaps we should first agree on whether this is a suitable source at all. Do we need to go to the WP:RSN, and if we did would it make any difference to the discussion here?   Will Beback  talk  20:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As an unpublished dissertation, inclusion of the study is definitely debatable. I do see the use of the study as an interesting addendum to the studies on the ME since it does give possible glimpses into how and why a novel idea/study/science may be seen as it is. As an aside, I wonder why this study was never published. Good graduate schools such as Harvard are probably not in the habit of accepting dissertations that are too weak for publication.(olive (talk) 21:13, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

Okay, I've gone through the conclusions about ten times, and I don't have any trouble finding the statement Will cited (accurately, I might add), although I'd also include the statement that none of the 35 respondents was convinced that the Maharishi research indicates "a solution to Middle East conflict;" this is an important observation about a group of Middle-East scholars and policy makers. But search as I may, I can't find the passage olive cited. And I agree with Will that there's no discussion of emotion in the conclusions. I stand by my position that the source is not adequate to cite findings; if it is publication-worthy it will be published, and at that point it will qualify for citation. If it goes to the RS noticeboard and comes back with a different answer, I'll respect the consensus at the noticeboard, but after participating in two requests at noticeboards where the response from uninvolved editors was ignored by editors here, I'm not sure why we bother. If we only respect the noticeboard if it comes out the way we want it, then it's not much help to us as a community of supposedly collaborating editors. Woonpton (talk) 23:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't cite a passage, Woonpton, I was referring to the study as a whole and somewhat more specifically to "Contribution of These Findings to the Field of Sociology of Knowledge Application"(olive (talk) 02:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC))

Oh, sorry, the blockquote was posted just below your post and there was no signature, so I assumed it was an addendum to your post. But looking at the page history I see it was posted by TimidGuy. Excuse the confusion, but TimidGuy really should sign his contributions. Though I (understandably, I might say) misattributed who posted the passage, my comment with respect to it is the same. Woonpton (talk) 03:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry Woonpton. I didn't realize what you were referring to. I thought you were referring to my post. I did post the passage above and it came from "Contribution of These Findings to the Field of Sociology of Knowledge Application"... (olive (talk) 03:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC))

While I know nothing of this particular dissertation, I did once look up the dissertation they cite as the flower of the Vedic Mathematics curriculum at MUM. It seemed to me of high school quality and certainly did not justify the praise MUM gave it on their website. This also explained to me why MUM made it so difficult to find. As a long-time TM practitioner, I understand the unification of education based on the Science of Creative Intelligence. I understand that MUM provides a really good education for the whole person. However, I believe that, with few exceptions, the only people praising the actual intellectual contributions of MUM to Academia is MUM itself. It makes no sense to generalize that dissertations are acceptable or not acceptable as WP citations, since there are good and bad dissertations, and we have no mechanism (other than publication and citations in subsequent papers) for evaluating them. My inclination would be to agree with Olive and Woonpton to disallow this citation. David spector (talk) 00:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm unclear as to how this discussion veered into an attack on MUM. Since the writer of the dissertation we are reviewing graduated from MU and was accepted into the PHD program at one of the best schools in the US, we can probably safely say her education and accomplishments at MUM were comparable to other students in Harvard's Phd programs.

I am not suggesting we disallow the dissertation out right, I am suggesting it makes an interesting addendum to the sourced studies.

Perhaps we could clarify the use of Notice boards. For example, the WP:CONTENT notice board says," This noticeboard is for discussions and advice pertaining to encyclopedic content and associated issues." Consensus on what goes into an article is gained by consensus on the article discussion page not on a noticeboard. Notice boards supply a place for input from outside editors, opinions. advice, sometimes discussion, but notice board input is not binding.

I really think its time that allegations that Notice board input has been ignored by some editors here stops. That simply isn't true. (olive (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC))

FWIW, it may be worth pointing out that the topic of the dissertation isn't the Middle East study, it's how policy makers view creative solutions. It simply uses the OJ study as an example of such a creative solution. Therefore the main findings are irrelevant to this article. The only relevant findings are those that are relatively ancillary to the dissertation, those that concern the study itself.   Will Beback  talk  04:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

On Brown's Linkedin page it indicates that a version of the thesis was published as "Overcoming Barriers to Use of Promising Research Among Elite Middle East Policy Groups," in 2005, in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality.Oxford73 (talk) 05:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

---

"Concept"

• In 1960, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi predicted that one percent of a population practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique would produce measurable improvements in the quality of life for the whole population. This phenomenon was first noticed in 1974 and reported in a paper published in 1976. Here, the finding was that when 1% of a community practiced the Transcendental Meditation® program, then the crime rate was reduced by 16% on average. At this time, the phenomenon was named Maharishi Effect. The meaning of this term was later extended to cover the influence generated by the group practice of the TM-Sidhi® program. [..] Maharishi introduced the TM-Sidhi program, including Yogic Flying, in 1976. [10]

• In 1960, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi predicted that if one percent of the population practiced Transcendental Meditation, the quality of life for the entire population would be affected. In 1976, a study by researchers associated with Maharishi University of Management described, an on-average reduction in crime of 16% in communities where 1% of the population was practicing the TM technique. Following the Maharishi's introduction of the TM-Sidhi Program, it was hypothesized that exponential effects would be experienced from group practice of Yogic Flying.

It's good to have this type of history in the article. But is an anonymous page on the MUM website the best source we can find for these assertions? Do we know more about the 1976 study, the 1974 first notice, or the 1960 prediction?   Will Beback  talk  10:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I noticed the other day that Hagelin's 1987 paper gives this information. Speaking of which, we have extensive criticism of Hagelin's theory but I don't think we ever give a summary of what he said in the two papers in which he presented it. TimidGuy (talk) 12:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point Timid. Let's put in some text about what Hagelin presents ion these 2 papers. --BwB (talk) 15:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What are the titles of these papers?   Will Beback  talk  20:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

For reference, the papers in question are:

• "Is consciousness the unified field? A field theorist’s perspective", Modern Science and Vedic Science 1, 1987, pp 29-87 [11]
• "Restructuring physics from its foundation in light of Maharishi’s Vedic Science", Modern Science and Vedic Science 3, 1989, pp 3-72 [12]

Both are published by an MUM journal. They'd certainly be better sources than the anonymous MUM webpage.   Will Beback  talk  00:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Slight quibbles re coverage of Hatchard UK study

Hatchard, et al., used a time series analysis to show that beginning in March, 1988, when the number practicing the TM-Sidhi program in a group (the Maharishi Effect Threshold), combined with the number of people trained in TM (the Maharishi Effect Threshold Index), reached the designated threshold percentage, the crime rate fell significantly. That trend continued all the way to 1992: when the researchers analyzed the percentage of crime rate changes for the years 1987/90 and 1987/92, they found that of all the 42 police districts of England and Wales, Merseyside was the only one where the crime rate decreased, whereas it rose everywhere else. Hatchard dismissed other possible causes for the crime reduction, including an expansion in a drug treatment program mentioned below that he says began in July whereas the crime reduction began earlier in March, coinciding with the gathering of a group practicing the TM-sidhi program.

I think some of this needs slight changes in wording to be brought in line with the source. Since so far what I've put in the article has been summarily reverted, I'm choosing to put this out for discussion rather than making the changes myself. First, "beginning in March, 1988...the crime rate fell significantly." This is not actually true; the fall in the crime rate began sometime in 1987 and continued through 1989, and the paper doesn't actually claim in so many words that the fall began in March 1988. The phrasing from the article abstract: "A phase transition occurred during March 1988 with a 13.4% drop in crime..." might seem to suggest that this "phase transition" signaled the beginning of the drop, but this drop was part of an already falling cycle; it didn't mark the beginning of the cycle. So I'd suggest a slight change in wording to bring that in line with the source.

