Princeton Nukes ESP Department

[alfaniner]

...

• Each subject selected two pictures, one "positive" (mine was a kitten) and one "negative" (mine was WTC2's collapse). We were asked to rank our feelings on the pictures and on woo itself.
• We were told that a small white box contained a random number generator that would change the picture on a computer screen. The picture was a random mix of the "positive" image and the "negative" picture and the mix would be changed depending on the output of the random number generator.
• We were told to try to make or "positive" picture appear in the random mess, or come forward, or whatever.

Was it something like this?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Well I must say you parapsychologists use words very very differently that physicists.

they love to mix and match defs all the time. Tell them that you lie in bed and they'll say that you are a liar.

Semantics is the name of the game because they have no argument, or more accurately no evidence

 

[Rodney]

they love to mix and match defs all the time. Tell them that you lie in bed and they'll say that you are a liar.

Semantics is the name of the game because they have no argument, or more accurately no evidence

Except for the evidence that they do have. See http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/human_machine.html

 

[cj.23]

Semantics is the name of the game because they have no argument, or more accurately no evidence

Semantics is the name of the game because we like to actually say something that makes sense. If you can actually contribute, by critiquing the evidence/proof assertions. Please do so. Put up or shut up. Constantly asserting something does not make it true, and you sound like a troother or something...

Edit: Larsen has argued the point. I respect that. I think he may possibly now see my point, but if not he will argue with me. Just claiming I'm making claims i'm not irritates.

cj x

 

[omegablue]

How strange - I was at that TAM and in the conference room for that particular interview (sat directly behind the speakers table) and I didn't see that...

Could you see Randi´s face the momment I mentioned? I may be wromng but I could see a funny look of "wow, what the heck is this guy askin me?" This is not sooooo important but it was funny anyway.

 

[cj.23]

Well I must say you parapsychologists use words very very differently that physicists.

How so? We use them as they are in the dictionary, which I find fairly useful as a guide to the general meaning of a word. You may note I keep citing the dictionary to explain my point.

Please note I have not at any point argued for the truth of any paranormal hypothesis here. All I have said is that by any reasonable understanding of evidence, as defined in the dictionary, there is evidence for paranormal claims, that is indicative data upon which one can build a case for or against the hypothesis. There is no "compelling evidence", aka proof...

I fail to see how this is in any way controversial, as it's really just stating the bleeding obvious? I can only assume people are not reading what I'm typing?

cj x

 

[omegablue]

Here it is for you omega: a group of people say they can influence random numbers. So they produce lots of numbers and try to influence them. Then they look at the numbers and figure out that they can't influence them. But nobody will pay any attention to them if they say that they can't influence random numbers, so they say that they can.

They take this delusion to full extremes, pulling others like you in with them and making you repeat their lie.

I like it when Robert G. Jahn says, "If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will"” When I read this, I read, "We've produce nothing. If, after all the nothing we've produce, you think we're producing something, you're never going to think that we're producing nothing."

Seems like he's talking to you, omegablue.

Ah they say they produce nothing?? Sorry, be morer specific in showing me where. I could say that infamous phrase: "put up or shut up" but as I think this is too lame, I will not put it this way.

 

[ponderingturtle]

How so? We use them as they are in the dictionary, which I find fairly useful as a guide to the general meaning of a word. You may note I keep citing the dictionary to explain my point.

And in doing so you are acting just like the bastions of honnesty and integrity, creationists. Many of them in exactly the same ways.

I fail to see how this is in any way controversial, as it's really just stating the bleeding obvious? I can only assume people are not reading what I'm typing?

cj x

No it is that you are mixing and matching different definitions. The creationists do this same thing when they say that evolution is only a theory and has not been proven. They are useing exactly the same definitions you are, but then useing the terms as the scientists use them.

 

[volatile]

The former head of PEAR was just briefly on British radio claiming not that they chose to close the facility because its research failed, but because it succeeded in "proving" the effect they set out to research!

The bones of her argument was that the effects of human consciousness on engineering systems have been "proven" over "tens of millions of studies" that the effect itself is very tiny but, due to the number of trails in which it was demonstrated, indubitably positive!

