There are situations where double blinding can be used as a device to create desired conditions in a particular experiment. However it is being used right across the board for a vast number of experiments in testing things like ESP and prayer and other situations where the direct relationship between the subjects is an important factor. Lossing this factor makes the experiment useless. Double blinding is not a means of making an experiment scientific. The only condition that makes an experiment scientific is a control experiment, in which we remove the test conditions in order to make sure that our results are not due to something other than our test conditions. In the Great Prayer Experiment double blinding took away the test conditions. It is fine in the control only. In drug trials the doctors are relationally distanced from the patients or in other words the experiments are double blinded because they were trying to get rid of the problem of placebo in the group getting the drug because through ESP, which is at a premium in relationship, the patients knew that they were given a drug.
It is also worth noting that double blinding doesn't always help solve problems. So for instance in drug trials double blinding hasn't solved their problem to better determine the efficacy of a drug because all patients being blinded (ie loss of insight) means that there is a placebo effect now right across the board, in both groups those getting the drug and those getting the blank. Patients reason that they have a 50-50 chance of getting a drug so why not just believe they have been given a drug. Remember patients in drug trials have a desperate need to get well and this is a strong motivating force to make such a choice. That choice creates a placebo effect in no matter what they are given.
Edited by Admin, : Simplify title.
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