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A parapsychologist writes about leaving parapsychology

Hello, Louie. Sorry to hear things didn't work out the way you thought they would. :)

In your blog, you say the reaction of skeptics to your discovery that the field of parapsychology is a house of cards would be "So what".

I beg to differ.

One of my favorite books on the subject of the paranormal is The Psychic Mafia. That is a book written by an "insider" of the psychic medium industry in which he reveals all the cons and scams and lies perpetrated by mediums. It is a very informative and entertaining book.

I think anything you have to say about the scams and lies perpetrated by the parapsychology industry would be equally informative and entertaining, and I look forward to your promised blog entry about Radin.

I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I have looked at people like Gary Schwartz with some fascination for a long time. I have read what research papers he has put on the net, and have been stunned at the intrinsic errors contained in his work. I have also noticed that on at least one occasion, he promised more material for one particular experiment would be made available, and then never followed through.

All that remains open for me about Gary Schwartz is whether he is seriously deluded, or a blatant liar. I tend to come down on the opinion that he is just deluded and not a deliberate sham artist. I think he is taken advantage of by sham artists.

Louie, I can understand how someone of your intellect can be feeling pretty testy about the whole paranormal field right now and you just want to chuck out a few "house of cards" comments and bullet statements about what a waste of time it is to even look further into the matter.

Unfortunately, I saw an ad for a Q-Ray bracelet on TV last night. And here I thought they had been banned from making such bizarre claims, but apparently I was wrong.

Like acupuncture, yoga and tai-chi, the Q-Ray Ionized bracelet is based on traditional Oriental medicine. The
Q-Ray is designed to naturally balance the negative and positive energy forces in your body to achieve a state of “Chi,” where you will feel and perform at your best, and have more energy to lead an active lifestyle.
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So the need for people like yourself will always be there, Louie. Someone who can not only say, "it's all crap," but can back that up.

I hope you get your wind back. And I hope your disposition improves. :D
 
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Luke said:
I think anything you have to say about the scams and lies perpetrated by the parapsychology industry would be equally informative and entertaining, and I look forward to your promised blog entry about Radin.
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Write a book, Louie. I'd buy half a dozen copies.

~~ Paul
 
Luke T. said:
I think anything you have to say about the scams and lies perpetrated by the parapsychology industry would be equally informative and entertaining, and I look forward to your promised blog entry about Radin.
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Hi Luke.

I'm going to be addressing your particular position on my blog in the very near future (looking at a specific example) and you might all be interested in a conversation I've just posted with 'parapsychologist' Rupert Sheldrake.

But I will preempt it all by saying that one day, the hope must be that humans get inoculated fully for viruses of the mind, as they do for diseases of the body. Am I really so naive as to hope that it comes sooner rather than later?

And as far as a book goes, my plans are much, much bigger! ;)
 
psp02ls said:
And as far as a book goes, my plans are much, much bigger! ;)
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Rock band?

Reality TV show? ("Sixteen psychics. Thirty-three days. No winner.")

Professional wrestling gig?

Whatever it is, I can hardly wait!

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
psp02ls said:
Hi Luke.

I'm going to be addressing your particular position on my blog in the very near future (looking at a specific example)
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Excellent. I look forward to it!

and you might all be interested in a conversation I've just posted with 'parapsychologist' Rupert Sheldrake.
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I enjoyed it. But it brings up a sort of unrelated question to the subject matter at hand. Was it understood by Sheldrake that you would be making his email to you public? It seems a violation of implied confidence to me.

But I will preempt it all by saying that one day, the hope must be that humans get inoculated fully for viruses of the mind, as they do for diseases of the body. Am I really so naive as to hope that it comes sooner rather than later?
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If they come up with such a shot, I'll let you go first. :D

And as far as a book goes, my plans are much, much bigger! ;)
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Tantalizing! Leaving me with a cliff-hanger, eh?
 
