Extraordinary Knowing

[Limbo]

Here is the foreword from Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind (http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Knowing-Science-Skepticism-Inexplicable/dp/0553803352) by Dr Elizabeth Mayer.

Foreword

by Freeman Dyson,
Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, New Jersey

This book begins with an extraordinary story about a harp - one that is typical of thousands of others in which somebody knows something without having any normal way of knowing. This kind of extraordinary knowing is typically called extrasensory perception, or ESP. Since I am a scientist, the story puts me in a difficult position. As a scientist I don't believe the story, but as a human being I want to believe it. As a scientist, I don't believe anything that is not based on solid evidence. As a scientist, I have to consider it possible that Elizabeth Meyer and Harold McCoy might have concocted the story or deluded themselves into believing it. Scientists call such stories "anecdotal," meaning that they are scientifically worthless.

Do not post copyright material.

[Professor Yaffle]

Discuss.

No

[calebprime]

An anecdote.

Testing need not be boring: You could offer, say, a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate the ability to dowse.

A million dollars will buy you one heck of a harp.

I didn't know Freeman Dyson was a psychoanalyst... eta: oops, he isn't, I misread who wrote the harp story.

[fls]

Interesting.

The more obvious explanation is that the friend was involved in the theft of the harp. By invoking magical powers as an intermediary, she was able to have the harp returned (probably after she discovered it was unsalable since it was unique and known to be stolen, but maybe just because she felt guilty when she saw the effect it had on her friend) without any suspicion falling upon her. Clever.

Linda

[arthwollipot]

Do you have permission to reprint that copyrighted extract from a published book?

[ImaginalDisc]

Copyright violation tl; dr.

[shadron]

Yeah; that's just a mite too long (actually, way to long) for educational fair use.

[fishbait]

Discuss. No evidence. Nothing to discuss.

[The Atheist]

Step 1 Find silly anecdotal story
Step 2 Create wall of text around story
Step 3 Post at forum

Next....

[Ysidro]

tl;dr but bored enough to tell you so.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Any reason to believe that this all cannot be explained with statistics?

I love this piece in the OP:

In my review I said that ESP only occurs, according the the anecdotal evidence, when a person is experiencing intense stress and strong emotions. Under the conditions of a controlled scientific experiment, intense stress and strong emotions are excluded; the person experiences boredom rather than excitement, and so the evidence for ESP disappears.

So if the tester was to shout at the testee, "You're a freaking, lying idiot", it could create the "intense stress and strong emotions" required for the ESP ability to be manifest? Sounds like researchers have been doing it all wrong by treating the wooists as if they deserved some sort of special consideration. I'll be happy to provide the required incentive if someone wants to be tested! :D

[blutoski]

So if the tester was to shout at the testee, "You're a freaking, lying idiot", it could create the "intense stress and strong emotions" required for the ESP ability to be manifest? Sounds like researchers have been doing it all wrong by treating the wooists as if they deserved some sort of special consideration. I'll be happy to provide the required incentive if someone wants to be tested! :D

Well, more interesting would be to ask the psi advocates who claim that tests fail because they're too stressful to talk to this guy and straighten out their story.

What does the literature suggest about the relationship between performance and test environment-induced stress levels on the subjects?

[blutoski]

Well, more interesting would be to ask the psi advocates who claim that tests fail because they're too stressful to talk to this guy and straighten out their story.

This is why skeptics get frustrated with psi: there is no coherent theory to test, no solidly accepted example or definition of psi. There is no clear starting point that will satisfy psi advocates that we are acting in good faith.

It is to some extent the reason I get frustrated with altmed. When you go to those conventions, there are booths side-by-side that flatly contradict each other. They just don't seem to care. All they care about is that conventional medicine is all wrong, and they're raking in the dough.

[shuttlt]

Isn't it partly a rejection of the thought processes by which 'Science' decides where claims are coherent or consistent that unites all of these groups. There is a unifying waffle about 'energy' and 'vibrations' containing 'information', but what makes it possible this weird retro/pre-enlightenment thinking.

[Mashuna]

Is Freeman Dyson the guy who invented those fancy vacuum cleaners?

[calebprime]

No, that was Morgan Freeman.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This is why skeptics get frustrated with psi: there is no coherent theory to test, no solidly accepted example or definition of psi. There is no clear starting point that will satisfy psi advocates that we are acting in good faith.

It is to some extent the reason I get frustrated with altmed. When you go to those conventions, there are booths side-by-side that flatly contradict each other. They just don't seem to care. All they care about is that conventional medicine is all wrong, and they're raking in the dough.

Better than that are the altmed wooists who "practice" more than one "modality". The naturopathic-homeopathic-chiropracters who will stick needles in you. :boggled:

[kerikiwi]

Is there any significance in a harp being the centre of the anecdote, rather than, oh maybe a ukelele?

[godless dave]

Is Freeman Dyson the guy who invented those fancy vacuum cleaners?

No, he's a well-known physicist and mathematician.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson