The VFF Test is On!

[Moochie]

Well, as a matter of fact, your tables are incorrect in that I actually picked three out of three.

I just didn't write it down because my main claim is to being a dead Pharaoh, and I didn't want to be accused of being a looney if I guessed wrong about the kidney thing.

Really, really, really, really.

Also, GeeMack is a poopy head, probably from Aldeberan.


Now go away, I'm not talking to any of you.


Vishnu from Darjeeling™

I don't believe you! You're a liar and a fraud! And you're fat/skinny/whatever!



Have your head examined by a phrenologist!


M.

 

[derekcbart]

Isn't IIG an entirely volunteer organization?

Yes, it is.

The IIG is structured as a California Non-Profit Association. We have annual membership dues, but that money collected is to help purchase/rent equipment/books/lectures/etc. for various investigations.

No member of the IIG is paid for any of their work. No one ever has been and no one ever will be.

Thanks.

-Derek

 

[Locknar]

Please, lets stick to the OP - which is the VFF test (and subsequent post-test discussion). Additionally, we have enough forum drama already; new drama from other sites is not needed.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Locknar

 

[ynot]

You are the one misunderstanding and misinterpreting. What exactly are you arguing against? That I admitted to failing the IIG Preliminary, or that I choose to have another test just to make the protocol conditions a bit higher to see how that affects the results? Or that you think that I am somehow trying to be a psychic, or what not? You are all seeing what you want to see. I am just a science student investigating an interesting experience. And I will not have a remote viewing test. I need to see the back area of the person, without a screen covering it.

“Seeing” through clothing, skin and flesh IS “remote viewing“ as it‘s not possible to do this with direct viewing. In the IIG test you didn’t directly see the back of the people, you saw the clothing covering the back of the people. In other words the clothing is a screen covering their backs. The test I’m suggesting is exactly the same thing except you wouldn’t be able to tell if the clothing was covering the back of a person or dummy. Your rejection of this type of test on the grounds that you won’t have a remote viewing test is ludicrous in the extreme. This is no more than avoiding a valid test with definite and unambiguous outcome and reflects that you already know that you have no special abilities (cold reading or otherwise).

If you can “remote view” through the clothing and “see” internal organs and bones then it should be very easy for you to quickly and accurately say if the clothing is covering a person or a dummy.

You seem to be obsessed with kidneys because it gives you what you believe to be a “half-right” option that allows you to claim you were partially right. There is no “half-right” option. You can either “see” internal organs or you can‘t.

 

[volatile]

I still have interest in learning more about the experience. It might not be good enough to pass as a psychic experience, nor did I ever expect it to, but I still do think it interesting that I detected the kidney being missing in Dr. Carlson without having any prior reason to suspect to find that - it wasn't even listed on my list on the questionnaire that I was working with! And that I have known about trials 1 and 3 being incorrect in advance, and about trial 2 being correct.

I want to find out what happens when the screens are improved upon. Just excuse me, I am just investigating something that I am curious about. This is not a mental illness. The experience I have, is in itself something similar to synesthesia, which by definition is not a mental illness. And I think you all saw a glimpse of what it is that I experience, in the Preliminary demonstration. There is no reason to keep me from investigating further.

I got exactly the same results as you, and it didn't take me 27 minutes per test to get them.

Is there a reason to keep me from investigating further?

 

[roger]

This is for Rodney.

Whoa! I was just looking over the chat. Akhenaten picked 11 left, and that was correct. He also picked 24 left, which was the right person and the wrong side. He scored the same as Anita!

Tsig, Lex and Agatha picked #11 left - right person, wrong side. There were three other guesses, so three out of six picked the same person.

Volatile, Geemack and Akhenaten all picked #24 left - right person, wrong side. There were three other guess, so 3 out of 6 picked the same person.

GeeMack had 36 left - right person, wrong side. Anthem and Agatha's daughter picked 36. Only four other people made guesses, so 3 out of 7 picked the same person.

This is actually kinda interesting. With a .166 chance, 19 guesses and 9 success, there was a 0.1% chance of it being due to chance alone.

That analysis doesn't hold up if I understand the reference correctly. The book Irrationally Predictable talks about situations like these - once one person chooses something, that strongly influences the following choices. For example, if you ask people to write down their restaurant choice vs saying it out loud, orders end up being very different (other than the first person that gives their voice order).

Now, we can't really say which way the votes would swing in this case. In the case of restaurants, people have strong desires to order something other than what somebody else ordered - to the extent that they will choose something they wouldn't ordinarily order. In other cases, they will cluster around the same choice - the very fact of someone opining, albeit with no reason or evidence whatsoever for that choice, lends weight to the value of that choice.

So, it could be everyone was clustering on a person due to the first guess. Or, it could be that everyone wanted to choose different people, but the cold reading was so strong that it overwhelmed this desire.

All we can say for sure is that the non-blinded choices of people in chat means we cannot really do any statistical analysis of the results.

(ignore me if their choices were blinded to each other).

 

[Asm]

My claim is that, when I look at a person, and know that the person is there, I would be able to detect the presence or absence of internal organs. (...) To see a part of the person, with my eyes, is a vital part of the claim. Do not ask me again, we've been over this before.

Then shouldn't you instead be calling it FeelingsFromVision?

 

[ynot]

So that is why on another test, there will be minimal amount of visual information available. The subjects' backs will be all that is visible, through individually adapted cut-outs in a screen. No arms, tattoos, hair, pants, legs, skin, or age, will be visible.

This is exactly what I’m suggesting. If “The subjects' backs will be all that is visible” then only the clothing covering the persons back will be visible.

To see a part of the person, with my eyes, is a vital part of the claim. Do not ask me again, we've been over this before.

This totally contradicts your post quoted above. How can you - “see a part of the person” if - “No arms, tattoos, hair, pants, legs, skin, or age, will be visible" and - ”The subjects' backs [clothed] will be all that is visible"?

 

[Uncayimmy]

That analysis doesn't hold up

Hold up to what? Do you think I'm drawing some kind of important conclusion by weeding through a chat log trying to figure out who chose what? C'mon, people were drinking, staying up late, and just goofing around while looking at a screen with tiny little people sitting in chairs.

I said at the start of the post it was for Rodney, the guy who has never encountered statistical noise that he didn't think was significant.

 

[fromdownunder]

C'mon, people were drinking, staying up late,

Or getting up at 6:00 AM with a hangover.

Norm

 

[bookitty]

You all bring up good points, and thank you for sharing what your own guesses were during the test. Your guesses, no doubt, were based on more conscious efforts of cold reading. Mine are perhaps based on something subconscious, because my experience is a little different. But just because I experience it as some automatic feeling or vision that appears on its own, and not as a conscious effort at cold reading, does not mean that it is not cold reading after all.

That is why the next test, yeah... there will be another one... will involve better screens, to eliminate far more of visual information and cold reading ability. Just out of curiosity. I am curious.

Anita, it's been pointed out repeatedly that knowing you were wrong on test 1 & 3 highly suggests cold reading. In addition, the odds for such statements being correct are not high enough to be interesting.

If you must have another test, why don't you look for a way to test your cold reading abilities? It is important to rule it out, the test would be far easier to setup and (If you can douse those flaming bridges) you may get some interest from the skeptical community.

The man-hours for the kidney test went into the hundreds for the volunteers. Another kidney test would take the same. It's a bit rude to insist on all that work before you thoroughly examine the most obvious explanation.

 

[Furcifer]

Out of curiousity, was the test limited by the number candidates or was it simply a matter of time? It seems like this lunacy could have been avoided to some extent by using a larger sampling. If 10 rounds were used instead of 3 she would have less wiggle room. Not that she probably wouldn't have found some other excuse, it's just that 3 rounds seems low.

 

[Uncayimmy]

If you must have another test, why don't you look for a way to test your cold reading abilities?

Already been done.

* Her powers do not work in the dark.

* They do not work through a screen - she must see the people.

* She did a "study" where she placed third out of four people.

* Every anecdote can be explained by information that could be deduced through ordinary means.

* Her "survey" included information that was factually inaccurate.

* She failed every test with non-human subjects once proper controls were introduced.

What's left? Seriously. What possible test is left that could convince Anita to drop it? She has already explained that she feels "entitled" to her "subjective perceptions" and will not consult a mental health professional for fear of being diagnosed as mentally ill.

