The Rosenheim Case

[Cuddles]

Well, it shows that this situation was dramatically altered by protocols established by a professional magician, and is at least one datapoint to consider when evaluating the credibility of that hypothesis.

No, it shows that this situation was dramatically altered by protocols established by an unbiased party.

The reason Randi had the hypothesis to test in the first place, is that there are other examples from a century and a half of investigation that seemed to be very dependent on magicians' involvement.

Again, no. There are other examples that seem to be very dependent on good controls and protocols. The fact that magicians are often the ones interested in doing so is not evidence that their being magicians is in any way relevant.

Even a layperson like myself who is advancing protocols for testing the paranormal cannot draw on my scientific background, but has to examine the body of work established by paranormal investigators in the past. With very few exceptions, the field's succesful techniques were developed by magicians.

Bollocks. If you can't come up with sensible controls without looking at past magicians work, then that simply means you are not someone who should be trying to come up with sensible controls for those experiments. You don't even need any scientific experience for most of them, the controls for things like dowsing tests, for example, require nothing more than a very small amount of common sense. The fact that magicians have used the same controls in the past is irrelevant.

You say bias; I say experience.

I believe that the hypothesis is far from 'completely unsupported'.

So where is the experience? Where is the support? As you explained yourself in your last post, Project Alpha shows that controls are needed. It says nothing at all about magicians.

I would argue that the existence of Gellar and his equivalent are actually a stronger argument that magicians would be required. "It takes a thief," as they say.

Which completely misses the point. If magicians are so much better than everyone else at conducting tests, why are there so many woos among magicians? And if you're reduced to using unsupported sayings as the best support for your claims, your argument's even weaker than I expected.

Specifically, the presence of a magician as test subject dramatically increases the need for a magician as observer.

Simply repeating this will not make it any more true.

My impression is that you're arguing about absolute proof, which is not part of any scientific test that I'm aware of.[/'quote]

Your impression is wrong. At no point have I said anything about absolute proof or implied anything about it in any way.

I'm arguing from practicality and probability. By analogy, you don't absolutely need a brain surgeon to perform your brain surgery; but engaging a well-read amateur (in the literal sense of the word) is less likely to produce satisfactory results.

Very bad analogy. If you wanted it to be at all accurate, you would be making a case that scientists are the ones who should be consulted, not magicians. After all, they're the ones who have actual training in science and experimentation, whereas magicians are generally simply well read (or not so well read) amateurs.

(sigh) argument from authority is not a logical fallacy. (you're thinking of argument from questionable authority)

Identification of who is - and is not - a questionable authority is an essential skill for skeptics.

Sigh. That's exactly what I was referring to. Argument from questionable authority is usually simply referred to as argument from authority. however, you may be correct that Randi is not actually making an argument from authority. He's actually doing the exact opposite. Rather than saying that magicians are authorities, he instead says that no-one apart from a magician can possibly be an authority. I don't know if there's a name for this fallacy, I suppose it would be along the lines of "argument from falsely excluded authority". Randi is not necessarily wrong that his choices are not competent, he is wrong in claiming that no-one else is.

Randi has specifically addressed this accusation in essays and letters to editors over the past - oh - forty years. At any time, he specifically lists whom he believes to be an acceptable magician for these tasks, and I believe he has even recently removed himself from this list due to retirement.

Specifically, James Randi does not just advocate the participation of any old magician - he specifically identifies a qualified subset called "magicians' magicians." Many of these are not people who have stage acts. They are the people who design and build acts for other magicians. Their expertise is the intersection between the psychology of deception and self-deception, the tricks accumulated through history, and the engineering experience to recognize what kind of equipment could be employed, much of which may be unavailable to a layperson or even many professional magicians.

Which is exactly what I have been arguing is silly. If Randi really is claiming that there are only a few magicians, and no-one else, in the whole world that are capable of designing a decent protocol then it is even worse than I thought.

As for this:

There are rarely more than five people on these lists.

given that you earlier said:

investigations that exclude such participants are not very reliable.

That's just plain stupid. Are you seriously trying to argue that any experiment done without the involvement of one of five people out of the entire world will not be reliable? There's an awful lot of science we're going to have throw out if that's the case.

Edit: Incidentally, if you are correct that Randi does not include himself on the list, you must be arging that the JREF challenge is not a reliable test. Are you sure about that?

 

[blutoski]

No, it shows that this situation was dramatically altered by protocols established by an unbiased party.

It sounds like you're saying Randi is an unbiased party. I thought your accusation above was that he was too biased. I'm confused.

Again, no. There are other examples that seem to be very dependent on good controls and protocols. The fact that magicians are often the ones interested in doing so is not evidence that their being magicians is in any way relevant.

My claim is that most successful protocols were hashed out with the assistance of magicians. This goes back 150 years, including some major progress at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century when Houdini got involved in testing mediums. Many of the testing protocols derive from this era.

Bollocks. If you can't come up with sensible controls without looking at past magicians work, then that simply means you are not someone who should be trying to come up with sensible controls for those experiments. You don't even need any scientific experience for most of them, the controls for things like dowsing tests, for example, require nothing more than a very small amount of common sense. The fact that magicians have used the same controls in the past is irrelevant.

I don't think this contradicts my claim that magician input is a necessary but insufficient condition. In the real-world testing, unfortunately, I further argue that because magic is a developing technology, old protocols may no longer be valid. Consider especially how an early 20th century protocol would simply be unable to guard against the potential of WiFi-based cheating a la 21.

So where is the experience? Where is the support? As you explained yourself in your last post, Project Alpha shows that controls are needed. It says nothing at all about magicians.

I think there's a major disconnect. The controls were proposed by James Randi himself. If not for his involvement, it's likely that the professionals involved would not have been able to concoct suitable controls. Their objections and rationale for omitting these protocols were duly noted in their own research.

Which completely misses the point. If magicians are so much better than everyone else at conducting tests, why are there so many woos among magicians? And if you're reduced to using unsupported sayings as the best support for your claims, your argument's even weaker than I expected.

Eh? Again: I distinguish between the magicians who are qualified to debunk and those that are not. I have never advocated just picking up the phonebook and roping in a random magician to hover during experiments. I have specifically emphasized that there are specific skills involved and as it happens these skills are not found outside of magic. This is because magic is a secretive profession and outsiders simply do not have access.

Simply repeating this will not make it any more true.

Just trying to clarify. I write responses for the forum, not for you.

Sigh. That's exactly what I was referring to. Argument from questionable authority is usually simply referred to as argument from authority.

By people who don't know better. It's a common mistake, and very popular among pseudoskeptics. Argument from authority is actually a formal argument format, along with argument from contradiction &c. There are criteria, which if fulfilled, legitemize the argument.

It's debatable that the critieria can be fulfilled in the case of magic, but I think it can. Specifically, the criteria that states there needs to be an actual field of study called magic.

however, you may be correct that Randi is not actually making an argument from authority. He's actually doing the exact opposite. Rather than saying that magicians are authorities, he instead says that no-one apart from a magician can possibly be an authority. I don't know if there's a name for this fallacy, I suppose it would be along the lines of "argument from falsely excluded authority". Randi is not necessarily wrong that his choices are not competent, he is wrong in claiming that no-one else is.

I think your thinking is muddled on this issue. Randi is making an argument from authority. He believes that magic is a field of study, that there is a community of magicians who can evaluate their membership for authoritativeness, and that they have identified these people.

Which is exactly what I have been arguing is silly. If Randi really is claiming that there are only a few magicians, and no-one else, in the whole world that are capable of designing a decent protocol then it is even worse than I thought.

"It" is worse than you thought. I don't understand that. What is "it"?

That's just plain stupid. Are you seriously trying to argue that any experiment done without the involvement of one of five people out of the entire world will not be reliable? There's an awful lot of science we're going to have throw out if that's the case.

Science? No. Pseudoscience? Yes.

(But that's the common skeptical position on paranormal research, right? ei: most of it needs to be thrown out.)

I think the reasoning goes something like this:

1. Reliability is a gradient, especially when humans are the subject matter. The involvement of magicians' magicians in protocol establishment and monitoring increases reliability.

2. extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

3. Combining #1 and #2, it is argued by many skeptics that the involvement of magicians' magicians elevates ordinary evidence into extraordinary evidence. In order to basically toss out the laws of physics, the more reliability the better, and for many skeptics the threshold of acceptance is to see said involvement.

Edit: Incidentally, if you are correct that Randi does not include himself on the list, you must be arging that the JREF challenge is not a reliable test. Are you sure about that?

