Science leads folk to God!

[fuelair]

Happy to help!!

Maybe you should make it your title (where it says Critical Thinker now) or pop it in as a sig line for the bottom of your posts!

 

[Pixel42]

I saw the programme, and there were minimal details of the test protocol used. I wondered if perhaps there was someone in the test subject's field of view (Radin himself?) who knew which picture was coming up next, and the subject was simply picking up and reacting to body language, but that was as much thought as I gave to it, and that was probably more than it deserved. It certainly didn't convince me of the existence of precognition, let alone of the existence of God.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Scientists have been wiring people up looking at their "skin reations" for a long time; conducting experiments where the subjects are subjected to all sorts of stress -- think astronauts for example -- and no one has npticed this effect before? I don't think so.

 

[deLynch]

Skeptics - you’ve disarmed me with your polite and thoughtful replies to my thread. Not what I was led to believe you were like. If I find some more science to share with you I’ll try to search to see if you’ve already discussed it next time, and definitely wont get in any sly digs about you not being closed minded etc.

We especially impressed with this reply:

Mercutio

Actually, the explanation is much simpler, and it is an experimental artifact. Yes, the physiological response does begin before the unpleasant stimulus. But--and this is important--this physiological response is a summed response, in order to factor out "noise", of many many trials. What is happening is a failure of randomization (actually, this is my hypothesis; it does fit the pattern of results, and it is completely testable, given access to the original data); over the course of the experiment (and it would increase as trials continued), the subject learns that the longer it has been since the last unpleasant pic, the more likely it is that the next one will be unpleasant.

To the extent that the series of pics were not truly random (in which case, over trials of this length, there should have been sets of 2, 3, or 4 unpleasant pics in a row, for instance, and seeing one unpleasant pic would not act as a signal that the next one (or next few) would not be unpleasant), they are somewhat predictable. This predictability need not be consciously felt, either; good experimental evidence shows classical conditioning effects in the absence of conscious awareness. The passage of time acts as a signal that an unpleasant picture is more probable, and a given unpleasant pic acts as a signal that the next pic (or few) will not be unpleasant. That experimental artifact (and again, it is completely testable given access to the data) would be sufficient to explain the anticipatory physiological arousal without any reference to precognition.

So... not precognition. Simple classical conditioning. Those who do not remember their behaviorism are condemned to be corrected by it.

If any of you guys really would like to be convinced the supernatural is true, why not find Dean Radins blog and put Mercutio's point to him? I predict there's a very high chance he will answer and he might even convince you. Would link you to him but dont think the forum will let me yet. Seek and you shall find.


Susan

Excuse me but since when is proof of the supernatural proof of your Jesus God?

Its not proof by itself but once you're free of the natralistic fallacy you're more likely to be able to pray to Jesus with an open heart. If you do that He can proof Himself to you Himself!


ThatSoundAgain

- soz I wasn't meaning to call you personally a psuedo-skeptic much less an agent of powers hostlie to Christ! Must pray for better communication skills!

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Hey ! I am an " .... agent of powers hostlie to Christ! "

What do I win ?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Has this Radin clown explained why our psychic powers seem to be limited to predicting an unpleasant image in our future , rather than say... the guy next to me on the plane has a bomb in his shoe ?

 

[Wowbagger]

So... not precognition. Simple classical conditioning. Those who do not remember their behaviorism are condemned to be corrected by it.

So, it looks like I jumped the gun on citing experiments. The flaws the study cited in the OP were actually more fundamental than even I was thinking. I suppose this is good news.

 

[fuelair]

Hey ! I am an " .... agent of powers hostlie to Christ! "

What do I win ?

An eternal afterlife in Heck!!!

 

[Susan Gerbic]

Its not proof by itself but once you're free of the natralistic fallacy you're more likely to be able to pray to Jesus with an open heart. If you do that He can proof Himself to you Himself!

But the Flying Spaghetti Monster has already revealed himself to me, and I have promised him my heart.

Susan

 

[bellonax]

Regarding the supposed phenomonon of thinking about someone just before they ring, I think Stephen Fry gave the best response to that on Room 101.

He pointed out that we think, more or less unconsciously, of several hundred people everyday and if, throughout our lifetimes, none of those people ever rang when we happened to be thinking about them - that would be the strange thing.

p.s. second post! Hello to all!

 

[Mercutio]

deLynch--

No need for any of us to contact Radin.

Nucular's post 38 links to an article both describing the experiminents and giving an explanation for the result that doesn't require the ability to see into the future.

I did not read Nucular's post until after writing my own, but it describes largely the same phenomenon. My vocabulary was a bit different, and perhaps easier to understand (perhaps not--depends on what vocabulary you are accustomed to), but Nucular's link is of a published journal article, and is considerably more thorough than my explanation. Well worth reading.

 

[Mercutio]

If any of you guys really would like to be convinced the supernatural is true, why not find Dean Radins blog and put Mercutio's point to him? I predict there's a very high chance he will answer and he might even convince you. Would link you to him but dont think the forum will let me yet. Seek and you shall find.

If he would like to make his data sets available, I would be happy to get a publication out of this... but it is not a matter of talking and convincing; there are empirical data to examine, and potential methodological flaws to fix.

When someone points out that your lab is using dirty test tubes, the proper response is not to argue that it doesn't matter, but rather to clean the test tubes and try the experiment again.

 

[baron]

I have read a bit about this experiment. I hate to burst your bubble, but there is no supernatural element, here. There is, on the contrary, strong evidence that the brain does NOT know about the unpleasant image before it is shown. It only demonstrates that parts of our brain react to its appearance, a little bit before we are consciously aware that we are seeing the image. In other words, there is an automatic reaction, before a conscious one. Kind of like how your hand recoils, when you touch a hot stove.

No, that's not true. Radin's "precog" experiment does not rely on subjective timing (which would be largely moot anyway, given the time ranges Radin cites). If he's made a mistake, which he probably has, it's in the statistical interpretation of the results, not the experiemental procedure.

You're probably confusing this experiment with others (not by Radin although names escape me right now) which, by use of subjective time assessments by the subjects, examine whether or not free (conscious) will exists. Results for some experiments indicated that a conscious thought to perform an action was preceded by an unconscious thought, indicating that conscious will could merely be a reflection of unconscious stimulae and therefore illusionary.

(EDIT: I could have avoided all that by reading Mercutio's post)

 

[Married2aWooster]

...Its not proof by itself but once you're free of the natralistic fallacy you're more likely to be able to pray to Jesus with an open heart. If you do that He can proof Himself to you Himself!...

Wow...ummm.....just wow.

Paraphrased:

1) Rid my mind of that useless "critical thinking skill" junk.
2) Through means unknown, and without a cardiac surgeon, my heart will open.
3) Pray to {insert culturally relevant deity here} that I won't bleed to death.
4) Receive all the proof I'll ever need.

Gotcha, but no thanks. Numbers 1 & 2 sound a bit risky to me.