Put a Fork in her she's done! VfF

[MattusMaximus]

After watching her on the opening video I think Anita does have some connection with the paranormal. Yet she can't really explain it.

From her body language she's seen something out of the ordinary.

Yes, that's called FAIL

I'm having difficulty in thinking that you are actually serious in your defense of this embarrassment.

 

[MattusMaximus]

My claim is not falsified if I missed some information. My claim is falsified if the health information that I do describe with confidence and claim to have perceived, is confirmed to be inaccurate. I hope that I have made this distinction clear to those for whom it was not already clear.

So if you hit some information, you win... and if you miss some information, you still win. No matter what, you win - there's no way for you to be wrong. At least in your mind.

Btw, if you miss some vitally important information about the health of the subject, then what good are your supposed abilities? What then makes you any different from a totally incompetent doctor who fails to properly diagnose a patient who is deathly ill because they missed some important information? When dealing with issues of life & death, seeing important things in the first place is just as important (if not more so) as correctly interpreting what you do see. By definition, if you do not have the information to begin with, you have zero chance of making a correct diagnosis. You might as well just hang up a sheet on the wall with a list of maladies on it, close your eyes, and randomly throw darts at it... which sounds pretty much like what you do already.

Hilarious - I can't wait to blog about this

 

[Moss]

I hear creaking goalposts all the time. Can someone please stop the ruckus?

 

[fuelair]

meaningless post so go elsewhere for data!!!

 

[Farencue]

Wha... Ooh, self-facepalm. Good catch.

I really don't get how she's still clowning around with this stuff but I skipped from the first video, where I couldn't hear anything, to the last where "Take responsibility for your own actions" was chanted.

Time will tell has told.

I reckon! I just skipped all the long, tedious posts in this thread and followed your lead to the last video.

Mark Edwards has got two words for you Anita. "Face reality".

Senex, bummer about the motel, any chance of you producing a tv or radio show starring everyone's Favourite Arcturian?

 

[fuelair]

That is awesome stuff, I linked to it on my new blog.

Warning: if you visit, be aware that I swear a lot and I harbor no notions of maturity on my blog, and all commenters are welcome to do the same. The gloves are off there

Welcome in fellow Orlandoite!! Do you Oasis?

 

[Uncayimmy]

So if you hit some information, you win... and if you miss some information, you still win. No matter what, you win - there's no way for you to be wrong. At least in your mind.

Yes. If she says there's an ailment when there isn't one. However, when doing this in front of witnesses, she always says that it's extremely mild. If the person says there's nothing wrong with that part of the body, she says that perhaps she was just detecting healthy tissue.

You think I'm joking?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4588935#post4588935
The joints I reported were that I had felt them, all of which to the lowest extent. I did not detect health problems with them, just that I felt them. Same as saying that I felt Wayne's adam's apple. I did feel and see that the left kidney was missing although I chose not to report it, because my logic was thinking that it can't be true and that if I were wrong I'd never hear the end of it. Turns out I would have been correct, so the study was fully successful in teaching me things about the way my claim works so "missing kidney" is added to the test protocol.

Reading the posts before and after that one will give you the full scope. And maybe Ashles will chime in with the "scoring" system she developed where she got credit for everything no matter what. It was hilarious. If you do blog, a link to www.StopVisionFromFeeling.com would be appreciated.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Reading the posts before and after that one will give you the full scope. And maybe Ashles will chime in with the "scoring" system she developed where she got credit for everything no matter what. It was hilarious. If you do blog, a link to www.StopVisionFromFeeling.com would be appreciated.

Holy crapballs, that's crazy.

UY, I will link to your site in my post... shout out for you, baby!

 

[desertgal]

So, some woman at IIG was regaling VfF with stories of her wild cocaine use?

Ward

Sure. Most people who party hard with illegal substances go around telling complete strangers all about it.

