Randi nonsense

[RandFan]

Says you.

What we know, is that in the standard scientific channels, tests have been passed by chance. Since that has never occured in the JREF challenge AFAIK, we can conclude that an applicant has a much better chance of winning things besides the million dollar challenge.

A better question, is why do you believe the challenge, or any challenge, has anything to do with the standard channels of science that people have a right to? What gets you so upset if people ignore challenges (ran by people known to have bias) as anything more than entertainment?

No one I know of is upset. We are pointing out the BS of those claims. If they could do what they say they could there is great incentive to prove it. Yet they hide.

"Scientific channels"?

How about peer review? How about being published in a scientific journal?

Got any of those in your "scientific channels"? Have the studies or experiments been peer reviewed and replicated?

Use all of the "scientific channels" you like but until you can demonstrate that you can do what you say you can do and that is peer reviewed and replicated then it is just a claim.

We can help though, bring your claim here. We will work with you to develop appropriate protocols so you can test the claim in a way that will earn you $1,000,000. and help get you on your way to getting published and having your discovery made known to the scientific community and the world.

We are here to help.

 

[davidsmith73]

I only skimmed over the thread. I copuldn't see where the JREF rejected the claim made. What I saw suggests that after some communication, both parties couldn't agree on a protocl and the applicant agreed that there was little chance to move on.

Care to point out where exactly the JREF rejected the claim, and - if possible - how this had anything to do with the expected levels of success?

"Beth, 1 out of 2 is CHANCE. You claim 1 out of 3. We require more proof than what you yourself purport to be able to offer, at best. You will NOT pass preliminary testing. It would be a complete and utter waste of time for all those involved to proceed when you are claiming to be able to do something that will not pass testing." KRAMER

"Either you can do what you claim to be able to do, or you can't. It's that simple, and it doesn't need 1,000 tests to establish." KRAMER

"Understood, but if someone is claiming to get results less than chance would call for, she has NO ability! Should we test her for having a huge failure rate?" Randi


Like I said, I'm not commenting on the validity of her claim, just that its clear that challenges are rejected on the basis (amongst other things) of proposed success rates.

Parapsychology doesn't work like that. The PEAR group worked for years to gather enough evidence to demonstrate their effect. Do you think they would apply for the challenge only to be told their effect doesn't need 1000 tests to be established? Again, I'm not commenting on the validity of PEAR's work here, just making the point that its the JREF who decides what is an acceptable result or not, just like Josephson said.

 

[Piggy]

I'm not commenting on the validity of her claim, just that its clear that challenges are rejected on the basis (amongst other things) of proposed success rates.

Parapsychology doesn't work like that.

Oh, boy, this is rich.

You're ignoring the issue of validity, and criticizing JREF for not accepting a protocol with a proposed success rate which is not significantly greater than chance.

Then you go on to admit that "parapsychology doesn't work like that".

Stick a fork in it, it's done.

Like I said, if I find a million-dollar prize which will accept my dowsing protocol... wild horses, brother....

 

[Rasmus]

"Beth, 1 out of 2 is CHANCE. You claim 1 out of 3. We require more proof than what you yourself purport to be able to offer, at best. You will NOT pass preliminary testing. It would be a complete and utter waste of time for all those involved to proceed when you are claiming to be able to do something that will not pass testing." KRAMER

So?

Where is the problem? She claims the can do something paranormal worse than anyone could do blindfolded!

Did you notice how the discussion went on from there and her application was not rejected - much less because of her proposed success rate?

"Either you can do what you claim to be able to do, or you can't. It's that simple, and it doesn't need 1,000 tests to establish." KRAMER

Care to explain your problem with his? As far as I remember, she claimed a much higher reliability than anything that would indeed require thousands of tests. Was this the part where her claim was being rejected?

"Understood, but if someone is claiming to get results less than chance would call for, she has NO ability! Should we test her for having a huge failure rate?" Randi

Like I said, I'm not commenting on the validity of her claim, just that its clear that challenges are rejected on the basis (amongst other things) of proposed success rates.

Is English like your fourteenth language or something?

Yes, if the proposed success rates are lower than what you could expect from random chance alone, than that person doesn't have a special ability! It doesn't take skill to not be able to do something.

Do you have a problem with not testing people that don't even claim they can do something special?

I can predict lottery numbers! I get them right about once in 20,000,000 trials. Think I should be eligible for the challenge, too?

Parapsychology doesn't work like that.

No?

Enlighten us, then: How does it work?

The PEAR group worked for years to gather enough evidence to demonstrate their effect. Do you think they would apply for the challenge only to be told their effect doesn't need 1000 tests to be established?

The question is, if they have anything that is significantly better than chance. But you know this and prefer to lie about it, don't you?

Again, I'm not commenting on the validity of PEAR's work here, just making the point that its the JREF who decides what is an acceptable result or not, just like Josephson said.

Yes, and so far all the evidence suggests that an acceptable result is anyone that is significantly better than chance. What's your friggin problem with that?

 

[JPK]

Good evening davidsmith73.
It all starts with an application.

• What do you claim to be able to do?
• Under what conditions?
• To what degree of accuracy?

Do you understand this?
In your opening post you said…

We need to know what the JREF would find acceptable in terms of results in order for a parapsychological experiment to be acceptable for the challange. If we don't know this then we can't make a judgement on whether the refusals to take the challenge are due to unrealistically high demands of the JREF as to what will constitute a success.

Who is the "we" that you speak of?
This statement, like your questions to Randi, are vague. Without knowing
1.What do you claim to be able to do?
2.Under what conditions?
3.To what degree of accuracy?
how can the JREF even begin to discuss a protocol for a test and why should they bother?
Do you understand this?
JPK

 

[davefoc]

I'd certainly help in anyway I could.

OK, there's a volunteer davidsmith73.

And T'ai Chi, I believe has a mathematics background so he could help with caluculations about the number of trials required if he was willing. Perhaps you and he could even work on this together. I think if you just say the word you'll get more volunteers than you need for test subjects from this thread or from the forum.

Of course, it is possible that Randi, will look at your application and realize that you and Tai Chi have a claim that is so likely to be verified that he will dodge your application or negotiate in bad faith to avoid having to test your claim and shell out the million dollars. If that happens, I would hope to be among the first to say that you were right. But if it doesn't happen then you've got Randi just where you want him. You've got this whizbang claim that you know to be valid based on Sheldrake's careful research and all that is left is to run the preliminary and final tests and collect the million dollars. Boy, is that going to embarass the close minded skeptics that have posted to this thread.

 

[Gr8wight]

"Beth, 1 out of 2 is CHANCE. You claim 1 out of 3. We require more proof than what you yourself purport to be able to offer, at best. You will NOT pass preliminary testing. It would be a complete and utter waste of time for all those involved to proceed when you are claiming to be able to do something that will not pass testing." KRAMER

"Either you can do what you claim to be able to do, or you can't. It's that simple, and it doesn't need 1,000 tests to establish." KRAMER

"Understood, but if someone is claiming to get results less than chance would call for, she has NO ability! Should we test her for having a huge failure rate?" Randi


Like I said, I'm not commenting on the validity of her claim, just that its clear that challenges are rejected on the basis (amongst other things) of proposed success rates.

Parapsychology doesn't work like that. The PEAR group worked for years to gather enough evidence to demonstrate their effect. Do you think they would apply for the challenge only to be told their effect doesn't need 1000 tests to be established? Again, I'm not commenting on the validity of PEAR's work here, just making the point that its the JREF who decides what is an acceptable result or not, just like Josephson said.

Davidsmith73,
You are the challenge administrator. You are in charge of handing out the million to a successful applicant. I come to you and say, I can predict the outcome of coin tosses with greater than 33% accuracy. What is your response?

 

[Pennywise]

Like I said, I'm not commenting on the validity of her claim, just that its clear that challenges are rejected on the basis (amongst other things) of proposed success rates.

Parapsychology doesn't work like that.

If parapsychology doesn't work like that,

then it doesn't exist. ​

 

[CFLarsen]

Parapsychology doesn't work like that.

How does parapsychology work?

 

[davidsmith73]

OK, there's a volunteer davidsmith73.

I've never performed such an experiment before so I'm not confident it will work. I didn't start this discussion on the basis I was prepared to apply for the challenge.

 

[davidsmith73]

Davidsmith73,
You are the challenge administrator. You are in charge of handing out the million to a successful applicant. I come to you and say, I can predict the outcome of coin tosses with greater than 33% accuracy. What is your response?

If you can do it significantly differently than 50% then that's ok.

 

[davidsmith73]

Who is the "we" that you speak of?

Everyone who reads SWIFT.

This statement, like your questions to Randi, are vague.

Without knowing
1.What do you claim to be able to do?
2.Under what conditions?
3.To what degree of accuracy?
how can the JREF even begin to discuss a protocol for a test and why should they bother?

My initial question to Randi cleary asked if he was willing to accept an exact replication of Sheldrakes telephone telepathy experiments for the challenge. He replied "yes with a standard rate of success". Further questions were aimed at clarifying what he meant by "standard rate of success", which failed. If he can't answer that then he shouldn't have used those ambiguous terms in the first place.

To answer your questions 1-3, they are all contained within Sheldrakes experimental paper. It is not I who is claiming anything, and in fact, nor Sheldrake. It is Randi who is claiming he accepts Sheldrakes claim. I am just trying to find out what that means specifically. The JREF can clearly discuss a protocol because one already exists in the form of Sheldrakes paper. He may not have applied, but the JREF cannot claim that he is running away when nobody knows what he is running away from!

 

[Kimpatsu]

Well I have to make a retraction. I emailed Randi asking whether the JREF would accept an exact replication of Sheldrakes email telepathy experiment for the challenge.

He replied "yes, with a standard rate of success, nothing more"

I'm not sure what a standard rate of success means so I'm waiting for clarification, but it appears that the JREF will accept at least one psi experiment, as it stands, for the challenge. I still think this should be clearly stated in SWIFT however.

I'm genuinely surprised.

David, it is good, honest, and proper of you to make this retraction in light of Randi's clarification. I'm impressed.
I think the problem here is that charlatans like Sheldrake refuse to be tested other than on their own terms, and then scream loudly to the media that the JREF is running scared when their flawed protocols are quite properly rejected. For example, earlier this year there was an astrologer who wanted to "prove that astrology is real" by casting a horoscope for a man and then having the man's wife evaluate it for accuracy. That was it, his entire protocol. (He wanted o pick a married copule at random in a shopping mall.) This was clearly unacceptable, as the wife would know in advance whose horoscope she was evaluating. Randi invited SWIFT readers to submit revised protocols, and I sent in my suggestion, which Randi sais would work, and be acceptable to JREF. Viz:
Five couples a reselected at random from shoppers in a mall, and the astrologer casts horoscopes for all five husbands. Then, making sure that all obvious identifiers such as DOB are removed, copies of all five horoscopes are given to all five wives, and all five wives must then correctly identify their husband's horoscope. (This is because 3/5 is too close to chance, unless we are to repeat the experiment several times with different groups of five couples, and 4/5 is impossible.) Randi then took this revised protocol to the astrologer, who rejected it and who is now screaming in the astrological press that Randi refused to test him.
In short, many people who shout that Randi refuses to test them are really doing no more than rejecting protocols that are properly devised to eliminate selection bias and double-blind the trials. IOW, they only want to be tested on their own terms, not on properly-controlled ones. Heck, if I'm allowed to design the protocol, I can win the $1 million no sweat.
Good on you for changing your opinion as a proper skeptic should, BTW.

 

[Piggy]

If you can do it significantly differently than 50% then that's ok.

But that's not the claim! You're being tricksy here! You either accept the claim or you don't. If you want to monkey with the numbers, then it's no wonder other coin-tossers avoid your so-called challenge. They know you'll just raise the bar on them. It's all a fraud.

 

[Piggy]

I've never performed such an experiment before so I'm not confident it will work. I didn't start this discussion on the basis I was prepared to apply for the challenge.

But why not? The protocol is straightforward, as you say. And there's a million bucks involved.

 

[roger]

I actually agree with the criticisms of the Beth application. Kramer's take on the math was wrong.

Beth was not being tested on a binary proposition. I.e. random chance would not have resulted in a 50% test rate. Let's look at a fictional example unrelated to Beth's application first.

claimant: I can dowse the correct location of a piece of gold hidden under 1 of 10 buckets 1/3 of the time.
Kramer: That's worse than CHANCE. 1/2 is chance.

Clearly, if Kramer reasoned this way, he would be incorrect. 1/3 success rate would be well above the expected rate of 1/10.

Now, Beth's actual claim was that she could make the candle move in a specific direction 1/3 of the time. I forget the exact setup, but chance would have yielded a smaller ratio than 1/3. Think of a baseball player claiming a batting rate of 1/3. That's a really good average, nothing to scoff at.

Beth is a college teacher of statistics, if I remember correctly, and her math looked to be solid. The actual problem with her claim was not Kramer's misunderstanding of the math, but that a) she thought that JREF would invest significant time and money to investigate whether she had this ability (she didn't feel sure she had it herself, despite numerous trials and significant number crunching, and b) because of the slightness of the proposed effect a very large number of trials would be required. When Randi got involved he pretty quickly said no thanks. He is only interested in clear demonstrations.

JREF chooses to test things that are clear cut. Claim you can dowse gold? Great. Here's 10 buckets, gold is under one. Find it 8 out of 10 and the money is yours. Suggest running 10000 trials and showing a variance that might be statistically interesting, and JREF is not interested.

That doesn't mean the effect doesn't exist. It's just that JREF is interested in clear, short, concise, unambigious demonstrations of a strong effect, and not interested in getting involved in months long research efforts that will yield questionable results at best. If you are doing research, do it in the lab. If you have a clear, unambigious result, bring it to JREF. If you need 1 year to prove it, well, unfortunately probably the JREF challenge is not going to be open to you. That in no way means the effect doesn't exist, just that you need to find other means to demonstrate it.

I don't see the problem with that. I'd volunteer to help Beth do a test for JREF if it was a 2 hour test. I wouldn't volunteer if it was going to take 5 months. Why would I? How would JREF find volunteers for such an effort? Why would JREF risk $1M for such a contraversal result?

ETA: I'm pretty sure you can find exceptions in JREF's past. Randi took a few weeks to test a Breatharian once. He found it was a waste of time and decided "no more". If he turns one down now, that is not evidence of hypocrisy, it's evidence of reevaluating his priorities. Similarly, I assume he'd be more likely to accept a longer trial from a famous applicant like Sheldrake than from an unknown like Beth. The challenge is not open to all comers, no matter how absurd the claim, or difficult the test. Randi has to eat and sleep sometime.

 

[davidsmith73]

JREF chooses to test things that are clear cut. Claim you can dowse gold? Great. Here's 10 buckets, gold is under one. Find it 8 out of 10 and the money is yours. Suggest running 10000 trials and showing a variance that might be statistically interesting, and JREF is not interested.

That doesn't mean the effect doesn't exist. It's just that JREF is interested in clear, short, concise, unambigious demonstrations of a strong effect, and not interested in getting involved in months long research efforts that will yield questionable results at best. If you are doing research, do it in the lab. If you have a clear, unambigious result, bring it to JREF. If you need 1 year to prove it, well, unfortunately probably the JREF challenge is not going to be open to you. That in no way means the effect doesn't exist, just that you need to find other means to demonstrate it.

I don't see the problem with that. I'd volunteer to help Beth do a test for JREF if it was a 2 hour test. I wouldn't volunteer if it was going to take 5 months. Why would I? How would JREF find volunteers for such an effort? Why would JREF risk $1M for such a contraversal result?

Thanks Roger. I agree with you. A parapsychologist who applied for the challenge would most likely insist on a large number of trials, perhaps not 10000 but significantly more than the JREF would accept for the challenge IMO. The fact is that the findings of parapsychology are not clear cut. There are those who think there are interesting effects going on, there are those that don't. Clearly the JREF are in the latter camp. I don't understand why people around here are so suspicious of the parapsychologists motives for not taking the challenge when there is the problem as you have described above.

 

[davefoc]

Thanks Roger. I agree with you. A parapsychologist who applied for the challenge would most likely insist on a large number of trials, perhaps not 10000 but significantly more than the JREF would accept for the challenge IMO. The fact is that the findings of parapsychology are not clear cut. There are those who think there are interesting effects going on, there are those that don't. Clearly the JREF are in the latter camp. I don't understand why people around here are so suspicious of the parapsychologists motives for not taking the challenge when there is the problem as you have described above.

davidsmith73, I think that your view is not without merit. The difference in our views is that I think for several reasons that Randi would be willing to test Sheldrake.

1. Sheldrake is a public personality on the issue of paranormal. Testing Sheldrake is likely to provide publicity for promoting Randi's skieptical views, one of the important goals of JREF.

2. Randi has said that the claim would qualify for the challenge. While there was ambiguity in exactly what he meant, I think, because of it he would be even more likely to accept the Sheldrake claim for testing.

3. The Sheldrake results on emails lends itself to being tested in a way that will produce completely unambiguous results. Although Randi has been involved with many dowser tests, the common dowsing claim that water can be found in a natural setting has not been tested because it is difficult to create a test that produces unambiguous results for it. This claim has no such problems associated with it.

4. The email results are so far above chance that the number of trials to test them is clearly in the range of what JREF would consider a reasonable time frame for a test to be run.

Clearly, we are not going to end up agreeing about this, but I think that if Sheldrake really believes he has found significant evidence of a paranormal effect, the clearest path for him to win crediibility for his claim and a million bucks besides is to take the challenge. I think it is very likely that Randi would take a phone call from him to discuss the general outline of testing that Randi would find acceptable, before Sheldrake even invested the effort in filling out the application. If Sheldrake hasn't taken even this very simple step, then I think it is reasonable to conclude that it is Sheldrake that is rejecting JREF rather than visa versa.

 

[Piggy]

The fact is that the findings of parapsychology are not clear cut. There are those who think there are interesting effects going on, there are those that don't. Clearly the JREF are in the latter camp.

2 observations.

First, if the "findings" are so fuzzy as to allow for personal interpretation of whether anything interesting is going on, then clearly, something is amiss in the testing situation. You might have an inconclusive test here and there, but for the entire field to be thus... it's simply not possible.

Second, I am certainly in the latter camp, but JREF is not. JREF is neutral about this matter.

 

[davidsmith73]

2 observations.

First, if the "findings" are so fuzzy as to allow for personal interpretation of whether anything interesting is going on, then clearly, something is amiss in the testing situation. You might have an inconclusive test here and there, but for the entire field to be thus... it's simply not possible.

Interpretation of results goes on all the time in science, particularly biological science. I thinks its entirely reasonable for a subject at the fringes of our understanding to be subject to more of this interpretation process than other areas we have greater knowledge of.

Second, I am certainly in the latter camp, but JREF is not. JREF is neutral about this matter.

Quote from Randi made a few years back:

"I don't expect that the million will ever be won, simply because there is no confirming evidence for any paranormal claims to date."

source:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathyrandi.shtml