Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, the discussion.

[fls]

That's a pretty damn poor response.

"Most of psychology" provides evidence for remote viewing?

I read that differently. I thought he was saying that most of psychology demonstrates that different claims require different levels of evidence.

Linda

 

[Ashles]

You guys don't think he can remote view, do you? What if he can? Oh no! He'll be watching me all day!

. Aaand two posts in and Anita's talking about herself...

 

[Ashles]

I read that differently. I thought he was saying that most of psychology demonstrates that different claims require different levels of evidence.

Linda

But I thought from this:

yes, it is different standards for different types of claims
so, a normal scientific claims requires a certain level of proof, but a paranormal one requires a higher level

I was a bit surprised by this, and then again asked for some studies that could convince me of all this and his reply was:

it was in a direct response to paranormal claims.

Maybe we are reading this wrong, I certainly hope so.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Two posts and Ashles is talking about me.

 

[Ashles]

Two posts and Ashles is talking about me.

Just start another thread if you want to talk about yourself.

I won't refer to you again in this thread.

 

[fls]

I read that differently. I thought he was saying that most of psychology demonstrates that different claims require different levels of evidence.

Linda

But I thought from this:

yes, it is different standards for different types of claims
so, a normal scientific claims requires a certain level of proof, but a paranormal one requires a higher level

I was a bit surprised by this, and then again asked for some studies that could convince me of all this and his reply was:

it was in a direct response to paranormal claims.

I thought the "all this" in bold was referring to extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Kuko could clear this up for us in about 2 seconds, but where's the fun in that?

Linda

 

[Ashles]

I thought the "all this" in bold was referring to extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Kuko could clear this up for us in about 2 seconds, but where's the fun in that?

 

[EHocking]

...The article that this quote is from is, in my opinion, full of crap, but anyways:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-510762/Could-proof-theory-ALL-psychic.html...

Certainly the "science" being performed is rubbish as well, especially if this is Dr.Roe's best example of the "phenomenon".

"She says she can sense a group of trees and a babbling brook full of boulders.

Standing on a boulder is her friend Jack. He's waving at her and smiling.

She begins to describe the location to Dr Roe.
Half a mile away, her friend Jack is, indeed, standing on a boulder in a stream.

Somehow, the woman has been able to "see" Jack in her mind's eye, even though all of conventional science - and common sense - says it is impossible.

Is this simply a bizarre coincidence?"

Or is is simply collusion between the test subject and her friend Jack?

 

[Kuko 4000]

Ashles and Linda, here's what happened:

Me:

The existing RV database does not convince you, ok. But at the same time you seem to say that RV has been proven by scientific standards, now I'm confused. I would really appreciate a "clarification-for-dummies", so to speak

This could be an issue with my understanding of science or it could be a matter of language barrier, but I'm having problems getting my head around this. Do you mean that by the standards of any other area of science, say biology, evidence of similar quality would be considered scientifically convincing? If so, could you please direct me to the research so I could look it up for myself?

Richard:

yes, it is different standards for different types of claims
so, a normal scientific claims requires a certain level of proof, but a paranormal one requires a higher level

Me:

Could you give me an example of a normal scientific claim that in your view offers the same level of proof as the best available evidence for Remote Viewing? This way I could understand the comparison much better.

Richard:

most of psychology!

Me:

"ok"

 

[Ashles]

Gotcha. Thank you.

Okay I massively disagree with him still, but in a different way now.

I have a degree in Experimental Psychology and most of it is evidenced perfectly scientifically in a way that RV obviously is not at all, in any imaginable way shape or form.

I am amazed he could imply as such.

Also I think an important distinction is that much of Psychology is the search to explain behaviour and evident mental processes - it is not in doubt that we communicate verbally, have memory, different moods, consistent reactions to chemicals/stimuli etc. but it is the process of analysing the mechanisms behind observed behaviour.

Whereas RV needs to be demonstrated to exist in the first place.
And to demonstrate it would be experimentally very easy.

 

[Kuko 4000]

Thanks for all the replies, thoughts and info, much appreciated.

I would like to clarify a bit what I mean by the nature of the evidence versus the quantity and quality of the evidence when it comes to ECREE. I was not being as thorough / clear as I should have in the OP. I'll try to explain myself better now.

For the purposes of the next example I'm going to use a made up temporary term "units of evidence", in short "UE".

Common claim:

If I let go of a ball in my hand it will fall down.

A claim like this is backed with all kinds of different high quality evidence, I would not have difficulties in believing it.

Observation: 1000 UE
Replication: 500 UE
Prediction: 250 UE
Applications: 100 UE

And so on, and so on...

Extraordinary claim:

If I let go of a ball in my hand I can make it levitate using my super woo powers.

For this extraordinary claim we don't have any prior evidence of reasonable quality, I would have many good reasons to be very sceptical of this claim.

But, what I'm saying is that I wouldn't need even:

Observation: 1000 + 1 UE
Replication: 500 + 1 UE
Prediction: 250 + 1 UE
Applications: 100 + 1 UE

...to believe it, let alone extraordinary amounts of extraordinary high quality evidence.

I agree completely that I would need more evidence for the claim that "an alien spacecraft landed on my backyard" than for the claim "I have a red car". But only in the sense that I already have enough good evidence to believe that red cars exist, and zero good evidence that alien spacecrafts exists. The evidence would have to be extraordinary only in its nature. I wouldn't need more evidence to believe it than I would for anything else. In fact, I would believe it even with much less evidence quantity-wise (one real alien spacecraft vs. millions and millions of red cars).

I just can't seem to find a way to look at this (ECREE) differently.

 

[Kuko 4000]

And to demonstrate it would be experimentally very easy.

Heh, and this right here is, in a nutshell, what's bugging me with ECREE. That is, when expanding the extraordinary from the nature of the evidence to quantity and / or quality.

 

[Minarvia]

Heh, and this right here is, in a nutshell, what's bugging me with ECREE. That is, when expanding the extraordinary from the nature of the evidence to quantity and / or quality.

Maybe I shouldn't jump in here but to me an analogy of ECREE would be this -
Take the show "Ghost Hunters" for instance. They get a blurry something on the infrared or a photo of some moving blurry light. Say one of the guys says, "this is great evidence that ghosts DO exist!"

Uh, well, no. Those things could be almost anything and prove absolutely nothing about ghosts existing or not. Some of this viewpoint may arise from the Spiritism of the early 20th century when people were so easily fooled into believing all sorts of stuff. Maybe someone finally got sick of blurry photos, obviously staged photos, and cheesecloth ectoplasm.

Maybe that someone finally said, "enough, already! If you have an extraordinary claim you'd better have extraordinary (not mundane stuff that could be interpreted many different ways) evidence for it! Then go collect Houdini's reward. (Or not Randi's million)

Or maybe I'm missing your point here?

 

[Kuko 4000]

Or maybe I'm missing your point here?

I believe you are, but I will return to the thread after a good night sleep, so I can hopefully articulate myself more clearly

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I have a degree in Experimental Psychology and most of it is evidenced perfectly scientifically in a way that RV obviously is not at all, in any imaginable way shape or form.

As I said right back at the start of the thread, there is an important sense in which Richard is right.

Load of psychological "facts" are just claims which have been confirmed once to p<0.05 in a controlled test.

If RV has managed to present a single p<0.05 result, it's as confirmed as "most of psychology" in that sense, since most papers are never replicated. Seen in a vacuum the evidence for RV is of the same statistical strength as that for lots of psychological claims.

It's only when you view RV in the context of everything else we know about the universe that we lean towards thinking the RV results are probably flukes or frauds.

 

[arthwollipot]

"ECREE". I like that. I'll add it to my lexicon. Like SIWOTI Syndrome.

 

[Ashles]

As I said right back at the start of the thread, there is an important sense in which Richard is right.

Load of psychological "facts" are just claims which have been confirmed once to p<0.05 in a controlled test.

If RV has managed to present a single p<0.05 result, it's as confirmed as "most of psychology" in that sense, since most papers are never replicated. Seen in a vacuum the evidence for RV is of the same statistical strength as that for lots of psychological claims.

But that's a pointless distinction - the same could be said of any scientific field.

We don't judge a field by unreplicated, unique studies showing results slightly above chance - we judge it by its more successful theories and more demonstrated experiments. Which Psychology has in abundance, as does every other scientific field... except 'Parapsychology' (if that is in any way a scientific field).

And why does it make sense anyway to compare a specific claim (RV) to an entire field. Surely he could have provided specific comparable results as Kuko requested.

I'm afraid it seems to me to be a dismissive answer that misrepresents the current scientific view of the validity of RV.

 

[Tapio]

Yo Kuko bro, thanks for the clarification, but I'm still a bit confused (surprise, surprise).

Just to increase the educational value of the thread (even if only for myself) I'd still like to press you on this nature/quality thing.

Still keeping to the claim of the ball levitating.

Could you (or anyone else) give me an example of evidence which would be sufficient in its nature, but not in its quality? Or does evidence of sufficient nature immediately count as evidence with sufficient quality? How about the other way around, an example of evidence with sufficient quality, but not of sufficient nature?

Or do I just not understand what the words nature/quality really mean in this case?

 

[ynot]

I prefer to say - “Incredible claims require credible evidence”.

Evidence doesn’t need to be extraordinary, it just needs to be credible.

 

[SlayerofCliffracers]

When someone tells you about a claim like astrology (which would be mindboggling if true), a claim of an astrologer predicting bad weather or a life event like a wedding or birth isn't good enough.

Have you considered that some things might be true precisely because they are mindboggling.

The more absurd the premise of a discipline is, the less likely it would be to exist and have managed to survive against the fact that people can't cope with it.

The claim that pretty lights in the sky deciding anything on earth is so absurd that it would work in favour of it's own at least initial validity.