That sounds a bit like the argument ‘either this claim is right, or it’s wrong, so there’s a 50% chance it’s true.’
I’m not claiming this. I’m claiming that given the research to date, more psychedelic research would be very impactful in expectation. (I’m at like 30-40% that the beneficial effects are real.)
If not, then it would be good to explain what exactly makes psychedelics different from the rest.
I haven’t read the literatures for all the examples you gave. For psychic powers & cold fusion, my impression is that confirmatory research was done and the initial results didn’t replicate.
So one difference is that the main benefits of psychedelic therapy haven’t yet failed to replicate.
Scott referred to some failures to replicate in his post.
Scott referred to one failure to replicate, for a finding that a psychedelic experience increased trait openness. This isn’t one of the benefits cited by the OP.
[Erritzoe et al. 2018 found that psilocybin increased Openness in a population of depressed people, which SSRIs do not do.] Maclean et al. 2011, an analysis of psilocybin given to healthy-typed people, also found a persisting increase in Openness. However, Griffiths et al. 2017, also psilocybin for healthy-typed people, found no persisting increase in Openness. So maybe psilocybin causes greater Openness but only sometimes? As always more research is needed.
Also:
Why would increasing Big-Five Openness matter? Erritzoe [et al. 2018] engages with that too:
″… the facets Openness to Actions and to Values significantly increased in our study. The facet Openness to Actions pertains to not being set in one’s way, and instead, being ready to try and do new things. Openness to Values is about valuing permissiveness, open-mindedness, and tolerance. These two facets therefore reflect an active approach on the part of the individual to try new ways of doing things and consider other peoples’ values and/or worldviews.”
And:
“It is well established that trait Openness correlates reliably with liberal political perspective… The apparent link between Openness and a generally liberal worldview may be attributed to the notion that people who are more open to new experiences are also less personally constrained by convention and that this freedom of attitude extends into every aspect of a person’s life, including their political orientation.”
Right, so you would want to show that 30-40% of interventions with similar literatures pan out.
I think we have a disagreement about what the appropriate reference class here is.
The reference class I’m using is something like “results which are supported by 2-3 small-n studies with large effect sizes.”
I’d expect roughly 30-40% of such results to hold up after confirmatory research.
Somewhat related: 62% of results assessed by Camerer et al. 2018 replicated.
It’s a bit complicated to think about replication re: psychedelics because the intervention is showing promise as a treatment for multiple indications (there are a couple studies showing large effect sizes for depression, a couple studies showing large effect sizes for anxiety, a couple studies showing large effect sizes for addictive disorders).
Could you say a little more about what reference class you’re using here?
I’m not claiming this. I’m claiming that given the research to date, more psychedelic research would be very impactful in expectation. (I’m at like 30-40% that the beneficial effects are real.)
I haven’t read the literatures for all the examples you gave. For psychic powers & cold fusion, my impression is that confirmatory research was done and the initial results didn’t replicate.
So one difference is that the main benefits of psychedelic therapy haven’t yet failed to replicate.
> I’m at like 30-40% that the beneficial effects are real.)
Right, so you would want to show that 30-40% of interventions with similar literatures pan out. I think the figure is less.
Scott referred to [edit: one] failure to replicate in his post.
Scott referred to one failure to replicate, for a finding that a psychedelic experience increased trait openness. This isn’t one of the benefits cited by the OP.
More on psychedelics & Openness:
Also:
I think we have a disagreement about what the appropriate reference class here is.
The reference class I’m using is something like “results which are supported by 2-3 small-n studies with large effect sizes.”
I’d expect roughly 30-40% of such results to hold up after confirmatory research.
Somewhat related: 62% of results assessed by Camerer et al. 2018 replicated.
It’s a bit complicated to think about replication re: psychedelics because the intervention is showing promise as a treatment for multiple indications (there are a couple studies showing large effect sizes for depression, a couple studies showing large effect sizes for anxiety, a couple studies showing large effect sizes for addictive disorders).
Could you say a little more about what reference class you’re using here?