Psychic Detectives are real

[SezMe]

polomontana has given us an excellent example of "claim creep" that is typical of these cases. First, he says this (my bolding)

While looking through the case file, the dectectives find Kay's sketch and decide to contact her. Kay remembers the case, and tells them that the suspect has left the area and is probably somewhere south, like San Diego or San Bernadino.

Later polomontana restates the claim as:

The only new information she gave the cold case detective was that the killer moved to San Diego or San Bernadino and she was right, he moved to San Diego after the murder.

thus unfustifiably enhancing the accuracy of the claim.

polomontana, "somewhere south, like San Diego or San Bernadino" includes thousands of square miles and tens of millions of people. The predictive value of the claim is squat all.

 

[Little 10 Toes]

It's very simple, classical objects (like your body) just appear classical because of decoherence. This is why you are conscious of "things" because decoherence causes the interference patterns that are associated with the particles in your body to remain hidden but they are still present. So your body is just a reflection of a more connected quantum nature. This is also do to entanglement. This is why the holographic principle shows up in alot of these theories.

This is shown in the double slit experiment. When a measurement occurs you get the appearence of a collapse of the wavefunction but the fullness of the wavefunction is still present it's just one state is observed.

Please define "classical objects". Please give examples of things that are non-classical. Please give references.

 

[four elevener]

Closer than you think:

The Woo-Woo Credo

Pretty funny. I've never seen it before. Gonna send linky to my sis and her hubby, who fill my mailbox with religious stuff on a regular basis.

 

[CFLarsen]

CFlarson,

Your post proves my point. You just gave us information about the sitter. You have provided any evidence where the medium knows the sitter or the deceased. Schwartz does blind, double blind and triple blind studies. I suggest you go to his site and read the studies instead of just buying the skeptics propaganda.

From his site:

In January of 2007, a paper describing a triple-blind study conducted by the VERITAS Research Program that achieved positive results was published in the peer-reviewed journal, EXPLORE: the Journal of Science & Healing.

http://veritas.arizona.edu/

No, no, no. Take the example of Diane Goldner. She meets with the mediums the day before the experiment! That's not "blind" in any way.

Do you understand that you are wrong?

How do you find out just which parts of the psychic's messages are correct, and which are not?

Do you agree that Schwartz has very much a vested interest in proving that spirits can talk to psychics?

I suggest you go to the site and read over all the studies. Remember also that these studies shoud be more widespread but they are not because of closed minded skepticism.

I have read just about anything there is to find about Schwartz and his experiments.

 

[polomontana]

CFLarson,

Schwartz studies are legit. The one case you site of Diane Goldner only shows she talked to the mediums and theirs no proof she gave the medium any information about the deceased. Sometimes the sitter in Scwhartz's study is miles away. I suggest you read the studies on his website.

Schwartz studies are just as legit as any blind study in any field. There is ZERO evidence that the mediums know the sitter(except the one case you talk about) or any information on the deceased.

Here's some info about one of his studies:

Participants
Eight University of Arizona students served as sitters: four had experienced the death of a parent; four, a peer. Eight mediums who had previously demonstrated an ability to report accurate information in a laboratory setting performed the readings.

Methodology
To optimize potential identifiable differences between readings, each deceased parent was paired with a same-gender deceased peer. Sitters were not present at the readings; an experimenter blind to information about the sitters and deceased served as a proxy sitter. The mediums, blind to the sitters’ and deceased’s identities, each read two absent sitters and their paired deceased; each pair of sitters was read by two mediums. Each blinded sitter then scored a pair of itemized transcripts (one was the reading intended for him/her; the other, the paired control reading) and chose the reading more applicable to him/her.

It's a blind study because the medium is blind to the sitter and the deceased. This was a triple blind study because in other studies the sitter is in a seperated room from the medium going over the responses. This time the sitter is not around during the reading and a proxy sitter takes his place. So the medium is blind to the sitter, proxy sitter and the deceased and the sitter is blind to the medium.

http://veritas.arizona.edu/index.htm

Here's an example:

A medium will come into a study and do a reading and they have no communication with the sitter and no information about the deceased. The medium starts there reading:

The lady is a grandmother (not specific but accurate if they are correct)

The grandmother had white hair (not specific)

She wrote books and was an author (specific)

I see cat eyes so I would say this lady was known for her strange cat eyes (specific)

This lady like flowers, and white roses were special to her (specific)

She used to be a swimmer and she even won a medal (specific)

She used to live near a park (not specific)

She had a best friend named Tammy or Tonya (specific)

It lasts longer but you get the picture. Now when you check how the sitter scored the medium you see they were right that the deceased was a grandmother, with white hair, she was an author, she was known for her cat eyes, she used to be a good swimmer and won a medal in high school and had a good friend name Tonya but she was allergic to flowers and she didn't live anywhere near a park.

In a blind study this proves life after death because the medium didn't know about the sitter or the deceased before the reading.

These studies are legit and controlled and you have to prove that the medium knows information about the deceased before the reading. You can make this claim with any study but you have to prove it with evidence or it makes no sense.

You also asked does Schwartz have an interest in psychics and life after death. Of course he does, that's why he's doing the research but that's no different than a physicist interested in string theory investigating string theory or someone interested in loop quantum gravity investigating loop quantum gravity. Are they disqualified from researching these fields because there interested in these fields?

 

[quixotecoyote]

Schwartz is bogus.

In one study, for the 'psychic' a hit is scored for answers such as

The first thing being shown to me is a male figure that I would say as being above, that would be to me some type of father image. . . . Showing me the month of May. . . .They're telling me to talk about the Big H-um, the H connection. To me this an H with an N sound. So what they are talking about is Henna, Henry, but there's an HN connection. (p. xix)

and to cap off that ridiculous he pumps up the percentage versus the control group:

The control students would have to come up with the answers husband, Henry, May, and big to get a perfect score. The likelihood of anyone, including the mediums, getting all these correct, or even a high percentage of them correct, is very small indeed. It is obvious that this a completely different task from the one performed by the mediums. A strikingly obvious difference is that the sitter's judgments and biases are completely removed from the task given the controls. Indeed, it is just these potential biases and subjective judgments being made by the sitters that obviously cries out for controlling.

Quotes from this site, which provides an excellent skeptical review of this:
http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-01/medium.html

 

[Zep]

polomontana, "somewhere south, like San Diego or San Bernadino" includes thousands of square miles and tens of millions of people.

...or Columbia. Or Tierra Del Fuego. Or Australia!

 

[polomontana]

Quix,

The skeptical review is very suspect. This is my first time really reading them and they are frauds through and through.

At first they implied the mediums know the deceased which is wrong. They offered zero evidence just a wink to other skeptics who will not examine there review. Now they say the skeptic should judge the sitter based on nothing. The sitter knows the deceased but the skeptic says they are to dumb to judge the information from the mediums but the skeptic that doesn't know the medium, sitter or the deceased can magically gleam the truth. This is a huge problem with skeptics. Some are so dogmatic about their skepticism they resort to these illogical claims.

 

[polomontana]

Zep,

The psychic said the killer moved somewhere south like San Diego or San Bernadino. Where did the killer move after the murder? He moved to San Diego. How did the psychic know this when the police didn't even have a suspect? How did the psychic even know the killer moved when the police didn't even have a suspect?

 

[Little 10 Toes]

Why didn't the psychic say San Diego? Why did she say somewhere south like San Diego or San Bernardino?

What is a "classical" object? What is a non-classical object?

 

[Flo]

Polomontana,

when are you going to deliver the punchline of your joke or reveal the nature of the psychological experiment you're conducting with the members of this forum ?

