SPR Study Day - The Psychology of the Sceptic

[eirik]

Even though the sole purpose of the article that Limbo just quoted seemed to be atheist-bashing, I think it had a good point - that belief can be considered separate from whether or not someone takes a skeptical approach to claims.

I also don't think that I am a better than average driver. :)

Oh no!! That means your driving SERIOUSLY sucks!! :) BTW- enjoy your posts.

Limbo: you are contradicting yourself. Your whole proposed idea is that there is a distinct psychology for skeptical people. A popular definition of a skeptic, and the only usefull one I've encountered, is one who is skeptic of the paranormal.

(Climateskeptics, holocaust skeptics or 911-truthers has nothing to do with skeptics in general, even though they are in their own way skeptical)

Reminds me of the famous Dawkins saying - we are all, in one way or the other, atheists or agnostics. To this I'll add that we are also all, in one way or the other, skeptics or agnostics.

If one can be a skeptic AND believe in parapsychology/ religion/general woo woo, like you proposed- how do you even begin to define a skeptic, much less postulate that there exists a common psychology?

[Jeff Corey]

The Polarization of Psi Beliefs: Rational, Controlling, Masculine Skepticism versus Interconnected, Spiritual, Feminine Belief (http://jeksite.org/psi/jaspr03.doc)

ABSTRACT: Anecdotal observations suggest that the extreme skeptics of paranormal phenomena tend to be males who place great value on rational thinking and control, and often feel threatened by and hostile toward those with different beliefs and values. These characteristics are consistent with the emerging evidence that males have genetic tendencies for social dominance and rational thinking. Research on the relationship between religion and belief in psi has given mixed results but suggests that belief may be more related to personal spirituality than to institutionalized religion. As a first step in understanding the polarization of psi beliefs, gender and spirituality were examined for extreme skeptics and extreme believers in psi from a Canadian representative national survey. For the extreme skeptics, 72% were male and 62% did not consider spirituality important. For the extreme believers, 64% were females and 86% considered spirituality important. These and other findings suggest that skepticism and belief in psi may be associated with genetic, sex-related personality factors. Research on paranormal beliefs may be hindered by the failure to distinguish belief in psi as a human ability versus as divine intervention.

From the Discussion, "These findings are consistent with the emerging evidence for genetic psychological differences between males and females as described in the introduction. It is likely that many extreme skeptics have strong innate drives for rational thinking, control, and social dominance. The worldviews associated with psi phenomena and spirituality may not conform to their mode of thinking and need for control. "
These people should have learned the mantra,"Correlation does not imply causation." somewhere.

[Limbo]

Limbo: you are contradicting yourself. Your whole proposed idea is that there is a distinct psychology for skeptical people. A popular definition of a skeptic, and the only usefull one I've encountered, is one who is skeptic of the paranormal.


You are naive about human nature.

[eirik]

You are naive about human nature.

Oh, if you put it THAT way.. (ignoring personal attacks)

Well, my question, and many others- what is a skeptic? Can you provide a functional definition for your case?

(anticipating more evasions..)

[cj.23]

I suspect this is what Linda was hinting at - you describe yourself as intensely skeptical, yet you also say that only "most" paranormal claims don't convince you, implying that there are some that do. Given that most people who are actually skeptical agree that there is no good evidence in favour of any paranormal phenomena, that suggests that you are not actually as skeptical as you think you are.

Right, allow me to explain -- and I'm sorry if this has come up further down the thread, I'm responding as I go as I'm working. (Yes I know one should always read the thread first!)

I see scepticism as a process, a methodology, that one applies to claims to establish a degree of confidence in any given claim. So I am not an a priori sceptic; while for example i think it absurdly unlikely that anything will overturn the Michelson Morley experiments, I accept that it is possible in theory. While i don't think the Third Law of Thermodynamics is up for debate, I certainly think we might refine it at some point,or discover oddities about it. In short I think knowledge, even knowledge we are most certain about, is provisional. Given new data it will change.

Now I must admit i can not imagine anything that would make me consider "werewolves live in Soho" true - unless i was perhaps eaten by said beastie. Still the principle holds - the claim there is no such thing as werewolves i based upon my experience, my understanding of morphology and biology, and my logical critique. I just ascribe an incredibly high degree of confidence to the "no werewolves" hypothesis -- far, far higher than I ascribe say to my own religious beliefs.

So I act upon the basis of that which I have a really high degree of confidence in. Bizarrely, and counter intuitively I put more faith in randomized statistical studies and double blind testing than I do in my own observations. Yes I know, I'm nuts. I should reject say Ersby's ganzfeld metanalysis because the results are counter intuitive right, and it can't be that ganzfeld is possibly producing an effect? :)

So to me scepticism is a process: it provides data, evidence, useful in forming an informed opinion. I then will decide how much i trust the studies, and try to fit what I find in to my existing understanding. This recent study that says religious observance is linked to longevity - I accept what it says, because a lot of other studies have said the same thing. I question what it actually means "on the ground" -- I see no evidence of anything "supernatural" at work, and possibly not even psychological. I have confidence in the result, because I think i trust the methodology - though I am too ignorant to be sure, as my stats skill is abysmal despite an honest effort to equip myself - (I can use SPSS, and have books i can refer to check the right measures are employed, but I miss the bleedin' obvious nine times out of ten) but I still need to interpret the results.

So scepticism is not to CJ just saying no: it's simply part of the scientific method.

Secondly, I think the whole concept of the category paranormal is nonsense: any claim can be declared paranormal, and junked therein. I see no connection between say homeopathy and poltergeists - either could stand on its own merits, if the evidence supported it. So when I declare myself a sceptic, I mean that a) I make claims based on my assessment of the evidence, usually hedged with qualifiers, but expect the methodology those claims were reached by to be subject to scrutiny: and expect to revise them as new data comes in and b) that individual claims should be considered on their own merits, as the evidence dictates. Hence my interest in say the Robertson/Roy experiments -- my worldview dictates heavily against "mediumship", but I was fascinated by the trials, and keen to understand how they could be flawed, and to consider the implications. An a priori sceptic would simply note that it was impossible, and leave it at that?


This is by no means unique to you, or to the paranormal for that matter, it seems to be a normal feature of being human. For example, if you ask people how good they are at driving compared to others, the vast majority of people will place themselves well into the better half, which is clearly impossible. When it comes to the paranormal, pretty much everyone describes themselves as a skeptic and claims people who doubt them or believe something else are stupid, unskeptical, government shills or whatever, yet clearly there are a lot of people who aren't skeptical at all.

Yes, but compared with the average Most Haunted viewer I thought I might be rather more sceptical, given that I have spent rather a long time familiarising myself with the parapsychological and sceptical literature!


There are two points to this. Specifically to your post, I would suggest that the reason you score so high is not because there's anything wrong with the test, but that there is something wrong with your perception of yourself. To the thread in general, this really highlights the futility of trying to talk about the behaviour and attitudes of skeptics as a monolithic group without first having an objective measure of skepticism. Self-identification does not work since practically everyone describes themselves as a skeptic, even if they don't use the exact word and may not even realize that is what they are describing.

Um, maybe - Personal Construct Theory. If I had come out as a believer i would not have been surprised - I believe in some things after all. I have long argued the sceptic/believer binary opposition is a steaming pile of dingoes kidneys. I'm deeply suspicious of psychometric tests unless I can see how they repeat over time, as i have no idea what they measure. Clearly they do not measure belief, but ones self perception of belief. Still, this result fascinated me.

cj x

[cj.23]

And just before someone asks why I trust "lies, damn lies and statistics" rather than my own brain and intuitive observations, the answer is natural selection. Presumably the brain evolved for adaptive advantage: that is probably not the same as "understanding objective truth". That suspicion, long held by me, gained weight when I read that paper (the first one) I linked in athon's interesting confirmation bias thread.

I still have to interpret the results: but at least large scale number crunching does not suffer from millions of years of evolution designed to find me a mate, reproduce and not be an *******.so I can get along with my fellow humans, aims far more likely to be higher on the old noggins list of developmental influences than being able to accurately discern the truth about telepathic doggies in the window... .

cj x

[godless dave]

Hmm.. what you did was accuse me of being a liar. Yet neither in that original post or any following ones did you attempt to substantiate the claim.

Because we all know that you already know that evolutionary biologists never supported eugenics. There were posts on that very thread refuting your unsupported assertion, not to mention the ones on all the other threads you've made that assertion on. It's your claim that's never been substantiated.


Also, if you're so 'hostile to dishonesty' why would you have used the dishonest tactic of quoting me while changing my words to make it appear I wrote something of a contrary meaning to that which I intended?

I didn't do that. I used the common internet phrase "fixed it for you" to indicate that I had changed your quote. It was abundantly clear that I was changing it to make a point about what you said, not trying to make it look like you'd said something you hadn't.


It seems like you're gonna try to get out of your current bind by simply labeling whatever challenges your own most dearly held beliefs about reality as examples of dishonesty.

No, I only label blatantly false statements as examples of dishonesty.

[godless dave]

cj, it seems you're violating skeptic rules...





Thou shalt not be convinced by ANY subjective experience or objective evidence.

Thou must conform with the skeptic social norms, AGREE with your fellow skeptics. Never doubt the honesty of a skeptic, or you'll get an infraction. Conform, or else be cast out as a woo-woo...you don't want that do you?

Don't think for yourself, don't seek out "convincing" evidence. You shouldn't have read those boxes of journals. Avoid that stuff. Even though that will mean you aren't aware of ALL the available "evidence" out there, assume it isn't convincing. Take an a priori position. Don't look at the big picture. If there was any "convincing" evidence out there, Randi would have told you about it. Trust in Randi. He is Amazing.

CONFORM.



That's the antitheses of skepticism.

So Limbo, any evidence that I'm a control freak who is hostile to values different than my own? I have already clarified that I'm hostile to people who value dishonesty. I also have little tolerance for people who value conformity, obedience, or "racial" purity. I think I have good historical reasons for taking a dim view of those values. So there are certainly specific values that I'm hostile too.

[blutoski]

Not really. In terms of effort, it's pretty easy. A half-assed effort. A few links, no biggie. Hell, I'm just a nobody. Just one person, an interested layman. Imagine if interest in the psychology of skepticism, in particular organized skepticism, really took off.

Oh, wait. It can't. The skeptics rule psychology don't they? It would be a betrayal. ;)

Limbo, at this point, you're just throwing around personal insults to people on the forum, and I'm not sure why.

I've personally contributed my thoughts about skeptical psychology in this thread, and the reason I have this interest is because I coordinate a skeptical organization. Knowledge about skeptics and their personality type is of interest if for no other reason that managing membership tasks such as mitigating churn rate.

In addition, many of the studies submitted and cited were done by skeptics. eg: Shermer's and Blackmore's research.

Your posts have evolved from neutral to unproductive and now even downright un-called-for.

I also have some concerns about some recent citations you have presented. For example, The Polarization of Psi Beliefs was pretty blatant bigotry, and it's not clear if you were serious when you posted it. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that it was some kind of joke, but it's becoming more difficult to assume good intentions.

[fls]

Not really. In terms of effort, it's pretty easy. A half-assed effort. A few links, no biggie. Hell, I'm just a nobody. Just one person, an interested layman. Imagine if interest in the psychology of skepticism, in particular organized skepticism, really took off.

Oh, wait. It can't. The skeptics rule psychology don't they? It would be a betrayal. ;)

Hey, instead of trying to incite us into rabid behaviour, can you put your psychic powers to some good use and tell me where the hell my turkey baster went to?

Linda

[tyr_13]

cj, it seems you're violating skeptic rules...

Thou shalt not be convinced by ANY subjective experience or objective evidence.

Thou must conform with the skeptic social norms, AGREE with your fellow skeptics. Never doubt the honesty of a skeptic, or you'll get an infraction. Conform, or else be cast out as a woo-woo...you don't want that do you?

Don't think for yourself, don't seek out "convincing" evidence. You shouldn't have read those boxes of journals. Avoid that stuff. Even though that will mean you aren't aware of ALL the available "evidence" out there, assume it isn't convincing. Take an a priori position. Don't look at the big picture. If there was any "convincing" evidence out there, Randi would have told you about it. Trust in Randi. He is Amazing.

CONFORM.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, wait. Do skeptics celebrate Thanksgiving? Better find out before you celebrate. Don't want to violate another skeptic rule, do you?

Oh I see! You're trying to goad someone you can then identify as a skeptic into making some mean, hostile, conformist comment that then confirms your belief about skeptics.

Skeptics disagree all the time. They are not a cohesive group. I'd think these boards would provide ample evidence of this. What you describe is actually the opposite of skepticism, and much the way many paranormal organizations work.

You seem to have a problem with the fact that some evidence is not convincing, and is not good evidence. Yes, some of it must be disregarded. You will note that skeptics give good reason when they disregard something; they don't invent excuses like paranormal proponents often do when evidence contradicts their claims.

Let me put this another way; have you read all the physics articles over the last ten years? The last five? The last year? The last month? How about the medical ones? Chemistry? So why then, when the 'skeptics' in these fields shoot down the paranormal theories, do you feel you can say you actually have all the evidence? I'm not judging you by my standard, but by your own.

[Mercutio]

Just because the people reading this thread might find it interesting, the latest issue of Cortex (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/43685-2008-999559989-701584) explores the "Neuropsychology of Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs".

(no, I have not yet read any of it--I was just sent the link an hour or so ago.)

[cj.23]

Just because the people reading this thread might find it interesting, the latest issue of Cortex (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/43685-2008-999559989-701584) explores the "Neuropsychology of Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs".

(no, I have not yet read any of it--I was just sent the link an hour or so ago.)

Thanks Mercutio -- I recognise a few names of the authors from the parapsychological journals, and interestingly Michael Thalbourne - whose Australian Sheep/Goat scale I have just been whittering about - and Chris French are authors on the last paper. Looks very interesting, I'll go take a proper look!

cj x

[plumjam]

Because we all know that you already know that evolutionary biologists never supported eugenics. Sorry, but this is just plain old historical ignorance on your part. Check these out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Davenport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Ploetz
Those were evolutionary biologists and enthusiastic, highly influential, eugenicists. I could add links to others but my point is made.
Similar eugenics-supporting goons who were not, technically speaking, biologists, but were either professional or amateur scientists, included Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin, who coined the term 'eugenics'), Leonard Darwin (Darwin's son, and President of the British Eugenics Society), Madison Grant (who wrote The Passing of the Great Race, a book which had a great effect on Hitler), Eugen Fischer, Alexander Graham Bell, H.G. Wells..etc..
Eugenics was mainstream science, and appeared in genetics textbooks. There were University Professorships in Eugenics.
But really, it's not my job to educate you in it. Just do some link-hopping.

I didn't do that. I used the common internet phrase "fixed it for you" to indicate that I had changed your quote.
No. You did not.
That's either a lapse in memory, or dishonesty.

[Ersby]

So much for "end of derail". I've already read the subject (eugenics), and again it's a case of how you define the main protagonists in the story according to what you want to "learn" from it. Call people who were against eugenics "skeptics" or not. As you see fit.

I think the main problem with this debate is that an awful lot of people seem to be under the impression that they don't suffer from the same defects they deride in other people.

[Ersby]

Just because the people reading this thread might find it interesting, the latest issue of Cortex (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/43685-2008-999559989-701584) explores the "Neuropsychology of Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs".

(no, I have not yet read any of it--I was just sent the link an hour or so ago.)

Thanks for this.

[cj.23]

Hey, instead of trying to incite us into rabid behaviour, can you put your psychic powers to some good use and tell me where the hell my turkey baster went to?

Linda


I'm not Limbo, but I read this last night. I was suffering from fever and could not sleep - and about 7am I startled awake after very little sleep, needing urgently to log on to tell FLS that a) it was Thanksgiving (ok, I'm slow on the uptake & we don't celebrate it here) and b) the turkey baster was behind the blue ceramic pig!

I git out of bed, wandered downstairs, and then suddenly thought - hang on, what are you doing? I own a blue ceramic pig, fls, probably does not --clearly the psychic message was for me, CJ!

So I went and looked behind the pig for my turkey baster. Then I suddenly realized -- I don't actually own a turkey baster. At this point I realized i was still ill and needed sleep and went back to bed. Incoherency in my recent posts may reflect this bloody fever.

Still, I do think I may count as the leats successful psychic of modern times? Well, maybe not quite Sylvia level yet... :) (BTW--I am not remotely psychic!)

cj x

[godless dave]

Similar eugenics-supporting goons who were not, technically speaking, biologists,

Are completely irrelevant to a discussion on evolution, which is what that thread was.


I used the common internet expression "fixed it for you".
No. You did not.

Yes, I did.

[fls]

I'm not Limbo, but I read this last night. I was suffering from fever and could not sleep - and about 7am I startled awake after very little sleep, needing urgently to log on to tell FLS that a) it was Thanksgiving (ok, I'm slow on the uptake & we don't celebrate it here) and b) the turkey baster was behind the blue ceramic pig!

I git out of bed, wandered downstairs, and then suddenly thought - hang on, what are you doing? I own a blue ceramic pig, fls, probably does not --clearly the psychic message was for me, CJ!

Damn, a blue ceramic pig would look great in my kitchen.

So I went and looked behind the pig for my turkey baster. Then I suddenly realized -- I don't actually own a turkey baster. At this point I realized i was still ill and needed sleep and went back to bed. Incoherency in my recent posts may reflect this bloody fever.

Still, I do think I may count as the leats successful psychic of modern times? Well, maybe not quite Sylvia level yet... :) (BTW--I am not remotely psychic!)

cj x

Since no timely answer was forthcoming, I ended up rummaging through my dye supplies and using a baster I had bought for painting warps (for anyone who knows how dangerous that is, it was still sealed in its package, unused, and had been stored in a plastic bag separate from the box containing the dyes). Crisis averted.

Hope you're feeling better.

Linda

[Limbo]

An update to the OP:

Reply to Skeptics (http://www.paranormalia.com/)



As I may have mentioned (!) I gave a talk on skeptic psychology (see November 2) at the SPR recently. I wouldn't bring it up again, but it produced a couple of responses from skeptics, which I thought I'd reply to here. Here are the posts, followed by my response.

Dave W: Interestingly, it would be easy to write this same piece from a diametrically opposed viewpoint - that the nasty and corrosive responses of some psychic believers to criticism are due to fear that parapsychological effects are not real, confounded with a massive dose of cognitive dissonance. Anecdotes abound, for example, of psi researchers who were taken in by an admitted hoax but dogmatically refused to believe it. If the skeptics were to paint with a brush as broad as you have used, and portray all psi advocates as terrified of facing reality, I'm sure that you would (rightly) object to such a simple-minded generalization. As for the ridicule, it seems to be par for the course. Perhaps you are more polite with your language, but the idea that parapsychologists and their supporters are less insulting to their critics is clearly implied in the above piece, and is also clearly shown to be wrong by the same text. Leiter is obviously intending to be insulting, for just one example. What might be most insulting is your suggestion that cynics, climate-change denialists and creationists are the same sort of "skeptics" as Randi, Shermer, Gardener and the like. Creationists are not "evolution skeptics," they are evolution denialists with nothing but religious ideology to support their position. Such a comparison is at least as personal, divisive and rude as calling Randi a nitwit. But in only avoiding schoolyard-style name-calling (while still being a clear insult), it certainly is not a claiming of the moral high ground. So, obviously this post is at best a double-edged sword. A much more interesting thesis might have been about why the voices (on both sides) are often seen as being nothing more than reactionary cynics, resorting to insult over substance. Undoubtedly, some are, but why? If it's better to communicate without taunts, why doesn't everyone do so? You couldn't, so what drove you to step over the boundary of rational, insult-free discourse?

Greg T: "I'm going to wrap this up by suggesting that parapsychology could usefully devote a bit more time and resources to understanding how sceptics think, and making it part of its case." I wholeheartedly concur. Please do make a concerted effort to understand how skeptics think. You might discover that, when you do, you will be disabused of much of your confusion... but not necessarily in the way you may intend. For example, it might help if you could present a clear idea of what a skeptic is, rather than just hodgepodging groupings of various naysayers (hand-selected of course, to be depicted as universally mistaken) together and equating them all as one demonized group of opponents. From your discussion above, I cannot extricate what it is you mean by the word "skeptic," except that you seem to conclude that being one is a bad thing. Especially if one disagrees with you. It seems you have a rather wordy, and frankly abusive, way of trying to posit some kind of conspiracy of mental and/or emotional illness on the part of people who disagree with you. A singularly uninventive way of vilifying and deriding the person, rather than dealing with the failings of your subject matter. What you seem to be calling for is for this method to be adopted as a means of battling critics on a rhetorical level. How precisely does one make "understanding how skeptics think....part of [your]cause[?]" Again, I wholeheartedly endorse understanding how skeptics think. It likely will have quite a different effect than you are anticipating though... Just this style of rhetoric is precisely why we need an objective means for evaluation of claims. Hence methods of verification. Words are words. Evidence is evidence. What you have presented are a host of insulting, derogatory words attacking something you don't even have a clear idea of yourself. As such, your words are pretty much devoid of content.

This piece was a talk for members of the Society for Psychical Research. Hence it's one-sided tone. I don't mean that I don't stand by everything I said, but if I'd been talking to a mixed or uncommitted audience I'd have chosen a different subject, or presented some of these points in a different way. This particular audience understands the subject well and would have readily empathised with my points.

It's not clear from the written text, but I did acknowledge - since Professor Chris French was present and brought it up - that I was specifically talking about militant skeptics like James Randi, and the more extreme behaviours of psychologists like Richard Wiseman and Susan Blackmore. I certainly didn't mean to imply that everyone who disbelieves in the genuiness of psychical phenomena is an idiot.

I'm also fully aware that committed believers have their own mental blocks. But 'nasty and corrosive' - that's not something I generally recognise among paranormalists, and certainly not serious parapsychologists, except in a reaction of anger and frustration at assaults by people like James Randi, to whom that description really does apply in spades - and for that reason is at least understandable.

'Angry and excitable' might be a fair description of some (Victor Zammit). But those of us who are serious about this know that's not the way to communicate. All of us are affected by temperamental biases. The only difference is that some of us strive to recognise them and take them into account; others simply let themselves be controlled by them.

'Anecdotes abound ... of psi researchers who were taken in by an admitted hoax but dogmatically refused to believe it.' Yes, the Conan Doyle syndrome. You're right that some paranormal believers insist that a magician must be psychic because they can't figure out the trick. It's embarrassing and doesn't help our argument. But no serious psi researcher can afford to behave this way - the possibility of hoaxing has to be a constant preoccupation. If it isn't - as in the case of Randi's Project Alpha, for instance - the result is instant loss of credibility among their peers, let alone skeptics.

'... the idea that parapsychologists and their supporters are less insulting to their critics is clearly implied'. Yes I did imply that, and I can't think of any reason not to. Parapsychologists complain bitterly about dogmatic disbelievers, ideologues and so on. But they don't indulge in the casual playground jeering that Randi employs, as I understand it, as a deliberate technique to publicly shame the fools and fraudsters that he assumes us all to be. They don't have that luxury; they have to use arguments and persuasion. If you can come up with examples I'd be interested to hear them, but I'd argue it's not typical.

My perception is that skeptics are free with insults and abuse in a way that I don't find anywhere else - although I suspect it may be quite common in scientific controversies. I don't recall reading anywhere in psychical literature that skeptics are nincompoops, or not rowing with both oars in the water, or might have thinking defects or disturbed relations with reality - as Randi described parapsychologists in Flim-Flam!. It may exist on the margins but that sort of polemic just isn't characteristic of mainstream parapsychological discourse, as it so richly is of some of their militant opponents.

'Leiter is obviously intending to be insulting ...' Don't agree. He was recording his ideas and observations about the way skeptics behave, which you're free to disagree with - he wasn't laughing and pointing.

'What might be most insulting is your suggestion that cynics, climate-change denialists and creationists are the same sort of "skeptics" as Randi, Shermer, Gardener and the like.'... Creationists are not "evolution skeptics," they are evolution denialists with nothing but religious ideology to support their position.'

That was a bit provoking, I agree. Creationists and skeptics of the paranormal are at opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum. But it's legitimate to argue that militant skeptics are not really 'skeptics' in the literal sense, but denalists arguing from a profound and unshakeable belief in the mechanistic worldview. That may seriously get you going, but as long as militant skeptics like Randi and Gardner behave the way they do it's a reasonable conclusion to come to.

I don't know how much you know about psychical investigations, but this is the nub of my argument. It's one thing to disbelieve in the paranormal in a general way - from the beliefs of family, colleagues, peers; from a scientific education; from atheistic convictions and so on - but it's something else when, in order to protect this commitment, one has to perform all sorts of questionable intellectual manoevres, such as:

*refusing to engage with parapsychological investigations on any level as being of no interest, undoubtedly fraudulent, obviously nonsense, etc.

*engaging with them, but explaining them away with all kinds of implausible scenarios which in any other context no one would entertain for a moment

*carrying out experiments with psychics on television with a very precisely determined pre-agreed protocol, getting highly signficant results, and then refusing to accept the results as valid

*carrying out experiments in order to prove that, when properly conducted, the effect will not appear, getting an effect, and then explaining it away on the grounds of 'experimental flaws'

'If it's better to communicate without taunts, why doesn't everyone do so? You couldn't, so what drove you to step over the boundary of rational, insult-free discourse?' The creationist thing wasn't intended as a taunt - I can't think of anything else that could be remotely construed that way. My discussion was a serious attempt to get at what movitates extreme skeptics, and it's valid to point out that the fear of psi is a real phenomenon with identifiable effects.

