Horizon precognition

[becomingagodo]

Well, I was watching a good Horizon programme about decisions, however at the last ten minautes it turn all woo. Basically someone from a place called noetic institute has done a experiment to prove precognition.

Then they tried to link this with skilled fighter pilots. Basically, the programmers suggested that they can see into the future and so are better pilots.

Has anyone seen the program?

[Ivor the Engineer]

Yep. Like you say, quite an entertaining (if light-hearted) programme until the last 10 minutes.

Question: Why hasn't the scientist (I use the word in the loosest possible sense) applied for the million with his experiment which "proves" precognition?

Answer: Because no doubt his experiment has more holes than a sieve.

[biomorph]

Ah, Is this the right noetic inst.?
http://www.noetic.org/ &
http://www.shiftinaction.com
I did nt get to watch the prog, wish I had.

[Ivor the Engineer]

That looks correct. The experiment which was shown on the programme looked similar to this one described in the brochure on the noetic web page (http://www.noetic.org/research/files/folio.pdf):

Presentiment
Dean Radin, PhD
Previous experimental studies have shown that human skin conductance unconsciously reacts to randomly selected calm or emotional pictures seconds before those pictures are selected and displayed. A new series of experiments is examining this “presentiment” phenomenon using conscious report measures in conjunction with measurements of electrical brain activity, heart rate, respiration, eye movements, and peripheral vascular blood flow.

Funding requested, $25K.

[JonWhite]

The self same dude that Randi has a pop at in this weeks Swift.

Linky (http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/166/27/#i6)

Horizon's gone seriously downhill.

[Pixel42]

There's already a thread about this programme in the GS&P forum:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=106489

The thread title could hardly be more misleading :rolleyes:

[St.Michael]

I saw the program too. They never quite explained how the machine he supposedly invented to test the results actually worked.
If what he claims is true then surely any polygraph machine would show similar results? :confused:

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I saw the program too. They never quite explained how the machine he supposedly invented to test the results actually worked.
If what he claims is true then surely any polygraph machine would show similar results? :confused:

And as said in the other thread -- this must mean that thousands and thousands of other scientists who have conduct similar tests for reaction time have never noticed this effect. Absoultely and completely :boggled:

[Wauthan]

This episode recently aired here in Sweden as well. As a result my mother is now under the impression that precognition is a fact. "If it wasn't it wouldn't have been on a science program."

While part of me understands why the producers might feel the need to "spice things up" I can't help but feel disappointed. It's like they take a look on the world and think "Wow! This is amazing! Now let's supersize it to infinity just to be on the safe side."

That said there was one aspect of the episode that seemed odd. In the swedish translation the narrator mentions that some fear scientifically proven precognition. Was this a mistranslation? If not then who are these "some"? The fighter pilots didn't seem very intimitated, so I assume the narrator is talking about someone else.

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

That said there was one aspect of the episode that seemed odd. In the swedish translation the narrator mentions that some fear scientifically proven precognition. Was this a mistranslation? If not then who are these "some"? The fighter pilots didn't seem very intimitated, so I assume the narrator is talking about someone else.

IIRC, the translation is accurate.

[INRM]

Ivor the Engineer,

Are those randomly selected pictures shown by a person (like the person hands the pictures to him/her) or is it just shown on a screen?

Because if it's shown by a person, the person's facial reactions can account for this.

Galvanic skin-response is generally tied into responses to emotion. One reason why it's used in lie-detectors.

If not, it could explain how a person can have an out of body experience when their eyes are closed, and even when they're blind (Allegedly that did happen once). I mean your body does use the position of the limbs to orient itself in space and they have no eyes...


INRM

[Ivor the Engineer]

Ivor the Engineer,

Are those randomly selected pictures shown by a person (like the person hands the pictures to him/her) or is it just shown on a screen?

Because if it's shown by a person, the person's facial reactions can account for this.

Galvanic skin-response is generally tied into responses to emotion. One reason why it's used in lie-detectors.

If not, it could explain how a person can have an out of body experience when their eyes are closed, and even when they're blind (Allegedly that did happen once). I mean your body does use the position of the limbs to orient itself in space and they have no eyes...


INRM

From the TV show it appeared the pictures were shown using a laptop via a large wall mounted screen, or a projector.

The sensation of body position is known as proprioception, BTW. Oliver Sacks recalls the case of a woman who lost this sense in his book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat".

More on Dean Radin and his robust methodology and analyses here (http://www.skepticreport.com/pseudoscience/radin2002.htm).

Here's a paper where he describes the experiment:

http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/18.2_radin.pdf

I haven't read it yet.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Has Radin given up on his "Global Consciousness Project": and his EGGs? You know the one that showed the random number generators presaged the attack on the WTC.

Or has the thorough discreditation of this crap, see:
http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/library/Sep1101.pdf.
mean that his Woo has moved on?