psychics

[Rodney]

The point Linda was making is that when skeptics like Wiseman attempt to replicate remote viewing or ganzfeld experiments, they obtain no significant results. When organizations or experimenters who are NOT skeptical to the phenomenon replicate the same experiments using the same (presumably) methodology, they sometimes obtain chance results, and sometimes obtain statistically significant results. In other words, the beliefs of the experimenter have been pretty tentatively shown to affect the outcome of the experiments - this is a HUGE problem in developing a theory of psi. If the experiments can only be sucessfully replicated by believers, then how do establish any sort of scientific commonality about the phenomenon?

How many remote viewing and ganzfeld experiments have skeptics like Wiseman attempted to replicate? I believe that the overwhelming majority of such experiments have been undertaken by parapsychologists who are open to the idea that psi is real. I know that Wiseman did undertake a staring experiment, but has he undertaken any remote viewing and ganzfeld experiments?

 

[cyborg]

Rodney: the openness/closedness of the experimenter should be irrelevant. A good experiment should strive to be impartial: robotic like if you will.

This is the point: we know that observer bias can have an effect as to the gathering of results so we should strive to remove it. As such the fact that 'better' results are gathered by those more 'open' to 'better' results is not a good thing.

 

[tsig]

There are still some puzzling aspects of psi research, but how do you explain the ganzfeld findings? If Carter is correct, even if only the 40 more recent ganzfeld studies are considered to be the true database, and the older studies where the hit rates were higher are simply ignored, the results are still statistically significant.

Any phenomena that can only be measured in the gaps of the statistics is not worth worrying about.

 

[Rodney]

Fair enough.. LOL

When will this take place?

Positive beliefs do not equal positive results.

Absolutely, but the ganzeld experiments have produced positive results vastly above the chance level.

Actually it's not a problem. Randi only test for hit rates that the applicant claims they can accomplish. He is not testing for effects of arbitrary size. It is the applicants responsibility to insure the protocol will effectively demonstrate their individual talent rather than an arbitrary sized non null result. It is a challenge, not a test for undefined effects.

So, if someone proposes a protocol wherein (s)he will produce 50.001% heads over tens of millions of flips of a fair coin (enough coin flips to attain statistical significance at the 0.000001 level), Randi would accept that protocol?

Perhaps, but what would be your attitude if such an approach failed to detect anything?

Depends on the protocol.

Ideally the protocol should be robust enough and locked behind the blinding procedure well enough that all sorts of ideas can be tested without compromising results. This would include adjusting sample set sizes (within reason and only predefined before the test), sensory deprivation, using only bleevers and/or exceptional testees, while supposedly mind altering tones are played, etc. Since I'm trying to allow it to be adapted to the greatest possible range of weird ideas I'm bogged down a little with correlations vs deviations like with the Global Consciousness Project.

I doubt if you can improve on the standard ganzfeld protocol, but if you can, bring it on.

 

[Rodney]

Rodney: the openness/closedness of the experimenter should be irrelevant. A good experiment should strive to be impartial: robotic like if you will.

This is the point: we know that observer bias can have an effect as to the gathering of results so we should strive to remove it. As such the fact that 'better' results are gathered by those more 'open' to 'better' results is not a good thing.

First, that doesn't answer my question, which was: "How many remote viewing and ganzfeld experiments have skeptics like Wiseman attempted to replicate?" Second, are you implying that Wiseman and Julie Milton are more "objective" than Daryl Bem, John Palmer, and Richard Broughton? If so, based on what evidence?

 

[Rodney]

Any phenomena that can only be measured in the gaps of the statistics is not worth worrying about.

So, if a 30% hit rate is achieved over thousands of trials where only a 25% hit rate would be expected by random chance, that's "in the gaps of the statistics"?

 

[cyborg]

First, that doesn't answer my question, which was: "How many remote viewing and ganzfeld experiments have skeptics like Wiseman attempted to replicate?"

That's because I don't know and wasn't trying to address that question.

Second, are you implying that Wiseman and Julie Milton are more "objective" than Daryl Bem, John Palmer, and Richard Broughton? If so, based on what evidence?

I find it ironic that you think I am trying to introduce bias after pointing out that it is important to remove bias.

I suggest you take the message as it is.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Welcome, Panchov!

My pet psychic tells me you need not fear going to hell.
And here she is, Molly.


<-------- Molly.

That's not a pet psychic, that's a psychic pet.

p.s. OMG, I have a dog named Molly, too! What ARE the odds?

 

[Rodney]

I find it ironic that you think I am trying to introduce bias after pointing out that it is important to remove bias.

You stated that "the fact that 'better' results are gathered by those more 'open' to 'better' results is not a good thing." I would suggest it is indeed a good thing if those individuals are truly 'open' and not biased either for psi or against it. In other words, if the open-minded individuals are getting the better results and those biased against psi are getting the worse results, score one point for psi. If, on the other hand, those biased for psi are getting the better results and those who are open-minded are getting the worse results, score one point against psi.

 

[cyborg]

You stated that "the fact that 'better' results are gathered by those more 'open' to 'better' results is not a good thing." I would suggest it is indeed a good thing if those individuals are truly 'open' and not biased either for psi or against it.

Tip for the day: if I quote a word like 'this' then I am tacitly invoking an understanding that using the word will convey meaning I don't want it to.

I.e. I am using the word 'open' to refer to 'open-mindedness' but I do not want to carry any usual meaning with that - I am merely referencing the self-placed labels.

Being 'open' to the 'possibility' is irrelevant: the objective is the dispassionate dissection of a phenomenal process for the purpose of abstraction.

In other words, if the open-minded individuals are getting the better results and those biased against psi are getting the worse results, score one point for psi.

No.

If, on the other hand, those biased for psi are getting the better results and those who are open-minded are getting the worse results, score one point against psi.

No.

Remove bias: do not confirm it.

 

[Rodney]

Remove bias: do not confirm it.

Fine. However: (1) I'm not sure how much of a problem bias actually is in remote viewing and ganzfeld experiments; and (2) In the staring experiments, it's unclear to me why different results were obtained.

 

[my_wan]

When will this take place?

Just stop by the house... LOL

Absolutely, but the ganzeld experiments have produced positive results vastly above the chance level.

Not even worth repeating...

So, if someone proposes a protocol wherein (s)he will produce 50.001% heads over tens of millions of flips of a fair coin (enough coin flips to attain statistical significance at the 0.000001 level), Randi would accept that protocol?

That's not a protocol that is a claim. Yes you could define a protocol that Randi would accept at that level of effect. Randi even offered it to the Princeton PEAR group.

Depends on the protocol.

Well duh... but then your impressed with ganzfeld.

I doubt if you can improve on the standard ganzfeld protocol, but if you can, bring it on.

How could you not improve it. It's the people you must place controls on the most.

Since you have failed to respond to the actions I posted about May or how similar issues must have been avoided in later experiments I'll bow out of this thread for now.

 

[Apology]

I remember thinking I might be psychic before I got my first computer. It had a simple little program that let you test your precognition. Everyone failed, even the people who thought they were psychic. All it did was let you choose one of four cards, circle, square, star, and wave, and register your predictions for a run of 25 cards. It then scored your hits and calculated your percentage of correctness. For a full test, you repeated this process 10 times.

It was possible to have single-run scores slightly higher than chance, but after 10 runs of 25 any gains you'd made would average out to chance or worse. Everyone was hot to try out the computer and this was one of the few free programs that came in the box with it. For such a boring pursuit, it really got a lot of use. I noted that a lot of people who thought they were psychic would be jubilant when they got a single run above chance, and they seemed to find excuses for all the runs they had that were below chance.

Eventually we had to eliminate the computer from the loop entirely, as the last few die-hard fans suspected it was cheating them somehow. We used the same symbols on flash cards and dealt as directed. No one's score improved at all. The computer's calculations had been correct, of course.

Bias, Rodney, must be removed from every valid experiment. It is bias that allows a person to crow over small gains, discount losses, and fail a test of psychic ability yet still walk away claiming to be a psychic.

