How does the test taker verify the results?

[both_sides]

Hi,

This is my first post. The reason I call myself both_sides is because it describes the fact that I am both a person who places value on scientific reasoning and logical argumentation and a person who believes that the realm of the spirit and the metaphysical are real. For example, I had dreams that I could not deduce because of their symbolic language BEFORE the events as meaning what they did, but after which it was clear presaged September 11, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. They were my dreams. I suppose it's a gift. I cannot call upon these things on demand. Perhaps I could if I really dedicated myself to it.

This is my question about the test. I'm sure JREF will appreciate my skepticism.

I have to think that an organization that stands to have to give up $1M and renounce all the members define as reality has a tad bit of an interest in making sure that there is no way a person with any metaphysical gifts of any sort can ever prove the skill to be legitimate. There's a reason the rules of the challenge come across really quite aggressively (that and that you must attract your fair share of crackpots). My line of questioning is healthy cynicism, is it not?

I saw a post that presented a screening question to a person claiming to have a gift...reading minds I think it was. The challenge gave three first names with the last names omitted and asked the person to come up with last names and determine if the people are living or dead. My question is this: what is in place to insure that your organization doesn't tell the person they're wrong no matter WHAT they say? How is this independently verified and by whom? Suppose I took the challenge (I'm not planning it) and said Joe (Carter) deceased, Laurie (Brannon) living, and Quincy (VanDaam) deceased, and got it completely right. What would stop you from saying, "Nope, sorry, you blew it, thanks for trying?"

The same question applies to any stage of the challenge.

 

[Mercutio]

Hi,

This is my first post.

Welcome!

The reason I call myself both_sides is because it describes the fact that I am both a person who places value on scientific reasoning and logical argumentation and a person who believes that the realm of the spirit and the metaphysical are real. For example, I had dreams that I could not deduce because of their symbolic language BEFORE the events as meaning what they did, but after which it was clear presaged September 11, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. They were my dreams. I suppose it's a gift. I cannot call upon these things on demand. Perhaps I could if I really dedicated myself to it.

I saw a cloud once, that looked like a blob, until a friend said it looked like a dragon with its head cut off. After that, that is exactly what it looked like.

It is very easy to fit something after the fact. "After which, it was clear..." is a very common occurance. I wish it was evidence...but it is not.

This is my question about the test. I'm sure JREF will appreciate my skepticism.

Of course!

I have to think that an organization that stands to have to give up $1M and renounce all the members define as reality has a tad bit of an interest in making sure that there is no way a person with any metaphysical gifts of any sort can ever prove the skill to be legitimate. There's a reason the rules of the challenge come across really quite aggressively (that and that you must attract your fair share of crackpots). My line of questioning is healthy cynicism, is it not?

So far...but please remember, if the claimed ability is real, its discovery is worth much more than a mere million dollars! Randi has said many times that he would be glad to give up the prize, if it opened the door to a new area of exploration. The rules of the challenge are not so much "aggressive" as they are "appropriate". If the claimant is honest and the talent is real, the challenge rules are a trifle! The true ability to, say, read minds, would have no trouble at all with the challenge rules--especially since the procedure is determined by both the JREF and the challenger! The JREF asks what the claimant can do--if it fits the criteria, they are tested on that claim alone--not on something more than that.

I saw a post that presented a screening question to a person claiming to have a gift...reading minds I think it was. The challenge gave three first names with the last names omitted and asked the person to come up with last names and determine if the people are living or dead. My question is this: what is in place to insure that your organization doesn't tell the person they're wrong no matter WHAT they say? How is this independently verified and by whom? Suppose I took the challenge (I'm not planning it) and said Joe (Carter) deceased, Laurie (Brannon) living, and Quincy (VanDaam) deceased, and got it completely right. What would stop you from saying, "Nope, sorry, you blew it, thanks for trying?"

A very good question indeed! Such an outcome is exactly why the experimental controls are agreed upon ahead of time. The "correct answers" would be held in a secure location, so that no one, skeptic or believer, could interfere with the test. A proper test must be safe from experimenter effects, as it is safe from subject effects. You are quite right to raise such a concern, and I hope you will be happy to hear that the protocol does indeed address this concern!

