You can offer your own (distinguished) answer to the same question, posed on Yahoo Answers. And you can even take more than five minutes thinking about what you are going to say.
New telepathy test, the sequel.
- Thread starter Michel H
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- telepathy telepathy test
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
I did it for no reason other than to elicit repeats. Michel so far has declined to repeat the experiment, which he has no reason to do unless he knows that it will falsify his claim of telepathy. So I think my doing so tells us something regardless.
Pick a number, Michel. Or have you no faith in your ability after all?
malbui
Beauf
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2004
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- 4,696
Well, that is one aircraft carrier sized delusion right there.
Please, Michel, move on from this and get the treatment you require.
I won't intervene in this thread anymore.
An "aircraft carrier sized delusion", but apparently not yet big enough for you to be able to explain what you mean.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
None of your tests have been done according to high standards of care and rigor.
If this is really what you think, then I invite you to present some convincing arguments that support and explain your opinion.
Try to avoid very rude and contemptuous blanket criticism with no explanation provided, which is unfortunately too common in this thread (mostly not by you, I should say). First, actually read the work you want to criticize, and then try to explain what is wrong with it, in your opinion (with some details).
It is, however, very likely that you will badly fail (like others before you), and that your criticism just reflects a lack of knowledge, experience and humility.
Remember that critical thinking isn't just being critical, it is also thinking. I suspect many posters in this thread emphasize greatly the first word, and unfortunately neglect the second.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
High standards of care and rigor mean that you shouldn't be satisfied with one guess that has a 25% chance of being right by chance alone.
Repeat the test. Pick a number. If I'm right, you'll get it right one out of four tries.
Repeat the test. Pick a number. If I'm right, you'll get it right one out of four tries.
I agree with you that it would be incorrect to conclude that telepathy has been proved, based on just one successful trial in a test with four possible choices.
But I never said such a thing, I have been doing a large number of tests for many years, and with many replies, and used various kinds of evidence to draw my conclusions.
I don't know if I shall do more tests on this forum. Ideally more than just one person should participate, and (if possible) in a positive and friendly atmosphere.
I have noticed that people have become more hostile towards my telepathy work on this forum, compared to what happened about 8 years ago (though there were already some serious problems then).
I don't know the exact reason for this: it's no longer something new?, Randi's passing?, do they feel a little threatened?, has the world become so corrupt that, to some people, just being honest (particularly in telepathy) sounds like the end of the world?
No idea.
p0lka
Illuminator
I entered my guess into google and got a song called jenny?
wow, I know someone called jenny!!! you are amazing.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
It's because you have steadfastly refused to consider a single thing that any of us have been telling you. I've got to say - it becomes rather frustrating after a while. We do our best to remain polite, but as you can see, people are losing interest in paying attention to you. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's how it is. You have to start trusting us and trying some of the things we suggest, or you'll end up just shouting into the void.
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Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
We have done so over and over again. As many times, if not more, as posters (including Loss Leader himself) have explained that the answer he gave was sarcastic. In both cases you simply ignore us, and keep doggedly repeating the same mistakes. But I will try once more, mostly for the benefit of new posters (and one long term one, who seems to have forgotten).
It is obvious to anyone with the slightest understanding of the scientific method that the fact that you rate the credibility of the answers you receive whilst knowing which of them are correct makes your results utterly worthless. No matter how objective an experimenter tries to be, if he includes such a step in his test protocol he is breaking it irreparably. It doesn't matter how many runs you do of such a test, bad data is bad no matter how much you collect.
The only test you ever ran with care and rigor was the one you did here a few years ago, when we insisted you rate the credibility of the answers whilst blinded as to whether they were the right one. We all know how that turned out. Every other test you've ever done was a waste of time, both yours and the participants'.
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Susheel
Illuminator
Just great...now Michel H is going to quote you somewhere (probably even in this very forum) as validation for his fantasy.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
I recommend you don't. You cannot bluff your way past people here who are intimately familiar with scientific methodology and experiment design. They have tried to help you, but it seems you don't want their help. That aside, you're never going to be able to convince them that the experiment you've formulated has any scientific merit. They simply know better, from long successes in the field.
I do. You have repeatedly enlisted this forum's residents as participants in your study, only to co-opt their answers and explanations into confirmation of an ongoing fantasy of you as a "thought projector." They have graciously met you halfway, and you've ensnared them instead into supporting a claim they have good reasons not to believe. You have repeatedly rebuffed the expertise and intelligence of your interlocutors, insisting that only you are capable of proving the existence of telepathy according to your own homegrown methods. You have behaved most rudely in the face of criticism well founded in the scientific peer review process.
No, it is not for any of the paranoid reasons you imagine. You have been told the exact reasons why people now either ignore you or respond disapprovingly. Imagining that it is for some other reason will just expand the number of unsympathetic reactions you will encounter here.
You need professional help. This forum cannot help you, even if it wished to.
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JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Michel has recognized that the protocol he has chosen for informally collecting data is entirely open ended. This allows for answers that he believes should be rejected not just because they do not contain valid data, but because he believes the intent of the participant is thus discernible and affects the outcome.
Indeed, even if one attempts to spell out in advance what makes an "non-credible" answer, submitting answers to a personal judgment introduces an irreproducible step. To reproduce the experiment, some other person will have to apply those criteria to another set of answers and will simply come up with different judgment. It is still an inherently subjective process, even when the sincerity cues and the data are not simultaneously known.