"that trend continued all the way to 1992" again not true; the trend continued only through 1987,1988 and 1989; the crime rate in Merseyside started going up again in 1990 and continued going up through 1992. (Percentage increases: .6% in 1990, 7% in 1991 and 6% in 1992). Here again, the paper doesn't actually say that in so many words; what it says is up until 1992, Merseyside crime rate has remained steady in contrast to the national crime rate which has increased by 45%. Well, yes and no. Compared to the national crime rate, which indeed was close enough to 45% Merseyside was relatively stable. But the direct statement in the article that the downward trend in the crime rate continued "all the way to 1992" is neither factually accurate nor quite true to the source, and I think maybe that should be reworded. Woonpton (talk) 22:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Those seem like legitimate issues. Can you suggest suitable text to address them?   Will Beback  talk  22:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Woonpton, good points. I agree that it needs tweaking to be closer to what the study says. TimidGuy (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I was hoping someone who thinks that paper means anything useful, maybe the person who added the incorrect statements in the first place, would be willing to fix it. If no one else will, I'll give it a shot, but I'm not very good at paraphrasing nonsense.

In the meantime, I've been working on the rest of that paragraph, trying to find a source for when the drug program was implemented, because I have a quibble about that sentence too: Hatchard dismissed other possible causes for the crime reduction, including an expansion in a drug treatment program mentioned below that he says began in July whereas the crime reduction began earlier in March Actually, what Hatchard said was "...expansion of the numbers being treated at the Liverpool Drug Dependency Clinic did not take place until July 1988, too late to account for the March 1988 fall in crime." He doesn't cite this statement to a source, doesn't provide any data. It doesn't serve as a very adequate refutation of the drug treatment program as a cause for the crime reduction as it stands, and to my eye it looks lame and defensive being used for that purpose.

The drug treatment program that was launched in Merseyside in the mid-80s has been described as "an enormous mobilization of multi-agency resources involving GPs, probation officers, health and outreach workers, voluntary street agencies, CDTs, and drug clinics" and since even at the peak of the mobilization the Liverpool Drug Dependency Clinic was only serving a quarter of the thousands of drug users who had been "captured" into the program, it's unlikely that the numbers being served at the Liverpool Clinic before and after March 1988, even if we knew what they were, could serve as an adequate estimate of the numbers being served by the entire program at the time. And of course a vague, unsourced comment that the numbers started increasing at that clinic starting in July, without data to back it up, can't be taken as anything more than someone's off-the-cuff remark, and shouldn't be treated as if it were actual data.

I've searched the internet and cannot find anything more definite on when the program was implemented than "mid 80s" or "mid to late 1980s." I suspect that because it was so huge and involved so many different agencies and so much inter-agency coordination, it was probably phased in over time and didn't proceed at the same pace in the different townships of Merseyside. But the pont is, it obviously involved much more than the Liverpool drug clinic, a statement that is added to discredit the drug program-crime reduction explanation with only a vague mention of numbers at one clinic not increasing til July seems like an attempt to misdirect attention rather than a fair consideration of the alternate explanation, especially when all he had to do was look at the data and see that the drug explanation was a more reasonable explanation than the meditation-consciousness explanation, especially since the crime rate started falling steadily a year before the "phase transition" occurred in the MTI%. . Even though the statement is sourced, it doesn't serve the reader well to include it as if it provided an adequate refutation of the study that provides very persuasive evidence for the crime reduction being connected to the drugs program. Woonpton (talk) 15:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Woonpton, you make some very good points. You may be pinpointing the weaknesses if there were any in the study. Also, I've wondered how definable the words "phase transition" are in terms of an accurate description of when results were noticed. If the ME does work I would think that possibly its extraordinary results might in actuality be a reflection of both the drug rehabilitation program and the ME which in fact the ME study doesn't take into account as you say. If you can reword the article text to reflect the study accurately that would be excellent.(olive (talk) 16:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC))

No, actually I haven't even touched on the weaknesses of the study. However, I did remove a couple of misleading statements from our article and am satisfied that the material is more neutral now, My personal opinion is that if the ME had actually added anything to the drug program, one might have seen an improvement in all crime categories, in violent crimes and in criminal vandalism as well as in drug-related crimes, but that's just my opinion. Woonpton (talk) 16:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, right, not the study but the wording of the paper on the study. Thanks for correcting for the accuracy in my wording. (olive (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC))

Woonpton, I sent your comments in this thread to Guy Hatchard. Here's his response:

"Please thank your correspondent for his interest. Firstly the statement that crime had been falling steadily for a year prior to March 1988 is incorrect. Time series analysis was conducted extensively on the data. Even one month prior to March 1988 the data was closely following the trend of previous years. Time series analysis proceeds by modelling the monthly data for years prior to the intervention and then asks the question does the post intervention data fit the prior model? If it does not, the amount of difference that that was evident in the intervention month is assessed. This came out to be 13.4% drop in crime. This is true of March 1988 but not of February 1988. So we are dealing with a 'phase transition' in the physical sense where a huge change in state occurs within a very short period of time and any explanation must fit this data pattern. I was able to communicate directly with those running the Merseyside drug rehabilitation initiative. From this it was apparent that the drug program was not expanded until later on in 1988 after the large fall in crime in March 1988. There is a need to differentiate between the efforts to reduce drug dependency in Merseyside which were shared by most other major cities in the UK (which had been going on for a significant time prior to 1988) and the special and unique efforts that began to be expanded in Merseyside after mid 1988 which later on became known as the 'harm reduction' movement. The Liverpool Drug Dependency Clinic was at the centre of this movement and was able to provide an assessment of the timing general adoption of a novel approach which began later in 1988. The Harm Reduction movement effectively decriminalised the approach to drug abuse in Merseyside and became considered to be a model approach that was widely adopted elsewhere, but this movement had not yet come together in March 1988. Therefore the drug treatment approach in Merseyside is in no way a good candidate to explain the dramatic fall in crime which occurred in the space of one month in March 1988. To suppose that the Merseyside drug program was the cause of the fall in crime in March 1988 would violate principles of causality, moreover the lack of effect in other cities with similar interagency programmes would also run counter to this explanation. My study went through a very rigorous peer review process and was closely scrutinised prior to acceptance for publication. There was also a length restriction on the final article. So several hundred pages of research had to be condensed down to the final length. So detailed consideration of alternative explanations are of necessity reported in summary rather than at length. All the very best."

In a thread above I believe you gave a link to a pdf of the Home Office study, but when I clicked on the link I got Page Not Found. Do you have a pdf of the study, such that I could get it from you? TimidGuy (talk) 12:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Timid for supplying this interesting response form Hatchard. --BwB (talk) 16:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm at a loss how Hatchard's comments add anything useful here, since my "quibbles" were about the wording of our article; that's been fixed and as far as I know there's been no objection to my changes that brought the wording more in line with the source and with NPOV. I don't find Hatchard's comments helpful, since what he says here is what I already disputed in my earlier comments, (he seems to have missed the point of my comments completely) but further debate on the matter is unlikely to be productive. We cite both studies accurately and fairly and let the studies speak for themselves; that's what we do here. Does Hatchard have an issue about the coverage of his research in the article? Whether he does, or whether he doesn't, I don't believe his opinions are relevant here; we rely on reliable sources for the information we put in the article, and I think we've done that quite well and in a way that doesn't support misinformation. I thought we were done with this two weeks ago. Woonpton (talk) 17:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I just checked that link and it works fine for me; if I click on it, it immediately downloads a pdf, so maybe you need to do whatever it was you were saying I'd need to (something about right-click, as I recall) to a reference I was looking for (as it turned out, the article downloaded automatically for me without my needing to do anything). So try that. Woonpton (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess it was a temporary glitch, since the link now works for me. In the meantime, Will had e-mailed to to me, for which I thank him. I guess it's still an issue in my mind whether the Home Office study should be included, since it can't explain the reduction of crime that began in March. If we include the study, we need to make it clearer that it can't explain the phenomenon described in the study. Guy's comments above help explain why the drug program doesn't apply. He was there, he was directly in touch with the officials, he knew exactly the scope and timing of the introduction of the program. I forwarded the Home Office study to Guy, and here's what he said:

"I've just read this paper published by the Home Office. Unfortunately it is inadequate on statistical analysis. Please note that such Home Office papers are not 'peer reviewed' journal papers. This one deals with year to year crime data and with a few specific categories of crime. My paper looked at monthly crime data in all categories over a long period of time. The Home Office paper establishes no credible time line for the Merseyside Drug Treatment Program. This program only began to build up in earnest in the later 1980s after the Maharishi Effect threshold was passed in March 1988 and after crime had already fallen dramatically. Therefore there is no statistical justification for assigning a causal relationship between the drug treatment program and the dramatic fall in crime in Merseyside. You can't establish a backwards causality, as the Home Office paper appears to do, without violating fundamental principles of science. This is the key point. Society comprises a very complex set of interactions. To establish scientific justification for a social thesis you must establish reasonable grounds for causality in time. The Home Office paper fails to address this issue because time series analysis was not used in the analysis of crime and treatment data. Although there are reasonable grounds to put forward a hypothesis that drug treatment programs have a beneficial effect on crime which are covered in detail in the article, the actual size and timing of any effect can only be established using time series analysis. In this case, I found that the data in Merseyside does not support such a hypothesis. The Home Office study offers no advance on this finding so the hypothesis must be rejected."

