PEAR remote viewing - what the data actually shows

[Yahzi]

I used it to illustrate the point that the effect is probably relatively small

But the point it actually illustrated is that you don't know what "relatively small" means.

Your entire argument is that psi is weak enough to escape detection... but you don't understand what that means. You can't put a number to it that is within an order of magnitude. Don't you see how your complete ignorance about what the phrase "relatively small" means rather seriously cripples your argument that hinges on psi being relatively small?

However, if such a PK/ESP effect were present, we might also argue that it has always been present since the start of the casinos franchise. So the casino's might have taken this discrepancy into account from the start.

You just have no clue how things work. May I humbly suggest getting a job in the gambling industry? You would find the education salutory.

How do you think a slot machine is built? How do you think it is tested? Is there an army of customers using the slot machine during the testing phase? When the guy who sells you the slot machine swears it is set to a 15% payout, do you think that includes the psi effect? If it turns out the machine is paying out 15.5%, do you just shrug your shoulders and eat the loss, or do you return the machine as defective?

Casinos don't build slot machines at random, and then accept whatever payout they yield. Casinos pay mathematicians lots of money to build precise instruments. Because those tiny percentages equal huge stacks of money.

Your inability to grasp this basic process is either a result of naivete or thoughtlessness. You simply have no idea how the gambling industry works, you don't bother to assume it works like every other industry because you don't know how industry works, and yet you feel free to make sweeping claims based on no evidence, logic, or even common sense.

But they might already expect and have been observing this small discrepancy for years and years, so its already been taken into account in their prediction.

This assumes they do not test their slotmachines before they deploy them to the public. This assumes it is impossible to mathematically predict what a given slot machine is supposed to do. The ability to make such nonsensical assumptions illustrates that you are not taking this conversation seriously.

In other words, they might just accept that a small percentage of cheating goes on that they don't know about and can't do anything about.

Of course they expect cheating. In fact, they can probably tell you in advance how much money they will lose next year from cheating. But that is not the same thing at all. You are suggesting they lose money for unknown reasons, and assume that must be cheating. As if they didn't investigate hard enough to distinguish between cheating and psi.

Now tell me: who is more motivated to distinguish between cheating and psi - PEAR or a casino?

If casino managers do know something about an unexplained discrepancy in their takings that they know is not down to cheating then I guess it would be unwise to advertise the fact that PK/ESP may help the prospective gambler.

Ok, to understand why this comment is false merely requires you to have watched TV more than 30 minutes of your life.

Casino managers do not ban psychics. They encourage them. What casino managers ban are techniques that work - card-counting, for instance. Casino managers do not ban psi. Ergo, that is a powerful hint that psi doesn't work.

For crying out loud: they will throw you out of the casino for tapping your foot too much during blackjack. But you can walk in the front door flanked by Syliva, JE, and twenty-seven other big-name psychics, and all they will do is... comp you.

Why does your entire argument depend on casino owners being morons who don't understand their own business?

Have you seen the daily observed vs predicted percentage payouts for the various games in casinos?

You are not reading my posts.

The amount of money a slot machine pays out is regulated by Nevada State law.

The casino's rake in all games is regulated by law. State, as well as physical.

Furthermore, if psychics mattered, then the casinos would hire psychics to block the other psychics. And they wouldn't hide the fact, any more than they hide the fact that they have massive security.

Yet no casino advertises that their poker tables are safe from telepathic cheating. Why not?

Or are you just guessing that this is the case?

What I know about the gambling industry I learned from movies. Which apparently is vastly more than you have learned.

But there seems to be no data available. Or is there?

The data is available to the State regulatory commission. However, they might not share that data with the general public, I agree.

Edit:The eleven people who KNOW!

Neither side of this argument have really looked at this long-running experiment yet.

How about the casino operators? Do you think that maybe, over the last 50 years, they may have looked at it?

We are just making an initial assumption and doing a thought experiment. I really dont think that a small percetage as 0.5% increase in the predicted payout percentage would be enough to make Las Vegas go bust.

Your thought experiment only serves to demonstrate how weak your thinking is.