 

[Marcus]

I have been called many things by internet Skeptics in intent to disqualify my credibility and reliability to present a paranormal claim for investigation. When there is lack of criticism against the claim itself, or when such critique has proven unfruitful in dismaying me from further investigation, attack is targeted at me personally instead.

I must insist that my claim and investigation are not for me to gain attention to myself. It should even be obvious from these most recent videos how shy I am in situations dealing with this claim, and you can imagine how awkward this subject matter is to me considering that my real life involves being just a science student and future research scientist in conventional physics. I present my claim in an impersonal manner, hoping that it be considered for what it is or is not, with no regard to who I am as a person presenting my claim.

Any remarks against me on the personal level that are obviously intended negatively, such as calling me liar, fraud, delusional, or narcissistic, do not accurately depict the nature of this particular claim and from this particular claimant. I consider such remarks to be irrelevant, and any insulting or hurtful effect of these remarks on me, I must also hold as equally irrelevant to the real topic of discussion, that is a true and genuine paranormal claim, which still in spite of your best wishes that it be over, has not reached a final conclusion yet.

I just don't see how you could ever reach a final conclusion. You've established this pattern of rationalizing away any negative results that grows with each test. It doesn't matter if a test is designed whose results you say can definitively falsify your claim, we went through that on the kidney test and it didn't make any difference.

So what does the future hold? I suppose you'll just keep going. People will continue to talk about it if they feel like it, but I hope no one spends any more substantial time or money on it.

 

[Trent Wray]

I think it's VfF that thinks the skeptical community should never "close it's doors" on her claims.
The door on Anita Ikonen, as a person, doesn't necessarily need to be closed, but the door on her claims can and should now be closed.

Hmm ... perhaps. But is this a bar where even her person is an alcoholic and shouldn't be around drinking (I'm drinking now, thus the analogy )?

 

[Moss]

I think the best anyone can achieve at the moment is to document her claims and the internal inconsistencies in her reasoning and anecdotes. In the most dispassionate mode possible.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Aah... wall of text... can not do it... must try...

Of course despite multiple tests, studies, investigations etc. you have not demonstrated this ability once.

Actually I have.

You description of your own ability quite simply changes all the time.

Each reading is different. I also do not retro-fit my description of a reading after the results are in and would be happy to write all of it down on a piece of paper and put the pen away before I give my conclusion and before the results are given.

As you have been told over and over, these little ad lib tests are utterly pointless for exactly these reasons.

Not so. If I make a perception and it is proven to be inaccurate, it does not matter how this particular reading experience may have otherwise differed from other readings done in the past. Each experience is different. People are always different and the circumstances around a particular reading will be different. Accuracy or inaccuracy can still be obtained.

And again renders such little tests as this as utterly pointless because you can simply say "I didn't miss that, I just didn't check that area".

Well then. Next time write the particular health condition that a person has, on a piece of paper and among any number of other health information that the person may or may not have and ask me to check for each. There are hundreds of different specific things to check for in a body and you can not expect me to find or go through each.

Completely in contrast to your previous descriptions where the ability itself seems to know what you are looking for and jumps out at you.

Sometimes, yes. But seemingly not in a case of well-maintained diabetes.

So the amazing ability already knows what is relevant and highlights serious health concerns to you.

Yes. I worked in a nursing home and I was just a practical nurse and had no education for health care other than the various courses given by our employer. I detected with my woo that a man was having a dangerously low blood sugar, yet the other staff who were educated and higher ranking disagreed with me and fussed at me and yelled at me when I kept on insisting. They were also permanent staff at that ward and I was only visiting as an extra and I had very little past contact with the patients there. I insisted and nagged and finally got a night staff nurse to check his blood sugar and turns out it was so dangerously low that had he been put to bed for the night he might have died. This is not a case of negligence by the other nurses, but just another case of interesting anecdote surrounding my claim.

Mark on the other hand has a well-maintained diabetes.

So absolutely nothing like skimming through a book.

Some information stands out, others I have to look for. Each case is different, because the same diagnose manifests itself to different extents and in different ways in different people. Had I said that Mark does not have diabetes, now that would have been evidence against the claim.

Well obviously it absolutely should be held against your claim and is all clearly considered yet more demonstration that you have no unusual ability whatsoever.

No because Mark has a case of well-maintained diabetes and I did not check to see whether he might have diabetes. You should know this. You have a degree in experimental test design or something such.

Guessing and (now) failing to guess are hardly paranormal abilities.

No, but providing accurate health information about a person in cases where one should not have been able to know makes for an interesting paranormal claim.

Although it could be taken as more evidence against your claim - your 'visions' ascribe distinction to organs and structures that actually have no distinction.

Please explain because if you have here found evidence against the claim I would be happy to know, but I do not understand what you are pointing to here.

Well, staring at him and detecting nothing.

Send me some sick people, or at least someone with a poorly maintained case of diabetes and provide me with a checklist to make sure that I do check for diabetes and what not. Mark is a healthy man. Yay.

Had you read about parts of the brain the previous day and were eager to toss that in as though it might make you look like you had the first clue what you were talking about?

Someone who is very logical comes across as having a very active frontal lobe part of the brain. I was merely pointing that out since prior to my reading of Mark I would have logically assumed that he is mostly intuitive and emotional in his approach to forming conclusions and making observations, yet I was feeling that he is someone who processes information in a logical, intellectual way.

It means nothing to say "his brain is mostly frontal lobe active and not occipital lobe". It's new-agey nonsense.

I was saying that based on the perception I had of what areas of his brain are more active than others, he is more of a logical thinker and not emotional intuitive. And it does mean something. But it is too diffuse and subjective to include in an assessment of a paranormal claim, for instance. I was merely describing what I feel, voicing the perceptions. Like when I started describing the appearance of his intestines, not involving a health problem nor something that could be verified. Just describing, that's all.

You use different parts of the brain in many different ways and at different times. Are you implying he isn't using vision?

Nopes. I am saying he uses frontal lobe and intellect more so than he would use intuition and emotion when he processes information and forms his conclusions in a variety of situations.

You might as well have said "you are more knee active than eyelid active".

Not quite. You do know that a scan can be taken depicting the various parts of the brain as they are active during various activities that the person does. It illustrates the parts of the brain that are engaged in various activities and each part of the brain provides a different way of processing information.

Meaningless drivel.

Nah.

I assume this is because you now fancy making random 'brain' observations and think it would be fun now to play with functional MRI scanning.

Heh heh. No. I was just describing. Meanwhile I realize that my description of active areas of the brain is not something that could be verified unless the person is simultaneously undergoing an actual and conventional brain scan.

Guessing? Who would have expected that to be involved with this claim?

I do not guess. I base the descriptions on something that I feel or see. My guesses would be based on logic and often give very different types of answers that contradict with what my perceptions perceive. Such as when my logic was convinced that Dr. Carlson couldn't possibly be missing a kidney. But my perceptions remain accurate, and my logical guessing skill remains unable to have a clue as to the hidden and internal health information which we would not know about just by looking at a person and under the conditions implemented during the times when I attempt to try my paranormal claim.

And like any astrological reading it gives both sides of a position to cover the bases.

Send me some sick people. Not Mark Edward who is a healthy man.

So you were pointing to the logic-related part of the brain when describing how a skeptic might approch things logically?
Amazing. I'm sure no-one else would be capable of such amazing perception.

I am right now reading a book by Mark Edward called Psychic Blues in which he elaborately describes doing psychic readings and I would have logically assumed that he uses a lot of intuition in his way of thinking, but my perceptions revealed that this is a very intellectual, logical man.

Of course if you could use your amazing molecular vision to detect what specifically they did not eat enough of, or what they had eaten that day, or the taste of something they were eating which you could not see.
Heh, imagine if you could do that. That would be amazing.

Eeew, you are asking me to look into the contents of the digestive system and to perceive what they have eaten. Ok. I can do that.

So your ability is amazing at declaring everything fine (except when it is actually not fine but that doesn't matter because you weren't looking for that particular ailment).

What? But yes.

No it is like asking someone to answer detailedquestions on any part of a book they have just skimmed through - if... they had already told you they could decribe any part of a book they had just skimmed through.

Naaah! I have never said that!

The ridiculous level of accuracy and detail were all your own claim.

I have always said that I can not claim to detect each case in which an ailment is considered to occur nor that I detect everything that is considered to be there. My claim is that when I do detect something, it would be accurate.

Especially as the ability supposedly has the feature of highlighting any relevant issues, expecially if they are serious and even if they involve multiple areas.

Each case in which an ailment occurs is different, and also Mark's diabetes is well-maintained. He feels more well-nourished than most people I see.

The person really tearing your claim apart at the moment is... you.

No.

Except when it is inaccurate. Several of the kidney readings were clearly incorrect.

After trial 1 I said I had made the wrong answer. After trial 2 I said I had made the right answer. After trial 3 I said I had the right person but had had to guess on the side. I correctly predicted the accuracy or inaccuracy of each trial before the results were in. Had I passed on the content which did not represent the claim, I would have had a 100% accuracy. But even with the inaccuracy considered, I still obtained a 3.8% result, well below the 5% mark entitling this claim to further testing even after the IIG test. www.visionfromfeeling.com/paranormaltest.html

Oh and remember the guy you said had something wrong with his throat/neck?
And he didn't?
That was completely incorrect as well.

I did not say he had something wrong with his throat! What I said was that I feel something in his throat. I then skipped out of my chair and over to some of the other men sitting at the main table, did a quick look into their throats, hopped back to the person I was reading and said that it was just the adam's apple I was feeling. And he does have an adam's apple. I will often feel sensations across the body, that are not health problems.

It's clear why you find it easier now to just declare everyone is healthy - when you say anything is wrong it is incorrect.
Whereas if you miss important stuff you can claim you weren't looking for it.

I am entitled to miss important stuff that I did not look for. And Mark is a very healthy man. Send me some people with illnesses, please. I do not deliberately declare a person healthy. In fact I am looking for interesting health information, so that the accuracy of perceptions can be obtained.

And of course you can doubly hedge your bets by throwing in some nonsense about "the intestines look beautiful" - so if they are healthy you can say you were just appreciating their beauty but if there is an issue you can say "I knew it - that's why they looked different to me".

Not so. But I do see the concern. In the future I will only list health problems, and keep my aesthetic depictions to myself.

In future tests do not raise any distinction of any organs, structures etc. unless you are specifically describing an abnormality.

Thank you. Point taken.

The claim is already thoroughly falsified any way you want to define it.

Is not falsified.

You have exactly the same ability as any other human on earth - the ability to guess and be wrong more than you are right.

Not so. My accuracy exceeds that which should be acchievable by guessing and cold reading alone.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Let me just reiterate extremely clearly that your 'investigation' of your own claim has absolutely nothing to do with skepticism.

Performing a random unplanned rushed test between dinner and going to the cinema without access even to a pen and paper - where do you feel that fits in to a skeptical analysis of a paranormal medical claim?

Looking at body language is pretty much exactly as effective a method of ascertaining the reality behind your claim as your random test.

Totally unskeptical, unscientific and pointless.

Please encourage me to test my claim in any best ways possible and as frequently as possible and to take advantage of what ever resources, such as participating Skeptics, are at hand in any given situation, even when it leads to a quick and informal test. An imperfectly set up test is still better than no test at all and still presents the opportunity for me to provide medical readings whose accuracy can be obtained, allowing the possibility of falsifying the claim even in such simple conditions. An inaccurate medical perception is all it takes.

 

[Farencue]

no you didn't avoid doing your usual wall of text....fail.

Yes. I worked in a nursing home and I was just a practical nurse and had no education for health care other than the various courses given by our employer. I detected with my woo that a man was having a dangerously low blood sugar, yet the other staff who were educated and higher ranking disagreed with me and fussed at me and yelled at me when I kept on insisting. They were also permanent staff at that ward and I was only visiting as an extra and I had very little past contact with the patients there. I insisted and nagged and finally got a night staff nurse to check his blood sugar and turns out it was so dangerously low that had he been put to bed for the night he might have died. This is not a case of negligence by the other nurses, but just another case of interesting anecdote surrounding my claim.

the rest of the self indulgent dribble has been wiped up off the floor....

So another story has evolved again, this time at the nursing home.
Now the nurses "disagreed, fussed and yelled at you".
What caused you to leave your employment at this nursing home?

 

[Farencue]

Please encourage me to test my claim in any best ways possible and as frequently as possible and to take advantage of what ever resources, such as participating Skeptics, are at hand in any given situation, even when it leads to a quick and informal test. An imperfectly set up test is still better than no test at all and still presents the opportunity for me to provide medical readings whose accuracy can be obtained, allowing the possibility of falsifying the claim even in such simple conditions. An inaccurate medical perception is all it takes.

For this to be directed at Ashles shows the extent of Anita's character.
We now have come full circle ladies and gentlemen.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Anita I promise you have absolutely no interest in discussing your personal life. It's entirely no-one's business but your own.

But I must ask one question - were you seeing Spencer Marks before or during the IIG kidney test?

I only ask because, as you describe yourself as a skeptic, surely you see how it is obviously relevant if a paranormal claimant is seeing the skeptic in charge of testing her paranormal claim (or at least who has all the knowledge about the secret identities in that challenge).

If you did not know Spencer socially before or at the time of the IIG test then just say 'No' and that will be an end to that discussion as far as I am concerned.

The first time I ever met Spencer was after all the three trials were completed and I had submitted all my answers, he was then one of the many IIG members helping to set up the ultrasound portion of the test. He also says he knew nothing about me nor what I looked like until after the first part of the test. The test was thus properly blinded as far as both of us were concerned.

After the entire test was done I did chat with him a little backstage, but there were many IIG members there. I asked him what Wrangler meant since he had that written on his shirt and I am Swedish so I don't know all the words.

So no, I did not know him before or during the test. And we only started talking something like February, and the test was in November.

I must also say that Spencer is a great Skeptic. No matter how I explain it to him, he is not persuaded by my woo. And he doesn't give me his steering committee vote (joke). But I did manage to have him take me ghost hunting once, but not a second time.

 

[TSR]

An imperfectly set up test is still better than no test at all and still presents the opportunity for me to provide medical readings whose accuracy can be obtained, allowing the possibility of falsifying the claim even in such simple conditions.

.
No, a badly designed test is *not* better than none at all. And you believing that it is simply confirms your lack of scientific rigour.
.

An inaccurate medical perception is all it takes.

.
You mean like detecting a kidney where there was none? Or detecting its absence when there was one?
.

 

[Almo]

Of course despite multiple tests, studies, investigations etc. you have not demonstrated this ability once.

Actually I have.

I haven't seen any evidence of a demonstration of the ability.

Story:

We just bought a stereo, and stereophiles are notorious for believing they hear differences where there are none. Much of our music is ripped at 128kbps and we stream it through the PS3. We wanted to do a test to see if we can tell the difference between 128kbps and a non-compressed .wav file. The first test was to see if we could tell the difference between a streamed .wav from the PS3 and the same CD from the player. If we could tell a difference there, it might mean the subsequent test on streamed music wouldn't tell the whole story. My wife was sure she could tell the difference between the CD and the streamed .wav in a baseline test. So I decided we would worry about that later, and proceed with the sampling bitrate test.

So we had one track ripped as a .wav (non-compressed audio, same data as on the CD), as 64, 128, 256, and 320 kbps AAC compressed files. On a baseline test, she said she could easily tell the difference between with 64/wav and 128/wav and that 256 was questionable.

In the blind test, she couldn't tell the difference between the .wav and the 256, but she nailed the 64. She couldn't tell the difference well enough to commit on the 128. So we figure ripping at 256 is fine.

But then I found a way to do a blind test between CD and streamed .wav. Once the test was blind, she was unable to tell the difference.

Moral of the story: it's very easy to fool yourself. If an effect disappears under blind testing, it's not there.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

Anita, don't you feel it is dangerous to do what you are doing? Because you sometimes get it right but then sometimes don't and miss things? It's like a dowser that sometimes gets "water". Then people waste a lot of money digging. If someone, and I guess there are several someones that do believe in you, follows your reading or advice, even if you are clear you aren't always accurate, that's dangerous. Desperate people, with say a serious medical condition that the doctors can't diagnose right away might ask for your help. Because you seem pretty clear you CAN do this SOMETIMES.

Your concerns, although highly important in the general sense, are not valid in my case. First of all I can not recall a single case of inaccuracy when it comes to a medical perception which I state is compelling and represents the best of what my claim tries to do. To miss things, I do not consider falsifying of this claim nor dangerous. My claim is that when I do detect something, it would be accurate, but that I do not necessarily detect everything in each case in which it is considered to occur.

There are also no people who believe that the claim represent a true ability, that I am aware of. No followers. And the few woos who are dazzled by their misinterpretation that this not be a skeptical investigation but the case of a true paranormal talent I deter by giving them my two cents on the importance of skepticism and in putting faith in your conventional practitioners.

Yes, a woo claim can be very dangerous when in the hands of the wrong irresponsible person, but I handle my claim in a most responsible way. I only do readings on Skeptics, and they will tell you I do not even charge any money for it.

Your concerns are important, but fortunately do not apply in my case.

I get nervous. If you aren't using your ability for helping people, you are just having it "tested" by skeptics, than why complain when they test you. You can always say "no".

My background is in chemistry and physics education and research, in which it is all ok to test a particular parameter on the phenomenon under study, even if we already know it is going to prohibit manifestation of studied effect. In research we do not mind testing things and verifying our assertion that some things simply block things from happening. It does not harm our central experiment but only strengthens our awareness of surrounding parameters.

With that said, I do not mind testing the claim with screens even if I know it will block the perceptions. It does not harm my claim which requires the use of no screens.

If you indeed have some power, your use of it has been rather wasteful.

Eh? Even if verified, it would not serve useful for medical diagnose, as any psychic diagnose would require verification by conventional medicine. I also have a career in conventional physics ahead of me, and no interest in the practice of woo. This I do is just a skeptical hobby of mine, and not a greater plan for my life.

It's not a game. For instance, if you really have some intuitive ability with medical diagnosis, why not go to school to become a doctor? You could combine your intuitive (paranormal?) ability with the backing of MRIs and CAT scans and other tests.

I will be specialising in radiation treatment and medical imaging, however when I enter the science lab I leave all traces of woo at the door.

A combination of the two would be remarkable.

We are nowhere near that stage yet, and I am hesitant to even consider any professional applications of something that so far remains nothing but a spare time curiosity.

You are a chemistry major? THat's really difficult, so Med School, while expensive and hard, is almost a perfect fit. The point is if you have this (and I'm unclear about exactly how powerful and exact this is) I don't get why you don't have some real awe about it, that means you have to USE it. Simply proving to skeptics that you have this (or complaining about the testing) makes me go "hey, give that gift to some kid in med school ok!"

I am quite happy with the way in which I am investigating my claim and I would not give it away to someone else, although I do complain about the difficulty in setting up additional testing.

If YOU know you have "it", then don't worry about proving it to others. Accept it and figure out why you have "it" and then do something with your life that isn't hurtful (such as setting up a clinic where you give "reading")...something like the medical field where real medical tests can work with you. If it's a "gift" don't abuse it.

And I see that you are not a Skeptic. Next!