If you found all this so insulting, could it be that you're just not used to skeptics being discussed in this way? Surely it's tame stuff compared with what gets said about psi researchers - in print, on your websites and at meetings in skeptics organisations - and it has the virtue of being reasoned argument supported by examples and evidence. Which you're welcome to disagree with, but preferably on questions of substance, rather than because it upsets you. You may not think this applies to you, but I've noticed that debunkers like Randi are often surprisingly thin-skinned when it's them being criticised.

In the end, it shouldn't be about hurt feelings but about the evidence. I spent several years getting to grips with psychical literature, and the investigations and arguments eventually convinced me that psychism is a genuine phenomenon. I'd like to be able to discuss my reasons with skeptics, but it's difficult when they're so certain it's all nonsense, refuse to listen, and use all kinds of colourful language to make that point. That's what motivates me to understand how they think.

[Ersby]

Uffa, there's already twenty responses on the Paranormalia. I like the way over there Mark has said the reasons for psi-supporters to insult skeptics are different to the way skeptics insult psi-supporters, so the two can't be compared.

It's one thing to disbelieve in the paranormal in a general way - from the beliefs of family, colleagues, peers; from a scientific education; from atheistic convictions and so on - but it's something else when, in order to protect this commitment, one has to perform all sorts of questionable intellectual manoevres, such as:

*refusing to engage with parapsychological investigations on any level as being of no interest, undoubtedly fraudulent, obviously nonsense, etc.

Well, there's nothing wrong with not engaging in research because you have no interest in the matter.

*engaging with them, but explaining them away with all kinds of implausible scenarios which in any other context no one would entertain for a moment

Can anyone guess what this is referring to?

*carrying out experiments with psychics on television with a very precisely determined pre-agreed protocol, getting highly signficant results, and then refusing to accept the results as valid

Again, any ideas?

*carrying out experiments in order to prove that, when properly conducted, the effect will not appear, getting an effect, and then explaining it away on the grounds of 'experimental flaws'

I'm going to guess this is a reference to Blackmore's psi research when she was a student. Or rather, Berger's summary of Blackmore's research. Or, more likely, Carter's summary of Berger's summary of Blackmore's research.

[eirik]

In the end, it shouldn't be about hurt feelings but about the evidence

Yeah. And you can't produce any for your claim. That's sort of the point.

Sidenote: I've experienced that many believers take a question of evidence very personal. I'm guessing that the question of evidence is often in the believers world what constitutes a personal attack, an attack on ones reliability. This is a misunderstanding so gross that it often makes further communication impossible.

The freedom to postulate facts is, with some of these people, a strong held belief and virtue. Anyone can and should construct their own 'facts'. Trying to present them with the premise of the existence of facts on one side, and nonfacts on the other, is by this logic and relativistic world view a terrible insult. (the "it's true for ME"-argument) As mentioned, this is just my personal experience.


*carrying out experiments with psychics on television with a very precisely determined pre-agreed protocol, getting highly signficant results, and then refusing to accept the results as valid

*carrying out experiments in order to prove that, when properly conducted, the effect will not appear, getting an effect, and then explaining it away on the grounds of 'experimental flaws'

This is interesting. Why don't you produce some non controversial evidense for these non controversial facts you've presented? Or any evidence, if you by a mistake misrepresented the situation. Interesting, either way.

Respectfully Eirik

[Pixel42]

'... the idea that parapsychologists and their supporters are less insulting to their critics is clearly implied'. Yes I did imply that, and I can't think of any reason not to
You'll find plenty of reasons in the Abandon All Hope sub-forum. Try this thread for instance:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=119487

in which I was called a liar, a criminal and insane, and told I should be locked up in prison or an asylum, simply for politely suggesting that a single anecdote was not conclusive proof that homeopathy works.

[blutoski]

You'll find plenty of reasons in the Abandon All Hope sub-forum. Try this thread for instance:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=119487

in which I was called a liar, a criminal and insane, and told I should be locked up in prison or an asylum, simply for politely suggesting that a single anecdote was not conclusive proof that homeopathy works.

I suspect Limbo will not be satisfied with this type of example, since homeopathy is not defended by paranormal researchers - the latter tend to focus on psi phenomena.

I'll post my thoughts about the author's reply in a seperate post.

[cj.23]

Ersby, I wondered about what the reference was to as well. The TV one that is -- only one idea. Back in the mid-80's James Randi did a show called I believe James Randi Psychic Investigator - good stuff - and one chap actually succeeded in a test - a pendulum dowser. Randi pointed out that unfortunately owing to a mistake during a rehearsal the correct solution was flashed on a screen I think -- so normal channels can not be ruuled out. I seem to remember though he was pretty gracious about admitting the psychic had suceeded, but just said there could be a perfectly normal explanation. I can;t remeber any details, and these could be wrong as i'm writing from memory from the book of the series published by I think Boxhall in about 1986, which I have not read for well over a decade. Maybe someone else can?

cj x

[blutoski]

I've read the author's clarifications, and it does help interpret his intentions. He's made clear that the description 'skeptics' really is too vague, and that he was talking specifically about the skeptics he listed in the essay, rather than skeptics in general. He has invented a new term 'militant skeptic' for the purpose of understanding his point.

So: three things...

1. "Organized skepticism" has long recognized that there is an element that is counterproductive - as in "could you go help somebody else for awhile" - this is the subsection that I am pretty certain is OCPD. Pseudoskeptics, is the term we use. Based o my experience with how often this comes up at strategy meetings at every level of skepticism, I don't think he makes a good case that skeptics are not introspective.

2. I don't think the author has made a good case linking the behavior with the cognition he attributes, and I don't think he has made a case that it has anything to do with a skeptical point of view. He has not made any attempt to demonstrate that this type of behavior is unique to skepticism except to say that he thinks this is the case. I accept that he believes this. He has not explained why to my satisfaction, so I remain unconvinced.

Ironically, in the discussion that followed the author's blog entry, a psi advocate dedicated himself to hurling abuse at skeptics, supporting the case that absurd militancy is just part of the spectrum of human behavior, rather than specifically skeptical behavior.

3. The author also doesn't make a good case that the specific people he singled out (Grammatical question: can we 'single out' more than one person?) were actually experiencing the conflicting cognitions he listed: denial, cognitive dissonance, &c. It's still has the feel of a polemic dressed up a armchair psychoanalysis. Neither of these things contributes to progress in psi research, and certainly only contributes negatively to the prospects for future collaborative efforts.

[Ersby]

Ersby, I wondered about what the reference was to as well. The TV one that is -- only one idea. Back in the mid-80's James Randi did a show called I believe James Randi Psychic Investigator - good stuff - and one chap actually succeeded in a test - a pendulum dowser.

cj x

I remember that show - I think it's on Google video somewhere. But going by the blogger's description of "highly significant", I didn't think he could be referring to that. Especially since it was one success in a six-programme-series of failures for psychics.

Oddly, that programme was part of my conversion to a more skeptical view of the paranormal. Not the show itself, rather the reaction of it from a psychic friend of mine. It was the week after that episode with the dowser had gone out, and we were talking about it and she triumphantly asked me if I saw how angry James Randi was when the dowser succeeded. I was surprised because I remember him being quite gracious.

The fact that we saw two different things, even though we were looking at the same show started me thinking about perception blah de blah.

Then a few weeks later, she started going on about how she was impressed by The Bible Code, and that really pushed me towards skepticism.

[cj.23]

Oddly, that programme was part of my conversion to a more skeptical view of the paranormal. Not the show itself, rather the reaction of it from a psychic friend of mine. It was the week after that episode with the dowser had gone out, and we were talking about it and she triumphantly asked me if I saw how angry James Randi was when the dowser succeeded. I was surprised because I remember him being quite gracious.

That is my memory of the incident as well - Randi very gracious, offering a caveat, but admitting "defeat" and calling for further tests. :) I have thought it through and i think the show must have been around 1991?

Here we go --
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1944583

The quote cited in that thread would make a mighty fine sig. if i was not so keen to declare my religious baggage --
"But James, you're trying to explain it using logic. But what I do is completely illogical."

BTW Ersby, Kadath in the Cold Waste in the accursed plateau of Leng is better known generally as Cheltenham, not that far from you. Fancy a coffee one day? I suspect we might have quite a bit to talk about! Fully understand if you don't like meeting folks off forums of course. :)

cj x

[Ersby]

Cheltenham is near Bristol, yes. Meeting up for a drink sounds like a plan. Are you ever in Bristol? PM me.

[Limbo]

http://www.sheldrake.org/B&R/audiostream/SPR_HowSkepticsWork.mp3

[Ersby]

Heard it.

Funny thing about Sheldrake's experiments with Jay-Tee. He published two papers on the subject which are measuring two different things. In the first the hypothesis is that Jay-Tee goes to the window more when the owner begins her journey home. In the second, the hypothesis is that Jay-Tee goes to the window immediately before the owner arrives back.

Just thought I'd mention it.

[Beth]

I appreciate that you're trying hard, here, but this isn't about generalizations. This is about specifically using anonymous online forums to armchair psychoanalyze a real population. It's an epic fail.

I must disagree. I think it's about as successful as armchair psychoanalysis can ever be. :D

I do not think it's a better sample than four famous skeptics. It's "just as useless." My apologies for misinterpretting you. I though we were in agreement on that point. I guess we're not. I think the much larger sample available from an on-line forum is far better suited to armchair psychoanalysis than basing it on a sample of four famous individuals. To be sure, it's not a representative sample, but I don't think it's completely useless either.

Not in any way that has meaning. The opening post was presenting a theory that skeptics are different than believers (which is 90% of the population) because of the specified mental problems.

It was the central thesis for the post: skeptics are different than believers because skeptical thinking is defective. You know, I went back and read through the OP before responding to this because that wasn't my impression of the article at all. And I still don't read it to indicate the author feels that skeptics are different because of 'mental problems' or that 'skeptical thinking is defective'. He does quote a few people who seem to feel that way, but he also quotes a few (including Randi) who are far harsher in their judgement of those who believe in psi. I read it as the author being of the opinion that skeptics and their ways of thinking are ought be as interesting to psychologists as believers and their ways of thinking and it would be helpful to parapsychologists to understand those ways of thinking in order to present their arguments and their work in the best possible light to those folks. That doesn't seem any different to me that skeptics giving some thought to how believers think in order to do the same thing. I have noticed that such efforts are a common topic of conversation on this forum. That approach does not necessary imply that the skeptic thinks the believer has mental problems and/or defective thinking (yes I know, some skeptics do think that, but not all).

Could you indicate where you think the author has indicated that he feels skeptics
have mental problems or skeptical thinking is defective? Perhaps I read it too quickly. I must admit I just scanned some parts.

Are you sure the OP didn't make you feel defensive or angry at, rather than pity for, the author?


I read polemics against nonbelievers all the time, and I mentally file this one in the same place as Coulter or Browne's screeds.

Do you just feel sorry for them too? Or do they ever make you angry?

[blutoski]

I must disagree. I think it's about as successful as armchair psychoanalysis can ever be. :D

? If you're saying that you agree that psychoanalysis outside of a professional interview is useless, then we agree.




My apologies for misinterpretting you. I though we were in agreement on that point. I guess we're not. I think the much larger sample available from an on-line forum is far better suited to armchair psychoanalysis than basing it on a sample of four famous individuals. To be sure, it's not a representative sample, but I don't think it's completely useless either.

I question this entirely, obvioulsy. Maybe it's my experience working with both online usability analysis and marketing, and also psychological research itself. If anybody seriously advanced the proposal that we should learn about a general population by sampling online conversations I suspect they would be marginalized. The obvious exception is the analysis of online communities themselves. ie: you can probably collect data about active posters by reading their posts.

The problem is the weak representation/correlation between [real community]<=>[online community]<=>[active posters]. Each is a segment of the former, but it is pretty reasonable to assume that they are not representative samples.

1. did you attempt to validate that the postings were representative of the communities how did you determine that it was not, say, representative of only those who posted (ie: since lurkers are 90% of all online communities, how did you determine that the posters are representative of the lurkers - doesn't it actually stand to reason that there would be a fundamental personality distinction between posters and lurkers?)

2. did you attempt to validate that the citations obtained were from forums which are representative of the online communities? ie: what was your selection criteria for the forums themselves? Were other smaller forums omitted, even though they may represent a larger body of users?

3. (the most important one) did you attempt to validate that the online communities are representative of the skeptical population in general?

When I'm doing a literature review, I document how I created my list of candidate papers. I describe in detail what keywords I entered in google or pubmed, so that others can identify a weakness in my attempt to locate the relevant publications. It's very important to ensure that I have a representative sample.




You know, I went back and read through the OP before responding to this because that wasn't my impression of the article at all. And I still don't read it to indicate the author feels that skeptics are different because of 'mental problems' or that 'skeptical thinking is defective'. He does quote a few people who seem to feel that way, but he also quotes a few (including Randi) who are far harsher in their judgement of those who believe in psi. I read it as the author being of the opinion that skeptics and their ways of thinking are ought be as interesting to psychologists as believers and their ways of thinking and it would be helpful to parapsychologists to understand those ways of thinking in order to present their arguments and their work in the best possible light to those folks. That doesn't seem any different to me that skeptics giving some thought to how believers think in order to do the same thing. I have noticed that such efforts are a common topic of conversation on this forum. That approach does not necessary imply that the skeptic thinks the believer has mental problems and/or defective thinking (yes I know, some skeptics do think that, but not all).

Could you indicate where you think the author has indicated that he feels skeptics
have mental problems or skeptical thinking is defective? Perhaps I read it too quickly. I must admit I just scanned some parts.

There's no 'part' that shows this - it's the whole point of the article. He identifies denial and cognitive dissonance early in the essay.






Are you sure the OP didn't make you feel defensive or angry at, rather than pity for, the author?

You asked a similar question to another forum poster in this thread earlier. This is a pretty ironic demonstration of cognitive dissonance or denial. You simply can't accept the facts presented, so the only conclusion is that we're lying.

My counter-hypothesis mentioned earlier was that cognitive dissonance and denial is a human attribute, but not special to skeptics, or even especially evident in the high-profile skeptics identified in the essay. From what I can see, the more this discussion progresses - both here and at the author's blog website - the more the thesis that there is nothing special about skeptical psychology is supported.




Do you just feel sorry for them too? Or do they ever make you angry?

Mostly I feel sorry for polemecists, yes. I went to school with Rachel Marsden. I can only feel sorry for somebody who lives in such a cynical and distorted imaginary world. It has ruined her life: nobody trusts her; nobody likes her. I doubt even her family likes her very much at this point. (note: Rachel Marsden does have mental problems, as diagnosed and reported in her trial)

In any case, these feelings aren't mutually exclusive. I mostly feel sorry for people like this, but sometimes if they do something threatening (Marsden was arrested for stalking, uttering threats, and blackmail) I could get angry, sure. But this particular essay doesn't make me angry, no.

Also: see above re: denial.

[Beth]

? If you're saying that you agree that psychoanalysis outside of a professional interview is useless, then we agree. Depends what you mean by 'psychoanalysis' and 'success'. I suspect that for the definitions you are using, I would agree. I'm not so sure I would agree with your definitions though. I think that simply understanding yourself and others better is 'success' and I think armchair pyschoanalysis can be helpful in that regard.

I question this entirely, obvioulsy. Maybe it's my experience working with both online usability analysis and marketing, and also psychological research itself. If anybody seriously advanced the proposal that we should learn about a general population by sampling online conversations I suspect they would be marginalized. This is why I think we are using different definitions. I'm haven't been talking about it from a professional POV.


There's no 'part' that shows this - it's the whole point of the article. He identifies denial and cognitive dissonance early in the essay. Are denial and cognitive dissonance are considered 'mental problems' and 'defective thinking' in and of themselves? I don't think of them that way, but as simply part of being human. What I took to be the subject was the 'unique to skeptics' subject matter of what is being denied or ignored to avoid cognitive dissonance and the lengths that individuals might go to in order to do so.

You asked a similar question to another forum poster in this thread earlier. This is a pretty ironic demonstration of cognitive dissonance or denial. You simply can't accept the facts presented, so the only conclusion is that we're lying. My bad. I thought it was you I had asked earlier and your response seemed at odds with what I thought had been your answer to that question. At any rate, I prefer to think the best of other people until evidence exists otherwise and rarely "conclude" that someone is lying. I certainly had not in this case. Sometimes, I suspect that people may have made a mistake. In this case, it was me that made the error.

Incidently, you seem rather quick to jump on the armchair psychoanalysis bandwagon yourself, jumping to the conclusion that I can't accept 'facts' as presented and therefore must be in either denial or suffer from cognitive dissonance on the matter.

My counter-hypothesis mentioned earlier was that cognitive dissonance and denial is a human attribute, but not special to skeptics, or even especially evident in the high-profile skeptics identified in the essay. From what I can see, the more this discussion progresses - both here and at the author's blog website - the more the thesis that there is nothing special about skeptical psychology is supported. I agree, but I don't understand why you feel that this is an attempt to present skeptics as having 'mental problems' or 'defective thinking' rather than, as the author claims, an attempt to understand skeptics better?

Mostly I feel sorry for polemecists, yes. I went to school with Rachel Marsden. I can only feel sorry for somebody who lives in such a cynical and distorted imaginary world. It has ruined her life: nobody trusts her; nobody likes her. I doubt even her family likes her very much at this point. (note: Rachel Marsden does have mental problems, as diagnosed and reported in her trial)

In any case, these feelings aren't mutually exclusive. I mostly feel sorry for people like this, but sometimes if they do something threatening (Marsden was arrested for stalking, uttering threats, and blackmail) I could get angry, sure. But this particular essay doesn't make me angry, no.

Also: see above re: denial.

No disagreement here either. Nice talking with you.

[blutoski]

Depends what you mean by 'psychoanalysis' and 'success'. I suspect that for the definitions you are using, I would agree. I'm not so sure I would agree with your definitions though. I think that simply understanding yourself and others better is 'success' and I think armchair pyschoanalysis can be helpful in that regard.

The problem is the reliability from using online examples. The examples are too skimpy, and text is too limited a limited sensory medium, and there's inadequate interactive potential.

I'm specifically talking about attempts to interpret unconscious motivations.

Just as a bit of background: while my major was immunology, I did complete a degree in psychology. I find that this was a good platform for somebody interested in skepticism, since so much of skepticism is understanding these behaviors.

But I have to suck it up and accept not only my personal limitations regarding diagnosis, but especially the systematic limitations imposed by internet interactions, or even the time-and-space limited interactions during face-to-face skeptical events.




This is why I think we are using different definitions. I'm haven't been talking about it from a professional POV.

It's not even about a professional pov... it's about a competent pov. An amateur is often very capable of coming to correct conclusions if he uses an appropriate methodology (a qualified statement, dependent on what subject we're discussing). However, in regards to my description of how a professional would be treated: an amateur does not have to answer to peers, so would be exempt from ridicule. He'd still be wrong[i] because the sample is not representative. I was simply emphasizing that surveying online forums to develop a model of real-world communities is regarded as inadequate by people who are experts on whether or not this has worked in the past, because they have tried it and found it leads to false conclusions.




Are denial and cognitive dissonance are considered 'mental problems' and 'defective thinking' in and of themselves? I don't think of them that way, but as simply part of being human. What I took to be the subject was the 'unique to skeptics' subject matter of what is being denied or ignored to avoid cognitive dissonance and the lengths that individuals might go to in order to do so.

Denial is a spectrum. If a person is in severe enough denial, it could be considered pathological. It can be an indicator of a psychotic episode, for example.

Cognitive dissonance is also spectral, but it's rare that it ever gets so serious as to be described as pathological. It's more a psychology thing than a psychiatry thing.

My point is more that the author of the essay is treating these as unusual and problematic, rather than normal human behavior, which leads me to believe that he is discussing the pathological end of the spectrum. The author also has clarified on his blog discussion that the focus of the essay was trying to explain why certain skeptics were responding irrationally, emotionally, in a 'militant' manner... 'in denial' about things that were [i]not debatable, but were obviously true (eg: the meaningfulness of results of particular experiments). Denial is not about a dispute over uncertain facts: it is about rejection of what is widely accepted as true, resulting in personal consequences.

With the latter in mind, it's important to note that the author is not using the term 'denial' in its actual psychological sense, but in a more colloquial use, which I interpret as perjorative.




My bad. I thought it was you I had asked earlier and your response seemed at odds with what I thought had been your answer to that question. At any rate, I prefer to think the best of other people until evidence exists otherwise and rarely "conclude" that someone is lying. I certainly had not in this case. Sometimes, I suspect that people may have made a mistake. In this case, it was me that made the error.

Ah, but notice that you are only seeking clarification when the facts disagree with your thesis? Why just these passages? Why not ask if the author really believes what he wrote, for example? Perhaps he is in denial about his inner skeptic?





Incidently, you seem rather quick to jump on the armchair psychoanalysis bandwagon yourself, jumping to the conclusion that I can't accept 'facts' as presented and therefore must be in either denial or suffer from cognitive dissonance on the matter.

It was an attempt to illustrate my point: reading somebody's posts is a woefully inadequate way to identify these cognitive issues. If you are not suffering from them, then perhaps the other posters are not either.





[QUOTE=Beth;4243902]I agree, but I don't understand why you feel that this is an attempt to present skeptics as having 'mental problems' or 'defective thinking' rather than, as the author claims, an attempt to understand skeptics better?

The author can claim anything he wants, but I interpret it as a mundane polemic, not an attempt to 'understand skeptics better.'

[Beth]

The problem is the reliability from using online examples. The examples are too skimpy, and text is too limited a limited sensory medium, and there's inadequate interactive potential.

I'm specifically talking about attempts to interpret unconscious motivations. Ah. I see our disconnect. I'm not.

He'd still be [i]wrong[i] because the sample is not representative. I was simply emphasizing that surveying online forums to develop a model of real-world communities is regarded as inadequate by people who are experts on whether or not this has worked in the past, because they have tried it and found it leads to false conclusions. I don't disagree with any of what your saying, except about the part that it's useless and leads to wrong conclusions. A non-representative sample is better than no sample at all and, if you keep in mind the limitations, may not lead to incorrect conclusions. Back in the 60's and 70's, homosexuals were judged by the flamboyant ones that people could recognize. Those obviously gay guys gave an indication of the directions in which gay men differed from heterosexual males. Similarly, skeptics are not necessarily obvious in day to day life. On-line forums are likely to be as skewed a sample as flamboyant gays, but OTOH, they are also likely to indicate what directions the less extreme individuals lean towards.

Denial is a spectrum. If a person is in severe enough denial, it could be considered pathological. It can be an indicator of a psychotic episode, for example.

Cognitive dissonance is also spectral, but it's rare that it ever gets so serious as to be described as pathological. It's more a psychology thing than a psychiatry thing.
Okay. That's what I thought.
My point is more that the author of the essay is treating these as unusual and problematic, rather than normal human behavior, which leads me to believe that he is discussing the pathological end of the spectrum. What did he say that caused you to believe that?

With the latter in mind, it's important to note that the author is not using the term 'denial' in its actual psychological sense, but in a more colloquial use, which I interpret as perjorative. Interesting. I don't interpret it that way.

Ah, but notice that you are only seeking clarification when the facts disagree with your thesis? Why just these passages? Ah, but notice that you have commented extensively on the authors claims of denial. Why just those passages and not on the remarks about the hostility commonly displayed by skeptics towards parapyschologists?

Why not ask if the author really believes what he wrote, for example? Perhaps he is in denial about his inner skeptic? He isn't posting here. Otherwise, I probably would. :D
It was an attempt to illustrate my point: reading somebody's posts is a woefully inadequate way to identify these cognitive issues. If you are not suffering from them, then perhaps the other posters are not either. I think I have not made myself clear in earlier posts. I haven't been talking about the internal motivations of others. I've been thinking instead of the hostility directed at those who believe differently and the quickness with which they accept explanations to discount experimental results that don't match their expectations. Those are behaviors, not speculations about motivations. I agree that the speculations on motivations are unsupported. But the observations about hostility seem quite accurate and consistent with my own observations and those of others. I must admit, I'm curious about why so many skeptics seem so hostile regarding those who don't share their beliefs. Do you have any opinions on why there is so much hostility towards others expressed by skeptics?

The author can claim anything he wants, but I interpret it as a mundane polemic, not an attempt to 'understand skeptics better.' I find this behavior to be at odds with the claim that you don't feel 'angry' in response to the essay. You assume a very derrogatory interpretation of his essay towards skeptics and ignore his stated motivation. I associate such interpretations of others words with feelings of anger and defensiveness. That's why I keep asking about it. Care to expound any further on your feelings about it?

[fls]

To what extent does anyone think that science/scientists is/are informed by skeptics?

Outside of skeptics themselves, I think that the scientists within any particular field are largely unaware of what Randi or Gardner has to say about their area of study. Instead, skeptics are informed by science. They take their cue as to what is worthy of ridicule from what is considered unworthy of interest by scientists in related fields. Doubt for a particular idea seems to come from within (from the scientists) rather than from without (skeptics).