 

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[Little 10 Toes]

polomontana, you quoted some data on a Schwartz study and listed some of the data (specifically what a psychic gave in a reading). Please provide the link showing the data.

 

[polomontana]

Little 10 toes,

What's wrong with saying somewhere south like San Diego or San Bernadino? The question you have to ask first is how did the psychic even know the killer moved when the police didn't have a suspect. The psychic jut didn't say the killer moved but she mentioned where the killer moved. When the police brought in the suspect for questioning he matched the psychics sketch and then they found out he moved to San Diego after the murder and this made the police even probe deeper until he confessed.

A classical object can be your body or an ant. A classical object is governed by Newtonian physics. When you get down around something called Planck's Constant things began to take on a quantum nature and they are governed by quantum physics. Physicist can combine the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces but not gravity. This is where theories like loop quantum gravity comes in to try and explain how quantum physics gave rise to the gravity we experience everyday.

 

[Cuddles]

A classical object can be your body or an ant. A classical object is governed by Newtonian physics. When you get down around something called Planck's Constant things began to take on a quantum nature and they are governed by quantum physics. Physicist can combine the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces but not gravity. This is where theories like loop quantum gravity comes in to try and explain how quantum physics gave rise to the gravity we experience everyday.

Nope.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Quix,

The skeptical review is very suspect. This is my first time really reading them and they are frauds through and through.

At first they implied the mediums know the deceased which is wrong. They offered zero evidence just a wink to other skeptics who will not examine there review. Now they say the skeptic should judge the sitter based on nothing. The sitter knows the deceased but the skeptic says they are to dumb to judge the information from the mediums but the skeptic that doesn't know the medium, sitter or the deceased can magically gleam the truth. This is a huge problem with skeptics. Some are so dogmatic about their skepticism they resort to these illogical claims.

I don't believe you read the link. Please quote where they implied the mediums know the deceased. The closest they came is saying that one of the mediums knew information about the subject which matched a book the sitter published that Schwartz possessed. In that case the article quoted an admission of a lack of proper control.

The rest of your post is nonsensical as the intent is not to judge the sitter, but the medium. If you are confused about what roles the sitter and medium are playing, how on Earth can I expect you to understand anything else about the studies?

Further, when you claim that skeptics think sitters are 'to dumb' to judge the medium you provide more evidence that you simply did not read the article.

Campbell gave readings to the six sitters in an order that neither she nor the experimenter who was with her knew. In this way neither the medium nor the person in her presence was aware of who the sitter was at the time of the reading

....

Subsequently, each sitter was mailed two transcripts. One of the transcripts was the actual reading for that sitter and the other was from the reading of another sitter. Each sitter rated the two transcripts, not knowing which was the one actually intended for her or himFinally, the sitter designated which of the two transcripts was the one that actually was intended for him or her.

...

The hypothesis was that if Campbell could truly access information from the sitter’s departed acquaintances, this would show up on all three measures. In other words, the sitters would successfully pick their own reading from the two transcripts

....

Each one of these three predictions failed..

 

[Little 10 Toes]

Please re-read my question. Why didn't the medium say, "The killer is in San Diego"? According to you she said, "The killer is south, like in San Diego or San Bernardino". If the killer was in Bakersfield, that would be a hit since Bakersfield is south of Selma.

I will get back to the quantum stuff later.

 

[CFLarsen]

CFLarson,

Schwartz studies are legit. The one case you site of Diane Goldner only shows she talked to the mediums and theirs no proof she gave the medium any information about the deceased. Sometimes the sitter in Scwhartz's study is miles away. I suggest you read the studies on his website.

I have. Did you know about Goldner before I told you?

Schwartz studies are just as legit as any blind study in any field. There is ZERO evidence that the mediums know the sitter(except the one case you talk about) or any information on the deceased.

You don't get it: The moment he lets the sitter meet with the psychic before the experiment, he immediately invalidates the whole experiment. It is not just sloppy design, it is incompetent.