 

[Rodney]

Since you have failed to respond to the actions I posted about May or how similar issues must have been avoided in later experiments I'll bow out of this thread for now.

I responded in post #88, but don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I remember thinking I might be psychic before I got my first computer. It had a simple little program that let you test your precognition. Everyone failed, even the people who thought they were psychic. All it did was let you choose one of four cards, circle, square, star, and wave, and register your predictions for a run of 25 cards. It then scored your hits and calculated your percentage of correctness. For a full test, you repeated this process 10 times.

It was possible to have single-run scores slightly higher than chance, but after 10 runs of 25 any gains you'd made would average out to chance or worse. Everyone was hot to try out the computer and this was one of the few free programs that came in the box with it. For such a boring pursuit, it really got a lot of use. I noted that a lot of people who thought they were psychic would be jubilant when they got a single run above chance, and they seemed to find excuses for all the runs they had that were below chance.

Eventually we had to eliminate the computer from the loop entirely, as the last few die-hard fans suspected it was cheating them somehow. We used the same symbols on flash cards and dealt as directed. No one's score improved at all. The computer's calculations had been correct, of course.

Bias, Rodney, must be removed from every valid experiment. It is bias that allows a person to crow over small gains, discount losses, and fail a test of psychic ability yet still walk away claiming to be a psychic.

J B Rhine had this problem too. He would find a good prescient subject and continue testing him/her. The results of the additional tests tended toward chance. If you bundle together all your tests of "good" subjects (who you continue testing for a time) and "bad" subjects (who you stop testing immediately) you will get an average result slightly above chance. These numbers improve a bit more if you throw away the results of your really "bad" subjects because you believe they are failing deliberately to trick you. Thus we have the proof that psi exists, but the effect is quite small. Now where have I heard that before?

 

[Rodney]

J B Rhine had this problem too. He would find a good prescient subject and continue testing him/her. The results of the additional tests tended toward chance. If you bundle together all your tests of "good" subjects (who you continue testing for a time) and "bad" subjects (who you stop testing immediately) you will get an average result slightly above chance. These numbers improve a bit more if you throw away the results of your really "bad" subjects because you believe they are failing deliberately to trick you. Thus we have the proof that psi exists, but the effect is quite small. Now where have I heard that before?

Probably from someone on this forum, since no reputable parapsychologist operates in that manner.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Probably from someone on this forum, since no reputable parapsychologist operates in that manner.

OK. So that's the end of any discussion of Rhine's data then.

 

[Rodney]

OK. So that's the end of any discussion of Rhine's data then.

From where are you getting your information? Parapsychologist Charles Honorton reviewed 33 Rhine experiments and found that 27 produced statistically significant results. See Chris Carter, Parapsychology and the Skeptics, p. 41.

 

[Jeff Corey]

J B Rhine had this problem too. He would find a good prescient subject and continue testing him/her. The results of the additional tests tended toward chance. If you bundle together all your tests of "good" subjects (who you continue testing for a time) and "bad" subjects (who you stop testing immediately) you will get an average result slightly above chance. These numbers improve a bit more if you throw away the results of your really "bad" subjects because you believe they are failing deliberately to trick you. Thus we have the proof that psi exists, but the effect is quite small. Now where have I heard that before?

Rhine called the later poor performance of the originally "gifted" the decline effect, something that statisticians call statistical regression to the mean.
Tossing the bad results into a file drawer because they are trying to wreck your study is variously called the file drawer effect, cherry picking or data mining.
As Ray Hyman pointed out many times, Rhine taught us a lot about how not to do experiments. Too bad the later parapsychologists learned nothing from history.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

From where are you getting your information? Parapsychologist Charles Honorton reviewed 33 Rhine experiments and found that 27 produced statistically significant results. See Chris Carter, Parapsychology and the Skeptics, p. 41.

Mostly from my copy of Parapsychology - Frontier Science of the Mind, J B Rhine and J G Pratt, (c) Charles C Thomas Publisher, 1957. See the Table on Page 49, for example. And subsequent readings.