For example, in this article by Wackermann about correlations between the brain states of two people who are in separate rooms, there is no reference to skeptics as a source for the author's doubt. Instead, he outlines a case for doubt based on a consideration of what sort of reliable conclusions can be drawn from the available information.

http://www.mindmatter.de/mmpdf/wackermann.pdf

This example also illustrates the problem with addressing criticisms against the field of parapsychology by addressing the output of vocal skeptics. It completely misses the relevant target. Dean Radin uses the references in the above paper as evidence of a "breakthrough of stunning proportions" in the field of parapsychology and mind/matter interactions. Throughout his book, Entangled Minds, he refers to the research in various areas as so strong, it's like ignoring "aliens landing on the White House lawn". He then rails endlessly against the lack of acceptance by scientists in related fields by focusing on criticizing vocal skeptics. Yet, his books and his articles on his blog fail to accomplish his purported primary goal - acceptance by scientists in related fields. If this work represents a stunning breakthrough, Wackermann should be easily persuaded. And yet, upon reviewing the same research as Radin, he finds that it doesn't indicate that a paranormal explanation is necessary in order to explain the results.

They've got the wrong end of the stick.

Linda

[Limbo]

To what extent does anyone think that science/scientists is/are informed by skeptics?


To some extent. Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, and before people are scientists they are just ordinary people immersed in a culture.


http://www.tricksterbook.com/Images/Fig1try2.gif



To what extent does anyone think that science/scientists is/are informed by parapsychological journals?

[fls]

To some extent. Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, and before people are scientists they are just ordinary people immersed in a culture.

I'm just not sure that the exposure of people like Randi and Gardner is that broad. I only recently discovered them myself (like within the last 5 years), yet I've been a scientist for over 20 years. Most of my colleagues have no idea who I'm talking about if I bring them up.

(Caveat: I've been familiar with Gardner since my teenage years, but only as a mathematician.)

To what extent does anyone think that science/scientists is/are informed by parapsychological journals?

They seem to be, since they quote the relevant research from parapsychological journals (see my example above). Subscriptions will not tell you the story, since by and large the practice of academics is to depend upon their institution's library and to perform indexed searches, rather than depending upon subscriptions to a few journals that they then read cover to cover.

Linda

[blutoski]

I don't disagree with any of what your saying, except about the part that it's useless and leads to wrong conclusions.

It's not just my opinion, though. My current employment involves internet based marketing, and it is simply a fact that online participation is not a good model for real-world activity. See Jacob Nielsen's work over the last 15 years for the hard data behind this.

The only thing worse than no information is incorrect information.




Okay. That's what I thought. What did he say that caused you to believe that?

I'm talking about his clarifications in his blog. He said that he was not talking about skeptics in general, but about a handful of skeptics he refers to as 'militant'. In my opinion, this is a backtrack, rather than a true clarification, because his essay was not titled 'the psychology of select militant skeptics.'





Ah, but notice that you have commented extensively on the authors claims of denial. Why just those passages and not on the remarks about the hostility commonly displayed by skeptics towards parapyschologists?

If you don't understand that, then you may have missed the point. I point out that I do not interpret his difference of opinion as denial because it doesn't fit the definition any more than James Randi's behavior does. I am applying the same standard to everybody equally, and don't find much denial in these examples at all. The author, on the other hand, should be interpreting his own words as denial, but isn't - which means he has not standardized his definition of denial, and seems to be saying that denial is defined as rejection of his worldview.






I think I have not made myself clear in earlier posts. I haven't been talking about the internal motivations of others. I've been thinking instead of the hostility directed at those who believe differently and the quickness with which they accept explanations to discount experimental results that don't match their expectations. Those are behaviors, not speculations about motivations.

The text of the original post was explicitly using terms like 'denial' and 'cognitive dissonance' and 'psychology'. If you're talking about just observing behavior, then you appear to be abandoning a defense of the author's essay thesis and starting a new subject. We can do that, but be prepared to provide convincing evidence of these claims of behavior.

Old joke: the cognitive psychologist asks "Was it good for you"; the behaviorist asks "Was it good for me?"






I agree that the speculations on motivations are unsupported. But the observations about hostility seem quite accurate and consistent with my own observations and those of others. I must admit, I'm curious about why so many skeptics seem so hostile regarding those who don't share their beliefs. Do you have any opinions on why there is so much hostility towards others expressed by skeptics?

I have already explained: 'because skepticism is composed of humans, and has some hostile people in it, just like every other community'. I don't know what you're really asking, here: are you saying that you believe skeptics are more hostile toward criticism than the general population? (I say this as somebody who just resigned from the board of a gardening club because of the degenerate infighting)





I find this behavior to be at odds with the claim that you don't feel 'angry' in response to the essay. You assume a very derrogatory interpretation of his essay towards skeptics and ignore his stated motivation. I associate such interpretations of others words with feelings of anger and defensiveness. That's why I keep asking about it. Care to expound any further on your feelings about it?

Not really. I read hundreds of websites, postings, emails, &c, a week that are hostile to skepticism, and they just go in one end and out the other. Maybe it's a question of relative interest: I preserve my emotional motivations for healthfraud where people are actually killed or injured. In contrast, psi research is a source of belly-laughs for me, which is why I continue to participate.

[Jeff Corey]

"Old joke: the cognitive psychologist asks "Was it good for you"; the behaviorist asks "Was it good for me?"
Older still is the two psychoanalysts who meet on the street and greet eachother with, "So, how am I today?"

[Limbo]

Update to the OP:

Unengaged, implausible, illogical (http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/)

"Among many issues that came out of my last entry, I was asked to provide evidence for certain claims I made about skeptics' behaviour. Here they are:

1) refusing to engage with parapsychological investigations on any level as being of no interest, undoubtedly fraudulent, obviously nonsense, etc.

It's surely not uncontroversial to say that this is true of many scientists, as most might proudly agree. Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins and Lewis Wolpert have all been fairly explicit about their lack of interest - to name only three. If you want a specific example, try Lewis Wolpert's attitude during a public debate with Rupert Sheldrake on telepathy - notably his refusal even to watch a relevant clip that Sheldrake was showing to support his case.

Another example is the public exchange between Sheldrake and Atkins, in which Atkins candidly admitted he hadn't read any of the evidence of telepathy that he had dismissed as a 'charlatan's fantasy'.

2) engaging with [psychical investigations], but explaining them away with all kinds of implausible scenarios which in any other context no one would entertain for a moment"

[...]

[Beth]

It's not just my opinion, though. My current employment involves internet based marketing, and it is simply a fact that online participation is not a good model for real-world activity. See Jacob Nielsen's work over the last 15 years for the hard data behind this.

The only thing worse than no information is incorrect information.

Not a statement I agree with. Is Newtonian physics useless? I am reminded of Dr. George Box's famous quote "All models are wrong. Some models are useful." Biased information can be useful when the direction of the bias is known.


I have already explained: 'because skepticism is composed of humans, and has some hostile people in it, just like every other community'. I don't know what you're really asking, here: are you saying that you believe skeptics are more hostile toward criticism than the general population? Yes, but not just towards criticism. EVERYBODY is hostile towards criticism. Rather, I find that skeptics as a group (at least in the on-line forums which is the only contact I have with them) seem noticably more hostile towards those who don't share their materialistic assumptions about the world we live in than nearly any other group of people I have had internet interactions with. I've been hanging out and debating various subjects on the internet for nearly two decades now. Usually I find there are a few people I can't talk to and enjoy conversing with the rest. With skeptic forums, I have to look for the people I can enjoy conversing with (you're one of them :) ) and ignore the rest.

At any rate, I don't understand why skeptics on the internet are more hostile than other groups. I have come to feel it's not simply my own biases, as it's not an observation unique to me, but something that has been remarked upon by many others, both on-line and in print as the OP and some other links in this thread demonstrate. I remain curious.

[Jeff Corey]

Update to the OP:

Unengaged, implausible, illogical (http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/)



[...]
From your link:
"a successful experiment reported by J.B. Rhine at Duke University in the 1930s. Rhine's colleague Gaither Pratt tested a theology student named Hubert Pearce for ESP in card experiments. In four series involving a total of 74 runs, where 5 was the mean, Pearce scored averages of 9.9, 6.7, 7.3, and 9.3 - the odds of that happening by chance are a hundred thousand billion billion to one. In one of the experiments Pearce was guessing cards at pre-arranged intervals while Pratt was turning over the cards in another part of the building. (Rhine, J B and J G Pratt (1954), ‘A Review of the Pearce-Pratt Distance Series of ESP Tests’, Journal of Parapsychology, 18, 3, pp. 165-77.)

Interesting that this, to my knowlege, has was never replicated without the opportunity for known human sensory leakage, and is also an example of Rhine's famous file drawer effect,

[godless dave]

Update to the OP:

Unengaged, implausible, illogical (http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/)

"Among many issues that came out of my last entry, I was asked to provide evidence for certain claims I made about skeptics' behaviour. Here they are:

1) refusing to engage with parapsychological investigations on any level as being of no interest, undoubtedly fraudulent, obviously nonsense, etc.


After a certain amount of investigation has been performed, it's understandable to abandon a line of inquiry that hasn't produced any results. When parapsychological investigations start producing real results, they'll get more attention.

[Ersby]

There’s no denying that sceptics have scored a few own goals in public debates. Wolpert and Atkins did themselves no favours by not familiarising themselves with the data.

Although there’s a similar problem with pro-psi proponents. When faced with sceptical literature/arguments, they seem to have difficulty processing it. Storm and Ertel’s response to Milton and Wiseman’s ganzfeld meta-analysis is a rag-bag of massaged numbers and misrepresentations of M&W’s work. Berger’s oft-quoted critique of Blackmore’s student work was derided by Blackmore for factual errors in a not-very-oft-quoted reply. Rhine, of course, seemed to have enormous difficulty in published negative/chance results.

This from a talk by the chemist Langmuir:


"Of course not,” he [Rhine] said. "That would be dishonest. "
"Why would it be dishonest?" [said Langmuir]
"The low scores are just as significant as the high ones, aren't they? They proved that there's something there just as much, and therefore it wouldn't be fair. "
I said, "Are you going to count them, are you going to reverse the sign and count them, or count them as credits?"
"No, No," he said.
I said, "What have you done with them? Are they in your book?"
"No."
"Why, I thought you said that all your values were in your book. Why haven't you put those in?"
"Well," he said, "I haven't had time to work them up."
"Well, you know all the results, you told me the results. "
"Well," he said, "I don't give the results out until I've had time to digest them."
I said, "How many of these things have you?” He showed me filing cabinets--a whole row of them. Maybe hundreds of thousands of cards. He has a filing cabinet that contained nothing but these things that were done in sealed up envelopes. And they were the ones that gave the average of five.


As for implausible explanations for good results, I’d need to see Wiseman/Smith’s paper on detecting the unseen gaze – in the abstract they don’t mention getting significant results. As for issues with randomisation being implausible, that was the backbone of Bierman’s compelling paper against Sheldrake’s remote staring results, in which he posited that the mix of poor randomisation/feedback/response bias could explain the results seen (“The invisible gaze: three attempts to replicate sheldrake.s staring effects” Lobach, Bierman, PA Convention 2004)

[fls]

Rather, I find that skeptics as a group (at least in the on-line forums which is the only contact I have with them) seem noticably more hostile towards those who don't share their materialistic assumptions about the world we live in than nearly any other group of people I have had internet interactions with. I've been hanging out and debating various subjects on the internet for nearly two decades now.

What standardized definition of 'hostile' do you apply in order to make that assessment?

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

Ersby,
I'd like to use that Langmuir quote as a reference. Where can I locate it? I originally saw something similar by Sir Peter Medawar, but now I can't locate that either. Thirty years ago it was merely of interest, now I need a citation.
As I recall, Rhine told Medawar that the "psi negative" results were produced by people hostile his views, in order to discredit the notion of ESP.

[Ersby]

Langmuir's talk is here

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the contents - the bit about Rhine is under Extra Sensory Perception/

[Beth]

What standardized definition of 'hostile' do you apply in order to make that assessment?

Linda

The one in my head. It matches fairly well with the one in the dictionary. :D

[fls]

What standardized definition of 'hostile' do you apply in order to make that assessment?

Linda

The one in my head. It matches fairly well with the one in the dictionary. :D

For example, when assessing health outcomes, a standardized definition of 'improvement' will be formed, such as 'decrease of 2 points on a Visual Analog Pain Scale' (I wouldn't expect yours to be as specific). Using 'improvement as defined in the dictionary' raises no barriers to simply allowing one's biases to fit the available information to whatever pre-conceived notion one wishes to support. You can see this with studies of CAM therapies like homeopathy, where any symptomatic outcomes - reduction of symptoms, increase in symptoms or no change is symptoms - is taken as a sign of 'improvement'. It's not a particularly useful technique, since it ends up being no different from someone simply stating "these are my pre-conceived notions", even though it is dressed up as somehow being based on data. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. I'm just asking you how you went about avoiding that when you assessed that the degree of hostility you encountered from skeptics was excessive.

I think you've already stated that your standardized definition of 'skeptic' is 'anyone who self-identifies as a skeptic'?

Linda

[Beth]

Linda,

I'm just stating my opinion based on my observations. I'm not making a factual claim, complete with standarized definitions on which I have based rigorous data collection and analysis subject to scientific scrutiny. I readily acknowledge I might be mistaken. If you choose to believe that I, and every other person who has indicated the same are mistaken, biased, or that I don't know what hostile is or skeptic means, that's fine.

[fls]

Linda,

I'm just stating my opinion based on my observations. I'm not making a factual claim, complete with standarized definitions on which I have based rigorous data collection and analysis subject to scientific scrutiny. I readily acknowledge I might be mistaken. If you choose to believe that I, and every other person who has indicated the same are mistaken, biased, or that I don't know what hostile is or skeptic means, that's fine.

As far as I can tell, the people involved in this thread have an understanding of what these various terms mean in common use. That's not the issue. It has been raised several times in this thread, by Ersby and others, and it is a standard part of research methodology, to recognize that you will capture different populations depending upon your selection criteria. As has already been pointed out, the authors of the various articles claiming that skeptics are hostile, either didn't specify their selection criteria or specifically selected a group of skeptics with a particular characteristic unrelated to skepticism, and then proceeded to identify behaviours present in both parapsychologists and skeptics, but attributed those behaviours to hostility in one group and to more noble motivations in the other. This indicates that their opinion is not based on observation, but rather their opinion was already formed and they simply took the observations as confirming their opinions, regardless of what was contained in those observations.

I'm not asking you for rigorously collected data. I'm asking you what sort of steps you took to avoid those same errors when forming your opinion. Otherwise, all that can be concluded is that it is possible to identify a group of people who see skeptics as hostile. It gives us no indication as to whether or not there actually is an excess of hostility among skeptics, let alone whether or not anyone can draw conclusions about the assessment of evidence in the presence of hostility. As we know from considering the effects research design will have on the results, it is quite easy to get 'results' that confirm pretty much any conclusion if free rein is given to our cognitive biases.

Linda

[Beth]

Otherwise, all that can be concluded is that it is possible to identify a group of people who see skeptics as hostile. It gives us no indication as to whether or not there actually is an excess of hostility among skeptics, let alone whether or not anyone can draw conclusions about the assessment of evidence in the presence of hostility.
Linda

That's correct. It's an inherent limitation of personal observations and opinions. We can't draw firm conclusions. We can only use such information for speculation and, if sufficiently interested, to give direction to actual research. All we can do at this point it to try to assess the consistency of opinions from among people who don't appear to share the same biases and decide if it matches our own observations. That's one of the reasons I was asking for other people's opinions earlier in this thread. I find it interesting because it seems to be a fairly common complaint and it matches my own personal observations.

[Jeff Corey]

Thanks, Ersby.
It seems that Langmuir's and Medawar's reports agree that Rhine felt that people hostile to him were producing negative results that had to be suppressed.

[fls]

That's correct. It's an inherent limitation of personal observations and opinions. We can't draw firm conclusions. We can only use such information for speculation and, if sufficiently interested, to give direction to actual research. All we can do at this point it to try to assess the consistency of opinions from among people who don't appear to share the same biases and decide if it matches our own observations. That's one of the reasons I was asking for other people's opinions earlier in this thread. I find it interesting because it seems to be a fairly common complaint and it matches my own personal observations.

From the answers you received to your question (and other discussion on this thread) it's fairly clear that those people who don't share your biases also don't share your opinion. This isn't a surprise as it's hardly a novel insight. In the end it seems that this thread is more about the psychology of the believer than the skeptic. Not that my advice will be taken (:)), but I suspect that those professionals who Limbo and others have referenced would be better served by trying to understand why they see skeptics as hostile.

What is of interest to me about this topic is, should skeptics care about whether they are seen as hostile and is it possible to prevent that perception if it is undesirable? I am generally of the opinion that the perception of hostility prevents someone from hearing your message, it merely reinforces our defenses against cognitive dissonance. But I've come across many examples where that is not the case, so I'm not ready to rule out the possibility that it isn't useful to be seen as at least somewhat hostile. The idea that you will be met with hostility unless you come prepared with evidence is at the backbone of the scientific process, after all. So the first issue raised by the OP, "skeptics are hostile" shouldn't be assumed to be a negative characterization - it may be something that should be embraced.

It's more clear to me that it isn't possible to prevent believers, professional or otherwise, from seeing hostility if that's what they are determined to see. So I'm not sure that endless threads about how various high or low profile skeptics ought to behave serves any particular purpose without evidence that a change in behaviour would lead to a change in perception.

Linda

[Beth]

From the answers you received to your question (and other discussion on this thread) it's fairly clear that those people who don't share your biases also don't share your opinion. No, actually, it's not. There's a tendancy by skeptics here to lump people who complain about hostility all together as sharing the same biases, but it's not at all clear to me that they do. Do you think it reasonable to assume that parapsychologists, Christians, Homeopaths and Conspiracy theorists automatically share the same biases? I don't.

This isn't a surprise as it's hardly a novel insight. In the end it seems that this thread is more about the psychology of the believer than the skeptic. Do you really think so? I think there's been rather little comment either about believers (other than the author of the OP) or by believers in this thread.

Not that my advice will be taken (:)), but I suspect that those professionals who Limbo and others have referenced would be better served by trying to understand why they see skeptics as hostile. Well, that would be a starting point. It would require defining hostile behavior, collecting data, etc. I doubt that will happen. I'm certainly not interested enough to do that sort of work. I have found some of the research referenced of interest, but I haven't seen any actual research on that point.

What is of interest to me about this topic is, should skeptics care about whether they are seen as hostile and is it possible to prevent that perception if it is undesirable? That's been discussed a great deal in the past. Various skeptics hold opinions on both sides of that issue. You can do a search of past threads if your interested enough.

I am generally of the opinion that the perception of hostility prevents someone from hearing your message, it merely reinforces our defenses against cognitive dissonance. But I've come across many examples where that is not the case, so I'm not ready to rule out the possibility that it isn't useful to be seen as at least somewhat hostile. The idea that you will be met with hostility unless you come prepared with evidence is at the backbone of the scientific process, after all. So the first issue raised by the OP, "skeptics are hostile" shouldn't be assumed to be a negative characterization - it may be something that should be embraced.

It's more clear to me that it isn't possible to prevent believers, professional or otherwise, from seeing hostility if that's what they are determined to see. True enough, but I don't share your perception that the issue is solely due to what believers are "determined" to see.
[/quote]
So I'm not sure that endless threads about how various high or low profile skeptics ought to behave serves any particular purpose without evidence that a change in behaviour would lead to a change in perception.

Linda[/QUOTE] Same purpose all other threads serve - our own amusement and edification of how others subjectively percieve the same objective objects we do. :D

[tyr_13]

If people honestly believe that skeptics are more hostile than the average internet forum poster, I challenge them to go to a Mac fan forum, or a Nintendo fan forum, and post a valid, well thought out criticism of either of those companies or their products.

Better still are the psychic hangouts. Post a reasoned, polite criticism of them. If you don't see your post deletion as hostile, what would you call it?

[Limbo]

Linda your last few posts look like the desperate gambits of a clever defense lawyer with a guilty client and nothing to lose.

[Jeff Corey]

Not to me, but then you probably could rationalize that. As Linda said, "It's more clear to me that it isn't possible to prevent believers, professional or otherwise, from seeing hostility if that's what they are determined to see."
See, for example Rhine, whining "Nobody likes me" and using that as an excuse for fudging data.
Cheating.
As a trained scientist, he should have known that locking up all the negative results in a bunch of file drawers was not kosher. Either that, or he was so blinded by his own theory (Miss Ann Elk) that he was a tad demented.
You choose.

[tyr_13]

Linda your last few posts look like the desperate gambits of a clever defense lawyer with a guilty client and nothing to lose.

It is looks like you've stopped having even the semblance of a valid argument and are simply making silly comments, attacking the well thought out and measured nature of Linda's posts.

So are you being hostile towards Linda, or lawyers? :p

[blutoski]

If people honestly believe that skeptics are more hostile than the average internet forum poster, I challenge them to go to a Mac fan forum, or a Nintendo fan forum, and post a valid, well thought out criticism of either of those companies or their products.

Better still are the psychic hangouts. Post a reasoned, polite criticism of them. If you don't see your post deletion as hostile, what would you call it?

And you don't even need to limit the scope to a tu coque between skeptics and believers. My counterthesis to the original essay is that the person is somehow observing a human property in everybody, but somehow thinking it's special to skeptics. I'm with Linda thinking that it's confirmation seeking behavior that leads to this conclusion, although it could be selective memory.

I'm not claiming that I 'get out more' or anything, but aggressive defensiveness is so common in every social gathering that I can't imagine anybody being aghast to see it in skeptics like they've never seen defensiveness before.

It's both a personality property, and also a situation property relating to anything from a person's investment (a key factor in cognitive dissonance) to the perception of being gunnysacked or ambushed. Some people display it more often than others, but it takes an exceptional person not to display it when deliberately provoked.

My personality leads me to find a quiet spot away from the foofaraw, as most of the time I can't imagine why anybody would care. Just today for example, it was at the gym: apparently "the three-rep method is the only way to work out," (as opposed to sets of, say, 3 x 15) and the discussion almost came to blows. But I'm not comfortable generalizing and saying that three-reppers are a hostile lot.

Shoot: I'm in Canada. I'm often flabberghasted: why do people even have opinions about beer, much less be willing to fight about it?

[tyr_13]

Shoot: I'm in Canada. I'm often flabberghasted: why do people even have opinions about beer, much less be willing to fight about it?

Don't ever mention that you hate the taste of beer while in Canada. Just...do...not...do...it.

[Jeff Corey]

It's like sex in a canoe, eh?

[tyr_13]

It's like sex in a canoe, eh?

Standing up. With the canoe on the car rack going down the 90.

[Beth]

If people honestly believe that skeptics are more hostile than the average internet forum poster, I challenge them to go to a Mac fan forum, or a Nintendo fan forum, and post a valid, well thought out criticism of either of those companies or their products.

I did mention that criticism make EVERYBODY hostile. Reaction to criticism isn't what I or the OP was discussing. However, I'm more than willing to grant your thesis that there are other areas that are equally hostile. That doesn't mean that either skeptics or those other groups are typical in regards to that trait. It would only mean that skeptics are not the only group with that trait.

And you don't even need to limit the scope to a tu coque between skeptics and believers. My counterthesis to the original essay is that the person is somehow observing a human property in everybody, but somehow thinking it's special to skeptics. I'm with Linda thinking that it's confirmation seeking behavior that leads to this conclusion, although it could be selective memory.

I'm not claiming that I 'get out more' or anything, but aggressive defensiveness is so common in every social gathering that I can't imagine anybody being aghast to see it in skeptics like they've never seen defensiveness before. I'm not aghast to see it. I've just been puzzled by it ever since I started posting here. I think I may have developed a reasonable theory though. Skeptics seem to have larger than average percentages of the following groups:

a) Males (approx. 70% according to one of the papers posted in this thread)
b) Atheists (my own observation, not documented, so this is disputable)
c) Nerds (again my own observation, using my own definition, so this is also disputable)

BTW, I don't dislike any of these groups (I was a nerd way back when it NOT considered a good thing to be!), nor do I dislike skeptics. In general I find them to be intelligent, thoughtful and interesting people. But I also think they are more hostile to others than the average of other groups I've interacted with.

Now consider that males are more aggressive than average. Atheists, in the only study that I'm aware of that focused on them, were found to be less happy and more angry than the average individual (also more intelligent BTW). Nerds are defined as much by their lack of social skills as by their interest in science and technology.

So, if we postulate a population that's more aggressive, less happy, more angry and with worse social skills than average, well - hostile is one way that group might be percieved by others they interact with.

[tyr_13]

Aggressive does not equal hostile. I think it is important to note that one can read a lot based on the 'tone' they give to the words they are reading.

Give this post a condescending or angry tone, it comes off as hostile.

Read it as though Mr. Data was saying it, not so much. I often use the Data test when I get upset with what someone has posted.

[fls]

No, actually, it's not. There's a tendancy by skeptics here to lump people who complain about hostility all together as sharing the same biases, but it's not at all clear to me that they do. Do you think it reasonable to assume that parapsychologists, Christians, Homeopaths and Conspiracy theorists automatically share the same biases? I don't.

