The "Process" of John Edward

[Clancie]

No, Bill, Jaroff doesn't say his source was Randi. He says O'Neill emailed Randi. The way he wrote it, O'Neill could have just described doing that to Jaroff. Jaroff doesn't make it at all clear that he's quoting someone whose story he has never personally checked on, a stranger to him who had emailed his "suspicions" to someone else.

And here's another area of disagreement.....

 

[Clancie]

Your Tally of JE's 1998 Transcript (and others)

Posted by Bill Hoyt

I re-worked the transcripts and came up with different results and a different method. Here it is, in a nutshell:

...I excluded the CO show data, and concentrated solely on the available, unedited transcripts from LKL, etc.

Fine.

I looked at JE's style and adjusted the counting procedure as follows:
o I counted all of his name guesses
o Whether he stated them as names or initials, I counted them
o I excluded impossible-to-deal-with things such as "a B softened by a vowel," and chalked that up to a "B" guess.
o I included even bizarre names such as "pepper", "salt", "brooklyn" and other nickname guesses, except that
o I only counted "Liz", "Elizabeth" type guesses as the full given name, and did not also count an "L". but
o When JE recited a littany of names, I counted each one, whether they had the same initial or differing initials (again excluding the "Liz/Elizabeth, Ronny/Ronald, and Bill/William" type guesses, where I only counted the intial of the full given name.

Sound a bit complicated? You should read the transcripts. I could not see another way to approach things fairly given that sometimes he was all over the board.

Actually, they weren't hard to tally at all, Bill. My numbers were very close to Kerberos's. The only issue that I saw was that he gets sounds not initials, so he might say its a "C or K" when he's getting a hard 'C'. But whether those go as "C or K" that's irrelevant to your "J" count anyway.

The BIG problem with your method is this choice:

o When JE recited a littany of names, I counted each one, whether they had the same initial or differing initials

This is very strange, Bill. So if JE said, "I'm getting an 'R' name--like Rob, Rich, or Richie"--you counted it as four different guesses?

That doesn't even make sense, especially since you are only interested in the frequency he suggests certain letters of the alphabet. Clearly he is saying, "Does the letter 'R' mean anything to you?" then giving several possibilities of names that begin that way. Counting them all individually just inaccurately inflates your total.

That's why Kerberos tallied 6 different JE appearances and got a cumulative total of 78 intials. You used just one of those LKL transcripts and got 50 "names and/or initials"--2/3's of Kerberos's total from just that one appearance alone!

A very misleading method, Bill.

(And, fyi, on the first 1998 appearance I got:

17 letters/names and 4 of them J's....

Second 1998 appearance:

10 guesses and 1 of them was "J")

It makes no sense (unless one wants inflated results) to take JE's asking one sitter "Is it a 'J' name for her, like Jenna, Jessie, Jessica" and count it as four separate "cold reading guesses" for the letter 'J".

 

[BillHoyt]

No, Bill, Jaroff doesn't say his source was Randi. He says O'Neill emailed Randi. The way he wrote it, O'Neill could have just described doing that to Jaroff. Jaroff doesn't make it at all clear that he's quoting someone whose story he has never personally checked on, a stranger to him who had emailed his "suspicions" to someone else.

And here's another area of disagreement.....

Fine. Then you want to persist in this characterization of Jaroff as a sloppy journalist. Let us look at your claim that O'Neill had preconceived notions, and let's have you give evidence that that slob, Jaroff, was wrong in his statement.

Now not your fallacious ad hoc reasoning previously given, but good a priori evidence of O'Neill's preconceived notions. Anything from him in writing? Anything with hard information? Any interviews where he gives away his bias. Again, not post hoc.

 

[BillHoyt]

Your Tally of JE's 1998 Transcript (and others)

Fine.
[/B]
Actually, they weren't hard to tally at all, Bill. My numbers were very close to Kerberos's. The only issue that I saw was that he gets sounds not initials, so he might say its a "C or K" when he's getting a hard 'C'. But whether those go as "C or K" that's irrelevant to your "J" count anyway.[/b]

First of all, thank you for verifying that Kerberos' procedure was correct. Are you now conceding that his results were significant?

But, wow. Do you think before you spout? What is the denominator, dearie? How is the total count even remotely irrelevant?

[/B]
This is very strange, Bill. So if JE said, "I'm getting an 'R' name--like Rob, Rich, or Richie"--you counted it as four different guesses?

That doesn't even make sense, especially since you are only interested in the frequency he suggests certain letters of the alphabet. Clearly he is saying, "Does the letter 'R' mean anything to you?" then giving several possibilities of names that begin that way. Counting them all individually just inaccurately inflates your total.[/b]

What total, Clancie? You just contradicted yourself. At first you said it is irrelevant. Now you say it "inflates your total." There are two totals here, aren't there? It inflates them both, dear. One is the denominator.

