VFF Preliminary Kidney Detection Test

[Rolfe]

VFF, I'm the wrong side of the Atlantic to help you. However, if there are two people to my certain knowledge in this village (population 1,500) with only one kidney, then I can't see the problem with finding volunteers.

Ultrasound sounds good. Why didn't I think of that?

Rolfe.

 

[Farencue]

For those of you who don't know, I did a reading with Dr. Carlson who is one of the members of my local FACT Skeptics group. I was using a health questionnaire that I had made that listed up to 100 different health information. The questionnaire did not however include "missing kidney". I detected that Dr. Carlson is missing a left kidney. I spent several minutes double-checking what I saw/felt and contemplating whether to write it on the questionnaire. Looking at him I could never have guessed just by ordinary vision and my logic was making me hesitate. I wondered what would happen if I wrote it down and were wrong, so I did not write it down. What matters is that this forms the basis of my claim, and that is why I want to go ahead and have the preliminary test and official test of this claim. On the test of course I will not hesitate to write down my perceptions!

What would have happened if you wrote down that Dr Carlson was missing a kidney?
Anita, I think the whole world would have taken your claims a little more seriously for a start!
This thread is already rapidly turning into every other thread you have started here about your claims.
Did you actually read what Dr Carlson wrote about you?

 

[Paul2]

The sweater also forms vibrational information and I had to penetrate through the thick jungle of sweater fibers to search for the body beneath.

VFF, what about, then, having the subjects wear thin hospital gowns or something similar and having them completely behind a thin but opaque curtain? That should be less fabric and less vibrational information to confuse with your kidney readings. It will also eliminate any possibility of picking anything up from their body language by seeing their bodies with your eyes.

Or, what about bathing suits that would not cover the kidney area at all with the thin, opaque curtain?

 

[Kariboo]

Vff: Let's assume for discussion sake that no one here is willing to organize a test for you (finding volunteers etc). What is your plan B to test yourself?

I'll ask my question again: how will you test yourself if no one here is able/willing to set up a test for you??

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

What is required by the test protocol is whatever time you say you need to do your stuff. If you say you need more than ten minutes, then that's what the test protocol must say. Just bear in mind that the more time you require, the more difficult it will be to find volunteers prepared to sit there for that long.

Since it is a test, I would ask for a generous amount of time in excess of what I need. I am sure one person wouldn't mind sitting for up to 30 minutes?

I know very little about football but my understanding was that football shirts were made of thin cotton, given how hot anything else would be for someone running around a field for 90 minutes. The only reason to specify them was that they come with numbers already on; any garment with a number on it will do.

I'd rather have people wearing their own clothing and have a number placed on the floor.

Another curtain, which is adjusted to the height of the volunteer whilst the main curtain is drawn, should do the trick. So when the main curtain is pulled back, you will see the back of the volunteer only.

Sounds good. Otherwise if a "main curtain" can not be arranged, I will simply exit and re-enter the room between trials.

Nope. You have one chance, and one chance only, of specifying which volunteer has only one kidney. If you pick the wrong guy you're welcome to try to persuade him to have an ultrasound to see if he is one of those rare individuals who has only one without realising it.

Alright.

You need three tests with ten volunteers, just one of whom has a single kidney, to reach the 1:1000 odds usually required for the preliminary test of the JREF challenge. So if you want this test to meet the same success criteria you'd need to find 27 volunteers with two kidneys and 3 volunteers with one.

Or 1 person who has had a kidney removed and 999 others with both kidneys.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Vff: Let's assume for discussion sake that no one here is willing to organize a test for you (finding volunteers etc). What is your plan B to test yourself?

Then I will try to arrange a Preliminary test here locally and advertise for persons who have had a kidney removed. I don't have to have a Preliminary test, but was recommended to by the IIG. If no Preliminary test can take place, I will simply wait for the official IIG test to take place.

I am also here to discuss and develop the test procedure with you all, and so far after only one day we have already made great progress.

VFF, I'm the wrong side of the Atlantic to help you. However, if there are two people to my certain knowledge in this village (population 1,500) with only one kidney, then I can't see the problem with finding volunteers.

Thank you for your encouragement though.

VFF, what about, then, having the subjects wear thin hospital gowns or something similar and having them completely behind a thin but opaque curtain? That should be less fabric and less vibrational information to confuse with your kidney readings. It will also eliminate any possibility of picking anything up from their body language by seeing their bodies with your eyes.