0.5% is millions of dollars a year. What part of this do you not understand? People are highly motivated by millions of dollars a year. Even if it is not the difference between death and survival.

To say it would means that these businesses operate on the knife edge of profitability.

Your obtusness knows no ends. Asserting that a company can survive a minor change in profits is not even remotely like asserting that they don't bother to account for their profits.

I never, at any point, suggested that 0.5% was the difference between life and death for the casinos. However, your assumption that casinos only audit their profits when they are about to go broke is ludicrous.

It is very difficult to have a discussion about how business works with a person who knows apparently nothing about how business works.

I would really interested to see some real data from casino's. The most valuble information would be observed vs predicted payout percentages for slot machines,

You want to see this data? It is easy and publicly available. Simply go shopping for a slot machine.

People make slot machines. They sell slot machines. They will tell you what the payout rate is. They will tell you how accurate their prediction for their machine is. They have to, since that accuracy is required by State law.


I think the problem is, you have no idea of how this industry works, or even that there is an industry. You have spent a total of 37 seconds thinking about Las Vegas, and assume that every one else is equally clueless about Las Vegas. Including the people who have been running it for the last 50 years.

Your entire argument relies on other people being as clueless as you are. If this is how you argue Las Vegas, then I already know your arguments about PEAR are highly likely to be just as vapid.

Likely enough to bet on.

 

[Yahzi]

The standard of evidence does change depending on the context and the person making the judgement.

That's not quite right.

The amount of evidence required may change (as per the "Extraordinary" case), but the rules of evidence - what it is, what makes for acceptable evidence, etc. - do not change.

The problem here is that we are not discussing the amount of evidence. Even the woos probably agree that one study is inadequate. We are discussing whether or not this study even qualifies as evidence.

The fact that its protocols depended on data selection shows that is not. After all, the woos are not willing to accept data selection in other cases (such as how much money they owe me ), therefore they cannot accept it in this case.

 

[Beth]

That's not quite right.

The amount of evidence required may change (as per the "Extraordinary" case), but the rules of evidence - what it is, what makes for acceptable evidence, etc. - do not change.

Er...no. The standards of evidence in a court of law are completely different from the standards of evidence for a peer-reviewed science journal. Even there, the standards of evidence vary, i.e - what is perfectly acceptable evidence for a sociology journal will be very different from what is acceptable evidence for a mathematics journal. Both the amount and quality of evidence required to be 'acceptable' varies depending on the context the evidence is being used for.

 

[CFLarsen]

I have stated several times that I do not regard the PEAR data as evidence of remote viewing.

You are waffling so much on this, David, that it is clear that you are not debating honestly.

So you think "paranormal" means "not yet explained by science rather than "unexplainable by science" ?

If so, then I think this is a meaningful definition. However, it forces us to include a host of other phenomena that are not popularly regarded as parnormal. For example, take this list:

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600

According to your new definition, all these phenomena are "paranormal".

Would you regard them all as paranormal? If not, why not?

No. Because you are missing the pivotal point: You don't have an observable phenomenon to start with. You don't have a repeatable phenomenon that we can study, and hypothesize about.

But, let's look at them:

1 The placebo effect

We do have an explanation: The mind can affect the body's biochemistry. How it is done is most likely psychological. If we can trick our mind to get physically aroused by thinking about a hot girl, why can't we trick our mind to send out painkillers?

It is important to remember that placebo doesn't cure anything. It just relieves symptoms. Pain is not only highly subjective, it also varies depending on your mood. If you are depressed, pain is more noticable than if you are happy. You can forget that you are in pain. If your brain can forget pain, why can't your brain forget pain if it knows your body is getting a remedy that your mind thinks will relieve pain?

Note that in this example, the effect is obvious, observable and replicable. No paranormal phenomenon fulfills these requirements.

2 The horizon problem

We don't know. It's a puzzle, like so much of cosmology. But because we don't have an explanation for this, does not mean you can equate this with remote viewing.

Why?

Because you don't have an observable phenomenon. We can observe that the Universe is so-and-so big, and we have based our scientific understanding of the universe on observable phenomena.

You, OTOH, have nothing to show.

3 Ultra-energetic cosmic rays

Again, we don't know. But the same explanation as in example 2 applies. This can be observed, you have nothing to show.

4 Belfast homeopathy results

First, show me those four different replications. Then, explain why homeopathy, when tested properly, does not work. You see, it is not enough that you point to tests that show that homeopathy works. You also have to explain what is wrong with the studies that show that homeopathy does not work.

And before you resort to your last stand: It is not a matter of opinion. The evidence is overwhelming: Homeopathy does not work. Homeopathy cannot work. If you say that it does work, you have to explain why and how it works, and you have to explain the experiments that show it doesn't.

If - and listen carefully, David - if you point to homeopathy as an example, are you convinced of the validity of these tests? That homeopathy works? Yes or no.

5 Dark matter

Call it "Matter X", if you like. It is an unknown factor, but what is important to remember is that, regardless of what it is, it doesn't overturn anything we have discovered so far.

It is simply a new Newton-Einstein situation: Einsteinian physics didn't negate Newtonian physics, it complemented it, by including situations that Newtonian physics simply didn't cover.

6 Viking's methane

This is from March 2005. We are, at this moment, gathering a hell of a lot of information from Spirit and Opportunity. Let's wait until we have the facts in, and have studied them.

7 Tetraneutrons

Same as 3 and 4.

8 The Pioneer anomaly

The same as 3 and 4: We have an observable phenomenon, but we don't have an explanation yet.

9 Dark energy

Same as 8.

10 The Kuiper cliff

A new, undiscovered planet-sized object? Gee, that's hardly an impossibility: Pluto and Eris, another one? Color me unimpressed.

11 The Wow signal

A blip. I'm sorry, but we get these all the time, in every scientific field. Do we equate this with what I saw in my bathtub this morning?

12 Not-so-constant constants

Same as 9.

13 Cold fusion

I could go on a rampage here, but I'll restrain myself and simply say: Show me. Show me that it works.

And, of course, the same goes for this as for item 4: Do you believe that cold fusion works? Yes or no.

We can take your definition further. All phenomena observed in the history of human observation were parnormal before they were scientifically explained. Yet a relatively miniscule number have been popularly labelled as such as far as I know.

Why do you think this is?

First, you need to do a modicum of studying, before you spout such nonsense. Not all phenomena observed in the hisstory of human observation were paranormal before they were scientifically explained. When we observed the eclipse in 1919, and saw that the stars shifted slightly, Einstein was proved right.

If the definition of the word "paranormal" is "not yet sceintifically explained" then I certainly accept it as meaningfull. However, I prefer to use the term "scientifically unexplained" in discussion. Its not confusing that way.

But you don't have anything to explain.

The conscious impressions of the remote viewers are subjective. The experimental methods and results used to study remote viewing are not.

David, you still don't get it. If you have garbage data, it doesn't matter if your methods are sound or not. You will still get garbage results.

You will not get a great tasting cake, if your eggs are rotten.

Our difference of opinion lies in the definition and meaning of the term "paranormal" and the interpretation of what PEAR reported as their results.

That's precisely what I mean: You want to dictate a whole new paradigm for understanding the world. The rules? Whatever you make up, at moment you please.

They don't have to reject it. They just have to not have thought about it. Thats why babies can be regarded as implicit weak atheists, according to the definitions on wikipedia.

But that's the point, David: They have to reject it. That's what you argued before. Rejection requires an acceptance of the thing you reject.

Weak implicit atheists don't. Weak atheists who are not implicit ones can.

Explicit atheists, then. But that is demonstrably not correct.

According to wikipedia definitions, its possible for a weak atheist to regard various definitions of god as meaningless, thus not believe in god. How can this not be?

No, that's not what Wikipedia definitions say. In order to reject it, they have to accept the meaning of it.

So he would be a strong atheist would he not?

*groan*....give me strength....

Dawkins is an atheist because he hasn't seen any evidence of God. He does not reject the definition of God.

What is so difficult about this?