A very misleading method, Bill...

It makes no sense (unless one wants inflated results) to take JE's asking one sitter "Is it a 'J' name for her, like Jenna, Jessie, Jessica" and count it as four separate "cold reading guesses" for the letter 'J".

Misleading, really? But I put it right out here in front of you, told you exactly what , why and how. Now let us look deeper at your flawed analysis:

- How do you count "Ellen or Helen"? "E" or "H"? My, my, what to do?
- How do you count "C or K name?" "C" or "K". My, my, what to do?
- How do you past the "spice name" thing, where he rattles off "pepper" and "cinnamon", etc.? One guess, two, four? Which letter, dearie, which letter?
- Now how about an "N" name, but softened with a vowel. Now what?
- Finally, how do you get past his sometimes using one letter, but clearly saying there are two people behind it?

There are multiple examples of JE doing exactly those things. All of them present problems for interpretation and counting. I corrected for these interpretation problems.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Clancie,

Regarding Bill's: "When JE recited a littany of names, I counted each one, whether they had the same initial or differing initials", I think that it could be done better.

I would not count them when JE says a series of names with differing initials, ie 'Helen? Ellen?' Or, I would be consistent, and always count the first or last of JE's names.

As far as counting 'Robert? Richard? Rick? Randi?' as 4 uses of R, it seems more reasonable to only count that as 1 use of R, because the only thing that is not changing in JE's guess is the leading R. Doing otherwise could obviously inflate the letter count too drastically.

 

[Clancie]

First, Bill, please stop calling me "dear" and "dearie". I'm not your grandmother and I'm not (thankfully) your wife.

Second....

Posted by Bill Hoyt

Misleading, really? But I put it right out here in front of you, told you exactly what , why and how. Now let us look deeper at your flawed analysis:

- How do you count "Ellen or Helen"? "E" or "H"? My, my, what to do?

Actually (not that it matters in terms of what you're looking at) but in that instance I listed "Ellen or Helen" as a single guess and tallied that pattern separately. Since, as you say, they only become part of the denominator in terms of what you're looking at, what difference does it make?

(In reality, those who understand the "process" might count them as "L", since--as I've told you, JE works more with sounds than with letters. But...for what you're looking for...counting them as "E" or "L" makes no difference whatsoever--as long as one is consistent)

- How do you count "C or K name?" "C" or "K". My, my, what to do?

Again, not hard Bill. I listed "C or K" separately and added them to the denominator. If we were counting more than "J's" I'd probably advocate more of a phonics-based system. But (especially with the absence of soft "g" names in the readings we have, for your purposes in tallying 'J's" this is another totally irrelevant question. Whether "C" or "K" it goes into the denominator).

- How do you past the "spice name" thing, where he rattles off "pepper" and "cinnamon", etc.? One guess, two, four? Which letter, dearie, which letter?

Well, since we're looking at how often he uses initials, I think that shouldn't even be included. That was clearly JE getting something from a symbol not a letter or sound--which is the category you claim to be looking at. If he had come up with the correct name, "Ginger", we could have counted it. But he didn't. The sitter did--from the spice symbolism, not from a name or intial. It stays out.)

- Now how about an "N" name, but softened with a vowel. Now what?

"N". How hard was that? (Besides, again, you're only interested in two tallies: denominator (made up of all the letters) and numerator with "J's". So what if "N" is softened? Its still is part of the overall total in the denominator, Bill.

Finally, how do you get past his sometimes using one letter, but clearly saying there are two people behind it?

Two people behind it? What do you mean? LIke "It's 'J', like Jack or Jake...could it be your father or brother?"

Again, easy as pie. It would be one guess for the letter 'J', and then left up to the sitter to figure out who the name connects with (JE just makes suggestions. If he said, "I have two men, both with "J-O" names, then obviously that goes down as two 'J's').

There are multiple examples of JE doing exactly those things. All of them present problems for interpretation and counting. I corrected for these interpretation problems.

I don't think they're problems, and I disagree that your method corrected for them.

To remind you....my objection is to inflating your total by counting "There's an 'R' name here, like Robbie, Rob, Rich, Richie" as 5 separate "R" guesses instead of one. He's clearly saying someone (someone) has a name that starts with an "R".

Its one guess, Bill. Not five.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by T'ai Chi

As far as counting 'Robert? Richard? Rick? Randi?' as 4 uses of R, it seems more reasonable to only count that as 1 use of R, because the only thing that is not changing in JE's guess is the leading R. Doing otherwise could obviously inflate the letter count too drastically.

Thank you, T'ai Chi. That is exactly my point.

 

[Kerberos]

- How do you count "Ellen or Helen"? "E" or "H"? My, my, what to do?
- How do you count "C or K name?" "C" or "K". My, my, what to do?

I counted both E and H or C and K, though perhaps counting half an E and half an H would be more correct.

- How do you past the "spice name" thing, where he rattles off "pepper" and "cinnamon", etc.? One guess, two, four? Which letter, dearie, which letter?

I didn't include this since it was a nickname, and thus might not have the same letter-distribution as the overall population.

- Now how about an "N" name, but softened with a vowel. Now what?

I ignored the vowel and counted the N.

- Finally, how do you get past his sometimes using one letter, but clearly saying there are two people behind it?[/B]

Just counted the letter and ignored that there were two people.

There are multiple examples of JE doing exactly those things. All of them present problems for interpretation and counting. I corrected for these interpretation problems. [/B]

I agree that tallying is difficult, but if you count "Rob, Rich, or Richie" as 3 names then you're creating a false null-hypothesis because this is seen from a believer point of view only one name that JE doesn't hear very well.

 

[neofight]

I counted both E and H or C and K, though perhaps counting half an E and half an H would be more correct.

Hi, Kerberos. I agree with Clancie that categorizing these names becomes problematic, since as she states, JE *hears* these names as thoughts, so there definitely is a phonetic component to this.

For instance, although JE will hear "Ellen" or "Helen" as a prominent "L" sounding name, the names themselves, begin with and "E" and an "H", respectively, so how can you classify a name beginning with "E" or "H", as a name beginning with an "L"?

In the case of names such as "Carl" and "Kelly", even though they are both begin with the same hard sound, they both begin with completely different letters, so, basically, the same problem exists.

Again, the problem occurs with names such as "Joe" and "Gina" as well. Same sound, different letters. That makes for confusion, and inaccurately classifying names under the wrong letters, which would definitely skew the numbers for any given category affected by this complication.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem right that names beginning with vowels, but containing an "N", be counted among the "names beginning with 'N' category" does it? Names like Eunice or Annette, afterall, do not begin with an "N", so I'm not sure how you could simply drop the vowel entirely.

I definitely agree with both you and Clancie that you cannot count "Rob, Rich, Richie, who's the 'R' name here?" as four "R" names, since JE is quite clearly simply looking for one person whose name begins with an "R". .......neo

 

[Kerberos]

Hi, Kerberos. I agree with Clancie that categorizing these names becomes problematic, since as she states, JE *hears* these names as thoughts, so there definitely is a phonetic component to this.

For instance, although JE will hear "Ellen" or "Helen" as a prominent "L" sounding name, the names themselves, begin with and "E" and an "H", respectively, so how can you classify a name beginning with "E" or "H", as a name beginning with an "L"?

In the case of names such as "Carl" and "Kelly", even though they are both begin with the same hard sound, they both begin with completely different letters, so, basically, the same problem exists.

Again, the problem occurs with names such as "Joe" and "Gina" as well. Same sound, different letters. That makes for confusion, and inaccurately classifying names under the wrong letters, which would definitely skew the numbers for any given category affected by this complication.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem right that names beginning with vowels, but containing an "N", be counted among the "names beginning with 'N' category" does it? Names like Eunice or Annette, afterall, do not begin with an "N", so I'm not sure how you could simply drop the vowel entirely.

I definitely agree with both you and Clancie that you cannot count "Rob, Rich, Richie, who's the 'R' name here?" as four "R" names, since JE is quite clearly simply looking for one person whose name begins with an "R". .......neo

Well I think the most fair would be to count half an H and half an E though calculating stats on half’s could be difficult (probably possible but I don't know how).

As for the N softened by a vowel you're right that that can't be counted as an N. I thought that it meant an N followed by some vowel which could be counted as an N, but apparently I was wrong. These would probably have to be discounted.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Kerveros

Well I think the most fair would be to count half an H and half an E though calculating stats on half’s could be difficult (probably possible but I don't know how).

As for the N softened by a vowel you're right that that can't be counted as an N. I thought that it meant an N followed by some vowel which could be counted as an N, but apparently I was wrong. These would probably have to be discounted.

Well, fortunately, these things don't have much impact on this small sample one way or the other, since you'lre only looking for total letters/names guessed compared with the number of "J"'s

.As far as counting 'Robert? Richard? Rick? Randi?' as 4 uses of R, it seems more reasonable to only count that as 1 use of R, because the only thing that is not changing in JE's guess is the leading R. Doing otherwise could obviously inflate the letter count too drastically.

Yes, this is the one with the big impact on these numbers. If Bill's doing this, it totally skews the results.

