Help with debunking skeptikos absurd comments about psychics and skeptics

[James Cunningham]

Hi guys,

I am new to paranormal/psychic forums. I am a musician and amateur magician and have a small interest in occult matters and I recently the other day joined a paranormal/parapsychology forum called the "Mind-Energy forum" (Skeptiko).

I now understand after doing some further research that the above mentioned forum (Skeptiko) has a lot of bad things said about it and a bad reputation. I was only on the forum for one day before I was banned! For no apparent reason, just they obviously didn't like my rebuttal to one of their claims. So instead of allowing dissent, decided to ban me, with no apology or message or anything. Apparently they don't want skeptics on their forum. I'm not actually a skeptic, I made it clear in one of my posts I believe some paranormal is genuine... but I was still banned.

So let me explain. When I first joined the forum, I came across a very strange post from a senior member called "anonymous". His post is apparently (?) meant to be a documentation of errors, fraud and mistakes that skeptics have made over the years. Here is what he posted.

Richard Dawkins asked Rupert Sheldrake to participate in a documentary on irrational beliefs but Dawkins refused to discuss evidence that telepathy is genuine which would mean that belief in telepathy is not an irrational belief.

Martin Gardiner made false statements about skeptics failing to replicate parapsychological results when the skeptics never even tried.


Martin Garndner claimed psychic medium Mrs Piper used cold reading techniques. He neglected to say that she had many successful readings using proxy sitters who knew nothing about the actual spirits that were coming through.


James Randi made false statements attempting to debunk a video of dog telepathy when he never even watched the tape. He was forced to retract his statements.


CISCOP fellows had to make six errors in a statistical analysis in order to hide evidence that astrology might have some basis in fact.


Susan Blackmore justified her claim that she could not demonstrate any paranormal phenomena by ignoring her own studies that demonstrated a paranormal effect.


Wiseman and Hyman tested 17 year old Russian school girl Natash Demkina's ability to make psychic diagnoses. She beat odds of 78 to 1 against chance, a statistically significant result. Twenty to one is the usual scientific standard. Wiseman said she failed and mistakenly said she achieved odds of 50 to 1. Hyman told her to forget her delusions. The commentator said she would return to Russia discredited.


Houdini's assistant tried to plant fake evidence to discredit a psychic medium Mina Crandon. Her spirit guides exposed the plot.

More at Skeptical Misdirection including pseudoskeptics paying for fake confessions and fake accusations of fraud.

He further linked to a website page that he owns called "sceptical misdirection", which can be found if you search for it (as a new user sorry I can't post links yet).

The guy who calls himself "anonymous" is not actually anonymous. The guy is associated with the spiritualist Victor Zammit, and co-runs the Debunking Skeptics (SCEPCOP) website.

Here is a description of his website:

If you've never investigated the scientific evidence, proving the existence of spirits and the afterlife you might be surprised to learn how much solid evidence there is. There was sufficient evidence reported by highly reputable scientists for afterlife research to have been accepted by mainstream science as long ago as 1922. It is very easy to read a brief description of the evidence for the paranormal and dismiss it by assuming some normal explanation. However, if you put in the time and effort to learn more, you will find that there have been many careful investigations that rule out the conventional explanations.

The above website is his own website. Indeed, it is filled with all kinds of conspiracy theories and pages claiming scientific evidence for all kinds of paranormal phenomena and that all skeptics are working with the CIA, or have done fraud. I don't have time to go through all of it, perhaps there are many errors, but I would like to focus on one of his silly points above, that I attempted to debunk. (The one I have highlighted in red). This one:

Houdini's assistant tried to plant fake evidence to discredit a psychic medium Mina Crandon. Her spirit guides exposed the plot.

I know the Mina Crandon case well. There's not a shred of evidence that Houdini's assistant planted any fake evidence.

My research leads me to believe that the "assistant" was Jim Collins and the first book that mentions this is William Lindsay Gresham's book Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls (1959).

Collins was interrogated that same night of Crandon's séance, in Houdini's absence, and took an oath that he did not place any ruler inside the cabinet, that he had never seen that ruler (the one he was accused to have planted), and that his ruler was in his pocket.

Gresham does not give a reference for the supposed "confession" of Collins that Houdini had ordered him to frame Crandon by placing the ruler in her cabinet. Further research reveals where these errors come from.

Milbourne Christopher, magician and magic historian, expressed doubt about the incident and has cleared the issue up. He discovered that the source of the story, though not given by Gresham, was Fred Keating, a magician who had been a guest of the Crandon's in their house. Keating had discovered some privates notes from Houdini that had said some unkind things about him. He became very annoyed with Houdini and Collins.

Christopher has written that there was no confession from Collins and it was a sheer fabrication on the part of Fred Keating, a fellow magician annoyed by the unkind comments from Houdini.

There's no evidence the confession exists. Collins remained friends with Houdini's brother and denied that he had ever made any "confession". He under oath said he has never faked evidence. Why would he? I am not saying all mediums are frauds, but Crandon was exposed by countless psychical reseachers.

This is pretty much exactly what I posted on the forum before I was banned, mentioning the origin of the story came from Fred Keating etc. But before I know it, I was banned, and spiritualist user called "Open Mind" turned up and posted:

That Melbourne Christopher was a CIA agent!

If anyone is interested in rebutting the above absurd claims from anonymous or "open mind" (they are probably the same person). Then be my guest.

I don't know much about Richard Wiseman, so if anyone can discuss the comments about him and if they are accurate or not, I would be interested in seeing it. Thanks.

James

 

[Ersby]

But before I know it, I was banned, and spiritualist user called "Open Mind" turned up and posted:

That Melbourne Christopher was a CIA agent!

Milbourne Christopher was asked by SRI to review film footage of Uri Geller's experiments in 1973. Since the CIA were funding that work, then Open Mind believes that makes Milbourne a "CIA assistant".

 

[James Cunningham]

Milbourne Christopher was asked by SRI to review film footage of Uri Geller's experiments in 1973. Since the CIA were funding that work, then Open Mind believes that makes Milbourne a "CIA assistant".

Yes, it's rather strange. He seems to want to bury any skeptic with ad-hominem and "dirt" by linking skeptics with the CIA. Sorry I can't link you to his website, but it's got many other claims that skeptics are being funded by the CIA or working with them to supress the paranormal or plant fraud in séances or amongst psychics. Obviously this individual has spent his life researching this stuff but he's been mislead with his information.

One person he may actually have got (partly) correct is John Mulholland, he was a magician who was involved with the CIA. But anonymous/open mind claimed that this person was secretly working on psi experiments with the CIA (he seems to have contradicted himself by also claiming that he was a skeptic at the same time). I have not been able to find any information to verify this, it's true that Mulholland was a debunker of fraudulent psychics and did work on sleight of hand and with the CIA briefly. There's a researcher called George P. Hansen who usually knows these things and he does not mention that Mulholland was working on psi experiments with the CIA, so again I am to believe it is another innacurate claim. It all depends what is meant by "psi". It's true that Mulholland was involved with ESP research, but there's no evidence he believed in it, his experiments were sleight of hand, not endorsing psi. The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception makes an interesting read. There's also an interesting book The Magician: John Mulholland's Secret Life by Ben Robinson with a forward by magician John Booth.

 

[kookbreaker]

CISCOP fellows had to make six errors in a statistical analysis in order to hide evidence that astrology might have some basis in fact.

Semi-sorta-kinda.

First of all what the CSICOP fellows were doing (and I should point out that this really was set-up before CSICOP even existed) was testing the baseline of data run by one Dr. Gauquelin that claimed a so-called "Mars Effect". They did screw up royally. But so did the good Dr. Gauquelin is his test he was running parallel. A third party in CSICOP was running a similar test and did it right but was so obnoxious he put off all involved parties.

The problem as it turned out, was the not the baseline, but the data selection. The 'Mars Effect' has gone nowhere except for being used as a club to attack CSICOP - usually details kept to a minimum.

CSICOP members screwed up a baseline test analysis run in the 70's before computers were remotely common. Even if they had not made the errors all that would have been proven was that Gauquelin's baseline was not faulty. Not exactly evidence of astrology, merely showing that some of the math was done right.

 

[kookbreaker]

The guy who calls himself "anonymous" is not actually anonymous. The guy is associated with the spiritualist Victor Zammit, and co-runs the Debunking Skeptics (SCEPCOP) website.

Winston Wu, a gullible mind and a loathesome person.

 

[James Cunningham]

Winston Wu, a gullible mind and a loathesome person.

If you Google search "Skeptical Misdirection", you will find his website (he has many others as well). It's called "spiritual development". Most of the website is attacking skeptics personally, whilst the rest claiming scientific evidence for paranormal phenomena and even God. The website is also anti-evolution and promotes religious creationism. It is not possible right now to try and refute all the content on his website (some of it may be sound, I haven't fully looked yet), but some of his stuff that I have seen so far is downright dishonest and misleading and some dodgy quote mining etc.

Much of it is copy and paste from Winston Wu's 2011 book Debunking PseudoSkeptical Arguments of Paranormal Debunkers or copied straight from other paranormal blogs.

I don't know much about Winston Wu (anonymous), but a search online reveals he has been accused of internet sockpuppeting, spam and trolling, identity theft, sexism, promoting pornography, prostitution and selling fraudulent products etc. Doesn't look good, definitely doesn't have a clean record. Back to the topic at hand, if you look at his page called "Skeptical Misdirection" it contains many errors about "skeptics" and some of the researchers he has attacked were not "skeptics". I am interested in refuting some of his nonsense. So if I get some time will get round to it, but I do not know much about Richard Wiseman or the others that he mentioned in his points that I cited in bold in my original post. So if you have any further information on those points, would be interesting to read. Thanks.

 

[blutoski]

If you Google search "Skeptical Misdirection", you will find his website (he has many others as well). It's called "spiritual development". Most of the website is attacking skeptics personally, whilst the rest claiming scientific evidence for paranormal phenomena and even God. The website is also anti-evolution and promotes religious creationism. It is not possible right now to try and refute all the content on his website (some of it may be sound, I haven't fully looked yet), but some of his stuff that I have seen so far is downright dishonest and misleading and some dodgy quote mining etc.

Much of it is copy and paste from Winston Wu's 2011 book Debunking PseudoSkeptical Arguments of Paranormal Debunkers or copied straight from other paranormal blogs.

I don't know much about Winston Wu (anonymous), but a search online reveals he has been accused of internet sockpuppeting, spam and trolling, identity theft, sexism, promoting pornography, prostitution and selling fraudulent products etc. Doesn't look good, definitely doesn't have a clean record. Back to the topic at hand, if you look at his page called "Skeptical Misdirection" it contains many errors about skeptics. I am interested in refuting some of his nonsense. So if I get some time will get round to it, but I do not know much about Richard Wiseman or the others that he mentioned in his points that I cited in bold in my original post. So if you have any further information on those points, would be interesting to read. Thanks.

I think the reason we are warning against debating Wu is that he is probably mentally ill and we are concerned you will regret spending time on this. He appears to be practically fully employed doing this and incapable of stopping arguing - you will be the one abandoning any exchange, probably out of exasperation. Wu has never 'debated' anybody. His style is to simply express his opinion, ignoring everything you write. There are several threads in JREF from when he used to post here. Nothing we said has inspired him to change the content on his websites.

See recently: [ SCEPCOP: Sincerest form of flattery?]

I would ping Pyrrho to see if he recalls the subject of that thread: he did a thorough debunking of this site when it first appeared umpty years ago. Man, that takes me back...

 

[blutoski]

I think the reason we are warning against debating Wu is that he is probably mentally ill and we are concerned you will regret spending time on this. He appears to be practically fully employed doing this and incapable of stopping arguing - you will be the one abandoning any exchange, probably out of exasperation. Wu has never 'debated' anybody. His style is to simply express his opinion, ignoring everything you write. There are several threads in JREF from when he used to post here. Nothing we said has inspired him to change the content on his websites.

See recently: [ SCEPCOP: Sincerest form of flattery?]

I would ping Pyrrho to see if he recalls the subject of that thread: he did a thorough debunking of this site when it first appeared umpty years ago. Man, that takes me back...

Update: I think Pyrrho actually published a booklet with the rebuttle? (It's hard to locate in the archives, as this must have been March 2007?)

Basically, this work has been done, and if you could locate it, you will have a good headstart. It's about 25,000 words, Word format IIRC. I didn't save a copy unfortunately.

 

[Steve001]

Here are anonymous's sites. He along with openmind rely too much upon whinning
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/home
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/

 

[James Cunningham]

Thanks blutoski. It will then probably be futile and a waste of my time if I try and refute the nonsense on his website, so I will avoid that as it has already been done. But I would like to stay on the Mina Crandon fraud issue, and the CIA issue and perhaps push this thread in that direction. These are two issues which are used by many "believers" on the web, and the Mind-Energy forum constantly push these conspiracy theories. I have already attempted to lay rest to the false allegations of fraud based on Houdini and Collins.

You don't happen to know who "Open mind" is do you? Well I did a search on this very forum, and this person was posting six or seven years ago before his account was made inactive. It may be a sockpuppet of Wu, but that now seems unlikely.

User "Open mind" claimed in one of his posts to be an ex-magician and former member of CSICOP, but then converted to a full paranormal believer after discovering that the skeptics have it all wrong and have done fraud...

Well "open mind" also believes people didn't land on the moon, that there was a conspiracy with 9/11, that the government go out and set up fraud in séances etc... and that Uri Geller was a genuine psychic so obviously not the most sane mind out there, he claims most skeptics are funded by the CIA, but I can't find any such link. As I said previously the only "skeptic" full link that I can find with the CIA was the magician John Mulholland.

This "open mind" character could be just another alias of Wu I guess? Despite his crazy conspiracy theories, he seems more well read than WU. If he's an ex magician I sure would like to speak to this guy. Despite my different perspective on things than him, sounds like an interesting person, unless of course he isn't just this Wu fundamentalist in disguise.

 

[Steve001]

Thanks blutoski. It will then probably be futile and a waste of my time if I try and refute the nonsense on his website, so I will avoid that as it has already been done. But I would like to stay on the Mina Crandon fraud issue, and the CIA issue and perhaps push this thread in that direction. These are two issues which are used by many "believers" on the web, and the Mind-Energy forum constantly push these conspiracy theories. I have already attempted to lay rest to the false allegations of fraud based on Houdini and Collins.

You don't happen to know who "Open mind" is do you? Well I did a search on this very forum, and this person was posting six or seven years ago before his account was made inactive. It may be a sockpuppet of Wu, but that now seems unlikely.

User "Open mind" claimed in one of his posts to be an ex-magician and former member of CSICOP, but then converted to a full paranormal believer after discovering that the skeptics have it all wrong and have done fraud...

Well "open mind" also believes people didn't land on the moon, that there was a conspiracy with 9/11, that the government go out and set up fraud in séances etc... and that Uri Geller was a genuine psychic so obviously not the most sane mind out there, he claims most skeptics are funded by the CIA, but I can't find any such link. As I said previously the only "skeptic" full link that I can find with the CIA was the magician John Mulholland.

This "open mind" character could be just another alias of Wu I guess? Despite his crazy conspiracy theories, he seems more well read than WU. If he's an ex magician I sure would like to speak to this guy. Despite my different perspective on things than him, sounds like an interesting person, unless of course he isn't just this Wu fundamentalist in disguise.

Openmind is certainly not Winston unless Winston has a different modus operandi as evidenced on his own site while writing on the Skeptiko forum. Different people I'm sure. I find both irritating and intractable in their opinions.

P.S. Good luck trying to debunk anything discussed on the Skeptiko site for they are an intractable bunch to the nth degree. On the bright side you may do some of the lurkers a good deed.

 

[s4zando]

Oh yeah, that guy. Don't waste your time. Plenty of other ways to help show the advantages of a skeptical mindset by following links and threads here. Pick a topic and dive in.

 

[Pacal]

Semi-sorta-kinda.

First of all what the CSICOP fellows were doing (and I should point out that this really was set-up before CSICOP even existed) was testing the baseline of data run by one Dr. Gauquelin that claimed a so-called "Mars Effect". They did screw up royally. But so did the good Dr. Gauquelin is his test he was running parallel. A third party in CSICOP was running a similar test and did it right but was so obnoxious he put off all involved parties.

The problem as it turned out, was the not the baseline, but the data selection. The 'Mars Effect' has gone nowhere except for being used as a club to attack CSICOP - usually details kept to a minimum.

CSICOP members screwed up a baseline test analysis run in the 70's before computers were remotely common. Even if they had not made the errors all that would have been proven was that Gauquelin's baseline was not faulty. Not exactly evidence of astrology, merely showing that some of the math was done right.

I lost all respect for Gauquelin when I learned about his method of selecting what he termed "eminent" sports figures. His tendency to dismiss results that refuted the "Mars effect", on the grounds that the sports figures were not "eminent" was annoying. also there was the fact that the "Mars effect" showed up for some geographical areas and not others was bit off putting.

By the way is there any truth to what I heard that Gauquelin requested that all his raw data be destroyed after his death?

 

[kookbreaker]

I lost all respect for Gauquelin when I learned about his method of selecting what he termed "eminent" sports figures. His tendency to dismiss results that refuted the "Mars effect", on the grounds that the sports figures were not "eminent" was annoying. also there was the fact that the "Mars effect" showed up for some geographical areas and not others was bit off putting.

Yes. As some pointed out he had Italian stunt pilots on the list as 'eminent' while not one Heisman trophy winner was on the list. In fact, it seems no American Football players were on the list of athletes at all, IIRC.

By the way is there any truth to what I heard that Gauquelin requested that all his raw data be destroyed after his death?

No idea. But that would not surprise me.

 

[kookbreaker]

Phyrro's excellent and devastating de-construction of Wu's whinging can be found in pdf format here: www.skepticreport.com/resources/analysiswu.pd

Its dull (not Phyrro's fault) since essentially Wu just makes the same fallacies over and over.

 

[The Don]

Phyrro's excellent and devastating de-construction of Wu's whinging can be found in pdf format here: www.skepticreport.com/resources/analysiswu.pd

Its dull (not Phyrro's fault) since essentially Wu just makes the same fallacies over and over.

I got a 404 error following that link:

I think this is the working link www.skepticreport.com/resources/analysiswu.pdf

 

[James Cunningham]

Thanks, I have just read Phyrro's document, Wu many times appeals to authority and to ignorance. Wu actually opposes the scientific method. Here's an interesting quote:

Anecdotal evidence seems to be the basis of Mr. Wu's beliefs -- if someone tells a story, it must be assumed to be true. This is illogical. Mr. Wu again confuses verifiable testimony with unverifiable testimony. This is False Analogy. Mr. Wu is moving the goalposts in favor of his opinion. This is Circular Reasoning. Without corroborating evidence it cannot be established that a given person is telling the truth. Relying on stories that support one's position while ignoring stories that do not is Special Pleading.

Wu also uses false analogies such as claiming there is no empirical evidence for stars, galaxies, black holes, or nebulas as nobody has physically touched them, he then goes on to compare these things to ghosts, UFOs etc and says the skeptics have no right to dismiss them as all of them are immaterial.

His major mistake is claiming that it is up to the skeptics to disprove paranormal claims. But as the document explains the burden of proof is always on the claimant and Wu has failed to understand this.

 

[kookbreaker]

Duplicate post.

 

[James Cunningham]

P.S. Good luck trying to debunk anything discussed on the Skeptiko site for they are an intractable bunch to the nth degree. On the bright side you may do some of the lurkers a good deed.

If you do a Google search of "Skeptical Misdirection" go down and check out his section "Houdini's assistant admits planting false evidence of fraud". At the bottom I'm pretty sure a new piece of text has been added;

More information on this episode can also be found in the book: "The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls" by William Lindsay Gresham.

That wasn't on there the other day

Btw that book had some assistance from James Randi, and most of the book contains information about Houdini and debunking of fraudulent psychics. Like Wu (anonymous) has even read the book... The guys got no idea at all. Remember he was the one who made the claim:

Houdini's assistant tried to plant fake evidence to discredit a psychic medium Mina Crandon. Her spirit guides exposed the plot.

Her spirit guide exposed the plot?

In reality Crandon was exposed when it was discovered by researchers that the fingerprints left on wax by her supposed spirit guide Walter, were discovered to belong to her dentist by a member of the Boston Society for Psychical Research. Her dentist divulged that he had taught her how to make the prints.

No mention of that by Wu or "open mind". They ignore any evidence contrary to their belief, not open minded in my opinion.

 

[dlorde]

Skeptiko, yeah; I just read this Skeptiko interview about NDEs between Dr. Gary Marcus and Alex Tsakiris. Marcus is eminently reasonable throughout. Tsakiris cuts him off at the end, and afterwards makes a bunch of comments belittling him. It didn't come across as a fair or professional approach.