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Looking for Skeptics

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Mojo said:
Even with that pariedolia will still come into play.

What flaccon needs to do is to show the images to people who know the family members without telling them who or what they are supposed to be seeing and asking them what they see.
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I'm not sure how that would move us any further on either but I do see your point.
Getting any sort of information out of Flaccon is impossible at the best of times and her reporting of facts leaves a lot to be desired. Imagine how frustrating it would be leaving her to set up her own test with her own family members and friends? How distorted, disjointed and full of irrelevance would her report of that test be? :)

Of course there is another way to follow your suggestion that we could set up and trial for ourselves with Flaccon's agreement.

Flaccon posts five photos of her family members and five photos of stains that look "accurately" like the family members.
We simply have to match up the correct person with the correct stain.

Details to eliminate "cheating" could be worked out, but as a rough outline, I think that would work and 'hits' and 'misses' could be recorded over several trails with different people to build up enough data to see if there is anything significantly above chance.

The problem being that Flaccon still wouldn't accept a negative result.
 
flaccon, I'd like to know something if you please:

While we are sitting here discussing pictures of stuff and having a jolly old time, what precisely are 'the press' and your 'P.I team' doing?
 
Stray Cat said:
Of course there is another way to follow your suggestion that we could set up and trial for ourselves with Flaccon's agreement.

Flaccon posts five photos of her family members and five photos of stains that look "accurately" like the family members.
We simply have to match up the correct person with the correct stain.

Details to eliminate "cheating" could be worked out, but as a rough outline, I think that would work and 'hits' and 'misses' could be recorded over several trails with different people to build up enough data to see if there is anything significantly above chance.

The problem being that Flaccon still wouldn't accept a negative result.
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The problem is that some random stains do look like some things. Even non-believers can see Jesus in the toast or the water stain. If one picked a typical pariedola Jesus-face in some random pattern and asked people to identify whether it matched a painting of Jesus, Churchill, Alfred E. Newman or Einstein, I'm betting one could get up in the 80% range of people "correctly" identifying the image as Jesus, not because it was put there by a sentient force to depict Jesus, but because whoever noticed it, noticed it because it resembled Jesus.
 
Pup said:
The problem is that some random stains do look like some things. Even non-believers can see Jesus in the toast or the water stain. If one picked a typical pariedola Jesus-face in some random pattern and asked people to identify whether it matched a painting of Jesus, Churchill, Alfred E. Newman or Einstein, I'm betting one could get up in the 80% range of people "correctly" identifying the image as Jesus, not because it was put there by a sentient force to depict Jesus, but because whoever noticed it, noticed it because it resembled Jesus.
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My last note on this interesting, but still off-topic, derail:

Perhaps there are two ways to address this.

First, demonstrate how many stains there are that flaccon sees all the time which do not resemble her relatives (or any other relatives).

Second (and I think this is the better way) put the five images up and give people a chance to find their own relatives that they resemble. I'd wager there are quite a few.
 
Pup said:
The problem is that some random stains do look like some things. Even non-believers can see Jesus in the toast or the water stain. If one picked a typical pariedola Jesus-face in some random pattern and asked people to identify whether it matched a painting of Jesus, Churchill, Alfred E. Newman or Einstein, I'm betting one could get up in the 80% range of people "correctly" identifying the image as Jesus, not because it was put there by a sentient force to depict Jesus, but because whoever noticed it, noticed it because it resembled Jesus.
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Indeed, I understand the complexity and problematicality* of it.

But you are presuming that Flaccon's stains have been accurately described by her to accurately depict her relatives (all the evidence we have at the moment suggests accuracy is not a strong trait of Flaccon's).
So I'm not really suggesting a test to find out if it's pareidolia or not as such, more a test to see if Flaccon's claim that the stains accurately depict her relatives is true. :)



* made up word
 
From strain over stains,
I'd rather abstain.
Flaccon's refrain will remain:
Evidence, obtain.
Position, retain.
 
To test flaccon's claim that these stains are accurate images of her relatives, all we need to do is show them, along with photographs to some reasonable people. If they say they are accurate images, her claim is verified.

We have already done this with her "clear voices speaking in full sentences". No one here agreed with that characterization of her recordings.

IXP
 
2 random thoughts:

1. I've followed this thread since the beginning and have read every post. Yet when Flaccon posts I feel like there are huge chunks of the conversation that I haven't seen. It seems she constantly casually mentions some new data as if we've been discussing it the whole time.

2. I'd love to see a thread like this sometime where the only responder is Pixel42.
 
flaccon said:
Let me know if I'm wasting my time posting these.. (sorry for the lines, I can't find the independent view)
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_65177530351f131041.jpg[/qimg]
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Man swinging a pickaxe, high stepping with his right leg.


flaccon said:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_651775303522e66512.jpg[/qimg]
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Ben Kingsley.

flaccon said:
Same image rotated and zoomed.
=========================


[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/65177530358297ebb8.jpg[/qimg]
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Ben Kingsley's bi-focals.
 
Pup said:
Flaccon, here's another thread about the same thing:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197989

Folks may remember Punshhh's fairy-photographing ability. Flaccon, do you think those are real photographs of fairies, in the same way you think that those are real faces and other things in your images?
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That's an interesting question, and not just for flaccon but anyone claiming to possess photos/art revealing hidden images.

Would someone who believes they have a picture of Bigfoot believe someone else claiming to have a photo of fairies, or Nessie, ghostly orbs, ectoplasm, a UFO, alien, whatever, based on the claimant's word? Would the number of “witnesses” count?

Scordatura
 
Scordatura said:
That's an interesting question, and not just for flaccon but anyone claiming to possess photos/art revealing hidden images.

Would someone who believes they have a picture of Bigfoot believe someone else claiming to have a photo of fairies, or Nessie, ghostly orbs, ectoplasm, a UFO, alien, whatever, based on the claimant's word? Would the number of “witnesses” count?

Scordatura
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In my vast experience, no.
People with these 'blind spot' beliefs will argue against other people's blind spot beliefs without realising exactly the same logical fallacies, misunderstandings and lack of knowledge are employed in the claim they are arguing against as there are in that person's own claim.

Ufologist (A member of this forum) used to argue that lots of people (including himself) had seen alien flying saucers.
When asked how he knew people weren't seeing witches flying on broomsticks his response was that there is no evidence that witches can fly on broomsticks. He thought the idea of witches on broomsticks was silly even though we pointed out to him that thousands of people over centuries have reported witnessing such a thing.
 
Exactly. I've said this before, but it takes a staggering level of arrogance to sustain a paranormal belief while rejecting others (no one can possibly accept every supernatural claim), because it ultimately comes down to a belief that other people can be fooled or make mistakes, but you're uniquely objective. This thread is just another example of an old problem.
 
Shamelessly quoting my own post from last June:

Quinn said:
Back in the day we had a poster named icantakepicturesofdemons, who believed that visual compression artifacts in his webcam images were actually demons (or "the fallen of Heaven," as he would often describe them). It was the most textbook case of pareidolia I have ever personally witnessed. He posted many pictures where he pointed out their little demon facial features. Why did he believe this? We don't know. What we do know is that his belief was utterly impervious to any contrary evidence. No amount of explanation of how compression works and how artifacts are introduced, no matter how thorough and patient, could break through.

So far this thread seems to be virtually perfectly analogous to that one, except in the audio realm rather than visual.
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With these latest pictures, we have officially come full circle.
 
Kid Eager said:
With all due respect, you lack the necessary expertise to make this pronouncement. I would not make this call, and I do gemology as a hobby.
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flaccon said:
Well I know how silly I would feel so I'll take your advice and put up with the smashes.
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You've missed the point entirely. I'm saying that you lack the expertise to assess the characteristics of a diamond mounted in a ring.

You claim "smashes". That is not a relevant or meaningful term.

You claim "smashes". Yet, no evidence is presented.
 
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