When the data are known to be a hit or miss, all objectivity allegedly vested in the predetermined criteria go out the window. A "Sincerity Judge" who knows whether the answer she is rejecting is a hit or a miss cannot be even remotely considered free of unconscious bias. That makes the experiment irreproducible and the results worthless. We have known since time immemorial that only blinded tests produce reliable results.
But when the experimenter abandons the criteria and transforms -- by ad hoc gematria -- an obviously ineligible answer not only into an eligible one, but also a hit, then this crosses over into deliberate falsification of the results. Not only are the data worthless for scientific proof, but the experimenter is forever thereafter suspect.
But how to solve the problem of judging the sincerity of the participant? What do real experimenters do in such cases? The answer is they don't. They don't accept data in unfiltered, open-ended form. They don't provide subjects the means to offer sincerity cues. The data are collected by dispassionate, limited means such as by pushing a button or clicking a web page widget. The collected data are shorn of any irrelevancy from the outset.
But how do we account for insincere participants, if we have no cues by which to measure sincerity? We don't. That's the job of the null hypothesis, which statistically accounts for all other competing hypotheses and all possible behaviors on the part of the subjects. The subjects would be asked to guess a previously thought-of number, one provided by the alleged thought-projector and the other chosen at random. The subjects would not know whether Number A or Number B were the thought-projected one, and would not be able to skew their results to undermine the experiment. The effect, if any, of "insincerity" on the part of the participant could merit another post by itself.
On this forum we have discussed countless experiments of alleged paranormal phenomena, and we have noted that many of them have made a valiant attempt to achieve methodological rigor and statistical validity. Not all have succeeded, but we have demonstrated being able to give credit where due. When we say that Michel's experiments are patently nonsensical from a methodology standpoint, it's not because we're afraid of the results. It's because the method he proposes is really that bad. Obviously so.
p0lka
Illuminator
If I enter my guess forwards and backwards in to youtube I get someone who really likes big trucks.
Wow.
edit: it was wolrabs puzzle I was replying to.
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Susheel
Illuminator
Perhaps...but it will be Michel H who will be appropriating this as "evidence" in the future. Should have quoted Wolrab in your response. Incidentally, my post was basically sarcasm.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
Here's a challenge for you, Michel H, if you're still reading this thread.
Find an example anywhere in the scientific literature of an experiment which includes a step remotely resembling your "subjectively assess the credibility of the answers given whilst unblinded as to which is correct" step.
It doesn't have to be anything to do with telepathy, and what's being assessed doesn't need to be credibility. Just any experiment which was conducted with sufficient "care and rigor" to make it past peer review which includes a similar step.
You will not find one, because any scientist who seriously proposed such a fundamentally flawed test protocol would have been ridiculed. Exactly as you have been ridiculed in this thread by Loss Leader, and everybody else with even the slightest understanding of the scientific method.
Find an example anywhere in the scientific literature of an experiment which includes a step remotely resembling your "subjectively assess the credibility of the answers given whilst unblinded as to which is correct" step.
It doesn't have to be anything to do with telepathy, and what's being assessed doesn't need to be credibility. Just any experiment which was conducted with sufficient "care and rigor" to make it past peer review which includes a similar step.
You will not find one, because any scientist who seriously proposed such a fundamentally flawed test protocol would have been ridiculed. Exactly as you have been ridiculed in this thread by Loss Leader, and everybody else with even the slightest understanding of the scientific method.
Authors can express opinions on other theories (preferably with arguments and explanations, just the way I do), there is no problem with that. And then readers can agree or disagree, and make their opinions known, just the way they have been invited in my tests.
For example, somebody could say:"You claim that the incorrect answer given by xxx isn't credible but, I am sorry Michel H, I find this answer completely serious and friendly, please revise your analysis accordingly".
But this almost never happens on this forum, and I have even noticed that actual answers to my test are even rarely quoted, in an apparent phenomenon of "data avoidance".
So, yes, I believe my tests have been done and analysed with the highest level of care and rigor (and with respect for those who participated), and dozens of attacks by ignorant jerks don't really change anything from a scientific point of view.
I understand why Ladewig commented (after my second test):
(a very rare level of praise; I know, of course, that some jerks can be found on this forum who will claim that this enthusiastic post was somehow disguised mockery that I cannot understand because of my "condition", but I don't pay much attention to the worst).
All of this will perhaps be made clearer by an actual example, from my second test (see http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9516155#post9516155).
In this test, Kid Eager answered:
It seems to me that all reasonable, intelligent and honest people should agree that this is not a credible answer in a ESP test (even though it is funny and creative), this is why I assigned a credibility rating of -10 to it. Obviously, the actual number given at the end is utterly irrelevant for its credibility rating.
Jack by the hedge
Safely Ignored
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2009
- Messages
- 23,437
I am sorry Michel but you will not find a single scientist who can agree with you about that. Your accepting or rejecting of results while unblinded to whether they were right or wrong makes your results utterly worthless as evidence.
I cannot believe you would trust any other scientist's work if they used such an obviously flawed protocol to "research" a different subject.
Dave Rogers
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through
Michel, speaking as a professional scientist, neither I nor any colleague of mine past or present would attribute any credibility whatsoever to the reported findings of any experiment in which the experimenter, knowing in advance the expected result, were to openly and explicitly reject results failing to achieve that result on the basis of his own personal incredulity. The result of such a process cannot reflect anything but the personal bias of the experimenter and is of no scientific value. It's more or less irrelevant what specific arguments are advanced for the acceptance or rejection of any individual data point; the very existence of the step utterly invalidates the results. I would defy you to find any responsible scientist who thinks otherwise.
Dave
Dave