The same question applies to any stage of the challenge.

As well it should! And it is addressed at all stages! Take a look at the challenge FAQ sheet, and if you see any problems, please point them out!

 

[strathmeyer]

For example, I had dreams that I could not deduce because of their symbolic language BEFORE the events as meaning what they did, but after which it was clear presaged September 11, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. They were my dreams. I suppose it's a gift. I cannot call upon these things on demand. Perhaps I could if I really dedicated myself to it.

Welcome to the forums! I assume you will be applying for the million dollar prize! How amazing it will be when somebody finally wins it!

 

[Aepervius]

question

I am both a person who places value on scientific reasoning and logical argumentation

Hi, and welcome.
Since you value scientific reasonning, could you please tell us the reasonning behind associating a postriori some symbolism to an event which came after the dream. In other word, every prediction of the future means a break in the causality.

Furthermore, usually in scientific reasoning, you do not presuppose the existence of "new entity" if a perfect explanation can be used previous knowledge. For example you do not make up a "purple invisible dragon flying over the cloud" to explain rainfall, when another explanation not requiring that dragon exist. Which lead me to this : if you believe in metaphysical stuff, then this means you observed something which cannot be explained by science. If so can we get the HARD evidence. If not, then how is this consistent with placing value on csientific reasoning.

Finally the challenge protocol as far as I can tell is akin to a contract. If you respect your side, and JREF not, then you can attack them for breach of contract, and get the money anyway. Also, to avoid fraud as far as I understood the protocol and result are handled by a third neutral party (although I could be wrong).

PS: did you read the challenge FAQ ?

 

[joller]

EDIT: to quickly answer the question in the subject of your post:
you shouldn't have to! The results should be self evident and not require any subjective judging!

Hi,
This is my first post.

Welcome to the forum.

The reason I call myself both_sides is because it describes the fact that I am both a person who places value on scientific reasoning and logical argumentation and a person who believes that the realm of the spirit and the metaphysical are real.

Prepare to have that statement tested many times over and over again.

For example, I had dreams that I could not deduce because of their symbolic language BEFORE the events as meaning what they did, but after which it was clear presaged September 11, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

You didn't say much here - what was it exactly that you dreamt about?
Interpeting the dreams as prophecies or visions after the fact isn't really a proof of anything - if you could predict the catastophy - that would definitely be something.
Have you ever had a dream which you would consider 'a vision' and then nothing happened afterwards? maybe you have the dreams quite often, but you only count the hits?
Maybe you add to the dreams afterwards, to make it look to yourself like they were a hit?
Maybe you use the symbolisms in the dreams very liberally?
NExt time you have a dream which you think predicts something, let us all know. you can also establish a timeframe from your dream to the catastrophy, so say if you dream it on a given day, the catastrophy must come within three days.
Have you ever tested it like that?
What have you done to prove to yourself that the dreams are indeed visions?

They were my dreams. I suppose it's a gift.

Read some webpages on skepdic.com
Check wishful thinking, subject validation, confirmation bias, self deception and related webpages. See if one of those doesn't apply to your dreams. Make sure you're honest with yourself though.

I cannot call upon these things on demand. Perhaps I could if I really dedicated myself to it.

If you can do it on demand, or if you can predict something that's not very probable with high enough accuracy (say i.e. that there will be another tsunami with a 48 hour prediction window, and the seismic sensors etc. didn't pick up anything yet) you would have a good chance to land yourself US$1 million

I have to think that an organization that stands to have to give up $1M and renounce all the members define as reality has a tad bit of an interest in making sure that there is no way a person with any metaphysical gifts of any sort can ever prove the skill to be legitimate.