But that would mean the PK/ESP effect is large. We have assumed it is small. We have assumed that the casino makes a profit, but just a little less of a profit.

How much an effect on the payout percentage are you suggesting? (in terms of a percentage figure)

No, it wouldn't. All it would require is that the PK/ESP effect (your choice of terms reveals that you are, in fact, a hardcore believer) is sufficient enough to beat the odds.

Remember: Some psychics are better than others, right? The low percentage is an average. Some are fantastic, most are as close to chance as can possibly be measured. Where are those fantastic psychics? Name one.

 

[Garrette]

I have stated several times that I do not regard the PEAR data as evidence of remote viewing.

In the "Finally - Skeptical Reporting at CNN" thread you indicate otherwise. How do you reconcile your stance there with this statement?

[I asked this same question in reverse on that thread, but perhaps you haven't had time to answer.]

 

[davidsmith73]

But the point it actually illustrated is that you don't know what "relatively small" means.

Your entire argument is that psi is weak enough to escape detection... but you don't understand what that means. You can't put a number to it that is within an order of magnitude. Don't you see how your complete ignorance about what the phrase "relatively small" means rather seriously cripples your argument that hinges on psi being relatively small?

I agree that I do not know how small the effect would be in reality (assuming that the effects exists). There haven't been enough studies to establish this. My argument was intended to provide a way in which Las Vegas would not necessarily crumble under the influence of PK/ESP effects. Remember that someone who argues that Las Vegas would crumble also does not know the size of the effect.

How do you think a slot machine is built? How do you think it is tested? Is there an army of customers using the slot machine during the testing phase? When the guy who sells you the slot machine swears it is set to a 15% payout, do you think that includes the psi effect? If it turns out the machine is paying out 15.5%, do you just shrug your shoulders and eat the loss, or do you return the machine as defective?

Casinos don't build slot machines at random, and then accept whatever payout they yield. Casinos pay mathematicians lots of money to build precise instruments. Because those tiny percentages equal huge stacks of money.

I don't know the answer to these questions. If the machines are tested at the manufacturing stage by automated procedures (ie they are not tested by people gambling) then it is not likely that a PK/ESP effect would be at work, so they would behave according to their programmed payout percentage. It is the equivalent of calibration runs in a PK experiment, where the RNG is left to run in the absence of any observer feedback.

Yahzi, you appear to be quite knowledgable in these matters. Do you know:

Are these machines tested by the manufacturers by using gamblers?

Also, how often do casinos look at their slot machine payout percentages?

How much variance from the manufacturers stated payout percentage is a slot machine expected to show over a certain period of time?

This assumes they do not test their slotmachines before they deploy them to the public.

Are you talking about the casinos or the manufacturers here?

How do they test them? Is it automated or do they employ gamblers to test them? Over how long do they test them and how much variance in observed payout percentage would this produce? How do you know our assumed PK/ESP effect is not hidden within the variance?

Of course they expect cheating. In fact, they can probably tell you in advance how much money they will lose next year from cheating.

But that is not the same thing at all. You are suggesting they lose money for unknown reasons, and assume that must be cheating.

Well yes I am suggesting that. It may seem farfetched but I'm not sure. How do they know a certain amount of money lost is either from or not from cheating? Cheating would imply that they have been fooled somehow. Whats to stop them from being fooled again?

It could also be the case that a small PK/ESP effect is small enough to be the same size as the average variance in payout percentage from the various games. If this is the case, how would a casino manager notice?

Casino managers do not ban psychics. They encourage them. What casino managers ban are techniques that work - card-counting, for instance. Casino managers do not ban psi. Ergo, that is a powerful hint that psi doesn't work.

For crying out loud: they will throw you out of the casino for tapping your foot too much during blackjack. But you can walk in the front door flanked by Syliva, JE, and twenty-seven other big-name psychics, and all they will do is... comp you.

Fair point. I suppose they encourage these people because they know these psychic superstars can't do what they claim.

You are not reading my posts.

The amount of money a slot machine pays out is regulated by Nevada State law.

