seeing the light in skepticism

[dharlow]

Quoting a pair of reasearchers at the Gothenburg unversity in Sweden : "I will never again trust her, K.D. regarding any reasearch around parapsycology".

This was after they had K.D sound tapes analyzied by sound engineers.

The quote in swedish is the following, C.F and a few more can read this: "- Jag kommer aldrig någonsin att fästa minsta tilltro till någonting som hon påstår om hennes parapsykologiska forskning, säger han. "

And due to swedish law I can't write the researchers names but this is the link to the news paper interview:

Para Fraud

Thank you for that Anders. Very interesting. Does the researcher state what it was about the sound tapes that led him to doubt her research?

 

[Anders]

Thank you for that Anders. Very interesting. Does the researcher state what it was about the sound tapes that led him to doubt her research?

Not much, but in the article he says that he after an analysis of the tape they found that it hade been edited to match the video that was played during the ganzfeld trial. The original tapes, are lost, I should think, or destroyed. But we can't tell as long as KD dosen't say anything.

 

[Beleth]

Re: Re: seeing the light in skepticism

Absurd. A psychic and a skeptic are in a room. The psychic knocks over a candle telekenetically. If it's "real" to the psychic and "not real" to the skeptic, then the psychic will burn when the room does, and the skeptic will not notice anything?

Only one of them can be right.

There are plenty of ways for a psychic to knock over a candle without telekinetically knocking over a candle.

 

[JMA]

Not much, but in the article he says that he after an analysis of the tape they found that it hade been edited to match the video that was played during the ganzfeld trial. The original tapes, are lost, I should think, or destroyed. But we can't tell as long as KD dosen't say anything.

That's really interresting, but my sweedish is not that good (probably because I'm french). Is there any paper in english about that (on the web or on a scientific newspaper)?

Thanks,

 

[c4ts]

Re: Re: Re: seeing the light in skepticism

There are plenty of ways for a psychic to knock over a candle without telekinetically knocking over a candle.

But if he does so telekinetically, it's not like the room won't catch fire because the skeptic doesn't see it.

 

[amherst]

Not much, but in the article he says that he after an analysis of the tape they found that it hade been edited to match the video that was played during the ganzfeld trial. The original tapes, are lost, I should think, or destroyed. But we can't tell as long as KD dosen't say anything.

What do you mean by "sound tapes?" Are you talking about the recordings made of the receivers mentations? If so, I don't see how fraud could have occurred since the judging is done by the receiver immediatly after the session. Also, the experimenter is completely blind as to what the correct target is until the judging has been made, and so wouldn't be able to alter the tape to match the target until after the fact anyway. Can you try to better explain what exactly it is you think Dalton is being accused of?

amherst

 

[Anders]

What do you mean by "sound tapes?" Are you talking about the recordings made of the receivers mentations? If so, I don't see how fraud could have occured since the judging is done by the receiver immediatly after the session and without listening to his own tape. Also, the experimenter is completely blind as to what the correct target is until the judging has been made, and so wouldn't be able to alter the tape to match the target until after the fact anyway. Can you try to better explain what exactly it is you think Dalton is being accused of?

amherst

Ok, lets take this slowly.

We have a sender and a reciver, right?

The sender watches a short film, correct?

The reciever talks and what he says is recorded on tape.

If the movie and the reciever's voice match, for instance:

- The voice on the sound tape says; "I see a speeding car"
- The film shows a speeding car.

Thast would be a match. Kathty's studies showed a lot of the matches. The Gothenburg researchers reacted with a healty portion of skepticism, and looked at the sound tape, which showed signs of having been altered.

In the example above:

Perhaps the sound tape originly said:

- I see a forest.
- The film still shows a speeding car.

But when the tape reaches the public, the correct sound tape has been replaced witha faulty one, thus making it a perfect ganzfeld hit!

Is that clear enough? Sorry for beeing unclear.

 

[amherst]

Ok, lets take this slowly.

We have a sender and a reciver, right?

The sender watches a short film, correct?

The reciever talks and what he says is recorded on tape.

If the movie and the reciever's voice match, for instance:

- The voice on the sound tape says; "I see a speeding car"
- The film shows a speeding car.

Thast would be a match. Kathty's studies showed a lot of the matches. The Gothenburg researchers reacted with a healty portion of skepticism, and looked at the sound tape, which showed signs of having been altered.

In the example above:

Perhaps the sound tape originly said:

- I see a forest.
- The film still shows a speeding car.

But when the tape reaches the public, the correct sound tape has been replaced witha faulty one, thus making it a perfect ganzfeld hit!

Is that clear enough? Sorry for beeing unclear.

Again, if Dalton had somehow edited a receiver's mentatation tape, it would had to have been after the session had already been completed, with the recevier's guess recorded by a computer. This altering of the tape could not change her ganzfeld data. So the only reason for her to do it would be if she was asked by a magazine, or TV show, to present striking instances of receiver mentations matching the targets. Was she ever asked to do this? And how exactly would she edit the tapes to make it seem like a receiver was strikingly accurate? It seems that there would of had to have been a lot of mismatching between different receivers (with different voices) to even come close to making it falsely seem (word wise) that there was a striking hit. It just wouldn't make any sense. In any case, if something such as this had even a kernel of truth to it, don't you think someone like Wiseman or Hyman would have jumped all over it by now ?---I notice that the article was published well over a year ago.

amherst

 

[Anders]

Again, if Dalton had somehow edited a receiver's mentatation tape, it would had to have been after the session had already been completed, with the recevier's guess recorded by a computer. This altering of the tape could not change her ganzfeld data. So the only reason for her to do it would be if she was asked by a magazine, or TV show, to present striking instances of receiver mentations matching the targets. Was she ever asked to do this? And how exactly would she edit the tapes to make it seem like a receiver was strikingly accurate? It seems that there would of had to have been a lot of mismatching between different receivers (with different voices) to even come close to making it falsely seem (word wise) that there was a striking hit. It just wouldn't make any sense. In any case, if something such as this had even a kernel of truth to it, don't you think someone like Wiseman or Hyman would have jumped all over it by now ?---I notice that the article was published well over a year ago.

amherst

Eh, digital ganzfeld studied are a quite new approach. I really don't think Dalton used that.

How hard can it be to see what happened. Dalton didn't get any positive results, she got frustrated and altered the tape so it looked(sounded) like a hit. She could have altered the tape at any time.

How would it be done? She edit together parts of the sound tape that corespondes to the moving pictures.

Ofcourse we don't know much. What we know is:
1) The sound tapes has been altred according to swedish researchers.
2) Daltons results show that there are a Ganzfeld effect.
3) Without Daltons result, no Ganzfeld effect have been seen, not even in meta-studies.

I'm not drawing any conclusions. I just theorizing a bit and trying to see what is the most simple explanation.

A year old! Well, at least half a decade newer than most positive Ganzfeld studies.

 

[Ersby]

In “Security measures in an automated ganzfeld system” the set-up of Koestler’s autoganzfeld set-up is described. (It’s on the findarticles.com site. Look for Journal of Parapsychology, June 1996)

At completion of the sending/mentation period, the computer signals the experimenter to fade out the white noise to the receiver and to review the session mentation with him or her. After review, the receiver then takes off the eye shields and prepares to review the four target possibilities. […]When the judging sequence is completed, the computer saves the data and then instructs the sender to return to the receiver's room and reveal the target.

So if Dalton’s work is forged, it would require a number of entirely fabricated ganzfeld tests, and for the original data to be deleted and the printouts to be trashed since there seems to be no time for the editing to take place. This is, of course, assuming that Dalton’s experiment followed that protocol. If the experiment was judged by external judges, though, then Dalton would have the opportunity to edit things favourably (let’s not forget that the mentation lasted half an hour, while the target was a repeated one minute video clip, so I think there’d be enough material that things could be juggled around to get a decent match).

This is certainly very interesting, though. A sound engineer saying that the tapes were tampered with (how many tapes were examined? Any chance of somebody knocking up a translation of the article?) is strong evidence against. If his/her analysis is correct then there’s something mighty peculiar going on. I’m not swayed by the theory that the tape was a demonstration tape for media purposes, but it’s something that should be looked into.

I’d like to hear what Koestler has to say about this before I get carried away. When something looks too good to be true, it’s usually because it is. The removal of this experiment would seriously weaken the case for anomolous cognition which would, for my world view, simply be too convenient. So I’m skeptical about this claim. For now, at least.

 

[Anders]

In “Security measures in an automated ganzfeld system” the set-up of Koestler’s autoganzfeld set-up is described. (It’s on the findarticles.com site. Look for Journal of Parapsychology, June 1996)



So if Dalton’s work is forged, it would require a number of entirely fabricated ganzfeld tests, and for the original data to be deleted and the printouts to be trashed since there seems to be no time for the editing to take place. This is, of course, assuming that Dalton’s experiment followed that protocol. If the experiment was judged by external judges, though, then Dalton would have the opportunity to edit things favourably (let’s not forget that the mentation lasted half an hour, while the target was a repeated one minute video clip, so I think there’d be enough material that things could be juggled around to get a decent match).

This is certainly very interesting, though. A sound engineer saying that the tapes were tampered with (how many tapes were examined? Any chance of somebody knocking up a translation of the article?) is strong evidence against. If his/her analysis is correct then there’s something mighty peculiar going on. I’m not swayed by the theory that the tape was a demonstration tape for media purposes, but it’s something that should be looked into.

I’d like to hear what Koestler has to say about this before I get carried away. When something looks too good to be true, it’s usually because it is. The removal of this experiment would seriously weaken the case for anomolous cognition which would, for my world view, simply be too convenient. So I’m skeptical about this claim. For now, at least.

I'm not going to comment on details. Details are not interesting, or even relevant. If anyone whant s to alter data, they can do that, in a number of ways. All scientists know that, so if some strange results come up, all other scientists rush to repeat the study or experiment, to see for themselfs that the results are correct.

This did not happen in the Dalton case. No one has ever after showed any positive Ganzfeld results that has been published in a peer reviewed magazine.

If Daltons result where true and correct, wow, that would be truly amazing , and a chance for Dalton or Edinbourgh University to win a million dollar!

What are you skeptical of, that a serious psychology and statistics PhD researcher is correct? These guys are trying to find out if there is any truth to the Ganzfeld claims. As far as I know, they’ve haven’t seen any, and they are OK with that. Any researcher knows that sometime the theory is wrong and the hypothesis false.

It is time that parapsychologists recognize that, but they don’t.

And who knows, some day we might see a positive study that irrefutable shows an ESP effect!

 

[Ersby]

Well, personally, I find details pretty interesting, but that's just me. Sure scientists can fake data. But if I'm going to trust people in nanotechnology who say they've written a birthday greeting on the side of an electron (which I personally have no way of replicating) then why shouldn't I trust a parapsychologist who gets a result this high? And you're right, Dalton's work hasn't been followed by anything as impressive, but it is not alone in the history ganzfeld as a whole. True, the best results belong to the earliest ganzfeld experiments when the protocols hadn't been properly established, but there are other experiments out there with a similar success rate.

Anyway, I just found this, from the paper "Remarkable Correspondences between ganzfeld mentation and target content" by Westerlund, Parker, Dalkvist, Goulding (a search on the title on google should get you a link to the pdf, which I recommend since I think it may pertain to the discussion) which has no date, but must have been written in the last year, judging by the references. I don’t know how this impacts on the discussion. It may be that this is the tape that was given to the sound engineer? Maybe the "Exploring the Links" experiment wasn’t involved at all? But it implies that the distrust of Kathy Dalton goes back a few years.

One example is a videotape, compiled by Kathy Dalton, that shows some of the correspondences between receiver mentation and target content that appeared in the Sender- No sender study conducted in Edinburgh in 1994 (Morris, Dalton, Delanoy & Watt, 1995). On this tape, the target video clip is shown and at the same time the mentation of the receiver can be heard. One of the most remarkable excerpts shows a man who is running through a forest; it seems that he is being hunted (at the same time, the receiver says: .Trees. People running. Fleeing..). Suddenly, the man falls down in a deep muddy pool (at the same time, the receiver says: .Falling. Muddy..). The camera zooms in on the man's face (at the same time, the receiver says: .Blond hair. 70´s hairstyle. Curly-ish. White face.. . all the utterances appear to describe exactly what is being shown on the film). The next thing that happens in the clip is that the man can no longer keep his head above the surface, so he disappears into the mud (at the same time, the receiver says: .Dead man in the water..). Unfortunately, the synchronization between the video clip and the tape with the receiver's mentation was not done automatically. Kathy Dalton (personal communication, August 1997) matched the mentation tape with the video clip according to her memory of the session (in which she was one of the experimenters).

 

[De'Ville's Advocaat]

And who knows, some day we might see a positive study that irrefutable shows an ESP effect!

We have passed that day a long time ago. What happens is that those who do not want to see, or are not prepared to see the evidence will construct straw barriers or invoke unproven fantasies about fraud. This has happened over and over. Each time we have evidence, the same old tired cliches are repeated, yet none are never proven to exist. Fraud, loopholes etc. Those who are not yet prepared quite naturally construct these straw barriers in order to protect their remains of their belief system. If you consider the denialist theory seriously, you realise that each and every bit of positive evidence should be due to undetected fraud or non-identified flaw. After all these years, no such fraud or flaw has been shown whoich could account for all the evidence and we are left with the simplest explanation. They can't all, each and every last piece of scientific evidence simply be false claims.
I can tell you that should someone even win $1m, there will be a certain remant of skeptics who will construct straw barriers about Randi being in on the deal. For some, the reality never changes, no matter what happens. For those that have seen the new reality, it is very odd seeing people deny something so blatantly obvious. As strange as the arch-skeptic trying to comprehend why a believer believes. The reality paradigm has shifted so far that the arch-skeptic is in in danger of becoming the 'woo-woo'.

 

[Anders]

We have passed that day a long time ago. What happens is that those who do not want to see, or are not prepared to see the evidence will construct straw barriers or invoke unproven fantasies about fraud. This has happened over and over. Each time we have evidence, the same old tired cliches are repeated, yet none are never proven to exist. Fraud, loopholes etc. Those who are not yet prepared quite naturally construct these straw barriers in order to protect their remains of their belief system. If you consider the denialist theory seriously, you realise that each and every bit of positive evidence should be due to undetected fraud or non-identified flaw. After all these years, no such fraud or flaw has been shown whoich could account for all the evidence and we are left with the simplest explanation. They can't all, each and every last piece of scientific evidence simply be false claims.
I can tell you that should someone even win $1m, there will be a certain remant of skeptics who will construct straw barriers about Randi being in on the deal. For some, the reality never changes, no matter what happens. For those that have seen the new reality, it is very odd seeing people deny something so blatantly obvious. As strange as the arch-skeptic trying to comprehend why a believer believes. The reality paradigm has shifted so far that the arch-skeptic is in in danger of becoming the 'woo-woo'.

Quite funny post! To bad is not funny funny, but stupid funny. Ah well, I still see no peer reviewed articles on ESP in Nature or Science. When I do....I'll let you know. Until then, why don't you just send me the envidence using Ganzfeld sending.

 

[Ashles]

We have passed that day a long time ago. What happens is that those who do not want to see, or are not prepared to see the evidence will construct straw barriers or invoke unproven fantasies about fraud. This has happened over and over. Each time we have evidence, the same old tired cliches are repeated, yet none are never proven to exist. Fraud, loopholes etc. Those who are not yet prepared quite naturally construct these straw barriers in order to protect their remains of their belief system. If you consider the denialist theory seriously, you realise that each and every bit of positive evidence should be due to undetected fraud or non-identified flaw. After all these years, no such fraud or flaw has been shown whoich could account for all the evidence and we are left with the simplest explanation. They can't all, each and every last piece of scientific evidence simply be false claims.
I can tell you that should someone even win $1m, there will be a certain remant of skeptics who will construct straw barriers about Randi being in on the deal. For some, the reality never changes, no matter what happens. For those that have seen the new reality, it is very odd seeing people deny something so blatantly obvious. As strange as the arch-skeptic trying to comprehend why a believer believes. The reality paradigm has shifted so far that the arch-skeptic is in in danger of becoming the 'woo-woo'.

It's interesting that you think your opinions are in some way reality.
Tell us, have you had these delusions long?

No study has ever irrefutably shown ESP - any psychic researcher, no matter what his bias, will admit that.

You accuse sceptics of using strawman arguments then proceed to do exactly the same yourself. Very amusing.

And we are still eagerly awaiting evidence of your understanding of Quantum Theory that you so liberally toss into your theories.

Or are all your theories just poorly-researched opinion peices which you attempt to pass off as fact?
Certainly looks that way.

 

[De'Ville's Advocaat]

It's interesting that you think your opinions are in some way reality.
Tell us, have you had these delusions long?

It's interesting that you think another person's beliefs and experiences are delusions. It would be easy to point out that your opinion is delusional, but I think that you are entitled to believe what ever you want. I do think it is a shame that you should choose to be so mean-sprited towards another person for expressing their thoughts on a forum though. Whereas your opinion is built presumably entirely on your understanding of scientific theory, it is a fact that there many others who base theirs on that and experiences which conflict with such surrent theory. Perhaps you would be at least able to respect that? No one has provided a constructive rebuttall to the fact that the currrent state of evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of these expereinces and events being not a result of known scientific mechanisms. Am I saying that you are delusional, stupid or mad for not accepting the evidence which has not been debunked? Do I say that you are lying for claiming that all the evidence has been debunked? Do I say that you are insane for not looking at the collective evidence and realsing that the probability and simplest explanation is that it can't feasibly or rationaly be due to unproved fraud or un detected flaw? No, but I find extremely interesting that some people cling to old beliefs which are entirely dependant on the dogmatic scientism, just as some arch-skeptics will do doubt find the opposite set of affairs just as baffling. You are free to believe what you want. I know through experience that your beliefs are currently not in touch with current reality, but I respect you enough to not fault you for that.

 

[Anders]

It's interesting that you think another person's beliefs and experiences are delusions.
[snip]

-remote viewing
-homeopathy
-aliens on earth
-tarot card predictions of the future
-magnetic coasters alters water
-ESP
-Atlantis
-Magic in general
-the christian/muslim/judean/indian/norse/chines gods
-etc
-etc

As you see, ESP in just one belief on a long row of delusional ideas.

 

[Ashles]

Whereas your opinion is built presumably entirely on your understanding of scientific theory, it is a fact that there many others who base theirs on that and experiences which conflict with such surrent theory. Perhaps you would be at least able to respect that? No one has provided a constructive rebuttall to the fact that the currrent state of evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of these expereinces and events being not a result of known scientific mechanisms.

My opinion is not based on my "understanding" of scientific theory (unlike yours), it is based on where we currently actually are in scientific research.
Regardless of whether Psi may, or may not be demonstrated to definitely exist some time in the future, at this moment in time it is not generally scientifically accepted as existing.
Whether you like this or not, or agree with this is entirely irrelevant. That is currently where we are.

Those who base their theories on their experiences may very well be mistaken as to what they have perceived, or think they have perceived. Human perception and memory are very unreliable.
I have spoken to people who claim to have had these experiences and after several questions either the story has changed, or they agree they might have been mistaken, or they get quite defenive and cross and don't want to talk about it.

No one has provided a constructive rebuttall to the fact that the currrent state of evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of these expereinces

Why would anyone created a constructive rebuttall to something which is a flat-out lie.
The evidence is absolutely NOTHING like overwhelmingly in favour. The best study that anyone can ever quote is the Ganzfeld which involves meta analysis and statistical manipulation.
Different people get different conclusions from the same data!
If you consider that overwhelming evidence it's a god job you are not in any form of research.

I know through experience that your beliefs are currently not in touch with current reality, but I respect you enough to not fault you for that.

Please don't insult my intelligence with the wide-eyed innocent plea for respect.
The first part of the sentence implies you think I'm out of touch with reality then you pretend mutual respect! Luci you are still transparent.

Anyway I'm not faulting you for having an opinion, I am faulting what you claim are facts.
They aren't.

 

[De'Ville's Advocaat]

-remote viewing
-homeopathy
-aliens on earth
-tarot cards predictions of the future
-magnetic coasters alters water
-ESP
-Atlantis
-Magic in general
-the christian/muslim/judean/indian/norse/chines gods
-etc
-etc

As you see, ESP in just one belief on a long row of delusional ideas.

Delusion is a false impression due to madness. Non of those issues have been proven to be false and given the fact that the overwhelming majority of the world's population at believe in at least one of many things which conflicts with known science, whether that be afterlife or ESP, then it can't rationally be seen as madness. It is more rational to assume that scientific knowledge is, as usual, growing and changing as we evolve and experience more and that, as usual, there will always be more things outside of scientific knowledge than within. There are more people accepting new realities than denying them and looking at our history it is safe to assume that such progress is indicative of the eventual establishment of applications which work on these newly discovered, currently anomalous, effects.

 

[Anders]

Delusion is a false impression due to madness. Non of those issues have been proven to be false and given the fact that the overwhelming majority of the world's population at believe in at least one of many things which conflicts with known science, whether that be afterlife or ESP, then it can't rationally be seen as madness. It is more rational to assume that scientific knowledge is, as usual, growing and changing as we evolve and experience more and that, as usual, there will always be more things outside of scientific knowledge than within. There are more people accepting new realities than denying them and looking at our history it is safe to assume that such progress is indicative of the eventual establishment of applications which work on these newly discovered, currently anomalous, effects.

Please excuse my wrong use of the word 'Delusion'. However, all of the ideas on the list has never ever been proven to exist or to work. What people belive is not important.

There can be nothing outside science! Why? Science is the quest for knowledge, the knowledge that is accesible for all, not just the few. An aspirin works the same for nearly all, and for the few exceptions there is, we know why aspirin don't work. It is not the same with ESP, we know nothing about ESP because we have never been able to observe the phenomena. If you can show that ESP works the same way for all, and it is a repetable result, than, but not before, the scientific community would accept ESP as a true phenonmena.

There has always been anomalous effects in different areas of physics, chemistry, psycology, geology, astronomy, etc. There are even more so knowadays. There is a lot we don't know: What happend before Big Band? Why does proteins fold the way they do? Why do some people become criminal and some not? Why does an earthquake happen. etc etc.