New PSI forum [Archive]

Lucianarchy

3rd July 2004, 05:09 AM

Most honest, informed sceptics these days accept that there is an effect.

In the face of the overallbody of evidence, it would be irrational, illogical and against occam to suggest each and every last peice of scientific evidence is a result of either self delusion, cheating or collusion of some sort. In fact it is extraordinary unlikely that that should account for every psi effect on record.

The liklihood is that the effect exists and current scientific thinking does not yet understand the mechanism of action.

People who study the phenomena agree that the effect shall be known as the 'Psi Effect'. You have to accept and remember that no known method of action has been found to account for the Ganzfeld. And if you are to assume that each and every last known recorded purported 'effect' is responsible to either delusion, fraud or error, in light of so many undeunked accounts, that is an extraordinary claim in itself, and as such requires extraordinary evidence.

The fact is, the method of action has not been identified, yet it fits so close to both common human experience and now the QM theories of non-local behaviour, that it is more likely that the effect is indeed non-local and therefore worthy of increased research and funding.

Here's the first part of the compilation of resources. Please feel free to add to it so we can begin the new forum with a good firm grounding.

"[...]When 10 new studies published after the Milton Wiseman cut off date are added to their database, the overall ganzfeld effect again becomes significant, but the mean effect size is still smaller than those from the original studies. Ratings of all 40 studies by 3 independent raters reveal that the effect size achieved by a replication is significantly correlated with the degree to which it adhered to the standard ganzfeld protocol. Standard replications yield significant effect sizes comparable with those obtained in the past. " Bem, D.J, Palmer, J. and Broughton, R.S. (2001). Updating the Ganzfeld database: a victim of its own success? Journal of Parapsychology, 65, 207-218

The above was also covered in Science News:

"Since the metanalysis was completed, nine more ganzfeld studies have been published. Milton acknowledges that the psi effect would be statistically significant if the analysis were updated to include these studies." - http://www.sciencenews.org
Bem's response to Hyman - http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem...e_to_hyman.html

"The Ganzfeld experiments at Edinburgh are getting highly
significant results. They appear to be well designed and
if they are carried out as stated, then the results are
very unlikely to be due to chance and therefore may be
evidence of ESP. " - Dr S Blackmore (member of CSICOP)

Bem, D. J. and Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer, Psychological Bulletin, 115, 4-18. Here's the article online: psi in the ganzfeld. http://www.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/does_psi_exist.html

Child, I. L. (1985). Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams. American Psychologist, 40, 1219-1230.

Jahn, R. G. and Dunne, B. J. (1986). On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena. Foundations of Physics, 16, 721-772.

Jahn, R. G. (1982). The persistent paradox of psychic phenomena: An engineering perspective. Proceedings of the IEEE, 70, 136-170.

Radin, D. I. (1989). Searching for "signatures" in anomalous human-machine interaction research: A neural network approach. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 3, 185-200.

Radin, D. I. & Nelson, R. D. (1989). Evidence for consciousness-related anomalies in random physical systems. Foundations of Physics, 19, 1499-1514.

Radin, D. I. (1994). On complexity and pragmatism. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 8 (4), 523-534.

Rao, K. R. & Palmer, J. (1987). The anomaly called psi: Recent research and criticism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 539-551.

Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378.

Jessica Utts' Report on Remote Viewing for the US government, critic Ray Hyman's Response to Utts' Report, and her Response to Hyman's Response. http://www.stat.ucdavis.edu/users/utts/response.html

TheBoyPaj

3rd July 2004, 05:17 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
In the face of the overallbody of evidence, it would be irrational, illogical and against occam to suggest each and every last peice of scientific evidence is a result of either self delusion, cheating or collusion of some sort. In fact it is extraordinary unlikely that that should account for every psi effect on record.

Is it? I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone cut a woman in half. So it MUST be true, mustn't it?

CFLarsen

3rd July 2004, 05:20 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Parapsychology and Psi Claims

Claims are not evidence, you fool.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Most honest, informed sceptics these days accept that there is an effect.

Fool.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
In the face of the overallbody of evidence, it would be irrational, illogical and against occam to suggest each and every last peice of scientific evidence is a result of either self delusion, cheating or collusion of some sort. In fact it is extraordinary unlikely that that should account for every psi effect on record.

It is up to you to show just one piece of evidence. Simply saying "They can't all be fakes" is not good enough. Using that logic, you believe that Santa is real.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
The liklihood is that the effect exists and current scientific thinking does not yet understand the mechanism of action.

Yeah, yeah: Scientists are not open-minded enough, scientists are not clever enough, blah, blah, blah...

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
People who study the phenomena agree that the effect shall be known as the 'Psi Effect'.

They do? Prove it.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
You have to accept and remember that no known method of action has been found to account for the Ganzfeld.

Argument from ignorance. Using that logic, electricity should have been declared paranormal 300 years ago.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
And if you are to assume that each and every last known recorded purported 'effect' is responsible to either delusion, fraud or error, in light of so many undeunked accounts, that is an extraordinary claim in itself, and as such requires extraordinary evidence.

No, it is not very extraordinary to state that humans have a long history of deceit and self-delusion.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
The fact is, the method of action has not been identified, yet it fits so close to both common human experience and now the QM theories of non-local behaviour, that it is more likely that the effect is indeed non-local and therefore worthy of increased research and funding.

Oh, please tell us how the QM theories explain psi!

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Here's the first part of the compilation of resources. Please feel free to add to it so we can begin the new forum with a good firm grounding.

Same old tired crap, debunked a zillion times.

Doctor X

3rd July 2004, 06:10 AM

Anyone want to "buy a fallacy?"

--J.D.

nikoteen

3rd July 2004, 06:14 AM

Status of current Ganzfeld research :

- parapsychologists first claimed they got positive results with the Ganzfeld
- skeptics highlighted numerous protocol biases in their protocols

[=> 1st controversy]

- parapsychologists moved to "auto-ganzfeld" and claimed they got positive results
- skeptics validated the protocol byt they couldn't reproduce any of the successful tests

[=> 2nd controversy]

- parapsychologists made several meta-analysis and got positive results
- skeptics made several meta-analysis and got negative results

[=> 3rd controversy is about what experiment should be included in the "Ganzfeld database" or not (see papers about "updating the ganzfeld database")]

Is this controversy fixed yet ? As far as I know, no.

If you are interested in ESP research etc, don't try to get back to the 1st and 2nd controversy time. Read those papers you mention, and find a way to get out of the 3rd controversy era.

Clue: you never get out of a controversy by answering to the original question. Invent and get the never-ending debate toward its 4th step !

---
Nicolas Vivant

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 10:33 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

No, I have not looked at the actual databases. Have you?

Some of the dataset, yes. All of them, no. Do I have a list or have kept the ones I've looked at a while back, no.

Yes, I have read Radin's book. Have you?

Yes. Twice.

Those are descriptions of how to do experiments. Please list the exact experiments: What was tested, who tested it, how was it replicated?

There have been plenty done. You'll have to contact the authors of those experiments for the details you are looking for.

Please explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for).

I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "the hypothesis". If you could give me an example with something a non-psi subject, that would be great.

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 10:36 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Most honest, informed sceptics these days accept that there is an effect.

In the face of the overallbody of evidence, it would be irrational, illogical and against occam to suggest each and every last peice of scientific evidence is a result of either self delusion, cheating or collusion of some sort. In fact it is extraordinary unlikely that that should account for every psi effect on record.

The liklihood is that the effect exists and current scientific thinking does not yet understand the mechanism of action.

People who study the phenomena agree that the effect shall be known as the 'Psi Effect'. You have to accept and remember that no known method of action has been found to account for the Ganzfeld. And if you are to assume that each and every last known recorded purported 'effect' is responsible to either delusion, fraud or error, in light of so many undeunked accounts, that is an extraordinary claim in itself, and as such requires extraordinary evidence.

The fact is, the method of action has not been identified, yet it fits so close to both common human experience and now the QM theories of non-local behaviour, that it is more likely that the effect is indeed non-local and therefore worthy of increased research and funding.

Here's the first part of the compilation of resources. Please feel free to add to it so we can begin the new forum with a good firm grounding.

The above was also covered in Science News:

Bem's response to Hyman - http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem...e_to_hyman.html

Bem, D. J. and Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer, Psychological Bulletin, 115, 4-18. Here's the article online: psi in the ganzfeld. http://www.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/does_psi_exist.html

Child, I. L. (1985). Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams. American Psychologist, 40, 1219-1230.

Jahn, R. G. and Dunne, B. J. (1986). On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena. Foundations of Physics, 16, 721-772.

Jahn, R. G. (1982). The persistent paradox of psychic phenomena: An engineering perspective. Proceedings of the IEEE, 70, 136-170.

Radin, D. I. (1989). Searching for "signatures" in anomalous human-machine interaction research: A neural network approach. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 3, 185-200.

Radin, D. I. & Nelson, R. D. (1989). Evidence for consciousness-related anomalies in random physical systems. Foundations of Physics, 19, 1499-1514.

Radin, D. I. (1994). On complexity and pragmatism. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 8 (4), 523-534.

Rao, K. R. & Palmer, J. (1987). The anomaly called psi: Recent research and criticism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 539-551.

Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378.

Jessica Utts' Report on Remote Viewing for the US government, critic Ray Hyman's Response to Utts' Report, and her Response to Hyman's Response. http://www.stat.ucdavis.edu/users/utts/response.html

And I would personally start with Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378. The article and its rejoinders are excellent. I was delighted to find this issue in my office that the previous grad student left!
(he left a big stack of Statistical Science issues, not just this issue ;) ).

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 10:39 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Same old tired crap, debunked a zillion times.

Can you show where Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378 was "debunked", as you claimed?

Thanks.

CFLarsen

3rd July 2004, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Some of the dataset, yes. All of them, no. Do I have a list or have kept the ones I've looked at a while back, no.

How can you possibly point to the content of datasets that you cannot identify? Do you go on memory?

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
There have been plenty done. You'll have to contact the authors of those experiments for the details you are looking for.

I will not do your homework for you. Are you able to list the exact experiments: What was tested, who tested it, how was it replicated? Yes or no?

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "the hypothesis". If you could give me an example with something a non-psi subject, that would be great.

Are you able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for)? Yes or no?

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 11:06 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

How can you possibly point to the content of datasets that you cannot identify?

Because I've seen some before.

I will not do your homework for you.

It is your homework. You're the one who is interested in seeing the specifics of the experiment, so you'll have to contact the researchers involved with the experiments.

Are you able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for)? Yes or no?

You'll have to be more specific. I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "the hypothesis". If you could give me an example with something a non-psi subject, that would be great.

CFLarsen

3rd July 2004, 11:16 AM

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Because I've seen some before.

You mean to tell us that all this time, when you were referring to the Ganzfeld, auto-Ganzfeld, and blah blah blah, you were going on memory?

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
It is your homework. You're the one who is interested in seeing the specifics of the experiment, so you'll have to contact the researchers involved with the experiments.

Of course it is not my homework, it is yours. You're the one who claims that these experiments with good controls show statistical significance that can be replicated. You're the one who has to list them.

But, you can't. Or, refuse. Either way, your claim is unsupported by evidence.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
You'll have to be more specific. I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "the hypothesis". If you could give me an example with something a non-psi subject, that would be great.

OK, you are not able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for).

Let's sum up:

You are not able to point to specific results from specific RNG, ganzfeld, and auto-ganzfeld cumulative databases, because you can not remember which you have looked at.
You are not able to list the experiments with good controls show statistical significance that can be replicated.
You are not able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for).

You may begin your arm waving.

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 11:23 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

You mean to tell us that all this time, when you were referring to the Ganzfeld, auto-Ganzfeld, and blah blah blah, you were going on memory?

Well I read them, yes.

By you stating "No, I have not looked at the actual databases.", and then saying "Same old tired crap, debunked a zillion times." are you saying you magically debunked it without even seeing the data at all? At least I have seen it in the past, you haven't even seen it at all, according to your own words!

Now, Claus, can you show where Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378 was "debunked", as you claimed?

Of course it is not my homework, it is yours. You're the one who claims that these experiments with good controls show statistical significance that can be replicated. You're the one who has to list them.

They have been listed. It is your homework to contact the authors if you are interested in specific details, such as the ones you are asking for.

OK, you are not able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for).

Hey, you didn't answer my question. I'll repeat it, because I'm not sure what you are asking and I need you to be more specific:

You asked:

Are you able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for)?

And I said:

You'll have to be more specific. I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "the hypothesis". If you could give me an example with something a non-psi subject, that would be great.

So can you not elaborate on your question? I'm trying to get to a point where I can understand you, so I can try to answer it. You're just not cooperating here. Oh well, I guess that more lists I guess for me. :rolleyes:

CFLarsen

3rd July 2004, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Well I read them, yes.

No, you claim to have read some, yet you cannot name any of them.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
By you stating "No, I have not looked at the actual databases.", and then saying "Same old tired crap, debunked a zillion times." are you saying you magically debunked it without even seeing the data at all? At least I have seen it in the past, you haven't even seen it at all, according to your own words!

Now, Claus, can you show where Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378 was "debunked", as you claimed?

Where exactly did I claim that I had debunked them? Stop inventing things.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
They have been listed. It is your homework to contact the authors if you are interested in specific details, such as the ones you are asking for.

Where have they been listed? Not by you, as you should.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
So can you not elaborate on your question? I'm trying to get to a point where I can understand you, so I can try to answer it. You're just not cooperating here. Oh well, I guess that more lists I guess for me. :rolleyes:

Wave your arms all you like.

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 11:36 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

No, you claim to have read some, yet you cannot name any of them.

They have already been named. I won't do your homework for you.

You haven't seen any of the data? I'm shocked!

Where exactly did I claim that I had debunked them? Stop inventing things.

Fine.

Where did anybody debunk Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378??? You claimed it has been debunked a zillion times... Evidence?

Wave your arms all you like.

Nope.

You asked:

Are you able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for)?

And I said:

You'll have to be more specific. I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "the hypothesis". If you could give me an example with something a non-psi subject, that would be great.

Still waiting for you to elaborate on whatever it is you are trying to get across to me.

apoger

3rd July 2004, 02:00 PM

Still waiting for you to elaborate on whatever it is you are trying to get across to me.

Let me elaborate, if I may:

He is very simply asking you to define the topics (Psi and ESP).
This is the very first step in a coherent discussion. Defining our terms prevents people from hiding behind semantics and ambiguity.

flyboy217

3rd July 2004, 02:56 PM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

Is it? I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone cut a woman in half. So it MUST be true, mustn't it?

Pardon? What do a magician's tricks have to do with the scientifically designed experiments he's talking about? Really, poor form.

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 03:59 PM

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
[BWhere did anybody debunk Utts, J. (1991). Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. Statistical Science, 6, 363-378???

You claimed it has been debunked a zillion times...

Evidence?
[/B]

Still waiting.

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 04:01 PM

Originally posted by apoger

Let me elaborate, if I may:

He is very simply asking you to define the topics (Psi and ESP).
This is the very first step in a coherent discussion. Defining our terms prevents people from hiding behind semantics and ambiguity.

Well he asked me to define the hypothesis... Different researchers are testing different hypotheses, so I'm not sure what he is specifically going for here.

If he wanted me to define the words psi and esp, he should have simply said so. I use the definition of May, et al:

Anomalous Cognition- information transfer in which all known sensorial stimuli are absent.

T'ai Chi

3rd July 2004, 04:03 PM

Originally posted by flyboy217

Pardon? What do a magician's tricks have to do with the scientifically designed experiments he's talking about? Really, poor form.

Nothing at all. It is a typical distraction ploy.

Neither do any popular understand of "ESP" like on X-files or movies, etc. have anything to do with scientifically testing such things in a lab.

CFLarsen

4th July 2004, 01:01 AM

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Well he asked me to define the hypothesis... Different researchers are testing different hypotheses, so I'm not sure what he is specifically going for here.

Then list the different hypotheses that you know of, and explain those.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
If he wanted me to define the words psi and esp, he should have simply said so.

No, I did not. You are perfectly aware that I did not. Again, please stop inventing things.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
I use the definition of May, et al:

Anomalous Cognition- information transfer in which all known sensorial stimuli are absent.

Finally, we drag something out of you!

Now, please explain the hypotheses for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for) that you know of. After that, please describe how to test them.

And if we could avoid this tedious back-and-forth, it would be most productive. Sooner or later, you will have to come out in the open, and explain what your stance is on this.

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Nothing at all. It is a typical distraction ploy.

It is not. It is a valid comparison: How will you tell if the lady is not cut in half?

Originally posted by T'ai Chi
Neither do any popular understand of "ESP" like on X-files or movies, etc. have anything to do with scientifically testing such things in a lab.

But you forget that the vast majority of paranormal claims do not take place in a lab setting. What are you going to do with those? Ignore them?

We still haven't gotten any further:

You are not able to point to specific results from specific RNG, ganzfeld, and auto-ganzfeld cumulative databases, because you can not remember which you have looked at.
You are not able to list the experiments with good controls show statistical significance that can be replicated.
You are not able to explain the hypothesis for Extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (which is what "psi" stands for).
You are not able to show where the experiments are listed.

But we do see a lot of arm waving.

Lucianarchy

4th July 2004, 08:03 AM

OK, so we're getting together a database of the replications.

Which experiments run by any of the skeptical organisations do we have to chose from? Have we any sources, references or results to hand?

4th July 2004, 08:42 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
OK, so we're getting together a database of the replications.

Which experiments run by any of the skeptical organisations do we have to chose from? Have we any sources, references or results to hand?

You crack me up. Really, you do. I'm not being rude, I am actually sitting here with a smile on my lips. If only real life were as frothy as these discussions. Once I realized that none of this signifies anything at all my Wa was restored.

Carry on.

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 07:46 AM

Ch. 1 of The Conscious Universe on line here:

http://www.psiresearch.org/Chapter1.html

In science, the acceptance of new ideas follows a predictable, four-stage sequence. In Stage 1, skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is impossible because it violates the Laws of Science. This stage can last from years to centuries, depending on how much the idea challenges conventional wisdom. In Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the idea is possible, but it is not very interesting and the claimed effects are extremely weak. Stage 3 begins when the mainstream realizes that the idea is not only important, but its effects are much stronger and more pervasive than previously imagined. Stage 4 is achieved when the same critics who used to disavow any interest in the idea begin to proclaim that they thought of it first. Eventually, no one remembers that the idea was once considered a dangerous heresy.

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 07:54 AM

http://www.jsasoc.com/library.html articles written by the staff of the Laboratories for Fundamental Research. The list follows:

Global Consciousness Project: An Independent Analysis of The 11 September 2001 Events, Edwin C. May; S. James P. Spottiswoode

A Search for Alpha Power Changes Associated with Anomalous Cognition, Edwin C. May; S. James P. Spottiswoode; Laura V. Faith

Anomalous Cognition Effect Size: Dependence on Sidereal Time and Solar Wind Parameters, S. James P. Spottiswoode; Edwin C. May

Apparent Association between Effect Size in Free Response Anomalous Cognition Experiments and Local Sidereal Time, S. James P. Spottiswoode

Applications of Decision Augmentation Theory,
Edwin C. May, PhD; Jessica M. Utts, PhD; Christine L. James

Decision Augmentation Theory: Toward a Model of Anomalous Mental Phenomena, Edwin C. May, PhD; Jessica M. Utts, PhD; S. James P. Spottiswoode

Decision Augmentation Theory: Applications to the Random Number Generator Database, Edwin C. May, PhD; Jessica M. Utts, PhD; S. James P. Spottiswoode

Effect of Ambient Magnetic Field Fluctuation on Performance in a Free Response Anomalous Cognition Task: A Pilot Study,
S. James P. Spottiswoode

Geomagnetic Activity and Anomalous Cognition: A Preliminary Report of New Evidence, S. James P. Spottiswoode

Geomagnetic Fluctuations and Free Response Anomalous Cognition: A New Understanding, S. James P. Spottiswoode

Managing the Target Pool Bandwidth: Noise Reduction for Anomalous Cognition Experiments Edwin C. May, PhD; S. James P. Spottiswoode; Christine L James

Shannon Entropy as an Intrinsic Target Property: Toward a Reductionist Model of Anomalist Cognition 22 April 1994, Edwin C. May, PhD; S. James P. Spottiswoode; Christine L. James

CFLarsen

6th July 2004, 08:04 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Ch. 1 of The Conscious Universe on line here:

http://www.psiresearch.org/Chapter1.html

In Stage 1, skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is impossible because it violates the Laws of Science.

No. Skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is not impossible, but that it violates the Laws of Science.

This stage can last from years to centuries, depending on how much the idea challenges conventional wisdom.

No. Once the data is in, ideas are accepted pretty fast. All it takes is evidence.

In Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the idea is possible, but it is not very interesting and the claimed effects are extremely weak.

No. Skeptics will not say that an idea is impossible. Skeptics are very interested in seeing just one paranormal phenomenon proved. But it is correct that the effects seem to be extremely weak...

Stage 3 begins when the mainstream realizes that the idea is not only important, but its effects are much stronger and more pervasive than previously imagined.

No. We do not see these effects become stronger and stronger, quite contrary: They become weaker and weaker, with increased controls.

Stage 4 is achieved when the same critics who used to disavow any interest in the idea begin to proclaim that they thought of it first. Eventually, no one remembers that the idea was once considered a dangerous heresy.

No. This is nothing but ad hominem.

In science, the acceptance of new ideas follows a predictable, four-stage sequence.

Hmmmmmm.......no.

CFLarsen

6th July 2004, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
http://www.jsasoc.com/library.html articles written by the staff of the Laboratories for Fundamental Research. The list follows:

Yes, that's nice. Please explain the contents of these publications.

Where is the evidence?

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 08:07 AM

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/investigators/

List of progressive sceptics.

CFLarsen

6th July 2004, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/investigators/

List of progressive sceptics.

Where is the evidence?