Granted. But each slot machine will show a variance about their programmed payout percentage. This variance will get smaller the longer time over which you observe the behaviour of the machine.

Over what period of time do casinos check the observed payout percentage of their slot machines?

What do they show?

Furthermore, if psychics mattered, then the casinos would hire psychics to block the other psychics. And they wouldn't hide the fact, any more than they hide the fact that they have massive security.

Assuming they know about this PK/ESP effect.

How about the casino operators? Do you think that maybe, over the last 50 years, they may have looked at it?

Of course. And as sceptics we should await the evidence before making up our minds. I agree you have some good points. But there are also possible reasons for a small PK/ESP effect to be present and not result in the fall of the Las Vegas empire.

0.5% is millions of dollars a year. People are highly motivated by millions of dollars a year. Even if it is not the difference between death and survival.

Quite. But how would they know this is down to PK/ESP? The money lost by an unrecognised PK/ESP effect may have been attributed to cheating or variance in payout percentage (or other sources of loss I haven't thought of yet ).

Asserting that a company can survive a minor change in profits is not even remotely like asserting that they don't bother to account for their profits.

I agree. There are two different issues we are debating here.

The first issue is whether a small PK/ESP effect would result in a casino going bust. Would you agree that this is not the case?

The second issue is whether a casino would recognise that a small PK/ESP effect were present. I of course recognise that casinos make an effort to account for their profits. I don't think I have a strong case to say they wouldn't recognise an ESP/PK effect because I don't know enough about how a casino assesses its profit and loss accounts and what kind of figures these accounts show. But do you?

I never, at any point, suggested that 0.5% was the difference between life and death for the casinos.

Noted.

However, your assumption that casinos only audit their profits when they are about to go broke is ludicrous.

I don't think I've suggested that.

You want to see this data? It is easy and publicly available. Simply go shopping for a slot machine.

People make slot machines. They sell slot machines. They will tell you what the payout rate is. They will tell you how accurate their prediction for their machine is. They have to, since that accuracy is required by State law.

This isn't the same as looking at data from the casino. You are talking about the slot machine manufacturer.

How are slot machines tested by the manufacturer? If they are tested automatically then we would expect very little PK influence, as in PK experiment calibration runs on RNG's. We might even expect a PK effect to act so that the machines variance in payout percentage is reduced! ie, the manufacturer has a motivation for his machine to pay out what he says it will pay out.

ps. I appologise for the amount of questions in this reply but I just want to establish how much we actually know as opposed to assume about slot machine manufacturing/testing and casino accounting.

 

[davidsmith73]

In the "Finally - Skeptical Reporting at CNN" thread you indicate otherwise. How do you reconcile your stance there with this statement?

[I asked this same question in reverse on that thread, but perhaps you haven't had time to answer.]

Garrette, I read your comments on the other thread

Perhaps this will clarify - I don't think the PEAR RV work is evidence for RV because of their methodological errors. I do think there is other good experimental evidence for it though (see the link to May and Spottisewood work).

 

[davidsmith73]

You have pointed us at a few studies that appear (to me) to be far from compelling. It is possible that you are referring to some other unsighted studies, but I will assume for now that you are not (because surely they would be well known in the public domain otherwise).

Can you explain why the evidence is compelling to you?

Unfortunately, thats too time consuming a question to answer you imediately. I could say that I think the experiments have been conducted with sound methodology but that would be inadequate. Is it the methods you have a problem with or the do you think the results don't actually show anything?

And how does this weigh up in the face of the huge body of evidence that indicates that remote viewing is not real?

Do you mean experiments that seem to suggest remote viewing is not possible?

 

[Flange Desire]

Unfortunately, thats too time consuming a question to answer you imediately. I could say that I think the experiments have been conducted with sound methodology but that would be inadequate. Is it the methods you have a problem with or the do you think the results don't actually show anything?



Do you mean experiments that seem to suggest remote viewing is not possible?

Thanks for your response David. I can see you have been very busy in this thread.

I do not think the PEAR results support the view that 'remote viewing is likely'.
But I was actually asking you why you believe that 'remote viewing is likely'.