Luke T. said:
I enjoyed it. But it brings up a sort of unrelated question to the subject matter at hand. Was it understood by Sheldrake that you would be making his email to you public? It seems a violation of implied confidence to me.
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I did it to Susan Blackmore and James Randi, and I'll do it again regardless. Personally I thought it was fascinating to have confirmed my own belief about this particular 'scientist's' motivation. And isn't it better to let everyone in on the discussion of what it all means, rather than slog it out in private?

Either way, I found out. :)
 
Louie,

Just a quick question. You have left parapsychology, and I really hope you land a good job in Science Journalism or TV Research with decent pay that draws on your expertise and therefore requires little effort, leaving you free to enjoy life. Such jobs exist. :)

Anyway, back in the 90's Susan Blackmore asked "Do we need a new Parapsychology?" Surely there is till room for the investigation of what underlies the weird spontaneous cases? I'm not saying its paranormal - I tend to believe all these things have naturalistic explanations, albeit some may be outside of our current scientific understanding.

The utter disillusionment with psi research I can see, but what of work like Wiseman et al. on Edinburgh Vaults, Tandy on infrasound, etc. Do you still have any interest at all in spontaneous cases?

I guess there are much better areas in Science to work upon, but you have so much knowledge it seems a shame for you to leave working in the area, even if you repudiate parapsychology and psi, especially as there is so much scope here. I fully understand if you want to say "stuff the lot of it though".

cj x
 
psp02ls said:
I did it to Susan Blackmore and James Randi, and I'll do it again regardless. Personally I thought it was fascinating to have confirmed my own belief about this particular 'scientist's' motivation. And isn't it better to let everyone in on the discussion of what it all means, rather than slog it out in private?

Either way, I found out. :)
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But you didn't have to make it public for you to find out. :)

As far as confirming your own beliefs, yes, you have provided to everyone a single data point to support your statement that "personal belief and previous paranormal experience appear to be strong motivating factors for parapsychologists".

I think personal belief may be an occupational hazard in many fields, and not just parapsychology. It must be difficult to seek knowledge just to know how things work, and not form some kind of belief and unconsciously seek to support it while downplaying or ignoring contrary data that may arise.

Very difficult.

And if at the summit of that belief there is something truly extraordinary with far-ranging implications, I can see how someone could get tunnel vision during their quest.

To come down from the mountain and face the mob without the tablets, Louie, took a lot of courage. You are to be commended.
 
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psp02ls said:
My blog post will really only be a simplifying of the paper in the first link. Read it and then read the paragraph written in the conscious universe on time reversed interference. Ask yourself why Radin did not mention the only other experiment conducted on time-reversed interference, which was non-significant?

He also substantially changed the methodology for his own replication and analysed some strange things!

It is one of a couple of examples I've mentioned. The other is psi-timing and precognitive habituation. Go and research them and find out the truth for yourself. Or rely on Radin's simplified interpretation. The choice is yours.
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Okay, I've skimmed all four of the papers referenced by davidsmith73, including yours. I still need to read them in more depth, but my first reaction is this: Assuming that you are right and Radin is wrong with respect to time-reversed interference, you get a gold star. However, Radin never mentions this subject in Entangled Minds. Perhaps that's because he realized he was on the wrong track or perhaps it's because he didn't think the subject was important enough. In any event, it's clear that Radin is not justifying his belief in psi by relying on time-reversed interference studies. Rather, he emphasizes other studies. In particular, he cites ganzfeld studies in Entangled Minds. On p. 120, he states:

"From 1974 through 2004 a total of 88 ganzfeld experiments reporting 1,008 hits in 3,145 trials were conducted. The combined hit rate was 32% as compared to the chance-expected 25% (Figure 6-6). This 7% above-chance effect is associated with odds against chance of 29,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 29 quintillion) to 1."

On p. 121, he continues:

"If we insisted there had to be a selective reporting problem, even though there is no evidence of one, then a conservative estimate of the number of studies needed to nullify the observed results is 2,002. That's a ratio of 23 file drawer studies to each known study, which means that each of the 30 known investigators would have had to conduct but not report 67 additional studies. Because the average ganzfeld study had 36 trials, these 2,002 'missing' studies would have required 72,072 additional sessions (36 x 2002). To generate that many sessions would mean continually running ganzfeld sessions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 36 years, and for not a single one of those sessions to see the light of day. That's not plausible."
(footnotes omitted)

So what do you think is wrong with the ganzfeld studies?
 
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Rodney said:
So what do you think is wrong with the ganzfeld studies?
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I'm no statistician, but as far as I'm aware, any meta-analysis has to be based on strict inclusion criteria that is applied to all studies in the database. This way, you can ensure that you're comparing like with like.

Radin does not do this. His m-a in The Entangled Mind is an update of the one in The Conscious Universe. It is simply a cobbling together of data that he already new was positive, ie: the Honorton m-a of 1985, plus the results since 1985 from five different laboratories (with The Entangled Mind adding a few more from recent years).

He doesn't address that fact that Honorton's m-a is incomplete, nor that other ganzfeld work was done in other laboratories after 1985. He's simply found a result that appeals to him, and thus stopped looking for additional data. His meta-analysis in The Entangled Mind is missing about half the data.

So when her says "From 1974 through 2004 a total of 88 ganzfeld experiments reporting 1,008 hits in 3,145 trials were conducted. The combined hit rate was 32% as compared to the chance-expected 25%" he is just plain wrong.

Using meta-analyses to "prove" a claim is problematic. In my research I found that by using different criteria for sorting the experiments, you could push the overall hit rate up and down as you pleased.

Interestingly, by using a super-strict set of criteria which adhered to what parapyschologists consider to be all the most psi-conducive aspects of the ganzfeld, you get a set of 30 experiments and an average hit rate of 30%. But that includes Dalton's work from 1997, which by itself grossly effects that outcome. Remove that as an outlier, and the overall hit rate falls to around 28%. For experiments that should, according to parapsychologists, give the largest effect.

I don't think that any of the meta-analyses used to "prove" that the ganzfeld is conducive to psi would pass muster in any other field. Anyone who thinks that they demonstrate an effect to a level that would be accepted in any other field of science is wrong. In my opinion.
 
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CJ asked:
The utter disillusionment with psi research I can see, but what of work like Wiseman et al. on Edinburgh Vaults, Tandy on infrasound, etc. Do you still have any interest at all in spontaneous cases?
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Ah, well CJ you've just picked two very interesting pieces of research. I have no problem with people investigating the psychology of anomalous experiences. I now know that this kind of evidence will not provide support for anything like survival etc. I'm not very interested in pursuing this line of enquiry for myself, because there are bigger fish to fry, but good luck to Richard and Vic Tandy.

Rodney said:
Assuming that you are right and Radin is wrong with respect to time-reversed interference, you get a gold star. However, Radin never mentions this subject in Entangled Minds. Perhaps that's because he realized he was on the wrong track or perhaps it's because he didn't think the subject was important enough.
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Forget about entangled minds. I've not read it and I'm not discussing it. But you've got a copy of the conscious universe. Don't you think that Radin's description is dishonest (or very simplified) and that he didn't accurately tell the reader what Klintman actually did? You may need to read the Klintman paper a few times (since it can be quite difficult to understand). If you can, also search out Camfferman's paper and ask yourself why Radin didn't mention the ONLY other replication of Klintman's work?

Now, in terms of the ganzfeld, there are a number of papers which argue the whole real effect vs artifact (and ersby does quite a good job of highlighting one aspect of the debate). I will repeat that I was employed to work on a large-scale ganzfeld project a couple of years ago (with nearly 100 trials, if I remember correctly). I didn't see anything remarkable with that particular methodology (and in fact, my opinion was that there were a number of potential normal factors for any above chance hitting).

But I really am not that interested at all in discussing the ganzfeld.

I wonder what our original Radin defender, Davidsmith has to say about the TRI papers? He's been remarkably quiet since Rodney came on the scene.

:)
 
Ersby said:
I'm no statistician, but as far as I'm aware, any meta-analysis has to be based on strict inclusion criteria that is applied to all studies in the database. This way, you can ensure that you're comparing like with like.

Radin does not do this. His m-a in The Entangled Mind is an update of the one in The Conscious Universe. It is simply a cobbling together of data that he already new was positive, ie: the Honorton m-a of 1985, plus the results since 1985 from five different laboratories (with The Entangled Mind adding a few more from recent years).

He doesn't address that fact that Honorton's m-a is incomplete, nor that other ganzfeld work was done in other laboratories after 1985. He's simply found a result that appeals to him, and thus stopped looking for additional data. His meta-analysis in The Entangled Mind is missing about half the data.

So when her says "From 1974 through 2004 a total of 88 ganzfeld experiments reporting 1,008 hits in 3,145 trials were conducted. The combined hit rate was 32% as compared to the chance-expected 25%" he is just plain wrong.
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Are you saying that Radin has omitted unfavorable results? He specifically states that there is no evidence of a selective reporting problem. If you, Louie, or anyone else here can prove that Radin has systematically omitted unfavorable results, then you may be on to something. But the burden is on you to show that.

Ersby said:
Using meta-analyses to "prove" a claim is problematic. In my research I found that by using different criteria for sorting the experiments, you could push the overall hit rate up and down as you pleased.
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Can you give an example?

Ersby said:
Interestingly, by using a super-strict set of criteria which adhered to what parapyschologists consider to be all the most psi-conducive aspects of the ganzfeld, you get a set of 30 experiments and an average hit rate of 30%. But that includes Dalton's work from 1997, which by itself grossly effects that outcome. Remove that as an outlier, and the overall hit rate falls to around 28%. For experiments that should, according to parapsychologists, give the largest effect.
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Two questions: (1) On what basis are you excluding Dalton's work? (2) Even if Dalton's work is flawed, how do you explain the 28% hit rate, which is still 3% above chance?

Ersby said:
I don't think that any of the meta-analyses used to "prove" that the ganzfeld is conducive to psi would pass muster in any other field. Anyone who thinks that they demonstrate an effect to a level that would be accepted in any other field of science is wrong. In my opinion.
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I fail to see anything inherently flawed in meta-analyses. What's your fundamental criticism of it?
 
psp02ls said:
Rodney said:

Forget about entangled minds. I've not read it and I'm not discussing it. But you've got a copy of the conscious universe. Don't you think that Radin's description is dishonest (or very simplified) and that he didn't accurately tell the reader what Klintman actually did? You may need to read the Klintman paper a few times (since it can be quite difficult to understand). If you can, also search out Camfferman's paper and ask yourself why Radin didn't mention the ONLY other replication of Klintman's work?
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I can't answer your questions at the moment, but I'm not sure how relevant they are to the overall issue, which is: Does psi exist?

psp02ls said:
Now, in terms of the ganzfeld, there are a number of papers which argue the whole real effect vs artifact (and ersby does quite a good job of highlighting one aspect of the debate). I will repeat that I was employed to work on a large-scale ganzfeld project a couple of years ago (with nearly 100 trials, if I remember correctly). I didn't see anything remarkable with that particular methodology (and in fact, my opinion was that there were a number of potential normal factors for any above chance hitting).
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What were those factors?

psp02ls said:
But I really am not that interested at all in discussing the ganzfeld.
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This doesn't make sense to me because the ganzfeld seems to be the best evidence for psi in the laboratory. You appear to have concluded that there is no such thing as psi without examining the best evidence for it!
 
Rodney said:
This doesn't make sense to me because the ganzfeld seems to be the best evidence for psi in the laboratory. You appear to have concluded that there is no such thing as psi without examining the best evidence for it!
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Oh Rodney and we were all getting along so well!

How can you throw around accusations like that? How do you know what I've read? As I've already said, I was employed to run a large-scale ganzfeld study. Of course I had to look into the area. I didn't just sit in a room and make up the data. Don't presume to tell me what I do or do not know. My conclusions are my own. I did not come here to convince you of anything!

Rely on Radin all you want. I really couldn't care less.

And if this debate is going to descend into a discussion of the ganzfeld, them I really am bailing out (and Rodney can keep his finger in the dam)!
 
Rodney said:
This doesn't make sense to me because the ganzfeld seems to be the best evidence for psi in the laboratory. You appear to have concluded that there is no such thing as psi without examining the best evidence for it!
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Perhaps I'm not remembering correctly - it's a long thread - but wasn't Louie involved in doing some ganzfeld experients?


Even if I'm wrong about that, given the depth of research he's done, I doubt that he hasn't looked ganzfeld experiments. Rather, I gather he's looked over that data in depth as well as much more and, in the end, he concluded that not only that it isn't sufficient evidence to conclude psi exists, that it is sufficient to conclude that psi does not exist. While you may not agree with his conclusion, there's no reason to think that he neglected to study the best run and most well known experiments in the field, which would include the ganzfeld experiments.

eta: Oh never mind, I see Louie has replied while I was typing this in.
 
Rodney said:
Are you saying that Radin has omitted unfavorable results? He specifically states that there is no evidence of a selective reporting problem. If you, Louie, or anyone else here can prove that Radin has systematically omitted unfavorable results, then you may be on to something. But the burden is on you to show that.
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In The Conscious Universe his chapter on the ganzfeld states that Honorton left out some of the early results because those experiments did not report numerical results. However, that's not true. I don't see how he could've come to that conclusion if he'd actually read the papers. In The Entangled Mind that claim (re. missing experiments) has been dropped, yet the results from those experiments have not been reintroduced.

His m-a is missing half the data, but there is not one hint of an inclusion criteria. Even when I brought the point up to him, he did not tell me what criteria he used. I have my strong suspicions that no inclusion criteria exist, and as such cannot be considered a thorough or worthwhile meta-analysis.

Can you give an example?
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Of how this works with data from the ganzfeld? No - all that was a result of me mucking about with excel files.

With meta-analyses in general, I think it's pretty well established that the final result can be influenced by arbitrary choices by the author which have little to do with wether or not the effect being measured exists:

Bailer, "The promise and problems of meta-analysis", New England Journal of Medicine, 1997, cited in Kennedy, JoP, 2004
"It is not uncommon to find that two or more meta-analyses done at about the same time by investigators with the same access to the literature reach incompatible or even contradictory conclusions. Such disagreement argues powerfully against any notion that meta-analysis offers an assured way to distill the "truth" from a collection of research reports. (p. 560)"

Two questions: (1) On what basis are you excluding Dalton's work? (2) Even if Dalton's work is flawed, how do you explain the 28% hit rate, which is still 3% above chance?
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I excluded Dalton's work solely as an outlier - to see how robust the overall efect was without relying on one freak result to push it up. And it is 3% above chance, but it's barely significant, and only a couple of unsuccessful experiments would be enough to push it into non-significance.

Besides, my point was to demonstrate how the overall hit rate can be pushed up and down according to ruling in or out certain experiments.

I fail to see anything inherently flawed in meta-analyses. What's your fundamental criticism of it?
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See the quote from Bailer above. It has its uses and can be a powerful tool, but I see it working best as a pointer for future exploration of a particular effect, not as a proof in itself.
 
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psp02ls said:
Oh Rodney and we were all getting along so well!
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Nothing lasts forever. ;)

psp02ls said:
How can you throw around accusations like that? How do you know what I've read? As I've already said, I was employed to run a large-scale ganzfeld study. Of course I had to look into the area. I didn't just sit in a room and make up the data. Don't presume to tell me what I do or do not know. My conclusions are my own. I did not come here to convince you of anything!
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Fine, but how do you explain the overall results of ganzfeld studies? Was there a design flaw common to most or all of the positive studies?

psp02ls said:
Rely on Radin all you want. I really couldn't care less.
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I'm not so much relying on Radin as his statistics.

psp02ls said:
And if this debate is going to descend into a discussion of the ganzfeld, them I really am bailing out (and Rodney can keep his finger in the dam)!
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Why "descend"? Do you think the ganzfeld is unworthy of discussion?
 
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