Yes, I'm sure about that. The JREF Challenge protocols and experiments never involve James Randi personally (applicants can request his presence, but it would be as just another audience observer), and this is something he has pointed out on many occasions. Mostly in response to the claim that there's no point in participating in the challenge because Randi will just interfere. In general, he's not going to be involved. The JREF will attempt to obtain the appropriate people, as required by the specifics of the claim, and as agreed upon by all participants.

 

[blutoski]

That doesn't quite fit the picture of Randi that I know (well, through internet anyways). I don't think his position is quite as strict as you still put it. I will look into it.

Well, there's really two questions: what does Randi think about this right now - which is resolved by asking him - and secondly, do we agree with Randi on this issue, which is a reasonable debate that would require participants to support their views.

 

[Kuko 4000]

That doesn't quite fit the picture of Randi that I know (well, through internet anyways). I don't think his position is quite as strict as you still put it. I will look into it.

Well, there's really two questions: what does Randi think about this right now - which is resolved by asking him - and secondly, do we agree with Randi on this issue, which is a reasonable debate that would require participants to support their views.

I would be interested in knowing Randi's position and reasoning here, if only to offer some perspective I might not have considered before. We could try to define our own positions about this clearly and briefly and quote these in a single e-mail post to illustrate the issue and ask Randi for his own position. Just an idea.

My view is that in testing of the paranormal (where magic tricks and other distractions have always been in heavy use), proper magicians will save a lot of time and effort from the proper scientists simply because the proper magicians can immediately recognize tricks, or variations of the tricks, in question. I also think that this saves enough time and effort to include a magician in the roster.

For me to think that a proper magician is NECESSARY would require someone giving me an example of a magic trick that would fool proper scientists in a setting that they have full freedom of controlling. I should add that I don't think that I have the experience nor the knowledge to define "proper" in either of the professions. I would just have to trust the general consensus inside their own fields for that.

 

[Kuko 4000]

To keep the discussion closer to the OP, Lusikka, do you understand the point regarding the quality of the evidence?

For me it seems that if you think this is good evidence, enough to make you believe in it, I bet we could find a lot of stuff you would logically have to believe in as well, but for some reason, you don't.

 

[blutoski]

I would be interested in knowing Randi's position and reasoning here, if only to offer some perspective I might not have considered before. We could try to define our own positions about this clearly and briefly and quote these in a single e-mail post to illustrate the issue and ask Randi for his own position. Just an idea.

Why don't I locate one of his essays on the subject, first, and post an excerpt here from the relevant parts?

Let me take a few minutes to hit my library this afternoon, and I'll post a reference and excerpt here. It might shed some light on Randi's thinking. Also: I might luck out and find one that's public domain online, and we won't be limited to an excerpt.

My view is that in testing of the paranormal (where magic tricks and other distractions have always been in heavy use), proper magicians will save a lot of time and effort from the proper scientists simply because the proper magicians can immediately recognize tricks, or variations of the tricks, in question. I also think that this saves enough time and effort to include a magician in the roster.

For me to think that a proper magician is NECESSARY would require someone giving me an example of a magic trick that would fool proper scientists in a setting that they have full freedom of controlling. I should add that I don't think that I have the experience nor the knowledge to define "proper" in either of the professions. I would just have to trust the general consensus inside their own fields for that.

I think we're mostly in agreement, and the quibble is about "necessary for what?" My thoughts are that it's not necessary for hobbyists working in their spare time, or obviously for exploratory exercises such as inventing entirely new things to test for, but as soon as we're trying to identify unambiguous paranormal activity, and if we want to get credibility with the scientific community, the participation of elite magicians is a necessary component.

So, there are two reasons for this:

1. The establishment of a paranormal event is very much by deduction - we need to eliminate all possible normal explanations. This isn't really feasible, so we must settle for eliminating as many normal explanations as we can think of. Conventional scientific controls are insufficient, because scientists are not controlling for confounding in the natural sciences. There is a bit of it in medicine, and a lot more in psychology. But the nature of the confounding in these fields does not look like conjuring, whereas the nature of confounding in the paranormal looks exactly like conjuring.

2. A scientist who is aware of this may be very competent and do as much as he can to mitigate the risks of which he is aware. However, the secretive nature of conjuring and the constant development of new techniques means that even the best amateur will be woefully unaware of most advanced tricks, and many simple ones, too.