I do not know of any studies that set out to prove that remote viewing is not possible.
I was actually referring to the huge body of evidence garnered from everyday life experience - vis ...
I cannot remotely view things.
You cannot remotely view things.
Mr & Ms X cannot remotely view things.
No compelling evidence is seen to support the far fetched claim.
Nobody has ever reported that students cheat on the exams by remotely viewing others exam papers.
Nobody has ever won the lottery by remotely viewing the correct numbers.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And heck, who would even know if it was remote viewing? It might be retropsychokinesis or precognition.

~~ Paul

 

[Yahzi]

Even there, the standards of evidence vary, i.e - what is perfectly acceptable evidence for a sociology journal will be very different from what is acceptable evidence for a mathematics journal.

Which is precisely why sociology is considered less of a science.

Both the amount and quality of evidence required to be 'acceptable' varies depending on the context the evidence is being used for.

The context we are discussing is "philosophical search for truth," not "courtroom" or even "tenure."

 

[Yahzi]

I agree that I do not know how small the effect would be in reality

The problem is that you do not know what the word "small" means.

Let me give you a clue: I build an instrument that measures surfaces to sub-angstrom accuracy. That is small.

Remember that someone who argues that Las Vegas would crumble also does not know the size of the effect.

Who would that be? No one, anywhere on this board, at any time in the history of this board, has ever argued that a psi effect would cause Las Vegas to crumble.

Why do you insist on refuting arguments that have not been advanced?

I don't know the answer to these questions.

I appreciate your acknowledging that you are simply clueless on this matter. Now if you could just make the next step, and realize that not knowing what you are talking about disqualfies you to continue talking about it.

How can you admit you have no facts, and yet continue to argue?

If the machines are tested at the manufacturing stage by automated procedures (ie they are not tested by people gambling)

Do you have a job? Have you ever, at any point, been employed by a corporation of any kind?

Yahzi, you appear to be quite knowledgable in these matters.

I am not knowledgable. I have never worked for the gambling industry, or even known anyone who did. My information stems entirely from novels, movies, TV shows, and newspaper articles.

The point I am trying to make is that certain things - like, for instance, corporations care about millions of dollars - are universal, and can be assumed to apply to all industries.

You do not need insider industry knowledge to answer the questions you ask. You simply need common sense and a basic understanding of how the world works.

Are these machines tested by the manufacturers by using gamblers?

Do the machines cost 30 bajillion dollars? Then no, they don't hire gamblers to test them, any more than the car industry hires race-car drivers to test every car that comes off the line.

Also, how often do casinos look at their slot machine payout percentages?

How often does a company check how much money it is making or losing? Are you serious?

The answer is: as often as necessary.

I realize you do not know how to operate a business, but can you please at least assume that the people running the business know how to?

[Edit: actually, I am pretty sure the answer is daily, which is arguable considerably more often than necessary.]

How much variance from the manufacturers stated payout percentage is a slot machine expected to show over a certain period of time?

This question can be answered by a simple test: are the slot machine manufacturers still in business? Yes? Well, then, the answer must be: as close to none as a technological, free-market society can manufacture. Which I'm guessing is pretty darn small, given that I can buy a machine that measures photons one at a time.

How do they know a certain amount of money lost is either from or not from cheating?

Because they have spent 50 years catching cheaters?

It could also be the case that a small PK/ESP effect is small enough to be the same size as the average variance in payout percentage from the various games. If this is the case, how would a casino manager notice?

The problem with this answer is that you have just put psi below the level of random chance.

Do you understand the problem with measuring a phenomona which is defined to be less than random?

If psi can be smaller than random effects, and yet still exist, then what is the definition of non-existance? How can any effect - the ether, tachyons, swiss-cheese poisoning, racial differences - how can any effect be ruled out as "non-existant"? Maybe the ether is really there, but its effect is so small as to be unmeasurable. Maybe invisible pink unicorns are really there, just so small they can't be measured.

If a thing can't be measured, even in principle, then how can it be said to exist? And even if you could invent a way to pretend it was still real, how could it ever possibly be relevant?

Fair point. I suppose they encourage these people because they know these psychic superstars can't do what they claim.

Then why would we assume any psychics ever can do what they claim?

You have just conceded that there is no evidence whatsoever for psi, even after 50 years, 50 billion dollars, and 50 million people. What on Earth makes you think that PEAR - or anybody - could find what Las Vegas could not?

(Note: those are conservative estimates. I am sure the actual number of people and dollars is much higher).

Over what period of time do casinos check the observed payout percentage of their slot machines?

They've been making slot machines for 50 years now.

I think they pretty much know how to make a slot machine.

Assuming they know about this PK/ESP effect.

See, for the purposes of this discussion, we are assuming that the people who turned a patch of desert into the kind of place where you can build a $4,000,000,000 (yes, four billion dollar) resort and expect to turn a proft... know what they are doing.

And as sceptics we should await the evidence before making up our minds.

The evidence is there. The evidence has been there as long as there has been gambling. Las Vegas, the city of illusions, has nothing to lose by proving the existance of psi, and everything to gain. For crying out loud, they made money off of aging poofdas with tigers. Imagine what they could do with actual psi!

After 50 years, 50 billion dollars, and 50 million people, the most definitive test has been performed, and the results are uniformly negative. The only way to discount this evidence is to be ignorant of it.

But there are also possible reasons for a small PK/ESP effect to be present and not result in the fall of the Las Vegas empire.

Defeating that strawman you stuffed into my clothes will not salvage your argument.

The collapse of Las Vegas is not necessary. All my argument requires is that casino operators care about millions of dollars per year.

Quite. But how would they know this is down to PK/ESP?

Because they can catch the cheaters, and make the losses go away.

To be fair, this is the most (ok, only) effective point you have raised. Surely the casinos factor in a "loss" percentage, just like grocery stores accept that there will be a certain amount of shoplifting (predicted by the socioeconomic status of the nieghborhood). Why can't that loss percentage be the psi effect?

The answer is because even though grocery stores don't know who is doing the shop-lifting, they know it's shop-lifting and not spontaneous atomic disintegration. In the same way, the casinos know what percentage goes to cheating, because they have caught cheaters in the past.

More to the point, the casinos have seen more systems, lucky charms, and streaks than you or I can count. And yet they do not think there is any psi. They safeguard against cheating - they spend many millions on it - yet how much do they spend on anti-psi?

The first issue is whether a small PK/ESP effect would result in a casino going bust. Would you agree that this is not the case?

Insomuch as I never suggested anything of the kind, yes, I would say it is not the case.

I don't think I have a strong case to say they wouldn't recognise an ESP/PK effect because I don't know enough about how a casino assesses its profit and loss accounts and what kind of figures these accounts show. But do you?

Yes, I do. They assess their profit and loss accounts the way every other business does. With the exception of Enron.

This isn't the same as looking at data from the casino. You are talking about the slot machine manufacturer.

Don't you think the casino is going to notice if their machines don't perform as expected?

We might even expect a PK effect to act so that the machines variance in payout percentage is reduced!

Maybe the psychics reach back in time and affect the machines during testing, so that their effect during actual gambling remains the same!

I just want to establish how much we actually know as opposed to assume about slot machine manufacturing/testing and casino accounting.

I am assuming the gambling industry is like any other industry in the world.

That is, it is staffed by people who by and large know how to do their job, and would notice if a few million went missing every year.

The difference between your argument and mine boils down to this: I assume that casino operators are not incompetent. You assume they are. Whenever your position requires you to assume the incompetence of your opposition, you should rethink your position.

On a more general scale, the fact that psychics and Las Vegas never show up in the same sentence is simply all you need to know. It's just the JREF challenge all over again, except that Las Vegas makes you pay to be tested, and kicks your ass out of the city when you start to whine.

 

[Wudang]

The impression I get, David can correct me if I'm wrong, is that he doesn't disagree with you on those points. He stated at the beginning that he recognized the PEAR study has significant problems regarding how the data was collected. He's been arguing that the method of analysis used on the data did not create artifactual findings - that the analysis approach was sound - not that the PEAR paper provides suitable evidence for RV.

