The Girl with "X-ray" vision

Spoon-Benders R Us

Azrael, the Japanese "scientist" who conducted that "test" of Natasha is none other than the engineering professor who has scientifically verified Uri Geller's psychic abilities. Need anyone say more?
 
askolnick said:
Azrael, the Japanese "scientist" who conducted that "test" of Natasha is none other than the engineering professor who has scientifically verified Uri Geller's psychic abilities. Need anyone say more?
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Not at all.Thanks :D
 
The report from Yoshio Machi on Uri Geller's site

And this from Pravda:
Having the experience of previous trials in London and New York, Natasha Demkina set forth her own conditions to Japanese scientists. She particularly said that each of the tested patients would have to bring latest medical certificates of their state of health. In addition, the girl demanded the diagnosis should be restricted to only one certain body part - the head, the torso, or extremities.

"It takes me too much time to explain and specify everything that I can see. Sometimes I can see diseases at their early stages, when neither patients nor their doctors have any slightest suspicions about them. That is why we had problems with American scientists," Natasha says.
Source
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My, my....
 
Interesting Ian said:
He's made many idiotic statements which have nothing whatsoever to do with his skill at investigating the paranormal eg his argument he made against reincarnation for one. Also stating this alleged ghost looked like it really could be the real thing at last when it was a painfully obvious hoax (and I suspect he said this so then when it was eventually revealed to be a hoax, there would be yet more evidence against the existence of ghosts since if he -- an avowed skeptic -- thought this was a plausible candidate for a genuine ghost, but it transpired not to be, then a fortiori how less unlikely are other alleged instances of ghosts?)

I know nothing about his skill at investigating the paranormal although I remember that Sheldrake had a few complaints about Wiseman's investigations regarding the dog who allegedly knew when its owner was coming home.
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I'd like you to quote just one idiotic statement he made, otherwise I'll have to consider your post as an idiotic statement. Baseless, contrary to fact, imbecilic and typical of your posts.
 
Ooh, Sheldrake had complaints. Now who's an idiot?

Ian, PM me your email address and I'll send you the paper. Anyone else who wants to read it, too.

Basically, they tightened up the protocol a bit and now both of them are goats.

~~ Paul
 
Burger King is not the only maker of Whoppers

CFLarsen said:
The report from Yoshio Machi on Uri Geller's site

And this from Pravda:


""It takes me too much time to explain and specify everything that I can see. Sometimes I can see diseases at their early stages, when neither patients nor their doctors have any slightest suspicions about them. That is why we had problems with American scientists," Natasha says."

No, that was not a problem. Our test was designed to completely eliminate problems caused by her "seeing" previously unrecognized abnormalities. We did not allow her to "find" unknown abnormalities. Instead, we asked her to find previously confirmed anatomical defects.

The actual problem was that Natasha was not able to see inside of peoples bodies. And now we have to deal with the problem of hearing post hoc excuses for why she couldn't.
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askolnick said:
No, that was not a problem. Our test was designed to completely eliminate problems caused by her "seeing" previously unrecognized abnormalities. We did not allow her to "find" unknown abnormalities. Instead, we asked her to find previously confirmed anatomical defects.

The actual problem was that Natasha was not able to see inside of peoples bodies. And now we have to deal with the problem of hearing post hoc excuses for why she couldn't.
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It doesn't take long to go from foolishness to fraud, does it?
 
askolnick said:
Certainly not in the land of Woo-woo, where facts and logic are readily tossed whenever they block the path to the City of Comforting Beliefs.
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That's just the way human beings are. It certainly doesn't apply exclusively to just one group of people. "Woo woos" think it simply must be paranormal, so called "skeptics" think it simply cannot be paranormal.
 
Interesting Ian said:
That's just the way human beings are. It certainly doesn't apply exclusively to just one group of people. "Woo woos" think it simply must be paranormal, so called "skeptics" think it simply cannot be paranormal.
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No Ian, that's not true. Skeptics say that no paranormal claim should never be regarded as true without compelling evidence to support the claim. I don't know any rational skeptic who says paranormal phenomena are impossible. You're making a strawman argument.
 
Correction

That should have been, "Skeptics say that no paranormal claim should ever be regarded as true without compelling evidence to support the claim."
 
askolnick said:
That should have been, "Skeptics say that no paranormal claim should ever be regarded as true without compelling evidence to support the claim."
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Of course -- this is obviously so and must be so from the scientific perspective. You'll have no arguments from me about this. Science is necessarily conservative. That's the way science works; that's the way it must work. Before we admit the existence of extraordinary claims it is required that, at least in principle, there is some prospect that it can be subsumed under some overarching inclusive scientific theory. Is this a realistic possibility?? Ummm . .nope . . I rather doubt it.

