Beth Clarkson, Complex Protocol

[webfusion]

"If you can beat the predicted odds, then yes, JREF will test you. Go ahead and apply."

I am not making any open claim of paranormal abilities, rog. It just seemed appropriate to point out rolls of the dice that are bet as "propositions" and yet win consistently can be attributed to other reasons besides 'cheating' (um, like random luck). When I win ten times in a row (which I've done), I can assure you the house is not thrilled, but that's the game. It's their dice, and I'm not cheating. Over time, they'll get their money back if I continue to try and overcome those astronomical house odds against me
(trust me on that).

But when a streak happens... it is a really sweet thing to see!
The people around the table are actually cheering me on, and I'm like a celebrity for a few moments!
roger, if I was able to walk into a casino or horsetrack with the ability to really see in advance (or be able to paranormally alter) the outcomes, then you can be sure james randi is gonna be the LAST person on Earth to be told about it!!! *grin*

Here's what I would love ---- Beth Clarkson showing us how she can set dice on fire! That would do it for me!
Otherwise, she's just gonna remain another delusional in a long line of rejected applicants...

 

[apoger]

Apoger, your protocol won't work. She doesn't direct her telekinesis in a straight line like a beam; she skips through supspace to directly affect the flame as if there were no spatial separation. (That's one excuse.)
Is she saying that her TK can't influence the direction of the flame? Because if it can, then the answer is simple. Have her pull the flame towards her on each try. Then, even accepting her 3-in-1 oil hypothesis, a statistically significant result is possible; on each group of three tries, she must at least once pull the flame towards her. (Having negated the possibility of external air currents by, for example, placing the candle in a bell jar.
See? Not so difficult.

The subspace excuse is exactly the sort of nonsense that claimants will come up with. Agreed.

On the other hand we can just as easily use the same sort of excuse making to completely dismiss your suggestion of impossing a bell jar. After all the jar would block my hand on the way to the flame. She could just as easily say that the jar will defeat the telekinetic push.


We will not get far at all if we are to dismiss protocols on the assumption that each one will get shot down with nonsense.

 

[apoger]

Nope, her claim is flame pushing.

If you check her opening claim it starts with: Claim to be demonstrated: TELEKINESIS

I think she made herself quite clear.

 

[apoger]

Extremely sensitive torsion balances have been around for hundreds of years. I made a really simple one by tying a string around the middle of a toothpick and hanging it inside an empty 2 liter Coke bottle.

Outstanding! I am all for moving the test to a more sensitive and definitive target. I really think that this is the only way you will get any satisfaction from this claim.

 

[KRAMER]

NOT PARANORMAL -

So if KRAMER is going to reject the testing of every claimant just because the claimed effect is subtle he is making a decision to fail to test what are the most likely kinds of claims to be true.

=============================================

Good point. But, what constitutes "true"? This notion of the existence of numerous truths sounds somewhat Zen to me.
While I personally respect such notions, they simply do not apply to the JREF Challenge, wherein only a single "truth" applies when asking the prime question: DOES IT WORK, or DOESN'T IT?

Are you actually suggesting that if someone can succeed in demonstrating something once in three attempts, that this is a successful demonstration?

This applicant is NOT claiming a paranormal effect because it works less than chance would dictate. This is the very foundation of JREF's requirements in proving a paranormal claim.

In point of fact, she is really claiming that she can NOT do it, except on occasion.

The more I think about this, the more I feel convinced that this is simply not a paranormal claim. Randi agrees 100%.

This is not about semantics. I understand some of the criticisms of JREF's position regarding this claim, but the Challenge begins with one basic question that we, as the organization offering the prize, must decipher the answer to, and that is...

IS THIS A PARANORMAL CLAIM?

Randi will not entertain any suggestion that a one-out-of-three demonstration constitutes a success.

People, this is a One Million Dollar prize. Do you really think we're going to write a check in that amount for anything less than conclusive proof? That kind of money is not awarded for a demonstration of "subtle effects" that may or may not suggest paranormal phenomenon.

Quite the contrary. Read the Challenge rules. If you disagree with the stringency of the Challenge requirements, you certainly have the right to do so. It will, however, have no impact upon what we require, as per the Challenge rules.

That having been said, should you ever decide to offer your
own Paranormal Challenge and cash prize based upon your own set of requirements, I have a file full of applicants who failed the JREF preliminary test whom I am certain would just love to apply for it.

 

[apoger]

Are you actually suggesting that if someone can succeed in demonstrating something once in three attempts, that this is a successful demonstration?

It absolutely depends on the effect being generated.

Let's say that I claim to have the power to walk through walls.
Are you telling me that if I made three attempts, and if only successful once, that you would discount this success as being less than chance?

Randi will not entertain any suggestion that a one-out-of-three demonstration constitutes a success.

In the past Randi has made it very clear that each claim must be evaluated so as to determine what constitutes success.

Has this changed?

 

[KRAMER]

In the past Randi has made it very clear that each claim must be evaluated so as to determine what constitutes success.
Has this changed?

Absolutely not.

If you say that you could walk through walls, and achieve it even ONCE out of TEN times via means that are clearly not involving sledgehammers, heavy equipment or other physical means,
that would be paranormal.

Let's be real, here. OK?

The hypothetical claim you have offered as a comparison is obviously a paranormal one. FYI: We've never had such a claim.
If we did, we'd want to see a videotape before accepting it for testing. I think such an approach to such an extraordinary claim is entirely reasonable, from any viewpoint.

This specific claim submitted by Beth Clarkson, on the other hand, has been carefully evaluated, independent of all other claims, and it has been determined that nothing paranormal is involved.

Do you disagree with that assessment, or are you simply trying to draw me into a pointless debate over JREF's refusal to cater to
absurd demands from self-deluded applicants making nutty claims?

That's right - I'm in a rather foul mood here this Saturday evening at the JREF.

 

[Kimpatsu]

Re: throw the dice

[B Also ---- Nope, her claim is flame pushing. [/B]

Which is telekinesis. Her TK only affects fire, however. Like Pyro out of the X-Men.

 

[webfusion]

psychokinesis = telekinesis

apoger and kimpatsu are both right, and I stand corrected.
What I meant was that her ability was only to be proved by flame movement, and nothing about moving stuff around (as Nina Kulagina).

Hey KRAMER, can you ask Ms Clarkson to move aside these flames ? (see photo)

(just trying to make your evening more enjoyable -- forgive the sophomoric attempt at humor)

 

[Kimpatsu]

Re: psychokinesis = telekinesis

Hey KRAMER, can you ask Ms Clarkson to move aside these flames ? (see photo)

(just trying to make your evening more enjoyable -- forgive the sophomoric attempt at humor)

Yeah, we're really burned up about it...
She's hot stuff, BTW.

 

[Brian]

Ask her if she can push the flame of a blow-torch. Drafts won't make it move and if she does move it, it will be obvious.

 

[davefoc]

KRAMER Wrote:

Good point. But, what constitutes "true"? This notion of the existence of numerous truths sounds somewhat Zen to me.
While I personally respect such notions, they simply do not apply to the JREF Challenge, wherein only a single "truth" applies when asking the prime question: DOES IT WORK, or DOESN'T IT?

KRAMER,
Thank you for your response. I don't want to belabor this. Apoger summed up my thoughts on this with his walk through walls analogy.

I think the issues associated with this testee are similar to the kind of issues the ganzfield experiments engender. There is a very subtle effect claimed that can only be detected with large numbers of trials. I have wondered how JREF would respond to proposals that are searching for this kind of effect. This case is perhaps a little different in that there is the confounding issue of determining unambiguously whether a positive effect has been achieved.

I haven't read through all the communication associated with this so perhaps I am wasting people's time here but I would be looking to reduce some of the ambiguity in determing that a positive effect has occurred. Perhaps by placing a thermocouple near the flame and looking for a temperature rise when the testee attempts to move the flame.

I might get fancy and setup a computer to record the thermocouple output versus time and to record via a button push when she was attempting to move the flame.

At this point one could do lots of testing and get lots of results. This is vaguely similar to the kind of testing I did occasionally as an engineer. Then when the test started producing results I'd adjust the test to investigate various hypothesis. Of course, I pretty much started all those kind of investigations with an assumption that there was a nonparanormal explanation for whatever problem I was investigating but it seems like the approach that I applied there might apply in this case also.

Just for the record since you don't know me, I am and always have been as far as I can remember a complete skeptic about this kind of thing. I agree with apoger's ealier statement that the likelyhood that there is a genuine paranormal effect here is about as likely that apoger can jump three miles straight up.

 

[CurtC]

If it will require many trials and statistical analysis to discover whether there is any effect there at all WHY IS SHE IN ANY WAY CONVINCED THAT HER ABILITY EXISTS?

This reminds me of usenet conversations I used to have on rec.gambling.craps a few years ago, and since the subject of craps has already been brought up, I'll share it. There are nuts out there who claim to be able to "set" dice, meaning throw the numbers they want to throw. Note that in craps, the dice must bounce off the rear wall of the table, which is covered with pyramid shapes to make the rolls even more unpredictable. I would challenge this assertion, and the conversation would typically go like this:

Dice-setter: I can set dice.
Me: You can? Then why are you here, and not on your mega-yacht?
DS: I don't like to use it that way, plus it doesn't work that way.
Me: Can you roll the numbers you want to roll?
DS: Well, not every time. But I can do it often enough to win overall.
Me: Oh yeah? How often is that?
DS: Well, Bob Johnson calculated that decreasing the odds of rolling a seven from 16.667% down to 15% would negate the house advantage, and actually tip it in your favor.
Me: Well, let's see... (figures a while)... to actually measure that small of a change, you would need to keep track of 320,000 dice rolls, writing down the result of each and then tallying them all up. Of course, if you have not done this, then there is no way for you yourself to know whether you really have this skill. Have you kept these logs?

And that would be the last I heard of that person, or he would claim to just "know" what he can do without measurements. I wonder if I ever got through to any of them. Most of my time there was spent trying to convince people that there is no successful craps "system." No ordering of individually negative-expectation bets can result in an overall positive-expectation game. I had more success with that.

 

[WaterD]

i disagree

I agree that the claim cannot be accepted under the contest rules, but if the porpouse of randy is instead look for some paranormal event, then i would give some attention to the matter. The point is that i did hear and read several times that people minds, focusing on affect a random event bring a difference of 1% or 2% in favor of the result the people where thinking about, and this after numeros test. I'm very sceptikal, still i'm open that something could exist in that matter. I mean if one wants to know if that claim is true, it requieres a hard work, but what if it's true?

 

[Kimpatsu]

Where is Water D fropm? If his mother tongue isn't English, I can forgive the above post, but otherwise...

 

[WaterD]

No, my english is very bad i'm from argentina, that's the main reason i usually don't post even i read the forums since 2003

 

[Prolix]

I'm very sceptikal, still i'm open that something could exist in that matter.

Kinda like Randi, the difference being that Randi responsibly backs his "openess that something could exist" with a monetary award.

 

[rppa]

No, my english is very bad i'm from argentina, that's the main reason i usually don't post even i read the forums since 2003

Could you please edit your post to include what you meant to say in Spanish? My Spanish isn't fluent, but I'll bet that there are enough people here who understand Spanish to help you with the English syntax and let you contribute.

Por favor puede cambiar su mensaje y incluir lo mismo en espan~ol?

 

[Czarcasm]

No, my english is very bad i'm from argentina, that's the main reason i usually don't post even i read the forums since 2003

And the reason you cannot look at the top of this page and see that the man's name is "James Randi" and not "randy" is......?

 

[IXP]

Re: throw the dice

"If I can predict the throw of a dice 1 in 3 times, that's paranormal (or I'm cheating)" --

Um, I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but putting my money where my mouth is, I have done this at the Mohegan Sun Casino numerous times. It's called CRAPS. a little game of anticipating the outcome on throws of two dice. On so-called proposition bets, you are "predicting" what the Next Roll will be!
I happen to be fairly good at it. C'mon snake eyes!! (pays 30-to-1)

But I cannot even imagine what JREF would say if I came to them with the proposition that they come stand around and watch how my chip stack grows and after 16 straight hours of play, pay me the million, based on the 1-in-3 "paranormal effect" being proven!!! I wish...

Webfusion,

Stanford Wong, who has written extensively on how to make money at blackjack, used to offer a $10,000 prize for anyone who can play craps for a specified period of time (I cannot remember what it is) and come out ahead. And you do not have to claim paranormal ability, just win. You might want to contact him to see if this is still offered. Here is his web site and contact info:

http://www.bj21.com/

If you decide to accept, I would be willing to make a side bet against you. Craps is a negative expectation game, being "good" at it only means you lose as little as possible, and the strategy is trivial, you bet only "pass line" and the maximum odds bet.