The VFF Test is On!

TSR said:
Something I mentioned at the time, which hasn't been discussed: that cell phone call should have ended the second trial right then and there.

And, gee, look: that's the only trial she got a hit during...
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That's a very good point.
In the chat room, it was mentioned that the cell phone was in the room but the owner was not. Has anyone reviewed the footage to see if that could have been a possible signal to Anita?
 
Chimera said:
That's a very good point.
In the chat room, it was mentioned that the cell phone was in the room but the owner was not. Has anyone reviewed the footage to see if that could have been a possible signal to Anita?
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The cell phone belonged to a member of the IIG who had left her purse in the theater even though her role in the event kept her out of the theater the entire time and away from any monitor observing the event. It was a stupid thing to do, but it was not a potential signal to Anita.

-Derek
 
Jeff Corey said:
"Well there must be skeptic negative energy around here. Come back Sunday week and we'll have it all exercized out of here."
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There's a business model in there somewhere...

For a small monthly fee I will not hang out in the vicinity of your psychic shop and ruin your vibes! Reasonable rates! Sabotage your competitors! Will also "unhaunt" houses and keep spoons from being bent by 2-bit Israeli magicians.
 
GeeMack said:
You still seem to be missing a very important point. For some reason you seem to want to give some weight to completely wrong guesses. Guessing a person missing a kidney, but guessing the wrong side for the missing kidney, is not a partially correct answer. It's two wrong answers.
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No. What you're missing is that the judging process necessarily has two steps: (1) Judging which of the six subjects is missing a kidney; and (2) Judging for the subject that was selected the location of the missing kidney. If (1) is incorrect, (2) is necessarily incorrect, but it's illogical to discount (1) being correct on the basis that (2) was incorrect. If you think I'm wrong, please set forth your probability calculation.
 
Rodney said:
No. What you're missing is that the judging process necessarily has two steps: (1) Judging which of the six subjects is missing a kidney; and (2) Judging for the subject that was selected the location of the missing kidney. If (1) is incorrect, (2) is necessarily incorrect, but it's illogical to discount (1) being correct on the basis that (2) was incorrect. If you think I'm wrong, please set forth your probability calculation.
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The claim was that the kidneys themselves could be seen not a whole body phenomina that might indicate a missing kidney. There was nothing unclear or ambiguous about that. If you were looking for a missing arm would you need to decide which person was missing an arm and then try to figure out which one it was?
 
1. you've got it wrong. AI was not judging which of six subjects was missing a kidney, but where was the missing kidney, i.e., out of 12 possible locations (6 subjects x left and right) which location did not have a kidney there.

Probability does not come in to it.

AI's claim is exactly as someone posted previously, her claim was she can see a inside a body and note missing organs.

It is the equivalent of me being able to see that, out of six subjects wearing T-shirts, and one subject has an arm missing, I can tell you which arm it is.

Guessing Subject 4 and Right Arm when the actuality is S4, LEFT Arm is a miss.

There is no need for probability calculations - I'm either wrong or I am right...not "close".
Similarly for AI's claim if she picks Subject 4, kidney missing on Right Side and Subject 4 is missing the kidney on the LEFT side - it is a miss.

ETA: P.J. Denyer beat me too it and was more succinct.
 
My bolding:
UncaYimmy said:
She was having perceptions. Dozens of them, in fact. Most were wrong, only she didn't know it! She thought "it" was working, but it wasn't. She has done a number of other "studies" and "tests" where the same thing happened. She fully believed that she was detecting my ailments by looking at a photo of me, but she was wrong and did not know it. Even if she thinks there are some perceptions that are "real", how does she distinguish them from all the noise? More importantly, what is it she actually thinks is going on when she misses six out of 10 trials or totally bombs by citing ailments I don't have and missing those I do have when the whole time she thought she was right?
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I think you're being generous (though I understand your point about lack of methodology to falsify a claim.)

I don't know about this specific claim, but wrt to her "vision from feeling" claim (as posted on her website and elsewhere), I think she certainly did know that she wasn't able to do anything like what she claimed.

I think there's enough evidence now that she's a conscious fraud (even if she started out merely self-deluded). The business with looking repeatedly and jotting down a number of Xs and ?s for each potential kidney spot was itself in contradiction to her claim.
 
wardenclyffe said:
So you would have been fine with every test subject coming here and reading the entire protocol? I don't think I would. Talk about making it easy for a cold reader.
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Yes. Please read through this thread. I made the point that keeping the subjects in the dark about the protocol is the worst way to prevent information leakage. (Someone else, I've forgotten the username, made a great comparison to computer data encryption.)



Well, if you want to be techincal, the t-shirts were only similar. I doubt they all had the same number of molecules in them. That way, they aren't identical and it matches exactly what it says in the protocol. They all had different numbered labels on them, so they weren't identical. The subjects all decided to wear the hats. The protocol said they "may" do it, and they did. These are nonsense criticisms.
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And you don't understand the difference between what the protocol said and what happened? If another group in another city wanted to reproduce this test, they would rely on the protocol. They could allow the subjects to bring their own light-colored t-shirts or blouses (the ones the IIG used, I think, were probably supplied by someone to be uniform). The subjects could wear different kinds of head coverings or none at all. You could have some subjects sitting on stools, some on chairs, and so on. And there's no mention of how the subjects were selected and assigned to groups. I could imagine a number of different ways that could happen that would seriously skew the results.

It was a bad protocol, and the IIG knows it. That's why there was no agreement on a protocol for a final $50k test other than that this protocol isn't it. It was considered good enough for a "preliminary demonstration" that never risked the $50k. I disagree with that approach, personally, though I understand the attitude of "let's just do it".
 
