Carina Landin in test at this moment

Garvarn

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Garvarn
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At the moment, Carina Landin is being preliminary tested for the JREF Challenge. The test is supposed to take about three hours, and one of the morning papers has promised to post the result later today. I will keep you posted as more information is available.

Until then, this thread provides a background.
 
Carina Landin today failed the preliminary Randi Challenge test conducted in Stockholm by Swedish representatives of the JREF. The test was for Mrs Landin to decide whether 20 different diaries of dead people had belonged to men or women. To succeed, she had to be right on at least 16. Mrs Landin was right on 12, so she failed.

Prior to the test, Mrs Landin today told Svenska Dagbladet that the reason for her to take the test was to show all skeptics that she is in contact with the dead and to make people understand that it is nothing to be afraid of. Allegedly, she is in constant contact with dead people. As the conditions of the Challenge states, Mrs Landin has been involved in and fully accepted the design of the test. She also felt confident regarding the test crew:

- And it feels good that there are scientific scholars present during the test, among them Sven Ove Hansson of the Royal Institute of Technology. I get depressed when people call the likes of me frauds, that's why it's important that this is conducted in a proper way.

It remains to be seen if Mrs Landin will adjust her view on her alleged "ability" in the light of today's result, or if she will continue her psychic business as usual. My own guess is that she will disregard the test on grounds of her just having "a bad day", the test contradicting her own and her client's "experiences" or the standard multitude of excuses provided by the paranormal community. As we have seen before when tests have been done in Sweden, the straightforward alignement with test designs and experimenters prior to testing turn into criticism or even hostility when the results are announced. Mrs Landin's position immediately after the test is that her failure was due to the protocol being violated -- she had requested that the diaries should not be older than the late 1800's, one of them were from the late 1700's and some were from 1850-1880. She is considering to demand a retest but hesitates because the experiment leader has been so nice to her...

In conclusion, the Randi Million is still safe and so is, unfortunately, the convictions of Mrs Landin and her followers.

Interview with Mrs Landin prior to test - in Swedish
 
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Thanks for the update.

Can you just confirm (if you know) whether or not the older diaries, the ones she objected to, were the ones she guessed wrong?

Or were they among the 'hits'?

Also, can you confirm why her request regarding the age of the diaries was not complied with?
 
tkingdoll said:
Can you just confirm (if you know) whether or not the older diaries, the ones she objected to, were the ones she guessed wrong?
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No, I have to get back to you on that. So far, only Landin's comments have been made public.

tkingdoll said:
Also, can you confirm why her request regarding the age of the diaries was not complied with?
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No. If Landin's objection is indeed accurate, I find it astonishing that the experimenter team didn't comply with Randi's explicit advice: cancel testing as soon as the test subject mentions anything that is not in order. I found it strange that it took them two years to get the test done in the first place. If they've f****d it up by not following the general procedure, the blame is their's.
 
tkingdoll said:
can you confirm why her request regarding the age of the diaries was not complied with?
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Er, who says it wasn't?

I don't know how good Ms. Landin is as a paleographer, but I'm not necessarily going to take her unsupported word about the age of the diaries.
 
There is one sad thing about this. Those that wish to believe will note that she got over half of the diaries right. They will use that as a reason to believe. The notion that the results were well within the bounds of a chance outcome will not make a difference to them.
 
"Of the 8 wrong one was from 1794 and four were from 1850-1880 I think."

Carina said in an e-mail I just received.
 
I don't understand the age problem. Do people stop being dead after a while or what? Maybe the old spirits doesn't understand the new psychics "high tech" woo.
 
case sensitive said:
I don't understand the age problem.
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You don't need to.

Do people stop being dead after a while or what? Maybe the old spirits doesn't understand the new psychics "high tech" woo.
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Perhaps the personal congenital radiation or whatever wears off after a while. I can tell which lights in a darkened room have been on recently (they're warm), but only for a few minutes.

"Woo" doesn't necessarily follow anything you recognize as scientific laws. If it did follow scientific laws, it would be science, right?
 
case sensitive said:
I don't understand the age problem. Do people stop being dead after a while or what? Maybe the old spirits doesn't understand the new psychics "high tech" woo.
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I don't understand the "age problem" either, but this is irrelevant. Heck, I don't even understand the nature of her claim; I hear how she explains it and understand the words, but... Also irrelevant.

What matters is - as mentioned before by Chateaubriand - that the test subject should be given anything reasonable she demands. Anything.

We will probably find out more in the next days, concerning the test execution, protocol violations, etc. As with any JREF Preliminary Test, the test subject Ms. Carina Landin has to state before and after the test, if she was satisfied with the conditions offered. The testers should have this on tape and in written.

If they screwed it up by not catering to reasonable demands and if they somehow did not stick to the agreed upon protocol, they will have screwed up royally.

So will have Ms. Landin, if the testers did stick to the protocol.
 
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Was the age of the diaries part of the protocol she agreed to? If not, too bad. Any "request" that falls outside of the agreed-upon protocol should be summarily denied anyway.

Was Randi's advice followed in getting her to state, just before the test, that she still believes she can do this and there is no other extenuating circumstance that will prevent her from performing as she intends?

There's simply no way we can anticipate every ad hoc hypothesis used to justify a failed result, so the only thing is to have them say up front that nothing else is "wrong" with the set up.
 
This is a bit sad. I am sure Carina sees it like this:12+5=passed test.
Of course she wants to do it again. There is a lot more at stake than a million. Her beliefs.

Maybe we could help her design a "self-test" of some sort to help her get over her this.
 
This is the text from the protocol regarding the age of the diaries:

"Furthermore (in accordance with Landin’s wish) diaries older than the late 19th century are avoided as far ass possible."

I sincerely hope it should read "as possible", but (not butt), in any case, this text is an open invitation for the excuses now presented by Mrs Landin. Even the diffuse "late 19th century" makes it possible to explain away the results if only one diary from 1875 had been used. As it reads now, Landin and her follower would be fools not to exploit this opening to the fullest. Isn't there something in the JREF documents regarding these kinds of blurry conditions?

Proposed arrangement of a preliminary test of Carina Landin
 
The selection of diaries had a lot of constraints. They had to have no marking on the covers which might give a clue to the owner, they could not be excessively "feminine" or "masculine," they had to be deemed by the archivist to be sturdy enough to handle, the users had to be known to be male or female, diaries with multiple users were excluded. Does anyone know the size of this diary archive? I imagine it would take well over a hundred diaries to get 30 appropriate ones.
 
ChristineR said:
I imagine it would take well over a hundred diaries to get 30 appropriate ones.
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I believe it was decided that 20 diaries were enough, randomly picked, i.e. no stated division between "male" and "female". But I don't see why the particulars of the diaries make allowance for a blurry condition.
 
Chateaubriand said:
I believe it was decided that 20 diaries were enough, randomly picked, i.e. no stated division between "male" and "female". But I don't see why the particulars of the diaries make allowance for a blurry condition.
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The protocol you linked to called for 15 male and 15 female and a coin flip to determine which pile the next diary came from. In the event of more than 15 flips coming up the same the sequence was discarded and restarted. That's where I got thirty.

Jeff Wagg's comment in the applications topic seems to imply that the diaries were not "too old" and that Carina only felt that they were too old.

I don't recall where I saw it, but I think Carina may have said something about spirit ties to the objects fading with time. It sounds plausible enough until you start thinking about it.
 
ChristineR said:
...
It sounds plausible enough until you start thinking about it.
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This makes for great sig material. :D Do I have your permission, ChristineR?



Perhaps we shall wait for the "official" protocols from Mr. Hansson to be acknowledged and posted here by Jeff. Don't worry, I'm curious, too.
 
OK, the challenge results are officially "UNDER REVIEW."

We're awaiting data on the books. If they were in fact too old, the results of this challenge will be null and void, and the challenge will need to be re-run with a completely different set of diaries.

I'll keep you updated.
 
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