One of the frustrating things about engaging a conjurer in terms of metaphysics is that while they can often confirm that the demonstration was a conjuring trick, they may not actually expose the method. Although they may demonstrate it repeatedly. Randi and Hyman have often witheld technique explanations for years, revealing them maybe 10, 20 years later, in order to protect their magicians' magician peers from losing control of a profitable trade secret.



Aside from the role of the conjuror... there's also the issue of independent replication, and frankly, there's also something to be said for token skeptic attendance. Shyness Effect has two interpretations: the presence of a doubter dampens paranormal powers; the presence of a doubter keeps paranormalists honest.

Hyman has often attended so-called controlled experiments only to observe that the protocols that look so impressive on paper are simply not present. One example from the 1970s being when Gellar was receiving telepathic information from a sender in another room. The protocol was for sealed rooms. Obviously. But, not only were all the doors open, and everybody could hear each other, including Gellar, but there were constant visitors, fans, and observers moving from room to room. There was no clear definition of what was a real versus trial run, so bad results were retconned into trial runs. And so on. His exact words for these two allegedly sealed rooms: "Open cages at a monkey house."

 

[blutoski]

Why don't I locate one of his essays on the subject, first, and post an excerpt here from the relevant parts?

Let me take a few minutes to hit my library this afternoon, and I'll post a reference and excerpt here. It might shed some light on Randi's thinking. Also: I might luck out and find one that's public domain online, and we won't be limited to an excerpt.

Here we go:

• The Role of Conjurers in Psi Research, in A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology
• Magicians in the Psi Lab: Many Misperceptions, in A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology

This Book at Amazon: [A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology]

Excerpt:

As a professional conjurer for many decades, I can tell you that there are three general classes of persons associated with my calling. They are: (1) amateur conjurers, (2) people who do tricks very, very wel, and (3) master conjurers. [...]
The third class I have designated above - the Master Conjurers - are such persons as Dai Vernon, Charles Reynolds, Jay Marshall, Fr. Cyprian, Mel Stover and perhaps a few others you have never heard of [...] They, and they alone, are qualified to serve as advisors to responsible parapsychologists who earnestly wish to impose strict controls over their subjects. I am proud to know that many of those in my profession include me with Conjurers of the Third Kind.

 

[Lusikka]

To keep the discussion closer to the OP, Lusikka, do you understand the point regarding the quality of the evidence?

I am very much afraid of being wrong. Therefore I base all my opinions on evidence and only on evidence. The quality of evidence is naturally very important. What point do you mean?

For me it seems that if you think this is good evidence, enough to make you believe in it, I bet we could find a lot of stuff you would logically have to believe in as well, but for some reason, you don't.

Yes, I have been amused in reading your guesses and speculations. You have still much to learn about me if these discussions can continue any longer time. You have certainly heard about constructing a straw-man?

 

[Lusikka]

I have followed interested your discussion about magicians helping parapsychologists to use stringent controls in their testing. I agree that parapsycologists have been foolish in many situations and made mistakes in their planning of the tests. This especially in the metal-bending testing. Metallurgists would have been much better than physicists in planning the tests.

In my opinion parapsychologists ought to seek always the best experts in different fields of science (and including magicians) to help in planning of the research and writing the papers, and too often that has not been the case.

On the other hand scientists can have such instrumentation and built-in controls that magicians are not able to use and invent. For example, John Hasted had strain-gauges attached in metal pieces to measure stresses in the pieces. He got rather good results when the chart recorder showed spikes and curves at the same time when he could see the piece bend.

BTW, the book written by Hasted can be read online here:
https://willow2.internetsecuresite.com/uri-geller/books/metal-benders/h.htm

Randi is an opposite to scientists. His style of writing is such that it is very difficult to know what really has happened when he tells about it. And he is not very bright in understanding parapsychology, either. For example he has said about psi-missing: "Yes, the 'theories' may be doing just that, Captain Mitchell, but we common folk have long ago decided what it is all about. We call it losing". (The Truth About Uri Geller, 1975, p. 115-116). What a disaster to parapsychology if somebody gives a wrong guess time after time a hundred times in coin tossing!

 

[Lusikka]

My view is that in testing of the paranormal (where magic tricks and other distractions have always been in heavy use), proper magicians will save a lot of time and effort from the proper scientists simply because the proper magicians can immediately recognize tricks, or variations of the tricks, in question. I also think that this saves enough time and effort to include a magician in the roster.

If the use has been heavy, then you can certainly give at least five papers where tricks and other distractions have been used and skeptics have disclosed it.

 

[Lusikka]

There is no 'version' of the case: its documentation is not a matter of opinion. My 1995 edition of How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking For A New Age says that the McDonnell grant is $500k. It's possible that there was a typo in McClenon's copy. I am unaware of any skeptic who has said anything other than the lab's McDonnell funding being $500k, and that includes James Randi and Martin Gardner. I consider the skeptics' information accurate in this regard, and I would challenge you to locate such claims by these authors if you are going to generalize their version as erroneous in this detail.

It may be as Foolmewunz has said: "This guy could be an introductory textbook in illogic!". But after all I am wondering your logic here. What are those different articles about the Project Alpha if not "versions" of the case? There are different details chosen in them, the texts are colored differently and so on.

It is fine that you have checked in the book you have. I checked the McClenon's article and really, the $5M is not a direct quote. But he has the text "probably the best funded psychical laboratory in the world" inside quotation marks. Is that text in your copy of the book?

I have myself read rather many texts written by Randi and Gardner. I have found many cases of distorted information and direct lies in them. If you are interested, so I perhaps can prepare a short list of some cases.

 

[blutoski]

I have followed interested your discussion about magicians helping parapsychologists to use stringent controls in their testing. I agree that parapsycologists have been foolish in many situations and made mistakes in their planning of the tests. This especially in the metal-bending testing. Metallurgists would have been much better than physicists in planning the tests.

The argument is not that conjurors exclude scientific experts, but that they work with them. Consider Randi's exposure of Benveniste: he engaged immunologists to vet the validity of the scientific testing in addition to his own suggestions for better management of the double-blinding.

In my opinion parapsychologists ought to seek always the best experts in different fields of science (and including magicians) to help in planning of the research and writing the papers, and too often that has not been the case.

Nobody's suggesting otherwise that I've read here.

On the other hand scientists can have such instrumentation and built-in controls that magicians are not able to use and invent. For example, John Hasted had strain-gauges attached in metal pieces to measure stresses in the pieces. He got rather good results when the chart recorder showed spikes and curves at the same time when he could see the piece bend.

BTW, the book written by Hasted can be read online here:
https://willow2.internetsecuresite.com/uri-geller/books/metal-benders/h.htm

Mm. How did he mitigate for cheating? (ie: were collaborators such as Shipi present?) What sort of independent observation was engaged to ensure that the book represents what actually happened?

Randi is an opposite to scientists. His style of writing is such that it is very difficult to know what really has happened when he tells about it. And he is not very bright in understanding parapsychology, either. For example he has said about psi-missing: "Yes, the 'theories' may be doing just that, Captain Mitchell, but we common folk have long ago decided what it is all about. We call it losing". (The Truth About Uri Geller, 1975, p. 115-116). What a disaster to parapsychology if somebody gives a wrong guess time after time a hundred times in coin tossing!

Randi has discussed psi-missing many times, and has demonstrated that he understands the parapsychologists' explanation accurately. He just doesn't buy it, is all - he believes the participant in question was cheating and it backfired.

 

[blutoski]

It may be as Foolmewunz has said: "This guy could be an introductory textbook in illogic!". But after all I am wondering your logic here. What are those different articles about the Project Alpha if not "versions" of the case? There are different details chosen in them, the texts are colored differently and so on.

It is fine that you have checked in the book you have. I checked the McClenon's article and really, the $5M is not a direct quote. But he has the text "probably the best funded psychical laboratory in the world" inside quotation marks. Is that text in your copy of the book?

Yes. As it is, I am unaware of a better funded contemporary project, with the probable but unverifiable exception of military research in the US and USSR. Dollar values are difficult to calculate for these, but USD$500,000 was quite a lot of money for paranormal research at the time, and appears unprecedented.

McClenon was probably on the level: the $5M nonquote conjoined with the direct quote from a passage is understandable, as there is a footnote. The estmite is an error, but I suspect it was an editing failure: it was supposed to be phrased to be a modern equivalent dollar value at the time of publication, based on inflation, which just confused what should have been a straightforward footnote reporting the actual $500k value.

The McDonnell grant still appears very large compared to other projects. Templeton is USD$2M right now, which makes it a fifth the size of an inflation-adjusted McDonnell grant, based on CPI.

I have myself read rather many texts written by Randi and Gardner. I have found many cases of distorted information and direct lies in them. If you are interested, so I perhaps can prepare a short list of some cases.

No, since these have been hashed out over decades and most simply end up at he said/she said, which resolves little.

What I look forward to is modern experimenters actually learning from history instead of living in history; doing something more productive than fishing around in cold files and hoping the lack of details about controls are unimportant. I want to run proper trials with credible observers today. Here. Now. Enter, MDC.

But strangely, nobody's interested! (I guess a million dollars isn't what it used to be)

We've had a dowser who agreed to be tested screw around with us for two years now.

 

[Lusikka]

Randi: "Yes, the 'theories' may be doing just that, Captain Mitchell, but we common folk have long ago decided what it is all about. We call it losing". (The Truth About Uri Geller, 1975, p. 115-116).

Randi has discussed psi-missing many times, and has demonstrated that he understands the parapsychologists' explanation accurately. He just doesn't buy it, is all - he believes the participant in question was cheating and it backfired.

In my opinion words must have some limits in significance after all. But if you think "losing" is the same thing as "cheating", so it is OK. We fortunately live in free countries and interpretation is also free.

 

[Kuko 4000]

I am very much afraid of being wrong. Therefore I base all my opinions on evidence and only on evidence. The quality of evidence is naturally very important. What point do you mean?

The point was that it is possible to have everything from very weak and bad evidence to very strong evidence. You say that you understand this, yet you claim that the Rosenheim case is "for all practical purposes, a genuine case of psi-phenomenon". This suggests to me that your criteria for what is good evidence is very low and that logically you would also have to believe in many other things that, for one reason or other, I don't think you do believe.

Yes, I have been amused in reading your guesses and speculations. You have still much to learn about me if these discussions can continue any longer time. You have certainly heard about constructing a straw-man?

I was suggesting that if your criteria for evidence is this low, logically, you would have to believe in many others things as well, such as homeopathy, which I don't think you do believe going by our MSN discussions. So, can you point me to the straw man argument that you implied I was constructing? I can't see it.

If the use has been heavy, then you can certainly give at least five papers where tricks and other distractions have been used and skeptics have disclosed it.

I don't know about papers, but off the top of my head, big or familiar faces who are clearly using tricks and other distractions in the field of parapsychology (ranging from contacting spirits, to healing and psychokinesis):

Uri Geller
Peter Popoff
John of God
James Hydrick
Derek Acorah

Now, can you point me to any genuine cases of paranormal abilities that have been properly tested and repeated by other researchers? In this case it is enough to define "proper" so that I, let alone others (who are more experienced and able) in this forum, cannot find any obvious problems in the protocol. I think it's best that you start from your best case. I can open another thread about it. Thanks in advance.

 

[blutoski]

Randi: "Yes, the 'theories' may be doing just that, Captain Mitchell, but we common folk have long ago decided what it is all about. We call it losing". (The Truth About Uri Geller, 1975, p. 115-116).



In my opinion words must have some limits in significance after all. But if you think "losing" is the same thing as "cheating", so it is OK. We fortunately live in free countries and interpretation is also free.

Again: hey, why assume these are mutually exclusive evaluations? The example's probably losing by definition if the challenge required hits and a string of misses was obtained. It could also be cheating, but that's undetermined without further information.

While above I did say that natural science approaches do not necessarily map 100% to paranormal research, there are related investigative areas such as medicine and psychology where we have models we can probably adapt.

Specifically, in medicine we think very poorly of researchers who do ad hoc or overlapping hypotheses. For example, a piece of research that wants to prove that drug x 'works' has to define 'works' in advance. ie: endpoints. The statistics become much easier to overcome if you decide that success is defined as meeting any of a list of endpoints versus just one.

One problem with psi-absent is that it's a post-hoc analysis that - when accepted - is a much lower hurdle than it appears. We don't allow it in medicine or psychology. (not that it doesn't happen - but that's the definition of a quack in my field, so why shouldn't the standard be shared by psi researchers?)