I don't know much about statistics, but does this sound plausible? It certainly sounds fishy to me!

 

[cj.23]

And in doing so you are acting just like the bastions of honnesty and integrity, creationists. Many of them in exactly the same ways.

I am most distinctly not sir!

However it is now clear to me you are misunderstanding what I am writing 100%. Let us look at it again

No it is that you are mixing and matching different definitions. The creationists do this same thing when they say that evolution is only a theory and has not been proven. They are useing exactly the same definitions you are, but then useing the terms as the scientists use them.

Ok, so what did I say...?

Theories are not hypotheticals- they are models. The Theory of Evolution is proven, as a reliable model. The Theory of Relativity is proven, as a reliable model. Just because something is called a "Theory" does not make it potentially untrue - well not if, as with Gravity, one is using sense 5 of the definitions below.. Look at the definitions

Now note -- I was arguing completely the contrary. You sated we had no proof for gravity. I said we had proof. Just because something is a theory does not make it potentially untrue. That is NOT what Creationists believe -- it is the exact opposite. I even explain later how this error occurs...

Let's look at the definitions of Theory...

theory

noun
Definition:
1. rules and techniques: the body of rules, ideas, principles, and techniques that applies to a subject, especially when seen as distinct from actual practice
http://encarta.msn.com/xImages/dictionary/bullet.gif

2. speculation: abstract thought or contemplation

3. idea formed by speculation: an idea of or belief about something arrived at through speculation or conjecture
http://encarta.msn.com/xImages/dictionary/bullet.gif
4. hypothetical circumstances: a set of circumstances or principles that is hypothetical
http://encarta.msn.com/xImages/dictionary/bullet.gif

5. scientific principle to explain phenomena: a set of facts, propositions, or principles analyzed in their relation to one another and used, especially in science, to explain phenomena

from http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/theory.html

And then I wrote

Definitions 1 and 5 means something very different to 3 & 4. I think this is a major misunderstanding by the public of how science works. They think a theory is something potentially untrue, or dubious...

So clearly, by definitions 1 and 5, used in Science, as stated above, a Theory is not something which is potentially true - it is a Model by which we understand the universe or a phenomenon. No Creationist would accept this, because it would mean the Theory of Evolution was as I believe it is a reliable model, and hence unfalsifiable.

So why on earth are you accusing me repeatedly of saying exactly the opposite of what I am actually saying? I just don't get it! I think you all "know" how paranormalists think, and read those words not the ones I am writing???

cj x

 

[Moochie]

The bleevers' arsenal: semantics and statistics. Why?

M.

 

[cj.23]

The bleevers' arsenal: semantics and statistics. Why?

M.

Sloppy language irritates me as it obscures the issues. I had to resort to semantics to demonstrate why

"There is no evidence of the paranormal" is a demonstrably false assertion.
There is no proof of the paranormal. Don't use evidence as a synonym of "proof", and we have no argument.

Statistics? They can demonstrate things, like probability?

cj x

 

[Moochie]

Sloppy language irritates me as it obscures the issues. I had to resort to semantics to demonstrate why

"There is no evidence of the paranormal" is a demonstrably false assertion.
There is no proof of the paranormal. Don't use evidence as a synonym of "proof", and we have no argument.

Statistics? They can demonstrate things, like probability?

cj x

Who's the irritated little pedant, then?

M.

 

[cj.23]

Who's the irritated little pedant, then?

M.

Clarity helps.

cj x

 

[Kage]

Was it something like this?

No. It was done pixel by pixel.

My personal theory on PEAR's research is that it is the way they separate out their data that gets them results. With the EGGs they searched for changes and shifts around the time of world events. This method is rubbish. For instance, PEAR found significant activity around 9/11 and Princess Diana's death:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Consciousness_Project
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html

As the wikipedia article states, spikes are expected in the data, and when your theory has no set time frame for such spikes to occur then of course you are going to find such features that are linked to world events. Also cherry picking the events themselves is possible. I suspect that this is where PEAR lab's theories on how people can effect a REG in the past comes from. This sort of data hunting also comes from their looking at indidvidual "performance" in large data sets.

I also have various doubts about their use of REGs (random event generators). From what I know about the experiment that I participated in, the REGs were "calibrated" by being run at room temperature and on a hot plate, and that the computer would vary at random which image corresponded to 1 and which image corresponded to 0. Apparently the REGs consist of some sort of backwards voltage over some sort of diode, but I could not find out what sort of device they were using. This is one area that I fault PEAR for not exploring. Though they have many different REGs, they didn't perform many simple tests that would follow from their "discoveries." For example, does the "effect" still occur when the REG is surrounded by a superconductor (aluminum or lead foil and a helium dewar is all you need for this--9K is pretty easy to get to)? Does the "effect" take place when you have people concentrate on a radioactive isotope (you can make this REG out of a smoke detector)? If you buy their arguments these sort of experiments follow directly. Instead PEAR spends time on remote viewing and global consciousness.

 

[thaiboxerken]

The bleevers' arsenal: semantics and statistics. Why?

M.

I know, it's because they have no credible evidence

 

[CFLarsen]

You have empirical evidence of a miracle? Show me! This I have to see...

Fine - give me an example of this wondrous miracle to study then. Just one will suffice! And no, it does not have to be "real", as in veridical...

Don't be silly. I am talking about a supernatural phenomenon that we can find evidence of - or not.

An example would be the miraculous regeneration of an amputated leg.

Evidence is just data - no more no less.

Whoops. We stop here.

Data isn't evidence. Data are facts which you use to reach a conclusion based on rationality. That conclusion is called evidence. Once the mountain of evidence is big enough, you have proof.

When you refer to "data" and call it "evidence" of a paranormal phenomenon, you elevate data to something it is not.

Evidence has to be in favor of, or against, something. It cannot be for and against something at the same time.

That's what you are trying to do: Make it seem as if there is "evidence" in favor of a paranormal phenomenon, when all you have is data that have natural explanations.

When we have a natural explanation, we don't need a paranormal one.

Well I must say you parapsychologists use words very very differently that physicists.

they love to mix and match defs all the time. Tell them that you lie in bed and they'll say that you are a liar.

Semantics is the name of the game because they have no argument, or more accurately no evidence

Exactly. Mind you, this is a deliberate strategy.

Semantics is the name of the game because we like to actually say something that makes sense.

No. Believers such as yourself play the game of semantics because you like to obscure what you are saying. You don't seek clarification, but obfuscation.

 

[fls]

Yes, but judging the results perhaps not. While you expect highly positive rates while testing something that is under a scope of a nice theoretical system, like for example mechanics or electricity, you cannot do this to a phenomenon that has no theory at all and use it as na argument against its sole existence.

That is simply not true. You have to remember that the field is medicine has the same kinds of problems demonstrating effects that psi would have. So I am intimately familiar with the issues surrounding the difficulty of demonstrating a weak effect in the midst of numerous uncontrolled/uncontrollable variables. We have made enormous progress in learning how to tease out real effects from the morass and how to eliminate patterns that are likely to be spurious. One of the most important things we have learned is that allowing wishful thinking to guide our evaluation is a good way to be wrong. And the paper I referenced earlier by Ioannidis demonstrates quite clearly that when you are searching for effects in the absence of a theory, you actually need to use higher standards than you would use for normal research if you want to find effects that are real, rather than spurious.

The paranormal research is still struggling about in first place showing that something exists, not trying to fit it to any known theory yet.

Much of your post relates to this point, so I'm going to elaborate about it here and ignore it a bit when it comes up in the rest of your post.

This is my conception of the field of paranormal research. The idea of psi is that humans (or some humans) access information in an anomalous manner (i.e. not through the senses and processes we already understand). We have this idea because some people seem to know things that we wouldn't expect them to know otherwise (future events, the thoughts in my head, past events they did not directly experience). And some people have experiences that are markedly different from our everyday experience of the world (e.g. NDE, OBE, miracles, visions). The assumption underlying paranormal research is that there is a major chunk missing from our understanding of reality (our pre-established scientific frame of reference) - an unrecognized force, a non-physical mind - that needs to be documented and explored and understood. What normal science asks for is documentation that the phenomena that are demonstrated do not already fit into our understanding of reality.

Paranormal research focusses on the unusual and unexpected. Normal science understands that the range of normal possibilities includes the unusual and unexpected. The series of 10 heads in a row is unexpected, but not when it is selected out a posteriori from a series of a thousand coin tosses. A video of a few seconds of a woman levitating is unusual, but not when you show the whole video of her leaping into the air and then co-ordinating the movement of her legs with her rate of fall in order to give the illusion of a second or two of no movement. Since science looks at the entirety of the picture, the perspective is different from someone who is focussed only on the edges.

The issue with NDE's and OBE's is that while the experiences are well-documented, that they can be evaluated the same way as we evaluate our everyday/normal experiences is not. If an experience that seems to be taking place solely within my mind feels as real as a normal experience, does that mean my perception of it as "real" is sufficient to prove that it is real? Since normal science and normal experience has demonstrated plenty of exceptions, wouldn't it be unreasonable to depend upon it as evidence?

Normal science is not asking paranormal researchers to test a theory of psi. They are asking them for evidence that their positive results do not already fit into the pre-established scientific framework, or that explanations for the currently inexplicable will require a new paradigm.

So many many researches produce highly positives that cannot be plausibly explainable by any other factor (and even Hyman admitted it in some cases), but still afterwards it continues to be bombed with possible natural explanations and therefore labelled as debunked.

You are going to have to be specific about what "highly positives" you are talking about. Remember that we expect dozens of highly positive results when you are performing hundreds of experiments.

Well, possible does not mean sensate or plausible necessarily. This is precisely what I think that cannot be done to psi in order to investigate it further. You do not need to rule out every possible normal explanation of what is being obtained to be sure that the effect is being obtained. When a theory about it is made, yes we have to extensively rule out everything we can that would invalidate the theory.

But the researchers are claiming these effects are evidence for psi. You have also made the claim that these effects are evidence for psi. "Paranormal" implies that you are attempting to talk about something that is separate from normal science. So when you and others make the claim that you are demonstrating psi, it means that you are demonstrating something that cannot fit into normal science. That means if you want to make the claim that picking the right card is evidence of psi (not yet validating a theory of psi), you do have to make a reasonable attempt to rule out all the different normal ways that help people pick out the right card. I agree that paranormal researchers have definitely demonstrated that people can pick out the right card more often than if a card was drawn at random. But there are lots of normal effects that lead to that result. Effects that have been documented to be present (not just suggested that they might be present) in much of the research.

In fact no other area of research had to pass through such a harsh criticism and way higher standards and requirements for being considered valid.

That is not true. All established scientific theories have had to pass through the same standards and requirements to be considered valid. The difference is that they were successful.

I might suspect that it occurs way more to psi because it goes against any accepted theory. I don´t know but I personally think that there is na exaggeration about the statistical standards to which a psi test should produce to convince skeptics. All the positive results in all the experiments all over the world for more than a century, thought about thousands of scientific minds, cannot be all possibly flawed or sloppy, this idea just seems not to be possible. The numbers are too great and the chance it is all incorrect or fraudulent seems to be hugely small to say the least. I suspect many of them in fact are flawed, incompetently made, frauded, data-selected and stuff, let alone some spotted problems with M.A. but still there´s a huge body of them that seems not (remember the ones Hyman agreed on being flawless and still produced way higher results than chance?).

It looks like our perspective on this research is quite different. What I think scientists are looking for is a consistent demonstration of an unusual effect, which will lead to the opportunity to test various explanations for this effect, including the possibility that psi provides the best explanation. The areas that looked like they might approach a consistent demonstration were the Ganzfeld studies and some of the PEAR research. But the Ganzfeld is less useful than you are making it out to be. The controls have been tightened up (although I still think they need a control group - it is a very simply way to eliminate the effects of bias) leading to demonstrating a much weaker effect at best. Yes, the studies by Honorton showed a significant effect, but follow-up studies weren't different than chance - a few showed an effect, others didn't, and combining the studies made the results statistically significant, but for a much smaller effect. There's no consistency to work with. And the PEAR research is unconvincing. The RNG's showed an incredibly miniscule effect. Even if you accepted that the results were real (and not due to a slight bias in their random generator or that they came from a single operator who happened to be part of the research team is not suspicious), what could you possibly do with them?

The huge body of research hardly even allows you to claim there's evidence for a consistent effect, let alone making the next step in the claim, which is that this effect is paranormal.

Totally agreed. But my suspicion is that it is basically on the wrong track, I mean the scientific acceptance of the results, they are far more prone to reject psi´s sole existence by suggesting that there might be natural explanations rather than really wondering the plausible “why” behind the results. Again there are cases in which no further moaning about flaws are tenable, and still the rejection goes on and on. I remember the declaration from the PEAR staff: “if they do not believe in us after the results we´ve made then they will never do.” This is quite the feeling, sadly.

Excuse me? The PEAR studies contain signficant flaws - flaws that are sufficient to eliminate the proposed effect. That the PEAR staff does not agree does not make them go away.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the "why" behind the results does get studied by normal science and has led to interesting discoveries. But nothing yet that requires a new paradigm.

Hmm, I cannot see it this way. Have they already done that? Did the skeptics proved that the pre-established framework is sufficient to explain the psi results? I can see they cogitating it. And as skeptics in general are not involved in psi researches, they assume a more than a little comforting position. They are not proving their point throuhg experiments, they simply state that and that seems to suffice for them. This is what I cannot agree, up till now. One skeptic I can recall that was involved in psi researches is Hyman, who did agree with a protocol with Honorton and then after the results were still way higher changed his mind and made more objections. So...again, what exactly is the point? It is about debunking and holding something from being accepted or what?

It failed to meet normal standards. It was not replicable.

Paranormal has not been proved nor positive nor negative because the scientific elite tend to mock it and in fact it is not useful for their progress, nor financial interests and intellectual prestiges. In other words, they do not fund it because the short-term interest is dubious to say the least. And besides that, gives the people who do research it a really hard time, PEAR is na example.

Time for a conspiracy theory?

Locality/materialism/reductionism has recently failed greatly to explain nature Linda! At least like they expected it to do.

One interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that the universe has characteristics that are counter-intuitive and unobserved. How does this "fail to explain nature"?

The quantum measurement problem is a natural phenomena that implies that our current framework is wrong and or hugely incomplete.

The quantum measurement problem is not a demonstrable natural phenomena. It is the theoretical consequence of applying an otherwise complete model to what we can observe.

While the mechanical/materialistic framework was successful for some time after the Glorious Newton and Kepler, for example, you cannot save it for being ultimately labelled as incomplete and unconsistent with the current boundaries of nature experienced by human , be the spotted frontiers of space or the quantum world and the “cosmical tissue” of random fluctuations. Let me tell you something, everything is nature, everything is natural, every phenomenon is part of nature, even the delusions of mind.

Whatever gave you the impression that I thought otherwise?

So I think materialism borrowing the word naturalism in order to make it stronger and therefore being the natural truth of the universe and nature seems more like highjacking than borrowing.

Don't get too hung up on the baggage that the words "materialism" and "naturalism" carry with them. I chose to use those words to act as a label for what I am referring to, in the hopes that you wouldn't assign meanings that were too egregious. But if you're worried that I don't understand the nature of reality or science, specify your concerns, rather than assuming my understanding corresponds to a particular meaning of two words.

So not everything has led to “natural” (mean materialistic) explanations.

Please provide an example.

And the current scientific framework has not to be disproved in order to embrace new phenomena and perhaps new kind of forces in nature. The scientific tool ought to be always one. How a new discovery could invalidate the power of predicting the orbit of planets of newtonian and keplerian mechanics? It is not plausible. The scientific framework has to adapt itself in order to embrace what is being observed, not the other way around. You know science is a human tool. It is known to be imperfect and incomplete therefore (like humans are, as we judge ourselves) , so why assume that is right trying to fit any new possible phenomena to it as it is right now? Science is about making useful constructs about the natural phenomena and not bending nature to fit to what we expect and do know up till now.