 

[SteveGrenard]

There is a great deal of room for error in this type of analysis. Phoenetics is important and cannot be overlooked. I saw a medium once that said he was getting the letters R-T, and
started suggesting Robert, Rita, etc etc. when in fact the deceased was someone named Artie (enunciated) and R-T was a perfect phonetic match for that name. Fortunately the sitter realized it after the medium, using his own and very poor interpretative skills managed to chalk up about 5 misses

JE in fact made a similar gaff, getting the full name Antoinette when in fact it was Aunt Annette which the sitter recognized. Aunt Annette and Antoinette are also near phonetic matches but JE managed to mangle that into a pile of misses as well before the sitters were allowed to talk (JE has this annoying habit of shutting them up).

 

[BillHoyt]

Clancie,
Doing otherwise could obviously inflate the letter count too drastically.

What count exactly got inflated?

 

[69dodge]

There are two totals here, aren't there? It inflates them both, dear. One is the denominator.

a/b ≠ (a+x)/(b+x) unless x = 0.

This is perhaps relevant. Or perhaps not. I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about it.

 

[neofight]

Very true, Clancie-- My title is very important to me!

Seriously, though, when JE gave the live reading of Deborah (of "Malibu Shrimp" fame), she wasn't able to validate much of what JE said. Neither was I.

Thereafter, when the edited reading appeared on television, it was rearranged. In the edited version, Deborah was shown validating lots of things. How odd that I, too, was able to validate lots of things in the edited reading.

It was the editing that accounted for the differences when the reading went from "live" to "edited". I was thereby able to observe, firsthand, that the reading was edited for content.

Hello, Instig8R. Not that I have any desire whatsoever to start this argument all over again, but there is just no way I can allow this post to stand unchallenged, because it implies the most egregious tampering of the tape, and I can't agree with what you've said here.

I won't belabor this point, but I will simply state, if there is anyone left who is even interested at this point, that your impression of this reading, and your characterization of the editing that followed, differs drastically from my own.

In my opinion, you are implying a degree of editing here, that just never occurred. Deborah didn't validate anything in the edited reading that she didn't validate first at the seminar taping. Did they cut out some of the reading because it was too lengthy? Yes they did. Did they "rearrange" everything to change non-hits to hits, the way you are insinuating? No, they did not.

And for now, that's all I'll say on the subject. .....neo

 

[69dodge]

Please provide your evidence that O'Neill had preconceived notions before going to the taping.

Whatever happened at the taping is not admissible. Before, Clancie. Not during or after. It doesn't matter what O'Neill discovered. It doesn't matter what he told Randi, et al.

That doesn't sound quite right.

Preconceived notions are often hard to change. Someone who believed before attending a John Edward show that John is a fake is likely to have the same belief afterward. And someone who believed beforehand that John is genuine is likely to continue in that belief after the show.

Therefore, a person's belief after the show does provide some indication, not 100% reliable of course, of what he believed before it.

 

[69dodge]

An alternative choice might be binomial, but therein lies a catch. The advantage of Poisson is that the moment-generating functions are such that its mean and its variance are the same and therefore, we only need to know the mean, which is about all we have here.

I do not understand this argument.

A binomial distribution is defined by two parameters, n and p, which are the number of Bernoulli trials and the probability of success in each, respectively. We have both those pieces of information here. The number of guesses John made is n, and p is the fraction of US citizens that have names beginning with 'J'.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Bill Hoyt

What count exactly got inflated?

Well, Bill, how can you even ask?

After all, one hardly needs to be a statistician to see that if JE says "I'm getting a 'J' name, like John, Jenny, Joan" and I count that as "1" guess of 'J' and you count that sentence as showing 4 separate guesses of 'J'...both totals--the total overall number of guesses, as well as the guesses of letter 'J'--will be greater for your results than mine.

Which is exactly what your tally of the 1998 LKL readings shows.

 

[CFLarsen]

neofight,

Did you - or did you not - change your account of the Malibu Shrimp reading?

Clancie,

I take it that you do not want to answer this question:

"Please provide your evidence that O'Neill had preconceived notions before going to the taping."

It will therefore be added to the list of questions you don't want to answer.

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Lurker
Perhaps we should be using the Binomial Distribution instead? It may not change the end results much but since p is relatively high we might want to consider it.

A binomial distribution is more appropriate, I think, though it and a Poisson distribution yield, in this instance, similar results.

If X has a binomial distribution with n = 85 and p = 0.133615, the probability that X >= 18 is 0.0306.

If X has a Poisson distribution with mean equal to (85)(0.133615), the probability that X >= 18 is 0.0415.

I see no reason to prefer the Poisson distribution over the binomial one besides ease of calculation, which is irrelevant as my computer has no trouble with either.