Help with debunking skeptikos absurd comments about psychics and skeptics

[Arouet]

I have not communicated with Sandy B in 3 years. When has she got the scientific peer-reviewed evidence for psi? I'm still waiting.

See - a line like this is not going to be terribly effective for any proponent who considers there to be numerous peer reviewed evidence for psi. I havent been convinced either that those studies have sufficiently demonstrated psi - and I think that's a better approach: you can then debate if the evidence presented sufficiently demonstrates psi. If you simply deny those papers exist you will be rejected out of hand.

Or at the very least you've got to define what you mean by evidence and describe why none of those papers meet that standard. But i dont know why you need to go there: Remember - the same evidence can support multiple hypotheses. We can accept that there is some evidence that would support the psi hypothesis while also holding that it can support non psi hypotheses or not be strong enough to be confident in the psi hypothesis. Plenty of scientific hypotheses that reached dead ends had some evidence in support of them. Allowing that a given proposition has some evidence in favour of it is not the same as saying that it must therefore be true.

 

[DoomMetal]

See - a line like this is not going to be terribly effective for any proponent who considers there to be numerous peer reviewed evidence for psi. I havent been convinced either that those studies have sufficiently demonstrated psi - and I think that's a better approach: you can then debate if the evidence presented sufficiently demonstrates psi. If you simply deny those papers exist you will be rejected out of hand.

I have already covered this in my thread on parapsychology and pseudoscience. Scientific tests have come up negative for psi.

Moulton, S. T., & Kosslyn, S. M. (2008). Using neuroimaging to resolve the psi debate. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 182-192.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in an effort to document the existence of psi. If psi exists, it occurs in the brain, and hence, assessing the brain directly should be more sensitive than using indirect behavioral methods (as have been used previously). To increase sensitivity, this experiment was designed to produce positive results if telepathy, clairvoyance (i.e., direct sensing of remote events), or precognition (i.e., knowing future events) exist. Moreover, the study included biologically or emotionally related participants (e.g., twins) and emotional stimuli in an effort to maximize experimental conditions that are purportedly conducive to psi. In spite of these characteristics of the study, psi stimuli and non-psi stimuli evoked indistinguishable neuronal responses-although differences in stimulus arousal values of the same stimuli had the expected effects on patterns of brain activation. These findings are the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of paranormal mental phenomena.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~moulton/Moulton_Kosslyn_2008_Neuroimaging_Psi.pdf

In response the believer would send me Dean Radin's psi list. But his list is pseudoscientific journals, or fringe papers on "spiritual healing" which have naturalistic explanations. Not psi.

If psi was real, then surely one would expect casino and lottery incomes to be seriously affected, but no such thing has occurred. There's winners but should be a heck lot more if psi was real.

 

[DoomMetal]

Or at the very least you've got to define what you mean by evidence and describe why none of those papers meet that standard. But i dont know why you need to go there: Remember - the same evidence can support multiple hypotheses. We can accept that there is some evidence that would support the psi hypothesis while also holding that it can support non psi hypotheses or not be strong enough to be confident in the psi hypothesis. Plenty of scientific hypotheses that reached dead ends had some evidence in support of them. Allowing that a given proposition has some evidence in favour of it is not the same as saying that it must therefore be true.

They are not scientific papers, they are pseudoscience journals. There isn't a single mainstream, reliable scientific journal that has published peer-reviewed positive evidence for psi.

No positive evidence for psi mentioned in the six of the world's mainstream journals on neuroscience:

Behavioural and Brain Sciences
Developmental Science
Journal of Neurochemistry
Journal of Neurophysiology
Journal of Neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience

Either the CIA are covering up the evidence, or the evidence doesn't really exist. I go with the latter

EDIT:

But there are scientific papers on psi. But they have all been negative:

Taylor, J. G. & Balanovski, E. (1978). Can electromagnetism account for extra-sensory phenomena? Nature 276, 64-67.
Taylor, J. G. & Balanovski, E. (1979). Is there any scientific explanation of the paranormal? Nature 279, 631-633.

THE apparent impossibility of the occurrence of ‘paranormal’ phenomena has not discouraged their extensive investigation, although there has not been any uniformly accepted validation or explanation by the scientific community. To clarify exactly how difficult ESP phenomena are to explain, it is necessary to place them in the framework of modern science. Explanations of the phenomena have been brought forward which have been claimed to make them more respectable. These explanations must also be looked at from the point of view of modern science and this paper is devoted to that task. In particular we wish to indicate that on theoretical grounds the only scientifically feasible explanation could be electromagnetism (EM) involving suitably strong EM fields. Thus we regard that this paper completes our earlier work where we presented experimental results giving the level of the EM signals emitted by subjects when engaged in supposedly paranormal activity. These EM levels were many orders of magnitude lower than the ones we calculate here as needed to achieve paranormal effects. Taken together the two papers are a strong argument against the validity of the paranormal.

 

[DoomMetal]

Here is a creationist bingo

Someone should create a Skeptiko forum bingo. On it should be:

Invoke the CIA
All skeptics are pseudoskeptics
Mention Quantum woo!
Materialism is immoral
Ectoplasm cheesecloths are real
Quote mine physicist Henry Stapp
Call anyone a troll who does not agree with me
Misrepresenting and ignoring the scientific method
Mention the name Dean Radin to sound cool
Ignore any evidence which contradicts psi

Feel free to add any suggestions

 

[DoomMetal]

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.

George P. Hansen is not a reliable source. He claims John Keel (a UFO writer) and Vincent Gaddis (a Fortean writer) were professional magicians. He makes many other mistakes like that.

He's very desperate to find the small minority of magicians who believed in psi such as your "hereo" Henry R. Evans, but he doesn't mention publications or the name of the majority of magicians who do not believe in psi. Even his small list of magicians that believed in psi were all critical of séance phenomena.

Here is his article:

Magicians Who Endorsed Psychic Phenomena

The entire thing is filled with dodgy quote mines. For example;

Julien Proskauer served as president of the S.A.M. and also wrote two books attacking fake spiritualist mediums; one was titled The Dead do not Talk. In his other book, Spook Crooks!, he noted that “there have been some inexplicable phenomena during seances.”

The magician Julien Proskauer did not believe in psychic phenomena! The full quote reads:

"Communication between the living and dead is not yet established, although there have been some inexplicable phenomena during séances." Spook Crooks! Exposing the secrets of the prophet-eers who conduct our wickedest industry. p. 300. He then goes on to say in the following sentence No one possesses supernatural powers. This was all written on the last page of the book.

So claiming that "some inexplicable phenomena during séances" is just saying that some phenomena remain unexplained, it is NOT endorsing psychic phenomena. And Hansen ignores the rest of the book which exposes countless fraudulent mediums for that one dirty quote mine which he has misrepresented... and he omits the following line after that sentence which read "No one possesses supernatural powers".

But Hansen has included Proskauer on a public internet article which has been read by 1000s of people that he was a believer in psychic phenomena. On the contrary he was not a believer! This is how inaccurate information gets spread about. Hansen is misleading his readers due to an underlying agenda.

Hansen claims he was cataloger of The Milbourne Christopher Library but The Milbourne Christopher Foundation have denounced his work. If Milbourne Christopher was alive today he wouldn't give The Trickster and the Paranormal a positive review!

 

[DoomMetal]

To push this thread in a positive direction, then perhaps someone can debunk the recent comment by Alex Tsakiris on pseudoskeptics:

agreed... let's get to listing:

- way back... Ray Hyman flubs the numbers re Dean Radin

- Richard Wiseman distorts/misrepresents/lies... and does it over and over... about Dogs That Know

- Steve Novella... keeps his nice guy demeanor while continuously misrepresenting the data

- James Randi lies about SRI testing of Uir Geller

- Ben Radford misrepresents his interviews with detectives in psychic detective case

- Brain Dunning looks pretty silly in debate on global consciousness (and other stuff) won't respond to follow-up by researchers.

- Chris French, the "open minded Skeptic" cornered over Global Consciousness data, breaks off collaboration with researchers... but his research assistant kinda spills the beans.

- Dr. Kevin Nelson research on NDEs was silly to begin with (REM intrusion... really, that's what you got)... more so when Jeff Long weighed in.

- G.M. Woerlee... case study in the persistence despite faulty logic and disproven theories.

- MSM/science media's misreporting of any and all alternative explanation for NDEs... anything but consciousness survives death.

- Susan Blackmore... who is often by Skeptics as a NDE researcher, “… I gave up all of this stuff so many years ago… I’m not a researcher in the field. I have not been for a long time.”

- Sam Parnia, even though he's come around, in the true spirit of Skeptiko we have to look back at his careful word-parsing/double-talk:

Alex Tsakiris: Okay. You do suspect that it will turn out to be a trick of the mind, an illusion.

Dr. Sam Parnia: It may well be. You’re pushing and I’m giving you honest answers. I don’t know. If I knew the answers then I don’t think I would have engaged and spent 12 years of my life and so much of my medical reputation to try to do this. Because to appreciate people like me, I risk a lot by doing this sort of experiment. So I’m interested in the answers and I don’t know. Like I said, if I was to base everything on the knowledge that I have currently of neuroscience, then the easiest explanation is that this is probably an illusion. But again, I don’t know.

- Greta Christina... who was not very convincing, but in hindsight, considering how more credentialed folks like Gary Marcus did, doesn't look that bad:

Ms. Christina responds, “There is what seems to me to be extremely shaky research and there’s no consensus about it in any sense-in fact, the overwhelming consensus among neurologists is that no, these people are, I’m not going to say crackpots, that’s too strong a word. But these people are mistaken.”

Tsakiris responds, “I don’t mind hearing your opinion, but you’ve got to back it up. You’re saying that every time somebody gives you research you go and look at it and it’s debunked. Well, tell me. Tell me what’s been debunked. You haven’t cited any real NDE research. You cited Keith Augustine and then you want to say Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptical Magazine?”

- Lisa Miller... one of my favorite, or least favorite depeniding on how you look at it. Here's the religion editor from Newsweek who writes a book cliaming that he Dad came back from the grave to visit her, but is still an Athiest:

Alex Tsakiris: Do you believe that the best evidence we have suggests our consciousness survives our death?

Lisa Miller: I don’t believe that’s the best evidence we have. We’re back to where we started.

Alex Tsakiris: So you don’t believe consciousness survives death.

Lisa Miller: I’m saying that it’s possible but I don’t know for sure.

Alex Tsakiris: [Laughs] Well, I don’t know for sure either. And no one…

Lisa Miller: Well, that’s where we all are. That’s where we all are on this stuff. We don’t know. We don’t know whether consciousness survives death. We don’t know what Heaven looks like. We don’t know whether our grandparents are there. What we have is a hope.

Alex Tsakiris: That’s not where most of us are living our lives. Most of us are living our life from making some kind of conclusion from the data we have. So why is it unfair to ask you whether or not…

Lisa Miller: I didn’t say it was unfair and I answered your question. I said I think that there’s a possibility but I don’t know. I think that it’s a great hope of many people.

Alex Tsakiris: Why so noncommittal? I don’t understand that.

Lisa Miller: I’m not noncommittal. I’m answering your question as best as I can. Truly I am.

Alex Tsakiris: No, you’re not. You’re answering a different question. You’re answering the hope question, but you’re not answering whether you personally, based on the evidence you’ve looked at in doing this work and writing this book and being the Senior Religion Editor at Newsweek Magazine, you haven’t told me whether the evidence that you’ve taken in has persuaded you one way or another.

- Dr. Jerry Coyne... had to get kinda technical and specific to expose his nonsense... glad I did the extra show:

Alex Tsakiris: During the last episode of Skeptiko we were talking to Dr. Jerry Coyne and he had a number of things to say concerning the history of the theory of evolution and the relationship between Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. In particular, Jerry was emphatic in claiming Alfred Russel Wallace never connected biogeography to evolution, “Wallace did not use biogeography as evidence of evolution. I mean, never!”

That’s not how I remember this history, so I decided to check with Wallace biographer Professor Michael Flannery.

Professor Flannery: Well, he seems to really be unfamiliar with Wallace’s body of writing on that topic. The famous paleontologist and geologist, Henry Fairfield Osborn, he’s sort of an icon in the field, referred to Wallace’s Sarawak Law Paper as “A very strong argument for the Theory of Descent and a bold declaration from a strong and fearless Evolutionist.”

And actually if you’d like sort of an icing on the cake reference, Ian McCalman, who has written a pretty good book recently called Darwin’s Armada, refers to Wallace’s Sarawak Law paper as, “The first ever British scientific paper to claim that animals had descended from a common ancestor and then produced closely similar variations which have evolved into distinct species.”

-- Caroline Watt... the sad state of parapsychology... hard-core Skeptics/debunkers like Caroline seek to extert their control:
Alex Tsakiris: I’m not suggesting that. I’m saying that what gets picked up and perpetuated through the science media is reflective of the current position, even if that position isn’t supported by the best data.

I’m saying your paper got traction even though there’s not a lot behind it. I’m saying you cited references incorrectly. And you referenced skeptics like Dr. Susan Blackmore who admits to not being current in the field.

Dr. Caroline Watt: As I said, it was intended to be a provocative piece. It’s not claiming to be balanced. The paper, if it wasn’t limited to two or three pages, I could have dealt more thoroughly with many different aspects because there’s more to near-death experiences then the dying brain hypothesis. It would have been a longer and more in-depth paper, but that wasn’t the paper that we wrote

Alex moaning at skeptics

 

[DoomMetal]

I have mentioned this paper before, apparently this is the paper that has annoyed the Skeptiko forum here it is:

http://www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/Documents/MobbsWattNDE.pdf

Approximately 3% of Americans declare to have had a near-death experience. These experiences classically involve the feeling that one’s soul has left the body, approaches a bright light and goes to another reality, where love and bliss are all encompassing. Contrary to popular belief, research suggests that there is nothing paranormal about these experiences. Instead, neardeath experiences are the manifestation of normal brain function gone awry, during a traumatic, and sometimes harmless, event.

 

[DoomMetal]

Users here or the Skeptiko crew may be interested in my thread

"Near death experiences are not evidence for life after death".

I decided to quote from a "neutral" book on the subject. Here's the interesting points I found.

The case for the NDE experience of survival is weakened by a fact readily acknowledged by investigators and scholars. The mental state characteristic of the core NDE also occurs under other circumstances. One does not have to be on the verge of physical death to witness the blinding light, encounter spirit beings or have the sense of wandering away from one’s body. Such a state often occurs in the sacred literature of the both the East and the West and among individuals who have attained ‘mystical’ experiences independent of any religious belief. Furthermore, people have often sought and attained such a state through hallucinogenic drugs (as well as through fasting, withdrawing into the wilderness and other actions). Medical psychologist Ronald Siegal has shown that imagery similar if not identical to the NDE can be produced by commonly used anaesthetics in the operating room as well as by peyote and other established hallucinogens.

Quote:
Who should be more likely to have an NDE the person who objectively is very close to death, or the person who is in less extreme jeopardy of his life? By definition and usage, the closer to death, the more impressive the NDE. A study has addressed this question specifically and found that survivors subjective sense of being close to death was not related to the depth of completeness of their NDEs. Furthermore people who objectively had been in less perilous situation were more likely to report NDEs in the first place! In effect this study distinguished between near and very near death experiences - and the results indicate that fewer memories are reported the closer the individual actually has been to death. The survival hypothesis of the NDE is certainly not strengthened by results which show that people who are very close to death have fewer experiences to report.

Quote:
Ten thousand cases of vivid NDEs tell us nothing dependable about what experience, if any, a person has when death ‘lives up’ to its reputation for finality. Nowhere in all the available statistics on NDEs is there one scrap of evidence for similarity or identity between the experiences of those who return and those who do not. One cannot advise researchers to continue to waste their time in the hope that more cases; more numbers will change this situation. This is a fundamental flaw in NDE research – namely that we learn only from the returnees – and no viable alternative has been suggested.

We must remind ourselves that all the nearly-dead did, in fact, have viable physical bodies remaining to them. No authenticated reports have come from people whose bodies were absolutely destroyed by say, explosion, avalanche or fire. The expression of mind has invariably depended on a relatively intact, if jeopardized, body. Were the ‘spiritual body’ really as free as some believe, then this strict dependence on an intact physical body should not be necessary.

Quote:
There is a problem which seems to have escaped all the researchers and advocates of NDEs as evidence of survival. No NDE study has pinned down precisely when the experience actually occurred. Most studies think they have – when what they have settled for is really only the period of time when the person’s life was in greatest jeopardy. This will not do. While what we actually know about the NDE is limited, it comes to us as a form of memory – and much is known about memory in its psychological and even its biological aspects.

 

[DoomMetal]

Here's Dean Radin's list of psi papers:

Selected Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications on Psi Research

On the list I found:

Crooks (1874). Researches in the phenomena of spiritualism

Crooks (1874). Notes of séances with DDH

Crooks? Who is Crooks?

The correct name was William Crookes

 

[DoomMetal]

I already posted this a few months ago, but as this thread is dedicated to the mistakes of the Skeptiko website. Here is my rebuttal to the claims of Craig Weiler:

You can watch a video lecture of Craig Weiler here:

http://vimeo.com/64867110

Under the video in the description Craig is described as a "psychic healer" .

His lecture which was supposed to be on parapsychology was pretty poorly researched. Psychic research or the "movement" as he calls it did not start with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) like he claimed. The parapsychologist Carlos Alvarado who has written extensively on the history of psychic research has traced it back before that. The parapsycholgist Brian Inglis in his books also traced it back before that.

Around the 3 minute mark Craig describes the SPR as set up to investigate mediums. Check the history of the SPR that was not their sole purpose, and most SPR members have been critical of mediumship. He then says skeptics were "behind" the SPR and set out to discredit and ignore the SPR's research and were "attacking" them. This is not true, it would be interesting to see his sources for that claim.

When the SPR first formed it contained a mixture of believers and skeptical members and due to the exposure of fake mediums in the 1880s many spiritualist members left the SPR. Craig does not know the history. It was the SPR members who exposed many fraud mediums! Why not mention the SPR has had skeptical members and exposed fraud mediums?

He then says the skeptics continued to attack the SPR until the period got to J. B. Rhine. Interesting that Craig names none of these skeptics throughout his lecture who had supposedly been attacking the SPR or other parapsychological institutions, this is sloppy research and unverified allegations. Also the gap from 1880 to the 1930s is a long time. Craig misses a lot of psychic research out

Craig says J. B. Rhine was working on parapsychology/ESP in the 1950s this is true but he started his work on ESP in the 1930s not in the 50s...

He says J. B. Rhine took parapsychology into the lab and was the first to do so. This is not true, I know of psychical researchers who worked on ESP experiments in labs far before Rhine and could easily list many of them. One of my favourites was G. N. M. Tyrrell an independent psychical researcher and engineer who set up his own lab to experiment on ESP. Sadly his lab was bombed in the war.

Craig then says J. B. Rhine was the first to use statistics in parapsychology. Not true as there were psychical researchers doing this far before Rhine in France. See for example the scientists who worked at the Institut Métapsychique in the 1920s such as René Warcollier.

He then says the skeptics attempted to trash everything Rhine did, but gives no names. Next he says that a researcher who worked with Rhine faked his results, but Craig does not even mention the name of this researcher! This is dishonest. He then claims it makes no difference that this researcher faked his results because it was Rhine who outed him. Well that is not the full truth

He then claims organised skepticism started with Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). This is not true, organised skepticism of paranormal claims existed before the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. See the recent pdf article published by Daniel Loxton for example.

All those mistakes in the first 5 minutes. And Craig is the one who goes around telling "pseudoskeptics" online they do not know the history of parapsychology. I think its very much the other way round, he has no idea about what he is talking about.

Craig Weiler a pseudo-parapsychologist

No response from Craig. But this is the man who calls people pseudoskeptics for not knowing the history of psi!

Why do I know more about parapsychology than the proponents do

 

[DoomMetal]

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".

Ersby, I read your thread Charles Richet and the sealed envelope experiments 1889 . When I was 17 years old my sister brought me a copy of Dean Radin's Conscious Universe which describes many old experiments. I was a psi believer for a few years and then I studied science and discovered that psi was magical thinking and I had been duped

You may be interested in the book ESP: A Scientific Evaluation BY C. E. M. Hansel published in 1966. It's an oldy but the only book which exposes the flaws in many of the old psi experiments. It was updated in a revised version in 1980.

I have read believer books on ESP as well, the best one IMO was The Hidden Springs: An Enquiry Into Extra-Sensory Perception by Renee Haynes.

 

[Cuddles]

This forum is not the place for importing feuds from other forums or for engaging in petty bickering. If that's all you want to do, please take it somewhere else.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

 

[Cuddles]

To get things a little more on topic:

Does anyone have a rebuttal to anonymous/Wu/Open mind's remaining points cited in my OP?:

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.

Burden of proof is on the person making the claim. I know nothing about the case, but unless he can show evidence of Randi making false claims that he was forced to retract, there's nothing for anyone to rebut.

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.

This is just nonsense. 20:1 is not the "usual scientific standard" at all, even if you believe such a thing actually exists. For example, pick a number between 1 and 20. Now roll a D20. Did you get it correct? If so, congratulations! You are now officially psychic according to science. Or not, since that would obviously be stupid.

In reality, there is no simplistic standard probability that results must somehow beat in order to be taken seriously. Depending on the context, the probabilities can be all over the place. Sometimes statistics may not even be an appropriate analytic tool at all. For example, I work at a particle accelerator, and one of the important parameters is the lifetime, which is essentially the time it would take for half the particles in the beam to be lost (although it gets a little more complicated than radioactive half-lives). Say I use a model to find new magnet settings that I think will increase the lifetime. When applied to the machine, either the lifetime increases or it doesn't. Probability simply doesn't come into it at all.

Or to take an example where probability is relevant, for discoveries of new particles in a collider, the usual standard for it to be considered confirmed is 5 sigma, which people have probably heard quite a bit recently in relation to the Higgs particle. That equates to odds of the result being due to chance of around 1 in 2 million. Slightly more than 1 in 20. Or just look at the challenge here - again it depends on context and there have been challenges where probability wasn't relevant at all, but in general the odds are given as around 1 in 1000 for the preliminary test and 1 in 1 million for the final. Again, a little higher than 1 in 20.

So while I know nothing about Natash Demkina (is it supposed to be Natasha?), the actual claim about her here appears to be complete nonsense. Beating odds of 78:1 is completely meaningless and doesn't come close to anything that would ever be considered scientific. Even if Wiseman did get the probability slightly wrong, even the correct result does not appear to be in any way interesting.

 

[Garrette]

Thanks for the re-rail, Cuddles. Natasha Demkina has been discussed to death on this forum, particularly in regard to her testing by CSICOP. Here's one thread regarding those tests. The bottom line is that she agreed to a test which required even less accuracy than she claimed, provided conditions more lenient than those in which she has purportedly been flawless in, and which was amenable to a determination of success or failure without judging or interpretation. She failed. The believer backlash, backpedaling, and retro-explaining was both jaw-dropping and expected.

@Doom Metal: It appears you take Ersby to be a believer. While I have not followed him in a few years (he has stopped being active on the JREF to my knowledge), he was never a believer while here, and I doubt he is now. He was, however, very skilled at being objective in his reviews and analysis and did admirable work as a layman reviewing statistics and methodology of psi-supportive claims.

 

[Arouet]

Ersby's done some really interesting work re: the Ganzfeld database. I hope he teams up with a researcher at some point and publishes a paper on it.

 

[Navigator]

This forum is not the place for importing feuds from other forums or for engaging in petty bickering. If that's all you want to do, please take it somewhere else.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

No, William was not me. I noticed this user got banned on the same day as I did. I agree his posts were rude, he was swearing in them, and he came across as he didn't know anything, he was asking people for psi material to read. A bit of a troll to be honest.

Is this forum for allowing crap that happened on another forum to be included even though it is incorrect or is double standards acceptable?

 

[Skippy Borzakov]

Out of curiosity, I googled my Skeptico username and found this thread, in which one of my forum posts was mentioned (one in which I expressed my taste in “adult entertainment”) and criticised. I realise that this is a relatively old thread, but seeing that my character has been attacked somewhat, I wanted to come and present a defence for myself.

Here is the part of my post that James quoted:

“Perhaps. I can't explain *why* some rape/forced videos sexually excite me, they just do. I think I'm possibly stimulated by the idea of a dominant man, perhaps. But of course, one can enjoy dominance in porn without looking at the rape/forced category.”


James said:

I It's seems to be filled with some very sick and mentally unbalanced people.

Well, James, I assume you were using the quotation from my post as an example of what you personally thought was “sick and mentally unbalanced”. If it’s your opinion that enjoying rape pornography makes me sick or mentally unbalanced, then that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. But I completely disagree and I think it’s rather judgmental of you if you think that enjoying that kind of pornography makes me a bad or sick person.

Firstly, rape acted out in pornography is not “real” rape. I despise the *real* act of rape and hope it never happens to me, nor would I wish it on anyone else. However, simulated rape, when acted out in pornography, is simply that – acting performed by two consenting adults. No one is being harmed.

I can’t help what stimulates me. People have different tastes. Are people sick or mentally unbalanced if they enjoy watching BDSM or have eccentric sexual fetishes? I don’t think so. People are different, and are stimulated by different things. As long as consenting adults are involved, then there is no problem (in my opinion.)

So yes – I sometimes watch pornography and sometimes choose to watch the forced/rape category. I’m not ashamed of it, and see no reason why I should be. I certainly don’t think it makes me sick or mentally unbalanced. You may feel differently, but, like I said, I think it is rather judgmental of you.

I also don’t think I am alone in being stimulated by that kind of pornography. I know Wikipedia is quite unreliable on numerous subjects, so perhaps it is the case for this too – but presuming, for the moment, that it has its facts right here, here is a quotation from a Wikipedia article on rape fantasy:

“Studies from the 1970s and 1980s have found rape fantasy was once a common sexual fantasy among both men and women. The fantasy may involve the fantasist as either the one being forced into sex or as the perpetrator. Some studies have found that women tend to fantasize about being forced or coerced into sexual activity more commonly than men. A 1974 study by Hariton and Singer [1] found that being "overpowered or forced to surrender" was the second most frequent fantasy in their survey; a 1984 study by Knafo and Jaffe ranked being overpowered as their study's most common fantasy during intercourse; and a 1988 study by Pelletier and Herold found that over half of their female respondents had fantasies of forced sex. Other studies have found the theme, but with lower frequency and popularity. However, these female fantasies do not necessarily imply that the subject desires to be forced into non-consensual sex in reality – the fantasies often contain romantic images where the woman imagines herself being seduced, and the male that she imagines is desirable. Most importantly, the woman remains in full control of her fantasy. The fantasies do not usually involve the woman getting hurt.”


Now to address the next part of your post:

Watching rape videos, how very spiritual!

You may not consider watching rape pornography to be “spiritual” (although I would argue that that is just your personal definition – can any one individual really make rules about what is and isn’t spiritual?) – but even if we accept that it is not a “spiritual” thing to do, why should I have to stop doing non-spiritual things just because I am interested in and, to a degree, practice spirituality?

I am not a person who lives, eats and breathes spirituality. I have other interests in my life, interests which people might call “non-spiritual” or that are non-related to spirituality. I’m not going to give up my fun and interests just because I’ve taken on some deeper spiritual hobbies as well.

I consider myself “spiritual” because I believe in spirits, the spirit world, an afterlife, and spiritual/paranormal phenomena such as astral projection and magick. I’m interested in those things and I find them fun and enjoyable (which for me is the most important thing – I want to have as much fun as I can – these things entertain me just as music entertains me, and I like being entertained.)

So that’s why I consider myself spiritual. But I’m not spiritual in what you would call my moral/ethical basis. My morals and ethics are not dictated by any spiritual system. I make my own moral and ethical basis and I stick by those.

I have numerous non-spiritual interests which include reading, music and sitcoms. I also like going to parties and (sometimes) getting drunk. (I’m young, in my twenties, I like to have fun with my friends.) These interests have nothing to do with spirituality. Yet should I stop doing these things simply because I’m into spirituality?

Some people might say yes. That’s their opinion. But I disagree.

There is room in my life for both my spiritual interests and non-spiritual hobbies. I’m not going to choose one over the other. I live my life the way I want to live it and my intention is to have a good time as much as I can, whether that’s by listening to music, watching sitcoms, reading books, involving myself in the occult, or, when I feel like it, watching pornography. I’m not hurting anybody, so I’m entitled to live the way I wish to. If you wish to judge me negatively, then, I have to say, that I don’t understand why you would. Just because I have unusual tastes in pornography? Plenty of people have eccentric sexual tastes. I don’t think we should all be judged so harshly, as long as our tastes involve consenting adults, which mine do.

are the sorts of people who run that website, says it all

I don’t run the website, far from it. I’ve no involvement with running it at all. You also describe me as one of the “main” members and in my opinion that’s an exaggeration. I don’t think I’ve even got 200 posts there? That’s far less than a lot of the other members have. I post there now and then, sometimes post regularly for a spell of several weeks, but I wouldn’t call myself anywhere near a “main” member.

I’m a nice person. I daresay if you met me, you’d probably like me. Some of my friends describe me as eccentric, but as far as I’m concerned, eccentricity is something to be proud of. I’ve communicated with Arouet and he can attest that I am a nice, kind, well-mannered person. I find it harsh and judgmental of you to criticise me for something which, in my opinion, is really no big deal. So I like watching a certain category of pornography. So what?

 

[Sherlock]

George P. Hansen is not a reliable source. Nor honorable.

DoomMetal is absolutely spot on that author and researcher George P. Hansen is not a reliable source. Nor was he honorable in correcting false events and accusations where he was shown as the original source. As early as 1992 I contacted him repeatedly with documentation that his apparent blanket support behind discredited "police psychic" Noreen Renier was filled with errors. I provided him court transcripts showing her lack of credibility --- issues which surfaced again in 2011 when a federal judge ruled she wasn't credible and had misled a federal court.

Over several years when I showed his statements lacked any accurate foundations and provided him with corrected statements by two police agencies, George Hansen never replied. Instead he continued to repeat his same "proofs" falsely created by Renier as examples of why psychics should be considered seriously alongside police investigations. I have no doubt the man's "research" is based first and foremost on proving his own biased views with a pro-paranormal slant.

 

[James Cunningham]

DoomMetal is absolutely spot on that author and researcher George P. Hansen is not a reliable source. Nor was he honorable in correcting false events and accusations where he was shown as the original source. As early as 1992 I contacted him repeatedly with documentation that his apparent blanket support behind discredited "police psychic" Noreen Renier was filled with errors. I provided him court transcripts showing her lack of credibility --- issues which surfaced again in 2011 when a federal judge ruled she wasn't credible and had misled a federal court.

Over several years when I showed his statements lacked any accurate foundations and provided him with corrected statements by two police agencies, George Hansen never replied. Instead he continued to repeat his same "proofs" falsely created by Renier as examples of why psychics should be considered seriously alongside police investigations. I have no doubt the man's "research" is based first and foremost on proving his own biased views with a pro-paranormal slant.

More about Hansen here, he is indeed a psychic believer:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/George_P._Hansen

He has done some dodgy quote mining.

 

[Sherlock]

Thanks James for the link. Hansen seems to be every psychics best friend. Enough said.