VFF Preliminary Kidney Detection Test

[Uncayimmy]

Only if that person was not born with one kidney. My claim is to detect which of persons has one kidney, but I would hope to only involve persons who have had a kidney removed on the test. It is not an out; it is an inconvenience (that some persons were born with one kidney) that I will have to correct for at my own expense.

You're not thinking this through. The number of kidneys a person has cannot be known for certain without a medical exam. From my understanding an external exam is unreliable because palpation of the kidneys is very difficult for normal kidneys. Therefore, something like an ultrasound is required.

Thus, you are faced with making a choice about your level of trust. Just because somebody says they are missing a kidney does not mean it is true. They could be lying. If somebody says they have both kidneys, they could be lying.

How are you going to deal with that? Are you going to accept what people say without verification or are you going to require testing?

When it comes to being mistaken about having both kidneys, understand that only 1/750 people are born without a kidney. This is often detected in the womb or through routine medical care, so it's not like everybody who is missing one is blissfully unaware.

I explained to you elsewhere that if just half the people know it, then the odds of encountering someone mistakenly believing they have two kidneys is 1/1500. Are you seriously concerned about that? If so, how will you deal with it?

Let's pretend for a moment that your fantasy is real. In that scenario there will be two targets. You will, of course, detect both targets. If you cannot, then you have failed the test anyway. So, if you detect two targets, you must tell the tester as much. Tell us what should happen under the following scenarios:

* Neither person you select is the known target.

* One person you select is the known target.

Of course, this is a non-issue if you require every volunteer to provide a medical affidavit certifying their kidney count. If that's the case, you'll never be able to do this test.

 

[Pup]

Actually, the plan now is to take samples from a removed kidney, dry it, crush it, add some dye, and then mail it to Anita so she can tell us the owner's eye color.

 

[Ashles]

Like I said, out of state because my state is where I live, work, and study and a paranormal investigation is not part of my professional life and I'd like to keep them separate.

So first it was your University you wanted to keep seperate (which you didn't) now your entire state?
You are so funny. Like everyone in your state would know you. Hilarious.

You study in the United States - should you disconnect your claim from there?

Maybe to be on the safe side you should remove any connection your claim has from Planet Earth.

Oh wait...

I am being serious about my plans. And I have already determined that I will not have a full-body screen on the test.

So let's get this straight - you post on this forum to get input from skeptics, then flat refuse to accept that feedback.

Fine, well why not just go ahead with your protocol and ignore our input.

Seriously, there is not one single person here who believes your story about detecting Doctor Carlson's missing kidney, and no-one ever will, whether you repeat the story 10, 100 or 1000 times, write it in all caps, bold or exciting colours.

So go ahead and carry out whatever weak, unscientific protocol you want. It will waste your time and whatever skeptic organisation agrees to help you (assumng the very unlikely scenario that one does). It will further this whole claim not one iota.

The only thing that can do that is a proper scientific test which you have now demonstrated that you won't do.

But this thread has proved immensely useful in illustrating to anyoe interested how uninterested you are in genuinely testing your claimed abilities, and how fascinated you are solely with lots of people giving you attention.

Alright, paying will be optional.

That desperate for an audience? I thought there was a valid financial reason for having a paying audience. Suddeny there isn't? Suddenly just the audience is important.

How telling it would have been if you had just said 'Okay let's do it without an audience, I'll finance it myself'.

But no, you kept the wish for an audience yet ditched the proposed reason for the audience (the money).
How very, very interesting.

Because my funds are very low right now, I am a college student without a work permit. If someone would like to see this psychic claimant fail live, then how about contributing to making it all happen?

Anita we really are not this stupid. We aren't going to get behind a claim designed to feed your attention due to a vague invitation to watch you fail.
You will never have a real falsification scenario.

But I've just decided that paying is entirely optional.

So why have it in the first place if it was unecessary?

I'll let everyone form their own opinions about that.

And no one has to come and see it if they don't want to. I just thought this was interesting.

But it isn't. It is not interesting, that is the whole point. Nothing about this claim is new, interesting, unique or novel.

The only reason people keep responding is that real skeptics don't let paranormal claims go unchallenged simply because of repetition.

Constantly analysing and refuting evidence-free paranormal claims is far more difficult, involving and tedious than generating those claims.
That's why you are not considered on the 'skeptic side' of this or any conversation.

We, as actual skeptics, always have a far more difficult job than the claimant. We have to know more about cheating, experimental protocol, efficient testing, statistics and science than the claimant.
And no matter how many times we demonstrate the above abilities the claimant can always simply make up a new claim.

That's why you call yourself a skeptic, but you are not considered one by anyone other than yourself.

Let's not forget your detecting Celebrities' Ailments claims. It really badly ruins so many of your other claims. I bet you wish you had never made it.

You now claim you can't detect the number of kidneys of a clamant behind a thin curtain three feet in front of you..

yet...

You claimed to be able to detect the ailments of celebrities you had seen on TV and in magazines!

The distance restriction is ruined. Hell you don't even know where they were on the planet when you were making your diagnosis!

Or would you now admit that the celebrity diagnoses were probably nonsense?

*Note: The money would only be used to cover my travel expenses, the conference room, or other expenses with arranging the test, and the remainder would be donated to a kidney foundation. By no means would I be getting paid for this. It is a non-profit paranormal investigation kind of thing. Oh, and I wouldn't even be in charge of the money. A Skeptic would, and we can all trust Skeptics.

Actually I don't think anybody thought you were actually doing this for profit (nice attempt at misdirection) - everyone always thought you were doing it for attention.

Your instant suggestion to do it for free, but still for an audience seems to absolutely confirm this.

I think this thread irrevocably broke your claim.

But still - go ahead and perform your experiment.

Simply admit you ignored ALL skeptic advice you were given and publish the results (as you failed to do still fro your last failed test).

You are ignoring all advice in this thread so just go ahead and perform whatever nonsensical test you want.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

The problem with a screen is not the material of the screen being in front and in the way of the kidney, since clothing of the same material as a screen still allows the perceptions. The problem with a screen is that my sense of orientation in the body is thrown off, and I would require far more time and be more likely to experience fatigue than if we were to arrange for a test that does not use a screen that covers the kidney area of a person.

I have e-mailed to a hospital that performs kidney transplants asking whether a person should be able to tell just by looking at the back of a person who is wearing clothing whether they have had a kidney removed, ie. whether they have one or two kidneys. If these professionals reply that a person is not supposed to be able to see kidneys through a shirt and through the skin and other tissue layers that cover a kidney and that it is also not detectable by other subtle clues such as posture or movements then we will have to respect that and proceed with a test that does not involve a full-body screen.

I do not need 15 minutes to determine whether a person has one or two kidneys, but I am asking for an excess amount of time so that I can make sure of my answers and so that time will not be a factor in determining whether I can see kidneys or not. I don't want to be rushed, it's a test and I don't want to have to keep thinking of time.

I don't mind stating whether it is the left or the right kidney that is missing. Sure I can be asked to do that on a test. There is no way I would mix up whether it is a left kidney or a right kidney that is missing (unless there is no ability), by no means do these two cases in any ways feel equivalent. It's like feeling a balance scale that is heavily tilted.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

* Neither person you select is the known target.

The claim is falsified and over with.

* One person you select is the known target.

I proceed to the official IIG test.

 

[Akhenaten]

Only if that person was not born with one kidney. My claim is to detect which of persons has one kidney, but I would hope to only involve persons who have had a kidney removed on the test. It is not an out; it is an inconvenience (that some persons were born with one kidney) that I will have to correct for at my own expense.

Hoping for it is not a very scientific approach, and who underwrites the screening is irrelevant.

How EXACTLY (as in protocol-ready exact) are you going to do the screening?

When?

 

[GeeMack]

GeeMack, I've outlined my claim and the requirements for you and I am now expecting you to share your suggested test protocol. If you still won't do it then I fail to see what your problem is. I have done what you asked.