So why is this study relevant, since it can't explain the phenomenon? If we include it, how can we make it more clear that it doesn't explain what was observed and that it's much narrower than the Hatchard study? TimidGuy (talk) 11:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. I am enjoying this discussion! --BwB (talk) 11:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

If there are published critiques of the Home Office paper we can include those too. Hatchard's belief that his explanation is better than theirs is not a sufficient reason to delete it. We're not in a position to judge which study is correct, so we present the information to the reader and let them make their own evaluation.   Will Beback  talk  19:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

No. We can judge that the HO study does not cover the same period as the ME study. If it does not, then we are not comparing apples to apples. We can then decide whether to include the HO study. (But indications would be that we would not.) --BwB (talk) 20:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

What indications are you referring to? The HO study seem to encompass crime rates between 1979 and 1994. (Looking at the HO study I see it says that the crime rate for St. Helens, the borough of Merseyside closest to Skelmersdale, jumped in 1991, the year when Hatchard says the MTI reached its highest value in March. Hatchard may not have had that disaggregated data available.)   Will Beback  talk  21:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I had refrained from commenting on Hatchard's initial "rebuttal" copied here by TimidGuy, since neither of our opinions can be used for the purposes of the article and a back and forth between us would just clutter up the talk page without any productive result for the article. But since he has been brought back to provide commentary on the Home Office study, after I'd made the point that his opinion can't be useful to us here, I feel that his comments need to be balanced with a response:

• The Hatchard study fails what in graduate school we called the "inter-ocular test," meaning that before you do anything to a set of data, you should just look at the numbers and see if there's something that hits you between the eyes. Here there's something that is so obvious it almost knocks you down. Hatchard used total reported crime in Merseyside as his dependent variable, and suggests that his statistical analysis established that a group of TM-Sidhi practioners nearby created increased coherence in the collective consciousness that made crime go down. However, the data themselves tell a different story. What the data say is that the drop in total crime is not echoed by a drop in all crime categories; instead it's powered by a sharp drop during 1987, 1988 and 1989, in only certain kinds of crime: theft from vehicles, burglary of dwelling, that kind of thing. While total crime went down in Merseyside by 10% from 1987-1992, violence against persons went up 29% in the same period, and other non-acquisitive crimes also increased. It's kind of hard to come up with a rationale that would explain how an increase in coherence of consciousness could cause a decrease in petty theft while at the same time allowing citizens to be violently assaulted with ever greater frequency. The data speak for themselves here; it's not necessary to use inappropriately complex statistics to excavate what's going on (as a critique of another Maharishi Effect study put it, using time series for something like this "is like using a chain saw to cut a cantaloupe"), since it's right there in plain sight in the data for all to see. Citing the Home Office study in our article simply provides a reliable source to establish what the data show, that the drop in crime was only a drop in certain kinds of crime, the acquisitive crimes that are committed by drug users looking for money for their next fix, not a drop in all crime. It's not necessary for the source to provide causal analysis to establish that the drop in those crimes was "caused" by the drug program; it's enough to show simply that a sharp decrease in acquisitive crimes starting in 1987 was responsible for the decrease in total crime during that period, to provide balance and context for the Hatchard study. That there was a drug program in place which might possibly account for the sudden drop in crimes committed by drug users, is interesting additional information to provide context and balance to Hatchard et al's suggestion that there could be no other explanation for the drop in crime than that the meditators caused it.

• I find it curious that Hatchard seems to continue insisting that the downward trend in crime started in March 1988 when the ME threshold was reached; again, the data show otherwise (even Hatchard's own graph shows otherwise). By my rough quick calculation, total crime had already dropped 10% from its 1987 peak at the time of the TM "intervention." The annual crime statistics on Merseyside show an decrease in annual total crime starting with the year 1987 (also as shown by Hatchard's own tables) so to argue that crime wasn't already on a downward slope before the time of the intervention in March 1988 would be to argue against the clear evidence of the data.

• If one were trying to impress, or intimidate, a statistican, invoking Box-Jenkins and suggesting that a study is "inadequate on statistical analysis" because it's not using Box-Jenkins, would not be the way to achieve such a purpose. Box-Jenkins may have been state of the art 25 years ago, but it's now well accepted among statisticians that the technique is computationally unreliable and prone to producing spurious correlations. Many teachers of statistics and applied statisticians no longer teach it or use it at all.

• Some of the Maharishi studies involve bringing in a large group of TM-Sidhi practitioners into an area and then statistically analyzing available data to discover causal connections with a wide variety of datasets, so it wouldn't be surprising if the effect were not sustained when the meditators left the area. However, in the case of Skelmersdale, as with Fairfield Iowa, there is a resident group of TM and TM-Sidhi practitioners sufficient to consistently exceed the threshold, and yet the effect does not seem to be consistently produced or sustained over time. Since the time of the Hatchard study, crime levels in Merseyside have continued to fluctuate up and down, up and down, sometimes very steeply in either direction, rising to above the 1983-1986 levels and dropping to below the 1987-89 levels, oblivious to the presence of TM-Sidhi practitioners nearby. Fales & Markovsky's comment about a different ME study is just as apt here: "...it is hardly unreasonable to suppose that the fluctuations of the dependent variable..would have remained exactly as they were even if there had been no meditators at all."

As I've said, my opinion and critical analysis are not useful to the article itself, and I would not be providing them here if Hatchard hadn't been allowed to argue against the inclusion of the Home Office study; at that point it seemed unreasonable to allow his comments to stand unchallenged. I think what we've got in the article about these two studies is accurate, fair, and NPOV, and I don't think we need to make any change in the wording as the result of either my or Hatchard's analysis here, so shall we agree to stick to the sources and not be distracted by irrelevant commentary? Woonpton (talk) 20:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I went back to the article to check the wording on the Home Office study; it was worded differently than I remembered it, and I have reworded it to bring it more in line with the source as I read it. Woonpton (talk) 23:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This is excellent. I'm pleased that you took the time to explain. Each time I've gone to Guy Hatchard it was because you or Will had convinced me that the study was flawed. And I'm almost convinced again. One problem that I see with your analysis regarding when crime began dropping is that you don't take seasonality into account. That would explain the trend that begins in 1987, right? And wouldn't we still need to explain the dramatic drop in March? Nothing in Home Office data would explain that, right? TimidGuy (talk) 12:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, seasonality has nothing to do with it. A steep drop that started in 1987 and lasted through 1989 would not have anything to do with seasonality. If you look at a graph over time, you see, in the national data as well as in Merseyside data, a marked plunge during those years that really stands out on the graph. (If I could remember exactly where I'd seen those graphs, I'd point you to them so you could see it with your own eyes, but I've looked at so many different reports from the Home Office and from the Merseyside Police department I wouldn't care to try to retrace my steps to find it again. It wouldn't have occurred to me that discussing this Merseyside study would become a fulltime job, or I would have printed out all that stuff for my files to have at my fingertips for the next round.) Whether that drop had to do with a drug program, or just an ebb and flow in a heroin epidemic I don't think we have enough information to say, but the probability is fairly high that it's one of those, and not anything related to people meditating in Skelmersdale.