If it would be the case, none of us would support the project. You are of course welcome to be suspicious and demand the answer to your question.
The reason for why no one claimed the big bucks yet is not that the protocol was skewed to not allow any claims to be successful, it's because no one has ever demonstrated any powers. The protocol you get to negotiate yourself, and you only agree on the protocol if you think it's fair and you're confident it won't allow fo cheating on any side. A lot of time is spend to make sure it's the case, and that's partially the reason for why protocol negotiations often take months.
I believe many people here, and Randi himself would like someone to claim the prize, to prove us all wrong, to demonstrate that paranormal powers exist! It was even discussed that a brilliant scientist with a new discovery no one else knew about, could claim the price and Randi would be happy to pay up!

There's a reason the rules of the challenge come across really quite aggressively (that and that you must attract your fair share of crackpots).

Crackpots and the fact that JREF doesn't want to allow for any cheating or ambiguity that could give base to lawsuits. The process is to be clear, with no judgmental calls, Randi himself is not judging the hits and misses etc.. it's all supposed to protect BOTH the JREF and the claimant (i.e. if you proved your claim, you WILL get the money, that's for sure).

My line of questioning is healthy cynicism, is it not?

Cynicism is associated with 'jaded negativity' - and there's nothing like that in your question.

I saw a post that presented a screening question to a person claiming to have a gift...reading minds I think it was.

I want you to understand, that although the folks on the forum will give you a lot of ideas on how to set up the protocol and how you can prove the phenomenon (or disprove it) to yourself,the actual protocol negotiations are with the JREF and not the forum. So although you might find the suggestions on the forum useful, should you choose to apply, they are not a part of the formal negotiations with JREF.

The challenge gave three first names with the last names omitted and asked the person to come up with last names and determine if the people are living or dead. My question is this: what is in place to insure that your organization doesn't tell the person they're wrong no matter WHAT they say? How is this independently verified and by whom?

One of the points of the challenge is that the result has to be self evident and not require any subjective judgment.
I imagine that you will be shown the correct answers.
The whole process of selecting the names, and making sure they are not mixed up in the process should be well documented.

Suppose I took the challenge (I'm not planning it)

maybe you should? US$1M is certainly a lot of money.

and said Joe (Carter) deceased, Laurie (Brannon) living, and Quincy (VanDaam) deceased, and got it completely right. What would stop you from saying, "Nope, sorry, you blew it, thanks for trying?"

it wouldn't be JREF to say that. It would be an independent referee, whom you would trust as well (that's my understanding). The results should be self evident.

The same question applies to any stage of the challenge

The same answer applies.

 

[Rasmus]

I have to think that an organization that stands to have to give up $1M and renounce all the members define as reality has a tad bit of an interest in making sure that there is no way a person with any metaphysical gifts of any sort can ever prove the skill to be legitimate.

Why would you assume that?

The point of the challenge is not that the money gets to stay on the JREF accounts longer. Many institutions offer money to other people and their buisness is giving it away. (Scholarships, e.g.)

There's a reason the rules of the challenge come across really quite aggressively (that and that you must attract your fair share of crackpots). My line of questioning is healthy cynicism, is it not?

Your forgot the frauds and liars.

The challenge has to discriminate the genuinly gifted from the crackpots, frauds and liars. (And those who are somewhat less ofd a crackpot but honestly mistaken about their abilities.)

It is in everyone's best interest if that discrimination happens early on in the process, before peolpe invest too much time, money and other resources.

I am sure you will agree that the rules are actually very simple:

1) Tell us what you can do.
2) Tell us how it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt
(with a low chance on suceeding by sheer luck, and ensuring that you can't cheat.)
3) Prove it.

I saw a post that presented a screening question to a person claiming to have a gift...reading minds I think it was. The challenge gave three first names with the last names omitted and asked the person to come up with last names and determine if the people are living or dead.

I remember that, too. Please bear in mind that I did not go back to look for it, though, and am explaining from memory.

My question is this: what is in place to insure that your organization doesn't tell the person they're wrong no matter WHAT they say?

Nothing.

IIRC the request did match the claim made, i.e. the applicant said he could do this. It was an offer by the JREF to let things happen fast and simple.

No money would have been awared if the applicant had past this first test.
The applicant could have refused to take the test and negotiated another protocol for the first run of tests. (If he didn't trust the JREF on this one, or if the JREF had been mistaken in assuming that the applicant could perform this task or if the applicant just didn't like to do it this way for no reason whatsoever.)

How is this independently verified and by whom? Suppose I took the challenge (I'm not planning it) and said Joe (Carter) deceased, Laurie (Brannon) living, and Quincy (VanDaam) deceased, and got it completely right. What would stop you from saying, "Nope, sorry, you blew it, thanks for trying?"

Nothing.

But then, that wasn't a real test according to the rules. It was just a way the applicant could have earned truckloads of credibility at the cost of just another e-mail.

At this stage, there was no possibility of blowing it, since it hadn't even started yet.

The same question applies to any stage of the challenge.

As others have pointed out, during the challenge both parties will agree on a protocol that ensures that no such thing is possible. How this is done will vary depending on the nature of the claim.

Telling the difference between living and dead peolpe should be rather simple, I asume. You can show the living, and there usually is documentation about the dead. (You could eve ndesign the test so that you would only need live people. Say, the applicant was allowed to judge anyone dead living, but any living person judged dead would be a miss. It'd take a few more trials and the math would be more comlicated, but you could still do it and then line up al lthe living people.)

Rasmus.

 

[Mendeli]

Applying for a case of predicting stuff with dreams is a pretty hard one to success in. I have had a couple of dreams which I used to tell my friends about. In one of them I was downhill skiing and fell into some cliffs after a jump. I used to have that dream almost every night for about a year. Later on when I was really downhill skiing in a Finnish place called Ylläs, I suddenly realized the place seemed familiar although I had never been there. I stopped just before what seemed like a nice jumping place. In fact it was not a jumping place at all but a pile of snow blown together by wind, covering a fence next to a 50 meter drop into some cliffs! I used to count that as supernatural thing but now I just think of it as a wonderful luck and confirmation bias.

Another very strong dream I used to have for quite a while: Year 2036 I'm going to Mars on a spaceship with a good friend of mine. Not very likely eh? Also not easy to apply for. I'm probably not allowed to make an application with result so far away in future... and on the other hand if the trip was ever going to happen, there's going to have to be some major breakthrough in science within next couple of decades, hence me applying for that claim in 2035 would either be silly as it was not going to happen or with huge amount of luck trips to mars would be so common then that my prediction would not be paranormal at all!

 

[JohnF_73]

Off the top of my head...one way to test dream predictions would be:

Get 10 people say, and get them to 'create' some weirdly symbolic dreams, (or if they're not the creative type, just use their own) and describe them in 30 words or less. Let the claimant also submit his dreams. (This process goes on for a month, or some other appropriate time.)

At some point event X will happen, which claimant says was predicted by a dream on day 'Y'.

All the dreams not just for day 'Y' are given to a bunch of independent people. They are told to rate the dreams predictive / symbolic connection to a series of recent news stories, one of which is event X.

If enough independents pull out claimants dream and event X, then you could probably argue that there's something worth looking at in more detail, at which point a better protocol than this could be developed.

 

[Mendeli]

At some point event X will happen, which claimant says was predicted by a dream on day 'Y'.

I see a problem here. If the claimant sees a connection between an event and a dream, there's a chance some individual observers will too. But that is all after the event happened already.

IMO, It would only be interesting if the event was actually predicted.

edit: for example: The claimant must look at all these dreams and give accurate predictions on some future events that will happen. Then individual jury would score the predictions after the event happened or didn't happen during the predetermined time interval. Additionally, the events will need to be unlikely and specific enough.

 

[petre]

I saw a post that presented a screening question to a person claiming to have a gift...reading minds I think it was. The challenge gave three first names with the last names omitted and asked the person to come up with last names and determine if the people are living or dead. My question is this: what is in place to insure that your organization doesn't tell the person they're wrong no matter WHAT they say? How is this independently verified and by whom? Suppose I took the challenge (I'm not planning it) and said Joe (Carter) deceased, Laurie (Brannon) living, and Quincy (VanDaam) deceased, and got it completely right. What would stop you from saying, "Nope, sorry, you blew it, thanks for trying?"

The same question applies to any stage of the challenge.

I'll just add a side note that Kramer's communication here was a bit different than normal, in that the applicant had not actually submitted an application. The communication was preliminary, to try and hash out what might work as a protocol. Kramer's response was a kind of informal test, suggesting that if the powers worked as described, this would be a definitive way to test them.

The person involved did send me an answer to his query, and claims to have sent same to Kramer. Sadly, he did not post a reply to this before leaving. Perhaps one day he'll come visit us on the boards again

 

[JohnF_73]

I see a problem here. If the claimant sees a connection between an event and a dream, there's a chance some individual observers will too. But that is all after the event happened already.

IMO, It would only be interesting if the event was actually predicted.

I agree, but the claimant looks like he's already giving himself an 'out' by saying he can't make it happen, etc... Granted there's a higher risk of a false positive with this protocol, but that's why I would use it only for a preliminary test (if that).

 

[Anti_Hypeman]

If somebody can demonstrate paranormal powers the tape of the event will be worth far more than one million. If you win the JREF also wins.

 

[both_sides]

Welcome!

Okay, two things Mercutio,

1) A skeptic who is sure that without ANY of the information, much less all of it, he can declare dreams another person had to be figments of their fertile imagination, is no more correct in his observations and criteria for forming a judgment than the person who believes EVERYTHING out of a desperate need to believe or a basic lack of intelligence.

Just for the sake of telling a story, I had a dream on September 9th, 2001 about a building full of terrified people who were running from someone who was shooting at all of them and killing many, also blowing up bombs in some areas, for no reason other than unbridled hatred, as the people were running up and down the stairs in a dark building. Eventually, it turned out that I was playing two roles in the dream. I was the attacker, and I was part of the group running. At a point, the building started to crumble, and someone said, "We have to get over to the other building before she reaches us." I said, "What other building?" The man said, "If you walk across that catwalk, it connects this building to another one that's exactly identical to it." They started to run when the catwalk collapsed and the other building started to come down.

I woke up screaming and was so terrified because the feel of the dream was so apocalyptic that I couldn't even speak of it when my husband asked me what happened. Two mornings later, I woke up to the phone ringing and a friend telling me to turn on the news because someone had flown an airplane into the World Trade Center (two buildings, exactly alike, which used to have a catwalk attaching them on one of the floors --- third, fourth or fifth I think).

It is the part of me that thinks like you, the rationalist, the doubter, that would not have made it possible for me to realize what this dream meant in my waking hours. In order to do that, I would have to make it really my life's work to immerse myself in that realm and my worldly mind will not allow me to do so. To do it would mean living almost a monk-like existence and would make me virtually unemployable.

2) I disagree that the test is performed in a controlled environment. When a a person posts a test question on a website without saying, "We have forwarded a registered letter to your attorney containing answers. Contact us when it arrives. Answer when you feel ready," that does not constitute a carefully controlled environment.

I realize, as some said in this thread, that it was intended as an informal test, but had I been the person to whom the question were posed, I would have hesistated to take that informal, preliminary trial purely on the basis that given the tone of much of what appears on this site, I would be concerned that no matter what I said, I'd be told it was wrong.

Maybe that's not the best way to approach it in the future.

 

[both_sides]

If somebody can demonstrate paranormal powers the tape of the event will be worth far more than one million. If you win the JREF also wins.

That's an interesting conclusion. It may be so. It does beg the question though: what is JREF's most pressing concern: that their universal view is confirmed and people live entirely in the realm of physical reality, or that a tape proving otherwise might be worth a lot of money?

As an objective, or at least bi-partisan, outsider looking in, I think this site comes across as more committed to proving all cases to be false than I think you might realize

 

[both_sides]

I agree, but the claimant looks like he's already giving himself an 'out' by saying he can't make it happen, etc... Granted there's a higher risk of a false positive with this protocol, but that's why I would use it only for a preliminary test (if that).

John, I am not a claimant. I am a person who could just as easily have made every point I made, and had them stand alone, without ever needing to have told you about my dreams.

I don't need an "out." As you may have surmised, I already somewhat suspect that most here have their minds made up to force people to prove what is essentially a non-existent event in their minds, and so I really have no investment in whether anyone here does or does not believe that I occasionally have genuinely premonitory dreams.

One mistake I have seen the skeptics here make repeatedly is that they make the uneducated judgment that because a person has skill X, they ought to be able to call on skill X whenever they wish. As much as you all hate this fact, it just doesn't work like that. I hate the fact that it doesn't work like that. I hate the fact that I can't just get these dreams literally so that I can see exactly what is supposed to happen and maybe save some people. If I thought I could do that, I might dedicate more time and energy to it. It's not like doing a sport or learning an academic subject. It just isn't that way. Of course, there has to be some basis for figuring out who is for real and who isn't, but I think this organization's complete lack of neutrality on the subject (neutrality would be reasonable) may be leading to making it impossible to prove even for people with a legitimate ability.

But I know you don't believe that, so back to our regularly scheduled programming (which for me is going to the gym).

 

[chillzero]

Just for the sake of telling a story, I had a dream on September 9th, 2001 about a building full of terrified people who were running from someone who was shooting at all of them and killing many, also blowing up bombs in some areas, for no reason other than unbridled hatred, as the people were running up and down the stairs in a dark building. Eventually, it turned out that I was playing two roles in the dream. I was the attacker, and I was part of the group running. At a point, the building started to crumble, and someone said, "We have to get over to the other building before she reaches us." I said, "What other building?" The man said, "If you walk across that catwalk, it connects this building to another one that's exactly identical to it." They started to run when the catwalk collapsed and the other building started to come down.

I woke up screaming and was so terrified because the feel of the dream was so apocalyptic that I couldn't even speak of it when my husband asked me what happened. Two mornings later, I woke up to the phone ringing and a friend telling me to turn on the news because someone had flown an airplane into the World Trade Center (two buildings, exactly alike, which used to have a catwalk attaching them on one of the floors --- third, fourth or fifth I think).

Your dream does not relate at all to what happened on 9/11. There was not shooting or bombs, and the catwalk (if you are correct about its existence) had little, if anything, to do with the deaths of that day.

This is a question I have asked others who claimed to have these types of dreams. What use is this 'gift', if it can only be applied retrospectively? Prophetic dreams need to be exactly that - prophetic - which means you could tell in advance what it is about.

 

[juryjone]

both_sides, I have a couple of points to make here.

First of all, when you bring up informal tests that are asked for in the forum, I wonder if you realize that this in no way reflects the official stand of the JREF. Informal tests are requested for three reasons:

1) To try to pin down exactly the claim;
2) to get the claimant to start thinking of the appropriate testing that could be done to establish the claim;
3) To satisfy the curiosity of the forum members, who just can't wait through all of the official testing to see if there's finally something extraordinary to be proved.

None of these are any reflection of what the JREF test is all about. The JREF test is a mutually-agreed-upon, independently administered test that does its best to be all things for all people. In trying to be that, discussions on protocol can stretch on for a long time. Informal tests are rarely that controlled, and are no more than an indication of the way a properly-controlled test might go. They do not prove that the claimant actually has powers, and they do not prove that she doesn't.

Please don't enter the JREF testing with your mind already made up that you're going to be screwed. That is one way to ensure that the final test will be no more proof than the informal test requested on the forum - if you can't agree that the test is fair, it cannot go any further.

I don't need an "out." As you may have surmised, I already somewhat suspect that most here have their minds made up to force people to prove what is essentially a non-existent event in their minds, and so I really have no investment in whether anyone here does or does not believe that I occasionally have genuinely premonitory dreams.

One mistake I have seen the skeptics here make repeatedly is that they make the uneducated judgment that because a person has skill X, they ought to be able to call on skill X whenever they wish. As much as you all hate this fact, it just doesn't work like that. I hate the fact that it doesn't work like that. I hate the fact that I can't just get these dreams literally so that I can see exactly what is supposed to happen and maybe save some people. If I thought I could do that, I might dedicate more time and energy to it. It's not like doing a sport or learning an academic subject. It just isn't that way. Of course, there has to be some basis for figuring out who is for real and who isn't, but I think this organization's complete lack of neutrality on the subject (neutrality would be reasonable) may be leading to making it impossible to prove even for people with a legitimate ability.

If I told you I could make 100 of 100 free throws blindfolded, but then told you that it only worked some of the time, on my court, and only after I had eaten a properly-prepared buffalo steak, might you not think that I am preparing some sort of "out" in case you requested that I back up my claim about the free throws? When someone says they can do something extraordinary, then immediately backs that with caveats, how are we NOT supposed to think that we are being setup with reasons why there will be no proof of the extraordinary abilities?

 

[drkitten]

I don't need an "out." As you may have surmised, I already somewhat suspect that most here have their minds made up to force people to prove what is essentially a non-existent event in their minds, and so I really have no investment in whether anyone here does or does not believe that I occasionally have genuinely premonitory dreams.

One mistake I have seen the skeptics here make repeatedly is that they make the uneducated judgment that because a person has skill X, they ought to be able to call on skill X whenever they wish. As much as you all hate this fact, it just doesn't work like that.

Of course it doesn't, and I suspect you've seen that mistake a lot less often than you feel you've seen it.

But very few "claimants" suggest that they have an erratic power until they are challenged to prove it. The stereotypical exchange goes something like this:

Fruitcake: "I can predict coin flips with perfect accuracy!"
Skeptic : "Can you? Prove it!"
Fruitcake: "Well, maybe not perfect -- but very good!"
Skeptic: "How good?"
Fruitcake: "Well, 90% -- call it 80%"
Skeptic: "Really? So, if I flipped a coin a hundred times, you'd get it right 80 times?"
Fruitcake: "Well, maybe not 80. But I did seven out of ten last night."
Skeptic: "How about the night before last?"
Fruitcake: "Huh?"
Skeptic: "Did you try it the night before last?"
Fruitcake: "Um, .... yeah. I got six out of ten?"
Skeptic: "So if I flipped a coin a hundred times, you'd get sixty right?"
Fruitcake: "Well, yeah. And if I was as psychic as I was last night, I'd get at least seventy!"
Skeptic: "What makes you be more or less psychic?"
Fruitcake: "Well, I had lasagna for dinner last night...."
Skeptic: "So you can get seventy correct as long as you eat lasagna beforehand?"
Fruitcake: "Yeah!"
Skeptic: "Let's try it, then. I'll make the lasagna and you get a coin."
Fruitcake: "Well, it has to be a special kind of lasagna."
Skeptic: "What kind?"
Fruitcake: "Well, I'm not sure. The kind I made last night, I guess."
Skeptic: "And you don't know what kind that is."
Fruitcake:"Well, you know. It comes and it goes."
Skeptic: "What does, the lasagna?"
Fruitcake: "No, my psychic power, silly!"
Skeptic: "And sometimes it's not there at all?"
Fruitcake: "Well, yeah. Last Tuesday, I only got four out of ten."
Skeptic: "Did you have lasagna that night?"
Fruitcake:"I don't remember."
Skeptic: "So you remember what you had on the nights you did well, but not badly?"
Fruitcake: "Huh?"
Skeptic: "Don't you think this is selective reporting?"
Fruitcake: "No, it's psychic power!"
Skeptic: "Really, don't you just get lucky sometimes in your flips?"
Fruitcake: "No, it's magic, really it is. I never get less than four -- well, three -- out of ten."
Skeptic: "Three out of ten."
Fruitcake: "... so I could guarantee to get at least thirty coin flips correct out of a hundred."
Skeptic: "You do know that almost anyone could make that statement, from probability alone."
Fruitcake: "Waaaah! You don't believe me!"