 

[Lusikka]

Thanks, Kuko 4000, for your good comments.

The point was that it is possible to have everything from very weak and bad evidence to very strong evidence. You say that you understand this, yet you claim that the Rosenheim case is "for all practical purposes, a genuine case of psi-phenomenon". This suggests to me that your criteria for what is good evidence is very low and that logically you would also have to believe in many other things that, for one reason or other, I don't think you do believe.

Yes, I understand that point. My opinion has not changed here, because for the first I know the totality of Rosenheim case much better than you here and for the second I know much more about the background material concerning poltergeist phenomena. There is really in Rosenheim plenty of evidence of different kinds of phenomena that have remained unexplained, although there were many kinds of expert investigators working as a team. There are also physical records of the phenomena. Your only "explanation" is tricks without practically no evidence supporting that opinion.

I was suggesting that if your criteria for evidence is this low, logically, you would have to believe in many others things as well, such as homeopathy, which I don't think you do believe going by our MSN discussions. So, can you point me to the straw man argument that you implied I was constructing? I can't see it.

You have very little background to try to grasp my opinions. Therefore you are urged to have only guesses without evidence. It must be a straw man when you let everybody understand that I am a gullible believer.

I don't know about papers, but off the top of my head, big or familiar faces who are clearly using tricks and other distractions in the field of parapsychology (ranging from contacting spirits, to healing and psychokinesis):

Uri Geller
Peter Popoff
John of God
James Hydrick
Derek Acorah

That quote reveals two points that are a result of your reading only skeptical sources – uncritically – and discussing only with New Agers outside the skeptical context:
1. You did not understand my question. I asked just only for such papers where parapsychologists think they have succeeded to get significant test results, and skeptics have been able to show – based on evidence and not only on suspicion – that the test subjects have used tricks. Because you said the tricks are so common in the tests.
2. You don't know what parapsychology is as a science. As far as I know, only Uri Geller has been a subject in tests that have resulted in two papers in peer reviewed journals. The rest of those persons are only public performers that have very little to do with parapsychology. I happened to find the following information concerning James Hydrick when I checked the persons:
"The judging panel (which included a parapsychologist) stated that, in their opinion, no supernatural phenomenon had taken place."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hydrick

Now, can you point me to any genuine cases of paranormal abilities that have been properly tested and repeated by other researchers? In this case it is enough to define "proper" so that I, let alone others (who are more experienced and able) in this forum, cannot find any obvious problems in the protocol. I think it's best that you start from your best case. I can open another thread about it. Thanks in advance.

You are nearly always after only special paranormal abilities. There is immense quantity of papers with unselected subjects giving significant results, although the effect size has been low. Well, that must be only because of tricks, sloppy controls and statistical peculiarities, I guess.

"Properly tested" means that the tests done by parapsychologists are not counted because every parapsychologist is only a gullible fool? "Other researchers" must be skeptics because only they are knowledgeable, objective and without preconceived ideas? Unfortunately such repeated tests are extremely rare because skeptics don't do parapsychological testing.

There is not one single parapsychological paper without at least suspected problems in the protocol. The utmost suspicion is that all parapsychologists are members in a huge and long lasting parapsychological conspiracy. The results in parapsychology are convincing only when the totality of the field is taken in account.

There have been a few subjects with observed special paranormal abilities in the history of parapsychology. At the moment I remember only Ingo Swann, Ted Serios and possibly Joe McMoneagle. The poltergeist agents are certainly also special persons. But I will not say more now because I have forgot much and I ought to review my journals to get a better look at the problem.

 

[Lusikka]

Parapsychologist George P. Hansen has written about deception by subjects. Gullible and foolish or a liar?

http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/DeceptionBySubjects.html

 

[Lusikka]

My avatar

My avatar is a strong steel dessert spoon bent by a 9-year old boy in 1974. He held the bowl of the spoon with left hand and rubbed lightly the bend area between thumb and index finger of the right hand. The bending was accomplished in about ten minutes by holding the spoon all the time over a table surface, totally well visible for five adults standing around the sitting boy. "Lusikka" is Finnish and means spoon.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Parapsychologist George P. Hansen has written about deception by subjects. Gullible and foolish or a liar?

http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/DeceptionBySubjects.html

A very interesting and useful article. It should be read carefully by every proponent of the reality of psi -- but unfortunately won't be.