And no, there's no particular need to "explain" a steep drop in March 1988; as I said above, crime statistics go up and down, up and down, sometimes very steeply in either direction; that's what numbers do all by themselves without intervention from outside forces. That's why we have statistics, to enable us to distinguish something unusual from the normal up and down. As Hatchard reports in the study, "Home Office officials commented that 'recent percentage changes in Merseyside crime lie within the range of recorded Metropolitan crime rate changes'" and Home Office officials are exactly right. This drop of 13.4% is not an unusual occurrence in the annals of crime in the UK. For comparison, the greater Metropolitan London area also had a drop of 14% in 1988. In fact, all UK police forces reported a drop in crime in 1988. And while we're at it, if the graph in Hatchard's paper had been drawn correctly, that drop wouldn't look nearly as steep as it does in the graph as drawn. At any rate, there have been a number of similar and larger percentage changes in Merseyside crime statistics at different times, there's nothing unusual about this.

It is worth noting that whether you look at the percentage change from 1987-1990 or 1987-1992, Merseyside is the only police jurisdiction that reported a negative percentage change during the period (-17% for 1987-1990 and -10% for 1987-1992). (Well, West Midlands for 1987-1992, but that was just -1% so hardly worth noticing.) That might be interesting, except that in order to make anything of it as support for the hypothesis, you'd have to ignore the fatal flaw in the research, which I can't do. I've already explained what that flaw is, but let's try one more time. The hypothesis is that people participating in a group meditation program will create increased coherence in the surrounding collective consciousness such that the quality of life will improve for everyone. In this particular study, quality of life is defined as the amount of crime in a particular police jurisdiction near the meditation site. After some statistical analysis, it is announced that not only did crime go down at the time that the meditating group reached the threshold of the square root of 1% of the population, but the only credible explanation for the reduction in crime is the "intervention" of the meditating group. However, the data disprove the hypothesis on both counts. While the "total crime" statistic in Merseyside did go down in a sharp plunge that lasted from 1987 to 1989, that doesn't mean that crime went down, and if you look at the breakdown by crime categories, it's evident that interpreting the decrease in "total crime" as a decrease in crime altogether would be a great mistake. Only the acquisitive crimes typically committed by drug users went down; other crimes went up significantly. In fact, if you're looking for a percentage change that requires explanation, the dramatic climb of 29% in violent crime against persons, occurring during the same years that an increased coherence of consciousness is claimed to be responsible for a much smaller decrease in total crime, is something that truly needs to be explained by anyone who continues to insist on the validity of the conclusions of this study. If the people in that jurisdiction are having fewer of their stereos ripped off while they're at work, but getting beat up in the street more, how can that be reasonably interpreted as an improved quality of life? As I said before, it's hard to picture a coherence that would work that way. And besides, just the fact that crime has not remained low in Merseyside since then, with a large TM presence in the area (according to the Independent, 400 permanent residents are associated with TM) throws doubt on the conclusions of the study and makes a statistical artifact the most reasonable explanation for the results, especially since Box-Jenkins is known to produce spurious results.

Make no mistake, the research is flawed. When I was teaching an undergraduate class that required people to design and carry out small experiments and write them up as if for publication, if one of the students had missed an obvious confound like this, they would not have got a passing grade. This is basic research methods 101.

I spent some time last weekend reading some of the critiques of the Maharishi Effect research along with the inevitable off-the-point rebuttals. Again and again, the rebuttals pick out some trivial irrelevant point to focus on, while leaving the telling points of the critique unanswered. I wouldn't care to speculate seriously on the reason for that, but it's quite annoying to read. The current discussion seems to have taken a similar pattern: "This research is fatally flawed because there's an obvious confound that undermines the conclusions." "But you didn't take seasonality into account." Huh? Not relevant, and doesn't address the serious problems with the study. I think I've laid out the case well enough; I hope we can be done with this conversation. As I keep saying, it can have no useful purpose for the article, and this talk page is supposed to be for discussing the article. So can we be done with this now, please? Woonpton (talk) 16:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The reason we're discussing this is that it's questionable whether the Home Office study is relevant to the article. Ordinarily, per WP:NOR, we'd have a source that makes the connection, but we don't. We're relying on your opinion. And we have to make sure that your analysis is sound. I think it's only fair to give Guy a chance to respond to this critique. TimidGuy (talk) 12:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course the Home Office study is relevant to the article. As Will said above, "Hatchard's belief that his explanation is better than theirs is not a sufficient reason to delete it." As I've said half a dozen times, neither Hatchard's nor my analysis and critique are relevant to the article itself, and I would have preferred not to clutter up the talk page with this debate. But just to be very clear, we are not relying on any analysis of mine for the inclusion of the study. Hatchard's study claims that the meditators in Skelmersdale improved the quality of life in Merseyside by dramatically reducing crime. The Home Office study shows that the only crimes that went down were the acquisitive crimes that are typically committed by drug users, while other, more heinous, crimes went up substantially. These are two sources that contradict each other; it wouldn't serve the reader to include the first without the other. There's no causal analysis in the Home Office study, and they draw no conclusion claiming causality, so Hatchard's criticism that they are claiming backward causality is not an accurate representation of the source or a valid criticism. While the inclusion of the source does not rely on any analysis of mine, the arguments made here that because Hatchard says the Home Office doesn't explain the drop in crime, it shouldn't be included, do rely on Hatchard's opnion. Woonpton (talk) 16:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If the Home Office Study does not make reference to the ME study or the larger topic of the article, it is not a compliant reference. We can't or shouldn't be adding content that does not directly reference the topic of the article. Adding the Home Office Study in conjunction with the Hatchard study to make a point about the Hatchard study is original research. With respect for the amount of work that must have gone into this discussion, still we are left with guidelines and policies that define an encyclopedia, and not for example a research paper. (olive (talk) 17:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC))

We already took this to a noticeboard and the opinion of uninvolved editors is that it's OK to include. Is this a case of ignoring the input from noticeboards?   Will Beback  talk  18:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

A reminder: Consensus does not trump policy. And the Notice board and the comments of editors there do not trump policy. Including information that does not directly refer to the topic of the article is a policy violation, and is WP:OR. Do what you want, but adding the Home Office study and connecting it to another study requires OR and violates EWP:NOR. Ignoring the Notice board? One should not confuse ignoring with disagreeing and with upholding consistent accurate use of policy. (olive (talk) 13:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC))

In other words, "Yes". The consensus is that there is no original research whatsoever in reporting that another study of the same crime trends, using the same statistics, for substantially the same period came to a different conclusion. This ship has sailed. Fladrif (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you reread the policy.(olive (talk) 20:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC))

I've read it many times. Moreover, I understand it. Your continued objections suggest strongly to me that you do not understand it. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to assist you in understanding the points that are apparently confusing you. And, I suggest you reread WP:WIKILAWYERING, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT WP:GAME and WP:COI. Fladrif (talk) 20:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The noticeboard assumed that the study was relevant to the phenomenon identified by Hatchard. On a different point, Woonpton says that the Home Office study doesn't show causality, yet the article says that the methadone project drove the reduction of crime in two categories. Seems like we should at least reword that. I sent Hatchard Woontpon's latest set of comments, and here's his reply, which bears in part on the category question:

"Certainly the discussion is very useful, however descriptive discussion and references to specific results in individual categories of crime in certain places isn't sufficient to critique a study as we will see from the following. You need to do analysis over a long period of time and in this way you can establish a casual link. My study does this. The alternative explanation of a drop in drug related crime due to a treatment programme does not fit the data as we have already discussed. The key question that a researcher has to answer is the causality question, ie which indicator changed first and the drug hypothesis fails this test. Box Jenkins is an established statistical methodology. However the effect is so clear from the monthly data that you don't need rocket science to see that something very unusual and unprecedented happened in March 1988. It is not a result that was teased out of the data. The Maharishi Effect is a predictive theory which can be tested. My analysis started before the 1980s and continued up to 1991 and the phase transition model fits the data to this point. Merseyside went from having the second highest crime rate in the UK in 1987 to having the lowest among metropolitan districts in 1993. As to other metropolitan figures, your correspondent is right there are statistical blips in monthly crime data. This is due to the fact that many metropolitan police districts have sloppy closeout practices at the month-end reporting deadline. Some districts record completed crime reports to hand which can include data from other months or leave out significant chunks of current data and others take care to ensure that monthly data accurately reflects the actual crime committed in the month. Interviews with Merseyside statisticians confirmed that Merseyside fell very squarely in the latter category and data collected separately from West Lancashire confirmed a parallel trend of reduced crime of similar dimension in the March 1988 period. This is a very powerful confirmation of the veracity of the unusual Merseyside drop in crime. I cannot vouch for Metro London recording practices at the time as I have not studied them. If practices are sloppy in a district you may find large swings from month to month. High one month and then low the next or vice versa as the stats department struggles to cope with high work loads. This can be identified statistically as an outlier in a data series and does not qualify as a significant trend. This was not the case in Merseyside. In later years during the nineties police departments adopted electronic reporting methods based on hand held devices. Any crime research during the nineties needs to study the timing of the introduction of these devices and associated reporting regulations as they had a massive impact on reported crime data in the UK and rendered time series analysis problematic in the nineties and over periods including the nineties. I have dealt with the analysis of particular crime categories over the period using monthly data and the hypothesis held up very well. This was not published for space reasons. Discussions of yearly data of specific categories without reference to national trends are not sufficient to draw reliable conclusions. Merseyside is not immune to nation crime trends; however its perfomance exceeds those in other districts. As to the Quality of Life, in 2000 the meditating community in Skelmersdale won a prestigious BURA award (British Urban Renewal Award). I updated my research in my PhD thesis of 2000, a trend of improved quality of life was very evident to this point. In fact anyone living in Merseyside through this period will tell you the transformation in quality of life was not just palpable, it was stellar and certainly it was measurable as my thesis showed. Subsequent to 2000, I have not completed any research on Merseyside. However I can report that the model community built there is being emulated in Suffolk. The figures reported by the Independent newspaper are anecdotal. You would need to refer to the community records to adequately assess the magnitude of the current effect. All the very best Guy Hatchard " TimidGuy (talk) 12:34, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

That was just pathetic. Setting aside all the fluff which have nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion: Specific references to particular categories of crime is not only sufficient to critique a study, it is sufficient to refute it. The facts are indisputable. The only categories of reported crime that went down in Merseyside were acquisitive crimes. All other categories of reported crime went up. Why? The ME as a predictive theory provides no explanation whatsoever as to why one category of crime would be affected and the rest not at all. We can leave aside the intriguing question as to why the Washington DC study claimed improvements there in the very catetories of crime that were utterly unaffected in Merseyside. On the other hand, the Home Office study of the drug prevention program provides an explanation which fits the data perfectly. If an Intro to Statistics student turned in this study, got a failing grade, and then showed up at his or her professor's door offering this as an explanation to try to justify this utterly incompetent analysis, the best they'd get was the option to drop the class as Incomplete and a suggestion to choose a major that didn't involve numbers. Somebody actually gave this guy a PhD for this? It beggars the imagination. Fladrif (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

An attack of a living person on any page is not appropriate per WP:BLP. Guy Hatchard has been good enough to add comments to this discussion. He is i n a sense a guest on this page. An attack of his credentials is not acceptable and I have removed the parts of the posts per BLP which were related to those attacks. (olive (talk) 21:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC))

An attack on a person is not appropriate. A critique of research, including the credentials of the researcher, is entirely appropriate. IIRC, there have been comments here about the credentials of TM-Sidhi critics such as James Randi. Hatchard is in no way a "guest on this page" - there's no indication that he has ever even read it, much less posted to it.   Will Beback  talk  21:12, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No university I ever attended, and there were several, would consider Fladrif's comments a "critique". If you feel Flad's comments are appropriate please feel free to revert me.(olive (talk) 21:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC))

There have been comments from editors to the effect that the statistical analysis at the heart of this study is flawed. Saying so does not violate WP:BLP.   Will Beback  talk  21:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly, the universities you attended did not include Harvard Law School.

Mister Hart, here is a dime. Take it, call your mother, and tell her there is serious doubt about you ever becoming a lawyer.

Fladrif (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

It's very accommodating of Hatchard to share this background. However without reviewing the original data it's hard to really delve into this much further. If Hatchard wants to defend his paper he's also welcome to register an account here. However Wikipedia is based on reliable secondary sources so personal explanations are not really relevant to our article writing, though they are interesting.   Will Beback  talk  21:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The conceit of this exercise is that TG is sending comments to Hatchard, who is providing responses to TG, who is then posting them here. Not being of a suspicious bent, I'm taking everyone at their word that this is what is actually going on, so Hatchard isn't adding comments at all, is he? Or is he? In any event, my criticism of Hatchard's comments is not directed at any editor, nor even at his credentials, but at the utter absurdity of the explanation that he has forwareed to TimidGuy to post. I am being no more critical of this rationale - and in fact, a good deal less critical and personal - than other editors on these pages have been of authors whose conclusions they found distasteful. I've never seen anyone so bold as to suggest that those comments were violative of WP:BLPFladrif (talk) 21:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem, Will, is that we don't have a source that says that the Home Office study is an alternative explanation for the phenomenon identified by Hatchard, which was a large drop in crime beginning in March of 1988. As Woonpton and Hatchard point out, the Home Office can't show causality, since it wasn't designed to do so. And as Hatchard says in his study, the methadone program can't explain the drop in crime that began in March. Yet we're offering it as an alternative explanation. Woonpton says it's there because it says that crime didn't go down in all categories, that it went down in some and up in others. Well, then we should say that, but in the context that total crime went down. But the way it's written now, it sounds as if it's an alternate explanation for the reduction in crime. TimidGuy (talk) 12:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

There are undoubtedly things about the H.O. Merseyside crime study that are unexplained, and there are things about Hatchard's Merseyside crime study that are unexplained too. Why did crime go up in the borough closest to Skelmersdale in the same year when the MTI reached its highest level? Where did Hatchard get the MTI equation from anyway? While these are among the interesting questions that we've written thousands of words about, we'll never be able to resolve them on our own, or even through emailing the author. Let's just report the studies and let the readers make up their own minds.   Will Beback  talk  12:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

While we're listing unexplained things, why did crime go up in Merseyside itself in 1990 and 1991, the study years during which the percentage of TM-Sidhi participants was at its highest (again, according to Hatchard's own graph)? There's a lot here that baffles explanation, but as Will says, we won't resolve them here, and we need to stick with sources.

My concern about the statistical analysis, for example, isn't just my opinion but is echoed in at least five reliable sources (I'm not counting Park): to save space I'll just quote one here: "The Box-Jenkins technique does not impose a theoretically justified stochastic structure on the data; rather, it allows for extremely flexible adjustments to account for noise, so the likelihood of finding significant correlations by chance is high. The significance levels reported in the article are the probabilities that the correlation coefficients are not equal to zero; they are not the probabilities that the model is correct... Generally, unless constraints are imposed a priori on the Box-Jenkins transformations and error structure, one is playing Russian roulette with the significance test, and will encounter spuriously significant correlations." [Schrodt] A brief summary of these criticisms should be in the article, with reference to all the sources, in order to give the reader a balanced picture of how reliable sources view this phenomenon.

The problem, Will, is that we don't have a source that says that the Home Office study is an alternative explanation for the phenomenon identified by Hatchard, which was a large drop in crime beginning in March of 1988. Actually, there is a source that says there's no phenomenon here that needs to be explained; Hatchard himself, quoting Home Office officials: "recent percentage changes in Merseyside crime lie within the range of recorded Metropolitan crime rate changes;" in other words there's nothing phenomenal about that particular drop (which occurs partway down a larger drop, as shown in Hatchard's own graph); it's just one of the normal ups and downs that occur in crime statistics without any intervention at all. Woonpton (talk) 14:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Dillbeck's five studies

• Dillbeck, M. C., Cavanaugh, K. L., Glenn, T., Orme-Johnson, D. W., & Mittlefehldt, V. (1987). "Consciousness as a field: The Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program and changes in social indicators." Journal of Mind and Behavior, 8(1), 67–104.

(I'm adding this here because it has similar issues to the Canada study)

In the "concept" section of the we explain that there are two ways of triggering the Maharishi Effect: training 1% of the population in TM, or having the square root of 1% of the population practicing Yogic Flying in one location. In our summary of this paper we say that another element is "a statistically significant number of people participated in a Vedic Science course and engaged in group practice of the TM-Sidhi Program". It's not clear if the training in Vedic Science and the practice of TM-Sidhi are two different things. If the same group did both and if there's isn't a hypothesis that the training is an element independent of the TM-Sidhi, then we should delete that detail. Another question about this study is the term "statistically significant". We also say about the studies in the Philippines that "...the quality of life improved significantly when a statistically significant number of people engaged in group practice of the TM-Sidhi program." Is "statistically significant" a synonym for the square root of 1%? Metro Manila had a population of almost six million in 1980, while the City of Manila's population was 1.6 million. Which population was being studied, and what is a "statistically significant" number in that context? Also, what are the years when these studies were being conducted? The imposition of martial law may result in less crime, but it would be a mistake to assume that the quality of life of life has improved. Finally, has there been any independent notice of this paper?   Will Beback  talk  20:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I think part of the problem with the India study cite is that the study isn't clear itself as to what the indepedent variable is. It refers to "participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program" and says there were 3,000 of them to start with, a large group left at the end of the first month, and the numbers gradually decreased to "approximately 245" by the end of the five month program, pointing out that 245 is the square root of 1% of the territory of Delhi (6 million). It does refer in passing later to the fact that it was a Vedic science course that the participants were participating in. One supposes they all may have been participating in the TM-Sidhi program, since the square root rule was used, but that's not stated in the text. Re: your concern about martial law and other possible confounds: the study notes a possible confound in that a national security ordinance was passed just before the study began which allowed the detention of habitual criminals; however, according to the study, an analysis presented to the India Institute of Natural Law in 1981 discounted that, saying that at most 1/3 of the crime decrease could be attributed to the ordinance.

The Puerto Rico study is also vague about the independent variable, referring to "Large courses involving the group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program" adding "In November 1982, a longer-term group arrived; this group brought the total number of Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program participants to numbers consistently over 100 persons. Approximately 185 persons (the square root of 1%) are theoretically predicted to be required to create the extended Maharishi Effect for Puerto Rico. According to the study, the threshold of 185 was reached only during a two week period in April of 1984 when there was a large special course. "In May and June of 1984 the size of the group fluctuated quite close to the required number, between 60% and 80%..."

In the two Manila studies, the independent variable appears to be defined plainly as TM-Sidhi participants, and the Rhode Island study refers to a combination of TM-Sidhi and TM Meditation participants.

However, in the Rhode Island study it appears that the 300 TM-Sidhi participants didn't actually gather to meditate in one place: "The campaign began in Rhode Island on the 12th of June 1978 with the arrival of almost 300 teachers of the TM program who also practiced the TM-Sidhi program, who then went to cities throughout the state in teams ranging in size from 2 to 46. The visiting teachers left Rhode Island on the 12th of September." "...the square of the number of TM-Sidhi program participants in each small group, added to the number of persons already instructed in the TM technique in the state, was right at threshold for predicting the extended Maharishi Effect."

The references to "statistically significant" with respect to the number of participants do not appear in the source and should be deleted.

The studies are grouped in our account as if the Rhode Island paper was published separately from the others; that should be reworded to make clear that they are all in the same publication. Woonpton (talk) 22:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand the logic, in the Puerto Rico, of counting any month in which there were sufficient Yogic Flyers for a two week period as being a month that met the threshold. That's only half of the time. Is it due to the idea that there is a residual effect even when the threshold isn't met?

I've merged the paragraphs and trimmed the length. This is just one paper, which doesn't appear to have received any outside interest. I think we're still devoting too much space to these, but this is at least a bit more reasonable. We should really be using secondary sources that discuss these studies rather than choosing and writing about them on our own.   Will Beback  talk  23:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Barrett

Which edition is this? The ref apparently gives a date of 2001, but also says the second edition, which according to Amazon was 2003. Thanks. TimidGuy (talk) 12:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't call itself the 2nd edition, so maybe that's misleading. The first edition had a slightly different name.[13] The inside flap of the 2001 edition calls it a "much expanded, revised and fully updated version" of the earlier volume.  Will Beback  talk  19:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

So should I get the 2001 or 2003 edition? Which is this from? TimidGuy (talk) 11:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The edition I cited is dated 2001.   Will Beback  talk  11:58, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

What Context?

After a little edit war on the TM Movement article after which the suggestion was made to pummel poor unsuspecting plushies, this change has been made here.[14] This latest edit would appear to be inconsistent with the resolution of that issue there. Now, for the first time, someone is attempting to connect McTaggert's opinion on the Maharishi Effect research with criticism of the TM Movement for promoting the Maharishi's personal interests. As I wrote earlier, I do not have the benefit of having book in front of me, but I have taken the prior characterizations of the statements in McTaggert's book to have been made in good faith and accurate. This latest edit gives me pause. I no longer have any confidence as to what McTaggert's text actually says given the discrepancy in how it has been summarized formerly and how it is being summarized now. Until we can verify that this statement is accurate, it needs to stay out of the article. The burden in on the editors proposing to included this language to justify it. Absent seeing the text, it strikes me as illogical for the two statements to be connected, but I am perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise. Fladrif (talk) 18:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to repeat the exchange between Will, BWB and myself on the TM Movement Talk Page. Unless McTaggert wrote something very different from how all the prior versions summarized it, this matter should be regarded as closed. The link is above in my prior post. Fladrif (talk) 18:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not aware of any consensus to remove context. Since you do not have a source I suggest your reverts are somewhat hasty. The source is here: [15]

This is a double sided comment. Leaving out either side is to create a POV statement. As editors we don't have the luxury of reframing an author's comments to suit an article(olive (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC))

This is your idea of de-escalating? Did you even bother to read the talk page discussion on this issue? Or is this another example of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT? McTagggert's makes two statements, though she combines them in a single sentence: (i) the TM Movement had been ridiculed, largely for promoting the Maharishi's personal interests; (ii) she finds the Maharishi Effect research compelling. Neither has anything to do with one-another, and insisting that they have to go in these articles together is a complete misinterpretation of NPOV and a misunderstanding of what an editor is supposed to do. Fladrif (talk) 18:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Fladrif I attempted to place material in both the articles that would fairly represent the source with out leaving out context. Having another editor come in and revert an edit outright who did not even have the source is hand is not particularly collaborative, however, I'm sure you'll bash me whatever I say.(olive (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC))

No, I'm not going to bash you, but I am going to be critical of the edit. I have proceeded throughout assuming that the editors who did have the source in-hand accurately reflected what McTaggert wrote, and now that I have read it (thank you for the link), they clearly did reflect it accurately. But the point that was first made by Will, and which I support 100%, and to which BWB agreed reluctantly is that she is writing about two completely different things, each relevant to different articles and irrelevant in the other. We don't put irrelevant material in articles; doing so adds neither context nor balance. Fladrif (talk) 20:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Over 3 Reverts

I'd just like to point out I believe you are at over 3 reverts for this entry Little Olive Oil. Please stop this edit warring Little Olive Oil.

I believe if this is the first time, there should be a 24 hour block.

Is this your first time Little Olive Oil?

