Robittybob1

Certainly worth thinking about.

From Wikipedia Richard Dawkins author of The Selfish Gene argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival. Why does it say "may or may not" that just about covers it all.

That's my contention also. That seems to be why they keep on needing to reset the wheel.

These are strange claims. Did I miss the bit where EE says he is the only one who sees the wheel turn?

You gave us a link to a lesson on Type 1 errors. Before I looked at that I was unaware of the terminology. I doubt if EE will cooperate with the experiment.

I spent quite a bit of time today understanding "type 1 errors" and your suggestions would all help with the experimental design but do not address type 1 errors. I envisage 2 identical setups side by side one for the control and the other for TK. We will just wait to see if the operator will take up the challenge.

So you think you can control for those type 1 errors? Say if there was just a 1% chance that the movement was was still in the null hypothesis bell curve. What can you do to to control for type 1 errors? Say if 99% of the movements of the controlled PSI wheel were greater than movements recorded in the control there is just that 1% chance you have rejected the null hypothesis by mistake. How do you get over that? OK you can increase the sensitivity, make it 99.9% chance of making a type 1 error, or increasing the sample size. Hopefully when EE does his tests on the control there are no movements greater than the forward and backward rocking motions (RB motion) with a close to zero net movement distance. Measurements in the TK test wheel could be from zero movement right through to multiple rotations (as EE claims) so the mean of the test wheel will be outside of the control (null hypothesis) distribution. But we will have to wait till the results are in. Interesting thing will be if the control gives movements such that the mean is not near zero. What confidence level do you want to set? 90, 95, 99 or 99.9%

It would possibly be mixing with the warmer water deeper down.

thank you. Take x = 11 is that formula then 10 factorial divided by 11? my Excel did not come out to an integer. What am I doing wrong?

How do you read that formula in words? I don't know what the math is and I'd like to look it up so can you tell me what the ! is doing please?

Well have two wheels then one in the experiment and one you can take to work. But the one in the experiment must not be moved other than TK. Write up the result in degrees or full rotations plus degrees. So if you get no movement after an hour - record that is zero.

I think I understand it a little. Is it like young adults using fashion to improve their chances of getting a mate? So if there was offspring as a production the selection was based on a meme rather a gene, a memetic rather than a genetic trait. I suppose this shows a degree of intellect to be up with the play to be modern and cool. If someone dressed in old style clothes he might be thought of as weird and hence become socially shunned, hence less likely to contribute to the next generation.

So why would it be "mostly stationary" at home? There seems to be a problem there.

Why not set it up just at the one place. You have developed the technique and I haven't. Why would you need the PSI wheel at work?

EE would you like to do the experiment please?

So once set up you would never need to touch the wheel again for the duration of the experiment. How about daily tests for a month and never touching the wheel, and record the direction and degree of rotation. Record the results and post it on the forum. But keep the wheel under the bowl and don't touch it for a month.

Do you find you need to handle the PSI wheel before it will turn? What I would like to hear is if someone is able to get it spinning even after several failed attempts without rehandling the wheel. Do you think you can do that?

There was an old thread in this same sub section but I didn't think right to resurrect it.

What do the forum members think about memes? Are they related to instinct? Are they coded in the DNA?

IS are doing some pretty horrific things today. Syria is not that far behind.

Very interesting Ted talk.

EdEarl The topic is not the evolution of religion but the evolution of the human that enabled man to become religious. For all tribes had some sort of religion AFAIK. I was wondering if this was reflected in our genetics. Memes is a word I heard yesterday as a solution. I don't see that concept of memes being used much on the forum.

Experimental design: Take two PSI wheels covered with bowls side by side one and flip a coin. Use one when heads and use the other when tails is thrown. Compare the degree of rotation between the two.

So the paper is peer reviewed before it is published then is it? Like is it read and the measurements are accepted by the editor or committee running the journal before it is included? Thanks

OK, it's not just producing a scientific paper but also having it peer reviewed. Is that the important difference? How does that process work? How do you know if something is peer reviewed?