I didn't suggest otherwise.

You are attributing the adjective meaningful to na experiment if it has success on being fit to any currently accepted belief (i.e. theoretical framework and epistemology) , and again I insist that this might not be the tenable way of discovering something that is not necessarily physically causal. In other words, the causes are not physical ( at least from what we currently accept as physical). I agree that is not simple accepting psi, as we know and accept nature. It has to be done by defying all the objections and its probably false the idea that everything as it is established right now would have to be buried. Again , science is about man constructing useful ways of understanding, emulating and channeling the spotted forces and behaviours of nature in favour of his kind. If man has not yet accepted psi (which means, the scientific elite), it does not mean necessarily that one can say with certainty that it has not been shown to exist. It has failed to be fit to any current theory, but it´s not reasonable to say it has not been demonstrated, nor that they have proved that the possible natural causes are in fact generating the results. I think what can hinder one´s good will to accept psi, is the possible uses for it. If it´s so dim, what is the uses? Crimes cannot be solved by psychics because the effects are dim. I would not risk my money on a casino advised by a psychic because the probability of him being right is small and i´m risking my money. We cannot try to influence the physical world in order to solve our problems because the effects are dim, so what?
But still if it is dim and has no apparent uses nor short-term financial returns, it still exists. And the sole existence of something cannot be denied just because it is dim compared to what we are acostumed to accept within a materiallistic framework , and or it is not a potential money making machine for the industry.

I think it has not been accepted because it hasn't been demonstrated to be different from wishful thinking. And scientist have learned that allowing wishful thinking to guide research can lead to wasted time and effort following ultimately worthless leads.

Well, I think we are approaching intuition from two different places. The intuition I talk about here is that feeling that you have when you finally understand something. Like a switch that is turned on. Like , yeeeeeeees now I got it all! A classical example of my life was when I was having a hard time to understand the logical constructs for programming and the structure of na algorythm. The teacher on the first classes explained and explained and ...hmmmmmmm still nothing made sense. Nothing at all, and then one day I was struggling with the exercises and then...CLICK, hell everything made sense, finally a piece of the puzzle was put in place in a manner that I understood the whole thing. Then I could tell you that I did understand intuitively how na algorythm works. I think this is one of the limits of communication and language. He could go on for his life explaining it to me, I could repeat and memorize the exercises and even make a good score on the test and I still do not understand it with that intuitive feeling, that is the essence of the communication he was trying to make. I think things are pretty much unexplainable and annatainable through communication only, it has to be achieved via insight. Words and communication are like dead symbols, they do nothing allone. Something is learned properly only when this intuitive switch is finally turned. It is so strange that it reminds me of a quantum leap. It is not at all, and then it IS completely with no possible intermediate states.
Another example is you trying to explain someone what is the taste of apple without offering it for the person to eat it. You could go on and on and on. That person could answer if asked how is the taste of apple with : “its like this and this and that” and still possess no intuitive knowledge of what exactly is the thing.
You approached intuition more like a guessing. Like...hhhmmmm something tells me that THIS is right.

Nope. I was talking about the same kind of intuition that you describe below.

