tbk,
....Participants known to Randi not Sylvia...selected by Randi...9 of them knowing they haven't been read, yet scoring the results "as if" they have...the "statistics" used to evaluate the scoring (totally arbitrary statistics, cited as if they are mathematically sound, when in reality they are based on nothing at all...just Randi's claim)....
Here is what Randi said to Sylvia on the testing protocols, read it carefully.. you'll see that it's not just Randi that selects the participants.
Well, I have a proposed test, approved by people at Harvard and at MIT, that would clearly test whether you're simply doing a guessing game, or that you have the powers you claim to have. May I suggest that process to you?
I suggest that we advertise ¡ª via the Internet ¡ª perhaps even on Larry's web page, if that would be possible, Larry ¡ª for ten persons who would be willing to be subjects for this test, done via telephone. Each one would have to attest in writing that (a) they believe in your powers, Sylvia, (b) that they believe you can do a genuine spiritual reading, and (c) that they've had a personal loss of a loved one within the last year. At a date and time convenient to you ¡ª and I know how very busy you are ¡ª we would randomly select one of those ten persons ¡ª by choosing a number from a hat. Then, either you would call us or we would call you ¡ª your choice ¡ª you'd be given the gender, name, and age of the chosen subject, and you would do a reading over the telephone without getting feedback, that is, without doing questions-and-answers or asking for guesses to be accepted or refused. That reading could take a minute or two, or as much as half an hour ¡ª again, Sylvia, your choice, so that you could be sure that you've made "connection" with the subject.
When the reading is finished, you would so indicate, and the subject would then be asked to give a score to the reading, from zero to ten points. Following that, we would contact, again in random order, each of the other nine persons for whom the reading was not done, and present them with either a transcript of the reading, or an audio tape of it, for them to also score from zero to ten.
Now, we should expect that the person for whom the reading was done would obtain a score, say, from six through ten, and ¡ª unless my "guessing game" scenario is correct ¡ª the other nine for whom the reading was not done, would have scores of zero to five. But, to simplify all this, in order to beat 50-to-1 odds ¡ª which is much better than the thousand-to-one odds we usually require for such a test! ¡ª eight of those scores would have to be less than the score given by the person for whom the reading was actually done.
I point out to you, that the person chosen to have the reading would be a believer in Sylvia's powers, and would therefore be expected to be sympathetic to her success. Please note, Sylvia would be provided with complete identifications on each of these persons, so that she could fully check out their credentials. And one more thing: we would have an independent party, approved by both sides, present at all procedures, and everything would be videotaped, and the original videotape would be retained by that independent party. It could be someone from your staff, if you wished, Larry, and if Sylvia approved, of course.