I think this organization's complete lack of neutrality on the subject (neutrality would be reasonable) may be leading to making it impossible to prove even for people with a legitimate ability.

What's neutral? If you think you have a power, show it off. It's precisely because all of the people who think they have power either collapse under study or avoid being studied at all that the question even arises.

 

[jimtron]

That's an interesting conclusion. It may be so. It does beg the question though: what is JREF's most pressing concern: that their universal view is confirmed and people live entirely in the realm of physical reality, or that a tape proving otherwise might be worth a lot of money?

As an objective, or at least bi-partisan, outsider looking in, I think this site comes across as more committed to proving all cases to be false than I think you might realize

Welcome! I think most of us would be quite excited to see someone win the challenge. It's not that we want the paranormal claims to be bogus, it's that we believe it is important to discriminate between bogus claims and real claims. I think it would be not only incredibly cool, but extremely useful if people could predict the future. I would be thrilled if someone could prove that (which would be pretty simple, if they truly had that power). But that doesn't mean that I'll give someone the benefit of the doubt if they make that claim.

 

[Rasmus]

John, I am not a claimant. I am a person who could just as easily have made every point I made, and had them stand alone, without ever needing to have told you about my dreams.

I don't need an "out." As you may have surmised, I already somewhat suspect that most here have their minds made up to force people to prove what is essentially a non-existent event in their minds, and so I really have no investment in whether anyone here does or does not believe that I occasionally have genuinely premonitory dreams.

rarara.... heared it all before ....

so riddle me this, if you please: If you truly didn't care, then why on earth would yo urelate that part of yourself to us?

You didn't, so please don't start whining if we don't exactly believe you if you claim that you can see into the future.

One mistake I have seen the skeptics here make repeatedly is that they make the uneducated judgment that because a person has skill X, they ought to be able to call on skill X whenever they wish.

No, the idea is that if someone has these powers evewn some of the time, than it would *stoill* be possible to test for them.

The methodology suggested is the same used for testing of new medication, e.g.:

If it works even some of the time, then the group that got the real medication should - on everage - be better of healthwise than those who got the placebo treatment. That will work regardless of whether the medication works in 0.1, 1 or 100% of the cases.

As much as you all hate this fact, it just doesn't work like that. I hate the fact that it doesn't work like that. I hate the fact that I can't just get these dreams literally so that I can see exactly what is supposed to happen and maybe save some people.

If you cannot see what is going to happen *before* it happens, than why should anyone - including you - belive that the dream depicted the future? Why not instead belive that you interpreted a dream to fit the facts *after* the facts?

(These claims tend to remind me of the experiment done with a severly disabled person and his or her translator when the two of them were describing a picture. I will see if i can find the details later if noone else can fill them in for me.)

If I thought I could do that, I might dedicate more time and energy to it. It's not like doing a sport or learning an academic subject. It just isn't that way.

You're wasting an awful lot of bandwidth, considering that you don't really care if anyone belives you. Still, why not use some of it telling us how it *does* work?

What precisely makes you think that you cannot train this ability, btw?

Of course, there has to be some basis for figuring out who is for real and who isn't, but I think this organization's complete lack of neutrality on the subject (neutrality would be reasonable) may be leading to making it impossible to prove even for people with a legitimate ability.

So far I haven't seen any clear claims that couldn't have been tested rather easily. Claims like yours are hard to test, of course: If *you* cannot tell if you can tell the future until it'S over, how should anyone else judge if you did? And then judge if you performed better than chance, even?

Do you think that the tests for dowsers and the likes that are conducted by the JREF are unfair? How so?

(And why don't the applicants seem to view it that way?)

Finally, what makes you think that the testability of your the paranormal skills should be any different than that of any other skill? I have seen plenty of tests in my life, and not a single one was depending of the perfect mastery of the claim tested. They all allowed for degrees of ability to be presented.

Of course, good tests have the nasty tendency to also report of a testee is a total loser in the subject being tested. Usually, the test is not to blame.

Rasmus.