The VFF Test is On!

She had previously stated that the demonstration would not falsify her claim, at the most she would simply stop calling it paranormal.
 
Sun Countess said:
Anita's magical x-ray vision performed exactly the same as the non-magical body language cues an audience member used to make his guesses. Will she admit she used that same technique?
Click to expand...

Good question. A paranormal ability (presumably) works like a real ability like... vision.

Here's a thought experiment to try.

You are in a darkened room. There are 6 people in front of you. Their faces are illuminated. Some of them are missing an arm - but you can't see which.

So you take a guess - which person and which arm.

Afterwards, the lights are turned on and it is instantly obvious which is which.

Later, someone who claims to have a paranormal ability to see in the dark is given an opportunity to do the same test. They do the test and lo and behold - they get the same result as someone who didn't claim the paranormal ability.

What do we conclude about their ability to see in the dark?

To me, that seems to be the same sort of experiment Anita has just done.

She made the claim that she can see more than someone without the special ability can see.

BUT... she performed at the same level as a non-psychic. Logically, she doesn't have the ability she claims. End of story.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
ETA: Also, many of the issues I have with the protocol weren't reflected in how the test was actually conducted. For example, the protocol did not specify that all the subjects would have the same color and style t-shirt and wear the same straw hats and head cloths. It also didn't specify that they'd all be sitting backwards in chairs resting their arms on the cushioned chairbacks (which doubtless reduced a lot of the fidgeting). It also didn't specify how the groups of subjects were selected or assigned.
Click to expand...

I think the protocol we are reading is the same on that VfF signed. She signed off on a "type" of chair and shirt and head covering. I don't see what the problem is with any of the choices IIG made with these.

Also, why would IIG share their method of selecting test subjects with VfF? If she demanded to know, then maybe, but why would they include this information in the protocol that she signs?

Ward
 
bookitty said:
I found the whole thing horribly sad. The spectacle this girl is making of herself in order to maintain an illusion that does not benefit her in any real way. One can only hope that she'll realize she didn't lose, she was thrown a life-line. She can now escape the trap she's built around herself and move forward into a happier adulthood that is less reliant on silly props and pronouncements. I wish her all the best.
Click to expand...

I would like to try and help Anita, if she continues her involvement in FACT. This whole thing got started when I invited Anita to our monthly meeting after reading her posts lo those many years ago (what do you mean it's only been 12 months!?!?). A while back skeen posted a link to this I was wondering if anyone would like to discuss, in a reasonable non-combative manner, the possibility that Anita might really believe, on some level, what she says?
 
volatile said:
Was it poor protocol design that allowed a 23% chance of a hit that too the layman *looks* much more unlikely? In fact, can someone talk me through how that % is arrived at?
Click to expand...

OK. Go to http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/binomial1.cfm and enter the n, that is 36, the number of potential kidneys. The number correct is 1, the probability is .083333333333333333, and hit "calculate".
Playing with that calculator with various p values and n can be quite enlightening. For example, if you flip a coin ten times, what's the probability of getting seven or more heads?
Less than what she got.
 
Last edited:
Jeff Corey said:
OK. Go to http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/binomial1.cfm and enter the n, that is 36, the number of potential kidneys. The number correct is 1, the probability is .083333333333333333, and hit "calculate".
Playing with that calculator with various p values and n can be quite enlightening. For example, if you flip a coin ten times, what's the odds of getting seven or more heads?
Less than what she got.
Click to expand...
But is that right? It wasn't 36 independent trials - we knew that only 1 kidney in 12 was missing (0.08333). 3 would be the correct value for n, yielding a 23% chance of getting 1 or more correct.
 
godofpie said:
bookitty said:
I found the whole thing horribly sad. The spectacle this girl is making of herself in order to maintain an illusion that does not benefit her in any real way. One can only hope that she'll realize she didn't lose, she was thrown a life-line. She can now escape the trap she's built around herself and move forward into a happier adulthood that is less reliant on silly props and pronouncements. I wish her all the best.
Click to expand...
I would like to try and help Anita, if she continues her involvement in FACT. This whole thing got started when I invited Anita to our monthly meeting after reading her posts lo those many years ago (what do you mean it's only been 12 months!?!?). A while back skeen posted a link to this I was wondering if anyone would like to discuss, in a reasonable non-combative manner, the possibility that Anita might really believe, on some level, what she says?
Click to expand...

Well, I would, and, yes, in a reasonable and non combative manner. I would be willing to try, speaking as someone who has successfully battled schizotypal disorder for 33 years, to offer what insight I can from 'inside' the disorder.