I think David may not also appreciate that in cases like this it's not like sending my kid into the garden to pick ripe apples, finding she's picked ripe and unripe and then applying a system to extract the ripe from the unripe. The apples are already mixed and you have ripe* and unripe in the mix with no way of separating them.
Bad data means you have damn all to work with. End of story. Trust me, I screwed up months of my own work that very way and nearly blew my degree.

*(where ripe may be zero)

 

[T'ai Chi]

And heck, who would even know if it was remote viewing? It might be retropsychokinesis or precognition.

~~ Paul

Call it whatever label you want. Just like those who argue against religion/god(s) by calling god(s) a teapot orbiting Pluto, invisible pink unicorn/dragon, FSM, etc.

Labels aren't important, just study effects, if any.

 

[Zep]

Call it whatever label you want. Just like those who argue against religion/god(s) by calling god(s) a teapot orbiting Pluto, invisible pink unicorn/dragon, FSM, etc.

Labels aren't important, just study effects, if any.

Correct. And like the teapot and unicorn of your story...there aren't any!

 

[davidsmith73]

No. Because you are missing the pivotal point: You don't have an observable phenomenon to start with. You don't have a repeatable phenomenon that we can study, and hypothesize about.

Come back with those goal posts!

So now your definition of "paranormal" is "an unobserved and/or nonreplicated phenomenon not yet scientifically explained" ? (there's an obvious logical error in your definition but we'll wait before thats explained)

So lets take a closer look at your latest definition. Take the anomoly of tetraneutrino's. Wikipedia has this to say (bold mine):

"A tetraneutron is a hypothesised stable cluster of four neutrons. This cluster of particles is not supported by current models of nuclear forces. However, there is some empirical evidence which suggests this particle does exist, based on an experiment by Francisco-Miguel Marqués and co-workers at the Ganil accelerator in Caen using a novel detection method in observations of the disintegration of beryllium and lithium nuclei.[1] Subsequent attempts to replicate this observation have since failed."

"Since Marqués' experiment
A later analysis of the detection method used in the Marques' experiment suggested that at least part of the original analysis was flawed[2], and attempts to reproduce these observations with different methods have not successfully detected any neutron clusters.[3] If, however, the existence of stable tetraneutrons was ever independently confirmed, considerable adjustments would have to be made to current nuclear models. Bertulani and Zelevinsky[4] proposed that, if it existed, the tetraneutron could be formed by a bound state of two dineutron molecules. However, attempts to model interactions which might give rise to multineutron clusters have failed,[5][6][7] and it:

'does not seem possible to change modern nuclear Hamiltonians to bind a tetraneutron without destroying many other successful predictions of those Hamiltonians. This means that, should a recent experimental claim of a bound tetraneutron be confirmed, our understanding of nuclear forces will have to be significantly changed.'[8] "

Based on this information, would you regard tetraneutrinos as paranormal? If not, why not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraneutron

 

[T'ai Chi]

If something isn't observable one can't study it at all, nor even hypothesize about it.

This must be the doctrine of materialism on steroids.

 

[Zep]

...would you regard tetraneutrinos as paranormal? If not, why not?

If the reportage was that they had been detected by means of dangling crystals on a string, or gazing at cast tea-leaves, or someone mumbling vague stuff or drawing vague sketches, then the answer is "Most probably yes".

However if there is good solid scientific evidence, properly designed, referreed, and reasonably replicated by independent sources, then the answer is "Probably no".

Guess which methodology PEAR is closer to with their efforts at science...

 

[Zep]

If something isn't observable one can't study it at all, nor even hypothesize about it.

Quite wrong. Can you see why?

 

[Garrette]

Garrette, I read your comments on the other thread

Perhaps this will clarify - I don't think the PEAR RV work is evidence for RV because of their methodological errors. I do think there is other good experimental evidence for it though (see the link to May and Spottisewood work).

Interesting. But in the other thread you asked if anyone could refute your arguments about PEAR, not about other studies.

And you did it in context of evidence for psi, not in context of analytic methods.