No, you haven't. When you completely abandon your current absurd children's guessing game crappy useless protocol, completely, in the toilet, not to be revisited again, then we can design a useable test protocol. It will be nearly free, time efficient, legal, ethical, and it will get some actual scientifically acceptable results. Your current stupid idea certainly isn't all that, and it gets worse with every new rendition.

So whenever you're ready...

 

[Uncayimmy]

You claim to be detecting the kidney, if this doesn't include it's location, then all the crap about a screen or clothing interfering is nonsense..

I consider myself an expert on all things VFF, so let me try to explain what I believe is really going on. She calls herself Vision From Feeling for a reason. Everything she does is based on a feeling. It's normal for people to "feel" that something is true. For example, if you see a kid fall down, you "feel" like he is pain. If you see someone jump suddenly, you "feel" like they are startled.

VFF takes this much further than most people. Take her tasting claims. When her boyfriend eats some chocolate ice cream, she "feels" that he is tasting chocolate and feeling cold. Through her imagination she makes herself taste the chocolate and sense the cold. Thus she concludes that she can taste and feel what he does.

When it comes to kidneys, she just imagines that she senses kidneys. In her imagination she conjures up imagery of what it looks like. If she believes he has two kidneys, she imagines two kidneys. Unfortunately, she is unable to separate reality from fantasy. She really does believe she is seeing inside the body.

Think about it. All of her inconsistencies could be explained by this. In fact, all of her claims can be explained this way. Read Desertgal's excellent essay about Anita's revolutionary war ghosts. What Anita "saw" was not based on reality but on popular fiction. Her imagination drew on what she knew.

When Anita tried to "see through" a sweater, she figured it would make her confused, so that's what happened. When she tried to see through a screen, it took longer because that's what she expected. I don't think she's lying - I think she cannot separate reality from fantasy.

Look at the other "tests" she has taken. She made all sorts of readings that were wrong, such as with F-A-C-T members and the photos. She saw whatever her imagination conjured up. It's not that her "ability" didn't work - it worked perfectly as far as she was concerned because she still created an image in her mind.

What about all those tests with the cups, clenched fists, and hands in buckets of ice? She felt in her mind that she knew, so she conjured up an image. She was wrong more often than she was right, but she doesn't acknowledge that this indicates that what she "sees" is not real. As long as she gets a Vision From Feeling, everything is working just fine. In her mind she's just not getting the right data.

If you examine her reasoning closely in regards to the kidney test, you'll see that it's all just her imagination at work. What we're fighting against here is her irrational belief in her imagination. If you look at it from her perspective, it all makes sense: If she sees a vision, it's working. If the vision is wrong, it's because she's not getting the right data for some unknown reason. If she sees nothing, then something is blocking the data.

Under these conditions no test will ever be created.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I proceed to the official IIG test.

First off, you can go to the official IIG test without doing anything else. That's completely your call. The only reason the IIG told you to test yourself is to help you avoid looking stupid and wasting money on a plane ticket.

That aside, if you guess two people out of 10, you have a 1 in 5 chance of picking the target. That's twice as useless as picking 1 out of 10.

You avoided all of my other questions. What are you going to do about potential liars and people being mistaken?

 

[Ashles]

The claim is falsified and over with.

All your claims?
The entire medical perceptions/vibrational perceptions claims? All your paranormal claims are over with?

Or just the kidney detection claim?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

UncaYimmy,( re. post 308 )

Very interesting, and I respect the effort you have made to explain her behaviour, but that doesn't explain her failure to be tested under controlled conditions..

Do you think she knows deep down she will fail, so she is delaying the inevitable ?

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Ashles...

So let's get this straight - you post on this forum to get input from skeptics, then flat refuse to accept that feedback.

Why should I accept to have to buy ten football shirts (that could be switched) when it is as simple as writing a number on their arms?

Why should I accept a full-body screen when it greatly reduces my sense of orientation in the body and when a person isn't even supposed to see kidneys through a shirt and the skin and the fat tissue and the connective tissue?

Fine, well why not just go ahead with your protocol and ignore our input.

I haven't ignored any of it. I'm just telling you what the limitations of my claim are. How about the underground bunker test? We put all the ten volunteers in an underground bunker that is airproof, soundproof, radiation proof and waterproof, blindfold me and drive me 100 miles in an unknown direction and ask me how many kidneys they have. Listen, I am not making this up. It is a genuine claim and it works under somewhat delicate circumstances. There are things that affect the performance (although not accuracy), meanwhile it is a testable and falsifiable claim. I just don't want to have a full-body screen because then I keep finding spleens and all sorts of other things instead of the kidneys right away!

Seriously, there is not one single person here who believes your story about detecting Doctor Carlson's missing kidney, and no-one ever will, whether you repeat the story 10, 100 or 1000 times, write it in all caps, bold or exciting colours.

But I KNOW that I detected it and it is the reason why I am testing this claim. Accept that I am personally convinced that something happened and that is why this test WILL TAKE PLACE!

So go ahead and carry out whatever weak, unscientific protocol you want. It will waste your time and whatever skeptic organisation agrees to help you (assumng the very unlikely scenario that one does). It will further this whole claim not one iota.

No the test protocol will be acceptable and reliable. I just don't want a full-body screen (or the underground bunker) and I don't think it will be necessary either, since people aren't supposed to see kidneys through a shirt and skin and fat and connective tissues anyway.

The only thing that can do that is a proper scientific test which you have now demonstrated that you won't do.

Because I won't agree to a full-body screen? Because I'd rather write a number on the volunteers than buy ten shirts? What exactly is the problem here? Be specific.

But this thread has proved immensely useful in illustrating to anyoe interested how uninterested you are in genuinely testing your claimed abilities, and how fascinated you are solely with lots of people giving you attention.

Not so! I am very interested! I am just letting you know what the limitations of my claim are! I am not here for attention! I just want to have this test as soon as possible! So be more constructive in your criticism, give specific examples, because I am very concerned of having the preliminary testing immediately.

That desperate for an audience? I thought there was a valid financial reason for having a paying audience. Suddeny there isn't? Suddenly just the audience is important.

No. I just thought some people might like to see. It is not often a paranormal claimant puts themselves to a test.

How telling it would have been if you had just said 'Okay let's do it without an audience, I'll finance it myself'.

And how on earth would I finance myself?

But no, you kept the wish for an audience yet ditched the proposed reason for the audience (the money).
How very, very interesting.

What money? It would cover the expenses of setting up the test (travel costs and location) and all the excess would be donated to a kidney foundation.

Anita we really are not this stupid. We aren't going to get behind a claim designed to feed your attention due to a vague invitation to watch you fail.
You will never have a real falsification scenario.

How very wrong of you. Of course the preliminary testing will be falsifiable. It is as simple as picking the wrong persons and the claim will be falsified. And I don't want attention, I really really do see tissues and I did detect that Dr. Carlson was missing a left kidney, so that is why I am having the test.

So why have it in the first place if it was unecessary?

The IIG said I should do some preliminary testing and I agree with them.

But it isn't. It is not interesting, that is the whole point. Nothing about this claim is new, interesting, unique or novel.

I think it's interesting that I saw that a kidney was missing when I had no way of knowing it other than my vibrational information.

Constantly analysing and refuting evidence-free paranormal claims is far more difficult, involving and tedious than generating those claims.
That's why you are not considered on the 'skeptic side' of this or any conversation.

I am putting my paranormal claims to a skeptical investigation.

We, as actual skeptics, always have a far more difficult job than the claimant. We have to know more about cheating, experimental protocol, efficient testing, statistics and science than the claimant.
And no matter how many times we demonstrate the above abilities the claimant can always simply make up a new claim.

My claim is detecting which of persons is missing a kidney.

You now claim you can't detect the number of kidneys of a clamant behind a thin curtain three feet in front of you..

I probably could, but my sense of orientation is thrown off when I can't see the outline of the person. I didn't know where I was in the body and was seeing all sorts of things and it took me a while to find a kidney. The test would take much longer and I would be more likely to get tired and to be less certain of my answers than if we use no full-body screen. Besides, I am awaiting an expert opinion on whether it should be possible to see kidneys through a shirt and into the body. It might be that a full-body screen is not necessary at all.

Actually I don't think anybody thought you were actually doing this for profit (nice attempt at misdirection) - everyone always thought you were doing it for attention.

I am not doing this for attention. In fact, I hate this attention and I wonder what this will do to my science and medical career, but I can not help the fact that when I look at people I see images of internal tissues and organs, and that I have detected that a kidney was missing, and I am very interested in investigating this and finding out whether the images correlate or not.

Your instant suggestion to do it for free, but still for an audience seems to absolutely confirm this.

I just thought people would be interested. Meanwhile I'd rather do it without an audience because they might be distracting.

I think this thread irrevocably broke your claim.

This thread finally presented a specific and testable claim that I have allowed to be conclusive.

But still - go ahead and perform your experiment.

Sure I will. I have to find out whether I can see people's kidneys or not.

Simply admit you ignored ALL skeptic advice you were given and publish the results (as you failed to do still fro your last failed test).

I have not ignored advice. I have agreed to see one volunteer at a time, reduced the time to 15 minutes per person, and made lots of other changes to my initial suggested protocol. And what you refer to here was not a test, it was a study. I was not certain of the conditions and they were not part of my claim. There were flaws with the study questionnaire, such as an ailment could be listed in more than one place and even if they correctly describe the correct ailment, there would be negative points simply because it was described as "back of the head" rather than "neck".

You are ignoring all advice in this thread so just go ahead and perform whatever nonsensical test you want.

I am not ignoring advice. I just won't have a full-body screen because it reduces my performance and also because it wouldn't even be necessary, I think. No one is supposed to see kidneys through a shirt and back.

 

[Akhenaten]

The problem with a screen is not the material of the screen being in front and in the way of the kidney, since clothing of the same material as a screen still allows the perceptions. The problem with a screen is that my sense of orientation in the body is thrown off, and I would require far more time and be more likely to experience fatigue than if we were to arrange for a test that does not use a screen that covers the kidney area of a person.

This is an unevidenced blank assertion. How has any of the above been established?

I have e-mailed to a hospital that performs kidney transplants asking whether a person should be able to tell just by looking at the back of a person who is wearing clothing whether they have had a kidney removed, ie. whether they have one or two kidneys. If these professionals reply that a person is not supposed to be able to see kidneys through a shirt and through the skin and other tissue layers that cover a kidney and that it is also not detectable by other subtle clues such as posture or movements then we will have to respect that and proceed with a test that does not involve a full-body screen.

The world's most blatant false dichotomy, springing hopefully from the wreckage of the world's stupidest question.

I lük førward tø their repli.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I do not need 15 minutes to determine whether a person has one or two kidneys, but I am asking for an excess amount of time so that I can make sure of my answers and so that time will not be a factor in determining whether I can see kidneys or not. I don't want to be rushed, it's a test and I don't want to have to keep thinking of time.

Your claim is that when you look at a person you perceive some sort of mental image. If that's true, what does it mean to make sure of your answers? Are you looking to confirm what you perceive by normal means? If so, that's cheating. If not, then again, it belies your claim.

Do you understand that the time IS indeed a factor since it can give you a way of determining who has just one kidney through normal means?

 

[GeeMack]

Alright everyone, I am here to get help with designing an acceptable protocol for the preliminary testing that I plan to have before the official IIG test.

And you continue to reject any good advice we've offered and cling like a fly on poop to the bad ideas you've come up with to make the test useless and/or not practical to ever perform. You've demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, and through many rounds of crappy attempts to design your own crappy useless protocols, that your sense of scientific reality and that of the real world remain miles apart.

Now if you had the courage to actually put your fruitcake claim to a genuine test, that would really be something. You could start by scrapping your current bad idea, totally, out the window. Then we could start from scratch and design a test that would yield some legitimate results. Unless of course, as pretty much everyone here has noted, that isn't what you want.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

no, you haven't. When you completely abandon your current absurd children's guessing game crappy useless protocol, completely, in the toilet, not to be revisited again, then we can design a useable test protocol. It will be nearly free, time efficient, legal, ethical, and it will get some actual scientifically acceptable results. Your current stupid idea certainly isn't all that, and it gets worse with every new rendition.

So whenever you're ready...

I'm ready tell me what it is

 

[Ashles]

Your claim is that when you look at a person you perceive some sort of mental image. If that's true, what does it mean to make sure of your answers? Are you looking to confirm what you perceive by normal means? If so, that's cheating. If not, then again, it belies your claim.

Actually that is a very good point. Anita has actually criticised her own over analysis of her own perception.

From this page from Anita's website.

*When I arrived at the question of removed kidneys, my medical perception saw and felt his right kidney, but not the left one. However logic and thinking took over and I worried about being wrong. I spent a long while considering whether to mark it or not, and decided against it.Turns out I would have gotten "a point". What I learn from this is to keep "removed kidney" on the questionnaire. I have no evidence to back up that I detected a missing kidney, I ruined that opportunity for myself, however this experience will still contribute to my claim, ie. what I claim to be able to do and what I will agree to on a test. This would in fact be perfect to base a test on. So, perhaps this experience is bringing me much closer to a workable test protocol! Note: It is the first perception I have ever had of a missing kidney. This particular ailment was recommended to me by the IIG with whom I begun negotiating a test protocol, but I said that I don't know whether I can detect it or not yet, I need experience. Maybe one more such experience will give me the courage and a test can be made. Maybe we are getting very close to a test protocol.
*I learned that I have to stop worrying about whether my answers are right or wrong. To not allow logic or thinking to get in my way. To report the medical perceptions as they are. No matter what. Because my perceptions are good at describing health information, whereas my logic is not.

 

[Ashles]

I'm ready tell me what it is

No audience for a start.

Ae you okay with losing the audience (after all they are now non-fee paying and thus irrelevant)?

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

GeeMack, please post your suggested test protocol, I am very eager to read it. I have put aside all past protocol drafts and am ready to read your suggestions.

A full-body screen will not be used. Let's just accept that. It is not unscientific to say so, it is simply based on the limitations of my claim. The claim is still testable and falsifiable even without a full-body screen.

Ashles, ok no audience. And that means that the preliminary testing takes place in North Carolina because that is the only way I can fund it. So now we know I need to ask the FACT Skeptics if they would participate and I now know where to search for volunteers. What else?

 

[Uncayimmy]

UncaYimmy,( re. post 308 )

Very interesting, and I respect the effort you have made to explain her behaviour, but that doesn't explain her failure to be tested under controlled conditions..

Do you think she knows deep down she will fail, so she is delaying the inevitable ?

Yes, without a doubt. Every time she starts testing something and inevitably starts to fail, she abandons it and changes direction. She has repeated this pattern numerous times. Remember, she first contacted the IIG two years ago!

Remember, back in January she was all hyped up on "studying" her abilities. She did the study and did no better than the controls. In that study, which happened after her failed reading with Dr. Carlson, she didn't try to study missing kidneys (her "strongest" claim). She has buried the results.

Fast forward to a month or so ago. Connie Sonne got lots of attention for her test. VFF started posting in Connie threads making a big production about how claimants should conduct themselves. And what happened next?

Out of the blue she comes up with her newfound "strongest" claim that she can detect missing kidneys, something that she allegedly did once last December. She saw the attention Connie got and wanted it for herself. That's why she wants an audience - Connie had one.

Deep down she doesn't want to take the test, but she enjoys the attention. Look at how she treats people who try to help her. Everybody here is against here, but still she persists. She complains about us, but still she keeps posting and posting. She's like a child who keeps going in Mommy's purse - negative attention is better than no attention.