Are you suggesting that skeptics would be willing to engage Anita in a test to prove that she really does have good cold reading skills? The only way to "prove" it's cold reading is to remove ordinary sensory input. She already told us that she can't perform without it.

She already believes she can do something special if she can see the people. Any test where she can see people will only confirm what she already believes.

Can you not see the circular logic here?

 

[Moochie]

Out of curiousity, was the test limited by the number candidates or was it simply a matter of time? It seems like this lunacy could have been avoided to some extent by using a larger sampling. If 10 rounds were used instead of 3 she would have less wiggle room. Not that she probably wouldn't have found some other excuse, it's just that 3 rounds seems low.

VfF's track record tells us that she is very attached to the notion of there being "something" to what she experiences. The fact that that "something" is something most humans take for granted hasn't penetrated her thick skull as yet, or so it seems. It's called "guessing," with maybe some cold reading thrown in.

She's angling for a career in woo. What other explanation can there be?


M.

 

[bookitty]

Are you suggesting that skeptics would be willing to engage Anita in a test to prove that she really does have good cold reading skills? The only way to "prove" it's cold reading is to remove ordinary sensory input. She already told us that she can't perform without it.

Yes, I am suggesting that skeptics might be interested in working with Anita to discover the mundane reasons behind her ability. I woke up on the optimistic side of the bed today.

Can you not see the circular logic here?

See it? Is there anything but? Trying to pin VFF to a rational idea is like eating soup with a fork. You occasionally come up with a chewy morsel but mostly it's time consuming and rather unsatisfying.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Out of curiousity, was the test limited by the number candidates or was it simply a matter of time? It seems like this lunacy could have been avoided to some extent by using a larger sampling. If 10 rounds were used instead of 3 she would have less wiggle room. Not that she probably wouldn't have found some other excuse, it's just that 3 rounds seems low.

It was essentially a time issue. Derek at the IIG told us that Anita would not budge on the 4.5 minutes per person.

Don't forget, in each trial Anita determined that not one but *two* people were in fact missing a kidney. Through logic only known to her, she chose only one for the "final answer" in each trial. However, the first thing she did after the test was to point out that the *other* person she thought was missing a kidney in round 1 was in fact the target. Turns out she was mistaken and quickly abandoned that tack.

So, would 10 people have helped? Since she was hedging her bets by having two choices per trial, there would have been a 25% chance that she got one correct either in her official or unofficial guesses.

 

[Calculon]

James Underdown of the IIG just published on his own blog his initial take of the preliminary test:
http://hollywoodrealitycheck.com/?p=1319


I think the title "Human MRI Crashes and Burns" about says it.

 

[Furcifer]

So, would 10 people have helped? Since she was hedging her bets by having two choices per trial, there would have been a 25% chance that she got one correct either in her official or unofficial guesses.

I was just trying to think of a way to reduce the hedging. It's probably worth noting that her "powers" are limited to such an extent that repeatability is almost impossible as well. Pretty convenient.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I was just trying to think of a way to reduce the hedging. It's probably worth noting that her "powers" are limited to such an extent that repeatability is almost impossible as well. Pretty convenient.

Personally, I don't want to stop the hedging. I like it because it reveals the true nature of the claimant. We now know that in 36 locations, Anita determined that 6 were missing a kidney and was correct only once. Statistically, she was better off not revealing her hedges because it looks a lot more "impressive" if she only took three guesses.

You can't stop these people from making excuses. Look at Connie Sonne. She wasn't able to hedge, so she made accusations of cheating. Other claimants make up all sorts of other excuses such as "negative energy" or whatever. Invariably this hurts them more than it helps them.

Of course, every failure will be excused by True Believers. There is nothing, and I mean nothing you can do about them, so don't bother to try. Anita has revealed herself to be a True Believer. It seems, however, that some people still believe that if they say just the right thing, ask her just the right question or suggest just the right test, Anita will finally see the error in her ways.

It won't happen.

 

[Furcifer]

She's angling for a career in woo. What other explanation can there be?
M.

My guess is that she just wants to feel special. She's of a different class than Sylvia Brown. At least Anita isn't stringing people along and charging them. When I say "stringing people along" I mean it in the sense she isn't telling people to get their kidneys removed or telling them to come to her for diagnosis. At least from what I've read over the last few weeks. I'm not familiar with how or when this all started.