And right after the person realizes that it was not true. This can be dangerous , and mind is known to play many tricks, indeed. The level of awareness that I say people have when for example while OBE of on NDE is the current awareness i´m enjoying right now, being capable of making criticism, questioning things, and stuff like this, and all of this while they are there experiencing the mysterious “worlds”! In other words, people often says about being more aware than normal while there, and that the material world is less real than the world the person did experience there. Even the level of awareness of the waking state is weaker than the one they experience when they are “there”. So , this is why I mean people is convinced intuitively like they captive the essence of the claim: “hmmm so THIS is what they claimed about the “other side” , now I really know about it and it makes sense! Hell how could I not believe this, I was blind and hindered by the conditioning nature of my waking state of mind.” This, Linda is the general claim of the states of mind which involves trance and full awareness. And therefore the person intuitively is convinced that if that´s not real, the pysical world hardly is then. Psi claims are endorsed by this people intuitively also while on these experiences, and that´s from where the claims of clairvoyance, telepathy, ability to see what is in the other room while clinically dead come from. Many of them are verifiable and in fact was verified. Even Susan Blackmore seems to agree with this based on what I read from her works on OBE and her NDE while stoned on marijuana. She wrote very clearly about the amazing level of awareness of the experience and her successful ability to count the number of fingers her friend was holding up while she was out of body, although she states it was not documented unfortunately. I honestly cannot up till now refute all of this, it would not be sincere of my part. I´m yet to face arguments that could crumble everything man made to try explaining the phenomena for the people who cannot accept it. Sorry , this discussion is becoming overly-philosophical I think but sometimes I cannot resist.

Yes. I have had those experiences as have other skeptics. As I said before, it is not that we have not had those experiences and therefore don't really understand what you are talking about. It's that we are aware of alternate constructions to put on to them.

Hmm that one on Larry King´s show that she made a hit about the exact description of the dead person, and said even that in fact the person was planting two rosebushes the day he died and not one, like the caller said to Altea. Holy cow, I have to admit that the only natural explanation for this would be fraud! Altea may have set up with this person that if she manage to get her call on live, Altea would in fact produce this amazing hit, as arranged. I cannot believe that Altea is so skilled in fishing and cold reading. I cannot understand how cold-reading should be responsible for this specific hit. A pertinent question here is, whether Randi consider it a hit to his standards oir not. He stated that this was fishing for information, and that´s all he said. So we can pretty much conclude that if Altea was being on the million dollar show, and did produce this hit, he would have not face it as a hit, and so what could be a hit? Her guessing the exact name, middle name, blood-type, zenner card that the person had in his pocket, number of birthmarks in the left leg? Precise size of the foot? He could raise the stakes as he wish to disprove Altea´s hits, but would it be tenable and unbiased? Hardly.

I have to thank Claus for providing the transcripts for this segment.

But, wow, I have to say that I'm very disappointed that you consider this amazing evidence. You could hardly find a better example of cold reading.

Rosemary could get a general indication of age from her/his voice so could figure out that he was probably elderly when he died. Guessing that he was "slim" is unremarkable. Most people lose weight near the end of their life, and most could be described as "slim". Plus she worded it in a way that could easily be retrofitted to other interpretations - "slim" is vague enough that it could mean "small-boned" (underneath a fatter body), "thin", "average", "graceful", etc - or be applied to his appearance at any point while alive, depending upon how the caller answered. And even though she states that she asked no questions, she set it up so that the caller will answer her. By implying that she is not sure who she's talking to, the caller is going to tell her when she is right or when she is wrong in order to make sure that it's his/her father that is there. That makes it easy for Rosemary to just start talking, knowing that the caller will probably interrupt her if she says something that won't fit. So while technically Rosemary asked no questions, right away the caller has confirmed he was gaunt, had chest or breathing problems and died suddenly. "Chest" is always a good guess since almost every cause of death involves the lungs and heart (i.e. everybody dies because their heart and lungs stop) in the end, plus most proximate causes of death involve those organs. It's also in a nice central location, so it's relatively easy to broaden the "hit" to abdomen if the caller tells her she's wrong. After that the caller gives her a bunch more information. And everybody ignores the fact that Rosemary was wrong about his death. He had a problem with his heart, not his lungs.

Then we get to the rosebush. As Claus pointed out, all she said was that there were two rosebushes. The caller supplied the connection. If it had been a miss, Rosemary could have gone on to more guesses in the hopes of finding a hit, and the miss would have been forgotten.

So your amazing hit was a somewhat lucky guess surrounded by a few statements that were very likely to be true and one that was wrong, but ignored. And you can't see any way that this could happen unless it was set up in advance? And that Randi and I are unimpressed is evidence that we are so unreasonably biased that we refuse to see the obvious? And you don't see a vast chasm between the kind of very specific answers you suggested and the vague and obvious answers that she provided?

What's wrong with looking for the answers to those questions? If he can interact with Rosemary (he was obviously responding to the mention of rosebushes) why can't she ask him something that would be hard to guess?

But it did not happen did it? Speaking again of the experiments, I thought Hyman have agreed on the design and still the results were waaay higher than chance. So what is the complain about the results afterall?

They weren't reproduceable.

But you are speaking about fitting psi to any known theory or just accpeting some new phenomenon is going on even if it is unexplainable?

Partly that the result is more likely to be a false-positive than not. And if it is a real effect, there isn't anything that helps point in any particular direction (a variation of a known effect, a previously unrecognized effect that would fit within the pre-established framework, psi).

Like I said before, there is no and there will never be a flawless experiment. Even in the medical field. I guess the medical industtry in general do not work out every alternative explanation of the observed results in order to put something on the market. Another point is that I cannot spot whether they proved that the results are indistinguishable from what we might expected if we eliminate every possible flaw.

Yeah, it is difficult to perform flawless research in areas like medicine or parapsychology. But there are gradations. Most medical research involves control groups, so that's a big difference right there. I'm not talking about flawless research, just research that approaches the standards used in other fields.

So the placebo effect as being the effect of the patient just thinking of being treated with the medicine in fact producing minor healing is currently proved to be wrong and the apparent effect is due to experiment flaws and bias? I really want to know more about it, if you should explain it to me I would be happy.

That's not it at all. Placebo effect is a measure of "what was going to happen anyway", plus the influence on subjective perceptions (on the part of the researcher and the patient). The process of selecting patients to participate in a study also introduces several biases (e.g. lead-time bias, regression) that lead to differences between those given a placebo and those given nothing.

I still do not get it, if you are trying to say that in fact the other methods should also produce good results or not. Anyway if something was suceeded in that method they chose and that method is scientifically and statistically na acceptable one , it is the case of trying to disprove it by applying some others that produce dim or no results?

The other methods of analysis should also produce good results.

It is less persuasive if you only get significant results with one kind of analysis. It suggests your results are weak and may be due to methodologic error rather than a real effect.

Something still bothers me about the why none would review and publish their findings. If the flaws are so obvious why not bother to debunk it once and for all in a prestiged journal? I cannot see why not.

What makes you think it hasn't been done? That parapsychology research is generally ignored speaks to whether or not mainstream scientists have found any of it persuasive. And I think parapsychologists ignore what mainstream scientists say about parapsychology, dismissing them as not qualified to understand.

And criticisms do get published in parapsychology journals. But the underlying attitude seems to be "try to figure out a way to demonstrate the effect" working from a paranormal framework, rather than from a normal framework. So the perception of what kind of evidence is required is different.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I Now note -- I was arguing completely the contrary. You sated we had no proof for gravity. I said we had proof. Just because something is a theory does not make it potentially untrue. That is NOT what Creationists believe -- it is the exact opposite. I even explain later how this error occurs...

And you are falling for their choice of definitions not the way scientists define the terms.

So clearly, by definitions 1 and 5, used in Science, as stated above, a Theory is not something which is potentially true - it is a Model by which we understand the universe or a phenomenon. No Creationist would accept this, because it would mean the Theory of Evolution was as I believe it is a reliable model, and hence unfalsifiable.

So why on earth are you accusing me repeatedly of saying exactly the opposite of what I am actually saying? I just don't get it! I think you all "know" how paranormalists think, and read those words not the ones I am writing???

cj x

You are twisting definitions to the common ones instead of the specific scientific ones, just like they do.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Sloppy language irritates me as it obscures the issues. I had to resort to semantics to demonstrate why

"There is no evidence of the paranormal" is a demonstrably false assertion.
There is no proof of the paranormal. Don't use evidence as a synonym of "proof", and we have no argument.

Statistics? They can demonstrate things, like probability?

cj x

And why are you useing proof out side of its accepted proper mathmatical meanings? A supported theory is not proven, that is why people are more reluctant than you are to use the word proof. It is very sloppy language to say something is proven when it is just provisionaly accepted until something better comes around to better describe phenomena.