Where did that come from? I mentioned that people that don't share your bias also don't share your opinion.

Do you really think so? I think there's been rather little comment either about believers (other than the author of the OP) or by believers in this thread.

The articles which have been presented in this thread that claim skeptics are hostile have been by believers.

Well, that would be a starting point. It would require defining hostile behavior, collecting data, etc. I doubt that will happen. I'm certainly not interested enough to do that sort of work. I have found some of the research referenced of interest, but I haven't seen any actual research on that point.

When I mention something that is of interest to me, you are not under any particular obligation to also find it interesting. Your disclaimer wasn't necessary. :)

That's been discussed a great deal in the past. Various skeptics hold opinions on both sides of that issue. You can do a search of past threads if your interested enough.

I didn't intend to give you the impression that I was unfamiliar with discussion on this subject.

True enough, but I don't share your perception that the issue is solely due to what believers are "determined" to see.

I wouldn't expect you to.

So I'm not sure that endless threads about how various high or low profile skeptics ought to behave serves any particular purpose without evidence that a change in behaviour would lead to a change in perception.

Linda Same purpose all other threads serve - our own amusement and edification of how others subjectively percieve the same objective objects we do. :D

I wasn't querying the point behind endless discussions (I think anyone who chooses to spend time here derives that particular pleasure from the process), but rather why they tend to lack that critical component.

Linda

[fls]

Linda your last few posts look like the desperate gambits of a clever defense lawyer with a guilty client and nothing to lose.

Well, if one assumes that you're being serious and not just a smart ass, one can look at this thread and see that the believer refuses to engage in any discussion of her/his ideas and calls people names or insults them, yet insists that 'hostile' is a word best reserved for others.

At this point, all I have to say is, "I rest my case."

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

. Atheists, in the only study that I'm aware of that focused on them, were found to be less happy and more angry than the average individual (also more intelligent BTW). .

You have a study? Cool, lets see it.

[Beth]

You have a study? Cool, lets see it.

Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers by Bruce E. Hunsberger and Bob Altemeyer http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Groundbreaking-Study-Americas-Nonbelievers/dp/1591024137/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228480715&sr=1-1

[fls]

I'm not aghast to see it. I've just been puzzled by it ever since I started posting here.

Wouldn't it be pretty much what you'd expect, though? Under what circumstances do you get the opportunity to consider people hostile? You need disagreement and the closer the area of disagreement comes to your core beliefs, the greater your reaction will be to it. You need a situation where people will actually let you know that they disagree; overcoming our social training designed to avoid confrontation. You need a set-up where you see 'them' as a specific group so that interaction with one of them is seem as an interaction with all. And you need lots of individual interactions to increase the absolute number seen as hostile. If you were going to design a place where you were most likely to see the members as hostile, an online forum dedicated to challenging and denying some of your core beliefs, where members are encouraged to speak out and defend their position, composed of a group that you do not identify with, that is one of the busiest forums around and which you actively participate in, is going to be just that. You should have been surprised and puzzled if you did not consider the people here hostile. That you are still here suggests that you actually encountered less hostility than expected - that males, atheists and nerds actually turned out to be a less hostile group than the converse.

I think I may have developed a reasonable theory though. Skeptics seem to have larger than average percentages of the following groups:

a) Males (approx. 70% according to one of the papers posted in this thread)
b) Atheists (my own observation, not documented, so this is disputable)
c) Nerds (again my own observation, using my own definition, so this is also disputable)

BTW, I don't dislike any of these groups (I was a nerd way back when it NOT considered a good thing to be!), nor do I dislike skeptics. In general I find them to be intelligent, thoughtful and interesting people. But I also think they are more hostile to others than the average of other groups I've interacted with.

Now consider that males are more aggressive than average. Atheists, in the only study that I'm aware of that focused on them, were found to be less happy and more angry than the average individual (also more intelligent BTW). Nerds are defined as much by their lack of social skills as by their interest in science and technology.

Some of this seems to be simply substituting stereotypes for data.

So, if we postulate a population that's more aggressive, less happy, more angry and with worse social skills than average, well - hostile is one way that group might be percieved by others they interact with.

Luckily, you are female, not atheist and no longer a nerd, so no one will perceive that comment as hostile.

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers by Bruce E. Hunsberger and Bob Altemeyer.
Since there seem to be no studies available to check, this is from a review in About.com.atheists /agnostics:
So, what are atheists like? The authors find that atheists place a high value on the truth, tend to favor letting their children reach their own conclusions on religious matters, are more dogmatic than expected, are less zealous than expected from the dogmatism numbers, score rather low when it comes to authoritarian beliefs or attitudes, and are much less prejudiced (in terms of religion, race, and other topics) than religious believers. Indeed, atheists show less racial prejudice than even agnostics and very liberal religious believers.

[fls]

Atheists, in the only study that I'm aware of that focused on them, were found to be less happy and more angry than the average individual (also more intelligent BTW).

Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers by Bruce E. Hunsberger and Bob Altemeyer http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Groundbreaking-Study-Americas-Nonbelievers/dp/1591024137/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228480715&sr=1-1

There are numerous studies on atheists. Try this one:

http://people.bu.edu/charris/AthChrisBuddApril9_2008.pdf

Linda

[Cuddles]

Now consider that males are more aggressive than average.

Now there's a can of worms that you don't want to open here. Suffice to say that from the threads discussing this, at best the evidence is inconclusive on the matter, and at worst women are at least as aggressive as men and according to some studies even more so.

Atheists, in the only study that I'm aware of that focused on them, were found to be less happy and more angry than the average individual (also more intelligent BTW).

Clearly you're not aware of the majority of studies.

Nerds are defined as much by their lack of social skills as by their interest in science and technology.

I'm amazed you don't get dizzy from all the circular reasoning:

Define "nerds" as people who lack social skills.
State that a large proportion of skeptics are nerds.
Therefore skeptics tend to lack social skills.
4) Profit!

So, if we postulate a population that's more aggressive, less happy, more angry and with worse social skills than average, well - hostile is one way that group might be percieved by others they interact with.

You can postulate all you like. Without providing something to back up your personal opinions, your conclusions will be meaningless. I don't agree with a single one of your postulates. They are almost exactly the opposite of my own experiences, as can been seen from other responses in this thread most people here don't agree with them, and most importantly, they don't agree with the actual evidence where such exists.

As has already been pointed out, believers are generally percieved as far more hostile by people who interact with them - just try going to any religious or paranormal forum and disagreeing with them. No matter how polite and reasonable you are, you'll be lucky to get away with only having your posts deleted in most cases. Perhaps more importantly, believers are without question more hostile outside of the internet. How many religious people not only believe but actively promote ideas like killing all gays and atheists, banning any beliefs that disagree with them, and so on? And how many skeptics do the same? Sure, there are a few agressive skeptics and atheists around, Penn and Teller being perfect examples, but those are generally limited to making fun of silly beliefs. I can't think of a single skeptic who has called for the death of all religious people, yet that kind of thing is relatively common practice among the religious. And somehow we're the hostile ones?

[Beth]

Wouldn't it be pretty much what you'd expect, though? No, it isn't what I expected. That's why I found it puzzling.

Under what circumstances do you get the opportunity to consider people hostile? Anytime I interact with them.

You need disagreement and the closer the area of disagreement comes to your core beliefs, the greater your reaction will be to it.
You need a situation where people will actually let you know that they disagree; overcoming our social training designed to avoid confrontation. No, people can be hostile without disagreement and I have, in fact, perceived that many times.
You need a set-up where you see 'them' as a specific group so that interaction with one of them is seem as an interaction with all. That wouldn't be this forum then! And you need lots of individual interactions to increase the absolute number seen as hostile. If you were going to design a place where you were most likely to see the members as hostile, an online forum dedicated to challenging and denying some of your core beliefs, What core beliefs do you feel I have had challenged and denied here? Belief in god? I'm an agnostic. Belief in psi? I'm an agnostic. Despite the common assumption here that someone who is not an absolute disbeliever is a 'believer', it isn't true. Further, I generally participate in discussions about things I'm not entirely convinced of one way or the other. Once I've made up my mind, I don't find the subject as interesting to discuss.
where members are encouraged to speak out and defend their position, composed of a group that you do not identify with, Actually, prior to joining this forum, I did consider myself a skeptic. Before I started posting here, I hadn't realized that skeptics weren't allowed to consider anything vaguely paranormal to have a non-negliable probability. :D that is one of the busiest forums around and which you actively participate in, is going to be just that. You should have been surprised and puzzled if you did not consider the people here hostile. You make a lot of assumptions. More than even me I think. I'm not saying the males, atheists or nerds are hostile. I'm saying that the confluence of their general proclivities could lead people to perceive hostility. Perhaps it's not a correct analysis, but it's one I at least find reasonable. More so that than the 'everyone who makes this observation shares the same biases and is determined to perceive things in that way' which seems to be your favored explanation.
That you are still here suggests that you actually encountered less hostility than expected - that males, atheists and nerds actually turned out to be a less hostile group than the converse.
I enjoy and seek out controversy and challenge. Here and elsewhere. A bit of hostility doesn't deter me as long as it isn't personal. I'm also notably lacking in social skills myself.
Some of this seems to be simply substituting stereotypes for data. Some of it probably is, as is much of what you've written. OTOH, some of the 'stereotypes' can be backed up with studies such as showing that skeptics are more likely to be male.


Luckily, you are female, not atheist and no longer a nerd, so no one will perceive that comment as hostile.

Linda I've never managed to gain the social skills that would lift me out of nerddom. People have often percieved me as hostile or insulting when I didn't mean to be.

I heard a new statistician joke the other day. Do you know how to tell the difference between an introverted statistician and an extroverted statistician? The extroverted statistician looks at the other person's shoes when conversing. Actually, the guy I heard it from told it better.

[tyr_13]

I'm not an atheist, but I am male and could be called a nerd. Two out of three ain't bad? However, I disagree with all the assessment of nerds and atheists. The male thing I just disagree on semantics. Nerds are people who are so passionate about something that they don't care about social limits on it. But the happiest, nicest people I know are nerds. Some of the nicest people I know are atheist.

[Moochie]

Show me your evidence or the kid gets it!


M.

[fls]

No, it isn't what I expected. That's why I found it puzzling.

That was a rhetorical statement suggesting that it may have been what someone would have expected if they'd thought it through (in order to set up the rest of the post).

Anytime I interact with them.

Exactly.

No, people can be hostile without disagreement and I have, in fact, perceived that many times.

I worded that poorly, then. I was setting up a set of circumstances under which someone could be seen as hostile. I didn't intend to imply that it was the only set of circumstances under which someone could be seen as hostile.

That wouldn't be this forum then! What core beliefs do you feel I have had challenged and denied here? Belief in god? I'm an agnostic. Belief in psi? I'm an agnostic. Despite the common assumption here that someone who is not an absolute disbeliever is a 'believer', it isn't true. Further, I generally participate in discussions about things I'm not entirely convinced of one way or the other. Once I've made up my mind, I don't find the subject as interesting to discuss.

It was my understanding as well that you are agnostic on the issue of god and on the existance of psi. Although as far as I can recall, your entrance to this forum was to work on a possible protocol for the Million Dollar Challenge involving telekinesis?

Actually, prior to joining this forum, I did consider myself a skeptic. Before I started posting here, I hadn't realized that skeptics weren't allowed to consider anything vaguely paranormal to have a non-negliable probability. :D

I'm still waiting for the rule-book to arrive in the mail. :)

You make a lot of assumptions. More than even me I think. I'm not saying the males, atheists or nerds are hostile. I'm saying that the confluence of their general proclivities could lead people to perceive hostility.

Yes, that is what I thought you were saying.

Perhaps it's not a correct analysis, but it's one I at least find reasonable. More so that than the 'everyone who makes this observation shares the same biases and is determined to perceive things in that way' which seems to be your favored explanation.

My favoured explanation is that our observations tend to be coloured by our biases, and that this applies to myself, not just others.

I enjoy and seek out controversy and challenge. Here and elsewhere. A bit of hostility doesn't deter me as long as it isn't personal.

Ah, then it doesn't really say much about the amount of hostility one way or the other.

I'm also notably lacking in social skills myself.
Some of it probably is, as is much of what you've written. OTOH, some of the 'stereotypes' can be backed up with studies such as showing that skeptics are more likely to be male.

Yes, that was the one bit of information you backed up, and I have no dispute with that.

I heard a new statistician joke the other day. Do you know how to tell the difference between an introverted statistician and an extroverted statistician? The extroverted statistician looks at the other person's shoes when conversing. Actually, the guy I heard it from told it better.

Emphasizing "other" with something like italics would improve the delivery.

Linda

[Beth]

Nerds are people who are so passionate about something that they don't care about social limits on it. Interesting. Rather a different definition of 'nerd' than I'm familiar with.
But the happiest, nicest people I know are nerds. Some of the nicest people I know are atheist. We have no disagreement then! :D

[tyr_13]

It is the definition of both nerd and geek that was used in the studies I've read on the psychology and sociology or such.

If you use the other definition said here on this thread, then it very much is circular reasoning.

[Beth]

It was my understanding as well that you are agnostic on the issue of god and on the existance of psi. Although as far as I can recall, your entrance to this forum was to work on a possible protocol for the Million Dollar Challenge involving telekinesis? Yes. And I was informed that one of the reasons they were NOT interested in testing me was that I didn't seem to believe it myself.
My favoured explanation is that our observations tend to be coloured by our biases, and that this applies to myself, not just others. We have no disagreement then. I think that perceptions are indeed colored by our biases and expectations. On the other hand, when one's observations are not what one was expecting, it doesn't favor the explanation that the observer was 'determined' to see what they expected to see.

Ah, then it doesn't really say much about the amount of hostility one way or the other. Correct, my participating in this forum doesn't say much about the amount of hostility one way or the other.

Yes, that was the one bit of information you backed up, and I have no dispute with that.
I've also provided a source for my statements regarding atheists. IN the report you referenced, which had a different result, the lack of a statistically significant effect could easily have been due to the much smaller sample sizes used.

BTW, I'll retract what I said about nerds. Apparently the definition has been altered substantially from the more colloquial use when I was in H.S.

[fls]

On the other hand, when one's observations are not what one was expecting, it doesn't favor the explanation that the observer was 'determined' to see what they expected to see.

Since you seem to be clinging to the idea that I said that you were determined to see skeptics as hostile, let me clarify. I don't think you were determined to see skeptics as hostile. The statement was made in a different context. I think that some people are determined to see skeptics as hostile and that focussing on eliminating (or even just reducing it?) that possibility is ultimately not useful - it probably can't be successful, and it may make us less effective.

I've also provided a source for my statements regarding atheists.

You provided reference to a book. It doesn't support your statement unless we trust that you have accurately represented what it says. I'd rather not depend upon that, especially in the light of contradictory studies. If you have the book, it would help if you could provide a more exact reference.

IN the report you referenced, which had a different result, the lack of a statistically significant effect could easily have been due to the much smaller sample sizes used.

There are numerous other studies as well.

Linda

[Beth]

Since you seem to be clinging to the idea that I said that you were determined to see skeptics as hostile, let me clarify. I don't think you were determined to see skeptics as hostile. The statement was made in a different context. I think that some people are determined to see skeptics as hostile and that focussing on eliminating (or even just reducing it?) that possibility is ultimately not useful - it probably can't be successful, and it may make us less effective. Okay. I'm sorry I misunderstood you. Yes, I though you were insisting I was so determined.

You provided reference to a book. It doesn't support your statement unless we trust that you have accurately represented what it says. I'd rather not depend upon that, especially in the light of contradictory studies. If you have the book, it would help if you could provide a more exact reference. Fair enough. It was a library book. I don't have any better access to it than you do.

There are numerous other studies as well. Do they support the conclusion I referenced? If not, do they have a sufficient sample size to make the null of "no difference" a reasonable conclusion?

[fls]

Do they support the conclusion I referenced? If not, do they have a sufficient sample size to make the null of "no difference" a reasonable conclusion?

I see. Atheists are angry and unhappy until proven otherwise.

Thanks for making my point for me.

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

Do they support the conclusion I referenced? If not, do they have a sufficient sample size to make the null of "no difference" a reasonable conclusion?


In these nonexperimental, ex post facto designs,there is no independent variable and no possibility of random assignment. Thus, the question is not how many subjects are in the groups, because the ns do not justify the means. How representative the sample is of paramount importance.

Differential sampling bias is a frequent confound in these correlational studies.

[Beth]

I see. Atheists are angry and unhappy until proven otherwise.

Thanks for making my point for me.

Linda

What point is that?

I read a book on the subject a year or so ago. So I have seen and cited reseach results that showed that on average, they were more angry and less happy than the average person. Also more intelligent. And less likely to evangelize their beliefs. And a few other things I no longer remember and aren't particularly pertinent to the conversation.

Until I see better research that contradicts what I have already seen, why should I doubt the academic researchers (themselves atheists) who published it? If you haven't read the book and don't choose to take my word for it, that's fine. But am I supposed to stop believing the research I have seen? Without any evidence to indicate it's mistaken? It was, incidently listed in the bibliography of the study you referenced.

I notice you didn't answer my question, BTW. You said there were numerous other studies, persumably you've looked at some of them. Do they support the same conclusion as the study I referenced? If not, do they have a sufficient sample size to make the null of "no difference" a reasonable conclusion? I ask because once a conclusion has been established, which it has in this case, I believe the scientific approach is to accept those results tbhe evidence gives until better evidence indicates otherwise. On the other hand, it's quite possible that other, better research has come to a different conclusion. That can happen. It's not my field, so I'm necessarily abreast of the latest developments.

Feel free to change my mind with evidence. :D

[Beth]

In these nonexperimental, ex post facto designs,there is no independent variable and no possibility of random assignment. Thus, the question is not how many subjects are in the groups, because the ns do not justify the means. How representative the sample is of paramount importance.

Differential sampling bias is a frequent confound in these correlational studies.

IIRC, the authors devote the first chapter to explaining exactly how they acheived their sample and what limitations it has. It was as representative as they could manage.

[fls]

What point is that?

That the observations on this matter are evaluated against a pre-conceived notion (i.e. the direction of proof is the opposite of what we usually consider).

I read a book on the subject a year or so ago. So I have seen and cited reseach results that showed that on average, they were more angry and less happy than the average person.

The information you have provided isn't adequate for me to know whether your statement accurately represents their findings. I trust that that's the way you remember it (i.e. that you are not deliberately misrepresenting the results), but that isn't a particularly reliable way of knowing just what it was that they found. For example, I don't know if it was based on something like "70 percent are angry about 'the role, dominance, or effects of religion in the world'".

You have to remember that I live in the Southeast. This book isn't something that any of my local libraries carry. If I had my Kindle (on my Christmas list), I'd have already answered my question. As it is, I have elected to e-mail one of the authors instead.

Until I see better research that contradicts what I have already seen, why should I doubt the academic researchers (themselves atheists) who published it? If you haven't read the book and don't choose to take my word for it, that's fine. But am I supposed to stop believing the research I have seen? Without any evidence to indicate it's mistaken? It was, incidently listed in the bibliography of the study you referenced.

I notice you didn't answer my question, BTW. You said there were numerous other studies, persumably you've looked at some of them. Do they support the same conclusion as the study I referenced? If not, do they have a sufficient sample size to make the null of "no difference" a reasonable conclusion? I ask because once a conclusion has been established, which it has in this case, I believe the scientific approach is to accept those results tbhe evidence gives until better evidence indicates otherwise. On the other hand, it's quite possible that other, better research has come to a different conclusion. That can happen. It's not my field, so I'm necessarily abreast of the latest developments.

You haven't provided enough information for me to know what conclusions can be considered to be established. That you consider the conclusion to be established isn't particularly helpful considering that you earlier stated that you were unaware of the other studies that focussed on atheists and you are relying on your memory. I can't speak as to whether any of the studies I have read had the same findings as the one you reference, or whether a different finding was sufficiently large that it would overcome their findings, because you haven't told me exactly what it was that they found nor the strength of that finding. I will let you know after I get more information.

Linda

[Limbo]

"There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbid!), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion . . . I have to say it — most of these people are men. Indeed, I have not met a single woman of this type." -Susan Blackmore (bold mine)

".. today genuine skepticism of the benign sort that looks evenly in all directions and encourages the advancement of knowledge seems vanishingly rare. Instead, we find a prevalence of pseudo-skepticism consisting of harsh and invidious skepticism toward one's opponents' points of view and observations, and egregious self-congratulatory confirmatory bias toward one's own stances and findings misrepresented as the earnest and dispassionate pursuit of clinical, scholarly, and scientific truth." -Dr. Richard Kluft (bold mine)

Genuine skepticism is rare, especially in activist skeptic organizations and communities such as this one. Sam Harris has said that religious liberals provide cover for religious fundamentalists. Maybe the genuine skeptics are providing cover for pseudo-skeptics in a similar fashion.

[Jeff Corey]

Until I see better research that contradicts what I have already seen, why should I doubt the academic researchers (themselves atheists) who published it? ..

Well, there one exageration there. The first author was not an atheist.

Bruce was an agnostic, which helped him study both believers and atheists with an open mind and an even hand. It also meant he had no belief in God to sustain him when he learned in 1994 that he most unexpectedly had leukemia. He did not flinch, and was quite realistic about his fate, telling friends that no, he was not going to be cured, that he knew the disease would eventually kill him.

From an elegy by Dr. Bob Atlemeyer, his co-author.

[Beth]

That the observations on this matter are evaluated against a pre-conceived notion (i.e. the direction of proof is the opposite of what we usually consider). I don't think that your point is particularly well taken since my observations occurred prior to my reading the book and my observations, if you'll recall, were of hostility, not anger and unhappiness. So it doesn't fit the hypothesis of a pre-conceived notion. My supposition is that higher than average aggressiveness combined with higher than average anger/unhappiness may be why I have perceived hostility.

The information you have provided isn't adequate for me to know whether your statement accurately represents their findings. I trust that that's the way you remember it (i.e. that you are not deliberately misrepresenting the results), but that isn't a particularly reliable way of knowing just what it was that they found.
Quite reasonable. My memory seems to be getting worse as I get older. I'm finding that I can trust in it less all the time. :(
For example, I don't know if it was based on something like "70 percent are angry about 'the role, dominance, or effects of religion in the world'". Nothing that dramatic and it wasn't a huge difference. I don't recall how specifically how they measured those charactoristics, though I think they specified the survey questions they based the measurements on. At this point, I only recall that it was a statistically significant difference when compared to the general population results. It may have been correlated with some other charactoristic as well, such as intelligence, but I don't recall now.

You have to remember that I live in the Southeast. This book isn't something that any of my local libraries carry. If I had my Kindle (on my Christmas list), I'd have already answered my question. As it is, I have elected to e-mail one of the authors instead.


It will be interesting to hear from the author if he responds. I hope you will consider sharing it with us if he does.

[Beth]

Well, there one exageration there. The first author was not an atheist.

Bruce was an agnostic, which helped him study both believers and atheists with an open mind and an even hand. It also meant he had no belief in God to sustain him when he learned in 1994 that he most unexpectedly had leukemia. He did not flinch, and was quite realistic about his fate, telling friends that no, he was not going to be cured, that he knew the disease would eventually kill him.

From an elegy by Dr. Bob Atlemeyer, his co-author.

My apologies. I did not mean to exaggerate.

[Moochie]

"There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbid!), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion . . . I have to say it — most of these people are men. Indeed, I have not met a single woman of this type." -Susan Blackmore (bold mine)

".. today genuine skepticism of the benign sort that looks evenly in all directions and encourages the advancement of knowledge seems vanishingly rare. Instead, we find a prevalence of pseudo-skepticism consisting of harsh and invidious skepticism toward one's opponents' points of view and observations, and egregious self-congratulatory confirmatory bias toward one's own stances and findings misrepresented as the earnest and dispassionate pursuit of clinical, scholarly, and scientific truth." -Dr. Richard Kluft (bold mine)

Genuine skepticism is rare, especially in activist skeptic organizations and communities such as this one. Sam Harris has said that religious liberals provide cover for religious fundamentalists. Maybe the genuine skeptics are providing cover for pseudo-skeptics in a similar fashion.

What is all this whining about?

I'd hazard a guess and suggest that most visitors and participants to this site and forum do not possess the wherewithal to "investigate strange claims, try out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves," not unless you mean checking out "altered states" by dropping the odd tab of LSD. Most of us depend on the major journals and organizations for our knowledge of science, and the facts seem to suggest that mainstream scientists are simply not interested in "investigating strange claims," perhaps because such claims merely indicate the claimant's tenuous grasp on reality.

Many years ago, when I was a lot younger and both my parents were still among the living, they and I discussed the possibility of communicating with each other once any of us had passed on. Both my parents have been dead for several years now and as far as I'm aware, I've received no messages from either of them, or indeed anyone else who's died -- including my wife's father who died last New Year's Eve. Now, I suppose believers in unmitigated nonsense such as an "afterlife" will roundly condemn me for not being "sensitive (enough)," and that this is the reason I'm not able to Skype the dearly departed.


M.

[Jeff Corey]

My apologies. I did not mean to exaggerate.