Schwartz's experiment was not legit. It is not blind.

Here's an example:

A medium will come into a study and do a reading and they have no communication with the sitter and no information about the deceased. The medium starts there reading:

The lady is a grandmother (not specific but accurate if they are correct)

That's cold reading: An non-specific guess turns into a hit, if correct.

The grandmother had white hair (not specific)

Oh, give me a friggin' break! A grandmother is most likely to have white hair.

She wrote books and was an author (specific)
She used to be a swimmer and she even won a medal (specific)

Which example is this? I have Schwartz' book here in front of me.

I see cat eyes so I would say this lady was known for her strange cat eyes (specific)

That's cold reading: You interpret the guess to mean the woman. Have you seen her eyes?

This lady like flowers, and white roses were special to her (specific)

Yeah, right. Old lady, like flowers? Gee, would never have guessed.

She used to live near a park (not specific)

"Near"? What is that?

She had a best friend named Tammy or Tonya (specific)

It's the name game that psychics play: Tammy, Tonya...if it doesn't turn out to be Tania, or something else.

It lasts longer but you get the picture. Now when you check how the sitter scored the medium you see they were right that the deceased was a grandmother, with white hair, she was an author, she was known for her cat eyes, she used to be a good swimmer and won a medal in high school and had a good friend name Tonya but she was allergic to flowers and she didn't live anywhere near a park.

In a blind study this proves life after death because the medium didn't know about the sitter or the deceased before the reading.

You don't know that. And it it up to you to provide evidence.

Also, how can wrong guesses prove life after death? Why isn't that evidence of guessing?

These studies are legit and controlled and you have to prove that the medium knows information about the deceased before the reading. You can make this claim with any study but you have to prove it with evidence or it makes no sense.

No, you have to provide evidence of your claims.

You also asked does Schwartz have an interest in psychics and life after death. Of course he does, that's why he's doing the research but that's no different than a physicist interested in string theory investigating string theory or someone interested in loop quantum gravity investigating loop quantum gravity. Are they disqualified from researching these fields because there interested in these fields?

If you dismiss skeptics because you claim they have a vested interest, why don't you dismiss Schwartz for the very same reason?

Look at how you argue: You shove the responsibility onto skeptics to prove you wrong, you call deeply flawed
experiments "legit", you are inconsistent in your judgment of believers and skeptics.

 

[polomontana]

Little 10 toes,

The psychics said the killer moved south, like in San Diego or San Bernadino. The killer was in San Diego and like the police who investigated the crime said it was a significant piece of information because it tied the suspect to not only the sketch from the psychic but the information she gave them. This is not some supernatur power Little 10 toes, psychic ability occurs naturally. The fact that she even knows the killer moved when they didn't even have a suspect is enough let alone mentioning the place where he moved.

I'll give you a couple more examples:

A psychic told the police that she saw the suspect walking into the sunset and this means he's about to leave the scene and try to kill himself so they better get over there. When they went by his house he had already hung himself.

The psychic then went to his house and she pointed out the tarp that the guy buried his wife in after he killed her and then she told the police what desert she was buried in. The police trusted the psychic enough to search the desert and guess what? They found the women buried in the desert the same way the psychic described. Again, the police started as skeptics and when the psychic kept giving them accurate information they kept going back to her.

Another psychic was helping the police find a suspect. She told the police the women was in specific place in Florida. The women was a wanted killer. They didn't find her in Florida and they went back to the psychic. She then told the police she was in a specific place in Hawaii and they better hurry because she's setting up another victim. The police found her in Hawaii where the psychic told them to look and she was living with a new guy. She would set up guys with money and then kill them. To the police surprise, they found an I.D. on the criminal from where? Florida and where the psychic said she was. She went to Florida then Hawaii and the psychic tracked her using her "psychic powers" when there are no psychic powers because psychic ability occurs naturally.

 

[CB1]

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