Or, what about bathing suits that would not cover the kidney area at all with the thin, opaque curtain?

The problem is I need a way to locate the area where the information is. If the person is behind a screen I have no way of knowing the distance to the person. Again, I will try with a friend and will have the results with you tomorrow.

 

[JPL]

VFF

I was actually just having a bit of fun with you in my original post because it was evident that you weren't very knowledgable about kidney removal - I apologize. As for my wife actually participating in your experiment, she did say she would be interested, so I guess we are open to the idea. However, as others have pointed out, four hours is a lot of time to expect someone to sit for something like this. Even if you did as has been suggested and have each person sit individually for a much shorter period of time, wouldn't all participants have to wait around for the entire length of time it takes you to examine everone? That still adds up to a couple of hours, or more.

While we may be willing to fit your test into our schedule, we are not interested in rounding up other volunteers, or doing other leg work. We live in San Diego, Ca. If you , or someone else wants to put this whole thing together we are open to the idea of helping you out.

 

[Akhenaten]

Difficult question. If any of the nine volunteers who were meant to have both kidneys were, without their knowledge, born without a kidney, then according to my claim I would detect more than one person who has one kidney. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have several. All involve giving this nonsense away before you do any more harm, either to yourself or someone else.

How does a person with normal vision detect that a person is missing a kidney??

You should have had the quite simple answer to that before you even suggested this rubbish. For all you know, people who have had kidneys removed might have zippers in their abdomens.

This is a paranormal investigation and has got nothing to do with officially diagnosing people.

First up, it's no kind of investigation if you don't know anything at all about the subject you're investigating. I seem to know more about missing kidneys than you do and I'm an avionics technician.

Secondly.

If you go to a real doctor and ask him to determine whether you have only one kidney, would you say that the doctor's subsequent actions constituted a diagnosis? I would. I wonder what the law says.

VFF --> Slippery Slope --> Thin Ice --> ?


Waenre

 

[Akhenaten]

<snip>

Arcturians don't have kidneys, that's how.

A relevant and interesting article at StopVisionFromFeeling.com

 

[sleepy_lioness]

Arcturians don't have kidneys, that's how.

VFF, are you claiming that you DON'T HAVE kidneys??!

 

[Pixel42]

Since it is a test, I would ask for a generous amount of time in excess of what I need. I am sure one person wouldn't mind sitting for up to 30 minutes?

I would certainly mind if it was me. Plus it means 5 hours of testing to meet a 1 in 10 success criteria, 15 hours of testing to meet 1 in 1000.

I'd rather have people wearing their own clothing and have a number placed on the floor.

Then how are you going to determine whether the volunteer who comes forward at the end to prove that they are the person with one kidney is or is not the one you identified? Remember, in my protocol he/she simply turns around to show the number on their shirt. You'll need a completely different protocol to the one I suggested if the number is put on the floor instead.

For my protocol to work, the volunteers need to be wearing distinguishing marks on the bit of them that you can see (their backs) which they have no opportunity to change. They could have a number pinned to their ordinary clothing, but those would be much easier to swap than shirts. The idea of the volunteers wearing garments with differents numbers pre-printed on them is to guarantee that the test is fair, with no opportunity for the adjudicator and/or a couple of unfriendly volunteers to cheat you.

Or 1 person who has had a kidney removed and 999 others with both kidneys.

Which would require 500 hours of testing at 30 minutes per volunteer.

 

[Ashles]

For those of you who don't know, I did a reading with Dr. Carlson who is one of the members of my local FACT Skeptics group. I was using a health questionnaire that I had made that listed up to 100 different health information. The questionnaire did not however include "missing kidney". I detected that Dr. Carlson is missing a left kidney. I spent several minutes double-checking what I saw/felt and contemplating whether to write it on the questionnaire. Looking at him I could never have guessed just by ordinary vision and my logic was making me hesitate. I wondered what would happen if I wrote it down and were wrong, so I did not write it down. What matters is that this forms the basis of my claim, and that is why I want to go ahead and have the preliminary test and official test of this claim. On the test of course I will not hesitate to write down my perceptions!

For those of you who don't know, Anita had an amazing opportunity to demonstrate her alleged ability with Dr Carlson.

In her own words
"it only took a moment for it to catch my attention once I felt through the upper back area. I then spent at least 5 more minutes double-checking repeatedly and confirming to myself what I was feeling."

So she supposedly detected something, actually spent time "double-checking" and "confirming" the perception... then said nothing to anyone!

(Out of a fear of being wrong? Even though she has "never been wrong" yet and had spent time "confirming" the reading?")

Afterwards she is told a kidney is missing then declares repeatedy "I knew it! I saw it!"

For some reason Anita doesn't accept that this is a classic and very common tye of postdiction i.e. is indistinguishable from someone simply making things up, no mater how many times the claimant declares it to be true.

And she thinks repeating the claim will somehw convince someone that it is true.

It is now completely irrelevant to the claim to keep repeating this silly story as anyone without any ability could have said exactly the same thing. And absolutely nobody believes the story as described actually happened.

The tests get more and more elaborate and time-consuming. There is simply no reason for the four hour period other than to ensure yet another proposed preliminary (preliminary again!) test fails to get off the ground.

It's just the same thread again and again and again...

 

[MRC_Hans]

Basically, as we do not know the alleged mode of operation (I gather VFF does not pretend to know herself), we cannot really say whether or not one thing or another would throw off the alleged ability.

For instance, if VFF really uses telepathy, one of the many people who don't even know they were born with one kidney would escape detection. Likewise, a person with two healthy kidneys, who were led to believe he/she has only one, would give a false positive. And how about an existing, but non-functional kidney (also relatively common)?

In short, I liked the suggestion about people dressed in identical attire, preferably some that was pretty concealing of their body shape. Preslecting canditates of same sex and similar size and build would help further.

Now, with only access to view test subjects from behind and in the kidney area, VFF should first be presented to the test subjects, knowing which one is missing a kidney, in order to confirm that she can detect it. When a test group is found where VFF confirms that she can see one missing a kidney, they should be presented in a random order, probably several times each and she should show she can recognize the person with the missing kidney with sufficient certainty. Safe numbering for identification afterwards is easily arranged.

Probably, to ensure that recognition is not based on some visual detail, test subjects should change to a similar, but new attire between the screening and the blinded test. To prevent any clues from gait and other modes of movement, test subjects should not be visible to VFF as they sit down or get up.

Hans

 

[Akhenaten]

Rather than just saying that "I don't know whether I can perform with the people wrapped in thick sweaters", I went ahead and had my boyfriend put on a thick fleece sweater and asked him to sit still while I look at his back from behind. The sweater also forms vibrational information and I had to penetrate through the thick jungle of sweater fibers to search for the body beneath. I managed to find some blood vessels that reach up from around the sacrum area and was struggling to find orientation in the body. Obviously I was lost. I concluded that I would strongly prefer for the volunteers to wear ordinary thin clothing. My boyfriend then took the sweater off and was wearing his cotton shirt, which is much thinner. I had tuned up my "vision from feeling" from previously, so now I was clearly perceiving the kidneys. I could even see and taste the urine (sorry guys) in the ureters and the sodium in it, and I confirmed the presence of the kidneys in a snap.

O rly?

As part of gaining some kind of academic acknowledgement of your abilities, I would be interested in reading the comments of a university biology professor on the above passage, just as it is written.

Do you know any university biology professors?

 

[skeen]

VFF, are you claiming that you DON'T HAVE kidneys??!

Ahh, the fun never ends.

 

[catbasket]

The test was initiated, but Anita failed 100% in her effort to identify any pills. These results are consistent with every other study or test that she has attempted.

Arcturians don't have kidneys, that's how.

VFF, are you claiming that you DON'T HAVE kidneys??!

She already has an out for that, she's only from near Arcturus ...

... believe it or not they ask "Are you human?" and you have to answer "Yes" in order to register, so I couldn't do that and asked myself where is an extraterrestrial incarnation from a white dwarf star near Arcturus supposed to go ...

No doubt we'll learn soon that all extraterrestrial incarnations from a white dwarf star near Arcturus have the (human) standard number of kidneys.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Right. Some robots have three kidneys, so having removed one they still appear to have two. It can be very confusing sometimes.

Humor is a VERY redeeming quality.

Hans

 

[volatile]

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[Ocelot]

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Must dash.

 

[Paul2]

The problem is I need a way to locate the area where the information is. If the person is behind a screen I have no way of knowing the distance to the person. Again, I will try with a friend and will have the results with you tomorrow.

That's easy: place an X on either side of the screen; the subject stands on the X on one side of the screen, and you know that the subject is on the other side of the screen, right at the X.