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Dr. Colin Ross's challenge

If this is really all about the sense of being stared at, why not just demonstrate that?

This can be done simply and quickly without any tin foil or expensive electronics, and would easily be concidered paranormal.
 
Colin Ross said:
In this instance the observation is the sense of being stared at - the phenomenon under study is a subjective experience. The hypothesis is that EM ocular extramission is the physiological basis of the sense of being stared at. The testing phase is trying to detect the signal at short range, then increasing the range of detection, then building a device that mimics extramission, then using the device to determine detection thresholds in a variety of species. Let's assume that the device could be turned up high enough so that everyone could feel it. This would be like shining a bright enough light, making a loud enough sound etc behind a person that everyone with normal vision and hearing could detect it. When the volume/intensity is turned down eventually no one will be able to detect the signal. I predict that the threshold for detection in most people most of the time is set higher than the level of extramission - this must be so otherwise everyone would sense being stared at all the time. Various questions follow about whether extramission can be detected subliminally as a sense of danger, what variables affect the threshold, whether people can be trained to lower their threshold and what the distribution of thresholds is in the general population. If the gap between signal and threshold is too big, then EM extramission will not be a viable candidate for the mechanism underlying the sense of being stared at.
So, the main difference here is that the sequence starts with a common subjective experience that is not accepted by western science. This whole line of investigation is currently "woo" from the perspective of western science, and no mention of it is found in physiology or opthamology texts. It is an open question (for me) whether there is any back-signal from an observed object that plays a role in visual perception. I don't require that for my hypothesis about the sense of being stared, however.
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Cute. He got outed on the extramission stuff, so now he's scrambling around looking for another woo way to describe a normal effect to serve as bait for Randi.

Linda
 
Colin Ross said:
In this instance the observation is the sense of being stared at - the phenomenon under study is a subjective experience. The hypothesis is that EM ocular extramission is the physiological basis of the sense of being stared at.
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You have put the cart WAY before the horse. Step one is to prove that there is actually something to "the sense of being stared at." Not anecdotes but REAL SCIENTIFIC TESTS. THEN you start hypothesizing mechanisms and testing your hypotheses.

Didn't you learn anything about science in med school?
 
dropzone said:
Didn't you learn anything about science in med school?
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Of course he did. He's playing the context game. Were we members of a medical review board or some other recognized scientific body, he probably wouldn't be pulling this stuff. He views the JREF as having lower standards and therefore does not expect the same level of scrutiny.

What I find really odd, however, is that he is making no attempt to hide any of this. He's even publishing his MDC protocols on his own website, with very clear and prominent links from the home page. He obviously wants the public to know what he's up to. Which begs the question, what is he up to? I would think drawing such attention to all of this would be damaging to his career. Does he not care?
 
Light bulb --> radiates

Movie projector --> beams

Photographic light meter will measure the intensity of both -- it's just light in both cases.

Geeze Louise can we move on to testing yet once again what Rupert Sheldrake has been babbling on about for years alongside his psychic dogs? :duck:
 
daSkeptic said:
He obviously wants the public to know what he's up to. Which begs the question, what is he up to?
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He's working on a book of course.

You are trying to explain things scientifically to a person who
clearly cannot comprehend scientific priciples.

Dr.Colin Ross mentioned something in his application about how his discovery of eye beam energy could benefit quadrapalegics,
oh something like that, some altruistic thing he would use the million dollar prize for.

However a look at his clinical practices over the past couple of decades exposes an underbelly of pure self promotion and opportunism.

He also has a "hyperfacinaton" with the CIA and appears to have studied everything he could about every ridiculous mind control experiment that the CIA ever proposed or attempted before being stopped for sheer stupidity or which fell below ethical standards.

Instead of learning from the mistakes of a few over eager CIA people
Dr.Colin Ross appears to have been trying to duplicate their failed experiments.
Attempting to duplicate the failed mind control experiments of the CIA in his recovered memory therapy.
Attempting to duplicate the failed "eye beam" experiments of the CIA in his application to the JREF Million Dollar Challenge.

http://www.themenwhostareatgoatsmovie.com/#home

I actually wish that he had discovered something that could help disabled people.
I hope some day that some one can, but it's not him.
 
Roma said:
Dr.Colin Ross mentioned something in his application about how his discovery of eye beam energy could benefit quadrapalegics, oh something like that, some altruistic thing he would use the million dollar prize for.
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But engineers have working on detecting eye movement to help quads for YEARS! Sweet Zombie Jesus, that's how Stephen Hawking talks. How could detecting infrared emitted by someone's eyes, with their entire face a sea of infrared emissions, possibly be an improvement?

Either "Doctor" Ross is an idiot or a scoundrel and, as past behavior can help predict future behavior without it being a logical fallacy, I'm going with both.
 
dropzone said:
But engineers have working on detecting eye movement to help quads for YEARS! Sweet Zombie Jesus, that's how Stephen Hawking talks. How could detecting infrared emitted by someone's eyes, with their entire face a sea of infrared emissions, possibly be an improvement?

Either "Doctor" Ross is an idiot or a scoundrel and, as past behavior can help predict future behavior without it being a logical fallacy, I'm going with both.
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The other problem is that we never keep our eyes perfectly still. They flick about several times a second (called saccades). Interestingly, during eye movement we are blind.
 
In Lilienfeld, et al. (2010)"50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology", Myth #4 "Visual percetions are accompanied by tiny emissions from the eyes", this statement appears, "More recently, psychiatrist Colin Ross claimed he can harness beams from his eyes to turn on a tone from a computer. Nevertheless, preliminary testing by a neurologist revealed that Ross' eyeblinks created a brain wave artifact that was inadvertently triggering the tone" (p. 34-35)
The reference was to this edition of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation newsletter.
http://www.fmsfonline.org/fmsf08.929.html

This is about 3/4 of the way down the page,
"The Colin Ross claim that he can send a beam of energy from his eyes
is on hold for further testing at this time. James Randi asked Yale
University School of Medicine faculty member Steven Novella, MD to
help with the preliminary testing. In an August 20 podcast, Dr.
Novella explained what happened during the testing. He said that most
people make a fairly shoddy connection between cause and effect and
that this was the problem with the Ross claim.[6] Novella said that
Ross was using Electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes and software in
conjunction with the glasses he designed.[7] Novella said that he had
done extensive research involving EEG and he knew that there is a
known EEG effect, an artifact of eye blinking. Dr. Novella noticed
that Ross's blinks and the sound were associated. It was the eye
movement that was causing the sound."
 
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Dr. Ross knows he can't pass the test-all he is fishing for is the opportunity to paste "As Tested By The James Randi Educational Foundation!!" all over his book and website.
 
Czarcasm said:
Dr. Ross knows he can't pass the test-all he is fishing for is the opportunity to paste "As Tested By The James Randi Educational Foundation!!" all over his book and website.
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exploit \ik - sploit\ verb: to use unfairly for one's own advantage


Well it's not like conning or attempting to defraud a million dollars from the James Randi Educational Foundation is a crime or anything. Is it ?
 
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Yarg, why is it that

A) These people can never state their powers clearly?

I mean this is just mind boggling to me, i mean it would be like someone asking me if i could fire a gun, and then i go into a rant about the nuances of how a gun works. Simple direct language shows your not a huckster this wall of text using terminology that is way beyond someone tripe shows the opposite.

B) These powers are never useful?

I mean for the love of Loth here , we have someone who can see through cardboard (not really) , someone who can make people pee ( not really), and this guy , who says he can do.... something. I guess trap some kind of energy and make a speaker play a tone.

I can rip cardboard, i can get someone to drink a 2 liter of water, and i can turn on my stereo ( i will even show Dr. Ross how to do this without goggles, for a small fee). If the paranormal exists it is a friggen Rube Goldburg machine of the highest caliber.

And as far as you specifically Mr. Ross. Your not fooling anyone, your simply another in a long line of people that try to turn the mdc into a crap shoot. Which is not only dishonest, but what kind of person attempts to defraud an organization that is trying to give people a better understanding of the world and keep frauds from taking money from the trusting?
 
When I was at Timberlawn the therapists there talked about Double Binds...usually discussing them as having two bad choices. For an example "You can either be beat by a belt or a switch, your choice" kind of thing.

The following is a part of a private message that I was asked to post here.

What I meant by a double bind situation for this experiment of his is that he if he won the challenge then he can use it to write more papers, gain more notariry, etc. If he loses the challenge that would set him up to say it is scientific and he can use this expirment to further his name in science circles, write more papers and books, etc. One thing though, with ultimatiums like double binds....others can choose any number of different conclusions. Others can see options that his narrow mindedness wont let him see. The choices don't have to follow his script. That is what I understand of this if I followed what has been said correctly.

Sorry for all the mispellings...in a hurry, just wanted to say this before I go to work.
 
dropzone said:
OTOH, the people here can be remarkably persistent and effective. It's best not to try any woo on them: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128253

It gets to be especially fun around post #137, when the conman selling bogus "bomb detectors" gets arrested. It started with a simple challenge from Randi..... :D
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I especially liked Poster #139
JimD
Drat, I thought I'd be first!

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Good result
I like the quote:
McCormick hit back, however, telling the paper that “we have been dealing with doubters for ten years. One of the problems we have is that the machine does look a little primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”

Because flashing lights make everything work better don't they?

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Yes, Dr.Colin Ross probably should have added a flashing light .
 
I have been desperate in my life and managed, completely by accident, to have fallen into the care of doctors who were both compassionate and willing to hand me off to the next step, whether it was a specialist or real life (with medication).

I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive. [A BIT?] Doc 1 said, "Then you (I'm a draftsman) are in the right line of work." Or, as a boss once put it, "I could tell you off for this mistake but I know you'll beat yourself up more than I will and you will never do it again."

I'm testing my continued need for the fluoxetine (Prozac) I've been on for 11 years, both because I'm interested (I'm also asthmatic and the same doctor once remarked that patients most likely to report their usage and its results accurately were asthmatics) and, being a bit OCD*, he trusts that my results are boringly accurate and something he can prescribe from.


** - My brother, who was MUCH crazier than I and took several showers a day, never met my bosses, who would've seen beyond his insanity, stocked the vending machines with lots of cartons of chocolate milk and Cheerios, and gone on to making loads of money.

*** - It took me a while to try it, given that Cheerios are savory and chocolate milk is sweet, but the mix works.
 
Colin Ross said:
... This whole line of investigation is currently "woo" from the perspective of western science, and no mention of it is found in physiology or opthamology texts. ...
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Demonstrating ordinary scientific phenomena within a "whole line of investigation [that] is currently 'woo'" is NOT demonstrating the paranormal. To make this point AGAIN via simple analogy:

Pyrokinesis is a "whole line of investigation [that] is currently 'woo' from the perspective of western science". Someone could claim that he can cook breakfast by pointing at a frying pan, because heat comes from his finger. If he then puts his finger in a glass of water, and the temperature rises, he has only demonstrated that heat comes from his finger. He has not demonstrated anything paranormal. Only a simpleton or fraud would claim he had.

The analogy (I hope) is obvious.
 
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Any comment on the aspect of your claim I pointed out in post 70, Dr. Ross?

You seem to have openly acknowledged that you are not trying to demonstrate anything truly paranormal, but rather to win the challenge by exploiting a verbal loophole in which a claim that can be achieved by ordinary accepted means is represented and accepted as a paranormal claim due to the manner in which it's described.

However, part of your actual claim is:

I claim that I can send a beam of energy out of my eyes, capture it in a special set of goggles I have built, and then use the energy to make a tone play out of a speaker.
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This is clearly making the claim that the beam of energy you can send out of your eyes will power the speaker. For instance it doesn't say "...use the beam to control a tone from a speaker..." or "...detect the energy with a detector device that operates a switch that turns a speaker on and off..." No, you've claimed that you will use the energy from your eyes to make the tone play.

If I were to claim the ability to use the power of my mind to slice a hard boiled egg, and I were then caught using an egg slicer during the challenge, that would be cheating, would it not?

Given your claim, it would seem completely fitting that when your equipment is examined prior to the test, if an alternative power source for the speaker such as a battery or AC power supply is found, that would be considered cheating and the test immediately ended as a failure.

If you were trying to win a million dollars through clever wording, it appears that your wording is not clever enough -- unless you really can demonstrate a speaker that converts the energy you send out of your eyes into audible sound.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Ririon said:
Actually, goggles would be a stupid way of testing the claim that a weak EM field is emitted from the eyes. First of all it would react strongly to any blinking or eye movement. Secondly, any observers would not see this eye movement.

As a research tool it would also have disadvantages. The eye movements would now be noise in your signal, and you would be unable to move the sensor to map the field around the head under different conditions.

What you want is a setup holding the head in a defined position (like at the optometrist) and a sensor that can move around the head on a jig of some sort.

Tinfoil covered goggles? Silly. :o
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Well, not silly enough that 'Dr.' Ross isn't using them. I think someone posted the pic of this fella with his experimental setup on his face earlier in the thread.

A
 
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