Well said, bookitty.
 
Unless he or she has already been proven a scheming, money-grubbing charlatan, we have to entertain the possibility that any given psychic may actually believe his or her own claims.
 
Last edited:
I had to leave before I got to hear her rationalization, alas. Any video of that up yet?
 
roger said:
But is that right? It wasn't 36 independent trials - we knew that only 1 kidney in 12 was missing (0.08333). 3 would be the correct value for n, yielding a 23% chance of getting 1 or more correct.
Click to expand...
It wasn't 36 independent trials, you are correct. But let's look at the whole picture. She looked at the backs of 18 people who had a total of 33 kidneys, a priori. Her task in each case was to determine who had a kidney missing and which one it was. We can consider that a total of 36 judgements, each of which had a p=.0833 chance of being correct. The number of hits was 1.
 
Jeff Corey said:
It wasn't 36 independent trials, you are correct. But let's look at the whole picture. She looked at the backs of 18 people who had a total of 33 kidneys, a priori. Her task in each case was to determine who had a kidney missing and which one it was. We can consider that a total of 36 judgements, each of which had a p=.0833 chance of being correct. The number of hits was 1.
Click to expand...

No... because it was 3 independent tests, not one test of 36...
 
I can say a little about the subject selection process. About 4-6 weeks ago I heard that they were having trouble finding one-kidneyed people and IIG asked if I knew anyone. So I e-mailed a bunch of my friends (both of them :)) asking if they had one kidney. Surprisingly, I got three responses. Knowing I was going down to the test and did not want to know more, I gave all three the IIG contact e-mail and asked they make direct contact and to NOT let me know if anything happened.

I had just about forgotten this when, at the end of Set 3, the selected person was one I had identified. During the evaluation, knowing the result of Set 2 and that she had gotten the right person on Set 3, you can imagine my relief when at least the side was wrong.

I have no idea how the "blanks" were selected.
 
Thanks for pushing the recent line of this thread in your question, SM! Pity about her full-on lying about the Carlson event, but there ya go!
 
godofpie said:
I would like to try and help Anita, if she continues her involvement in FACT. This whole thing got started when I invited Anita to our monthly meeting after reading her posts lo those many years ago (what do you mean it's only been 12 months!?!?). A while back skeen posted a link to this I was wondering if anyone would like to discuss, in a reasonable non-combative manner, the possibility that Anita might really believe, on some level, what she says?
Click to expand...

I have read the info in that link. From the outside, it seems to fit. But would a discussion of Anita's possible issues have any benefit? She doesn't seem to realize that the skeptics here are not out to get her.

Coming on the heels of a failure, discussing a potential mental health problem might make it difficult for Anita to see that we can be and are on her side. Maybe it's better to wait, see what she has to say about all this after having time to consider it carefully. She could surprise us all.

I, for one, would be thrilled to see her become the skeptic she has always claimed to be.
 
On the blanks: the UCLA student group Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists were asked for test subjects. One person volunteered and he brought a friend who was a subject as well.
 
I think this may be it:
http://rapidshare.com/files/310360248/UStream_Chat_History.doc.html

Also (to my chagrin) this can be found within the chat log of the IIG video at
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/vision-from-feeling-demonstration

1:31 ustreamer-15131: Hello anyone still out here! This is Anita Ikonen/VFF!
1:31 ustreamer-15131: Thank you for watching my test! It was fun, everything went well, and I can't wait to post the notes and final conclusions!
1:32 ustreamer-15131: The first and third trials were hard, I was not sure on them. The second trial I was sure of, and it was correct. All of my thoughts are in the papers I handed in to James Underdown.
1:33 ustreamer-15131: Either way, however, I failed the IIG Preliminary.
1:33 ustreamer-15131: But I feel like I got 50% correct, and 50% incorrect. So where do I go from there?
1:33 ustreamer-15131: This is VFF/Anita!
1:33 ustreamer-15131: No one here anymore.
 
I have a simple text file of the stopvisionfromfeeling.com chat. Starting a half hour or so before 11am PST, and running until a short while after the broadcast was over and everyone started to leave the chat. It's about 200K. I can email it, and/or I'll see if Jim wants to make it available to download from his site.

I also have the entire broadcast recorded on audio. I've compressed it but it's still 175Megs as mp3 files. I'm going to run it through a tighter compression and see if I can get it a lot smaller. It's just voice obviously, so it won't need to be music quality. I can make that available to anyone who wants it, too.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom