Put a Fork in her she's done! VfF

[Ashles]

It all comes down to this:

And I come back to you guys because you would never help me cheat to win a test so you are reliable in paranormal test situations, specifically for the type of resentment that we see here. I can not set up a test for myself, well, because I would already know the answers. Anybody have a local Skeptics group? Could you ask around in your next meetup if in your extended network of friends and acquaintances there is a person missing a kidney or a uterus? Care to set up a simple test for me? Could be the topic of your next meetup, unless you'd rather talk about other skeptical events. Falsifying VFF should be kind of fun for a skeptical get-together? And then let me do a quick reading on each of the Skeptics to see if something I say is inaccurate? What say you?

You know what, I just re-read this and I've realised how desperate this sounds.

The eagerness for a bit of testing, any testing, any opportunity to, just for a little bit longer, be the centre of attention of some form of group of people discussing Anita.

I mean it quite genuinely when I say that this bit in particular:

Anybody have a local Skeptics group? Could you ask around in your next meetup if in your extended network of friends and acquaintances there is a person missing a kidney or a uterus? Care to set up a simple test for me?

sounds almost like a substance abuser begging for just a bit more of their required substance.
Just a bit.
Doesn't matter if it's good quality, just please, one more fix...

It really has never been about the claim(s), just the attention of the tests/studies/surveys etc.

This Jeff - this is why I think the interview was a terrible idea.
Its not really all the many posts on here that fuel her addiction (well probably to some extent), it is any live contact/testing/interviews that she craves. And whenever she gets a little, she wants more.

I thik this post of hers show how desperate the craving has become.

 

[Marcus]

I will say it again. I have several cases of synesthesia. When I look at numbers I see colors. When I look at people I feel vibrational patterns that become images. In itself not interesting and not reason for stating a paranormal claim, but what is interesting is that the images depict accurate health information. Again, not necessarily interesting, just that there are cases where I find no rational explanation such as prior knowledge, external symptoms, or otherwise. That is why there is a paranormal claim.

I have not produced any inaccurate perceptions yet. Failing a trial when I already said in advance that the results do not represent the claim and are inaccurate, simply is not evidence against the claim. It is the equivalent of accidentally knocking over a chemistry beaker, or suddenly thinking "did I add too much of the ingredient?". Trials containing any insecurity are discarded. Simple as that. Unless the claim is to be able to do this every time, and in every situation.

If the claim is falsified, by inaccurate perceptions, it is not the case of a mental illness. Synesthesia is by definition not a mental illness, and all details surrounding my perceptions of health make it not a mental illness.

And I am not a charlatan. If I were I would be out there charging $2,000 for a psychic reading rather than investigating the claim and being open for falsification.

Synesthesia is the cross-wiring of senses, like seeing sounds, or hearing sights. "Feeling vibrational patterns" is not a known sense, and therefore paranormal, regardless if it is cross-wired with a real sense.

 

[Ashles]

Synesthesia is the cross-wiring of senses, like seeing sounds, or hearing sights. "Feeling vibrational patterns" is not a known sense, and therefore paranormal, regardless if it is cross-wired with a real sense.

Anita is desperate have something unusual. At times it seems she'll even settle for synesthesia (even though her descriptions, as has now been thoroughly documented, simply do not resemble synsthesia).

The alternative, that she is just guessing and making things up... well anyone can do those. Therefore it can't possibly be that...

 

[Pup]

There are other quotes like that:

• If I see tissues when I look at people, I should be entitled to it.

I think the problem is that on some level, what she's saying is true. If I hallucinated monkeys flying out of people's, um, ears, then I'd be entitled to that. I actually would see them (from my point of view) and they'd appear real to me. Even if I tested and discovered that they weren't real monkeys, I'd still "see" them, and no one could tell me I didn't, even if everyone agreed they were only hallucinations.

The problem comes when Anita waffles between those two points: I see monkeys; they're real monkeys. She's entitled to the first, but she's not entitled to the second.

Here's something I wrote to her in a PM way back in the January 2009 (over a year ago), when she asked what I actually thought of her, and though I've not sent or received any PMs with her since, I think it still holds true.

Honestly, I think you have an extremely vivid imagination, so you actually do feel like you're seeing and experiencing these things, and it must be very odd and puzzling, and a major part of your life experience. However, like a lot of people who are into the paranormal, you attribute the sensations to exterior causes, rather than interior ones, and that's why people start talking about hallucinations, delusions, etc.

In other words, one person feels a cold chill with that prickly pins and needles sensation. They think, "just my body readjusting its temperature." Or, "that always happens for a few hours after I watch a scary movie." They interpret it as a personal subjective experience. It's real to them, but it's also internal to them. It may be correlated with something external (watching a scary movie) but it's not immediately caused by anything outside them.

Another person experiences the same cold chill and instead feels compelled to look for an exterior cause: "A ghost just passed by." If they notice it only happens after they watch a scary movie, they still look for a cause outside themselves. "I'm only in tune with the supernatural after I watch a scary movie; the rest of the time I don't notice all the ghosts that pass by."

If you carry that to its extreme, both in the sensations and the explanations, I think that's where you are. Not just an occasional cold chill, but a whole host of vivid experiences, and not just a passing ghost, but a whole built-up world of pseudo-scientific explanations, assumptions and investigations to try to find external causes for what will turn out to be internal subjective experiences. The apparent ability to receive knowledge that can't have been gotten by normal means will turn out, after more rigorous tests, to be caused by sensitivity to small mundane clues, logical guesses, support from agreeable subjects, recalling hits more than misses, and so forth.

 

[Akhenaten]

Synesthesia is the cross-wiring of senses, like seeing sounds, or hearing sights. "Feeling vibrational patterns" is not a known sense, and therefore paranormal, regardless if it is cross-wired with a real sense.

No offence, mate, but when this post is singled out of the last half dozen or so for a Wall o' Text™ response you will see the wisdom of sadhatter's plan.

 

[Ashles]

And, if her perceptions don't work through cloth, how did she expect to see kidneys through the shirts the volunteers were wearing?

I don't know. I find it curious as well. But that is how it goes.

To reiterate what a previous poster asked... why then did Anita simply not say "I can't see through the cloth"?
Why did she feel the need to guess even though she clearly could not see?

She must have known she was not using her 'ability'.

Almost makes it look like the readings are all guesses doesn't it?

 

[Marcus]

Hey, you changed your avatar, that pink kidney thing doesn't look too Egyptian.

 

[kittynh]

I was very disappointed with your previous post as it sounded like something only a true woo could say, and it was even more woo than all my years of woo put together. Please join us on the skeptical side.

oh dear Anita. For the people that know me and my work with people that KNOW (and to them it is real) they have paranormal abilities, that's pretty funny. My talks at 2 JREF events on my work with people that believe they have had a paranormal experience and my years of working with them to help them, rather proves I'm not a "woo".

Hey guys, Kitty is a woo!

(see that should PROVE her powers of perception are paranormal!)

 

[Akhenaten]

Hey, you changed your avatar, that pink kidney thing doesn't look too Egyptian.

It's the Khidney of Seth™. Powerful magic.

Only invoked when dark forces from beyond the White Dwarf Star threaten the stabilty of the Phorum.

​

 

[Susan Gerbic]

To reiterate what a previous poster asked... why then did Anita simply not say "I can't see through the cloth"?
Why did she feel the need to guess even though she clearly could not see?

She must have known she was not using her 'ability'.

Almost makes it look like the readings are all guesses doesn't it?

If you watch video 4 again you will here her say that "she has never done this before" and after a bit you would think she would say, "nope, just can't see because of that screen". Mark might have kept trying to push her saying "come on now Anita, you could see through the t-shirts during the kidney test, right?" She could have just said, "no I can't see anything because of the screen". And that would be the end of it. Done.

Instead in the video what she does is look at Mark's hand and then pulls out her own hand onto the table and starts curling the fingers to match what she was "seeing". She is clearly looking through the "screen" or pretending or something. But she does not stop the test she continues. Her odds were ONE in FIVE. One of us at the table got it correct. They aren't claiming to be psychic.

Also

Why at the end when Mark is asking her to take the napkin off his hand does she squeal "no I can't look, I just know I got it wrong!" What? Why did she say two fingers then if she knew it was wrong?

I don't understand why continue with this obsession. There must be some other reason...

 

[Susan Gerbic]

Hey guys, Kitty is a woo!

HA HA Kitty's a Woo! (insert Winnie the Pooh music here with Tigger singing)



Actually that is quite impossible

 

[Robo Sapien]

Allow me to restate this, since evidently not enough people read it the first time:

Skepticism is not about debunking, it is about learning and exploration. The more you argue with Anita, the more you compound the shame she will inevitably have to face, and thus you push her deeper into the recluse of this fantasy she has. That is counterproductive to the prime directive of skepticism. You have already debunked her, there is no point in continuing this circus.

To be true skeptics, we should be trying to help her change her ways. I realize that this is a tall order, but I enjoy a challenge and I know I am not the only one. If you are not up to it, then unsubscribe from this thread and save your energy for other topics where you can be of use. You are accomplishing precisely squat in here.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

What's that saying about doing the same thing over and over, while expecting the results to be different ? ( Not just VFF either ... )

Sheesh ! I don't know why I keep clicking on these threads ..

 

[Nonpareil]

Allow me to restate this, since evidently not enough people read it the first time:

Skepticism is not about debunking, it is about learning and exploration. The more you argue with Anita, the more you compound the shame she will inevitably have to face, and thus you push her deeper into the recluse of this fantasy she has. That is counterproductive to the prime directive of skepticism. You have already debunked her, there is no point in continuing this circus.

To be true skeptics, we should be trying to help her change her ways. I realize that this is a tall order, but I enjoy a challenge and I know I am not the only one. If you are not up to it, then unsubscribe from this thread and save your energy for other topics where you can be of use. You are accomplishing precisely squat in here.

Whereas your criticism of them is going to do so much to change them.

To each their own, Robo. To each their own.

 

[Marcus]

What's that saying about doing the same thing over and over, while expecting the results to be different ? ( Not just VFF either ... )

Sheesh ! I don't know why I keep clicking on these threads ..

It's like potato chips, you can't eat just one...

 

[Ashles]

To be true skeptics, we should be trying to help her change her ways. I realize that this is a tall order, but I enjoy a challenge and I know I am not the only one. If you are not up to it, then unsubscribe from this thread and save your energy for other topics where you can be of use. You are accomplishing precisely squat in here.

As opposed to the incredible impact you are having?

Actually to be "true skeptics" we should analyse someone's claims with skepticism, scientific scrutiny and critical thinking.
Oh look, turns out that is what we're doing.

Anyway you were saying something about a Scotsman...?

 

[TheSkepticCanuck]

Why at the end when Mark is asking her to take the napkin off his hand does she squeal "no I can't look, I just know I got it wrong!" What? Why did she say two fingers then if she knew it was wrong?

You mean she got it wrong, and she knew she got it wrong? Doesn't this count as a successful trial, by her definition?

Sorry. All I have left for her is sarcasm and mockery. But that can be fun, too.

 

[Robo Sapien]

What's that saying about doing the same thing over and over, while expecting the results to be different ? ( Not just VFF either ... )

Sheesh ! I don't know why I keep clicking on these threads ..

Ah, good ol' Einstein quotes.. He also said:

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

 

[TheSkepticCanuck]

What's that saying about doing the same thing over and over, while expecting the results to be different ? ( Not just VFF either ... )

Sheesh ! I don't know why I keep clicking on these threads ..

Well, I don't know about you, but the reason I keep clicking on these links is for all the things I learn about trials, statistics, critical analysis, etc., from the skeptics here. I have learned much from the regular and semi-regular posters in these threads. That alone has made it worthwhile.

As a secondary reason, these threads are, to me, as addictive as soap operas are. They are both completely predictable, but hard to stop following anyway.

 

[kittynh]

Robo at some point, it crosses over into a game. Anita likes the attention, it's obviously more fun that her "gift", and heck, it's fun to post here as a skeptic for many when it's obvious she isn't going to change.

She's like a tease that keeps a guy on the line with "well MAYBE, but just not right NOW... but I could, you never know..."

As long as she keeps saying that she wants to be a skeptic, but then again isn't ready to apply that to herself, people will keep posting and paying attention to her. Nothing wrong with that as long as both sides get what they want out of it.