How do we proceed?--Kala Bethere (talk) 19:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The matter has been reported on the appropriate noticeboard. Everyone should stop editing warring.   Will Beback  talk  00:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Fringe Theories and Posting on TM-related articles

It might be helpful to post a couple of reminders, reworded for relevance here:

Quotes are from WP:FRINGE

"We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study."

IOW, highly speculative, unconfirmed theories of physics or the effect of meditation, or prayer at a distance on the physical world fit this definition of "Fringe".

Some common TM Org Fringe ideas:

- Pure Consciousness

- a connection between consciousness, the pure consciousness and events in the physical world (crime, war, etc.)

- quantum physics and the paranormal (e.g. "I'm creating world peace with my pure consciousness and quantum physics explains how")

- The "Maharishi Effect"

etc.

"Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it actually is."

IOW, don't post a lot of primary sourced fringe science and expect it to be accepted simply because it's something you believe in or happen to revolve your life around. Without mainstream acceptance, it probably only bares the slightest mention: not a paragraph, not an article, not a section or several sections: just a simple mention. This would likely include lengthy diatribes on fringe science research. As "it is important that Wikipedia itself does not become the validating source for non-significant subjects".

"We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study." (emphasis, mine)

"For example, the Book of Genesis itself should be primarily covered as a work of ancient literature, as part of the Hebrew or Christian Bible, or for its theological significance, rather than as a cosmological theory."

IOW, the Vedas, the Patanjali Sutras or some Eastern religious text may make all sorts of claims about peace from meditation, but they should be covered as works of ancient literature and for their theological significance rather than as a theory involving cosmology or modern physics.--Kala Bethere (talk) 22:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe you are correct that WP:FRINGE applies here. Other parts of that page which should be read carefully are WP:FRINGE#A note about publication, WP:FRINGE#Independent sources, and WP:FRINGE#Particular attribution.   Will Beback  talk  22:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

edit conflict

• Peer review in a reliable publication is the threshold for inclusion per Wikipedia.

• Studies on the ME are integral to this article because they define the subject /topic of the article. Claims if supported by reliable, verifiable sources can be included if they fairly represent "all majority and significant-minority viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each view. Tiny-minority views and fringe theories need not be included, except in articles devoted to them."

Per core content policies:

per WP:Verifiable "The most reliable sources are usually peer-reviewed journals;..."

per WP:NOR "In general the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals ..."

From WP: Verifiability. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." (olive (talk) 22:36, 13 January 2010 (UTC))

The role of Wikipedia is not to give validation to fringe views.

• "Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it actually is. Since Wikipedia describes significant opinions in its articles, with representation in proportion to their prominence,[2] it is important that Wikipedia itself does not become the validating source for non-significant subjects."
• "Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community."
• "Peer review is an important feature of reliable sources that discuss scientific, historical or other academic ideas, but it is not the same as acceptance. It is important that original hypotheses that have gone through peer review do not get presented in Wikipedia as representing scientific consensus or fact."

Those don't say that we can't mention the views of the movement, but it does provide guidelines on how to do so.  Will Beback  talk  22:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

So far this topic has not been defined as a fringe view except as editor opinion and if it is a fringe view, then "fringe theories need not be included, except in articles devoted to them." (olive (talk) 23:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC))

And to add: We are not presenting the views of the movement. In adding the studies on the ME effect we are simply adding peer reviewed studies.(olive (talk) 23:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC))

I agree that we can mention these hypotheses in this article. The hypotheses contained in the studies are the views of the movement. No one outside the movement has espoused them, and only members of the movement have conducted studies of them. Is there any doubt that the hypotheses of Yogic Flying and the Maharishi Effect are accepted by the mainstream scientific community? We could ask at the noticeboard to see what the Wikipedia community thinks.   Will Beback  talk  23:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The hypotheses and conclusions of a study are not considered "views" per say, but aspects within the bounds of a study.

I'm afraid the application of this discussion escapes me. We have an article on the TM Sidhi program. An integral aspect of that program is the research that's been done on the effect. That's it. If we need to choose the best of those studies fine. If we need to decide weight , fine. But to discuss actually using the studies, the logic, per an encyclopedia article in which those studies are an an integral part of the description of the topic of the article escapes me.(olive (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC))

That would be interesting.

Current theories/hypothesis, etc. should be reduced to a sentence or two. A single footnote with a couple of citations would seem to be the max if I read . I would hope to render Fringe ideas per WP policy. Since Fringe does apply, should an inserted comment assert that in the entry? At least to maintain a factual rejoinder and to keep that reminder in the main entry. Something like "fringe views such as <name>, per WP policy are not encouraged or elaborated upon" or some such statement. Keep it quite short and lend no credence, but bear no malfeasance either.

Are there certain guidelines for massively editing articles when circumstances like these arise?--Kala Bethere (talk) 00:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You can't add that kind of comment unless its sourced Kala, and ". Something like "fringe views such as <name>, per WP policy are not encouraged or elaborated upon" or some such statement." is not what the policy says and is not encyclopedic. There will be no massive edit of this article based on any editor's opinions. And be sure that any contentious edits are discussed and agreed upon before thy are added to the article. (olive (talk) 00:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC))

Can you show me the discussion that preceded the addition of the contentious "other studies" to the article? I don't recall there being any.   Will Beback  talk  08:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I entirely understand what's being proposed here. I think it's a good thing for editors to be reminded that WP:Fringe and the arbitration on fringe science from last year apply to this article. For example this principle that was passed in the arbitration:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and its content on scientific and quasi-scientific topics will primarily reflect current mainstream scientific consensus.

Those principles should guide how we edit the article, since the Maharishi Effect is claimed to be a scientific finding. But at the same time, I would be against posting some kind of reminder about that on the article talk page. Who would decide how to word it? Let's just point to the policies and guidelines and principles and allow people to read them for themselves and decide how they will guide their editing, rather than trying to codify exactly how WP: FRINGE should apply to this article. (And btw, there's no Wikipedia body that needs to define the topic as fringe before we consider it fringe; it's fringe by nature, as it's not a theory/finding that's accepted by mainstream science.) Woonpton (talk) 01:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

One thing seems clear: "Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it actually is." And the current article(s) already sound like lengthy advertisements. The line appears to have been crossed re: what the WP calls "unwarranted promotion of fringe theories". Furthermore "one may not be able to write about a fringe theory in a neutral manner if there are no independent secondary sources of reasonable reliability and quality about it." Since there are few secondary sources and way too many primary sources, basically primary sources have to be nixed to comply with WP:FRNG. "While fringe theory proponents are excellent sources for describing what they believe, the best sources to use when determining the notability and prominence of fringe theories are independent sources." So clearly there's a lot of material, esp. fringe primary papers, even if from peer reviewed journals, which would have to be excluded: "Peer review (...) is not the same as acceptance." and "exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources, and, with clear editorial consensus, unreliable sources for exceptional claims may be rejected due to a lack of quality (see WP:REDFLAG)."

One easy way to proceed is to simply compile a list of all source papers, and highlight eliminate and the primary sources.--Kala Bethere (talk) 13:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Will, can you show me the discussion that preceded any of the content that Fladrif added to the article? These are peer-reviewed studies. All of the Wikipedia policies and guidelines highly value peer reviewed studies as the most reliable source. There is no policy or guideline that disallows their use. You can't censor this material. It's out there in the scientific literature. You're free to present balancing points of view. But you can't just eliminate what you don't like. That's not the way Wikipedia works. Fine, find sources that represent the current mainstream consensus and put that in the article. Or as an alternative, we can delete everything related to the Maharishi Effect. That would be my preference. But if we're going to include it, there is no valid argument for disallowing inclusion of the research that supports it. TimidGuy (talk) 12:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure of the right way to proceed with this article. But I think we can all agree that Yogic Flying and the Maharishi Effect are not part of the current mainstream scientific consensus. Does any here argue otherwise?   Will Beback  talk  12:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

TimidGuy please keep in mind while peer review is great for independent, high quality sources, it's not enough for poor quality, primary, fringe papers. Peer review is not the same as acceptance. So in order to comply with WP:FRNG much if not most of the primary papers would have to go. Since fringe theories are not to receive prominence, length should be brief. "limiting that relative perspective to a restricted subset of specialists or only amongst the proponents of that view is, necessarily, biased and unrepresentative."

Perhaps someone could also independently verify whether the DIllbecks are currently major financial stakeholders, as has been rumored, in the TM Org. That financial link would be troubling as well in regards to inclusions of papers they were involved with.--Kala Bethere (talk) 13:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you give more detail? Since there's no entity called TM Org it's impossible to see who has a financial stake in it. There are contributors to various entities, there are employees of those entities, there are investors in RAAM bonds, etc. So far as I now, Dillbeck has been a professor at MUM.   Will Beback  talk  00:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It's recently been stated there has been a change in the MUM community and in Fairfield regarding who holds the reigns of power originally held by Bevan Morris, and it was hinted that this role now went to the Dillbeck's as a couple. This rumor has not been confirmed and is still just that: a rumor. Since many here are clearly closely affiliated with the movement, I was hoping for a comment from insiders rather than silence!

However most of these people listed in the primary fringe studies are employees or involved in some aspect of the TM Org (which covers a huge number of differently named sub-orgs). For example, the Dillbeck's have been affiliated with MUM.edu and both may be TM teachers.--Kala Bethere (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's any question that Dillbeck is an employee of MUM. If he holds any special titles that might indicate his seniority.   Will Beback  talk  20:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• The organization cites studies that it says found that large groups of yogic fliers helped temporarily lower crime in Washington, D.C., end the cold war and briefly reduce hostilities in the Middle East. “To the best of my knowledge, it has never been studied truly independently,” said Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a TM practitioner himself. “It’s been hypothesized for many years, but never proven.”
  • SEAN D. HAMILL, "Sites for ‘Maharishi Effect’ (Welcome to Parma) Spread Across U.S." February 22, 2008 New York Times [16]

So there's an opinion that none of the studies are truly independent.   Will Beback  talk  00:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I would think uch an opinion can be added to the article if the source is considered reliable. (olive (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC))

Is there any reason to doubt the reliability of the New York Times?

The question here isn't which views to include in the article - it's about whether WP:FRINGE applies to Yogic Flying and the Maharishi Effect. If those have never been tested independently then that's a factor.   Will Beback  talk  00:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• It doesn't look like the active editors here are going to come to agreement over whether to apply WP:FRINGE to this article. So I've posted a question at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Yogic Flying and the Maharishi Effect to get outside views.   Will Beback  talk  23:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Removal of non-compliant sources

Woonnpton added:

(cur) (prev) 15:16, 18 January 2010 Woonpton (talk | contribs) (61,674 bytes) (restore material pending discussion) (undo)

I could not find your alleged discussion. Please do not add sources which do not comply with WP:FRINGE for sources of Fringe ideas. Also note Pseudoscientific ideas such as the "Maharishi Effect", Pure Consciousness, etc. should not to be spoken of as if they represent scientific fact or consensus, nor should they receive Undue Weight.

It may be difficult, but if we are to improve this (and other entries) we will need to remove non-compliant sources and habitual mention of pseudoscientific ideas as if they are real science or actual facts.Kala Bethere (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely with you in general; however in this particular instance I'm not so sure invoking WP:FRINGE to justify removal of a claim from the article makes sense, since the claim is an important claim made by the organization and the organization itself will be the most appropriate attribution for the claim. I restored the material, not because I like it particularly (dab's subsequent edits have improved it considerably) but because I didn't find the reasons for its removal persuasive, and thought the removal should be more thoroughly discussed before being implemented. However, since then, I've discovered that the page linked at the official site doesn't even address the Maharishi Effect so it's not an appropriate source for the claim. A note for future reference: when someone points to "pending discussion" it would probably be better to allow more than five or ten minutes; I was still working on an explanation for my restoration when you wrote "I could not find your alleged discussion." This approach is not helpful. Woonpton (talk) 16:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The main problem I see is that the first two paragraphs of the entry contain a number of pseudoscientific claims or terms, and, at best should be labeled as such. At worst, removed or reworded. I honestly do not know anyone, other than old TM friends, who believe the mind originates in "Pure Consciousness". Also I would prefer to see descriptions come from independent sources, rather than redirecting people to the TM sales site! It just doesn't come across to me as neutral.

Next time I'll try to me more patient. My bad!--Kala Bethere (talk) 17:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I may not understand your entire argument, but the part I think I understand, I don't agree with. While I agree that the claims are pseudoscientific, I've never seen a positive outcome from an insistence on including a label of "pseudoscience" in an article; such insistence usually generates conflict and exhaustion among editors without adding any useful information to the article, and I would not be in favor of that approach. As currently worded, the claims in the lede are correctly attributed to the organization or to proponents; we're not using Wikipedia's voice to state them as fact, so I don't see the justification for removal or rewording, and the claims do need to be included in the article because they are an important aspect of the topic.Woonpton (talk) 18:27, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

No I'm not saying to necessarily add the words pseudoscience (except perhaps as a category). I agree it would be counterproductive. But pseudoscientific or metaphysical words like "Pure Consciousness" could be qualified as "a thought-free state TM proponents refer to as "Pure Consciousness"".

Since WP guidelines state that "when talking about pseudoscientific topics, we should not describe these two opposing viewpoints as being equal to each other" and "Coverage on Wikipedia should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it actually is. Since Wikipedia describes significant opinions in its articles, with representation in proportion to their prominence, it is important that Wikipedia itself does not become the validating source for non-significant subjects. Other well-known, reliable, and verifiable sources that discuss an idea are required so that Wikipedia does not become the primary source for fringe theories. Furthermore, one may not be able to write about a fringe theory in a neutral manner if there are no independent secondary sources of reasonable reliability and quality about it."

My concern is that current wording validates this entry too strongly in regards to it's prominence and the fact these buzzwords have no secondary and independent acceptance currently. If one makes the statement "Fairy Meditation works by bringing consciousness to the level of Pure Fairiness which emanates Zeta coherence to bring world peace and reduce crime" you'd want to quality the terms "Pure Fairiness" in order to better explain, and to clarify that there is no such thing as Zeta coherence, it's just an acquired belief without real substance.--Kala Bethere (talk) 18:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The words "Pure Consciousness" or anything similar do not appear in the material you removed and I restored, which I was assuming was the topic of this thread. While we're here, I wouldn't agree with the characterization of "pure consciousness" as a pseudoscientific concept; I'd just call it a metaphysical concept and leave it at that. But I don't see what any of this has to do with the material at issue. Woonpton (talk) 19:27, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, transcendental consciousness is pure consciousness (it occurs in the first paragraph). Yes, it is a metaphysical concept and it is a concept TM research has tried to measure and/or show it's effects, but it has not received any scientific acceptance, it is also a pseudoscientific term.--Kala Bethere (talk) 22:07, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought this thread was about the sentence "The Transcendental Meditation Organization says the technique develops mind-body coordination and creates "an influence of coherence on society that in turn is thought to create invincibility: a decrease in violence, crime, accidents, and other negative outcomes in the whole population". This influence is termed the "Maharishi Effect"." which you removed and I restored, and which has since been edited to a better form by dab. You started the thread objecting to my restoration of the sentence, but I'm having trouble following the line of argument, which seems to be going farther and farther afield. I've already given my reasons for restoring the mention of the Maharishi Effect claim in the lede; it's an extraordinary claim that should be included, IMO, although it does need a better citation, per discussion in a different section. Do you disagree? Woonpton (talk) 22:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

As I've already said (per quotes of WP's policies) I don't believe we should validate pseudoscientific theories by placing them prominently in articles. I do believe a brief paragraph of independent sources could describe a further section since it is relevant to TM-SP, briefly and succinctly without giving it undue notice. You're also right that it is almost so extraordinary sounding, that to keep it in the lede is almost a warning in and of itself.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and that evidence is currently not found in the scientific record re: The ME. Incredible advertising scheme though. --Kala Bethere (talk) 01:22, 19 January 2010 (UTC)