A Lucid Proposal For A Preliminary Test

timokay said:
If an applicant cheats, wins, and gets away with it forever... THEN he wins.

But claiming paranormal ability, and then be proven a fraud via some kind of trickery, is criminal fraud.
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I believe in the case of the challenge, as long as both parties agree to the protocol and the challenger passes the test, that's all that matters, regardless how it's done. Once the protocol is negotiated, JREF defines the ability to pass that particular challenge as "paranormal" for the purpose of awarding the prize, believing that cheating would be impossible with the controls they demand.

However, a nagging concern about that issue might make an applicant want a clause in the contract that the JREF couldn't sue them afterwards.
 
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Is that you Mr. Hempel?

Time for another blunt question:

Mental Professor, A.K.A. Drew, are you the same person as Drew Hempel, M.A., who publishes paranormal themed blogs and articles?
 
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Just a shot in the dark: Drew, is this you?
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Sorry bud, that style of prose is waaay above my ability to confuse. The closest I came to hyperentanglement was dropping an armful of coathangers at the drycleaners. I'm not recycling those anymore!
 
Mr. Scott said:
Mental Professor, A.K.A. Drew, are you the same person as Drew Hempel, M.A., who publishes paranormal themed blogs and articles?
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Mental Professor said:
Sorry bud, that style of prose is waaay above my ability to confuse. The closest I came to hyperentanglement was dropping an armful of coathangers at the drycleaners. I'm not recycling those anymore!
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Non-denial duly noted.
 
Well, if the application is indeed in the post, we'll have a name soon enough.
 
Just to be really paranoid ;) if there's any (non-ESP) signal going from the sender to the receiver, there's also a possibility that counting could be used to tell the receiver what the previous symbol (not the one being 'sent') was - could skew the odds slightly, along the lines of card-counting in pontoon. Presumably to avoid this being an issue (don't think it'd have enough impact to allow a 'pass', but could be part of a strategy?) you might want to either shuffle the pack of symbols after each 'transmission', start off with more than 50 cards, or just use a computer to pick a random symbol each time...
 
Mr. Scott said:
Non-denial duly noted.
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Wow, you can't seriously think they're the same person. You find it hard to believe that there are two people that believe in ESP that are both named Drew?

Their writing styles are COMPLETELY different- your other guy writes pseudoscientific blabber about all sorts of woo stuff, while our Drew has an attitude of "My wife and I have ESP." It's a very, very, very different claim.

Just because a google search for "Drew Randi ESP" turned up something doesn't make him the guy...
 
Admiral said:
However, in this case, Mental Professor has had such a rational dialogue and made such a realistic claim (and has been so friendly and reasonable) that most people here wouldn't expect him to be crazy or mistaken. Therefore, they assume he intends to cheat.
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Exactly my thoughts - we find a rational claimant, and the more rational he is, the more we assume he's cheating. It does seem a bit... counter-productive.

Here's my problem: the more rational Mental Professor is, the more I like him - which means the less interested I am in seeing him tested. :(

I think everybody is doing good on the protocol thing - after all, the first test isn't for the prize, it's just to determine if Randi should actually pay attention - so I won't comment on that.

My questoin is this: MP, how will you feel when the test fails? You seem like a nice guy; I'd like to know you would be as astounded and amazed at the human ability to construct reality despite facts as we would be at finding out telepathy really was true. I'd like to think both parties stood to gain here.

I don't mean to sound condescending, especially since I'm still new here, but I'm a little disappointed.
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I can't say I'mn disappointed, because that would imply I expected different. But yes, we could all at least pretend we think he's honest, until we know otherwise. That's the value of politeness - it saves you from eating so much crow. :D
 
Yahzi said:
Exactly my thoughts - we find a rational claimant, and the more rational he is, the more we assume he's cheating. It does seem a bit... counter-productive.
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It's not at all counter-productive. The stronger the suspicion of cheating, the more effort will be put into tightening up the protocol. The better the protocol, the more useful the results, whatever they may be.

What is counter-productive is the all the hand-wringing about how it's not polite to accuse the claimant of cheating. The whole point of the protocol negotiation is to eliminate the slightest possibility of cheating. You can't very well engage in that process without at least implying that the claimant might be planning to cheat.

Bear in mind also that nobody has ever given a successful demonstration of paranormal abilities to an audience of skeptics without later being discovered as a fraud. We can hope that Mental Professor will not follow in their footsteps, but it is not unreasonable to expect that he will.
 
Plasmadog said:
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What is counter-productive is the all the hand-wringing about how it's not polite to accuse the claimant of cheating.
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That is an anti-social attitude. It's never polite to accuse someone of cheating, and if you must you ought to wait until you can prove it.
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You can't very well engage in that process without at least implying that the claimant might be planning to cheat.
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Yes you can. You say, "we want to make sure no one can accuse you of cheating".
 
What is counter-productive is the all the hand-wringing about how it's not polite to accuse the claimant of cheating. The whole point of the protocol negotiation is to eliminate the slightest possibility of cheating. You can't very well engage in that process without at least implying that the claimant might be planning to cheat.
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What I am attempting is to participate in a testing program that is based on scientific principles. If I fail, it doesn't prove anything. If I pass, it still doesn't prove anything. Most people will not change their beliefs either way.

What if Mr. Nguyen had passed his test with flying colors? What would it have proven? Would anyone actually believe that he had discovered something that no one else knew? Would people reading the results accept the possibility of ESP, or would they question the parameters of the test? I think that even if Randi had paid the claimant, most people would still believe that it was a hoax.

What if Mr. Nguyen, along with his associate had a special chip implanted in their heads that was undetectable, but allowed them to communicate. Would that be 'cheating'? Would it be wrong to use it? It would allow him to do what he claimed. He would have passed the test and would truly have the gift that he described.

Were the dowsers that Randi exposed in Australia 'cheating'? They still believed in their powers, even after Randi proved it was Malarkey!

I think that the posters have brought up interesting points. They are approaching it from a logical perspective. They are looking at the flaws in the testing procedure to see how the data could be manipulated.

One of the most interesting is the idea of counting. (I can't do that, and my wife can't either. That is not what we're doing. I personally don't think it would be possible. That would be a good challenge!) I think there are too many variables that would negate any chance of that being successful. But, if I am successful, people will suspect that it was performed that way. I cannot change their minds.

FOR THE RECORD- My wife and I do not have any secret implants. We cannot count to keep track of the symbols. We have no way to communicate with each other. We can't use secret codes because we aren't talking during the test. We can be examined and scanned. We won't have any control of the participants or the venue. This is not part of a business venture.

We truly believe in our abilities and welcome further investigation.
 
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