Nevertheless a complete non-sequitur I'm afraid ;)
 
Interesting Ian said:
Of course -- this is obviously so and must be so from the scientific perspective. You'll have no arguments from me about this. Science is necessarily conservative. That's the way science works; that's the way it must work. Before we admit the existence of extraordinary claims it is required that, at least in principle, there is some prospect that it can be subsumed under some overarching inclusive scientific theory. Is this a realistic possibility?? Ummm . .nope . . I rather doubt it.

Nevertheless a complete non-sequitur I'm afraid ;)
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Science is not conservative, is it? The geocentric theory was conservative, in that it was the prevailing paradigm held by the massive belief body of European philosophs and church conservative dogmatists. After they burned Bruno and threatenened Galileo it took about 500 years for them to admit that the earth went around the sun.
In the meantime, we deveoped the technology that allowed us to walk on the moon.
 
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Interesting Ian said:
Before we admit the existence of extraordinary claims it is required that, at least in principle, there is some prospect that it can be subsumed under some overarching inclusive scientific theory.
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Oh, I think you'll find any scientist is willing to acknowledge the existence of extraordinary claims. Whether they're willing to acknowledge the validity of those claims is another matter, however.

More to the point, what is actually required for the acknowledgement by science that any given extraordinary claim might be valid is that some evidence be provided to support that claim, and that that evidence be testable and replicable. Darwin's theory of natural selection flew in the face of the then-existing body of scientific knowledge; it couldn't have been shoehorned into any existing theory. But the theory came to be accepted (and was subsequently expounded upon) because Darwin provided evidence to support it.

Anything that may at one time have been considered "paranormal" could quite easily come to be accepted as "normal" once evidence is provided that the phenomenon in question actually exists. In the case of Demkina, there is zero evidence that she actually possesses the powers she claims to possess, though there is plenty of evidence that she's rather talented at making people falsely believe that she possesses said powers.
 
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Jeff Corey said:
that allowed us to walk on the moon.
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I've always had a problem with this. The astronauts didn't walk on the moon, they hopped. You can't walk in 1/6th of Earth's gravity.

But, of course, it doesn't sound so cool: "that allowed us to hop on the moon. Ehhh......what's up, Doc?"
 
Jeff Corey said:
Science is not conservative, is it? The geocentric theory was conservative, in that it was the prevailing paradigm held by the massive belief body of European philosophs and church conservative dogmatists. After they burned Bruno and threatenened Galileo it took about 500 years for them to admit that the earth went around the sun.
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Well there you go. People are tenacious in holding on to cherished beliefs. The data suggested the earth orbits the sun rather than vice versa such as the apparent path of Venus etc. But there were also huge problems such as the belief that objects wouldn't fall straight down if the earth were in motion. However, with the Newtonian laws of motion, all the "problems" that were associated with the idea that the earth orbits the Sun were understood not to be problems after all. Before Newton's laws it was an absolutely extraordinary hypothesis -- afterwards it wasn't. So there wasn't a problem in science embracing the notion.
 
Interesting Ian said:
Well there you go. People are tenacious in holding on to cherished beliefs. The data suggested the earth orbits the sun rather than vice versa such as the apparent path of Venus etc. But there were also huge problems such as the belief that objects wouldn't fall straight down if the earth were in motion. However, with the Newtonian laws of motion, all the "problems" that were associated with the idea that the earth orbits the Sun were understood not to be problems after all. Before Newton's laws it was an absolutely extraordinary hypothesis -- afterwards it wasn't. So there wasn't a problem in science embracing the notion.
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Mind you I read a couple of years back in the Sunday Times that a 1/3rd of the UK still believes the Sun orbits the Earth. I really find this incredibly difficult to believe though.
 
Euromutt said:
More to the point, what is actually required for the acknowledgement by science that any given extraordinary claim might be valid is that some evidence be provided to support that claim, and that that evidence be testable and replicable. Darwin's theory of natural selection flew in the face of the then-existing body of scientific knowledge; it couldn't have been shoehorned into any existing theory. But the theory came to be accepted (and was subsequently expounded upon) because Darwin provided evidence to support it.
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Do you believe you're telling me something I don't understand?

Anything that may at one time have been considered "paranormal" could quite easily come to be accepted as "normal" once evidence is provided that the phenomenon in question actually exists.
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If we're talking about the period after the mechanistic revolution of the 17th century, what did they think was paranormal which then turned out to be normal?
 
Actually. before that explain to me what normal and paranormal means. Going by the past evidence I suspect people on here will define everything as normal by definition. In which case it would be vacuous to allege the paranormal exists. Notwithstanding this it still might well be the case that there's a "life after death", spells work, telepathy exists, angels exist etc
 
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