No need to apologize, but your error illustrates what social psychologists call "sharpening". It sharpens up the story to say that atheist psychologists proved that atheists were hostile. Perhaps the level of "hostility" was sharpened up, too.

[fls]

I don't think that your point is particularly well taken since my observations occurred prior to my reading the book and my observations, if you'll recall, were of hostility, not anger and unhappiness. So it doesn't fit the hypothesis of a pre-conceived notion.

Right. 'Hostility' is nothing at all like 'anger'. :boggled:

Linda

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
"There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry. They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves (heaven forbid!), but only in promoting their own particular belief structure and cohesion......" -Susan Blackmore (bold mine)......

What is all this whining about?
I'd hazard a guess and suggest that most visitors and participants to this site and forum do not possess the wherewithal to "investigate strange claims, try out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves," not unless you mean checking out "altered states" by dropping the odd tab of LSD. Most of us depend on the major journals and organizations for our knowledge of science, and the facts seem to suggest that mainstream scientists are simply not interested in "investigating strange claims," perhaps because such claims merely indicate the claimant's tenuous grasp on reality......

My underlined and bold text above.

The underlining and partial bolding of your above comment is exactly the point here: Genuine skepticism is necessarily peer-based, and hence the impossibility of a pseudo-skeptical resolution of matters called 'paranormal/supernatural/psychic/occult'.

A good example of genuine skepticism, as opposed to pseudo-skepticism, is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Brillouin, where the great physicist is peer reexamined and criticized without pseudo-skeptical ridicule .

[Jeff Corey]

Right. 'Hostility' is nothing at all like 'anger'. :boggled:

Linda

Or surprise, or fear or the fanatical devotion to pope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldlyTjXk9A

[tyr_13]

The underlining and partial bolding of your above comment is exactly the point here: Genuine skepticism is necessarily peer-based, and hence the impossibility of a pseudo-skeptical resolution of matters called 'paranormal/supernatural/psychic/occult'.



So only occultists can be skeptical of occultists? So only psychics can be skeptical of psychics? So only homeopaths can be skeptical of homeopaths?

Sorry, I'm not buying it.

[fls]

Well, there one exageration there. The first author was not an atheist.

Dr. Altemeyer is also not an atheist. He describes himself as an agnostic.

It will be interesting to hear from the author if he responds. I hope you will consider sharing it with us if he does.

Dr. Altemeyer did graciously respond.

He states that they did not measure anger in any way.

They did measure how much "joy, comfort and happiness they got from logic and science" and how much they got from "religious beliefs". Atheists received more happiness from logic and science and believers received more from their religious beliefs. This was particularly true for fundamentalists who received almost no happiness from science. Also believers received more joy from their religious beliefs than atheists received from science (he suggested that this was the source of your misinterpretation that atheists are "unhappy").

Some of these results are also mentioned in Chapter 4 of his book "The Authoritarians".

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter4.pdf

Linda

[Beth]

Dr. Altemeyer did graciously respond.

He states that they did not measure anger in any way.

Thank you very much Linda. I apparently had misremembered. I was wrong and I apologize for misstatements.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by Moochie View Post
What is all this whining about?
I'd hazard a guess and suggest that most visitors and participants to this site and forum do not possess the wherewithal to "investigate strange claims, try out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves," not unless you mean checking out "altered states" by dropping the odd tab of LSD. Most of us depend on the major journals and organizations for our knowledge of science, and the facts seem to suggest that mainstream scientists are simply not interested in "investigating strange claims," perhaps because such claims merely indicate the claimant's tenuous grasp on reality......
Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
The underlining and partial bolding of your above comment is exactly the point here: Genuine skepticism is necessarily peer-based, and hence the impossibility of a pseudo-skeptical resolution of matters called 'paranormal/supernatural/psychic/occult'.
So only occultists can be skeptical of occultists? So only psychics can be skeptical of psychics? So only homeopaths can be skeptical of homeopaths? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

If a 'genuine skeptic' is a 'genuine' 'occultist/psychic' then it is possible that for a 'genuine skeptic', but not for a 'pseudo-skeptic', a question of 'occultism/psychism' can be resolved.

Homeopathy is just a disputed alternative medicine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy.

[Pixel42]

They appear not to be interested in weighing alternatives, investigating strange claims, or trying out psychic experiences or altered states for themselves
In my experience the vast majority of sceptics have done a lot of investigating and weighing of alternatives, and have reached the conclusion that paranormal claims have no basis in reality. Many were believers of some kind themselves at some point, until they educated themselves. They have usually reached the stage where they are not prepared to reconsider their conclusions unless real evidence is presented. Yet more vague and unsupported claims of the kind they have previously investigated and which proved to be nonsense are simply dismissed.

[fls]

The underlining and partial bolding of your above comment is exactly the point here: Genuine skepticism is necessarily peer-based, and hence the impossibility of a pseudo-skeptical resolution of matters called 'paranormal/supernatural/psychic/occult'.

I agree with the underlined part, although I would change it to the source of genuine skepticism, as it makes no sense to suggest that one cannot approach any matters outside of one's peer-group.

I don't understand the last part, though. I don't understand why pseudo-skepticism has been introduced into this discussion or what relevance it has to whether or not peer-based issues can be addressed.

I also wonder if you are too narrow in what you would consider a peer. For example, I don't see how only 'genuine' psychics have knowledge and experience with respect to the capabilities of human cognition. In fact, it is my impression that many psychics lack basic knowledge in this area.

Linda

[Moochie]

If a 'genuine skeptic' is a 'genuine' 'occultist/psychic' then it is possible that for a 'genuine skeptic', but not for a 'pseudo-skeptic', a question of 'occultism/psychism' can be resolved.

Homeopathy is just a disputed alternative medicine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy.

I don't accept your definition of a "pseudo-skeptic," unless you're referring to those who accept the possibility that there is such a thing as "paranormal" without having seen a shred of evidence for same. I want to say, also, that if I were a scientist, my urgent goal would be to find cures for the most deadly diseases we're prone to, not the pointless pursuit of the "paranormal." If people want to waste their time in such pursuits by all means let them, but to me, after decades of seemingly unproductive activity in the field, those still attempting to find evidence to substantiate their odd beliefs are at least half crazy.


M.

[blutoski]

Genuine skepticism is rare, especially in activist skeptic organizations and communities such as this one. Sam Harris has said that religious liberals provide cover for religious fundamentalists. Maybe the genuine skeptics are providing cover for pseudo-skeptics in a similar fashion.

I'm sure this is true. Again, though, this seems to be skirting past the essay author's implication that there's something different about skeptics in this regard. The vibe I get about the essay, and the follow-up on the author's blog, is that this is pretty much cover for psi advocates to excuse their more hostile colleagues: It's OK because the skeptics started it.

When I started to work with a ghost and haunting investigation team here in Vancouver, I was able to get a glimpse into their community, and it looked pretty familiar. The group I was working (BCGHRS) with were ejected from the more established group (Vancouver Paranormal), because my guys thought that orbs and rods were photographic artefacts. They tried for quite a few years to convince the directors of Vancouver Paranormal that there was some credibility to the claim that these are caused by natural phenomena, and it came to a showdown, and ultimately they were declared persona non grata, and had to form their own group to continue operating.

Knowing how they treated believers with a slightly different view, you can imagine how they treated nonbelievers. ie: not very well.

My point is that I don't see any evidence that there's anything special about skeptics.

Here's an article that just passed my desk: [Fought Over Any Good Books Lately? (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/fashion/07clubs.html?ref=fashion)]

[tyr_13]

If a 'genuine skeptic' is a 'genuine' 'occultist/psychic' then it is possible that for a 'genuine skeptic', but not for a 'pseudo-skeptic', a question of 'occultism/psychism' can be resolved.

Homeopathy is just a disputed alternative medicine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy.

I'll be honest; I have no idea what you are trying to say here. If a 'genuine skeptic' (A) is a 'genuine' 'occultist/psychic' (B) then it is possible that for a 'genuine skeptic' (A) a question of 'occultism/psychism' (C) can be resolved.

So if A=B then C, but if A !=B then !C? That means that someone has to be a 'genuine occultist/psychic' to question occultism/psychic claims? That is basically saying that you have to believe in order to say if you believe or not, is that not so?

If that's what you are asking me to believe, pull the other one.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
The underlining and partial bolding of your above comment is exactly the point here: Genuine skepticism is necessarily peer-based, and hence the impossibility of a pseudo-skeptical resolution of matters called 'paranormal/supernatural/psychic/occult'.


1... I agree with the underlined part, although I would change it to the source of genuine skepticism, as it makes no sense to suggest that one cannot approach any matters outside of one's peer-group.
2... I don't understand the last part, though. I don't understand why pseudo-skepticism has been introduced into this discussion or what relevance it has to whether or not peer-based issues can be addressed.
3... I also wonder if you are too narrow in what you would consider a peer. For example, I don't see how only 'genuine' psychics have knowledge and experience with respect to the capabilities of human cognition. In fact, it is my impression that many psychics lack basic knowledge in this area.
Linda

1... One needs the same or higher level and type of knowledge and experience.

2... In the context of putative psychism and related realities one cannot not be 'psychic' and simultaneously be a 'genuine skeptic' of psychism.

3... A 'genuine' psychic, if such exists, would potentially have knowledge and experience with respect to the capabilities of human cognition putatively categorized as psychic, and inaccessible to a pseudo-skeptic of psychic reality who necessarily lacks the same level of knowledge and experience of a genuine skeptic of psychic reality.

It is true many 'genuine psychics' would lack the level and type of knowledge and experience of certain given putative psychic realities with a range or complexity beyond their own experience, just as one possessing a true knowledge of a given level of, say, physics below that of the top scholarship could not be a genuine skeptic of the most advanced physics thinking.

[fls]

1... One needs the same or higher level and type of knowledge and experience.

Yes, those people with knowledge and experience at the same or higher level are the source of our skepticism (if we are not one of those people ourselves).

2... In the context of putative psychism and related realities one cannot not be 'psychic' and simultaneously be a 'genuine skeptic' of psychism.

I'd forgotten that you are the person who posits a secret cadre of true psychics.

3... A 'genuine' psychic, if such exists, would potentially have knowledge and experience with respect to the capabilities of human cognition putatively categorized as psychic, and inaccessible to a pseudo-skeptic of psychic reality who necessarily lacks the same level of knowledge and experience of a genuine skeptic of psychic reality.

It is true many 'genuine psychics' would lack the level and type of knowledge and experience of certain given putative psychic realities with a range or complexity beyond their own experience, just as one possessing a true knowledge of a given level of, say, physics below that of the top scholarship could not be a genuine skeptic of the most advanced physics thinking.

I am not an advanced physicist, yet I can understand that it is reasonable to be skeptical of cold fusion, but not black holes. I depend upon the most advanced physics thinking to direct my skepticism without necessarily having the ability to engage in that thinking myself.

Otherwise, what you are suggesting is that a true skeptic holds no doubt about anything except the exquisitely narrow range where their knowledge and experience (if present) approach the most advanced thinking. And a pseudoskeptic is someone who thinks it is possible to listen to the doubts of others who hold the expertise they lack.

That seems to be an outstandingly useless approach to the search for knowledge.

Linda

[tyr_13]

A form of an appeal to authority?

[plumjam]

So when people here criticise (as they very often do) positions for not having any published peer-reviewed articles in their favour, that too, then, is an appeal to authority I guess. Unless I'm missing something.

[blutoski]

A form of an appeal to authority?

I'm not sure what your question refers to, so I'm going to assume you meant fls' recent post.

It's important to recognize that appeal to authority is a very important - possibly key -skeptical tool, not necessarily a fallacy.

The fallacy is "appeal to questionable authority". eg: "Don't use psychiatric medication - Tom Cruise says it's more harmful than beneficial."

In contrast, there is an argument pattern called "appeal to authority" (or: "argument from authority") that skeptics use to support their arguments very frequently. eg: "Use psychiatric medication - a widely respected independent medical organization's psychiatric experts say it's more beneficial than harmful."

Appeal to authority is a deductive fallacy, but can be inductively true if important criteria are met. Science is inductive and compartmentalized, so analyzing the criteria is the cornerstone of scientific discussions.

(Note: one way I recognize pseudoskeptics, is that they believe appeal to authority is always a logical fallacy - they're doing more damage to skepticism than good, and it just ends up confusing the public)

[blutoski]

So when people here criticise (as they very often do) positions for not having any published peer-reviewed articles in their favour, that too, then, is an appeal to authority I guess. Unless I'm missing something.

No, you're not missing anything. Appeal to authority has criteria, and peer-review meets the criteria (specifically: the criteria that individuals selected for peer-review are considered authorities by their peers, and have no vested interest toward validating the thesis).

[plumjam]

No, you're not missing anything. Appeal to authority has criteria, and peer-review meets the criteria (specifically: the criteria that individuals selected for peer-review are considered authorities by their peers, and have no vested interest toward validating the thesis).

Yes, you and I agree. In certain circumstances I believe that appeals to authority are entirely justified.
I'm also glad that you recognise the existence and modus operandi of pseudoskeptics here. A common tactic they tend to employ is to reply merely by sticking a fallacy label onto a point someone has made, as though that has irreversibly dismissed the point. This has the added advantage of meaning they can justify to themselves not having to address the substance of the point itself.
There are other so-called fallacies which I believe are very valid (depending on the circumstances) ways of determining what is the case. One would be the Argument from Incredulity. Science, being based on probability, is founded on an Argument from Incredulity. The particular argument being 'I am incredulous that these results occurred purely by chance, therefore I will interpret them as valid in determining what is the case.'
And yet science-worshippers bring that one out time and again. It's ironic :p

Getting back to the thread, I think Maatorc's point is well made. If it's the case that some people have experience of psychical realities then they are going to be in a better position of authority to do peer-review than would someone who lacks any such experience, or flat-out believes such experiences are impossible.

[Mashuna]

There are other so-called fallacies which I believe are very valid (depending on the circumstances) ways of determining what is the case. One would be the Argument from Incredulity. Science, being based on probability, is founded on an Argument from Incredulity. The particular argument being 'I am incredulous that these results occurred purely by chance, therefore I will interpret them as valid in determining what is the case.'
And yet science-worshippers bring that one out time and again. It's ironic :p


That's an interesting take you have on the Argument from Incredulity. It's not an interpretation I've ever heard before. I am personally incredulous of it's validity.

[tyr_13]

My comment was towards Maatorc's point. I tend to assume that the 'appeal to authority' fallacy was assumed to be, 'appeal to authorities who don't have evidence or aren't really authorities'. Which brings me to this...


Getting back to the thread, I think Maatorc's point is well made. If it's the case that some people have experience of psychical realities then they are going to be in a better position of authority to do peer-review than would someone who lacks any such experience, or flat-out believes such experiences are impossible.

No. Belief in, or having believed one has experienced 'psychic realities' (as opposed to real realities?) does not make one more qualified as an authority on the subject. It does not make one a valid peer for peer review. People can, and have, dis proven psychic's claims without ever having themselves been psychic. Cross field review is useful.

Science worshipers? It would seem you have a very tenuous grip on science and Argument from Incredulity, and thus are forced to frame them in a convention that you are more comfortable and familiar with.

[Jeff Corey]

...There are other so-called fallacies which I believe are very valid (depending on the circumstances) ways of determining what is the case. One would be the Argument from Incredulity. Science, being based on probability, is founded on an Argument from Incredulity. The particular argument being 'I am incredulous that these results occurred purely by chance, therefore I will interpret them as valid in determining what is the case.'
And yet science-worshippers bring that one out time and again. It's ironic...

Not ironic. You made a mistake. That argument is also called the Argument from Ignorance, viz
"Argument from Incredulity is an informal logical fallacy where a participant draws a positive conclusion from an inability to imagine or believe the converse. The most general structure of this argument runs something like the following:

I can't imagine how P could possibly be false
Therefore, P.
A simple variation on this is

I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true
Therefore, not-P.
This is a fallacy because someone else with more imagination may find a way. This fallacy is therefore a simple variation of argument from ignorance. In areas such as science and technology, where new discoveries and inventions are always being made, new findings may arise at any time."
(from SkepticWiki)

[maatorc]

1... Yes, those people with knowledge and experience at the same or higher level are the source of our skepticism (if we are not one of those people ourselves).
2... I'd forgotten that you are the person who posits a secret cadre of true psychics......
3... ......what you are suggesting is that a true skeptic holds no doubt about anything except the exquisitely narrow range where their knowledge and experience (if present) approach the most advanced thinking.
4... And a pseudoskeptic is someone who thinks it is possible to listen to the doubts of others who hold the expertise they lack......Linda

1... No problem here where genuine skepticism in a given context as a source of knowledge and understanding, to one who is not a genuine skeptic in the same context, is not confused with genuine skepticism in itself.
2... A discussion of this here could derail the thread.
3... No: Genuine skepticism is not a synonym of certainty below the level of the most advanced thinking.
4... No: A pseudo-skeptic assumes the authority of genuine skepticism without possessing the necessary knowledge and experience.

[blutoski]

Yes, you and I agree. In certain circumstances I believe that appeals to authority are entirely justified.

Uh... plumjam... you're the one who brought it up. Are you accusing yourself of pseudoskepticism?

It's not just your or my opinion. It's critical thinking, and the circumstances have been pretty stable for a few hundred years. I just blogged about it:

[Skeptical MythConceptions - part 1 - Authority (http://blog.bcskeptics.info/?p=7)]









Getting back to the thread, I think Maatorc's point is well made. If it's the case that some people have experience of psychical realities then they are going to be in a better position of authority to do peer-review than would someone who lacks any such experience, or flat-out believes such experiences are impossible.

I think the statement is too vague to be meaningful. How would, say, mathematicians do peer-review, since there's no physical experience involved?

Peer-review in the natural sciences is about demonstration of competence and objectivity: did you adequately self-criticize your own research over the years? Have you demonstrated depth of knowledge in this field? Are you keeping up to date? Can you demonstrate that you are sufficiently disinterested in the thesis?

Their experience may give them more depth, but it may not: psi researchers have disputes all the time over their incompatible personal experiences. (Consider my ghost hunting colleagues: the ones that had hands-on experience seeing orbs with their eyes were at odds with the ones that had hands-on experience making orbs by tinkering with their cameras) Personal experience may also reduce their disinterest by increasing their emotional investment.

[blutoski]

There are other so-called fallacies which I believe are very valid (depending on the circumstances) ways of determining what is the case. One would be the Argument from Incredulity. Science, being based on probability, is founded on an Argument from Incredulity. The particular argument being 'I am incredulous that these results occurred purely by chance, therefore I will interpret them as valid in determining what is the case.'
And yet science-worshippers bring that one out time and again. It's ironic :p

Well... something here is ironic.

Specifically, that this is the same error as rejecting Argument from Authority.

Argument from Personal Incredulity usually comes in the form of rejecting a commonly held (or authoritatively validated) belief because one personally does not understand it. It's also called Argument from Ignorance.

[Jeff Corey]

PJ, two posters have now commented on your use of the term "ironic". It appears to be an example of meta-irony.

[eirik]

Interesting thread- I learn a lot from most of you guys.

As a sidenote to the OP, I just saw a norwegian TV show, a very good satirical "mockumentary" of some sorts. It didn't have english subs, but for those of you who understand norwegian, check it out: http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/335020

I'll give you a little summary, the plot is just pure genious!

The most famous skeptical organization in Norway(more like an atheistic NGO, "Human-Etisk Forbund", but close enough) need to buy new offices, and buys an old hospital building at a bargain price.

Why they got it cheap? it's built on top of a hospital cemetery for malpractised patients, and the rumours has it that it's haunted from all the mistreated patients from the fifties.

It's just hilarious when pencils and phones and soda cans fly around midair in the middle of a skeptics board meeting , and they are all just rationalizing it, "it's just natural phenomenons with low air pressure combined with static electricity" and so on---

In the end they have to acknowledge the paranornal presense, when the ghosts writes something like "dork" in the chairmans forehead with a flying permanent marker:) But as the sceptics said, - this must NEVER come out. How would it be perceived if it were to come out that the sceptics were haunted?

I can just imagine the comical situation if the JREF all of a sudden got a bad case of poltergeist:)

The tone in the show is just real laughable, and it is sort of like an absurd perspective on how "believers" view sceptics. Metahumor..

They also did some other great sceptical episodes of this show, one with a "homeopathic emergency ambulance helicopter". Just think how many more people could have been saved from air crashes, traffic incidents and drowning accidents, if the school medicine(big pharma) would allow for alternative emergency treatment.(horoscopes, healing, homeopathic, foot acupressure and so on) http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/indeks/6312

End of derail..

Eirik

[fls]

1... No problem here where genuine skepticism in a given context as a source of knowledge and understanding, to one who is not a genuine skeptic in the same context, is not confused with genuine skepticism in itself.

I can't tell what you're trying to say here.

3... No: Genuine skepticism is not a synonym of certainty below the level of the most advanced thinking.

Lack of doubt is not certainty in this case. It is credulity - simply believing what you are told.

4... No: A pseudo-skeptic assumes the authority of genuine skepticism without possessing the necessary knowledge and experience.

You said "no", but then you repeated what I said. I don't think you are paying attention to what I am saying. :)

I suspect you are misapplying the idea of expertise. In order to determine whether or not an individual is a genuine psychic, i.e. their abilities represent something paranormal, one needs to have an expert understanding of what normal abilities encompass. That some individuals have decided that their abilities (or the abilities of others) are not normal does not make them experts in what can't be normal. In fact, it encourages them to remain ignorant in that regard so as to preserve the illusion of magic. I prefer to depend upon the expert opinion of those who have a thorough understanding of the possibilties of human cognition, instead of those who don't, when it comes to whether or not I believe someone who declares "this is not possible by normal means".

Linda

[plumjam]

Not ironic. You made a mistake. That argument is also called the Argument from Ignorance, viz
"Argument from Incredulity is an informal logical fallacy where a participant draws a positive conclusion from an inability to imagine or believe the converse. The most general structure of this argument runs something like the following:

I can't imagine how P could possibly be false
Therefore, P.
A simple variation on this is

I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true
Therefore, not-P.
This is a fallacy because someone else with more imagination may find a way. This fallacy is therefore a simple variation of argument from ignorance. In areas such as science and technology, where new discoveries and inventions are always being made, new findings may arise at any time."
(from SkepticWiki)

Yeah, and whichever way you look at it scientists base their conclusions on a de facto disbelief that what are described as statistically significant results came about purely by chance.
Science is based on this disbelief. Incredulity.

[plumjam]

Uh... plumjam... you're the one who brought it up. Are you accusing yourself of pseudoskepticism?

It's not just your or my opinion. It's critical thinking, and the circumstances have been pretty stable for a few hundred years. I just blogged about it:

[Skeptical MythConceptions - part 1 - Authority (http://blog.bcskeptics.info/?p=7)]
Seems like you're misinterpreting me. I'm saying that at the heart of some examples of what are often labeled fallacies, lie valid ways of discerning what is the case. The mistake pseudoskeptics make is to uncritically label things as fallacies and feel that this allows them to dismiss the wider point.


I think the statement is too vague to be meaningful. How would, say, mathematicians do peer-review, since there's no physical experience involved?
Huh? Mathematicians are in a better position to do peer review on mathematics papers because they have relevant mathematical experience. They have more keenly honed mathematical perception, just as a psychic would have more keenly honed psychic perception.

Peer-review in the natural sciences is about demonstration of competence and objectivity: did you adequately self-criticize your own research over the years? Have you demonstrated depth of knowledge in this field? Are you keeping up to date? Can you demonstrate that you are sufficiently disinterested in the thesis?
So?

Their experience may give them more depth, but it may not: psi researchers have disputes all the time over their incompatible personal experiences.
So do mathematicians and physical scientists. So, if anything, that's a good sign.

(Consider my ghost hunting colleagues: the ones that had hands-on experience seeing orbs with their eyes were at odds with the ones that had hands-on experience making orbs by tinkering with their cameras) Personal experience may also reduce their disinterest by increasing their emotional investment.
Yeah, like there's no emotional investment in non-paranormal science, including peer-reviewers.

Well... something here is ironic.

Specifically, that this is the same error as rejecting Argument from Authority.

Yes. To reiterate, I'm arguing that Argument from Authority, and Argument from Incredulity can be valid ways of discerning what is the case. The fact that I think so on the latter means I can accept scientific results.

Argument from Personal Incredulity usually comes in the form of rejecting a commonly held (or authoritatively validated) belief because one personally does not understand it. It's also called Argument from Ignorance.[/QUOTE]
Why try to make a connection between Incredulity and Ignorance? If they were the same 'fallacies' why would they need two descriptors. We all know that incredulity and ignorance are widely differing states.
My argument was about incredulity. I've noticed one or two other people have tried to do this to confuse the issue.

[plumjam]

double post

[blutoski]

Seems like you're misinterpreting me. I'm saying that at the heart of some examples of what are often labeled fallacies, lie valid ways of discerning what is the case. The mistake pseudoskeptics make is to uncritically label things as fallacies and feel that this allows them to dismiss the wider point.

I'm sure it happens, but your passage above is a bit too vague to accept or reject. What fallacies, exactly? I've identified one, but the one you raised as a second example doesn't make sense to me for the reasons described in a previous post.




[QUOTE=plumjam;4259085]Huh? Mathematicians are in a better position to do peer review on mathematics papers because they have relevant mathematical experience. They have more keenly honed mathematical perception, just as a psychic would have more keenly honed psychic perception.

Now you're moving the goalpost. First you were talking about experiences, now you're talking about 'perception' - this is part of the vagueness I mentioned in the previous post. I have no idea what you're trying to say.

If you could clarify your claim, I'd be willing to continue. Right now, I'm struggling.




Yeah, like there's no emotional investment in non-paranormal science, including peer-reviewers.

Of course there's emotional investment. That's why I brought it up as a criteria. It's on the table as a real concern. We are arguing about whether a person with more emotional investment is a better objective peer reviewer. I say 'no', regardless of what the subject is. You seem to think that it's a problem for science, but a benefit for psi researchers. I don't understand why you apply different standards.





Yes. To reiterate, I'm arguing that Argument from Authority, and Argument from Incredulity can be valid ways of discerning what is the case. The fact that I think so on the latter means I can accept scientific results.

Why try to make a connection between Incredulity and Ignorance? If they were the same 'fallacies' why would they need two descriptors. We all know that incredulity and ignorance are widely differing states.

Nevertheless, they're just two different names for the same fallacy, and at this point it seems like you're quibbling over semantics. Did you read my blog entry? Appeal to Authority has six common names, two of which refer to the argument format, four of which describe fallacious use.




My argument was about incredulity. I've noticed one or two other people have tried to do this to confuse the issue.

I found your use of it to be confusing enough. The example you gave about 'skeptics' was to invoke a common nonskeptic argument: that there are no coincidences. I am really struggling to understand your thoughts in this thread.

[blutoski]

Yeah, and whichever way you look at it scientists base their conclusions on a de facto disbelief that what are described as statistically significant results came about purely by chance.
Science is based on this disbelief. Incredulity.

I think I'm grasping what you're saying, and it's just plain mistaken. Statistical significance describes how confident we are that the results are not chance, but there is no experiment I'm aware of where the statistical significance is so low that we eliminate chance.

So, I think you're offering a strawperson.


To give a more concrete example, when I do pilot studies which involve patient outcomes, I typically look for a confidence interval of p<=.05.

If the results are positive, I can describe it as probably true, but it could be a false positive one time in twenty. The p<=.05 recognizes that we could have got this result purely by chance. Statistical significance specifically acknowledges that results could be chance.

The decision to use confidence intervals of .05 or .01 or .0001 is dependent on the purpose of the study. eg: I prefer to see .01 for replication studies, as it reduces the chance of a false positive. This is about managing Type I and Type II errors. In pilot studies, we want to make sure we capture real positives, but in replication studies, we want to make sure we eliminate real negatives.

[Jeff Corey]

Yeah, and whichever way you look at it scientists base their conclusions on a de facto disbelief that what are described as statistically significant results came about purely by chance.
Science is based on this disbelief. Incredulity.
No. If they reject the null hypothesis, they are stating the probability that the results did not occur by chance. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the Argument from Incredulity. Read that quoted definition more closely.

[maatorc]

......In order to determine whether or not an individual is a genuine psychic, i.e. their abilities represent something paranormal, one needs to have an expert understanding of what normal abilities encompass. That some individuals have decided that their abilities (or the abilities of others) are not normal does not make them experts in what can't be normal. In fact, it encourages them to remain ignorant in that regard so as to preserve the illusion of magic. I prefer to depend upon the expert opinion of those who have a thorough understanding of the possibilties of human cognition, instead of those who don't, when it comes to whether or not I believe someone who declares "this is not possible by normal means".Linda

I accept that is your position.

[Ersby]

I recognize the thread has moved on and I’m not sure if this really applies any more, but I found this paper, and it reminded me of this debate. Of course, it applies equally to both sides of the argument. Plus, I like the title.

“Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”, Kruger, Dunning, Cornell University
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, Vol. 77, No. 6. 1121-1134

From the abstract:

"People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.”



http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

[Limbo]

An exciting update to the OP:

http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/

"James Randi commented on my SPR talk on skeptic psychology (November 2 08), in which, among other things, I suggested that an unacknowledged fear of psi may motivate some skeptics. Here is his comment and my response.

I read this unsigned essay with great interest. Therein, I found a few canards of which I'd not previously heard. For example, I can assure the author that I, as a devoted skeptic but not a cynic, personally have no fear nor worry whatsoever that claimed psi phenomena might turn out to be real, as he thought might be the case with some. In fact, upon being presented with firm evidence establishing this wonderful circumstance, I would delight in trying to solve the modi operandi that might bring about telepathy, precognition, or other such phenomena.

The author writes: "Sceptics - identified as such from prior personality profiling - have been found unconsciously to influence the results of psi experiments by consistently producing results lower than would be expected by chance." Using that same standard, substitute "believers" for "sceptics," and "higher" for "lower." I believe this is properly described by an old saying involving interchangeable sauce for geese and ganders...?

The "It's the kind of thing I would not believe in even if it were true" statement is, to me, unforgiveable, and I cannot embrace that thought. I am a rationalist, and proper evidence will establish, for me, any claim. For the last decade, through the James Randi Educational Foundation, I have offered a one-million-dollar prize to any person who can establish that any paranormal, supernatural, or occult claim is true. The fact that no one has won this prize, nor even passed the preliminary stage of testing, either indicates that no one can do so, or that a suitable applicant has yet to apply. I prefer the latter possibility, though I admittedly have no belief in these wonders, because all that I've seen in my 80-plus years, have been the results of trickery or self-delusion.

The author also writes: "A great deal of what debunkers write in their books is not really researched at all closely, but simply lifted from earlier books." In respect to this comment, I refer you to the geese-and-ganders sauce application mentioned above... I note, too, that the author quotes extensively from staunch believers, and expresses little - if any - doubt that they speak sooth.

True skeptics are always willing to be shown, as I am. And it may happen, though I note that none of the prominent figures of today such as Uri Geller have expressed any interest in accepting my challenge. That, in itself, speaks loudly to the skeptic. But then, Geller appears to be making a bid to tell all, since he now only accepts the designation "entertainer" or "showman," not wanting to be described as "psychic." What will the next phase of his newly-adopted stance involve, I wonder?

James Randi.

James, thanks for responding to this. I was interested to hear your comments and I have a few small rejoinders.

'... substitute "believers" for "sceptics," and "higher" for "lower." I believe this is properly described by an old saying involving interchangeable sauce for geese and ganders...?'

I agree that in a general sense bias works both ways. Here I was talking about its effect in psi experiments. Mean scores in card guessing, for instance, would suggest that a person is showing no evidence of psi. Consistent above-mean scores might indicate the action of psi, while below-mean scores is thought to imply that a person is unconsciously suppressing it. In these three scenarios, both the latter two are held to be paranormal.

I know skeptics have difficulty with this 'psi-missing' idea. It requires accepting that getting none right over a large number of card guessing trials, where five is expected by chance, is as abnormal as getting ten right. This is fairly well accepted in the parapsychological community, which it would surely not be if it was statistically unsound. It can be argued that abnormally poor scores are just the negative tail of random guessing scores, but if that was the case, they would be as common as the above average scores, when in fact they are quite rare. Also, they would not correspond to skeptic psychological profiles, which however they often do.

'The author also writes: "A great deal of what debunkers write in their books is not really researched at all closely, but simply lifted from earlier books." In respect to this comment, I refer you to the geese-and-ganders sauce application mentioned above...'

I could have expressed myself more succinctly. Of course both skeptics and paranormalists form their own communities, talking and listening to each other, as in any controversy.

My complaint relates to the claim of skeptic authors to offer expert guidance about paranormal reports, for the benefit of scientists who don't believe them but need expert guidance. This claim is suspect, when debunkers do so little direct investigation, and instead are often content to recycle alleged exposes and confessions which, in many cases, even a little critical thinking would show to be problematic. By contrast paranormalists really do make an effort to get to grips with abnormal experiences first hand, and with the primary sources.

A small example is your paper on the 1984 Columbus 'poltergeist' incident, which attributed the effects to pranks played by a 14-year old girl to attract attention, and is widely quoted in skeptic literature on the topic. Another main source is a chapter in a book by another magician, Milbourne Christopher, whose examples of hoaxes and confessions seem to be mostly gleaned from news reports, and again is widely quoted. That's pretty much it, apart from references to the Borley and Amityville cases, which arguably aren't typical of the poltergeist genre.

It's interesting that neither you nor Christopher, who tried to debunk the 1958 Seaford, Long Island case, gained entrance to the house in question or actually saw the incidents that caused all the fuss. By contrast this type of thing has been witnessed close up by a number of psychical investigators - eg Roll, Gauld and Cornell, Scott Rogo, Owen, Playfair and Grosse, etc - sometimes on several separate occasions, leading them to consider it a genuinely paranormal phenomenon. It's not clear to me that it needs skilled magicians to catch out teenagers playing tricks, or why their armchair analysis should be the more reliable.

'True skeptics are always willing to be shown, as I am. And it may happen, though I note that none of the prominent figures of today such as Uri Geller have expressed any interest in accepting my challenge.'

I've never thought that Geller was a good reason for believing in the genuineness of psi, or any single self-professed 'psychic' for that matter. But could their reluctance to be tested by you have something to do with the fact that they don't trust you? In that case, it's not so much an indication of psi's non-existence as the short-comings of your challenge as a vehicle for advancing our understanding.

'...proper evidence will establish, for me, any claim.' What is 'proper evidence'? What James Randi says it is? Why not the tests and investigations devised by scientists who believe it to be a genuine entity? Or for that matter other magicians, like Robert-Houdin, who believed the clairvoyant Alex Didier to be genuine, or J.N. Maskelyne, who debunked seance mediums, but then privately experimented with table turning and, far from being convinced by Michael Faraday's explanation - which skeptics take to be the last word - thought a genuinely psychokinetic effect was at work.

It's difficult to reconcile your apparent openness in this posting with the aggressive polemic for which you are better known. My understanding is that your fame and influence rests on your skill in persuading people not to take psi claims seriously, which is hardly compatible with encouraging a genuine demonstration. The idea that the million-dollar challenge is a meaningful test is surely an illusion. Even if, by some fluke, someone actually did win the prize, what then? Would your followers believe it, or would they just say, poor chap, it got him in the end?

best wishes

Robert McLuhan"

[Jeff Corey]

...I agree that in a general sense bias works both ways. Here I was talking about its effect in psi experiments. Mean scores in card guessing, for instance, would suggest that a person is showing no evidence of psi. Consistent above-mean scores might indicate the action of psi, while below-mean scores is thought to imply that a person is unconsciously suppressing it. In these three scenarios, both the latter two are held to be paranormal.

I know skeptics have difficulty with this 'psi-missing' idea. It requires accepting that getting none right over a large number of card guessing trials, where five is expected by chance, is as abnormal as getting ten right. This is fairly well accepted in the parapsychological community, which it would surely not be if it was statistically unsound...
This just demonstrates that the "parapsychological community" is either uneducated, blind or naive when it comes to probability and statistics.
"Ask not for whom the bell curve tolls, it tolls for thee."
Otto Palindrome (1881-1991)

[tyr_13]

It's not clear to me that it needs skilled magicians to catch out teenagers playing tricks, or why their armchair analysis should be the more reliable.



Mr. McLuhan shows here exactly why he is wrong. If peer review is need, and these teenagers are pulling off magician's tricks, then obviously magicians would be very useful in catching the said teenagers in their tricks.

I'm not saying eyewitness testimony is completely useless, because those conducting their 'armchair analysis' used their testimony to figure out the trick. If, as these magicians have postulated, it was not necessary to visit the house. What I mean is, if it were people doing these things, the important thing to have access to would be the people.



Consistent above-mean scores might indicate the action of psi, while below-mean scores is thought to imply that a person is unconsciously suppressing it. In these three scenarios, both the latter two are held to be paranormal.


Who thinks that means that a person is unconsciously suppressing it? The latter two are held to be paranormal by who? Psi researchers? I'm not sure what logic they are using to say that below mean scores is evidence of psi, but it would seem like they want to say if they get above mean it is psi, and if they get below mean it is psi. Isn't that moving the goalposts?


What is 'proper evidence'? What James Randi says it is? Why not the tests and investigations devised by scientists who believe it to be a genuine entity? Or for that matter other magicians, like Robert-Houdin, who believed the clairvoyant Alex Didier to be genuine, or J.N. Maskelyne, who debunked seance mediums, but then privately experimented with table turning and, far from being convinced by Michael Faraday's explanation - which skeptics take to be the last word - thought a genuinely psychokinetic effect was at work.

Proper evidence is recordable, repeatable, verifiable, and clear. It is the same standard of evidence one would expect from any field of research. For all the claims that skeptics just follow other skeptics, I've still not seen any reason we should lower the standards that we apply to each other, when talking about psi. How can it be that some skeptics, who come to believe the presence of psi powers, are just following skeptic leaders?


It's difficult to reconcile your apparent openness in this posting with the aggressive polemic for which you are better known. My understanding is that your fame and influence rests on your skill in persuading people not to take psi claims seriously, which is hardly compatible with encouraging a genuine demonstration.

So Mr. Randi's doubt is again to blame? Offering a million dollars isn't compatible with encouraging a genuine demonstration? Taking a lot of time to consider these challenges and looking into these claims, something most respectable scholars will not do, isn't compatible with encouraging a genuine demonstration? The fact that Mr Randi, or any other skeptic, is actually listening to the people making the claims as opposed to just ignoring them, is a testament to how skeptics encourage demonstrations. They demand them.


Even if, by some fluke, someone actually did win the prize, what then? Would your followers believe it, or would they just say, poor chap, it got him in the end?

Again, this man is apparently uncomfortable with the idea that skeptics are a community of more or less equals, as he keeps characterizing them in the more comfortable label of 'follower'. This is also useless speculation that will of course fit the bias Mr. McLuhan has for 'skeptics'. What if advanced aliens came down to earth and said, "Nope, there is no such thing as psi abilities. We tested for it seriously for about 2,000 years and not only found that there was no evidence of it, but also found all these laws of physics that prevent it."

Would psi followers just say, "Oops, we were wrong. But how could we have known?" This too, is useless speculation that will fit the bias of whomever is answering the question.

[Ersby]

I know skeptics have difficulty with this 'psi-missing' idea. It requires accepting that getting none right over a large number of card guessing trials, where five is expected by chance, is as abnormal as getting ten right.

The problem I have with psi-missing is if you define "psi" in terms of an exchange of information, then an absence of information can only be seen as a failure.

This is fairly well accepted in the parapsychological community, which it would surely not be if it was statistically unsound.

Hmm, parapsychologists are hardly overjoyed when they get below chance results. Most have enough intelligence to write them up in terms of negative findings, rather than saying "hoorah, psi-missing!"

(edit: having said that, I went to check what kind of reaction they do give, and the first paper I read gives more space to explaining psi-missing in terms of what went wrong (interpersonal relationships, PK effect on the new RNG - yes, really) than it did for explaining the experiment itself)

[Jeff Corey]

Irving Langmuir on Rhine's file drawer, "He showed me filing cabinets--a whole row of them. Maybe hundreds of thousands of cards. He has a filing cabinet that contained nothing but these things that were done in sealed up envelopes. And they were the ones that gave the average of five."

[Limbo]

McLuhan: "Consistent above-mean scores might indicate the action of psi, while below-mean scores is thought to imply that a person is unconsciously suppressing it. In these three scenarios, both the latter two are held to be paranormal."

tyr_13: "Who thinks that means that a person is unconsciously suppressing it? The latter two are held to be paranormal by who? Psi researchers? I'm not sure what logic they are using to say that below mean scores is evidence of psi, but it would seem like they want to say if they get above mean it is psi, and if they get below mean it is psi. Isn't that moving the goalposts?"


I'm a little disappointed in Randi for not knowing that Mr. McLuhan was referring to the sheep-goat effect. I would have thought someone of Randi's stature would have picked up on that. I'm wondering how much Randi really knows about parapsychology research...

I'm not as disappointed in tyr_13 for not knowing jack squat, he's just an average skeptic after all. But Randi is supposed to be amazing. Well I'm not amazed.

Here is a little on the sheep-goat effect for Randi & friends.

"The data convinced me. Repeatedly, average ESP scores of subjects who rejected any possibility of ESP success (whom I called goats) were lower than average ESP scores of all other subjects (whom I called sheep). This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology." -Gertrude Schmeidler

"Her studies, which were conducted over a nine year period and have since been replicated, showed an unquestionable difference between the "sheep" whose scores fell above chance expectation and "goats" who scored below chance levels. The phenomenon of psi-missing is thought to be a psychological effect in which psychic material is repressed from consciousness.

In a review of 17 experiments testing the hypothesis that subjects who believed in ESP would show superior ESP performance compared to subjects who did not believe in ESP, psychologist John Palmer found that the predicted pattern occurred in 76% of the experiments, and all six of the experiments with individually significant outcomes were in the predicted direction. These findings suggest an overall statistical significance for this effect.

It is important to realize, however, that the sheep-goat studies do not necessarily distinguish those who believe in ESP from those who do not. In most studies, the "sheep" were not "true believers"; they merely accepted the possibility that ESP could occur in the test situation. On the other hand, many of the "goats" were willing to accept that ESP could occur between people who loved each other, or in certain times of crisis; but they rejected all possibility that ESP would manifest for them in their particular test situation." http://www.williamjames.com/Science/ESP.htm (bold mine)

The sheep-goat effect turned upside down (http://www.pesquisapsi.com/content/view/975/146/)

Abstract

Obtained sheep-goat scores (sheep being those who believed in ESP while goats were Ss who did not) from 40 Ss aged 16-64 yrs who were then tachistoscopically shown ambiguous subsensory targets to mask the actual experimental task. They were asked to respond with ESP symbols. 20 Ss knew they were taking an ESP test and were encouraged to achieve high ESP scores. The other 20 Ss were told they were taking a subsensory perception test and that high scores would help to disprove the ESP hypothesis. Results show a significant interaction between Ss' attitudes toward ESP success and their understanding of the purpose of the experiment. Goat scores across conditions were significant. Deviations were above mean chance expectation for sheep in the prove-ESP and goats in the disprove -ESP conditions and were below for sheep in the disprove-ESP and goats in the prove-ESP conditions. These data challenge the allegation that ESP effects can be attributed to cues from the experimenter. (25 ref)

The Effect of a Change in Pro Attitude on Paranormal Performance: A Pilot Study Using Naive and Sophisticated Skeptics (http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/effectofachangev19n1.pdf)

Abstract—A computerized symbol-identifying experiment was conducted to test Thalbourne’s (2004) concept of the ‘‘pro attitude’’ (an attitude towards a favorable outcome in a normal or paranormal task). Participants were required to identify the correct symbols randomly presented on computer in a run of 50 trials. Skeptics were given a second run. After each run, hit-rates were presented on screen. A subgroup of randomly selected skeptics were informed that scores, if sufficiently high or low, indicate statistical evidence of psi. It was hypothesized that news of this information (the ‘‘treatment’’) would alter the pro attitude of some skeptics and lead them to try to score at chance, rather than risk producing scores that might indicate psi. A significant correlation between hitrate and belief in psi after treatment (but not before treatment) was found for ‘‘converted’’ skeptics (i.e., ‘‘new believers’’ in psi). Post hoc evidence showed a significantly high hit-rate on symbol identification after conversion (but not before conversion). These results suggest a ‘‘conversion effect’’ in some skeptics, thus indicating a change in pro attitude. It was concluded that further research on the pro attitude is warranted since evidence of same may help identify sources of paranormal effects.

Personality characteristics of sheep and goats (http://www.aiprinc.org/para-ac05_Thalbourne%20&%20Haraldsson_1980.pdf)

Summary—A great deal of parapsychological research has investigated the effect upon extrasensory perception (ESP), of the so-called ‘sheep-goat variable’ (SGV), that is, belief in the existence of ESP, either in the abstract or with respect to one’s own psychic ability. However, very little purely psychological research has examined the question of possible personality differences between ‘sheep’ (the ‘believers’) and ‘goats’ (the ‘disbelievers’). Personality factors are important both as potentially confounding variables, and as independent predictors of psi-scoring which could be used in combination with the SGV.

This paper reports two sets of experiments of the pilot-confirmation type: a grand total of 552 subjects were administered various personality tests plus one or other of two ‘sheep-goat scales’. Replicated results indicated that the SGV was related to extraversion-introversion and to conservatism-radicalism: sheep tend to be more extraverted and more conservative than goats, who tend towards introversion and intellectual skepticism.

A report on a sentence completion form of sheep-goat attitude scale (http://www.pesquisapsi.com/content/view/1982/146/)

Abstract

Following Schmeidler's lead, the experimenters separated subjects to be used in an ESP test on the basis of their attitudes of belief in ESP, disbelief, and doubt (conflict group). The separation was made on the basis of a sentence-completion scale. A total of 39 subjects, all but two high school students, were used in the experiment in which each one attempted to identify a different random order of ESP targets sealed in an opaque envelope. The total average score was not significantly different from chance expectation, but there was a tendency for the believers to score above that level and for the disbelievers to score at or below it (P = .011).

Children's psi and personality variables (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_/ai_82066931)

Abstract

In a correlation of precognition and anxiety scores for junior high and high school students, it was found that high-anxiety students scored better than low-anxiety students, whereas mid-anxiety students scored the worst. In a meta-analysis, Defense Mechanism Test scores correlated with ESP; low defensiveness indicated higher ESP. Using Cattell's high school Personality Questionnaire, plus ESP tests, it was found that warm, sociable, self-assured, easygoing students scored well; aloof, critical, insecure, uptight students scored below chance, also demonstrating ESP. "Happy-go-lucky" students scored positively; serious-minded students scored negatively.

[tyr_13]

I'm a little disappointed in Randi for not knowing that Mr. McLuhan was referring to the sheep-goat effect. I would have thought someone of Randi's stature would have picked up on that. I'm wondering how much Randi really knows about parapsychology research...

I'm not as disappointed in tyr_13 for not knowing jack squat, he's just an average skeptic after all. But Randi is supposed to be amazing. Well I'm not amazed.



Thank you for providing that information showing that it is parapsychologists who believe negative results are proof of psi. Thank you also for resorting to veiled insults, as psi-promoters are want to do. Thank you for derailing your own thread.

You, and other psi promoters (or any other form of woo), continue to make believe that people like Randi are the be all and end all for skepticism. You seem to believe that if you can show that Randi doesn't know something, then obviously skepticism is the wrong stance to take. Obviously, this is fallacious logic. We are not a hierarchy.

It is interesting that you say I know jack-squat and then post up links showing that what I was guessing was in fact the case. Congratulations.

I'm not disappointed in you. I'm am amused, because the irony this thread has provided is deep, tasty, and filling.

[Moochie]

How desperately does one need to believe in psi? I'm open to the possibility, but what is proffered as evidence is so lacking in any meat -- nay, any meat and bones -- that one may only conclude that the believer's desperation is abnormal. Now what does that prove?


M.

[fls]

Just out of curiosity, Limbo, do you actually read the studies that you reference? For example, you quote studies as 'evidence' for a particular effect that actually are negative - i.e. significant differences aren't found when testing for the sheep-goat effect.

Linda

[tyr_13]

On further reflection, sorry about saying it was a derail. It does relate to the 'psychology of the skeptic' doesn't it? My bad.

[Jeff Corey]

... I'm wondering how much Randi really knows about parapsychology research...

Obviously, much, much more than you do. Even I, an 'average skeptic", knows more than you do about the research.

[cj.23]

The problem I have with psi-missing is if you define "psi" in terms of an exchange of information, then an absence of information can only be seen as a failure.

Ah I see the objection! Nah, on the PMIR model, and indeed most others I have seen discussed, it is assumed the target gains the knowledge to then avoid the hit, at an unconscious level. The information is still transfered: otherwise one would assume something with the scope of random results.

I actually ran some tests for psi-missing once. I noticed that one friend over several years, a wargamer, seemed to have an uncanny lack of success with die throws. I was playing a game with home one day hwere rolling high on an ordinary six sided dice was good - RISK kind of thing, and watched as he kept rolling multiples ones. This made me curious - the die should have been biased towards sixes (ordinary dice with indented spots, a moment sthought will show why.)

So I made him roll 6d6 seventy times, in a sequence. 1st roll was trying for ones, 2nd for twos, and so on all the way through, repeating the target sequence. I was expecting to see 70 hits - he managed 21. Something was clearly up. Unfortunely he was a) incredibly bored and b) unwilling to countenance a psi possibility, insisiting he just had lousy luck. :) I never got to repeat the experiment...

Shame, if he was always that unlucky and could have repeated his dismal performance in future trials it would have made good evidence for psi missing!

Obviously in a metanalysis, psi missing and psi hits might well average out. James Alcock mentions this possibility I think in Science & Supernature -- but if the psi missing is consistent, and applies to a single subject, then the objection loses all weight.

cj x

[zooterkin]

Huh? Mathematicians are in a better position to do peer review on mathematics papers because they have relevant mathematical experience. They have more keenly honed mathematical perception, just as a psychic would have more keenly honed psychic perception.



And a flying pig would have a more keenly honed ability to fly. Let's establish the existence of any psychic abilities at all before you limit who is able to judge them.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by plumjam View Post
Huh? Mathematicians are in a better position to do peer review on mathematics papers because they have relevant mathematical experience. They have more keenly honed mathematical perception, just as a psychic would have more keenly honed psychic perception.
And a flying pig would have a more keenly honed ability to fly. Let's establish the existence of any psychic abilities at all before you limit who is able to judge them.

'Plumjam' means and is effectively saying that in the context of putative psychic realities 'pseudo-skeptics of psychic realities' lack the qualifications and experience to determine their existence or evaluate them when such determination and evaluation must necessarily be by a 'genuine skeptic of psychic realities' and peer or higher level based.

[zooterkin]

'Plumjam' means and is effectively saying that in the context of putative psychic realities 'pseudo-skeptics of psychic realities' lack the qualifications and experience to determine their existence or evaluate them when such determination and evaluation must necessarily be by a 'genuine skeptic of psychic realities' and peer or higher level based.

It has yet to be shown that there are any such 'psychic realities'.

[cj.23]

It has yet to be shown that there are any such 'psychic realities'.

As I pointed out years ago on Bad Psychics there is no doubt at all we all experience psychic reality. You are experiencing a number of psychic processes right now. Yet when I added 2 +2 they still did not give me the money! :( Now psychical processes, they are rather harder to demonstrate. :)

Do I get an award for pointless semantics? :)

cj x

[zooterkin]

As I pointed out years ago on Bad Psychics there is no doubt at all we all experience psychic reality. You are experiencing a number of psychic processes right now. Yet when I added 2 +2 they still did not give me the money! :( Now psychical processes, they are rather harder to demonstrate. :)



What definition of 'psychic' are you using? And what exactly did you point out on Bad Psychics? (And what is Bad Psychics?)

[blutoski]

So, here's the meat of it, as far as I'm concerned:

(quoting Robert McLuhan): It's difficult to reconcile your apparent openness in this posting with the aggressive polemic for which you are better known.

There's yer cognitive dissonance right there... maybe Randi is not the two-dimensional strawperson required by psi advocates to fuel their belief that skepticism is closed-mindedness? How do we manage this? Reject the stereotype, or reject the evidence provided within Randi's statements?




My understanding is that your fame and influence rests on your skill in persuading people not to take psi claims seriously, which is hardly compatible with encouraging a genuine demonstration. The idea that the million-dollar challenge is a meaningful test is surely an illusion. Even if, by some fluke, someone actually did win the prize, what then? Would your followers believe it, or would they just say, poor chap, it got him in the end?

Problem solved: reject the evidence. Stereotype works better. Whew! Close one.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
'Plumjam' means and is effectively saying that in the context of putative psychic realities 'pseudo-skeptics of psychic realities' lack the qualifications and experience to determine their existence or evaluate them when such determination and evaluation must necessarily be by a 'genuine skeptic of psychic realities' and peer or higher level based.
It has yet to be shown that there are any such 'psychic realities'.

It has yet to be shown that there are not any such 'psychic realities'.

[tyr_13]

It has yet to be shown that there are not any such 'psychic realities'.

It has not been shown that there isn't an ethereal gnome watching me every time I right-click.

[maatorc]

It has not been shown that there isn't an ethereal gnome watching me every time I right-click.

I take it you are saying there are such beasties? - !

[Jeff Corey]

"In the editorial of the March/April 2003 issue of Infinite Energy, the late Gene Mallove reports on breakthrough research in acupuncture which showed that stimulating a specific acupuncture point in the foot leads to instantaneous activation of the visual cortex of the brain. Measurement of the speed of transmission was only limited by the instrumentation's time resolution and shown to be "at least 1,000 times any known nerve transmission speed". This important result was

"submitted to Science, and then Nature, which both rejected without review according to Dr. Joie Jones. Subsequently, five sympathetic Nobel laureates in the biological sciences, who were impressed with the paper, urged Nature to reconsider its decision. It did not. Therefore, the paper had to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which does not censor the work of its participants."[/url]

I'd like to see a link to that. It smells.

[tyr_13]

I take it you are saying there are such beasties? - !

No, I'm saying that at this point they are just as evidenced as your psychic realities.

[Jeff Corey]

What Gorilla?: Why Some Can't See Psychic Phenomena (http://www.realitysandwich.com/what_gorilla)

[...]

"Because of these blind spots, some common aspects of human experience literally cannot be seen by those who've spent decades embedded within the Western scientific worldview. That worldview, like any set of cultural beliefs inculcated from childhood, acts like the blinders they put on skittish horses to keep them calm. Between the blinders we see with exceptional clarity, but seeing beyond the blinders is not only exceedingly difficult, after a while it's easy to forget that your vision is restricted.

An important class of human experience that these blinders exclude is psychic phenomena, those commonly reported spooky experiences, such as telepathy and clairvoyance, that suggest we are deeply interconnected in ways that transcend the ordinary senses and our everyday notions of space and time.

Exclusion of these phenomena creates a Catch 22: Human experiences credibly reported throughout history, across all cultures, and at all educational levels, repeatedly tell us that psychic phenomena exist. But Big Science -- especially as portrayed in prominent newspapers and popular magazines like Scientific American -- says it doesn't.

Well then, is this gorilla in the basketball game, or not? One way to find out is to study the question using the highly effective tools of science while leaving the worldview assumptions behind. That way we can study the question without prejudice, like watching a basketball game without preferring either the white or black team. Neutral observers are much more likely to spot a gorilla, if one is indeed present."

[...]

This is not only wrong, but willfully stupid. This dork uses the gorilla demonstration to show that clear minded individuals have blinders? That people not fooled by illusions, delusions and hallucinations have blinders? He has his head so far up his blinders that he is functionally blind.
Don't bother to respond to this, I know you are buzy.

[maatorc]

No, I'm saying that at this point they are just as evidenced as your psychic realities.

'Ethereal Gnomes' are a strictly 'pseudo-skeptic' verbal delusional invention devised as a derisive diversion in lieu of any genuinely skeptical knowledge and experience of all subjects beyond the capacity of pseudo-skeptics to evaluate, comprehend, judge, or measure.

[Jeff Corey]

Wowsa, you remind me of Gnome Chomsky!

[tyr_13]

'Ethereal Gnomes' are a strictly 'pseudo-skeptic' verbal delusional invention devised as a derisive diversion in lieu of any genuinely skeptical knowledge and experience of all subjects beyond the capacity of pseudo-skeptics to evaluate, comprehend, judge, or measure.

Labeling people 'pseudo-skeptic' is an often self-gratifying tactic of people who have had their faulty logic pointed out to them in a curt manner in lieu of any actual explanation on why their reasoning is sound or why they get to use such long run-on sentence structures. It is beyond the capacity of these logic-impaired persons to evaluate, comprehend, judge, or measure their mistake. Thus, they gain comfort through labeling.

So instead of calling me a 'pseudo-skeptic' for pointing out why your stance on 'psychic realities' is not evidence based (i.e. it isn't), why don't you try to explain why postulating 'psychic-realities' is important on this thread.

'Psychic realities' are a strictly wooish verbal spin to make psi advocates sound as if they were being scientific in lieu of any real evidence.

[fls]

I'd like to see a link to that. It smells.

I posted a link to the paper in my response to Limbo.

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/5/2670.full

I realize that Limbo wasn't able to appreciate it, but I think that you will. Enjoy.

If you are referring to the story of suppression, the stories all seem to suffer from the same problem demonstrated in the OP. They fail to show that the research wasn't rejected for the usual reasons. In some ways, it's one long argument that the research was rejected because of poor quality, when studies like this (http://www.explorejournal.com/article/PIIS1550830706003272/fulltext) are supposed to serve as 'evidence'.

Linda

[blutoski]

My previous post was a bit facetious. This is the real meat of Robert McLuhan's reply:

(quoting Robert McLuhan): '...proper evidence will establish, for me, any claim.' What is 'proper evidence'? What James Randi says it is?

And this is where the disagreement lies! There is a disagreement about what constitutes proper evidence! Hello!

The original essay makes best sense if interpreting the background assumptions McLuhan accepts mean he is incapable of accepting that there is

a) that the skeptics' requirements differ from those of psi advocates in being more closely aligned with the requirements of the natural sciences

b) that the skeptics' requirements might possibly have merit

c) that the skeptics' requirements have not been met

If he doesn't accept the above, then I guess it makes sense that the only conclusion he can draw is that skeptics are flailing.

However, I hold the above three premises to be true, and assert that the skeptics who matter are rejecting the conclusion of psi-proven because they find the evidence too weak.





(quoting Robert McLuhan): Why not the tests and investigations devised by scientists who believe it to be a genuine entity? Or for that matter other magicians, like Robert-Houdin, who believed the clairvoyant Alex Didier to be genuine, or J.N. Maskelyne, who debunked seance mediums, but then privately experimented with table turning and, far from being convinced by Michael Faraday's explanation - which skeptics take to be the last word - thought a genuinely psychokinetic effect was at work.

This is a compound question, but the answer is pretty simple: because the tests were badly designed, even though they were done by scientists and magicians.

Also: Faraday provided more than an 'explanation' - he demonstrated with apparatus that the tables were being turned by the fingers of the participants, which we now call ideomotor. This is not a 'last word', but it is acceptable to disprove the reasoning of Maskelyne's claim that because it was impossible for table-turning to be caused by the participants' fingers, that therefore there was no other explanation than psychokenesis. All Faraday did was report that in all demonstrations of table-turning using his apparatus, the participants' fingers had applied pressure in the direction of rotation. We are left to decide if that's meaningful to the thesis. Is McLuhan unaware of the facts? Uninterested? Ignoring? I can't say.

[maatorc]

......why don't you try to explain why postulating 'psychic-realities' is important on this thread.......

Are you saying 'pseudo-skeptics' can determine questions of 'psychic realities'?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Chris: You have to remember that the argument is not really about the evidence. The argument is about their assumptions and their preconceptions. Their preconceptions are, with these sort of phenomena, that they don’t make any sense and challenge their world view. So, they’re going to do anything they possibly can to dismiss evidence that challenges their preconceptions....We all do this to some degree. The key is to do it based on extensive preexisting knowledge, not on preexisting unsupportable dogmatic beliefs. And, to have evidence which supports your conclusions. If those preconceptions were arrived at through valid evidence, then it only makes sense to be skeptical of things such as the psychic already exposed cheating, or, of yet another claim a perpetual motion machine has been built (one that creates more energy than it uses, not the one which runs on changes in air pressure). Skeptics would have no trouble accepting a Bigfoot if one were found. In a case such as Bigfoot, however, the exhaustiveness of the search must also be taken into account. Such a skeptical position is based on evidence, not on nay saying anything which doesn't fit a preexisting conclusion.

By the same token, one needs to recognize preexisting beliefs which are based on weak evidence and be more open to new information when that is the case. Skepticism of yet another unverifiable eyewitness is justifiable in the case of Bigfoot, while natives claiming to have seen an animal with gills that lives in the forest which had not been searched for by thousands of people was valid to consider possible rather than be viewed with excessive skepticism.

In the long run, valid evidence is what it is, regardless of the people dismissing that valid evidence. That is what determines the difference between an evidence based skeptical belief and one of accepting the 'supernatural' for which the quality of the evidence is poor. You can have a skeptic with poor critical thinking skills, but I think it is less common than poor critical thinking skills in a believer in all things supernatural and paranormal. The latter by their nature cannot be using good critical thinking skills because after extensive and exhaustive searching for evidence for the usual paranormal/supernatural things, valid evidence cannot be found.


(Edited to add, once again I think a thread is new and find it has gone pages and pages past the post I've replied to. I really should look at the date of these threads more often.)

[cj.23]

What definition of 'psychic' are you using? And what exactly did you point out on Bad Psychics? (And what is Bad Psychics?)


Bad Psychics was a UK anti-woo forum, which has reappeared several times, but in its earliest form at least was very good. The community sort of split in two over a row or something, and fragmented into several other sceptical websites. No idea what the score is now -- most of the UK sceptic websites I used to frequent no longer exist.

They had a standing challenge to anyone who could demonstrate a psychic power (for cash, a fiver I think!) so I demonstrated mental arithmetic...

psy·chic adj.1. Of, relating to, affecting, or influenced by the human mind or psyche; mental.
2. Capable of extraordinary mental processes, such as extrasensory perception and mental telepathy.
3. Of or relating to such mental processes.

Definition 1 & 3, the original and indeed current in psychology & medicine usage of the term. It's why I tend to use psychical for the "spooky" stuff, following the SPR lead.Of course as no one else does, well hardly anyone outside parapsych and medicine, it may well be a lost cause. :)

Nik who ran it took it all in good humour, saw my point and changed the wording of his challenge with good grace, and I never got rich. :) I did however as all agreed demonstrate psychic powers. In this i did better than most people who tried. :)

:)

cj x

[fls]

Are you saying 'pseudo-skeptics' can determine questions of 'psychic realities'?

"Pseudoskepticism" is irrelevant to this discussion. Per your definition, we are talking about skeptics - people with expertise in a particular area. The question really is, what expertise is relevant - an experience of the phenomenon or knowledge and experience with the psychology of the psychic?

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

I posted a link to the paper in my response to Limbo.

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/5/2670.full

I realize that Limbo wasn't able to appreciate it, but I think that you will. Enjoy.

If you are referring to the story of suppression, the stories all seem to suffer from the same problem demonstrated in the OP. They fail to show that the research wasn't rejected for the usual reasons. In some ways, it's one long argument that the research was rejected because of poor quality, when studies like this (http://www.explorejournal.com/article/PIIS1550830706003272/fulltext) are supposed to serve as 'evidence'.

Linda
That article was retracted.
Correction for Cho et al., New findings of the correlation between acupoints and corresponding brain cortices using functional MRI
physiology. For the article “New findings of the correlation between acupoints and corresponding brain cortices using functional MRI,” by Z. H. Cho, S. C. Chung, J. P. Jones, J. B. Park, H. J. Park, H. J. Lee, E. K. Wong, and B. I. Min, which appeared in issue 5, March 3, 1998, of Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (95, 2670–2673), the authors reported a specific cortical correlation with a given acupoint and suggested that there could be correlation between acupoint stimulation and cortical activation, for example via increased blood flow in the visual cortex. Accumulating evidence suggests that the central nervous system is essential for processing these effects, via its modulation of the autonomic nervous system, neuro-immune system, and hormonal regulation. We, therefore, carried out a series of studies questioning whether there really is point specificity in acupuncture, especially vis-à-vis pain and acupuncture analgesic effects as we originally reported in our PNAS article, that had not yet been confirmed by other studies. We have reported some of these results as preliminary observations (1, 2). Having concluded that there is no point specificity, at least for pain and analgesic effects, and that we no longer agree with the results in our PNAS article, the undersigned authors are retracting the article. J. P. Jones, J. B. Park, and H. J. Park have not approved this retraction.

Z. H. Cho

S. C. Chung

H. J. Lee

E. K. Wong

B. I. Min

[fls]

Are you saying 'pseudo-skeptics' can determine questions of 'psychic realities'?

I think that what is being asked is why you are suggesting that individuals can determine the veridical nature of their experiences when we already know that people are unreliable in this regard? Homeopaths and their patients have spent untold resources on developing a detailed system of treatment depending upon just that - individual determinations of veridicity - and subjecting that system to the evaluation of skeptics has shown that it's entirely an illusion. Scientists have already learned the hard lessons that blinding and controls have taught us. Why trust anyone who remains ignorant of that lesson?

Linda

[fls]

That article was retracted.

:)

Linda

[tyr_13]

Are you saying 'pseudo-skeptics' can determine questions of 'psychic realities'?

Wait...did you just call yourself a 'pseudo-skeptic'? At any rate, I wasn't saying that. That doesn't mean there is any more reason to believe in psychic realities than there was.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
Are you saying 'pseudo-skeptics' can determine questions of 'psychic realities'?
"Pseudoskepticism" is irrelevant to this discussion. Per your definition, we are talking about skeptics - people with expertise in a particular area. The question really is, what expertise is relevant - an experience of the phenomenon or knowledge and experience with the psychology of the psychic? Linda

Definitely peer or higher level knowledge and experience of the reality: Hence the impossibility of resolution of testing for 'paranormal/psychic/supernatural/occult' events and/or powers by phenomenally and therefore contextually necessarily pseudo-skeptically driven procedures.

[maatorc]

Wait...did you just call yourself a 'pseudo-skeptic'? At any rate, I wasn't saying that. That doesn't mean there is any more reason to believe in psychic realities than there was.

I am saying that as pseudo-skepticism is driving tests for psychic reality that such tests are necessarily undecidable.

[fls]

Definitely peer or higher level knowledge and experience of the reality: Hence the impossibility of resolution of testing for 'paranormal/psychic/supernatural/occult' events and/or powers by phenomenally and therefore contextually necessarily pseudo-skeptically driven procedures.

And that's the problem. As I mentioned earlier, we are poor judges of the nature of our experiences, so merely having the experience does not help us discover the verdicity of that experience. Without a way to discover what is false, you don't know what may be true. If you wish to convince anyone that your method is a useful way to discover what may be true and what is false, we simply need an answer to this question. What have your genuine psychics discovered to be false about their experiences?

Linda

[maatorc]

And that's the problem. As I mentioned earlier, we are poor judges of the nature of our experiences, so merely having the experience does not help us discover the veridicity of that experience. Without a way to discover what is false, you don't know what may be true. If you wish to convince anyone that your method is a useful way to discover what may be true and what is false, we simply need an answer to this question. What have your genuine psychics discovered to be false about their experiences?
Linda

At an acknowledged simplistic level, without sarcasm, are you saying that if you meet a friend or send me a message you cannot be sure you met your friend or sent me a message?

[blutoski]

At an acknowledged simplistic level, without sarcasm, are you saying that if you meet a friend or send me a message you cannot be sure you met your friend or sent me a message?

I can't speak for fls, but I can speak for myself: Yep. That's skepticism: there's a chance we could be incorrect about recalling the details of events. Absolutely.

I send things to people - I'm sure about it - and realize that actually intended to and composed it but forgot to send it. Sometimes I didn't even compose it - just in my head. I just remember it wrong. Sometimes I remember things that didn't happen; sometimes I forget things that actually happened. I've driven home with no recollection of the route.

When external objective information contradicts my memory of events, there's a pretty good chance that I'm wrong about my recollection.

Be mindful that it was a psi advocate who made this same claim: the gorilla movie is a way to demonstrate that we remember things incorrectly, especially if our attention is distracted.

[blutoski]

When external objective information contradicts my memory of events, there's a pretty good chance that I'm wrong about my recollection.

I sort of threw this out without emphasis, but it's the key point: with no contradicting information, memory is all you have. With contradicting information, memory is often found to be incorrect.

In addition to recall challenges, the human mind has a way of manufacturing experiences based on expectations. The classic example from science is Blondlot's "discovery" of N-rays. Blondlot "felt" n-rays. He was sure of it. Why could so few other people not feel n-rays? Well, he suggested, maybe it's a gift or talent?

My understanding is that even after it was shown beyond a doubt that his experience was entirely imaginary, he would not let it go. He had felt n-rays, so they were real. Case closed.

This is the way skeptics regard many psi "experiences": another round of n-rays.

[plumjam]

I can't speak for fls, but I can speak for myself: Yep. That's skepticism: there's a chance we could be incorrect about recalling the details of events. Absolutely.

I send things to people - I'm sure about it - and realize that actually intended to and composed it but forgot to send it. Sometimes I didn't even compose it - just in my head. I just remember it wrong. Sometimes I remember things that didn't happen; sometimes I forget things that actually happened. I've driven home with no recollection of the route.

When external objective information contradicts my memory of events, there's a pretty good chance that I'm wrong about my recollection.

Be mindful that it was a psi advocate who made this same claim: the gorilla movie is a way to demonstrate that we remember things incorrectly, especially if our attention is distracted.

I sort of threw this out without emphasis, but it's the key point: with no contradicting information, memory is all you have. With contradicting information, memory is often found to be incorrect.

In addition to recall challenges, the human mind has a way of manufacturing experiences based on expectations. The classic example from science is Blondlot's "discovery" of N-rays. Blondlot "felt" n-rays. He was sure of it. Why could so few other people not feel n-rays? Well, he suggested, maybe it's a gift or talent?

My understanding is that even after it was shown beyond a doubt that his experience was entirely imaginary, he would not let it go. He had felt n-rays, so they were real. Case closed.

This is the way skeptics regard many psi "experiences": another round of n-rays.

Are you sure you're remembering this correctly?
What you're doing is undermining experience. The only thing you can use to undermine experience is experience, ..which is, of course, self-defeating.
What happens in practice is that people apply this undermining-of-experience to those aspects of experience they wish to be false, in order to fit into their world view. They typically don't apply it to the stuff they already believe in.

[tyr_13]

I am saying that as pseudo-skepticism is driving tests for psychic reality that such tests are necessarily undecidable.

Finally, a sentence that I can discern with little ambiguity! No, the views of the people asking for tests does not render the test undecidable. Someone who doesn't know how a car works, who is skeptical that a car works at all, could be shown how a car works. They could test and find out. This has not been the case with psi.

[tyr_13]

Are you sure you're remembering this correctly?
What you're doing is undermining experience. The only thing you can use to undermine experience is experience, ..which is, of course, self-defeating.
What happens in practice is that people apply this undermining-of-experience to those aspects of experience they wish to be false, in order to fit into their world view. They typically don't apply it to the stuff they already believe in.

Why can you only use experience to undermine experience? Recording doesn't work?

[plumjam]

Why can you only use experience to undermine experience? Recording doesn't work?

You have to experience the recording before you know what it says.
'Was your experience of the recording accurate?.... ' ad infinitum..

[tyr_13]

That doesn't mean we can't ever come to an understanding of what anything is. Reproducibility is one method. I mean, the entire scientific method, etc. If you don't believe in any of that, have fun.

[plumjam]

I am pointing out the uneven way in which people play the 'but-human-experience-is-fallible' card. Always to try to undermine stuff they don't believe in; hardly ever applying it to experience supporting what they do believe in.
Science, philosophically, is founded on empiricism (experience). So any argument which undermines experience undermines empiricism, and therefore science.
Though most will not realise it, the 'human-experience-is-fallible' ploy is actually anti-scientific. They tend not to realise it because, like I said, it tends to get applied only to stuff they want to dismiss. If they applied it evenly and persistently it would destroy their whole world view.

[blutoski]

I am pointing out the uneven way in which people play the 'but-human-experience-is-fallible' card. Always to try to undermine stuff they don't believe in; hardly ever applying it to experience supporting what they do believe in.

I don't see an uneven play. Actually, I find that skeptics are just about the only even-handed ones in the game. Skeptics frustrate everybody, unfortunately, including their peers.




Science, philosophically, is founded on empiricism (experience). So any argument which undermines experience undermines empiricism, and therefore science.

I have no idea why you would say this. "Founded on"? No idea what that means. Who's this "founder"? I'd like to read about him! Founded on empiricism? I've never come across that claim. (I teach a course on the philosophy of science) Not that this is the final word, but perhaps a scan of the Wikipedia entry on [philosophy of science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science)] will help? Note the section titled "Indeterminacy of theory under empirical testing" - this section discusses the fact that empiricism is no more a part of science than any other endeavour, since an infinite number of theories can be built around an observation.

Relevant excerpt:

One result of this view is that specialists in the philosophy of science stress the requirement that observations made for the purposes of science be restricted to intersubjective objects. That is, science is restricted to those areas where there is general agreement on the nature of the observations involved. It is comparatively easy to agree on observations of physical phenomena, harder for them to agree on observations of social or mental phenomena, and difficult in the extreme to reach agreement on matters of theology or ethics (and thus the latter remain outside the normal purview of science).

The important take-away is that mental phenomena is very close to being non-science altogether, by most models of scientific/nonscientific demarcation.

If there's one thing that distinguishes the natural sciences from other professions, it's the expectation that models have independent predictive value. Personal experience is very difficult to evaluate independently (perhaps impossible) and psi phenomena are frustratingly unpredictable.




Though most will not realise it, the 'human-experience-is-fallible' ploy is actually anti-scientific. They tend not to realise it because, like I said, it tends to get applied only to stuff they want to dismiss. If they applied it evenly and persistently it would destroy their whole world view.

I hope you don't really believe that. It's gibberish. As they say, not only not right, but not even wrong. Sort of just disconnected.

[blutoski]

Are you sure you're remembering this correctly?

No, I'm not sure. It's a good thing it's written down.




What you're doing is undermining experience. The only thing you can use to undermine experience is experience, ..which is, of course, self-defeating.

No it isn't self-defeating. I'm not relying just on my own experience. It's important to get independent evaluation. Science is a product of community.




What happens in practice is that people apply this undermining-of-experience to those aspects of experience they wish to be false, in order to fit into their world view. They typically don't apply it to the stuff they already believe in.

Who knows what people do all day! People see Elvis at Burger King! Does that count as 'typically'?

But researchers investigate specific claims, specific experiments, &c. The results are available to all, and in many cases, outsiders are urged to replicate the experiment in order to confirm the findings.

Again: the lesson of n-rays. The consensus grew out of the widespread failure of independent replication, and the inability for the experiment to predict anything: Blondlot was ultimately unable to even distinguish whether the apparatus was on or off.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
I am saying that as pseudo-skepticism is driving tests for psychic reality that such tests are necessarily undecidable.
Finally, a sentence that I can discern with little ambiguity! No, the views of the people asking for tests does not render the test undecidable. Someone who doesn't know how a car works, who is skeptical that a car works at all, could be shown how a car works. They could test and find out. This has not been the case with psi.

There is no way pseudo-skeptic phenomenally based procedures can noumenally demonstrate the truth or falsity of psychic reality.

[zooterkin]

There is no way pseudo-skeptic phenomenally based procedures can noumenally demonstrate the truth or falsity of psychic reality.

I really have no idea what you're trying to say, sorry.

Let's start with some definitions. What do you mean by 'psychic reality', and what do you mean by 'pseudo-skeptic'?

[Mashuna]

I really have no idea what you're trying to say, sorry.

Let's start with some definitions. What do you mean by 'psychic reality', and what do you mean by 'pseudo-skeptic'?

He means psychic abilities don't work if you try to test them in a scientific manner, and you're a big meanie for saying they don't exist.

[Pixel42]

Though most will not realise it, the 'human-experience-is-fallible' ploy is actually anti-scientific. They tend not to realise it because, like I said, it tends to get applied only to stuff they want to dismiss. If they applied it evenly and persistently it would destroy their whole world view.
"Human-experience-is-fallable" is the reason why the scientific method was invented. The scientific method actually consists to a large extent of a set of techniques for carefully and methodically eliminating all of many ways in which we know our fallible perceptions can inadvertantly fool us. Hence blind tests, controls etc. Only after we apply these techniques can we draw supportable conclusions about whatever we'd originally thought we'd perceived.

For example if a scientist who thinks they've developed an effective cure for an illness discovers, via a double blind clinical trial, that his cure works no better than placebo then he is obliged to accept that fact, whether he likes it or not.

[Ivor the Engineer]

I am pointing out the uneven way in which people play the 'but-human-experience-is-fallible' card. Always to try to undermine stuff they don't believe in; hardly ever applying it to experience supporting what they do believe in.

<snip>

Actually a good scientific experiment is set up in such as way as to try and undermine stuff the experimenters *do* believe in. I.e. the results of an experiment have to be sufficiently different from what would be expected by chance for the null-hypothesis to be rejected.

Because people suck at seeing the truth when they know it will challenge a belief they hold the best experiments are blinded, so the beliefs of the experimenters cannot influence the analysis of the results and hence the outcome.

ETA: Note to self: read to the end of the thread before posting.:o

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
There is no way pseudo-skeptic phenomenally based procedures can noumenally demonstrate the truth or falsity of psychic reality.
I really have no idea what you're trying to say, sorry.
Let's start with some definitions. What do you mean by 'psychic reality', and what do you mean by 'pseudo-skeptic'?

Psychic reality is that level or category of perception or awareness lying outside our normal perceptions of time and space based on our physical senses.

As an example: If you visually observe a place by physically being there that form of perception is called phenomena. If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there that form of perception is called noumena.

Phenomena and noumena are incommensurable: Phenomenal means cannot measure noumenal events.

A genuine skeptic is one with knowledge and experience at a peer or higher level in a given subject which qualifies one to question the ideas presented on the subject and chooses to do so.

A pseudo-skeptic is one who lacks the qualifications to be a genuine skeptic on a given subject but falsely assumes the role of a genuine skeptic.

[blutoski]

Psychic reality is that level or category of perception or awareness lying outside our normal perceptions of time and space based on our physical senses.

As an example: If you visually observe a place by physically being there that form of perception is called phenomena. If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there that form of perception is called noumena.

Phenomena and noumena are incommensurable: Phenomenal means cannot measure noumenal events.

I'm pretty sure that's true, and that appears to match what skeptics claim. You will have to take this up with your psi-advocate peers, because they think psi can be investigated through familiar scientific approaches.




A genuine skeptic is one with knowledge and experience at a peer or higher level in a given subject which qualifies one to question the ideas presented on the subject and chooses to do so.

A pseudo-skeptic is one who lacks the qualifications to be a genuine skeptic on a given subject but falsely assumes the role of a genuine skeptic.

Out of curiosity: why do you think we would accept definitions that you appear to have pulled out of your butt? These terms have established meanings, and you appear to have personal meanings that don't jibe with reality.

Are you saying, in fact that you wish these were the meaning of skeptic and pseudoskeptic, but are frustrated that they are not?

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
Psychic reality is that level or category of perception or awareness lying outside our normal perceptions of time and space based on our physical senses.
As an example: If you visually observe a place by physically being there that form of perception is called phenomena. If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there that form of perception is called noumena.
Phenomena and noumena are incommensurable: Phenomenal means cannot measure noumenal events.

1... I'm pretty sure that's true, and that appears to match what skeptics claim.....

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
A genuine skeptic is one with knowledge and experience at a peer or higher level in a given subject which qualifies one to question the ideas presented on the subject and chooses to do so.
A pseudo-skeptic is one who lacks the qualifications to be a genuine skeptic on a given subject but falsely assumes the role of a genuine skeptic.

2... Out of curiosity: why do you think we would accept definitions that you appear to have pulled out of your butt? These terms have established meanings, and you appear to have personal meanings that don't jibe with reality.
Are you saying, in fact that you wish these were the meaning of skeptic and pseudoskeptic, but are frustrated that they are not?

1... If it is true, and matches what skeptics claim, why does the MDC exist when it relies entirely on phenomenal procedures to test claimants. You are clearly missing something fundamental here.

2... I am distinguishing between false skeptics like you and genuine skeptics who do not appear to be here.

[Mashuna]

Psychic reality is that level or category of perception or awareness lying outside our normal perceptions of time and space based on our physical senses.

As an example: If you visually observe a place by physically being there that form of perception is called phenomena. If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there that form of perception is called noumena.

Phenomena and noumena are incommensurable: Phenomenal means cannot measure noumenal events.


I think you end up making this same post in every thread.

If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there, this is your noumenal event. If you then tell someone what you saw there, and have no other way of getting that information, this is testing noumenal events by phenomenal means.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
Psychic reality is that level or category of perception or awareness lying outside our normal perceptions of time and space based on our physical senses.
As an example: If you visually observe a place by physically being there that form of perception is called phenomena. If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there that form of perception is called noumena.
Phenomena and noumena are incommensurable: Phenomenal means cannot measure noumenal events.

1... I think you end up making this same post in every thread.
2... If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there, this is your noumenal event. If you then tell someone what you saw there, and have no other way of getting that information, this is testing noumenal events by phenomenal means.

1... I think you say the same things in every thread.
2... Verbally reporting it is not testing it and cannot be a proof. Although it may be convincing to some and acceptable as a reasonable inference of the event actually occurring, the one experiencing the event noumenally and reporting it phenomenally has not thereby proven the event occurred.

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
Psychic reality is that level or category of perception or awareness lying outside our normal perceptions of time and space based on our physical senses.
As an example: If you visually observe a place by physically being there that form of perception is called phenomena. If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there that form of perception is called noumena.
Phenomena and noumena are incommensurable: Phenomenal means cannot measure noumenal events.

1... I think you end up making this same post in every thread.
2... If you visually observe a place but you are not physically there, this is your noumenal event. If you then tell someone what you saw there, and have no other way of getting that information, this is testing noumenal events by phenomenal means.

1... I think you say the same things in every thread.
2... Verbally reporting it is not testing it and cannot be a proof. Although it may be convincing to some and acceptable as a reasonable inference of the event actually occurring, the one experiencing the event noumenally and reporting it phenomenally has not thereby proven the event occurred.

[Mashuna]

1... I think you say the same things in every thread.


I see the problem. You need to work on your phenomenal awareness.

[blutoski]

1... If it is true, and matches what skeptics claim, why does the MDC exist when it relies entirely on phenomenal procedures to test claimants. You are clearly missing something fundamental here.

The MDC exists because skeptics think that what psi advocates call supernatural are, in fact, natural phenomena, which can be revealed and explored through scientific means. Naturalism is the null hypothesis for any skeptical psi test.

Secondly, there is a litmus test popular among both skeptics and psi advocates that is used to identify psi phenomena: the rigorous exclusion of natural phenomena. In other words: psi is identified by exhausting natural explanations. The MDC team has frequently designed protocols for this purpose.




2... I am distinguishing between false skeptics like you and genuine skeptics who do not appear to be here.

I'd love to discuss this, but you need to this by inventing new terms instead of misusing existing terms. It aids in communication.

Really, it sounds more like you're throwing insults at this point. Going onto a skeptic forum and announcing that there are no skeptics there is pretty boilerplate troll behavior.

[fls]

At an acknowledged simplistic level, without sarcasm, are you saying that if you meet a friend or send me a message you cannot be sure you met your friend or sent me a message?

It depends upon what conclusions you are drawing about the nature of that interaction. What sorts of experiences are you concluding represent genuine psychic abilities?

Linda

[maatorc]

......Really, it sounds more like you're throwing insults at this point. Going onto a skeptic forum and announcing that there are no skeptics there is pretty boilerplate troll behavior.


You mean like this? :
......( blutoski - post 439 )......that you appear to have pulled out of your butt?

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
At an acknowledged simplistic level, without sarcasm, are you saying that if you meet a friend or send me a message you cannot be sure you met your friend or sent me a message?
It depends upon what conclusions you are drawing about the nature of that interaction. What sorts of experiences are you concluding represent genuine psychic abilities? Linda

Strictly noumenal events.

[blutoski]

You mean like this? :

No. That's not troll-like behavior.

That's an expression that means "...that you appear to have invented yourself without justification."

[blutoski]

Strictly noumenal events.

Could you be specific: the perfect day is noumenal. Is it psychic?

[blutoski]

Could you be specific: the perfect day is noumenal. Is it psychic?

Also: I'm not sure I truly understand your use of the word noumenal in this thread. I'm aware of different meanings, from philosophy.

The most common use is Schopenhauer's: to describe events that do not interact with things. Is this how you are using the term?

There are other uses that predate Schopenhauer's, but mostly if people are not discussing Schopenhauer's, they are discussing Kant's. Kant had both positive and negative noumena. If you're talking about Kantian noumena, are you talking about the positive or negative variety?

These are very different uses of the term and I want to avoide confusion. Once I get this square, I'll be able to continue considering your statments.

[fls]

Strictly noumenal events.

Can you give an example of a noumenal event that represents a psychic experience?

Linda

[maatorc]

......That's an expression that means "...that you appear to have invented yourself without justification."

And who invented you and with what justification?

[maatorc]

Can you give an example of a noumenal event that represents a psychic experience? Linda

Seeing or hearing at or from a distance.

[fls]

Seeing or hearing at or from a distance.

How do you distinguish that from normal cognitive function?

Linda

[maatorc]

Originally Posted by maatorc View Post
Seeing or hearing at or from a distance.
How do you distinguish that from normal cognitive function? Linda

It is quite 'normal', just not phenomenally based.

[fls]

It is quite 'normal', just not phenomenally based.

How do you distinguish it from non-psychic, non-phenomenally based cognition - e.g. someone who visualizes a remote scene?

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

nou·me·non (nm-nn)
n. pl. nou·me·na (-n)
In the philosophy of Kant, an object as it is in itself independent of the mind, as opposed to a phenomenon. Also called thing-in-itself.

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[German, from Greek nooumenon, from neuter present passive participle of noein, to perceive by thought, from nous, mind.]

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noumen·al (-m-nl) adj
Is this what you talking about? If so, I don't get it. How can a thing-in-itself, independent of the mind (whatever that is) be involved with "seeing or hearing at or from a distance".
I'm doing that right now, without any immaterial mind, just the same old brain.

[AkuManiMani]

Two aspects of my personality that I'm not proud of are I like being right, and I like winning an easy fight. Arguing with creationists, for example, is attractive to me because it's like shooting fish in a barrel. There are good reasons to combat irrational thinking and dishonesty, but assuaging my own ego is not one of them. So that's something I struggle with.

Uhg...How can you even stand that kind of argument?

I find arguing w/ "easy targets", like creationists, embarrassing and downright frustrating. Trying to have a rational debate with someone who is profoundly ignorant or obviously stupid/deluded makes me wanna take an impact drill to my temple. Oh, and folks who don't actually engage in a salient way to a debate (but seem intellectually capable) annoy me almost as much.

I prefer "hard" targets to the "softies". Its a good mental workout and challenges me to flesh out my own thinking in a more thorough manner.

[maatorc]

How do you distinguish it from non-psychic, non-phenomenally based cognition - e.g. someone who visualizes a remote scene? Linda

Am having a little problem with your exact meaning.
Visualizing can lead to psychic remote viewing.
You seem to be saying someone who visualizes and succeeds in remotely viewing a place is not experiencing a psychic event, whereas I would say they are; but I am uncertain of your meaning.

[zooterkin]

Am having a little problem with your exact meaning.
Visualizing can lead to psychic remote viewing.
You seem to be saying someone who visualizes and succeeds in remotely viewing a place is not experiencing a psychic event, whereas I would say they are; but I am uncertain of your meaning.

How do you establish that someone is remote viewing as opposed to simply visualising?

[Mashuna]

How do you establish that someone is remote viewing as opposed to simply visualising?

Ooh, let me have a try at remote viewing. I can see Maatorc at his computer. It's in the centre of an old-fashioned desk (not a computer table). There are a number of disks scattered around. Some contain computer data, others are CDs. There's a pad of paper to the left of the keyboard, leading me to think Maatorc is left handed.

How'd I do? If you could provide evidence for my success or failure without recourse to phenomenal data, that'd be great.

[fls]

Am having a little problem with your exact meaning.
Visualizing can lead to psychic remote viewing.
You seem to be saying someone who visualizes and succeeds in remotely viewing a place is not experiencing a psychic event, whereas I would say they are; but I am uncertain of your meaning.

As Zooterkin asked, how do you know that their visualizing represents "remotely viewing a place" and is not just visualizing?

Linda

[maatorc]

How do you establish that someone is remote viewing as opposed to simply visualising?

All my comments on remote viewing refer exclusively to the mystical tradition of 'psychic projection', not the military intelligence experiments at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing, and many other links, which may be somewhat confusing to some vis-a-vis the subject of psychic reality generally.

In psychic projection the practitioner experiences the location seen as a place in which one is actually present.

It must be noted that this does not mean, and the mystical tradition does not claim, that the practitioner actually goes anywhere in space or time, but rather that the mind-consciousness of the practitioner attunes with the location or condition which is the focus of attention through visualization.

The traditional mystical explanation of this technique is that we have two bodies, a mental body unrestricted in its' functioning by time and space, and a physical vehicle subject to time and space in its' perceptions.

Naturally, there are huge variances in the power and realizations of novices and masters of this technique as is the case with all human practices and procedures.

As material-physical consciousness cannot measure exclusively mental events, the proof of psychic projection lies exclusively with those who have experienced it.

[fls]

All my comments on remote viewing refer exclusively to the mystical tradition of 'psychic projection', not the military intelligence experiments at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing, and many other links, which may be somewhat confusing to some vis-a-vis the subject of psychic reality generally.

In psychic projection the practitioner experiences the location seen as a place in which one is actually present.

It must be noted that this does not mean, and the mystical tradition does not claim, that the practitioner actually goes anywhere in space or time, but rather that the mind-consciousness of the practitioner attunes with the location or condition which is the focus of attention through visualization.

The traditional mystical explanation of this technique is that we have two bodies, a mental body unrestricted in its' functioning by time and space, and a physical vehicle subject to time and space in its' perceptions.

Naturally, there are huge variances in the power and realizations of novices and masters of this technique as is the case with all human practices and procedures.

As material-physical consciousness cannot measure exclusively mental events, the proof of psychic projection lies exclusively with those who have experienced it.

How do you decide which particular mental states are called psychic experiences and which are not? For example, do you call hypnagogic hallucinations 'psychic'? If not, why not? If you do, what additional information does the use of the word 'psychic' impart to the description?

Linda

[zooterkin]

In psychic projection the practitioner experiences the location seen as a place in which one is actually present.


Right. And how do you tell the difference between this remote viewing, or psychic projection, or whatever you want to call it, and just imagining you are there?

[Limbo]

As Zooterkin asked, how do you know that their visualizing represents "remotely viewing a place" and is not just visualizing?

Linda


http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/tai-presents-dr-harold-hal-puthoff

[fls]

http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/tai-presents-dr-harold-hal-puthoff

Maatorc specifically stated he was not talking about the military intelligence experiments.

Linda

[Limbo]

Maatorc specifically stated he was not talking about the military intelligence experiments.

Linda


So? Watch the damn thing anyway.

[zooterkin]

So? Watch the damn thing anyway.

Sorry, can't watch the damn thing.


"The video you are trying to view cannot be watched from your current location or country."

How about you summarise what it's about, and why it's relevant?

[Ersby]

It's probably damn Harold Putoff talking about the damn early days at SRI.

[fls]

So? Watch the damn thing anyway.

I can't watch it here, but I'm not avoiding it or anything. I am already familiar with the SRI stuff (assuming that's what it's about).

I'm just saying that it doesn't answer my question, even though you posted it as though it would be a response to my question. And I'm sincerely trying to understand what Maatorc is saying, so I didn't want you to sidetrack that particular discussion (although I realize that you are the Boss of this thread).

Linda

[fls]

So? Watch the damn thing anyway.

Also, maatorc specifically denies that the SRI experiments serve as evidence of psychic experiences.

Linda

[blutoski]

Seeing or hearing at or from a distance.

That is not an example by any definition of noumenal of which I am aware. Specifically because it appears to be an interaction with real-world sound.

This falls under the category referred by psi researchers a "psi-k": interaction with the physical world, and I don't consider this is noumenal at all.

[blutoski]

And who invented you and with what justification?

I'm really not getting the impression that you're interested in an actual discussion at this point. I really feel like you're deliberately wasting our time, and have decided to stop.

[AkuManiMani]

So? Watch the damn thing anyway.

Limbo, I've noticed that the majority of your posts here have been very grumpy and combative. Granted, this is your thread. But don't you think it that in light of your OP the hostile posture you've taken is a bit counter productive?

[Jeff Corey]

It is , in fact, not his thread. In no way does he own it. You are allowed to point out his silly assertions at any time. As other posters have pointed out "pseudo skeptics" are just people who don't swallow his BS.

[maatorc]

Right. And how do you tell the difference between this remote viewing, or psychic projection, or whatever you want to call it, and just imagining you are there?

If you are just imagining you are there and you are conscious you are just imagining it you will also be conscious that you are not mentally actually there because you are not mentally experiencing the place as you would if you actually were mentally there, even allowing for the fact you do not actually 'go' anywhere.

[Jeff Corey]

You want Italian, French or Ranch dressing with that word salad? Bleu cheese will cost extra,

[AkuManiMani]

If you are just imagining you are there and you are conscious you are just imagining it you will also be conscious that you are not mentally actually there because you are not mentally experiencing the place as you would if you actually were mentally there, even allowing for the fact you do not actually 'go' anywhere.

Erm..'Torc, could you, maybe, rephrase that a lil?

[Mashuna]

If you are just imagining you are there and you are conscious you are just imagining it you will also be conscious that you are not mentally actually there because you are not mentally experiencing the place as you would if you actually were mentally there, even allowing for the fact you do not actually 'go' anywhere.

So you can tell the difference because it feels different?

[maatorc]

How do you decide which particular mental states are called psychic experiences and which are not? For example, do you call hypnagogic hallucinations 'psychic'? If not, why not? If you do, what additional information does the use of the word 'psychic' impart to the description? Linda

I gather there is a consensus of pathology as a function of narcolepsy regarding hypnagogic hallucination.
Clearly, people can take problems to and bring problems from sleep.
It also seems some can bring solutions from sleep.
'Psychic' is not a metaphor for 'good' or 'balance' or 'harmony' and the like.

Allow me here a final comment so as not to hijack the thread.
I hope you find it interesting.

A friend studied and pondered the true meaning of a word-concept of human nature and meaning for about twenty years.
He one night had a very clear dream. He does not describe it as 'lucid' although he is familiar with the literature.

(... The Dream :
I am at the edge of a forest.
A person of ambiguous sexuality is walking away into the darkness of the undergrowth.
A voice says: "That person was one of the resistance during the war."
I am next wearing a swimming costume and lying face down on a beach fronting an ocean. The Sun is warm and pleasant and everything is calm.
A woman wearing a swimming costume is kneeling in the sand about twenty feet to my left.
As I notice her she says: "I see you have come out of it at last.", as though I had been in a long sleep.
I ask: "Who are you?"
She replies: "My name is Martha."
I ask: "Where are you from?"
She replies: "I have been here all the time."
We are at ease together. ...)

My friend explained to me that the name of the woman is an anagram of the word-concept he had been concentrating on for so long a time, and now totally comprehends.

[jond]

Agent Cooper? Agent Cooper?

[Jeff Corey]

I gather there is a consensus of pathology as a function of narcolepsy regarding hypnagogic hallucination...
That would be wrong. Narcolepsy is pathological and nothing like hypnogogic experiences, which are not.
In addition, there is no English word that is an anagram of "Martha" that I know of.

[fls]

Allow me here a final comment so as not to hijack the thread.
I hope you find it interesting.

I am disappointed that you were unable to answer any of my questions.

Linda

[Mashuna]

That would be wrong. Narcolepsy is pathological and nothing like hypnogogic experiences, which are not.
In addition, there is no English word that is an anagram of "Martha" that I know of.

If you're a polygamous Yorkshireman, you could be on your way to t' harem.

[maatorc]

I am disappointed that you were unable to answer any of my questions. Linda

Sorry about that as I thought you would be the one person here who would understand what is really being said. No matter; we can move on.

[fls]

Sorry about that as I thought you would be the one person here who would understand what is really being said. No matter; we can move on.

I knew you were going to say that. :)

Realistically, the OP is dead. I think we've all had our laugh at just how profoundly ironic this thread has been, and Limbo won't engage in discussion anyway, leaving us free to pursue our own interests.

I can understand what is being said. I still can't tell whether you can. I was hoping you'd break the symmetry for me.

Linda

[Jeff Corey]

If you're a polygamous Yorkshireman, you could be on your way to t' harem.
Needs another "a" and one less "e".

[Mashuna]

Needs another "a" and one less "e".

Yorkshiremen don't do speeling.

[Limbo]

I knew you were going to say that. :)

Realistically, the OP is dead. I think we've all had our laugh at just how profoundly ironic this thread has been, and Limbo won't engage in discussion anyway, leaving us free to pursue our own interests.


Discussion is useless. You see the faces, and I see the chalice. Or vice-versa. I'm pretty much just observing.

http://th04.deviantart.com/fs37/300W/i/2008/274/c/6/Face_or_Chalice__by_runnergirl.jpg

[Pixel42]

You see the faces, and I see the chalice. Or vice-versa.
I can see both. But I still can't see how people who use the scientific method to check the accuracy of their perceptions and compensate for their acknowledged unconscious biases are just as likely to be fooled by them as those who don't. Sorry.

[fls]

Discussion is useless. You see the faces, and I see the chalice. Or vice-versa. I'm pretty much just observing.

That's a useful analogy. It's fairly clear that your intention is to consider it as two equivalent (at the very least) perspectives and that the choice of one hides the other. Instead, I would point out that science not only recognizes the symmetry of both perspectives, it also recognizes that the symmetry is broken as one zooms out and discovers that, as the picture resolves, the faces are excluded while the chalice takes shape.

Linda

[AkuManiMani]

I am disappointed that you were unable to answer any of my questions.

Linda

Well he says he doesn't want to hijack the thread. Perhaps you could create a new topic thread and invite maatorc to answer your questions. I'm curious as to how he'll respond :)

[Limbo]

I can see both.


At the same time?

[tyr_13]

At the same time?

What? It couldn't be two people kissing a chalice?

[Ersby]

I think it's back to the idea that people who belive in ESP are predisposed to find patterns in meaningless events. Did anyone else see that one of paranormalia's recent blog posts was about coincidence?

I think a better analogy would be that you see two triangles, while I say there are no triangles at all.

[blutoski]

It's not just my opinion, though. My current employment involves internet based marketing, and it is simply a fact that online participation is not a good model for real-world activity. See Jacob Nielsen's work over the last 15 years for the hard data behind this.

At the risk of flogging a dead horse or further derailing the thread... I was just reviewing the literature regarding the difference between online versus real-world behavior, and an online nonfiction title caught my attention: [CyberPsychology and Behavior (http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html)]. In particular, the chapter on [The Online Disinhibition Effect (http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/disinhibit.html)]. Author even has a blog: [Psychology of Cyberspace (http://psycyber.blogspot.com/)].

[Mashuna]

I think it's back to the idea that people who belive in ESP are predisposed to find patterns in meaningless events. Did anyone else see that one of paranormalia's recent blog posts was about coincidence?

I think a better analogy would be that you see two triangles, while I say there are no triangles at all.

There would have been a triangle, if PacMan hadn't eaten part of it.

[Cuddles]

Discussion is useless. You see the faces, and I see the chalice. Or vice-versa. I'm pretty much just observing.

http://th04.deviantart.com/fs37/300W/i/2008/274/c/6/Face_or_Chalice__by_runnergirl.jpg

You may have better luck with these:
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/Eosimias/th_gallery.gif (http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk113/Eosimias/gallery.gif)