New telepathy test, the sequel.

Michel H said:
Some members have offered suggestions for "better tests" (according to them). I read these suggestions very carefully, of course. An obvious problem I have on this forum is that nobody seems to want to participate in my tests any more. So, if one of your suggestions could fix that problem, it could perhaps be useful. However, I believe that a good test should be:
- simple, not unnecessarily hard and complicated
- protect the claimant's privacy (and also the privacy of participants)
- if possible, somewhat interesting, not boring
If you want to design a test which meets all of these requirements, there are not that many possibilities left, in my opinion.
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There was a test some time ago where you could not tell whether or not an answer was correct before you gave your credibility analysis. In that test, you did not score a single answer as having a negative credibility, you rated several incorrect answers as being credible, and at least one correct answer as having a credibility of zero. This clearly demonstrated that your credibility ratings were a sham designed to remove answers you did not like.

The reason people are not participating in your tests is because you have made it quite clear that you will deliberately weight your tests unfairly. You have no interest in full blinding, and you will never accept any negative result.

Why would intelligent people want to participate in such a charade?
 
Dave Rogers said:
... It should also include some realistic statistical analysis of the results - for example, it might be conducted by someone capable of understanding that 2 hits in 8 answers is statistically indistinguishable from a 20% hit rate, a piece of simple arithmetic so trivial that anyone unable to comprehend it may need to revise for his next blood test.

Dave
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There is actually (in the case of this test, with five possible choices) a huge difference between 20% (which is exactly the random chance level) and 25% (the hit rate of my latest test, without a proper seriousness and quality filter for the answers). This hit rate of 25% is above the chance level. If you have a sample which is large enough, and can keep up the 25% percentage, you can actually prove telepathy in a convincing way.
 
RoboTimbo said:
If I were to give you a protocol for a meaningful test, would you use it and accept the results without interpretation?
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I think that, when you do a telepathy test, you have a duty to always use the best tools available (but this does not prevent the researcher to also mention the raw results in their analysis, without any kind of interpretation, of course).
RoboTimbo said:
You didn't answer this, Michel. You seemed to be receptive to suggestions for a meaningful test. Has anything changed that you no longer want input on a protocol?
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As far as I am concerned, all quality suggestions for improvement are still welcome. However, I suspect, many members of this forum have actually a hard skeptic agenda, and are not really interested in promoting the truth.
 
Michel H said:
There is actually (in the case of this test, with five possible choices) a huge difference between 20% (which is exactly the random chance level) and 25% (the hit rate of my latest test, without a proper seriousness and quality filter for the answers). This hit rate of 25% is above the chance level. If you have a sample which is large enough, and can keep up the 25% percentage, you can actually prove telepathy in a convincing way.
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With only eight participants, the odds that you get more than a 20% hit rate are

1 - 8 * 4/5^7 * 1/5 - 4/5^8

which works out to about 49.6%. There is a 1 in 2 chance that more than one person gets the right answer, and hence the percentage of hits is more than 20%.

Yes, if you had large enough numbers, this might be interesting. It is not interesting with eight participants.

ETA: Forgot the odds that none get it right, so my earlier calculation was mistaken.
 
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Hokulele said:
There was a test some time ago where you could not tell whether or not an answer was correct before you gave your credibility analysis. In that test, you did not score a single answer as having a negative credibility, you rated several incorrect answers as being credible, and at least one correct answer as having a credibility of zero. This clearly demonstrated that your credibility ratings were a sham designed to remove answers you did not like.

The reason people are not participating in your tests is because you have made it quite clear that you will deliberately weight your tests unfairly. You have no interest in full blinding, and you will never accept any negative result.

Why would intelligent people want to participate in such a charade?
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It is true that, a few years ago, we did some tests of a "blinded" kind, where I was required to assign credibilities without knowing if the answer was correct or not, and I remember that you played a significant role in this. The results of these tests were not completely bad, but they were not great either, and I came to the conclusion that such tests were too complicated.

I suspect that the real reasons why it has become so difficult for me to receive answers in my tests these days is not a lack of rigor on my part, but, rather, a decreasing membership, and the fact that many members of this forum may actually have a hard skeptic agenda, and are actually not that much interested in promoting the truth.
 
Michel H said:
It is true that, a few years ago, we did some tests of a "blinded" kind, where I was required to assign credibilities without knowing if the answer was correct or not, and I remember that you played a significant role in this. The results of these tests were not completely bad, but they were not great either, and I came to the conclusion that such tests were too complicated.
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How is it complicated? It is easy enough to blind the answers, as was shown. I came the conclusion that you are afraid of unbiased results.

I suspect that the real reasons why it has become so difficult for me to receive answers in my tests these days is not a lack of rigor on my part, but, rather, a decreasing membership, and the fact that many members of this forum may actually have a hard skeptic agenda, and are actually not that much interested in promoting the truth.
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Excuses.
 
Michel H said:
Error correction: the highlighted phrase should be replaced by "The person who gave the best correct answer was SAINTMARC ..."
(feel free to point out any error).

Ten people answered (here, it's in French!) and 8 people gave valid answers (equal to one of the five numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). So, even without the important credibility filter, the hit rate was 2/8 = 25%, not 20%.

With the credibility filter on, the hit rate rises to 50% (not 100% !). I have explained in post #664 why lejofrapit's answer is not credible.

SAINTMARC, the person who got the best answer in my test, has a best answer rate on Yahoo of 25%. The (known) best answer rate of other members who have participated in the test are: lejofrapit: 5%, Yô: 7%, Blondin: 10%, Cousine Itt: 11%, rene: 1%, Alexandre: 14%, and Nanard: 7%.

The fact that good member SAINTMARC said "I knew it!!" right after the end of the test is an important and valuable testimony, which is reminiscent of other testimonies, obtained even on this forum, for example:



Some members have offered suggestions for "better tests" (according to them). I read these suggestions very carefully, of course. An obvious problem I have on this forum is that nobody seems to want to participate in my tests any more. So, if one of your suggestions could fix that problem, it could perhaps be useful. However, I believe that a good test should be:
- simple, not unnecessarily hard and complicated
- protect the claimant's privacy (and also the privacy of participants)
- if possible, somewhat interesting, not boring
If you want to design a test which meets all of these requirements, there are not that many possibilities left, in my opinion.
Click to expand...
You got ten answers. You cannot exclude any. That is blatant cherry picking of the data.

Leaving that aside, that leaves you with 2 out of 8, which only gets you to 25%.

Colour me unsurprised, but you then proceed to eliminate four more responses just because. That allows you to make your baseless 50% claim.

Do you really think nobody spots that nonsense for what it is?

Oh, and BTW, I speak french, so dont play that game. Those french guys were plainly mocking you in that yahoo thread. All we have really determined is that you are unable to detect sarcasm in any language at all.
 
Michel H said:
I think that, when you do a telepathy test, you have a duty to always use the best tools available (but this does not prevent the researcher to also mention the raw results in their analysis, without any kind of interpretation, of course).
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It's interesting that you say, "without any interpretation, of course". Is that desirable in a properly designed test?

As far as I am concerned, all quality suggestions for improvement are still welcome. However, I suspect, many members of this forum have actually a hard skeptic agenda, and are not really interested in promoting the truth.
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Are you looking for a properly designed protocol that removes any bias from skeptics and believers that could help us all find out whether telepathy exists? If so, perhaps we could come up with one together.
 
abaddon said:
You got ten answers. You cannot exclude any. That is blatant cherry picking of the data.

Leaving that aside, that leaves you with 2 out of 8, which only gets you to 25%.

Colour me unsurprised, but you then proceed to eliminate four more responses just because. That allows you to make your baseless 50% claim.

Do you really think nobody spots that nonsense for what it is?

Oh, and BTW, I speak french, so dont play that game. Those french guys were plainly mocking you in that yahoo thread. All we have really determined is that you are unable to detect sarcasm in any language at all.
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abaddon, even if you speak French, this is probably not true for all members of this forum, and I have to take this into account (in the US, many people know Spanish, rather than French, as a second language). I don't see any sarcasm in that thread, perhaps you should revise your French. What I did see, however (among other things, take a look at my analysis in French), is that SAINTMARC (psychologically, what does such a name mean?), had the best {best answer rate}, gave the correct answer, and, right after I completed the test, exclaimed: "Je le savais !!". I find it very surprising that such a great expert in the French language does not seem to understand the meaning of these three words.
 
Michel H said:
There is actually (in the case of this test, with five possible choices) a huge difference between 20% (which is exactly the random chance level) and 25% (the hit rate of my latest test, without a proper seriousness and quality filter for the answers). This hit rate of 25% is above the chance level. If you have a sample which is large enough, and can keep up the 25% percentage, you can actually prove telepathy in a convincing way.
Click to expand...

As I suspected, you're incapable of basic arithmetic. Let's try again: Suppose you have 8 answers, and you expect a 20% chance of those answers being correct. How many is the most likely number of correct answers out of those eight?

Dave
 
Michel H said:
I suspect that the real reasons why it has become so difficult for me to receive answers in my tests these days is not a lack of rigor on my part, but, rather, a decreasing membership, and the fact that many members of this forum may actually have a hard skeptic agenda, and are actually not that much interested in promoting the truth.
Click to expand...

I am quite certain that the real reason it is so difficult for you to receive answers in your tests on this forum is the members' experience of the blatant dishonesty with which you interpret those answers.

Dave
 
RoboTimbo said:
It's interesting that you say, "without any interpretation, of course". Is that desirable in a properly designed test?
...
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Yes, I would say so. I believe it is of interest to give the "raw results" of the test, without any kind of interpretation, to give a complete and balanced view of the results. For example, in my latest test in French, the "raw result" was 25% (which is already more than the chance result of 20%). After elimination of the answers which did not seem serious (sometimes, in a slightly controversial way), the hit rate went up to 50%.
 
Michel H said:
Yes, I would say so. I believe it is of interest to give the "raw results" of the test, without any kind of interpretation, to give a complete and balanced view of the results.
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Ok, the protocol you and I come up with will eliminate any interpretation of answers to satisfy your requirement for a complete and balanced view. How many possible answers should there be?
 
Dave Rogers said:
... Suppose you have 8 answers, and you expect a 20% chance of those answers being correct. How many is the most likely number of correct answers out of those eight?

Dave
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It would seem to be two, but this does not change anything to the fact that the raw hit rate was 25%, not 20%. Don't try to manipulate results using baby mathematics.
 
RoboTimbo said:
Ok, the protocol you and I come up with will eliminate any interpretation of answers to satisfy your requirement for a complete and balanced view. How many possible answers should there be?
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There is no fixed number, it depends, particularly if the test is done with a possibly social meaning.
 
Michel H said:
Some members have offered suggestions for "better tests" (according to them). I read these suggestions very carefully, of course. An obvious problem I have on this forum is that nobody seems to want to participate in my tests any more. So, if one of your suggestions could fix that problem, it could perhaps be useful.
Click to expand...
If you agreed to a valid test and promised to abide by the results, I would gladly participate, and I'm sure many others here would as well.
 
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