Rodney said:
No. What you're missing is that the judging process necessarily has two steps: (1) Judging which of the six subjects is missing a kidney; and (2) Judging for the subject that was selected the location of the missing kidney. If (1) is incorrect, (2) is necessarily incorrect, but it's illogical to discount (1) being correct on the basis that (2) was incorrect. If you think I'm wrong, please set forth your probability calculation.
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Her claim was that she can see the internal organs. The protocol was set up (poorly IMO) to test that claim.

You're trying to argue that the results (which were a failure--or falsification of her claim, as she agreed ahead of time) should make us suspect some other ability that the test wasn't designed to disprove and that VFF never even claimed to have.

You've yet to answer why you would think that.

Why would you think she has some ability the test wasn't designed to disprove and that she never claimed about being able to identify a person missing a kidney (without seeing the kidneys) and why wouldn't you similarly think the test gives us reason to suspect she can levitate?
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Her claim was that she can see the internal organs. The protocol was set up (poorly IMO) to test that claim.

You're trying to argue that the results (which were a failure--or falsification of her claim, as she agreed ahead of time) should make us suspect some other ability that the test wasn't designed to disprove and that VFF never even claimed to have.

You've yet to answer why you would think that.

Why would you think she has some ability the test wasn't designed to disprove and that she never claimed about being able to identify a person missing a kidney (without seeing the kidneys) and why wouldn't you similarly think the test gives us reason to suspect she can levitate?
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The test was designed to determine whether Anita has the ability to correctly judge: (a) who is missing a kidney; and (b) the location of the missing kidney. As Rule # 3 of the JREF Challenge Application states: "We will consult competent statisticians when an evaluation of the experimental design, is required. We have no interest in theories nor explanations of how the claimed powers might work; if an applicant provides us with such material, it will be ignored and discarded." See http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-application.html

So, the fact that Anita has made all kinds of claims about her ability to do this, that, and the other thing isn't relevant. What a skeptic should be interested in is whether she has any paranormal ability to judge (a) and (b).
 
Rodney said:
No. What you're missing is that the judging process necessarily has two steps: (1) Judging which of the six subjects is missing a kidney; and (2) Judging for the subject that was selected the location of the missing kidney. If (1) is incorrect, (2) is necessarily incorrect, but it's illogical to discount (1) being correct on the basis that (2) was incorrect. If you think I'm wrong, please set forth your probability calculation.
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No probability calculations necessary. You're wrong about the judging process. It was based on 100% success in Anita's claimed ability to see the location of a missing kidney. Seeing a kidney where there wasn't one and not seeing a kidney where there was one are both wrong guesses, 100% wrong, regardless of which person the wrong guesses applied to. If you think some points should be given for close-but-no-cigar, guessing the wrong side on a person missing a kidney is actually two wrong guesses and is therefore further from being correct, not closer. The only thing significant about any of her wrong guesses is that they were, well, wrong.

Let's say this is the line-up. Six people sitting in a row. The X is the missing kidney...

OO --- OO --- XO --- OO --- OO --- OO​

This is the wrong guess...

OO --- OO --- OX --- OO --- OO --- OO​

According to the protocol and the claim made by the woo peddler, it is exactly as wrong as this...

OO --- OX --- OO --- OO --- OO --- OO​

A wrong guess of the next one over, to the left or to the right of the correct position, is exactly as wrong as this...

OO --- OO --- OO --- OO --- OO --- XO​

... your insistence on redefining the claim and the requirements for success as spelled out in the protocol notwithstanding.
 
Rodney said:
If she had correctly identified all three of the people in the test who were missing a kidney and correctly identified for two of the three which kidney it was, she also would have failed. The question that should be of interest to a skeptic is whether she identified two of the three who were missing a kidney solely through chance or by some other means. Knowing how the audience did as a whole may help answer that question.
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And what if there is no needle in the haystack?


M.
 
Rodney said:
The test was designed to determine whether Anita has the ability to correctly judge: (a) who is missing a kidney; and (b) the location of the missing kidney.
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According to the protocol, how much credit was to be given for guessing the person missing a kidney, but guessing the wrong kidney?
 
Rodney said:
The test was designed to determine whether Anita has the ability to correctly judge: (a) who is missing a kidney; and (b) the location of the missing kidney. As Rule # 3 of the JREF Challenge Application states: "We will consult competent statisticians when an evaluation of the experimental design, is required. We have no interest in theories nor explanations of how the claimed powers might work; if an applicant provides us with such material, it will be ignored and discarded." See http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-application.html

So, the fact that Anita has made all kinds of claims about her ability to do this, that, and the other thing isn't relevant. What a skeptic should be interested in is whether she has any paranormal ability to judge (a) and (b).
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Anita has not made any claims about judging anything .. Her claims are that she sees things..


The skeptics were interested in her claims.

She has failed to demonstrate her claims.

Why should there be continued interest ?
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Anita has not made any claims about judging anything .. Her claims are that she sees things..


The skeptics were interested in her claims.

She has failed to demonstrate her claims.

Why should there be continued interest ?
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Because she narrowly missed performing at the generally-accepted level for statistical significance.
 
Rodney said:
Because she narrowly missed performing at the generally-accepted level for statistical significance.
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One success out of three trials is not a "narrow miss". Again, her performance is quite consistent with someone who is good at reading people, and not at all consistent with someone who can actually see inside bodies.
 
Rodney said:
Because she narrowly missed performing at the generally-accepted level for statistical significance.
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Hey, Rodney, you missed this one...

According to the protocol, how much credit was to be given for guessing the person missing a kidney, but guessing the wrong kidney?
 
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