The VFF Test is On!

[JoeTheJuggler]

Rodney, I know you enjoy looking for significance in the noise, but that's not how science works.

Amen!

And welcome back.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Yes -- barely.

Did you happen to see how well the other lady on stage did? She was 8 for 8.

No. I just did a precise calculation of Anita in the test getting at least two people right and at least one location right purely by chance. It works out to be 49/864, which equals 5.67%. The odds of getting 7 hits in 10 coin tosses is much greater -- 17.19%.

Two can play at this game.

Since you're using criteria that wasn't part of the test, care to rerun your calculations using the fact that Anita said there were two people in the first run that didn't have a kidney? In other words Anita "unofficially" took 4 guesses not 3.

That puts her "guess the person missing the kidney" accomplishment at about 1 in ~7.

That puts her one success at 1 in ~3.

It's interesting how people like you come out of the woodwork *after* the test to tell us what's significant statistically. Where were you during all the protocol discussions?

 

[fromdownunder]

That puts her one success at 1 in ~3.

Quoted for emphasis. Rodney, why do you keep claiming 2 successes when there was only one.?

Even Anita admits that she failed test three (which to put it bluntly did surprise me somewhat). But you claim a success that even the applicant does not agree with.

Norm

PS, welcome back UY

 

[Uncayimmy]

If you're right, it was a mistake to conduct the test. But weren't there also some astute observers in the audience? That's why I want to know how the audience did as a whole.

There's no "if" about it - I *am* right. That doesn't mean you can't do a test. What it means is that you do your best to control for nonverbal cues. If, and here's the big if, Rodney, she had gotten all three right, then right now we would be discussing what information might have tipped her off. But she utterly and completely failed the test, so there's nothing to discuss.

Besides, it really wouldn't matter what the audience guessed. Anita certainly seems to have some skill at reading people. Most people don't have it, so a poll of the audience means nothing. A magician performs all sorts of tricks where all but a few in the audience know how it was done. Their ignorance means nothing.

If humans could do what she claims, we would have never needed x-rays, CAT scans or MRIs. What she claims has no basis in the real world. What she has demonstrated simply confirms this. Get over it.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Yes -- barely.


No. I just did a precise calculation of Anita in the test getting at least two people right and at least one location right purely by chance. It works out to be 49/864, which equals 5.67%. The odds of getting 7 hits in 10 coin tosses is much greater -- 17.19%.

You are talking about your imaginary results, whereas in your original post it appeared to be her real results.

 

[roger]

Do you guys seriously expect a believer to abandon their beliefs using critical thinking and evaluation when they didn’t formulate them that way to begin with?

Why yes, I do. How else would they change their beliefs?

I used to believe in God, psychics, and ghosts. I no longer believe in any of them, due to logic, when I started exploring the issue seriously in my early teens. Hundreds of posters on here can say the same.

 

[derekcbart]

Hello.

We are still collating all of the various information, but since the audience guessing is getting discussed so much I wanted to let you know that two members of the audience who participated in guessing for all three rounds did as well as Anita.

Two people were correct for Round 1.
No people were correct for Round 2.
One person was correct for Round 3.

One of the people from Round 1 did not make a choice for Round 3.

I also wanted to let you know that it looks like it will be a few weeks for everything to be posted, but we will try to post material as it is ready. Everything will be posted on the IIG website at www.iigwest.org.

Thanks.

-Derek

 

[Jeff Corey]

If you're right, it was a mistake to conduct the test. But weren't there also some astute observers in the audience? That's why I want to know how the audience did as a whole.

As was pointed out by an astute observer here before, the audience was much further away than VfF. She was right behind the poor targets, she was walking back and forth and occasionally peering around them. She kept moving chairs up behind them and intruding on their personal space. She kept up doing this for 27 minutes.
No audience member was doing any of those things.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Yes, losing one of my five senses would really blow. But my point by suggesting losing all five is that's how I think she views this. I think she believes her very existence will end if her special perceptions end. I think it's far deeper than just admitting being wrong.

Ward

You only have five senses? You poor bastards! I would hate to lose my vestibular (balance) sense, my sense of pain, kinesthesis or my two temperature senses.
"Humans have several senses in addition to sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch,
including body position, temperature,and pain.." p.44,Lilienfeld, et. al.(2009) 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology

 

[ynot]

Haven't really been involved with this thread very much so don'’t know if this has been mentioned before - VFF/Anita isn't just claiming that she can “see” through skin and flesh but also through the clothing being worn as well. This means we can forget all about kidneys and just test to see if she can “see” a person through fabric. Simply have a person stand close behind a fabric screen or not and see if she can say whether they are there or not. Repeat enough times to reasonably negate success by lucky guess. There only needs to be a small area of the screen as fabric so she can "see" the kidneys. Simple and conclusive.

 

[GeeMack]

Haven't really been involved with this thread very much so do'’t know if
his has been mentioned before - VFF/Anita isn't just claiming that she can "see" through skin and flesh but also through the clothing being worn as well. This means we can forget all about kidneys and just test to see if she can "see" a person through fabric. Simply have a person stand close behind a fabric screen or not and see if she can say whether they are there or not. there only needs to be a small area of the screen as fabric so she can "see" the kidneys. Simple and conclusive.

Anita has repeatedly rejected any and all simple and conclusive tests. She made her position very clear with this statement...

I won't agree to test conditions under which my claim fails.

 

[Drs_Res]

Haven't really been involved with this thread very much so don'’t know if this has been mentioned before - VFF/Anita isn't just claiming that she can “see” through skin and flesh but also through the clothing being worn as well. This means we can forget all about kidneys and just test to see if she can “see” a person through fabric. Simply have a person stand close behind a fabric screen or not and see if she can say whether they are there or not. Repeat enough times to reasonably negate success by lucky guess. There only needs to be a small area of the screen as fabric so she can "see" the kidneys. Simple and conclusive.

Suggested long ago and rejected by VfV:

It seems that we have overlooked probably the easiest test that could be done.
Use a full screen and VfF has to tell if there is someone on the other side or not.
10 trials and only once in the 10 trials will there be no one behind the screen.

It should be easy to for her to detect if there is a person/isn't a person behind the screen, right?

Post 395 and on:
Full thread starting on page 10

 

[ynot]

Anita has repeatedly rejected any and all simple and conclusive tests. She made her position very clear with this statement...

"I won't agree to test conditions under which my claim fails."

If they are her accurately quoted words and this is her actual stance then I join the rabble with the pitchforks and say . . . BURN THE WITCH!

And apologise to my fellow sceptics for criticising them for saying the same.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Now she takes the test at IIG. She sees a kidney. She sees it again. She makes an X by it. She makes four Xs by it. She sees it. But it's not there. The person can show her the scar where it was removed. The ultrasound machine can show the empty spot where it once was.

Now she knows, and we know, and she knows that we know that she sees things that are not there.

You're touching on something here that I think is overlooked far too often, especially by folks like Rodney. She doesn't know when her "ability" is working and when it's not. Take a look at her own "Study on Induced Information" here: http://www.visionfromfeeling.com/studyinduced.html

She was having perceptions. Dozens of them, in fact. Most were wrong, only she didn't know it! She thought "it" was working, but it wasn't. She has done a number of other "studies" and "tests" where the same thing happened. She fully believed that she was detecting my ailments by looking at a photo of me, but she was wrong and did not know it. Even if she thinks there are some perceptions that are "real", how does she distinguish them from all the noise? More importantly, what is it she actually thinks is going on when she misses six out of 10 trials or totally bombs by citing ailments I don't have and missing those I do have when the whole time she thought she was right?

Meanwhile, the sonogram operator was completely confident in her readings. She was just as confident as anyone would be looking at people who might be missing an arm or a leg. A mistake would be an anomaly and probably easily explained upon further examination.

And thus we can see the difference between reality and wishful thinking.

 

[Jeff Corey]

About the only excuse that she hasn't used yet is that the presence of skeptics interferes with her magical power.
Once in Rockport Massachusetts, we saw a woob's psychic/herbal/crystal shops which prominently displayed a sign on the door, "If You Are A Skeptic, Please Stay Away. We Don't Want Negative Energy Around Here."
Great excuse if the woob tells you there's a message from your dead granny and she ain't quite dead yet. "No, she's alive, she's just kippin'" you say.
"Well there must be skeptic negative energy around here. Come back Sunday week and we'll have it all exercized out of here."

 

[wardenclyffe]

Those are her accurately quoted words, but what she was saying was that she was not going to agree to test conditions under which her powers could not work. Like trying to find a kidney in a lead box. She equates looking at a person behind a sheet on a clothes line to looking for a kidney in lead box. Perhaps she should not equate those two things, but that was her point. I know, I know. She should be able to look at things through a sheet, but she said she couldn't.

Ward

ETA: response to ynot in #1033---these are coming fast and furious.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Haven't really been involved with this thread very much so don'’t know if this has been mentioned before - VFF/Anita isn't just claiming that she can “see” through skin and flesh but also through the clothing being worn as well. This means we can forget all about kidneys and just test to see if she can “see” a person through fabric. Simply have a person stand close behind a fabric screen or not and see if she can say whether they are there or not. Repeat enough times to reasonably negate success by lucky guess. There only needs to be a small area of the screen as fabric so she can "see" the kidneys. Simple and conclusive.

Been there, done that. She calls that "remote viewing" and claims it is not her claim. She has been offered and refused a number of very simple tests to prove some of her specific claims. She said flat out that if she failed the IIG test, it would "falsify" a whole slew of claims. Once again she is going back on her word.

And as I outlined in another post, she has failed various studies and tests under less stringent conditions. She has passed none. There is nothing worthy of further investigation (not that there ever was).

As for Anita, she has stated that she does not want to give up her perceptions. Thus she is faced with a dilemma. If she "keeps" them, then they are either the results of her fantasy prone personality or rooted in reality. If she admits the former, the rational part of her says she has to give them up. Therefore, she does everything possible to maintain that they might be real. This is why she eschews simple tests and goes for the elaborate ones with wiggle room.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Those are her accurately quoted words, but what she was saying was that she was not going to agree to test conditions under which her powers could not work. Like trying to find a kidney in a lead box. She equates looking at a person behind a sheet on a clothes line to looking for a kidney in lead box. Perhaps she should not equate those two things, but that was her point. I know, I know. She should be able to look at things through a sheet, but she said she couldn't.

Ward

ETA: response to ynot in #1033---these are coming fast and furious.

That's why I quote, to attempt to answer the right person. Another person and I had suggested that in a thread long ago. Apparently sheets have some magic quality the blocks her vision, where t shirts don't. She said that she had to be able to see the people so that she could focus on the organ.
But that failed.

 

[GeeMack]

Those are her accurately quoted words, but what she was saying was that she was not going to agree to test conditions under which her powers could not work. Like trying to find a kidney in a lead box. She equates looking at a person behind a sheet on a clothes line to looking for a kidney in lead box. Perhaps she should not equate those two things, but that was her point. I know, I know. She should be able to look at things through a sheet, but she said she couldn't.

Ward

ETA: response to ynot in #1033---these are coming fast and furious.

Yes, she can see through a cotton shirt, but she can't see through a cotton sheet. She can see a kidney right through the flesh of one's back, but she can't see if there's a whole person standing behind a curtain. And she's adamant about it. She said it over and over in this posting. Which only further reinforces the notion that she was completely convinced her magical powers would work under the conditions described in the IIG protocol. And that makes the total failure an even more substantial demonstration that her claim is bogus.

 

[Hokulele]

About the only excuse that she hasn't used yet is that the presence of skeptics interferes with her magical power.
Once in Rockport Massachusetts, we saw a woob's psychic/herbal/crystal shops which prominently displayed a sign on the door, "If You Are A Skeptic, Please Stay Away. We Don't Want Negative Energy Around Here."
Great excuse if the woob tells you there's a message from your dead granny and she ain't quite dead yet. "No, she's alive, she's just kippin'" you say.
"Well there must be skeptic negative energy around here. Come back Sunday week and we'll have it all exercized out of here."

As I have said in other threads, my raised eyebrow is far more powerful than any psychic.