The Don

6th July 2004, 08:17 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Where is the evidence?
Well if you're not going to accept a set of essays, opinion pieces and wild conjecture I don't know what will satisfy you

Note to Lucianarchy

Are you sure you can't see your way to providing references to
- repeatable
- independently verified experimentally
- peer reviewed
studies published in reputable journals

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 09:40 AM

"[...] But the most embarrassing error Randi makes concerns the position of the hole. It isn't three feet above the floor, but is located only a little above floor level. The only thing you can see through it - even under optimal conditions - is a small bit of exterior floor and opposing wall. (The viewing radius is only about 20°, and the targets for the Geller experiments were hung on a different wall completely.) I also discovered during my trip to SRI that an equipment rack was situated in front of the hole throughout the Geller work, which obstructed any view through it even further. I ended my little investigation by talking with two people who were present during these critical experiments. They both agreed that wires were running through the hole - therefore totally blocking it - during the time of the Geller experiments.
Little more needs to be said concerning Randi's criticisms of the Geller work, since the important point is not really whether the Israeli psychic proved his psychic powers, but whether Randi can be considered a responsible critic of parapsychology. I think the answer should be obvious by now. This fact, however, doesn't keep him from making wild accusations against both Targ and Puthoff, even to the point of questioning their scientific honesty.
It is well known that the two SRI physicists issued a film which shows Geller successfully guessing the uppermost face of a die after it had been shaken in a closed box. Their Nature report describes these tests and phenomenal accuracy. The critical film was taken by Zev Pressman (an SRI staff photographer) and it shows Geller correctly making a guess. Randi claims that Targ and Puthoff lied when they stated that this film was taken during the actual tests. He further asserts that the film was a re-enactment. Basing his charges on information he claims came from Pressman himself, Randi maintains that the film was taken after the photographer had gone home and was merely staged. 'Pressman revealed that he was told Geller's eight successful throws [my emphasis] were done after he (Pressman) had gone home for the day, writes Randi, 'and that this film was a re-enactment of that supposed miracle'
Dr Puthoff was thoroughly disgusted when I read this section of Flim-Flam! to him. 'Not one millimetre of that film was a re-enactment, he told me. He also claimed that he had even procured an affidavit from Pressman certifying that the footage was filmed by him during the actual SRI tests. Dr Puthoff supplied me with this affidavit and urged me to get in touch with Mr Pressman, which is exactly I did.
l spoke directly with Mr Pressman on 5 January 1981 and he was quite interested when I told him about Randi's book. He denied that he had spoken to the magician. When l read him the section of Randi's book dealing with his alleged 'expose' of the Targ-Puthoff film, he became very vexed. He firmly backed up the authenticity of the film, told me how he had taken it on the spot, and labelled Randi's allegation as a total fabrication. (His own descriptive language was a little more colourful!) [...]"

Psychic Breakthroughs Today
D. Scott Rogo
Aquarian Press 1987 - ISBN 0850305705

Psiload

6th July 2004, 09:50 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
"[...] But the most embarrassing error Randi makes concerns the position of the hole. It isn't three feet above the floor, but is located only a little above floor level. The only thing you can see through it - even under optimal conditions - is a small bit of exterior floor and opposing wall. (The viewing radius is only about 20°, and the targets for the Geller experiments were hung on a different wall completely.) I also discovered during my trip to SRI that an equipment rack was situated in front of the hole throughout the Geller work, which obstructed any view through it even further. I ended my little investigation by talking with two people who were present during these critical experiments. They both agreed that wires were running through the hole - therefore totally blocking it - during the time of the Geller experiments.
Little more needs to be said concerning Randi's criticisms of the Geller work, since the important point is not really whether the Israeli psychic proved his psychic powers, but whether Randi can be considered a responsible critic of parapsychology. I think the answer should be obvious by now. This fact, however, doesn't keep him from making wild accusations against both Targ and Puthoff, even to the point of questioning their scientific honesty.
It is well known that the two SRI physicists issued a film which shows Geller successfully guessing the uppermost face of a die after it had been shaken in a closed box. Their Nature report describes these tests and phenomenal accuracy. The critical film was taken by Zev Pressman (an SRI staff photographer) and it shows Geller correctly making a guess. Randi claims that Targ and Puthoff lied when they stated that this film was taken during the actual tests. He further asserts that the film was a re-enactment. Basing his charges on information he claims came from Pressman himself, Randi maintains that the film was taken after the photographer had gone home and was merely staged. 'Pressman revealed that he was told Geller's eight successful throws [my emphasis] were done after he (Pressman) had gone home for the day, writes Randi, 'and that this film was a re-enactment of that supposed miracle'
Dr Puthoff was thoroughly disgusted when I read this section of Flim-Flam! to him. 'Not one millimetre of that film was a re-enactment, he told me. He also claimed that he had even procured an affidavit from Pressman certifying that the footage was filmed by him during the actual SRI tests. Dr Puthoff supplied me with this affidavit and urged me to get in touch with Mr Pressman, which is exactly I did.
l spoke directly with Mr Pressman on 5 January 1981 and he was quite interested when I told him about Randi's book. He denied that he had spoken to the magician. When l read him the section of Randi's book dealing with his alleged 'expose' of the Targ-Puthoff film, he became very vexed. He firmly backed up the authenticity of the film, told me how he had taken it on the spot, and labelled Randi's allegation as a total fabrication. (His own descriptive language was a little more colourful!) [...]"

Psychic Breakthroughs Today
D. Scott Rogo
Aquarian Press 1987 - ISBN 0850305705 And just look at the amazing progress that has taken place in this field over the last twenty years:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2253191425

James Randi has certainly been handed his comeuppance!

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 11:14 AM

"[...]Another case is CSICOP's handling of the "Mars effect"
affair. In this case, a challenge to French "cosmobiologist"
Michel Gauquelin resulted in the verification of his claim
that correlations he found between the position of Mars and
sports ability were not the result of factors such as births
tending to occur at particular times of day. (For all the
gory details of this mess, see Curry 1982 and Kammann 1982.
Cherfas 1981 gives a brief summary.)
But what is by far the worst example of skeptical
failure I have come across is a description of a March 18,
1988 debate between creationist Duane Gish of the Institute
for Creation Research (ICR) and Ian Plimer, associate [sic]
professor of geology at Newcastle University. The
description of this debate which appeared in an article in
the Australian Skeptics' publication The Skeptic, by Steve
Roberts of the Canberra Skeptics and Skeptic editor Tim
Mendham (Roberts & Mendham 1988) was filled with serious
misrepresentations. I discovered this by viewing a videotape
of the debate, which took place at the Clancy Theatre of the
University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.[...]"

"Some Failures of Organized Skepticism"
and "Postscript to 'Some Failures of Organized Skepticism,'"
appeared in _The Arizona Skeptic_ (vol. 3, no. 1, January 1990,
pp. 2-5 and vol. 5, no. 3, November/December 1991, pp. 1-3
respectively)

CFLarsen

6th July 2004, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Now we are going to have the PSI forum, we should prepare / compile a list of all the evidence / replictions including references and sources.

Where's the evidence?

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 04:32 PM

Beloff, J (1974) ESP: the search for a physiological index. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 47: 401-420

Beloff, J., Cowles, M. & Bate. D. (1970). Autonomic reactions to emotive stimuli using sensory and extrasensory conditions of presentations. Journal of the American Society of Psychical Research 64

Braud, W. (1978). Allobiofeedback: Immediate feedback for a psychokinetic influence upon another person's physiology. In W. Rolls (Ed.), Research in Parapsychology 1977, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. pp. 123-134

Braud, W. (1979). Conformance behavior involving living systems. In W. Roll (Ed). Research in Parapsychology, 1978, Metchuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. pp. 111-115.

Braud, W. (1983). More tests with electric fish. Psi Researcher 2: 114

Braud, W. (1990). Distant mental influence of rate of hemolysis of human red blood cells. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 84(1): 1-24.

Braud, W. (1986). PSI and PNI: Exploring the interface between parapsychology and psychoneuroimmuninology. Parapsychological Review 17: 1-5

Braud, W. (1989) Using living targets in psi research. Parapsychological Review 20: 1-4

Braud, W. (1992). Human interconnectedness: Research indications. ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation, 14: 140-148

Braud, W. (1993). On the use of living target systems in distant mental influence research, In L. Coly (Ed.), Psi research methodology: A re-examination. New York: Parapsychology Foundation

Braud, W. (1993). Remote mental influence of electrodermal activity. Journal of Indian Psychology10 (1-2): 1-9

Braud, W. & Dennis, S. (1989). Geophysical variables and behavior: LVIII. Autonomic activity, hemolysis, and biological psychokinesis: Possible relationships with geomagnetic field activity. Perceptual and Motor Skills 68: 1243-1254

Braud, W. & Jackson, J. (1982). Ideomotor reactions as psi indicators. Parapsychology Review 12: 10-11

Braud, W. & Jackson, J. (1983). Psi influence upon mental imagery. Parapsychological Review 14: 13-15

Braud, W. & Schlitz, M. (1983). Psychokinetic influence on electrodermal activity. Journal of Parapsychology 47: 95-119

Braud, W. & Schlitz, M. (1989). Possible role of intuitive data sorting in electrodermal biological psychokinesis (bio-PK). Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 83: 289-302

Braud, W., Schlitz, M. & Schmidt, H. (1990). Remote mental influence of animate and inanimate target systems: A method of comparison and preliminary findings. In L. Henkel & J. Palmer (Eds), Research in Parapsychology 1989. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. pp. 42-47

Braud, W. & Schlitz, M. (1991). Consciousness interactions with remote biological systems: Anomalous intentionality effects. Subtle Energies 2(1): 1-46

Braud, W., Shafer, D. & Andrews, S. (1990). Electrodermal correlates of remote attention: Autonomic reactions to unseen gaze. Proceedings of Presented Papers: 33rd Annual Parapsychological Association Convention, Chevy Chase, MD. pp. 14-28.

Braud, W., Shafer, D, & Andrews, S (1993). Reactions to an unseen gaze (remote attention): A review, with new data on autonomic staring detection. Journal of Parapsychology 57: 373-390

Braud, W., Shafer, D, & Andrews, S (1993). Further studies of autonomic detection of remote staring: Replication, new control procedures, and personality correlates. Journal of Parapsychology 57: 391-409

Braud, W., Shafer, D., McNeill, K. & Guerra, V. (1993). Attention focusing facilitated through remote mental interaction. Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association 26th Annual Convention, The Parapsychological Association, Inc. pp. 2-11

Cade, C. M. & Woolley-Hart, P. A.. (1971). The measurement of hypnosis and autohypnosis by determination of electrical skin resistance. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 46: 81-101

Coover, J.E. (1913). The feeling of being stared at. American Journal of Psychology 24: 57?-575

Dean, E. D. (1962). Plethysmograph as indicator of ESP. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 41

Dean, E. D. (1968). Attempts to use plethysmograph recordings in communication. Journal of Parapsychology 32 (abstract)

Dean, E. D. (1969). Long-distance plethysmograph telepathy with agent under water. Journal of Parapsychology 33 (abstract)

Dean, E. D. & Nash, C. B. (1967). Coincident plethysmograph results under controlled conditions. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44

Delanoy, D. & Sah. S. (1994) Cognitive and physiological psi responses to remote positive and neutral emotional states. Proceedings of the Parpasychological Association 27th Annual Convention, The Parapsychological Association, Inc. pp.128-137

Esser, A. H., Etter, T. L. & Chamberlain, W. B. (1967). Preliminary report: Physiological concomitants of "communication" between isolated subjects. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44

Grad, B. (1965). Some biological effects of the "laying on of hands": A review of experiments with animals and plants. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 59: 95-127

Gruber, E. R. (1980). PK effects on pre-recorded group behavior of living systems. European Journal of Parapsychology 3: 167-175

Kelly, M.T., Varvoglis, M., & Keane, P. (1979). Physiological response during psi and sensory presentation of an arousing stimulus. In W. G. Roll (Ed.), Research in Parapsychology, 1978. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow press. pp. 40-41

Khoklov, N. (1983). Remote biofeedback in voluntary control of heart rate, Psi Research 2: 66-92

Morris, R. L. (1977). Parapsychology, biology, and anpsi. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.) Handbook of Parapsychology, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. pp. 687-716

Murphy, M. (1993). The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature. New York: Putnam.

Nash, C. B. & Nash, C. S. (1962). Coincident vasoconstriction in pairs of resting subjects. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 63

Radin, D., Taylor, R. & Braud, W. (1993). Remote mental influence of electrodermal activity: A preliminary replication. Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association 36th Annual Convention, The Parapsychological Association, Inc. pp. 12-23

Sheldrake, R.(1994). Seven Experiments that Could Change the World. London: Fourth Estate.

Tart, C. T. (1963). Physiological correlates of psi cognition. International Journal of Parapsychology 5: 375-386

Thalbourne, M. & Evans, L. (1992). Attitudes and beliefs about, and reactions to staring and being stared at. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 33: 448-457

Tichener, E. B. (1898). The feeling of being stared at. Science 8: 895-897

Vasiliev, LL (1976). Experiments in Distant Influence. New York: Dutton, (English Translation)

Lucianarchy

6th July 2004, 04:42 PM

Overview of Current Parapsychology Research in the Former Soviet Union
Edwin C. May, Ph.D. and Larissa Vilenskaya
(Subtle Energies Volume 3, Number 3, pp. 45-67, 1992)
ABSTRACT: This paper provides an in-depth discussion of research of anomalous mental phenomena (AMP) in the former Soviet Union. The authors spent approximately two months in Russia during 1992 and 1993, interacting with researchers in Moscow and Novosibirsk. The authors primarily discuss experiments in anomalous perturbation (often referred to as psychokinesis?PK and bio? which have been the main focus of AMP research programs in the Soviet Union. In particular, the authors discuss the methodologies and results of experimental attempts by human operators to affect the following inanimate and animate target systems: (1) microcalorimeters, (2) electric noise generators, (3) cellular cultures, (4) plant seeds, (5) plant biopotentials, (6) frequency of impulses emitted by an electricity?generating fish, (7) eating behavior of mice, (8) person's reaction time, and (9) parameters of human EEG.

Anomalous Mental Phenomena Research in Russia and the Former Soviet Union: A Follow Up
Larissa Vilenskaya & Edwin C. May, Ph.D.
(Subtle Energies Volume 4, Number 3, pp. 231-250, 1992)
ABSTRACT: We describe our further exploration into research of anomalous mental phenomena (AMP) in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). We visited numerous research centers in major cities of Russia and the Ukraine, met with leading researchers in the field, visited their laboratories, and participated in some experiments. In their research, our Russian colleagues emphasize studies of anomalous perturbation (AP), also termed psychokinesis (PK), and "distant mental effect" on biological systems (bio?AP or bio?PK). The experiments have been conducted in top academic and research institutions, including Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, and several research institutes of the Russian and Ukrainian Academies of Sciences. Although the quality of research varies considerably in different institutions, there are groups that have developed rigorous methodologies. We also consider the potential cultural impact on Russian AMP research. We conclude with a discussion of the causal model of AP studies vs. informational, perceptual model in relation to the Russian research.

Advances in Remote-Viewing Analysis
Edwin C. May, Jessica M. Utts, Beverly S. Humphrey, Wanda L. W. Luke, Thane J. Frivold, and Virginia V. Trask
(Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 54, September 1990, pp: 193-228)
ABSTRACT: Fuzzy set technology is applied to the ongoing research question of how to automate the analysis of remote-viewing data. Fuzzy sets were invented to describe, in a formal way, the subjectivity inherent in human reasoning. Applied to remote-viewing analysis, the technique involves a quantitative encoding of target and response material and provides a formal comparison. In this progress report, the accuracy of a response is defined as the percent of the intended target material that is described correctly. The reliability is defined as the percent of the response that was correct. The assessment of the remote-viewing quality is denned as the product of accuracy and reliability, called the figure of merit The procedure is applied to a test set of six remote-viewing trials. A comparison of the figures of merit with the subjective assessments of 37 independent analysts shows good agreement. The fuzzy set technology is also used to provide a quantitative definition of target orthogonality.

Decision Augmentation Theory
Edwin C. May, Jessica M. Utts, and S. James P. Spottiswoode
(Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 59, September 1995, pp: 195-220)
ABSTRACT: Decision augmentation theory (DAT) holds that humans integrate information obtained by anomalous cognition into the usual decision process. The result is that, to a statistical degree, such decisions are biased toward volitional outcomes. We introduce our model and show that the domain over which it is applicable is within a few standard deviations from chance. We contrast the theory's experimental consequences with those of models that treat anomalous effects as due to a force. We derive mathematical expressions for DAT and force-like models using two distributions, normal and binomial. DAT is testable both retrospectively and prospectively, and we provide statistical power curves to assist in the experimental design of such tests. We show that the experimental consequences of our theory are different from those of force-like models except for one special case.

Applications of Decision Augmentation Theory
Edwin C. May, S. James P. Spottiswoode, Jessica M. Utts, and Christine L. James
(Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 59, September 1995, pp: 221-250)
ABSTRACT: Decision augmentation theory (DAT) provides an informational mechanism for a class of anomalous mental phenomena that have hitherto been viewed as being caused by a force-like mechanism. Under specifiable conditions, DATs predictions for statistical anomalous perturbation databases are different from those of all force-like mechanisms. For large random number generator databases, DAT predicts a zero slope for a least squares fit to the (z^2 , n) scatter diagram, where n is the number of bits resulting from a single run and z is the resulting z score. We find a slope of (1.73 ± 3.19) X 10^-6 (t= 0.543, df= 126, p = .295) for the historical binary RNG database, which strongly suggests that some informational mechanism is responsible for the anomaly. In a two sequence length analysis of a limited set of RNG data from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory, we find that a force-like explanation misses the observed data by 8.6 Sigma; however, the observed data are within 1.1 sigma of the DAT prediction. We also apply DAT to one pseudo-RNG study and find that its predicted slope is not significantly different from the expected value for an informational mechanism. We review and comment on six published articles that discussed DATs earlier formalism (i.e., intuitive data sorting). We found two studies that support a force-like mechanism. Our analysis of Brand's 1990 hemolysis study confirms his finding in favor of an influence model over a selection one (p = .023), and Braud and Schlitz (1989) demonstrated a force-like interaction in their remote staring experiment (p = .020). We provide six circumstantial arguments against an influence hypothesis. Our anomalous cognition research suggests that the quality of the data is proportional to the total change of Shannon entropy. We demonstrate that the change of Shannon entropy of a binary sequence from chance is independent of sequence length; thus, we suggest that a fundamental argument supports DAT over influence models. In our conclusion, we suggest that, except for one special case, the physical RNG database cannot be explained by any influence model, and that contradicting evidence from two experiments on biological systems should inspire more investigations in a way that would allow valid DAT analyses.

ESP and the Brain: Current Status
Edwin C. May
(3rd Symposium: Behind and Beyond the Brain, 321-352)
ABSTRACT: Serious research into extrasensory perception (ESP) has been conducted since the 1930's, and a number of different protocols have been established to elicit the phenomenon. The large database to date has been analyzed by critics and statisticians alike, and the consensus is that the result meets generally accepted criteria for evidence of a statistically based, information transfer anomaly. We provide a brief overview of three of the most common procedures and their results as the basis for the justification to engage in a search for a central nervous system (CNS) correlate to ESP. Our search for a CNS response to an ESP stimulus began in 1973 when we found that alpha band (8 to 12 Hz) power changed significantly concomitant with a remote and isolated flashing-light (i.e., 16 Hz) stimulus. Even though there was statistically significant evidence of a change in alpha power, the single participant in the study "was unable to demonstrate cognitively in which epochs the remote light was flashing. In addition, there was considerable ambiguity as to the EEG lead and direction of the alpha power change for the observed significant effects. That is, significant increases or decreases of in-band alpha power were observed on different electrodes at different times. Thus we abandoned this line of investigation until 1986. At that time, we used magnetoencephalographic techniques to search for evoked-response-fields occurring concomitant with a remote flashing sinusoidal stimulus. Although the initial results were encouraging in that we apparently detected significant spontaneous primary alpha phase shifts, we were unable to replicate our findings. Continuing our search in 1994, we conducted an experiment to detect event-related desynchronizations (ERD's) resulting from an ESP stimulus. Three subjects contributed a total of 70 trials during which both ESP and EEG data were collected. The ESP data, which have been blind judged by an established rank-order method, yielded independently significant results for two of the three receivers, and the overall ESP result was significant at p=0.006 (ES = 0.303). Using a cross correlation technique, which was twice as sensitive as standard signal averaging, we did not observe any evidence for an ERD in response to an ESP stimulus. Our analysis technique was sensitive enough to detect a 20% decrease from prestimulus alpha power1. We will summarize our previous experiments and discuss a number of possible explanations for this result.

Target and Sender Dependencies in Anomalous Cognition Experiments
Nevin D. Lantz, Wanda L. W. Luke, and Edwin C. May
(Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 58, September 1994, pp: 286-302)
ABSTRACT: The ganzfeld experiments as summarized by Bem and Honorton (1994) suggest that using dynamic targets produces stronger results than using static ones. Bem and Honorton, however, only analyzed ganzfeld studies that included the use of a sender. Because a sender is not a necessary requirement hi forced-choice trials, we designed and carried out a study to see if a sender is required in nonganzfeld, free-response trials. In the first of two experiments, five experienced receivers participated hi 40 trials each, 10 in each condition of a 2x2 design to explore sender and target type. We observed significant effects for static targets (exact sum-of-rank probability of p < .0073, effect size = 0.248, n = 100), chance results for dynamic targets (p < .500, effect size = 0.000, n = 100), and no interaction effects between sender and target-type conditions. One receiver slightly favored the no-sender condition, F(l,36) = 4.43, p < .04, whereas another slightly favored static targets, F(l,36) = 5.47, p < .04. We speculate that these surprising results (i.e., favoring static over dynamic targets) arose, in part, because of the difference between a topically unbounded dynamic target pool and a topically restrictive static pool. In a second experiment, we redesigned the dynamic pool to match more closely the properties of the static pool. Four of the receivers from the first study participated in at least 20 trials each, 10 in each target-type condition. No senders were used throughout this experiment. We observed a significant increase in anomalous cognition for the new dynamic targets, £(143) = 3.06, p < 1.3x 10~ , and a significant increase hi anomalous cognition for the static targets, £(143) = 1.68, p<. 047. We conclude that a sender is not a necessary requirement for free-response anomalous cognition. A rank-order analysis showed no target-type dependencies in the second study. On the basis of an analysis by May, Spottiswoode, and James (1994b), we believe a fundamental argument suggests mat hi free-response anomalous cognition experiments, dynamic targets should be better than static ones.

Managing the Target-Pool Bandwidth: Possible Noise Reduction for Anomalous Cognition Experiments
Edwin C. May, S. James P. Spottiswoode, and Christine L. James
(Journal of Parapsychology Vol. 58, pp. 303-313, 1994)
ABSTRACT: Lantz and colleagues recently reported in the first of two studies that experienced receivers from die Cognitive Sciences Laboratory produced significant evidence for anomalous cognition (AC) of static targets but showed little evidence for AC of dynamic targets. This result was surprising: It was directly opposite to the results that were derived from the 1994 Bem and Honorton ganzfeld database. In Lantz et al.'s experiment, the topics of the dynamic targets were virtually unlimited, whereas die topics for the static targets were constrained in content, size of cognitive elements, and range of affect In a second experiment, they redesigned the target pools to correct this imbalance and observed significant improvement of AC functioning. We incorporate these findings into a definition of target-pool bandwidth and propose that die proper selection of bandwidth will lead to a reduction of incorrect information in free-response AC.

Feedback Considerations in Anomalous Cognition Experiments
Edwin C. May, Nevin D. Lantz, and Tom Piantineda
(Journal of Parapsychology Vol. 60, pp. 211-226, 1996)
ABSTRACT: To determine from what time frame the data from anomalous cognition (AC) originate, we have examined the role of precognition and feedback on the quality of AC. In an otherwise standard AC protocol, we displayed feedback tachistoscopicauy to receivers. The cognitive awareness of the feedback experience was minimal, and 2 of the 8 intensities used for visual display of the feedback were below subliminal threshold. We hypothesized a number of possible relationships between feedback intensity and AC quality, including one based on precognition (i.e., the data originated from the future feedback). Four viewers contributed 40 trials each (5 at 8 different intensity bands). Using a sum-of-ranks statistic, 2 viewers produced independently significant evidence of remote viewing (i.e., the binomial probability of 2 hits in 4 trials with an event probability of .05 is .014). None of the data showed significant correlation of feedback intensity with AC quality. This result is discussed with regard to precognition in general and the troublesome unfalsifiability aspect of truly goal-oriented precognition.

Skin Conductance Prestimulus Response: Analysis, Artifacts and a Pilot Study
S. James P. Spottiswoode and E. C. May
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 617-647, 2003)
ABSTRACT:Previous studies have suggested that the human autonomic nervous system responds to stimuli 2-3 seconds before presentation. In these studies randomly chosen photographs with high and low affectivity were presented to participants. Ensemble averaging of skin conductance in the prestimulus epochs showed a differential response between high and low affectivity photographs. In our protocol the problem of idiosyncratic responses to pictorial stimuli was avoided by using audio startle stimuli. Stimulus type was determined just before presentation by a true random generator. Participants heard 20 stimuli per session with a 50% chance of an audio startle as against a silent control. Our dependent variable was the proportions of 3-second epochs prior to audio and control stimuli in which a skin conductance response, that is a minimum in skin conductance followed by a maximum, occurred. We found a significant effect (N = 125, Z-score (Z) = 3.27, effect size (ES) = 0.0901 0.0275, p = 5.4 10-4). Explanations for this result as an artifact were examined and rejected. We show that a significant result from an average-based epoch analysis in this type of experiment is not a necessary requirement to demonstrate significant evidence for a prestimulus response.

The American Institutes for Research Review of the Department of Defense's STARGAT Program: A Commentary
Edwin C. May
(Journal of Parapsychology Vol. 60, pp. 3-23, 1996)
ABSTRACT: As a result of a Congressionally Directed Activity, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted an evaluation of a 24-year, government-sponsored program to investigate ESP and its potential use within die intelligence community. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) was contracted to conduct the review of both research and operations. Their September 29, 1995 final report was released to the public November 28, 1995. As a result of AIR's assessment, the CIA concluded that a statistically significant effect had been demonstrated in the laboratory but that there was no case in which ESP had provided data that had ever been used to guide intelligence operations. This paper is a critical review of AIR's methodology and conclusions. It will be shown that there is compelling evidence that the CIA set the outcome with regard to intelligence usage before the evaluation had begun. This was accomplished by limiting the research and operations data sets to exclude positive findings, by purposefully not interviewing historically significant participants, by ignoring previous extensive Department of Defense program reviews, and by using the questionable National Research Council's investigation of parapsychology as the starting point for their review. Although there may have been political and administrative justification for the CIA not to accept the government's in-house program for the operational use of anomalous cognition, these external considerations appeared to drive the outcome of the evaluation. As a result, they have come to the wrong conclusion with regard to the use of anomalous cognition in intelligence operations and have significantly underestimated the robustness of the basic phenomenon.

Timble

6th July 2004, 04:47 PM

So no real journals like Nature then?

Zep

6th July 2004, 05:10 PM

Lucianarchy, your list looks awfully like the one Winston Wu sent me once.

Only once.

All the same old suspects, all the same old tired arguments. All the same old avoidance of the issues and facts.

Let's see what the LEADING researchers from your group are ACTUALLY finding these days:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/IU.pdf

Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 207–241, 2003

Information and Uncertainty in
Remote Perception Research

BRENDA J. DUNNE AND ROBERT G. JAHN
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Princeton University
Princeton NJ 08544-5263

Abstract—This article has four purposes: 1) to present for the first time in archival form all results of some 25 years of remote perception research at this laboratory; 2) to describe all of the analytical scoring methods developed over the course of this program to quantify the amount of anomalous information acquired in the experiments; 3) to display a remarkable anti-correlation between the objective specificity of those methods and the anomalous yield of the experiments; and 4) to discuss the phenomenological and pragmatic implications of this complementarity.Further in same article:By 1985 the PEAR program had amassed a substantial body of experimental data that both confirmed the reality and robustness of the remote perception phenomenon and demonstrated the efficacy of the analytical scoring techniques.Five alternative algorithms subsequently were applied ex post facto to these FIDO [accumulated] data in an effort to understand the cause of the lower yield and to devise more effective scoring strategies....the results from the...five methods all displayed relatively close concurrence, marginally significant composite z-scores, and effect sizes only about half that of the ab initio trials and only about a fifth as large as that of the ex post facto subset. Although the proportions of trials with positive scores were above 50% in all the calculations, neither these nor the numbers of significant trials exceeded chance expectation.Once again, there was reasonably good agreement among the six scoring recipes, but the overall results were now completely indistinguishable from chance. No more than the expected number of significant trials emerged in the analyses, and the low statistical resolution in defining the local empirical chance backgrounds, a consequence of the small size of the scoring matrices, made calculation of individual trial z-scores virtually meaningless. In a certain sense, this was reminiscent of one of the problems that had stimulated development of the analytical judging methodologies 18 years earlier, namely, the statistical inefficiency of assessing the informational content of individual trials in small experimental series. But now the phenomenon itself seemed to have disappeared.

UndercoverElephant

6th July 2004, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by apoger

You know... I heard that some guy was offering a million bucks for just such evidence.

....and would not believe it if he saw it. ;)

It's true, no?

Most of the people here calling themselves "skeptics" would not actually believe their own eyes if they saw paranormal phenomena. They "know" it doesn't exist, therefore anything they saw that said otherwise would be "rationalised", no matter how extra-ordinary the "rationalisation"? [skeptic thinks : dumb question, I could never actually be presented with such evidence, because I know it doesn't exist]

I met a guy on philosophyforums.com calling himself "180 proof". I asked him if he would believe in the supernatural if he was up the mountain with Moses when the stone tablets appeared out of thin air. He said no, he still wouldn't believe it, even if he saw it. At that point I stopped arguing with him. Now - there is nothing wrong with having made your mind up conclusively, but let's not pretend to be "skeptical" when we mean "we will never believe this".

:)

Ratman_tf

6th July 2004, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

....and would not believe it if he saw it. ;)

It's true, no?

Most of the people here calling themselves "skeptics" would not actually believe their own eyes if they saw paranormal phenomena. They "know" it doesn't exist, therefore anything they saw that said otherwise would be "rationalised", no matter how extra-ordinary the "rationalisation"? [skeptic thinks : dumb question, I could never actually be presented with such evidence, because I know it doesn't exist]

I met a guy on philosophyforums.com calling himself "180 proof". I asked him if he would believe in the supernatural if he was up the mountain with Moses when the stone tablets appeared out of thin air. He said no, he still wouldn't believe it, even if he saw it. At that point I stopped arguing with him. Now - there is nothing wrong with having made your mind up conclusively, but let's not pretend to be "skeptical" when we mean "we will never believe this".

:)

I don't think your generalization is that prevalent.

Though I do think that it's convenient to dismiss skeptics with a "They refuse to accept it!" instead of actually facing the issues.

Zep

6th July 2004, 05:30 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
It's true, no?No, it's not true. Next silly comment?

UndercoverElephant

6th July 2004, 05:32 PM

Originally posted by Ratman_tf

I don't think your generalization is that prevalent.

Though I do think that it's convenient to dismiss skeptics with a "They refuse to accept it!" instead of actually facing the issues. [/B]

Hi Ratman,

Personally, I'm not scared of "facing the issues". I have quit my job to study a degree in Philosophy and Cognitive Science in September, which is about as "facing the issues" as it gets.

All generalisations are only generalisations. I am a reformed skeptic. By that, I mean I am probably still skeptical of many many things (telling the future by reading palms, newspaper horoscopes, most religions) but I am a lot less certain of my disbelief than I once was. Basically, I used to "know" I was right, but now I am not so sure. I suspect that most of the people who post here, be they "believers" or "skeptics", are posting because deep down, they "know" they are correct. No evidence is likely to change their mind, because accepting the evidence is not just a matter of accepting the evidence - in both cases it would require a total re-evaluation of their entire belief system and understanding of reality to accept the evidence. There are strings attached.

UndercoverElephant

6th July 2004, 05:34 PM

Originally posted by Zep
No, it's not true. Next silly comment?

George W. Bush. :D :D :D

Ratman_tf

6th July 2004, 08:50 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Hi Ratman,

Personally, I'm not scared of "facing the issues". I have quit my job to study a degree in Philosophy and Cognitive Science in September, which is about as "facing the issues" as it gets.

Well, I wasn't talking about anything like that. I was talking about the tendency for believers to side step the issue of the quality of evidence and go down the 'skeptics are meanies' road, during a debate.

All generalisations are only generalisations. I am a reformed skeptic. By that, I mean I am probably still skeptical of many many things (telling the future by reading palms, newspaper horoscopes, most religions) but I am a lot less certain of my disbelief than I once was. Basically, I used to "know" I was right, but now I am not so sure. I suspect that most of the people who post here, be they "believers" or "skeptics", are posting because deep down, they "know" they are correct. No evidence is likely to change their mind, because accepting the evidence is not just a matter of accepting the evidence - in both cases it would require a total re-evaluation of their entire belief system and understanding of reality to accept the evidence. There are strings attached.

Well, I can't help that. Wether it's true or not.

Zep

6th July 2004, 09:08 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
All generalisations are only generalisations. I am a reformed skeptic. By that, I mean I am probably still skeptical of many many things (telling the future by reading palms, newspaper horoscopes, most religions) but I am a lot less certain of my disbelief than I once was. Basically, I used to "know" I was right, but now I am not so sure. I suspect that most of the people who post here, be they "believers" or "skeptics", are posting because deep down, they "know" they are correct. No evidence is likely to change their mind, because accepting the evidence is not just a matter of accepting the evidence - in both cases it would require a total re-evaluation of their entire belief system and understanding of reality to accept the evidence. There are strings attached. I know this was addressed to Ratman, but you are starting out with a major presupposition here: that skeptics have a firm "belief" system that they refuse to give up despite evidence. Like, say, fundie religions.

The correction is that skeptics have a firm belief in a method of discovering and examination, that has proven itself worthy many times over. This being the "scientific method" - of itself it holds and perpetuates no "beliefs" at all. Nor is it always incompatible with other belief systems - many skeptics here hold religious beliefs to some extent, for example. The scientific method says nothing at all about such supernatural beliefs one way or the other.

What you seem to be confusing is the belief in a "system" versus adherence to a proven "method" of proof.

Aussie Thinker

6th July 2004, 11:53 PM

Just Geoff

It's true, no?

Most of the people here calling themselves "skeptics" would not actually believe their own eyes if they saw paranormal phenomena. They "know" it doesn't exist, therefore anything they saw that said otherwise would be "rationalised", no matter how extra-ordinary the "rationalisation"? [skeptic thinks : dumb question, I could never actually be presented with such evidence, because I know it doesn't exist]

I met a guy on philosophyforums.com calling himself "180 proof". I asked him if he would believe in the supernatural if he was up the mountain with Moses when the stone tablets appeared out of thin air. He said no, he still wouldn't believe it, even if he saw it. At that point I stopped arguing with him. Now - there is nothing wrong with having made your mind up conclusively, but let's not pretend to be "skeptical" when we mean "we will never believe this".

It sure bugs a lot of sceptics that the paranormal woo woos have managed to get this ridiculous “fantasy” idea about how sceptics are intractable into the minds of reasonable sounding fellows like yourself.

It is a true victory for them than instead of providing evidence their blathering cries of “bully” and “unfair” and “but lots of people say so”.. have resulted in sceptisc having to defend their REASONABLE position of … “provide evidence”

I personally would LOVE to have something paranormal proved.. I don’t want to die, I want to have a God, I want amazing powers.. however I am realistic enough to ask for some modicum of proof.

Over time I have developed a default position which I think most sceptics have…

As everything EVER proven has had a natural (mundane) explanation it is fair to assume that everything that is unexplained will have a natural (mundane) explanation.

Therefore if I saw some amazing thing I could not explain I would “assume” it had a natural explanation. I would look for a Natural explanation.. if I did not find one I would continue to assume a natural occurrence that I (or others) could not explain… if a supernatural occurrence could be proven then I WOULD accept it.

Given the previous statement what is wrong with that !

Lothian

7th July 2004, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by Psiload
And just look at the amazing progress that has taken place in this field over the last twenty years:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2253191425
This high quality Silver spoon, measuring 19 cm, in it's bent state, was especially bought at the World famous department store 'Selfridges', in London's Oxford Street and taken to Uri's home for him to bend using his power of mind. .... We arrived at his home on one sunny Sunday after noon, ...I presented him with my magnificent Silver spoon!! I mentioned to him that the spoon was silver, which totally surprised him!!! 'This is actually Silver, wahoo', he said. Uri walk towards his fire place and proceeded to crouch down to show little Sofia (my 6 yr old niece) how he bent spoon. The spoon started to bend. It was magical!! He then signed the spoon with a special permanent ink pen. .A special permanent Ink pen no less. :D

My money is on the spoon starting to bend as he walked towards the 6 years old and stopping just before he showed it to her but without anything other than an anecdote we will never know.

And this is the problem with Luci’s examples but to be fair she is better than that nutter who died recently. Montague Keen used to quote evidence that was generally over 100 years old. OK Luci has nothing this century but it is a bit more recent. One difference between pesudoscience and real science however is that pseudoscience says this is what DID happen please explain. Real science says this is what DOES happen, have a look your self and try to explain.

I was interested in her quote about the ways science accepts new ideas. It is obviously a massive massive generalisation however. Science, as Claus, says will accept anything that has good evidence.

While Luci doesn’t give examples of the acceptance process in action it is clear how it works. Someone says wrap a wire in a coil and spin it in a magnetic field and measure the current flow, lo and behold everyone does it and it works, electricity accepted instantly.

So never mind the past tell me an experiment that can be done now that shows that you have an effect.

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by Zep

Let's see what the LEADING researchers from your group are ACTUALLY finding these days:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/IU.pdf

Good URL Zep. If you actually read the full article, you will see that PEAR are extremely positive about the results. Their conclusion is that you can't catch a butterfly in a bear-trap.

Apart from suggesting you re read the article a few times in order to dispell your obvious cognitive dissonance, you would do well to take a look at this too:

"Statistical and Methodological Problems of the PEAR Remote Viewing Experiments"

York H. Dobyns, Brenda J. Dunne, Robert G. Jahn, and Roger D. Nelson

Most of the issues raised by Hansen, Utts, and Markwick, including shared descriptor preferences, environmental or temporal cues, and agent encoding, have long been acknowledged, adequately addressed in our experimental designs and analytical techniques, and fully documented in our literature. The remainder of their concerns, including randomization of targets and reference score distributions, trial-by-trial feedback, stacking, and cheating are either misapplied, fundamentally incorrect, or have trivial impact. Additional calculations and derivations, supplementing those previously published, further demonstrate the insensitivity of our matrix scoring methods to target and descriptor dependence from any source. In sum, it is readily shown, both empirically and theoretically, that analytical methods, which remain rigorous and effective methodologies for remote perception research. Thus, the published results and conclusions of our entire 336 trial database are fully reaffirmed. - Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research. Princeton University - Abstracts publications

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 04:41 AM

Originally posted by Zep
I know this was addressed to Ratman, but you are starting out with a major presupposition here: that skeptics have a firm "belief" system that they refuse to give up despite evidence. Like, say, fundie religions.

Well, in the vast majority of cases they do. They often don't like to admit it is a "belief system", but I think that this is precisely what it is - it is simply a naturalistic, atheistic belief system. Perhaps comparing it to fundamentalist religious belief systems is wrong, because those belief systems often have very powerful psychological penalties attached for people who question them. But from the point of view of the skeptic, it is still a belief system, and it still plays the same role.

The correction is that skeptics have a firm belief in a method of discovering and examination, that has proven itself worthy many times over. This being the "scientific method" - of itself it holds and perpetuates no "beliefs" at all.

Science is not a belief system, I agree. It only becomes a belief system when it is elevated to the point of "sole arbiter of the truth" i.e. when a person will only believe things which are proven by science. For example, people who would reject all metaphysics as irrelevant nonsense (because it cannot be experimentally confirmed) have crossed the line and become victims of dogma. For these people, science has begun to turn into a religion.

Nor is it always incompatible with other belief systems - many skeptics here hold religious beliefs to some extent, for example. The scientific method says nothing at all about such supernatural beliefs one way or the other.

Agreed.

What you seem to be confusing is the belief in a "system" versus adherence to a proven "method" of proof.

I don't think I have confused these things. There is nothing wrong with having faith in the scientific method for doing what the scientific method was desgined to do, which is to investigate the repeatable behaviour and the observable history of the physical world. As you say, things such as paranormal or supernatural phenomena (if they exist at all) may well lie outside of the area where the scientific method can be applied, and "evidence" for such things may either (a) not exist, (b) exist, but be untouchable by science, or (c) only exist in the personal reality of certain individuals. Many skeptics would attempt to dismiss (c) as absurd or as an attempt to dodge tough questions, though it is neither. If (c) is true, then science can never hope to prove or disprove supernaturalism - it is destined to remain a personal thing forever. What I am saying is that simply because there is no scientific evidence for something does not mean that there is no non-scientific evidence for it, available only to the individual. That is why I mentioned the example of "180 proof" admitting he still would not believe in supernatural phenomena even if he witnessed such phenomena first hand. He simply said "It would not matter what I see, I will always attempt to find the most rational naturalistic answer for it." Someone cleverly replied "Ah, then 180 would be a mystic, because it would be very mysterious why he would no longer believe in God." :)

:)

My point is that most skeptics could never accept paranormal/supernatural phenomena as real without completely re-assessing their whole conception of reality, and that simply does not happen overnight, regardless of "evidence".

Stitch

7th July 2004, 04:44 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

....and would not believe it if he saw it. ;)

It's true, no?

Most of the people here calling themselves "skeptics" would not actually believe their own eyes if they saw paranormal phenomena. They "know" it doesn't exist ***Snip***

I think you are referring to cynics here not skeptics -

Skeptic: One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons. - Source Dictionary.com

Zep

7th July 2004, 04:47 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Good URL Zep. If you actually read the full article, you will see that PEAR are extremely positive about the results. Their conclusion is that you can't catch a butterfly in a bear-trap.Of COURSE they're saying that they're very positive about their own outcomes, even though they state that they got precisely chance results; it is for one very good reason totally unrelated to the subject.

But let's review:

1. PEAR is accepted by paranormalists to be one of the premier paranormal research groups in the world. They are respected.

2. They did extensive statistical analysis on 25 years of their own data on remote viewing.

3. They admit, in 2003, that they found nothing beyond chance from this 25 years of data, and then went on to offer no constructive (or even believable) reasons why this was so.

4. Other reviewers have noted issues with the PEAR statistical data sets and analysis methods. However, as you have pointed out, PEAR have dismissed those criticisms - they are sticking by their data, statistical analyses and results. (Personally, I have few issues with their statistical analyses, but their data sets leave heaps to be desired, like consistency for a start, but however...)

5. The publicly published result ultimately remains: PEAR have nothing of substance to show for 25 years work on the subject of remote viewing.

Do you agree this is the situation represented by this report, Lucianarchy?

And why did PEAR put the positive spin at the end of this particular report? Have a think about it, Lucianarchy. What would have happened to PEAR's highly lucrative sponsorships and their positions-for-life if they had reported 25 years of failure instead? Hmmmm?

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 04:49 AM

Originally posted by Stitch

I think you are referring to cynics here not skeptics -

Skeptic: One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons. - Source Dictionary.com

Yes. "True" skeptics are as you have defined them. Experience (much of it in various incarnations at this site) tells me that these "true skeptics" are few and far between, but that is just an opinion.

Stitch

7th July 2004, 04:53 AM

Do you have a link to the full report and supporting evidence for this??

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

"Statistical and Methodological Problems of the PEAR Remote Viewing Experiments"

York H. Dobyns, Brenda J. Dunne, Robert G. Jahn, and Roger D. Nelson

Most of the issues raised by Hansen, Utts, and Markwick, including shared descriptor preferences, environmental or temporal cues, and agent encoding, have long been acknowledged, adequately addressed in our experimental designs and analytical techniques, and fully documented in our literature.

Can anbody provide links to the writers rebutalls of the critisms?

[b]
The remainder of their concerns, including randomization of targets and reference score distributions, trial-by-trial feedback, stacking, and cheating are either misapplied, fundamentally incorrect, or have trivial impact.

Cheating has a trivial impact?? Cool, so why do schools and Universities get so upset when people cheat in exams if it has litte impact??

Or are they suggesting that everybody they have tested is so honorable that they would never cheat and so it can be discounted??

Why not just devise a test where they cannot cheat and then there is no debate is there?? :rolleyes:

Zep

7th July 2004, 05:07 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
My point is that most skeptics could never accept paranormal/supernatural phenomena as real without completely re-assessing their whole conception of reality, and that simply does not happen overnight, regardless of "evidence". If some phenomenon is "real" then it is worthy of scientific examination, but it therefore cannot be "supernatural". Something cannot be both "natural" and "supernatural" at the same time - they are mutually exclusive.

Just because something exists in someone's imagination doesn't make it so. Therefore there is no reason to adjust the natural world accordingly. Once this imagination is realised, that's when we can examine things. Einstein's theories remained up for debate for some years, until physical proof was actually provided.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 05:09 AM

Hello Aussie Thinker

Originally posted by Aussie Thinker

It sure bugs a lot of sceptics that the paranormal woo woos have managed to get this ridiculous “fantasy” idea about how sceptics are intractable into the minds of reasonable sounding fellows like yourself.

For starters, nobody does my thinking for me, my opinions are my own. The reason I think many skeptics are intractable on this issue is that I used to be a class-A intractable skeptic (moderator of www.infidels.org science and skepticism forum) myself, and I have spent a very long time talking to people on both sides of this debate (>5000 posts at this site alone). If you come from a science-heavy background it is very easy to end up being an "intractable skeptic". There are very good reasons for this, and I am not really criticising people for holding this position. Also, it is probably true that many of the "woo-woos" find it easier to point fingers at skeptics failing to see things the way the paranormalists do rather than trying to understand why the skeptics refuse to believe in things they have never seen any evidence for. There are two sides to these stories.

I personally would LOVE to have something paranormal proved.. I don’t want to die, I want to have a God, I want amazing powers.. however I am realistic enough to ask for some modicum of proof.

That is fair enough. But can I ask you whether you would find it easy to integrate proof such as this into your existing conception of reality? Wouldn't you agree that accepting such evidence would force a complete re-evaluation of your current beliefs about Reality? Isn't it true that deep down you are very confident that such proof will never be presented?

And would you still LOVE it if it happened to you, but you couldn't prove it?. Say, aliens come and visit you, have a very interesting conversation and then disappear leaving no trace of their visit. You would KNOW it was true, but you could prove nothing. It would have to remain your own private revelation.

Over time I have developed a default position which I think most sceptics have…

As everything EVER proven has had a natural (mundane) explanation it is fair to assume that everything that is unexplained will have a natural (mundane) explanation.

Yes, this is the way the skeptic thinks. But you have to examine what is meant by "proof", and whether or not the standard of proof itself may exclude certain types of phenomena. As already mentioned, it excludes any type of phenomena which are personal oir belief-dependent. The position you have outlined involves an assumption that the behaviour of "reality" is observer-independent and belief-independent. These assumptions are required in order for science to operate, but they are not required in order for reality to operate. For the skeptic, science is the final arbiter. For the paranormalist, science is not the final arbiter. Any "woo-woo" who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is probably just an idiot. As you say, if such evidence was likely to arrive, it would already have arrived.

Therefore if I saw some amazing thing I could not explain I would “assume” it had a natural explanation. I would look for a Natural explanation.. if I did not find one I would continue to assume a natural occurrence that I (or others) could not explain… if a supernatural occurrence could be proven then I WOULD accept it.

Given the previous statement what is wrong with that ! [/B]

Nothing neccesarily "wrong" with it. I am not here to tell one bunch of people they are "wrong" to believe what they believe. I like living in a diverse world with many different competing viewpoints. If everyone believed the same things and thought the same things, it would be awful.

Stitch

7th July 2004, 06:25 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff If you come from a science-heavy background it is very easy to end up being an "intractable skeptic". There are very good reasons for this, and I am not really criticising people for holding this position.

First can I ask that if you don't mean Skeptic (see definition below) then please use another term, cynic seems to fit what you are describing better. If you can find another term then fine, but a "skeptic" is not what you are describing.

I don't see why a science background should lead to a "cynical" position, or one where you are not prepared to accept new ideas or evidence. In my personal experience (anecdotal - I know) this has not been the case. I tend to start from a position of "innocence" listen to the claims, ask for supporting evidence (and with many things paranormal, it stops here as the evidence is not forthcoming), then look for the counter arguments, critiques and so forth and weigh up the evidence. I am not one for saying something is "impossible" rather "based on the current evidence (or lack of it) something is highly unlikely to be true, however I will change my view should new evidence be made available".

There needs to be some clarification perhaps of "evidence", I picked up somebody else earlier who seemed to be of the opinion that any evidence was valid regardless of the quality. Sadly I don't agree, I don't consider Sun Flowers being yellow as good evidence for Homeopathy being effective. Extreme example I know, but hopefully it makes my point.

I am more than happy to accept evidence that takes the form:

1) A claim is made
2) A hypothesis is developed (Dictionary.com: A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.)
3) A test is developed to investigate the hypothesis further.
4) The test protocol is reviewed by peers and other interested parties.
5) Flaws in the protocol are addressed and any changes are made.
6) The tests are performed and the results are recorded.
7) The tests are repeated by the same people a number of times to confirm the results.
8) The tests are independently corroborated by a different group of people using the same test protocol.
9) The results and protocols are reviewed and conclusions drawn.
10) These conclusions are then subject to peer review.
11) If the results support the hypothesis and the peer review is happy with the protocols, analysis and conclusions, we can then say, with a degree of certainty that the claim has some validity.
12) We can then carry out further tests etc and over a number of years we either become more confident in the hypothesis and it becomes scientific "fact" (but not an absolute certainty), it is shown to no longer hold true, in which case we come to discount it.

We now have validated evidence that has stood the test of time.

Sadly with many of the "paranormal" phenomena, it is hard to even get a hypothesis that is testable, never mind proceeding much further than that. With the experiments that I have seen documentation for, many of the above steps have been omitted, resulting in the “evidence” being questionable at best. If there is no evidence to support the claim, then I keep an open mind, but do not accept that the claim is currently valid.

That is fair enough. But can I ask you whether you would find it easy to integrate proof such as this into your existing conception of reality? Wouldn't you agree that accepting such evidence would force a complete re-evaluation of your current beliefs about Reality? Isn't it true that deep down you are very confident that such proof will never be presented?

My views and beliefs on how things “work” are constantly changing, in some cases it is just that I have discovered more, rather than conflicting, evidence which actually changes my perspective a little, I think back to how my understanding of chemical reactions changed when I got to the 6th form and started to discover more details about the workings of atoms.

And would you still LOVE it if it happened to you, but you couldn't prove it?. Say, aliens come and visit you, have a very interesting conversation and then disappear leaving no trace of their visit. You would KNOW it was true, but you could prove nothing. It would have to remain your own private revelation.

Assuming I could find no evidence to support the “belief” that aliens had visited me, I would have to:
1) Consider it was a dream
2) Consider I was delusional and seek psychiatric assistance
I certainly wouldn’t KNOW it was true, I have no proof to suggest that it is.

Yes, this is the way the skeptic thinks. But you have to examine what is meant by "proof", and whether or not the standard of proof itself may exclude certain types of phenomena.

Nope – but the believers do love to use that one as a cop out for having to provide any evidence.

As already mentioned, it excludes any type of phenomena which are personal oir belief-dependent.

Note really – propose a hypothesis, test it, job’s a good ‘un.

If you can’t even formulate a hypothesis then why on Earth should anybody believe it?? “I believe in flugalbinders, they control everything”, I can’t prove this of course, and you can’t disprove it either, but I believe it, therefore you should too. Nah – I don’t think so, do you??? But put the label “God” on it and suddenly it now gains credence?

For the paranormalist, science is not the final arbiter.

Very true, as time and time again the claims just fail to hold any water, so they try to claim that “science can’t measure it” or “it is beyond science” to wriggle out of it.

Any "woo-woo" who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is probably just an idiot.
“Any “woo-woo” who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is to be commended” please step forward and present it.
“Any "woo-woo" who knows his beliefs to be true and will not question them despite not being able to provide scientific evidence for them is probably just an idiot.”

Nothing neccesarily "wrong" with it.

I think quite a few people may disagree with you on that point

I am not here to tell one bunch of people they are "wrong" to believe what they believe.
Neither are sceptics, we are just asking for the evidence to support your claim that your belief is correct.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 07:40 AM

Originally posted by Zep

If some phenomenon is "real" then it is worthy of scientific examination, but it therefore cannot be "supernatural". Something cannot be both "natural" and "supernatural" at the same time - they are mutually exclusive.

Just because something exists in someone's imagination doesn't make it so. Therefore there is no reason to adjust the natural world accordingly.

What if it manifests in their reality, and not yours. What if reality doesn't behave the same for everybody at all times? It is not logically inevitable that all phenomena are capable of being scientifically examined.

Also, there is a standoff when it comes to scientific investigation of the paranormal anyway - because many people who have been at the cutting edge of this research claim that there is an "observer effect", i.e. that different people get different results dependent on their different expectations - something which if true places these phenomena into a slightly different category than normal physical phenomena. Skeptics tend to dismiss the argument as just another way of avoiding confronting the facts, but my own opinion is that there is enough data available now to make it rather difficult to dismiss the argument out of hand. There have been far too many "borderline positive" results from paranormal believers and far too many "borderline negatives" from the skeptics. In fact somebody came up with some hard data which showed that skeptics would accept borderline positives in drug trials but reject statistically better results in PSI experiments, on the grounds that PSI is so unlikeley to be real that borderline positives must be rejected. Basically, the standard of evidence required by the skeptics is raised when they have trouble believing the result is possible - and this not mere conjecture - it has been statistically demonstrated and published in New Scientist. But the skeptics beliefs are then dependent on their own metaphysical preferences, NOT merely the data. There is no scientific way of resolving that standoff that the skeptics are likely to accept as valid. New Scientist dedicated a whole issue to this area last year. It is not quite a straightforward as some people might like it to be.

drkitten

7th July 2004, 07:44 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

What if it manifests in their reality, and not yours.

There is only one reality, and it belongs to everyone. This question is invalid and borders on the meaningless.

BillHoyt

7th July 2004, 07:58 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

What if it manifests in their reality, and not yours. What if reality doesn't behave the same for everybody at all times? It is not logically inevitable that all phenomena are capable of being scientifically examined.
Oh, come on, UCE, are we back at this again? Also, your last sentence contradicts your overall theme.

Also, there is a standoff when it comes to scientific investigation of the paranormal anyway - because many people who have been at the cutting edge of this research claim that there is an "observer effect", i.e. that different people get different results dependent on their different expectations - something which if true places these phenomena into a slightly different category than normal physical phenomena.
This claim is a diversion to explain the inherent non-repeatability of their experiments. It is, frankly, laughable and utterly unscientific.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:06 AM

Hello Stitch

The first part of your post is a description of the scientific method. I suspect we don't have much to disagree about on that - my arguments are about the fuzzy grey area at the borders of science, psychology and metaphysics - places where maybe the scientific method alone cannot neccesarily provide us with an answer to the question.

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And would you still LOVE it if it happened to you, but you couldn't prove it?. Say, aliens come and visit you, have a very interesting conversation and then disappear leaving no trace of their visit. You would KNOW it was true, but you could prove nothing. It would have to remain your own private revelation.

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Assuming I could find no evidence to support the “belief” that aliens had visited me, I would have to:
1) Consider it was a dream
2) Consider I was delusional and seek psychiatric assistance
I certainly wouldn’t KNOW it was true, I have no proof to suggest that it is.

I think this illustrates my point quite nicely. In this example the aliens came to visit your house, had a cup of tea, discussed inter-stellar issues in English, and left again. Rather than accepting the evidence of your own eyes and ears, you are telling me you would use "reason" to convince yourself you had been dreaming or you were going mad. That isn't skepticism. That is a refusal to believe your own eyes and ears, just as "180 proof" said he would refuse to believe is own eyes had he witnessed Moses receiving the stone tablets. What is happening here is that you find it easier to dismiss what your own eyes and ears were telling you than go through the process of completely re-evaluating your belief system in order to accomodate what you had witnessed yourself.

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Yes, this is the way the skeptic thinks. But you have to examine what is meant by "proof", and whether or not the standard of proof itself may exclude certain types of phenomena.

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Nope – but the believers do love to use that one as a cop out for having to provide any evidence.

Maybe so - which makes things even more complicated. But perhaps some are genuine and yet it is impossible for them to ever provide evidence that will satisfy.

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As already mentioned, it excludes any type of phenomena which are personal oir belief-dependent.

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Note really – propose a hypothesis, test it, job’s a good ‘un.

Well, for arguments sake, this is my hypothesis. My hypothesis is that certain PSI phenomena only manifest when the experimenter and the subject are genuinely open to believing in their existence, rather than attempting to prove they do not exist because they do not believe it is possible. This has been tested, and produced a positive result which the skeptics in question refused to accept. The same set of experiments have been repeatedly carried out by believers and skeptics, and the believers consistently got better results than the skeptics. Rather than accepting this result (that there is an experimenter effect), the skeptics accused the believers of fraud and/or incompetence, which led to an unfortunate stand-off once more.

If you can’t even formulate a hypothesis then why on Earth should anybody believe it?? “I believe in flugalbinders, they control everything”, I can’t prove this of course, and you can’t disprove it either, but I believe it, therefore you should too. Nah – I don’t think so, do you??? But put the label “God” on it and suddenly it now gains credence?

Personally, I'd rather keep "God" out of this. Far too emotionally charged on both sides, and usually it turns out that the people discussing the subject have different definitions of "God" anyway.

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Any "woo-woo" who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is probably just an idiot.
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“Any “woo-woo” who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is to be commended” please step forward and present it.
“Any "woo-woo" who knows his beliefs to be true and will not question them despite not being able to provide scientific evidence for them is probably just an idiot.”

Is it idiotic to believe your own eyes and ears instead of rationalising phenomena away on the grounds that you yourself are deluded? I'm not so sure. If the aliens visited me, then I'd sooner believe in aliens than believe I had gone mad. Although this is a bit of a silly example, and I don't believe in aliens. I think we are very probably alone in this Universe, personally. :)

Wally

7th July 2004, 08:08 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

What if it manifests in their reality, and not yours.

That is the definition of mental illness. (either yours or there’s)

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by drkitten

There is only one reality, and it belongs to everyone. This question is invalid and borders on the meaningless.

How do you know? Philosophers have been arguing about this for centuries, and have not been able to provide any reliable answers. The question may be scientifically meaningless, but philosophically it is far from meaningless. Who can say for sure that reality behaves the same for everybody? How could anyone possibly prove such a thing? I am not saying that reality does behave differently for different people. I am saying that if we are really thinking critically, then we have to admit that we do not know.

I'll throw your own standards back at you. Where is your evidence that reality remains consistent for all people at all times?

CFLarsen

7th July 2004, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
What if it manifests in their reality, and not yours. What if reality doesn't behave the same for everybody at all times? It is not logically inevitable that all phenomena are capable of being scientifically examined.

Then what? How are you going to determine whether a phenomenon is real or not? You can't.

Your suggestion is based on the non-existent evidence of paranormal phenomena, so you choose an explanation that is, as it was said, meaningless.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:13 AM

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Oh, come on, UCE, are we back at this again? Also, your last
sentence contradicts your overall theme.

Hello Bill, always good to talk. :)

The sentence you refer to was :

"It is not logically inevitable that all phenomena are capable of being scientifically examined."

Why does this contradict my "overall theme"?

This claim is a diversion to explain the inherent non-repeatability of their experiments. It is, frankly, laughable and utterly unscientific.

Well, since we are discussing the grey borderlines at the edges of science, it isn't surprising that some people may find the claim "unscientific". Whether it is "laughable" is a matter of personal opinion. I don't mind people laughing at me. Laughter is good. Better than bitterness, anyhow. :)

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:16 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Then what? How are you going to determine whether a phenomenon is real or not? You can't.

Not unless said phenomena crawl up your trouserleg and bite you on the b*ll*cks, no. :D

If the hypothesis is correct, the only people who can determine whether the phenomena is real are those individuals to whom the phenomena manifests. Such phenomena, if they exist, will therefore be argued about forever, without either side ever "winning" the argument. Which is a good thing, IMO. It means there will always be some mystery left in the world. How dull would life be without mystery?

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by Wally

That is the definition of mental illness. (either yours or there’s)

Is it?

I've always had a bit of problem with the definition of "mental illness". Who gets to decide what is crazy? I think the modern world we live in is almost completely insane. Does that make me mad?

CFLarsen

7th July 2004, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
If the hypothesis is correct, the only people who can determine whether the phenomena is real are those individuals to whom the phenomena manifests. Such phenomena, if they exist, will therefore be argued about forever, without either side ever "winning" the argument. Which is a good thing, IMO. It means there will always be some mystery left in the world. How dull would life be without mystery?

But how would those people be able to tell the difference between a phenomenon and a hallucination? You wouldn't even get as far as determining that.

And...if they can't tell the difference, who says there is a difference?

Jeff Corey

7th July 2004, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
...Well, for arguments sake, this is my hypothesis. My hypothesis is that certain PSI phenomena only manifest when the experimenter and the subject are genuinely open to believing in their existence, rather than attempting to prove they do not exist because they do not believe it is possible. This has been tested, and produced a positive result which the skeptics in question refused to accept. The same set of experiments have been repeatedly carried out by believers and skeptics, and the believers consistently got better results than the skeptics. Rather than accepting this result (that there is an experimenter effect), the skeptics accused the believers of fraud and/or incompetence, which led to an unfortunate stand-off once more...
Your hypothesis makes the whole question unfalsifiable. Any failure to replicate PSI could be rationalized by "The experimenter or the subject really didn't believe, or had some momentary doubts."
And I'd like to see some references to any experiments that tested whether believers got consistently better results than skeptics.

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 08:29 AM

Parapsychological, and even psychological experiments, may yield different outcomes depending upon the experimenters who conduct them. Personal characteristics of experimenters may influence the results of experiments in which humans or animals participate. Many such experimenter effects are quite likely mediated by conventional sensory cues. Experimenters may use slightly different instructions, different vocal intonations, gestures, and other forms of nonverbal communication and these "messages" could influence participants in the studies. Dr. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University has conducted the most extensive work in this area.
Experimenter effects, however, can also be psi-mediated. Experimenters (or other involved personnel) can apparently influence their subjects without ever coming into physical contact with them. The parapsychological literature is filled with possible psi-mediated experimenter effects. For example, a famous series of ESP experiments indicated that people who simply checked results after an experiment seemed to have consistent influences upon their subjects’ earlier psi performance. A second example: It is well known that certain experimenters obtain consistently good results in their experiments, while other experimenters are well known for their negative findings. Many of the psi-conducive experimenters are known to have demonstrated strong psi performance themselves when participating in their own or others’ experiments. So it is not inconceivable that some experimenters may use their own psi, quite unconsciously, to influence the success or failure of their own studies.

The problem with the psi-mediated experimenter effect is that it can be used as an empty, untestable excuse or pseudo-explanation for all sorts of findings, if we are not careful. Also, since we know of no way to remove such an effect, it is difficult to know which of our findings are discoveries of lawful relationships and which are psi-fulfilled expectations of psi-talented investigations. Hopefully, in the future we may develop some adequate methodologies for dealing with this important issue.

Excellent examples of research on experimenter effects in psi research can be seen in two recent experiments by Dr. Marilyn Schlitz and Dr Richard Wiseman. Dr. Schlitz, the director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, designed a rigorous randomized trial evaluating whether subjects could detect another person staring at them from a distance (over a closed-circuit television system). The study yielded statistically significant positive results. When her skeptical colleague, British psychologist Richard Wiseman, failed to replicate the results, he invited her to England to repeat the experiment along with him in two separate but equal trials using the same subjects and the same equipment, and once again she got positive results and he got negative ones.

http://www.psiexplorer.com/experimenter_effect.htm

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:29 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

But how would those people be able to tell the difference between a phenomenon and a hallucination? You wouldn't even get as far as determining that.

And...if they can't tell the difference, who says there is a difference?

That is a matter of personal judgement. Personallly having experienced every level of artificially induced hallucination from alchohol, to LSD, to the mega-hallucinations produced by DMT, I think I can tell when I am straight and when I am hallucinating. I do not believe I would have the slightest difficulty in deciding whether or not I was hallucinating. For me, it is not such an issue. By that, I mean many of the PSI effects that we are talking about could quite easily exist without me having to have a major re-evaluation of my belief system. So I would not have any big contradiction to resolve by positing that I must have hallucinated something on the grounds it could not possibly be real. The question is very similar to "how do you know you are not dreaming". And the answer is the same. When you are dreaming, you do not always know that you are dreaming. But when you wake up, you know it was a dream. If something happens to you when you are actually awake, you do not have to ask yourself whether you were dreaming unless something happens which contradicts your current conceptions of the limits to the way reality behaves. So the question only really arises if (a) you have some fixed beliefs about the limits to how reality behaves and (b) something happened to you when you believed you were awake/"not hallunicating" which busted those limits. At that point you have a choice - either you convince yourself you were actually hallucinating or you re-evaluate your own personal beliefs about reality, and change your limits to accomodate what you have seen. But if you choose the re-evaluation, you must also accept that others people, who did not witness what you witnessed, are extremely unlikely to change their own beliefs based on your testimony alone.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by Jeff Corey

Your hypothesis makes the whole question unfalsifiable.

= non-scientific?

I already said several times that we are discussing the borders of where science can go. It may well be unfalsifiable, but this does not make it fantasy. It simply places it outside the area where science can go and still remain science (as we know it).

Any failure to replicate PSI could be rationalized by "The experimenter or the subject really didn't believe, or had some momentary doubts."
And I'd like to see some references to any experiments that tested whether believers got consistently better results than skeptics.

I think Luci already did so. If you want more, then I can dig out the copy of last years New Scientist which carried the articles on this subject and provide those references. Edit : If my memory serves me correctly, the people Luci quoted were the same ones the main article in NS was about.

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 08:33 AM

Experimenter Effects in Scientific Research: How Widely Are They Neglected?

Rupert Sheldrake

(Abstract)
A survey of recent papers published in a range of scientific journals showed that the use of blind methodologies is very rare in the so-called hard sciences. In the physical sciences, no blind experiments were found among the 237 papers reviewed. In the biological sciences, there were 7 blind experiments out of 914 (0.8%). There was a higher proportion in the medical sciences, 6 out of 102 (5.9%), and in psychology and animal behavior, 7 out of 143 (4.9%). By far the highest proportion (85.2%) was in parapsychology. A survey of science departments in 11 British Universities showed that blind methodologies are neither used nor taught in 22 out of 23 physics and chemistry departments, or in 14 out of 16 biochemistry and molecular biology departments. By contrast, blind methodologies are sometimes practiced and taught in 4 out of 8 genetics departments, and in 6 out of 8 physiology departments. I propose a simple procedure that could be used to detect possible experimenter effects in any branch of science, by comparing the results of a given experiment conducted both under open and blind conditions.

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 08:36 AM

Evidence for a non-classical experimenter effect?

H. Walach (University of Freiburg, Department of Psychology, D79085 Freiburg, Germany), S. Schmidt

(Abstract)

We conducted a well controlled experiment, in order to find out, whether lay- and professional dowsers and radiaesthiologists are able to unconventionally extract information. We used a widely used one-hand rod which is said to have unique sensitive properties for everyone without training. One hundred and six respondents to a publicity campaign coming from all over Germany and including lay as well as many professional and experienced persons performed in three identical reproductions of one single experiment: Ten test probes contained the purest known mineral water (Volvic), 10 contained E605 (parathion, lethal dose). The probes were sealed in glass phials, wrapped in natural silk and fixed in small cylindrical brass containers, identical in appearance. Then their sequence was randomized following a natural random sequence from a strontium 90 source. The code was known neither to the experimenter (SM), nor to the three assistants introducing the subjects to the experiment. The assistants had to make subjects acquainted with the rod and the task expected from them. Consequently, they only knew that the subjects had to detect, whether a probe would be `good for them' or `bad for them'. They did not know anything about the design, the test substances or the number of respective probes. Subjects were left alone in the experimental room, with only a video camera monitoring them. Research assistants only guided the subjects to the door of the room and brought them back, without entering the room or being present while subjects were dowsing. The experimenter (SM), who knew about the design and the contents of the probes, but not about the sequence, only saw subjects after they had performed the experiment and data were secured. There was no effect of unconventional information transfer over the three experiments with 106 subjects, (20 possible correct guesses, p = .703, Wilcoxon). However, there was a strong effect, consistent over all three experiments, with one of the three research assistants (p = .02 two-sided Wilcoxon): Subjects introduced by this assistant had significantly more correct responses. We cannot explain this clear and consistent effect by recurrence to experimenter effects, as all assistants had the same information and knowledge, and none knew anything about the design or the contents of the probes. Since the experimental task was non-classical as well, and the experiment was well blinded and controlled, we can only conclude that this specific person interacted in a way that enabled subjects to unconventionally extract information out of the system.

Stitch

7th July 2004, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
What if it manifests in their reality, and not yours. What if reality doesn't behave the same for everybody at all times? It is not logically inevitable that all phenomena are capable of being scientifically examined.

OK, I'll play along. You have your own little reality, odd things can happen there that do not happen in my reality.

If it is your reality and only your reality, how can anything outside of your reality be affected? How can there be ANY evidence for the paranormal (which some people keep claiming there is overwhelming amounts of) if it cannot be viewed, detected or experienced by anybody else??

I suspect that what you are actually describing is a delusion, but I could be wrong :D

CFLarsen

7th July 2004, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
That is a matter of personal judgement. Personallly having experienced every level of artificially induced hallucination from alchohol, to LSD, to the mega-hallucinations produced by DMT, I think I can tell when I am straight and when I am hallucinating. I do not believe I would have the slightest difficulty in deciding whether or not I was hallucinating. For me, it is not such an issue. By that, I mean many of the PSI effects that we are talking about could quite easily exist without me having to have a major re-evaluation of my belief system. So I would not have any big contradiction to resolve by positing that I must have hallucinated something on the grounds it could not possibly be real. The question is very similar to "how do you know you are not dreaming". And the answer is the same. When you are dreaming, you do not always know that you are dreaming. But when you wake up, you know it was a dream. If something happens to you when you are actually awake, you do not have to ask yourself whether you were dreaming unless something happens which contradicts your current conceptions of the limits to the way reality behaves. So the question only really arises if (a) you have some fixed beliefs about the limits to how reality behaves and (b) something happened to you when you believed you were awake/"not hallunicating" which busted those limits. At that point you have a choice - either you convince yourself you were actually hallucinating or you re-evaluate your own personal beliefs about reality, and change your limits to accomodate what you have seen. But if you choose the re-evaluation, you must also accept that others people, who did not witness what you witnessed, are extremely unlikely to change their own beliefs based on your testimony alone.

Lots of words. No solution. We cannot tell whether it was an alien abduction or a hallucination.

Rather useless, wouldn't you say?

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 08:42 AM

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.

http://www.williamjames.com/Science/ESP.htm

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by Stitch

OK, I'll play along. You have your own little reality, odd things can happen there that do not happen in my reality.

If it is your reality and only your reality, how can anything outside of your reality be affected?

For this to work, there has to be an overlap between personal reality and consensus reality. Most things happen in consensus reality - so everybodies individual reality is mainly consistent with the consensus. Only in specific circumstances can the elusive paranormal phenomena occur - because they can only occur in such a way that nobody-elses reality is affected. Consensus reality remains consensus reality - so you can still do things which affect consensus reality.

How can there be ANY evidence for the paranormal (which some people keep claiming there is overwhelming amounts of) if it cannot be viewed, detected or experienced by anybody else??

As already pointed out, the "evidence" consists of repeated borderline positives which are consistently rejected by skeptics. The usual reason given for this is "extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence" - in other words borderline statistical positives which would suffice to approve a new drug would not suffice to accept PSI effects on the grounds that PSI effects are "extra-ordinary" claims. But this all boils down to what you happen to believe is "extra-ordinary", which in turn depends on your own metaphysical beliefs. In a persons private reality, the evidence can be "extra-ordinary", provided the extra-ordinary phenomena do not contaminate consensus reality. In consensus reality, the evidence will be restricted to the borderline positives that the skeptics will never accept.

I suspect that what you are actually describing is a delusion, but I could be wrong :D

Fair enough. :)

Stitch

7th July 2004, 09:12 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
my arguments are about the fuzzy grey area at the borders of science, psychology and metaphysics - places where maybe the scientific method alone cannot neccesarily provide us with an answer to the question.

That just smacks of desperation to me. "I want to belive X, I have no rational reason for beliving it, I can't prove it and if anbody asks me to prove I'll just say that it is outside the boundaries of being testable"

I think this illustrates my point quite nicely. In this example the aliens came to visit your house, had a cup of tea, discussed inter-stellar issues in English, and left again. Rather than accepting the evidence of your own eyes and ears,

The evidence of ones own eyes and ears has been shown to be rather flakey on a number of occasions, just watch a street magician, to my eyes it looks like he has just "bitten a chunk off a coin" (or whatever), but I don't belive he has actually done it either.

you are telling me you would use "reason" to convince yourself you had been dreaming or you were going mad.

I look at the evidence available to me, there is NO evidence the aliens have been there "...then disappear leaving no trace of their visit", in fact if we are being pedantic, they haven't left a memory in my brain of them being there either and so there is nothing for me to be aware of anyway.

But certainly if there is nothing to suggest they ever were there I would have to consider that I dreampt it is a very real possibility. To be honest it would seem far more likely to me that this was the case.

If however they had left some evidence behind, then that's a different story.

That isn't skepticism. That is a refusal to believe your own eyes and ears, just as "180 proof" said he would refuse to believe is own eyes had he witnessed Moses receiving the stone tablets. What is happening here is that you find it easier to dismiss what your own eyes and ears were telling you than go through the process of completely re-evaluating your belief system in order to accomodate what you had witnessed yourself.

And yet you would rather belive what you see and accept it whole heartedly when everything else i.e. a lack of any other evidence ought to suggest that something is not right? I know the eye can be fooled, I know one person can be fooled, this is why I talk about repeatability and peer review, it brings a sanity check in to things.

Maybe so - which makes things even more complicated. But perhaps some are genuine and yet it is [i]impossible for them to ever provide evidence that will satisfy.

Cop out again. If you want to believe "X" then feel free to do so, but don't expect anybody else to believe it as well unless you can back your claim up.

Well, for arguments sake, this is my hypothesis. My hypothesis is that certain PSI phenomena only manifest when the experimenter and the subject are genuinely open to believing in their existence,

OK, we are starting to get somewhere, and are begining to find something that we can test, carry on...

rather than attempting to prove they do not exist because they do not believe it is possible.

I cannot disprove anything and it would be feutile to try - think about it! I can however say that I do not feel sufficient high quality evidence is available to suggest that a given claim is credible. Big difference.

This has been tested, and produced a positive result which the skeptics in question refused to accept.

Cite your chosen example and we will work through it, remember we want to see:
Claim, Hypothesis, Test Protocol, Peer review of Test Protocol, revised Test Protocol, etc etc

The same set of experiments have been repeatedly carried out by believers and skeptics, and the believers consistently got better results than the skeptics.

"Better results", I would hazard that the Skeptic's results showned no evidence of statistical significance, however, if you can show otherwise, please do so.

Rather than accepting this result (that there is an experimenter effect), the skeptics accused the believers of fraud and/or incompetence, which led to an unfortunate stand-off once more.

Please cite the experiment you refer to. Were the believers accused of "fraud" or were a list of reasons given to indicate flaws in their testing technique that accounted for the observed result, and the believers refused to accept them??

Personally, I'd rather keep "God" out of this. Far too emotionally charged on both sides, and usually it turns out that the people discussing the subject have different definitions of "God" anyway.

Fine by me, I treat one paranormal phenominon the same as the next, I am happy to discuss any one of them if you can provide some evidence to back up your claim.

Is it idiotic to believe your own eyes and ears instead of rationalising phenomena away on the grounds that you yourself are deluded?
[b]
Do you belive EVERYTHING you see without question??? Do you belive EVERYTHING you hear without question???

[b]
I'm not so sure. If the aliens visited me, then I'd sooner believe in aliens than believe I had gone mad.

I admit it would not be easy to consider the possibility that you are delusional. However plenty of people are or even become so. In the abscence of any evidence to suggest that Aliens had paid me a visit, I would have to consider it. I would also probably keep hunting around for evidence that the aliens had visited me as well, but in the abscence of that evidence I would have to go with the most likely possibility. If I then found a "ray gun" under the bed, I could re-evaluate the situation.

Although this is a bit of a silly example, and I don't believe in aliens. I think we are very probably alone in this Universe, personally. :)

I think we have more chance of finding evidence of life on another planet that we do of the paranormal, but there we go, we haven't got any soild evidence for either yet, so I'll keep an open mind.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 09:15 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Lots of words. No solution. We cannot tell whether it was an alien abduction or a hallucination.

Rather useless, wouldn't you say?

For you, as a scientific skeptic, it is not much use, no. I was trying to explain that for me, I have no problem that requires a solution, because I am not interested in proving to you that these phenomena do occur, and I have no trouble myself determining whether or not I was hallucinating. I am not sure there is a "problem" at all, unless you are a person who wants others to believe what you believe i.e. the skeptic who wants to convince the paranormalists they are wrong has a problem, and the paranormalist who wants to convince the skeptics they are wrong has a problem. Therefore the problem, if there is one, is that many people on both sides of this debate seem to want to prove to the people on the other side that they are wrong, and no means of proving it exists, regardless of Randis unclaimed prize. Perhaps that is the bottom line - some of the skeptics here believe that Randis unclaimed million is evidence for the non-existence of PSI, and I'm not sure it actually is. Provided you are happy living in a diverse world where there is room for all sorts of beliefs, then there is no problem.

drkitten

7th July 2004, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

I'll throw your own standards back at you. Where is your evidence that reality remains consistent for all people at all times?

Start with the Okla nuclear reactor.

drkitten

7th July 2004, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

I've always had a bit of problem with the definition of "mental illness". Who gets to decide what is crazy? I think the modern world we live in is almost completely insane. Does that make me mad?

No. It might be a symptom, and not a cause, for example.

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 09:35 AM

Originally posted by Stitch

That just smacks of desperation to me. "I want to belive X, I have no rational reason for beliving it, I can't prove it and if anbody asks me to prove I'll just say that it is outside the boundaries of being testable"

If you want to believe "X" then feel free to do so, but don't expect anybody else to believe it as well unless you can back your claim up.

"To be precise, when we say that "X exists," we mean that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.

With this in mind, ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials, but it tends to be weak when simple geometric symbols are used as targets. Photographic or video targets often produce effects many times larger, and there is some evidence that ESP on natural locations (as opposed to photos of them), and in natural contexts, may be stronger yet. [...]" - http://www.parapsych.org/faq_file3.html

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 09:38 AM

"As the 21st century draws nearer, we can see that society's materialistic values, fostered in many respects by modern science and technology, have become outdated and unworthy. It is clear that we have come to another turning point in history and science. What we require to meet the challenges of these unpredictable and confusing times is a new paradigm to guide a new age. I believe that the key to this new paradigm lies in the research of biological, mental, and spiritual phenomena such as "Qi" and other psychic powers that have been overlooked by modern scientists.... I think that the results of my research could help bring about a significant revolution that might force our materialistic society to turn around, and concurrently reform the ways of modern science and technology."

--Sony ESPER Laboratory director Yoichiro Sako, speaking at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (hosted by the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, June 1997).

http://www.parascope.com/en/articles/sonyESP.htm

CFLarsen

7th July 2004, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
"To be precise, when we say that "X exists," we mean that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.

With this in mind, ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials, but it tends to be weak when simple geometric symbols are used as targets. Photographic or video targets often produce effects many times larger, and there is some evidence that ESP on natural locations (as opposed to photos of them), and in natural contexts, may be stronger yet. [...]" - http://www.parapsych.org/faq_file3.html
...because pictures with many details in them can be interpreted much more than simple symbols, hence yield more hits.

Fool.

Stitch

7th July 2004, 09:43 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff I have no problem that requires a solution, because I am not interested in proving to you that these phenomena do occur, and I have no trouble myself determining whether or not I was hallucinating.

To be honest, I think the believers are far more in need of a solution than the skeptics.

If I can't find a rational explanation for something, then I am happy to consider that the experience is quite possibly beyond my current understanding, and possibly that of science. It does not however mean that it will ALWAYS be beyond science to explain it, and I am happy to accept there may be no solution at present.

It would seem however that the believers, when presented with something that does not have a current scientific explanation, resort to inventing something that explains the situation, so that they DO have a solution. The fact that it is made up and has no evidence to support is doesn't matter, it is an answer, a solution, even if it is wrong, it is something warm and fluffy to cling on to an allows you to say "I understand that"

The problem arises when science catches up and a rational explanation is provided for something. This is when we get in to denial and refusal to change belief systems.

Science says "Ahh, well actually we think that happened because of X. If we change the experiment slightly to cater for X, lets see if the hypothesis still holds true"

For X, read any real world explanation for why ANY experiment may produce a spurious result (dirty test tubes for example, cross contamination etc)

This the point at which the believers start to panic. Somebody has spotted the "trick" and has proposed a revised "test" to plug the hole. The belief system is about to come crashing down. Hence the "I refuse to be tested" type statements or, as seems to be one of your favourites "It can't be tested"

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 09:48 AM

Stitch, just curious. Have you posted to this forum previously, under a different name?

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 09:51 AM

Stitch :

That just smacks of desperation to me. "I want to belive X, I have no rational reason for beliving it, I can't prove it and if anbody asks me to prove I'll just say that it is outside the boundaries of being testable"

I'm not desperate. I am not trying to get you to believe what I believe, I am just having a chat on a rainy afternoon. Me, I am going off to study philosophy - so expect my answers to get even more frustrating! Most of philosophy does indeed lie outside the boundaries of what is empiticaly testable - that's what makes it philosophy.

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I think this illustrates my point quite nicely. In this example the aliens came to visit your house, had a cup of tea, discussed inter-stellar issues in English, and left again. Rather than accepting the evidence of your own eyes and ears,
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The evidence of ones own eyes and ears has been shown to be rather flakey on a number of occasions, just watch a street magician, to my eyes it looks like he has just "bitten a chunk off a coin" (or whatever), but I don't belive he has actually done it either.

Yes, but there are limits. Aliens coming to tea was an example I chose because it so clearly breaches the limits of the capabilities of a stage magician.

But certainly if there is nothing to suggest they ever were there I would have to consider that I dreampt it is a very real possibility. To be honest it would seem far more likely to me that this was the case.

If however they had left some evidence behind, then that's a different story.

But by now it is all coming down to a personal assessment of what is or is not believable/possible. In most cases, you would believe your own eyes. In this case, you wouldn't. PSI is trickier, because whether or not you believe PSI is "extra-ordinary and unbelievable" is very much debatable and very dependent on personal belief systems about the nature of reality. If you happen to be an idealist, for example, you might have a very different conception about what is possible/likely/believable.

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That isn't skepticism. That is a refusal to believe your own eyes and ears, just as "180 proof" said he would refuse to believe is own eyes had he witnessed Moses receiving the stone tablets. What is happening here is that you find it easier to dismiss what your own eyes and ears were telling you than go through the process of completely re-evaluating your belief system in order to accomodate what you had witnessed yourself.

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And yet you would rather belive what you see and accept it whole heartedly when everything else i.e. a lack of any other evidence ought to suggest that something is not right? I know the eye can be fooled, I know one person can be fooled, this is why I talk about repeatability and peer review, it brings a sanity check in to things.

Depends on what I saw. I certainly don't believe everything I see without questioning it. The opposite is true - I question everything, including some things the skeptics take for granted, like reality being observer-independent. Perhaps this might be a good time to point out that physics (QM) has quite clearly suggested that reality is NOT observer-independent, something which has shocked a great many people who were willing to confront its implications, and still causes a great deal of disagreements. Indeed you only need to watch the reaction of certain individuals to the claim that QM implies an observer-dependent reality to know that this is a very important claim. It is often met with an extreme over-reaction ("Nonsense! QM says nothing of the sort! It is a tool for analysing probabilities! Schroedinger was just pulling your leg!"). Schroedinger was actually perfectly serious, adopted Hindu idealism and ended his life writing about consciousness and mysticism, not as a scientist but as a philosopher.

Cop out again. If you want to believe "X" then feel free to do so, but don't expect anybody else to believe it as well unless you can back your claim up.

I thought I had made it crystal clear that I do not expect anybody else to believe anything! That is a fool's game.

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rather than attempting to prove they do not exist because they do not believe it is possible.

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I cannot disprove anything and it would be feutile to try - think about it! I can however say that I do not feel sufficient high quality evidence is available to suggest that a given claim is credible. Big difference.

You can say that, yes. But it is coming down to your own personal standards of "quality of evidence", and quality of evidence required is dependent on your own evaluations of what is an "extra-ordinary claim".

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The same set of experiments have been repeatedly carried out by believers and skeptics, and the believers consistently got better results than the skeptics.

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"Better results", I would hazard that the Skeptic's results showned no evidence of statistical significance, however, if you can show otherwise, please do so.

Well, Lucianarchy already provided a reference to the set of experiments I am talking about. I'll follow his link and see if it provides the right information.

Please cite the experiment you refer to. Were the believers accused of "fraud" or were a list of reasons given to indicate flaws in their testing technique that accounted for the observed result, and the believers refused to accept them??

No fraud/incompetence was demonstrated. The problem has been that the more statistically relevant the results were, the more likely that the skeptics would claim there "must have been" fraud/incompetence.

In the case Luci and myself are refering to, a specific set of events happened over about 10 years. At first, the skeptics would always invoke the "fraud/incompetence" accusation whenever there were statistical positives, and the paranormalists were claiming that there was an "experimenter effect" which the skeptics hated because it was so hard to nail this doen experimentally (because if different experimenters get different results then it derails the scientific method as we know it). So there was an agreement - the skeptics agreed they would not make unfounded accusations of fraud/incompetence and the paranormalists agreed they would avoid invoking the "experimenter effect". There were then a set of experiments lasting several years, carried out by Dr. Marilyn Schlitz and Dr Richard Wiseman, who were good friends. What came out of this set of experiments was data which suggested that the "experimenter effect" really was occuring, which caused a problem because as soon as this was pointed out, the same old warfare broke out because the paranormalists had "broken their deal". But I don't see how they have any choice. If the "experimenter effect" is real, what are the paranormalists supposed to say? The skeptics simply aren't willing to go down the path of considering "the experimenter effect", regardless of the evidence provided, but the paranormalists have no choice, because "experimenter effect" evidence is the only evidence they can provide!

The question is this : If the experimenter effect is real, how do we get the skeptics to ever believe the data? I think the answer is : we can't.

Do you belive EVERYTHING you see without question??? Do you belive EVERYTHING you hear without question???

I believe NOTHING without question! I am going to study philosophy! :D

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by drkitten

Start with the Okla nuclear reactor.

Never heard of it! Can you provide a link? :)

drkitten

7th July 2004, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Perhaps this might be a good time to point out that physics (QM) has quite clearly suggested that reality is NOT observer-independent,

It has not. That's a misrepresentation of the theories.

Stitch

7th July 2004, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

"To be precise, when we say that "X exists," we mean that the presently available, cumulative statistical database for experiments studying X, provides strong, scientifically credible evidence for repeatable, anomalous, X-like effects.
[quote]

Interesting, quote. write something that looks similar to what I was talking about but isn't then waffle off on your own track :cool:

[quote]
With this in mind, ESP exists, precognition exists, telepathy exists, and PK exists. ESP is statistically robust, meaning it can be reliably demonstrated through repeated trials, but it tends to be weak when simple geometric symbols are used as targets. Photographic or video targets often produce effects many times larger, and there is some evidence that ESP on natural locations (as opposed to photos of them), and in natural contexts, may be stronger yet. [...]" - http://www.parapsych.org/faq_file3.html

Please show me a PSI / PK / ESP experiment that contains documented:

Claim
Hypothesis
Test Protocol
Peer Test Protocol Review
Revised Test Protocol

I'll leave it at that for the moment, we can cover the other requirements such a re-testing and so on once we have found an experiment with the above in it.

drkitten

7th July 2004, 09:57 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Never heard of it! Can you provide a link? :)

Probably simplest to type the phrase into Google. Basically, it's a prehistoric, naturally occurring, nuclear pile, and the way it works shows pretty clearly that the laws and physical constants of physics have not changed over the past zillion years.

Neat stuff.

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 10:02 AM

Originally posted by Stitch

To be honest, I think the believers are far more in need of a solution than the skeptics.

If I can't find a rational explanation for something, then I am happy to consider that the experience is quite possibly beyond my current understanding, and possibly that of science. It does not however mean that it will ALWAYS be beyond science to explain it, and I am happy to accept there may be no solution at present.

It would seem however that the believers, when presented with something that does not have a current scientific explanation, resort to inventing something that explains the situation, so that they DO have a solution. The fact that it is made up and has no evidence to support is doesn't matter, it is an answer, a solution, even if it is wrong, it is something warm and fluffy to cling on to an allows you to say "I understand that"

May be true in some cases. Personally, many of things I ended up believing are far from warm and fluffy, and these days I am confronted with far more "unknowns" than I was confronted with when I was a scientific skeptic. I have not followed an "easy path". I was too much of an atheist and a skeptic for far too long for that to happen. But that is just me personally.

This the point at which the believers start to panic. Somebody has spotted the "trick" and has proposed a revised "test" to plug the hole. The belief system is about to come crashing down. Hence the "I refuse to be tested" type statements or, as seems to be one of your favourites "It can't be tested"

No matter what peoples belief system is, when it is seriously challenged the result is panic. This is just as true for the skeptic as for the believer. I have been there (as a skeptic). I panicked. Big time. I was posting prolifically at this site at the time it happened - and I think it was quite obvious to those people reading my posts that there was nothing warm and fluffy going on in my world, and that the posts were being made by a person experiencing a serious existential crisis. Belief systems do not usually change overnight, and when they do, it is always traumatic.

Stitch

7th July 2004, 10:03 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Stitch, just curious. Have you posted to this forum previously, under a different name?
No

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 10:06 AM

Originally posted by drkitten

Probably simplest to type the phrase into Google. Basically, it's a prehistoric, naturally occurring, nuclear pile, and the way it works shows pretty clearly that the laws and physical constants of physics have not changed over the past zillion years.

Neat stuff.

I was not arguing that the laws and physical constants change with time, although this is very much debatable (see last weeks New Scientist). I was arguing that reality might not not always behave the same for all individuals. Just to further clarify, I am not even arguing that the laws of physics need to change in order to accomodate PSI phenomena. The laws of physics, as they stand, are quite capable of accomodating PSI phenomena. The laws of physics allow for all sorts of incredible things to happen, it just suggests that they are incredibly unlikely to happen.

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 10:07 AM

"The perception of reality by biosystems is based on different, and in certain respects more effective principles than those utilised by the more formal procedures of science. As a result, what appears as random pattern to the scientific method can be meaningful pattern to a living organism. The existence of this complementary perception of reality makes possible in principle effective use by organisms of the direct interconnections between spatially separated objects shown to exist in the work of J.S. Bell."

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/papers/bell.html

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 10:11 AM

'Beyond quantum theory: a realist psycho-biological interpretation of reality' revisited

"It is hypothesised, following Conrad et al. (1988) (this http URL) that quantum physics is not the ultimate theory of nature, but merely a theoretical account of the phenomena manifested in nature under particular conditions. These phenomena parallel cognitive phenomena in biosystems in a number of ways and are assumed to arise from related mechanisms. Quantum and biological accounts are complementary in the sense of Bohr and quantum accounts may be incomplete. In particular, following ideas of Stapp, 'the observer' is a system that, while lying outside the descriptive capacities of quantum mechanics, creates observable phenomena such as wave function collapse through its probing activities. Better understanding of such processes may pave the way to new science. "
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0105027

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 10:14 AM

Parapsychology: the choice between cultural bias and an open mind

"David Fisher (July 2000, p. 22) rejects parapsychology on the basis of difficulty in replicating positive results in the field. This is insufficient reason to reject its claims: consider the case of astronomy, which also deals with phenomena that cannot be generated on demand or predicted in advance. Criteria for judging claims must be adapted to the characteristics of the phenomena under consideration.

In the case of parapsychology, there is the complication of the prevailing 'cultural bias' against the subject. Bias seeks primarily to rationalise a belief, rather to arrive at the truth: arguments are selected in accord with whether they point in the desired direction or not. Rationalisation is not a self-critical process and is not what science is about. It is prone to surface when certain ideas are considered intrinsically bad; and so we find editors, referees and self-appointed proselytisers all supposedly, in their various ways, 'protecting' science from 'false beliefs in the paranormal', but in so doing in reality presenting a biased picture to the scientific community, perpetuating the cultural bias as a result. The Cambridge Conference that Fisher refers to achieved significant successes in the direction of opening minds.[...]"
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/psi/bias1.html

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 10:19 AM

The "schlitz-wiseman" effect :

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=77&pgtype=1

What made these results even more notable was what happened next. To ensure the validity of her data, Schlitz enrolled the assistance of a skeptical researcher from England, named Richard Wiseman. Following all of the same protocols that Schlitz had, Wiseman did not get any significant results. To see if he had done anything different, Schlitz went to England and did the experiment together with Wiseman. What they found is that the subjects who did the experiment with Schlitz produced significant results, while Wiseman’s did not. These findings were repeated in a second study conducted in Schlitz’ lab in California. Altogether, this has lead Schlitz to postulate that there is a significant "experimenter effect" that is occurring. She believes that it is likely that her own openness and positivity, in contrast to Wiseman’s skepticism, had, in fact, influenced their results. Even the skeptical Wiseman now believes there is something significant going on in the studies, although he is not certain what it is yet. After hearing about the results of their series of experiments, George Leonard coined the term "the Schlitz-Wiseman Effect" to describe how the intentions of the experimenter have a definite influence upon the results.

If you really want me to go to my loft and dig out the copy of New Scientist with other references in it, I can do so. But right now I have some wallpaper to strip. :)

Lucianarchy

7th July 2004, 10:26 AM

Could telepathy one day be explained by modern physics?

This is a transcript of a discussion on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, October 2nd. 2001, with Sue MacGregor (presenter), Brian Josephson and Nicholas Humphrey, and a voice recording of James Randi. If you have RealPlayer software, you can listen to the discussion in the BBC sound archives.

See also comments on some of the issues, also on the theoretical aspect.

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/stamps/today.html

7th July 2004, 10:50 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
The "schlitz-wiseman" effect :

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=77&pgtype=1

If you really want me to go to my loft and dig out the copy of New Scientist with other references in it, I can do so. But right now I have some wallpaper to strip. :)

With all due respect this is complete bullsh!t. The purpose of experimental design is to obviate these kinds of things. The fact that they found that there was a confounding factor and did not eliminate it is a massive inditement of both of them. And they gave their name to error that a college freshman would recognize?

flyboy217

7th July 2004, 11:11 AM

UndercoverElephant

7th July 2004, 11:44 AM

Originally posted by Ed

With all due respect this is complete bullsh!t. The purpose of experimental design is to obviate these kinds of things. The fact that they found that there was a confounding factor and did not eliminate it is a massive inditement of both of them. And they gave their name to error that a college freshman would recognize?

Ed,

It is easier to point the finger than to provide a tangible helping hand! How can you design a better experiment to detect "experimenter effect"? What was their "mistake"? You have here two scientists, one a skeptic, one a paranormalist, carrying out identical experiments in the same laboratory and getting different results! There is your evidence! What better evidence could possibly be supplied? Yet, if I understand you correctly, your response is "there must be some non-paranormal explanation for the result, and the fact that neither of them have found out what it is means they are both incompetent!". This is precisely the sort "moving the goalposts" that I am talking about. You have demonstrated the point perfectly. It makes no difference what evidence is provided, because the skeptic still won't believe it! The reason he won't believe it is because he has already decided that the are no PSI phenomena (including the "experimenter effect" itself), so if the results suggests that there is then something must have gone wrong, and if someone more competent did the experiment he would discover what it is!.

The set of experiments being discussed were designed with the specific goal of eliminating "confounding factors", and they were designed to provide evidence (or lack of) of the "experimenter effect". The evidence was produced, and the skeptics simply refused to believe the result, leaving us right back where we started before those experiments were conducted, with the paranormalists claiming "experimenter effects" and the skeptics claiming fraud and incompetence. I don't see how you can blame the paranormalists for this one.

If anyone can suggest a way out of the impasse, I'd be extremely interested to hear it. If we are to progress, the skeptics have to agree not to move the goalposts, yet since the only sort of "progress' the skeptics are interested in is the sort of progress which demonstrates PSI doesn't exist, there is no hope of progress.

Geoff.

Aussie Thinker

7th July 2004, 06:52 PM

Just Geoff,

That is fair enough. But can I ask you whether you would find it easy to integrate proof such as this into your existing conception of reality? Wouldn't you agree that accepting such evidence would force a complete re-evaluation of your current beliefs about Reality? Isn't it true that deep down you are very confident that such proof will never be presented?

Well we all like to think we are broadminded but perhaps you have a point. Years of fraud, baseless speculation, lies, frivolous claims, inanity and outright ridiculousness has hardened me somewhat to any “evidence” produced by paranormalists.

The “evidence” invariably boils down to anecdote, hallucination or is generally wrong in the way it is interpreted.

I am QUITE capable of paradigm shifts in my overall belief system though given quality evidence or argument contrary to my existing beliefs… Eg going from Christian to atheist, going from belief in some paranormal phenomena to complete scepticism.

And would you still LOVE it if it happened to you, but you couldn't prove it?. Say, aliens come and visit you, have a very interesting conversation and then disappear leaving no trace of their visit. You would KNOW it was true, but you could prove nothing. It would have to remain your own private revelation.
quote:

Interesting point that I have often pondered. I am a HUGE sci fi fan and am quite sure aliens exist somewhere (just by the odds).. If they came and talked to me I would later question the following..

1. My own sanity
2. Wether I was dreaming or hallucinating ?
3. Had I had any drugs ?

If I was STILL convinced it happened I would have to question Alien motives.. why approach insignificant humans, the ridiculous behaviour they exhibit for sentient beings, the impossibility of these visitations not providing any evidence.. etc etc.

[quote]Yes, this is the way the skeptic thinks. But you have to examine what is meant by "proof", and whether or not the standard of proof itself may exclude certain types of phenomena. As already mentioned, it excludes any type of phenomena which are personal oir belief-dependent. The position you have outlined involves an assumption that the behaviour of "reality" is observer-independent and belief-independent. These assumptions are required in order for science to operate, but they are not required in order for reality to operate. For the skeptic, science is the final arbiter. For the paranormalist, science is not the final arbiter. Any "woo-woo" who thinks he can provide scientific evidence for his beliefs is probably just an idiot. As you say, if such evidence was likely to arrive, it would already have arrived.[quote]

I cannot help but put far more weight on scientific evidence than human evidence.

Knowing that humans can lie, hallucinate, dream, have false memories etc etc.. when the ONLY evidence for something FANTASTIC is a human testimony it is NOT enough.

Zep

7th July 2004, 07:52 PM

All this quoting of experiments where some paranormal effect or other was noted to some extent, or the measuring of the "skeptic effect", etc. From my own reading of them, there does seem to be one common factor in them all that casts a great shadow over them: sloppiness in data gathering and measurement.

Not that this is not a problem in "standard" science either (eg. the cold fusion fiasco), but the data generating and scoring process just seems to be so ... vague. And when this vagueness is statistically filtered out, the results almost inevitably come down to chance.

First example: Beneviste's work on basophils and homeopathic substances, which I won't repeat here in detail (go look it up if you are so darn keen!). The major point in Beneviste's case was that he thought he had a working experiment that proved homeopathic operation. In fact, it took a layman (in the shape of Mr Randi) to point out that he had not completed a basic requirement - proper blinding of the test and scoring process. That is, Beneviste was sloppy in that regard. Result? Once proper controls were put in place, Beneviste's results went to chance levels. Randi didn't change Beneviste's testing process, didn't try to influence the results, didn't accuse Beneviste of cheating, nothing like that. He just removed the sloppiness.

Next example: PEAR's 25 years of data on remote viewing, referenced earlier in this thread. For 25 years, PEAR was certain there was something in the results, because the (sloppy) scoring process allowed that there might be. The majority of criticisms of this body of data was of the sloppy original scoring process, as well as the vague analysis techniques. But when PEAR applied more rigorous (ie. less sloppy) scoring and analysis process, the results reduced to chance again. Which left PEAR with a problem - either admit they had sloppy data and scoring to start with (plainly obvious to all but the most dense or intractible), or try to invent some airy-fairy excuses to explain it away.

To be honest, as a skeptic, whenever I am presented with some report or other that supposedly details yet another psi breakthrough, I have a read through it and almost inevitably there is some place, if not many places, where some simple sloppiness has been overlooked or allowed that could easily invalidate the rest of the process.

And claiming that psi is "on the borderlands of science" is no excuse for avoiding good science practices. San Diego is right on the borderlands of the USA, but US law still applies there just as much as in Salt Lake City UT or New York.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 03:00 AM

Hello Aussie Thinker

Well we all like to think we are broadminded but perhaps you have a point. Years of fraud, baseless speculation, lies, frivolous claims, inanity and outright ridiculousness has hardened me somewhat to any “evidence” produced by paranormalists.

The “evidence” invariably boils down to anecdote, hallucination or is generally wrong in the way it is interpreted.

I am QUITE capable of paradigm shifts in my overall belief system though given quality evidence or argument contrary to my existing beliefs… Eg going from Christian to atheist, going from belief in some paranormal phenomena to complete scepticism.

True enough, but it's possible that there is a baby being thrown out with all that murky old bathwater. I am not criticising anyone though - I used to be just like you (and most of the other skeptics), and I had very good reasons for being that way. In changing my viewpoint, I had to turn my whole concept of reality upside-down and inside-out, and this included a point where I had even to doubt my confidence in science itself. As a person who had been a science fanatic since about the age of 7 this was no small thing. It is not easy to go right back and disturb the very foundations of your belief system like that, although I later found a way to keep my scientific beliefs intact, but sitting on a different base, if that makes any sense. For somebody like you, who has already had to go through a similar process in ditching Christianity, it would probably be even more difficult. But that is pretty much the only point I am making - this debate is not as it is usually presented ("show me the evidence") because it isn't just about "evidence", it is about peoples whole belief systems.

Interesting point that I have often pondered. I am a HUGE sci fi fan and am quite sure aliens exist somewhere

I find it curious that the skeptics who find it impossible to believe in PSI often find it equally hard to believe that human beings are alone in this Universe. My own view used to be the same as yours, but these days I tend to see existence in terms of consciousness rather than matter, and from that POV you end up thinking more anthropocentrically. I would now be very surprised indeed to discover alien intelligence in the Universe.

:)

Knowing that humans can lie, hallucinate, dream, have false memories etc etc.. when the ONLY evidence for something FANTASTIC is a human testimony it is NOT enough.

Fantastic testimony is useless. You have to be there yourself. Nothing else would suffice to convince me.

It's been a pleasant thread. :)

Stitch

8th July 2004, 03:15 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I find it curious that the skeptics who find it impossible to believe in PSI often find it equally hard to believe that human beings are alone in this Universe. My own view used to be the same as yours, but these days I tend to see existence in terms of consciousness rather than matter, and from that POV you end up thinking more anthropocentrically. I would now be very surprised indeed to discover alien intelligence in the Universe.

To be honest I think we are more likely to discover some long dead single celled organism than we are living intelligent life.

That doesn't mean I discount the possibility of there being intelligent life out there, there may well be, I just don't know.

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 03:20 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I find it curious that the skeptics who find it impossible to believe in PSI often find it equally hard to believe that human beings are alone in this Universe.

Two wrong assumptions here:

Skeptics don't find PSI impossible - there is just no evidence of it.

Skeptics don't find it hard to believe that we are alone in the Universe. While there is no evidence, it is very possible that there is life elsewhere.

While I don't speak for skeptics, the latter is what I hear most often.

Guess perception is not to be trusted, eh? ;)

TheBoyPaj

8th July 2004, 04:57 AM

I tend to think that there is intelligent life elsewhere, even though there is no evidence. But is this equivalent to the believers of PSI? I don't think so.

After all, we have no means to obtain evidence of life on other planets. It is not possible for us to test the idea yet.

But the claims that people make for PSI are testable. And consistently fail to produce the goods.

Also, the idea of extraterrestrial life is not yet burdened with the huge amount of negative evidence that PSI is. We just cannot examine enough planets to draw a conclusion.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 05:03 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
[B]

Two wrong assumptions here:

Skeptics don't find PSI impossible - there is just no evidence of it.

I think I have spent most of this thread responding to that claim. Any evidence will be rationalised away, because 99% of people calling themselves "skeptics" are quite certain PSI doesn't exist. You too would have to have a major belief-system reversal in order to be able to accept any evidence as valid. Surely you don't disagree with that?

Skeptics don't find it hard to believe that we are alone in the Universe. While there is no evidence, it is very possible that there is life elsewhere.

You wouldn't describe PSI as "very possible" though, would you? You would more likely describe it as "possible, but highly unlikely", yes? The truth is that you could accept evidence of extra-terrestrial life without that major belief-system reversal. I find it hard to accept that these belief-system factors are not playing a part in peoples opinions. I know they played a big part in mine, anyway.

Guess perception is not to be trusted, eh? ;)

Ah, how to tell truth from lies...... ;)

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 05:13 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

But the claims that people make for PSI are testable. And consistently fail to produce the goods.

....except when they do produce the goods, and the skeptics refuse to believe the results! (see my previous posts).

Also, some of the phenomena that come under the category of PSI are not testable. By their nature, they seem to disappear under laboratory conditions. Skeptics will then claim that this is "just a cop-out", but IMO the situation is not so simple. The "experimenter effect" being discussed earlier in this thread is a perfect example. For the skeptic, the very idea that phenomena behave differently as a direct result of who is conducting the experiment and what they believe is itself unbelievable. But this is simply because skeptics tend to view physical reality as observer-independent (note BillHoyts response that the claim reality was observer-dependent was "laughable"), and I think there is a clear case to be made (from QM) that reality is NOT observer-independent, so the skeptics opinion relies on a highly questionable assumption. In trying to unravel and re-assess all these assumptions, it is possible to end up asking all sorts of questions you never thought you would have to ask. That is why I ended up deciding to go back to University and study cognitive science and philosophy. PSI ended up being a side-issue for me.

BillHoyt

8th July 2004, 05:35 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But that is pretty much the only point I am making - this debate is not as it is usually presented ("show me the evidence") because it isn't just about "evidence", it is about peoples whole belief systems.
I'm not sure why you think I (for one) would allow you to reframe things in this contorted way. By asserting this is about "belief systems" you equivocate on "belief systems." As with the "faith" equivocations, you squash unfounded belief systems together with founded belief systems. But we know they are not equivalent. We know, in fact, it is possible for people to be presented with clear cut evidence of something and for them to stubbornly stick with their belief it is not so. If the evidence is sufficently clear, we can only call such a belief delusional.

As an example, Randi, in lecture, is fond of recounting his Tonight show appearance in which he demonstrated the sleight-of-hand behind psychic surgery. The cameras moved in closely as he showed how he had hid the chicken blood and parts in a bag and how he pulled them from his cupped hand to make it appear he was pulling them from the person lying on the table. After the show, the Tonight show people fielded several calls from viewers who asked how they could contact a psychic surgeon so that they could have their tumors removed.

Sorry, Juggler, all belief systems are hardly equivalent and this equivocation simply won't fly.

I find it curious that the skeptics who find it impossible to believe in PSI often find it equally hard to believe that human beings are alone in this Universe.
One wonders if this simply reveals a misunderstanding or a bias or both. Skeptics find it hard to believe in PSI because there is no evidence for it. They also find it hard to believe we are alone because there is every evidence that life is a natural consequence of matter's properties.

Fantastic testimony is useless. You have to be there yourself. Nothing else would suffice to convince me.

It's been a pleasant thread. :)
It depends on the "testimony." Here you seem to again lump things together. I have seen people afire. I don't need to light myself up to know it won't feel good. I don't have to be there myself. I have read about the hows and whys of the bends and diver's narcosis. I don't need to get the bends myself to prove to me it happens.

More generally, this is an extraordinarily self-limiting position to adopt. You need to personally experience everything before you can believe it? You don't have another way? Contrariwise, you seriously want us to believe that everything you think you experience is exactly as you describe it? We've pointed out to you before the contradictions this assertion instantly raises when two eye-witnesses give differing reports. Ooops, there goes the lame epistemology.

8th July 2004, 05:54 AM

Originally posted by flyboy217

It sounds like you somehow "know" that the experimenter effect must be false, and thus that anyone demonstrating it should a priori be accused of incompetence. I'd be curious to know how you arrived at such a dogmatic position.

There does exist an experimenter effect. They found such a thing, good enough. That indicates bad experiment. Now, abscent a clear, repeatable, dependent variable they proceed to manipulate an independent variable to affect it. Somehow this becomes proof of the original dependent variable. They might have systematically altered the proximity of the experimenter to the experiment. I am suggesting that the initial finding shows a lack of competance.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 07:03 AM

Bill

Originally posted by BillHoyt

I'm not sure why you think I (for one) would allow you to reframe things in this contorted way.

This is a forum for debate. I can reframe things however I like, and you are welcome to challenge me. :)

By asserting this is about "belief systems" you equivocate on "belief systems." As with the "faith" equivocations, you squash unfounded belief systems together with founded belief systems. But we know they are not equivalent.

As a technical point, I am an anti-foundationalist. By that I mean that I do not believe there is one single valid way of founding your understanding of the world. Most of the people here are foundationalists of one sort or another - materialists are foundationalists, idealists are foundationalists, Christians are foundationalists. I am instead what is called a "coherentist" - which means I have multiple non-contradictory epistemologies - multiple ways of looking at the world and no single foundation.

Different belief systems are not neccesarily equivalient, no. They have different strengths and weaknesses, different uses. So I am not squashing them together - rather I would argue that no single foundation is on its own sufficent to come to a full picture of the way things are.

We know, in fact, it is possible for people to be presented with clear cut evidence of something and for them to stubbornly stick with their belief it is not so.

We do, yes.

If the evidence is sufficently clear, we can only call such a belief delusional.

If it is sufficiently clear, yes, but I suspect there would be disagreements about whether specific cases were "suffficient".

As an example, Randi, in lecture, is fond of recounting his Tonight show appearance in which he demonstrated the sleight-of-hand behind psychic surgery. The cameras moved in closely as he showed how he had hid the chicken blood and parts in a bag and how he pulled them from his cupped hand to make it appear he was pulling them from the person lying on the table. After the show, the Tonight show people fielded several calls from viewers who asked how they could contact a psychic surgeon so that they could have their tumors removed.

In this case, it is sufficiently clear. Some belief systems are totally absurd. The Scientologists and their theories about "Xemu" are my favourite. However, just because scientologists believe in the absurd, it does not follow that all non-scientific beliefs systems are equally absurd. Lifegazers idealism is absurd. Schopenhauers wasn't. :)

One wonders if this simply reveals a misunderstanding or a bias or both. Skeptics find it hard to believe in PSI because there is no evidence for it.

We are discussing the validity of that claim.

They also find it hard to believe we are alone because there is every evidence that life is a natural consequence of matter's properties.

This sort of view is also open to discussion. There is nothing "clear" about it. You seem to be implying that your way of looking at the world is the only valid one, and I would challenge that.

More generally, this is an extraordinarily self-limiting position to adopt.

Limited by having multiple epistemologies? :confused:

You need to personally experience everything before you can believe it? You don't have another way?

Not everything no. Just things I didn't previously believe in! :)

Contrariwise, you seriously want us to believe that everything you think you experience is exactly as you describe it?

I don't want you to believe anything. I can only describe experiences in words, and words are rarely good enough to do the job anyway.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 07:10 AM

Originally posted by Ed

There does exist an experimenter effect. They found such a thing, good enough. That indicates bad experiment.

Can I ask you how you concluded that this is what it means?

Flyboy pointed out that your reasoning here only seems to make sense if you have decided beforehand that PSI doesn't exist and that therefore any evidence of it indicates fraud or incompetence. If this is not your reasoning, then please explain what your reasoning is. If this is your reasoning, then you are just confirming what we are saying - you have already decided there can be no valid evidence, because PSI doesn't exist!

Now, abscent a clear, repeatable, dependent variable they proceed to manipulate an independent variable to affect it. Somehow this becomes proof of the original dependent variable. They might have systematically altered the proximity of the experimenter to the experiment. I am suggesting that the initial finding shows a lack of competance.

Why should the proximity make any difference? The remote staring was done by video camera. One of the subjects might as well have been on the moon - why should it make a difference?

TheBoyPaj

8th July 2004, 07:36 AM

From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

I also understand that Wiseman and Schlitz were attempting a larger, more collaborative version of this experiment this year. I do not know when it is published.

8th July 2004, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Can I ask you how you concluded that this is what it means?

Ummmm...that's what they said?

Flyboy pointed out that your reasoning here only seems to make sense if you have decided beforehand that PSI doesn't exist and that therefore any evidence of it indicates fraud or incompetence. If this is not your reasoning, then please explain what your reasoning is. If this is your reasoning, then you are just confirming what we are saying - you have already decided there can be no valid evidence, because PSI doesn't exist!

It is unproven therefore using that as variable is building surmise on conjecture. Now, if you are suggesting that the effect truely only occurs when there is a badly designed experiment (i.e. experimenter effect not controlled for) that is a form of special pleading. If you are saying that the Psi effects can only be made manifest in situations that are contrary to normal scientific methods then your findings are trivial. It's sort of like saying "I can guess the coin in your hand but I have to peek". OK, peek away but the result is hardly compelling. It also is building a rather baroque edifice. In essence Psi, then, occurs via mechanisms outside of what we know from science AND it is further influenced by other parties who are observing, who by their very presence are in fact participating. Sounds squirrely to me.

Why should the proximity make any difference? The remote staring was done by video camera. One of the subjects might as well have been on the moon - why should it make a difference?

Don't know, I wasn't there. [/QUOTE]

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 08:10 AM

8th July 2004, 08:11 AM

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

Only you have any evidence of it.

If you read the article properly, you will see that this is extraordinarily unlikely. It is one of the straws I have mentioned before which pseudo-skeptics tend to cling to in order to hang on to their belief system. If you multiply those straw grasps over the entire body of scientific evidence, then there would be a level of deception so poweful and sucessful, and running through so many labs across the world, that that alone would be a phenomenal story in itself!. Of course, there has not been any evidence of cheating or fraud, just supposition. Which is not what skepticism is about, Paj.

TheBoyPaj

8th July 2004, 08:28 AM

So should scientific research all hinge on the honesty of the individual experimenter? Shouldn't there be controls to remove this necessity?

(Mmmmm... prediction coming.....)

8th July 2004, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

I think I have spent most of this thread responding to that claim. Any evidence will be rationalised away, because 99% of people calling themselves "skeptics" are quite certain PSI doesn't exist. You too would have to have a major belief-system reversal in order to be able to accept any evidence as valid. Surely you don't disagree with that?

[/QUOTE]

I think that the term "rationalize away" is a bit glib.

I can only speak for myself but let me address you point.

I consider myself a religious agnostic. In all honesty I do not Know (capitol K) whether or not there is a God. However, based on my assessment of the information to hand I am an atheist. Someone said on these pages long ago that that is called "Atheistic agnosticism". Cool, it even has a name.

When it comes to the paranormal I really in my heart of hearts do not know whether such things exist. However, in practice, I don't subscribe to it. Why? Because it appears to me that obfuscation, carelessness bordering on deception, incompetance, making complicated where simplicity is called for are all characteristics, to a greater or lesser degree, of paranormal research.

As I have mentioned before, paranormal research is the only field of inquiry where, when I begin reading a paper, I ask myself "is this SOB lieing?". The fault lies with the practitioners and proponents. It lies with various credulous people like Luci. The problem is that paranormal research (may I abbreviate this "PR"?) does not behave like other "sciences". From what I have been able to gather, peer review is a joke. Bad research has no consequences, none. Where is Dr. Pons at the moment? Do you know? I sure don't. Where is Dr. Schwartz at the moment? Doing "research" in Arizona. Have proponents disavowed the slimey, manipulative Targ/AIDS experiment? No? Why not?

My experience is that believers/proponents are not after truth, they are after positive results, much like the Creationists, in fact I see little difference between the two.

The negative environment around this stuff is due to the people who are doing the research. A thinking person must be on guard against fraud to an extent that most people do not experience in other areas of their life.

So, "rationalize away"? Hardly.

8th July 2004, 08:54 AM

Let me go further: look at the very first post in this thread. (Pause while all savor the gems of wisdom.) Done? OK.

This is the face of the credulous. This is the mindless cleaving to anything that is "odd". This is the uncritical belief that allows for crap to pass as evidence. If serious proponents of paranormal anythings want to be taken seriously you have to clean up your act. If the problems are not self evident (and I mean the magnitude as well as the ubiquity) then the problem may very well be insurmountable.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Now we are going to have the PSI forum, we should prepare / compile a list of all the evidence / replictions including references and sources.

Given the evidence is now quite positive, and there now beign no mundane, rationale known scientific explanation for the effect.The starting point of the forum should be: The Psi effect exists. Now is the time to move onto applying scepticism to any forthcoming explanations. Not as denial, but as tests of exploration.

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 09:27 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Of course, there has not been any evidence of cheating or fraud, just supposition.

Wrong, as usual: Soal cheated.

"In 'Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research', Betty Markwick, a statistician, revealed early in 1979 the damning facts about Soal that had not been suspected. Aside from changing a few digits when the opportunity arose, it seems he also cleverly managed another simple ruse. Markwick found - after much labor - the places in the logarithm tables where Soals had chosen his digits. Not only had he gotten unforgivably lazy and repeated some series on the lists without properly arriving at them; he also had left spaces in his target list every few digits, into which he inserted 'winning' target digits as the tests were conducted. No one had thought to observe him, and in fact they could not, since according to the rules his list was supposed to be secret until presented for checking. But the evidence was there, for the 'E.D.s' (extra digits) that had been discovered were 'hits' that agreed with Shackleton's guesses. Suddenly, there was no longer any mystery about where these results had come from."
Source: James Randi, Flim Flam, pp.233-234.

"...until statistician Betty Markwick, in her famous paper, "The Soal-Goldney Experiments with Basil Shackleton: New Evidence of Data Manipulation" (Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. 56, May 1978, pages 250-277), gave incontrovertible evidence that Soal had indeed cheated."
Source: Martin Gardner, Science Good Bad and Bogus, p.230

"For example, in the 1950s the London University mathematician Samuel Soal claimed convincing evidence of telepathy with his special subject Basil Shackleton, with odds estimated at 1035 against the effect being due to chance (Soal and Bateman 1954). These results convinced a whole generation of researchers and it took more than thirty years to show that Soal had, in fact, cheated (Markwick 1978). Promising animal precognition experiments were blighted by the discovery of fraud (Rhine 1974)"
Source: Susan Blackmore, "What Can the Paranormal Teach Us About Consciousness?" (http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-03/conciousness.html)

One more myth of yours shot down.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 09:32 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
[B]From what I can tell based on this article (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml) there are some places where the experimenter may have altered the results. Not that I'm saying that this is what happened, but is fraud an example of "experimenter effect"?

No. Fraud is fraud, incompetence is incompetence, and neither are examples of "experimenter effect".

I also understand that Wiseman and Schlitz were attempting a larger, more collaborative version of this experiment this year. I do not know when it is published.

Me neither, but it is precisely the sort of thing this site should be raising awareness of.

:)

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 09:37 AM

Originally posted by Ed
.
In essence Psi, then, occurs via mechanisms outside of what we know from science AND it is further influenced by other parties who are observing, who by their very presence are in fact participating. Sounds squirrely to me.

Squirrelly? :D

Yes, it sounds like just the sort of cop-out a fiendishly clever paranormalist would manufacture to avoid facing the truth! ;)

It also may be a real effect, and the first real evidence of PSI. You can't dismiss something on the grounds it "sounds squirrelly".

8th July 2004, 09:41 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Squirrelly? :D

Yes, it sounds like just the sort of cop-out a fiendishly clever paranormalist would manufacture to avoid facing the truth! ;)

It also may be a real effect, and the first real evidence of PSI. You can't dismiss something on the grounds it "sounds squirrelly".

It happens. Read, if you dare, the convoluted PEAR documents.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 09:45 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Judging from the evidence, sure

E.T. would not be in conflict with scientific knowledge. That's the difference.

According to you, there is no evidence of PSI, and no evidence of aliens. You justify your different beliefs about the likelihood of their existence not on the evidence, but because you say that PSI "is in conflict with scientific knowledge" and that ET isn't. I don't actually see how many forms of PSI (like knowing you are being stared at through a video camera) is in conflict with current scientific knowledge. It is not. It is merely not predicted by current scientific theories, and there is no currently known physical mechanism. I think the real difference is that according to your current understanding of what reality is, and how it works, you cannot imagine how or why such a mechanism should exist. That is different to "being in conflict". Maybe some things, like perpetual motion machines, are in conflict with current science - but not the PSI effects we have been discussing.

Stitch

8th July 2004, 09:53 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Sounds squirrely to me.

<snigger> That's pure class, I can see a sig revison coming on!

Maybe we have found a new term to replace "woo-woo" :D

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 09:54 AM

Originally posted by Ed

As I have mentioned before, paranormal research is the only field of inquiry where, when I begin reading a paper, I ask myself "is this SOB lieing?". The fault lies with the practitioners and proponents.

....and the same is true of religion. But just because the catholic church became an obscene monster does not mean that Christianity itself was always that way, and just because Uri Geller is a transparent fraud does not mean that all PSI researchers are equally fraudulent.

My experience is that believers/proponents are not after truth, they are after positive results....

But don't you think that some of your own responses in this thread indicate that you yourself are only after negative results?

To be truly impartial I think you have to be genuinely prepared to accept the results be they positive or negative.

8th July 2004, 10:15 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

....and the same is true of religion. But just because the catholic church became an obscene monster does not mean that Christianity itself was always that way, and just because Uri Geller is a transparent fraud does not mean that all PSI researchers are equally fraudulent.

So where is Psi? You make it sound that it too is an obscene monster

But don't you think that some of your own responses in this thread indicate that you yourself are only after negative results?

No

To be truly impartial I think you have to be genuinely prepared to accept the results be they positive or negative.

Begs the question. Is the research any good? Did you read my piece about my take of the area? [/B][/QUOTE]

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 10:15 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
According to you, there is no evidence of PSI, and no evidence of aliens.

No, not according to me. There is no evidence of PSI, and there is no evidence of aliens. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
You justify your different beliefs about the likelihood of their existence not on the evidence, but because you say that PSI "is in conflict with scientific knowledge" and that ET isn't. I don't actually see how many forms of PSI (like knowing you are being stared at through a video camera) is in conflict with current scientific knowledge. It is not. It is merely not predicted by current scientific theories, and there is no currently known physical mechanism. I think the real difference is that according to your current understanding of what reality is, and how it works, you cannot imagine how or why such a mechanism should exist. That is different to "being in conflict". Maybe some things, like perpetual motion machines, are in conflict with current science - but not the PSI effects we have been discussing.

You are wrong. Psi is in conflict with scientific knowledge.

If an object can be moved by thought alone, then Newton's laws would be invalid: E.g. objects moving uniformly would not remain in that state of motion. Newton's laws are very solid. We can send satellites in orbit around the globe, we can send planes flying, we can shoot cannonballs with great accuracy.

The law of gravity would be invalid: If an object can be moved by thought alone, a ball would reach different distances, when thrown. It does not.

The gas laws would be invalid: If a gas molecule can be moved by thought alone, we would see an increase in temperature. We do not. We base a lot of industries and technologies on the gas laws. It would be impossible to have a pressure cooker in your kitchen, or get a steam train to run.

Sorry, but you are wrong.

8th July 2004, 10:24 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

we can shoot cannonballs with great accuracy.

The Danish Army still uses cannonballs? No wonder those damn Tundra Mammoths (tm) are running wild.:D

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 10:31 AM

Originally posted by Ed
The Danish Army still uses cannonballs? No wonder those damn Tundra Mammoths (tm) are running wild.:D

Grenades, then! :p

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 11:49 AM

Originally posted by Ed

So where is Psi? You make it sound that it too is an obscene monster

It is monstrous when it is both fraudulent and takes of advantage of peoples ignorance for profit or personal gain. But it is a wide field, and borders on things like genuine science, genuine medicine, genuine spirituality and many other things. I think it is too broad a field to describe it as obscene as a whole.

Begs the question. Is the research any good? Did you read my piece about my take of the area?

I don't really understand why you are questioning the veracity of the research. We have no reason to say "it's no good". You still seem to be pointing the finger for no more reason other than its PSI research and there is a positive result. You cannot just disallow all positive results as "bad science". You have to provide a reason for why you believe the research is no good.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 11:54 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

No, not according to me. There is no evidence of PSI, and there is no evidence of aliens. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact.

Well, no it isn't. It is hotly disputed. Neither you nor I are in a position to offer anything more than an opinion on that question. As you say : according to you there is no evidence. And you cannot argue "anyone who disputes it is a fraud or is incompetent", because that is the same as discounting all positives as fraud and incompetence for no more reason than they are positives and you don't believe PSI exists.

You kind of contradicted yourself there. If it is only according to you then, by definition, it is not a fact. 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact. It is not according to me.

You are wrong. Psi is in conflict with scientific knowledge.

How so?

We are talking about whether or not peoples autonomous nervous system responds when they are being remotely stared at. If it were true, please explain how this conflicts with scientific knowledge. I see no conflict.

If an object can be moved by thought alone, then Newton's laws would be invalid: E.g. objects moving uniformly would not remain in that state of motion. Newton's laws are very solid. We can send satellites in orbit around the globe, we can send planes flying, we can shoot cannonballs with great accuracy.

But we aren't discussing psychokinesis, are we? :confused:

Looks like a strawman argument to me. :)

TheBoyPaj

8th July 2004, 12:05 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
No. Fraud is fraud, incompetence is incompetence, and neither are examples of "experimenter effect".

And how do you tell the difference when there are no controls to prevent either?

8th July 2004, 12:06 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

It is monstrous when it is both fraudulent and takes of advantage of peoples ignorance for profit or personal gain. But it is a wide field, and borders on things like genuine science, genuine medicine, genuine spirituality and many other things. I think it is too broad a field to describe it as obscene as a whole.

I don't really understand why you are questioning the veracity of the research. We have no reason to say "it's no good". You still seem to be pointing the finger for no more reason other than its PSI research and there is a positive result. You cannot just disallow all positive results as "bad science". You have to provide a reason for why you believe the research is no good.

Questionable. I say questionable.

Why? Because it is not conducted as a profession. There is no policing. It also has a history of, ahem, odd findings.

How do I know that a particular piece of research is Targian or not? Can I rely on practitioners to keep people honest and professional? Why? Can you give me any examples where fraudulent research was exposed? If so, what are those researcher doing today?

I have ample reason to find the research suspect. Am I wrong?

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Well, no it isn't. It is hotly disputed.

What are the disputes based on, evidence or opinion?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Neither you nor I are in a position to offer anything more than an opinion on that question. As you say : according to you there is no evidence.

No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that there is no evidence. If you think there is, let's see it.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
And you cannot argue "anyone who disputes it is a fraud or is incompetent", because that is the same as discounting all positives as fraud and incompetence for no more reason than they are positives and you don't believe PSI exists.

What "positives"? Are you talking about evidence? If so, let's see it.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
You kind of contradicted yourself there. If it is only according to you then, by definition, it is not a fact. 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact. It is not according to me.

No, I did not contradict myself, because it was not my stance that it was according to me.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
How so?

We are talking about whether or not peoples autonomous nervous system responds when they are being remotely stared at. If it were true, please explain how this conflicts with scientific knowledge. I see no conflict.

First things first. Please address my examples.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But we aren't discussing psychokinesis, are we? :confused:

Yes, psychokinesis is part of psi.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Looks like a strawman argument to me. :)

Not at all.

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by Ed

Questionable. I say questionable.

Why? Because it is not conducted as a profession.

This is a new argument. Why? The experiments we are talking about were conducted by professionals, Ed. What reason have you to suggest they weren't? It feels like I am being given one reason after another to doubt that it is a genuine result.

There is no policing. It also has a history of, ahem, odd findings.

Again, you cannot dismiss this research because the field of PSI has produced "odd findings". And this particular research was peer reviewed.

How do I know that a particular piece of research is Targian or not? Can I rely on practitioners to keep people honest and professional? Why? Can you give me any examples where fraudulent research was exposed? If so, what are those researcher doing today?

I don't see what any of this has to do with what we are discussing. You are still trying to dismiss the whole field, and not discussing the case in question.

I have ample reason to find the research suspect. Am I wrong?

I think you might be being a little one-sided in your attitude. :)

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

What are the disputes based on, evidence or opinion?

Evidence, CFLarsen. I don't see what is wrong with research we have been discussing. All the reasons being given by you and Ed for dismissing the results are flaky. I am disputing your reasons for dismissing this result, with good reason. You just tried to argue that the result contradicted science, and then backed it up by making an argument about psycho-kinesis, which is not even what we were talking about.

No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that there is no evidence. If you think there is, let's see it.

We are discussing research that has looked for an "experimenter effect" and found it. I think you are looking at the evidence, but not accepting it, and we have discussed the reasons why.

What "positives"? Are you talking about evidence? If so, let's see it.

I am talking about the fact that the same experiment, conducted in the same labs, on the same subjects, by different people, produced different results. The experiment was designed to detect/eliminate precisely this effect, which was why it was carried out by two different people on the same subjects in the same lab. There was a clear positive result, which was even accepted by the skeptic in question, he just hasn't accepted that this is PSI, although he has not explained what else it might be. That is evidence. The scientific method was followed, and it produced a positive result. What is the problem?

First things first. Please address my examples.

Yes, psychokinesis is part of psi.

But the experiments I am giving you as examples of evidence aren't about psychokineses. I have no wish to defend a strawman you have erected. I am perfectly aware that PK contradicts Newton's Laws!

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
So should scientific research all hinge on the honesty of the individual experimenter? Shouldn't there be controls to remove this necessity?

What do you claim is wrong about the controls?

Since you bring the subject up, and I am sure you are not one for double-standards, but: Does your book experiment have any controls? Is it even double blinded? Perhaps you would be good enough to publish yor methodology for peer review, here, in front of skeptics.

CFLarsen

8th July 2004, 02:22 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Evidence, CFLarsen. I don't see what is wrong with research we have been discussing. All the reasons being given by you and Ed for dismissing the results are flaky. I am disputing your reasons for dismissing this result, with good reason. You just tried to argue that the result contradicted science, and then backed it up by making an argument about psycho-kinesis, which is not even what we were talking about.

Bull. Psychokinesis is part of psi. If you have evidence, show it. Don't complain that skeptics are dismissing the evidence, just show the evidence. Let's examine the evidence.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
We are discussing research that has looked for an "experimenter effect" and found it. I think you are looking at the evidence, but not accepting it, and we have discussed the reasons why.

No, that is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the evidence of psi, not the research for psi. I think you are talking around the issue, and not addressing it.

Show the evidence, and let's talk about that.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I am talking about the fact that the same experiment, conducted in the same labs, on the same subjects, by different people, produced different results. The experiment was designed to detect/eliminate precisely this effect, which was why it was carried out by two different people on the same subjects in the same lab. There was a clear positive result, which was even accepted by the skeptic in question, he just hasn't accepted that this is PSI, although he has not explained what else it might be. That is evidence. The scientific method was followed, and it produced a positive result. What is the problem?

The problem is that I don't see any positive evidence of psi in this. Perhaps you can point it out? Not just to me, but to all of humanity.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But the experiments I am giving you as examples of evidence aren't about psychokineses. I have no wish to defend a strawman you have erected. I am perfectly aware that PK contradicts Newton's Laws!

Good! Then, please explain why Newton's laws still are valid, if psi exists.

I have not erected any strawman, I have merely pointed out the consequences if psi existed. Glad to see you agree with that. However, psycho-kinesis is part of psi, no matter what you say.

If you want to defend the evidence of psi, we need to see it first. Would you care to present it?

The onus is on you.

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 02:34 PM

Claus, what on earth is wrong with the Wiseman / Schlitz experiments? :con2:

flyboy217

8th July 2004, 02:42 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Bull. Psychokinesis is part of psi. If you have evidence, show it. Don't complain that skeptics are dismissing the evidence, just show the evidence. Let's examine the evidence.

I don't know if it's on purpose, but you're missing his point entirely. Let me attempt a paraphrase:

Geoff: "Let us discuss the experimenter effect."
Larsen: "Let's talk about psi"
Geoff: "Let's first discuss the experimenter effect"
Larsen: "But PK is part of psi."
Geoff: "I'm not talking about PK. Why are you? I'm talking about the experimenter effect."
Larsen: "I'm telling you, PK is clearly bunk. Therefore all of psi is bunk. Stop avoiding the issue."

etc.

No, that is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the evidence of psi, not the research for psi. I think you are talking around the issue, and not addressing it.

Show the evidence, and let's talk about that.

I think we are discussing the experimenter effect, not some generalized theory of psi that includes PK, which you are for some reason trying to debunk.

The problem is that I don't see any positive evidence of psi in this. Perhaps you can point it out? Not just to me, but to all of humanity.

Good! Then, please explain why Newton's laws still are valid, if psi exists.

Eh? He just said PK contradicts Newton, and that he's not talking about PK. He wants to know why the experimenter effect contradicts science.

I have not erected any strawman, I have merely pointed out the consequences if psi existed. Glad to see you agree with that. However, psycho-kinesis is part of psi, no matter what you say.

If you want to defend the evidence of psi, we need to see it first. Would you care to present it?

The onus is on you.

PK is a strawman. You accuse him of supporting PK, when he has made no such claim.

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 02:44 PM

R.W's M.S.'s All
participants participants participants

Mean 1.94 -.81 .56
Standard deviation (SD) 4.22 4.12 4.33
Correlation (r) -.15 .32 .15
(Corrected for ties)
z score -.58 1.23 .84
p value, two-tailed .56 .22 .39

DISCUSSION

Subjects run by R. W. did not respond differently to stare and non-stare trials. In contrast, participants run by M. S. were significantly more activated in stare than non-stare trials.

http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml

TheBoyPaj

8th July 2004, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
What do you claim is wrong about the controls?

The fact that each experimenter was left alone with the data, unmonitored, after each trial had been completed.

Since you bring the subject up, and I am sure you are not one for double-standards, but: Does your book experiment have any controls? Is it even double blinded? Perhaps you would be good enough to publish yor methodology for peer review, here, in front of skeptics.

Ah! My prediction came true! Truly I have super powers.

But have you forgotten? I have already promised to do this once you have done the same for your magnetic coaster experiment. One thing at a time, Luci.

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 03:03 PM

"[...With a post-doc fellowship from Stanford University, Schlitz teamed up with Stephen LaBerge to study closely the effects of remote staring. They set up their experiment so that in one room a person was being monitored by a video camera, while in another room someone intermittently stared at that person through the video. Thus, the two participants were completely shielded from each other’s sense perception. Again, the person being stared at showed a higher galvanic skin response and greater autonomic nervous activity during the periods when stared at. Overall, there was a statistically significant increase in ANS when people were being stared at.

What made these results even more notable was what happened next. To ensure the validity of her data, Schlitz enrolled the assistance of a skeptical researcher from England, named Richard Wiseman. Following all of the same protocols that Schlitz had, Wiseman did not get any significant results. To see if he had done anything different, Schlitz went to England and did the experiment together with Wiseman. What they found is that the subjects who did the experiment with Schlitz produced significant results, while Wiseman’s did not. These findings were repeated in a second study conducted in Schlitz’ lab in California. Altogether, this has lead Schlitz to postulate that there is a significant "experimenter effect" that is occurring. She believes that it is likely that her own openness and positivity, in contrast to Wiseman’s skepticism, had, in fact, influenced their results. Even the skeptical Wiseman now believes there is something significant going on in the studies, although he is not certain what it is yet. After hearing about the results of their series of experiments, George Leonard coined the term "the Schlitz-Wiseman Effect" to describe how the intentions of the experimenter have a definite influence upon the results. [...]"

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=77&pgtype=1

TheBoyPaj

8th July 2004, 03:07 PM

Yes, I am aware of that. Where is the bit describing the control to stop the experimenter directly altering the data?

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 03:13 PM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

The fact that each experimenter was left alone with the data, unmonitored, after each trial had been completed.

Is that really your skeptical argument? Either Wiseman or Schlitz committed fraud? Have you any rational reason to suppose such a thing? :rolleyes:

"The receivers were run individually. On arriving at the laboratory, each one was met by either R. W. or M. S. Most were run by whichever of the experimenters was free to carry out the session; however, on a few occasions (e.g., when a receiver was a friend or colleague of one of the experimenters) the experimenter would be designated in advance of the trial. Thus most subjects were assigned to experimenters in an opportunistic way, rather than by one that was properly randomized (e.g., via random number tables or the output of a random number generator). The experimenter showed the subject to the receiver's room and explained the purpose of the experiment. Next, the experimenter attached electrodes to the first and third fingers of the participant's nondominant hand and made sure that the RelaxPlus system was correctly monitoring their EDA. The receivers were asked not to move their hand unnecessarily, nor to try to guess when they might be being stared at, but instead to! s! ! imply remain as open as possible to any remote influence. The experimenter entered the receiver's personal data in a computerized database, initiated the recording of EDA, started a stopwatch, and left the receiver's room.

It was important that receivers were not aware of the order of the stare and non-stare trials before the start of the experimental session. For this reason, the list of trial orders was only selected by the experimenter only after he or she had left the receiver's room. The experimenter then went to R. W.'s office, retrieved the folder containing the lists of thai orders, selected any sheet he or she wanted, and proceeded to the sender's room. Two minutes after initiating the recording of the receiver's EDA, the experimenter started to carry out the designated order of stare and non-stare trials; this order was presented to the experimenters in the form of a list. During stare trials, the experimenter quietly directed his/her attention toward the receiver; during non-stare trials the experimenter quietly directed this attention away from the receiver Each trial lasted 30 seconds. Throughout this time the receiver completed the belief-in-psi questionnaire and then read some magazines. All of the magazines were selected to be relatively bland in content in order to minimize possible effects on the receivers' EDA.

On completion of all 32 trials, the experimenter returned to the receiver's room, thanked the participant, and told him or her that feedback of the overall results would be given within the next few weeks. At the end of each experimental day, both experimenters copied that day's data (from their own participants as well as from the other experimenter's participants) onto their own floppy disk. [...] no evidence of any cheating was uncovered during the running of the experiment or analysis of the data. [...]

Experimenter effects and the remote detection of staring.
Wiseman, Richard; Schlitz, Marilyn,
Journal of Parapsychology v61, n3

Lucianarchy

8th July 2004, 03:19 PM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

But have you forgotten? I have already promised to do this once you have done the same for your magnetic coaster experiment. One thing at a time, Luci.

Are you the only one on this forum who doesn't realise that that is an indo' dope-growing joke?! :rolleyes:

Now, about your controls, Paj.

Is it double-blinded?
What other controls do you have in place?
How do we know you are not cheating?

UndercoverElephant

8th July 2004, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Bull. Psychokinesis is part of psi.

Yes, CFL, but not the part I am citing as evidence or trying to defend. :(

If you have evidence, show it. Don't complain that skeptics are dismissing the evidence, just show the evidence. Let's examine the evidence.

I thought I had. :)

The problem is that I don't see any positive evidence of psi in this. Perhaps you can point it out? Not just to me, but to all of humanity.

Why should an identical experiment behave differently depending on who is conducting it? This is a slightly different question. The skeptic involved in the research under discussion accepts a significant result but rejects that it is PSI.

As for "all of humanity", their business is their business. I'm not lifegazer.

Good! Then, please explain why Newton's laws still are valid, if psi exists.

What has newtons laws got to do with the remote staring experiment? :confused:

I have not erected any strawman....

A "strawman" is where somebody creates an easier target than the one on offer and then offers to shoot it down. I presented "evidence" to you, regarding a remote staring experiment. You told me that you couldn't accept the results because "PSI contradicts science". When I asked you why it contradicted science you cited psychokinesis as an example. This is a strawman, because you used PK, which was not being discussed, as a reason for claiming that remote staring experiments contradicted science. You cannot use arguments against PK as a reason for disbelieving remote staring experiments. That is a textbook example of a strawman argument. You aren't responding to my argument. You are arguing against something easier to shoot down, which I wasn't claiming.

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 02:52 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Are you the only one on this forum who doesn't realise that that is an indo' dope-growing joke?! :rolleyes:

So, you did not do any experiments at all? But you still felt the need to encourage people to buy them based on your "results" and advertised a site where they could do just that?

At what point did the humour come in?

Lothian

9th July 2004, 03:14 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

Is that really your skeptical argument? Either Wiseman or Schlitz committed fraud? Have you any rational reason to suppose such a thing? :I don't think he is suggesting Wiseman committed fraud. Wiseman wasn't the person who was able to produce fantastic results, as long as no one was watching.

As long as no one was watching !!!! :D ;)

Lothian

9th July 2004, 03:15 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

At what point did the humour come in? I laugh at all her posts.

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 05:02 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

At what point did the humour come in?

The 'Durban' reference. 'the seeds come from your home town' or something like that.. :rolleyes:

Now, please provide ,as you promised, your methodology regarding your tests.

What are the controls?

Is it double blinded?

Or are you employing 'double standards'. ?

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 05:18 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Is that really your skeptical argument? Either Wiseman or Schlitz committed fraud? Have you any rational reason to suppose such a thing? :rolleyes:

In fact I specifically said that I wasn't saying that. I was just pointing out a flaw in the published protocol. Do you deny it exists?

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 05:29 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

In fact I specifically said that I wasn't saying that. I was just pointing out a flaw in the published protocol. Do you deny it exists?

I don't think it is a reasonable or rational flaw in this case, no.

Are you going to answer the questions about your 'psychic book experiemnt', Paj? It is very relevant as we are discussing these sorts of experiments and the need for controls etc,. As you claim to be a skeptic yourself, and given your very vocal concerns about 'flaws' in experiments, I would be extremely interested to see what sort of methodology you use.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 05:38 AM

JustGeoff,

Psi is a term that covers many phenomena. If you want to argue that there is evidence of a specific phenomenon, like remote viewing, then call it that.

Therefore, when I say "psi contradicts science", then you cannot complain if I take an example like psychokinesis, which is part of psi.

As for the RV video experiment: If we can affect anything - including the nervous system, which works by electricity (remember the poor frogs in class?) - across time and space, then the whole field of physics has to be re-evaluated. How can we know that Ørsted didn't move his compass needle by influencing the electrical current by thought? Why aren't sensitive pacemakers blowing up, when people are on TV? They are being stared at by millions. They should be reduced to quivering blobs of goo. Why doesn't it work then?

I would like to see the actual study. Do you have it handy?

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 05:45 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

I would like to see the actual study. Do you have it handy?

Claus, it is the Wiseman/Schlitz study on remote staring. If you just scroll up a bit, you will see all the references and sources.

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 05:48 AM

I still don't understand how this was a joke:

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Thanks for the coasters Roger. They work just great with wine. and my experiment with plants using the coaster to charge the feeding water is showing quite interesting results!

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
in fact, the results are so good, I recommend other open-minded sceptics buy some and try their own experiments.

http://www.galonja.co.uk/galonja_shop/catalog.asp?g_s_n=crlshop

Looks like a straightforward endorsement based on claims of research success to me.

OK, lets get to my book experiment. You see, the basic protocol has been at the top of the page all along:

I have selected 15 books from my bookshelf. One has been chosen randomly (by computer). Your mission: to guess which of the books I have placed on my computer monitor. You may do this by remote viewing, reading my mind, asking your spirit guide, any and all means are accepted short of breaking into my house. The books are presented here in random order.

So, the computer picks the book. They computer presents the books for selection. In that regard, it is double blind. The computer which presents the books does not know which book is selected (since a separate program does the selecting) and the receiver does not know either.

The only possible way that sensory leakage could occur is if you break into my house to see the book, or it I let it slip in my general communication on the internet or in my day to day life. Short of my remaining incommunicado for the duration of the experiment (8 months now) that is unavoidable, I think.
And of course, there is the issue that I could be lying about the whole thing and there is no book on my monitor.

So, in answer to your question, yes. I do have different standards for my experiment in comparison to the Wiseman test. And you know why? Because, amazing though it may seem, my test is JUST A BIT OF FUN!

It's not serious research. I have no desire for it to be taken seriously. That was never the intention when the protocols were being discussed on this forum all that time ago.

It's not going to be published in a journal. I am not using it as the basis for a "humourous" endorsement of a commercial product. I am not even using it as the basis of an announcement on the effectiveness of PSI. I only publish the results, and an occasional update on the state of those results. Of course, I know I'm not cheating, but if other people don't trust me I don't have a problem with that.

But I have to ask, if you have a problem with this protocol why didn't you complain when it was being designed? In fact, you must have thought it was worth taking part in because you did so. 5 times.
In fact, you only started complaining when you started getting it wrong.

And lastly, as proof that my test is to be trusted, I am willing to invite any certified journalists to come and watch a video tape of me performing my experiment. Now, since that's good enough for you as far as Gary Schwartz is concerned, I assume you are now satisfied that my test is legit?

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 05:52 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
I don't think it is a reasonable or rational flaw in this case, no.

Really? And yet this same perceived flaw was what caused you to call my test "laughably corrupt"?

Amazing.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 06:08 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Psi is a term that covers many phenomena.
If you want to argue that there is evidence of a specific phenomenon, like remote viewing, then call it that.

I have called it that, Claus. There has been nothing ambiguous or unclear about my posts. I am talking about an experiment conducted by Wiseman and Schlitz to detect whether subjects autonomous nervous systems respond to them being stared at via a video link. I really do not know how I could have been any clearer.

As for the RV video experiment: If we can affect anything - including the nervous system, which works by electricity (remember the poor frogs in class?) - across time and space, then the whole field of physics has to be re-evaluated.

Quite possibly some fields of science may have to be re-evaluated if certain types of PSI turn out to be real. That is called scientific progress. What is not true is that the experiment in questions contradicts known science. It simply doesn't. :rolleyes:

How can we know that Ørsted didn't move his compass needle by influencing the electrical current by thought?

Not what is being discussed, Claus. :(

Why aren't sensitive pacemakers blowing up, when people are on TV?

Not what is being discussed, Claus. :(

They are being stared at by millions. They should be reduced to quivering blobs of goo. Why doesn't it work then?

Again, not what is being discussed. Can we stick to the EVIDENCE supplied? You know - the EVIDENCE you asked for and have resolutely ignoring for the past two pages? :rolleyes:

I would like to see the actual study. Do you have it handy? [/B]

No, because I read about in a copy of New Scientist, but I can go have a look for it. Actually, I thought Lucianarchy had already provided a link.

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
I still don't understand how this was a joke:

Originally posted by Beancounter - Location: Durban

I've not been around long enough to spot the hoaxes.

L, is this true? do you have a tendancy to take the p!ss for the fun of it?

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

Not a tendancy. Although, I admit that I did once suggest that Mars was inhabited by giant worms who protected themselves with 'mind rays'. You'd be surprised how many tried to argue against that. Getting back to the subject at hand, perhaps it is synchronistic, but I believe the the seed stock currently undergoing rigorous testing comes from your home town.

BTW, thanks for your comments about your 'experiment'. OK, I see it's a bit of fun now and not to be taken seriously, as the controls are indeed laughably corrupt. BTW, I did not even take your test 5 times, so there's one flaw. If you would like to PM me the details of whoever did so under my name, I'd be more than interested to see them.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 06:11 AM

Here you go :

http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml

:)

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 06:14 AM

I would not like to do that, no.

But, now that you understand my position, can you see how the same things apply to the Wiseman test? To use one of your terms, the individual experimenter has "ownership" of the test (in that they are unmonitored and control all the data for some time). There are no controls to prevent this.

So why is it more credible than my little bit of fun?

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
I would not like to do that, no.

Why not? You have claimed that I took your test five times. I did not. You made the claim, Paj. Please do the courtesy of PMing me the evidence you claim you have.

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 06:36 AM

Then I revise my claim until I am able to examine the IP addresses more thoroughly. Someone claiming to be you took the test 5 times. If you would like to PM me your usual IP I would be happy to let you know more, but I will not send you the IPs.

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 06:39 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
Then I revise my claim until I am able to examine the IP addresses more thoroughly. Someone claiming to be you took the test 5 times. If you would like to PM me your usual IP I would be happy to let you know more, but I will not send you the IPs.

I don't understand why you won't provide me with the IP records of all the applicants who took the test under my name? :con2:

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 06:46 AM

Because, if it turns out that they are not the same person as you (and it is only a user name after all, not your real name) then that would be divulging personal information to a third party. I am not prepared to do that.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 07:36 AM

JustGeoff,

Oh, dear.

You simply don't understand science, do you?

Let me give you a crash course in why science is so successful in describing the world around us:

It all fits.

It all fits together, across different fields. Whatever geology tells us, fits very nicely together with what paleontology tells us. Whatever paleontology tells us, fits very nicely together with what evolution - biology - tells us. From biology to chemistry. From chemistry to physics.

It all fits. It is dependent on the different fields. If a basic finding in one field turns out to be wrong, the consequences spreads out to other fields. One could easily make the claim that science is holistic!

So, if staring can influence the electrical current in our nervous systems, then each and every experiment that has ever been made with electricity has to be re-evaluated. Each and every electrical equipment should function in ways other than expected - and observed.

Ergo, we cannot trust Ørsted's experiment, because he could have influenced the electrical current merely by watching it.

Ergo, we should expect TV anchors to be reduced to a mass of blubber. If one person can make you sweat a bit more by watching you on video, then 50 million watching Barbara Walters should leave her in a puddle.

Yes, the experiment contradicts science. It contradicts what we have discovered about the universe, and how it works.

About the experiment itself and the proclaimed results: Let me add a bit of information that Lucianarchy - characteristically - left out:

Collaborative research by Wiseman and Schlitz (1997) using the same methodology, the same equipment, in the same location, at the same time, drawing participants from the same pool, resulted in evidence of a staring detection effect for Schlitz (a psi believer) but not for Wiseman (a skeptic).
Source (http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-09/staring.html)

Wiseman, on the other hand, in a series of studies (Wiseman and Smith 1994; Wiseman, Smith, Freedman, Wasserman, and Hurst 1995) as well as a study carried out with Schlitz (Wiseman and Schlitz 1997) found no evidence of psychic functioning.
Source (http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-03/stare.html)

In fact, in a recent study using electrodermal measures (Wiseman and Schlitz 1997), Wiseman, a skeptic, found no evidence of psi whereas Schlitz, a believer, found positive and significant effects.
Source (http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-03/stare.html)

The only thing that particular experiment showed, was an experimenter effect. No evidence of any paranormal phenomena was found.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 07:38 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
I don't understand why you won't provide me with the IP records of all the applicants who took the test under my name? :con2:

This is a very good example of how dishonest you are. You demand other people's IP addresses, but refuse to give up your own.

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 07:43 AM

The plot thinnens...

I have a had a look at the records. All 5 attempts were made from the SAME IP address.

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 07:48 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
The plot thinnens...

I have a had a look at the records. All 5 attempts were made from the SAME IP address.

Then definately send me the records of each application.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 07:50 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
The plot thinnens...

I have a had a look at the records. All 5 attempts were made from the SAME IP address.

Oops.....

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 07:55 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
[B]JustGeoff,

Oh, dear.

You simply don't understand science, do you?

Of course Claus, it is that simple. I don't understand science. I wondered how long it would take for that old chestnut to come out. I am looking forward to your explanation of why I don't understand science. :rolleyes:

Let me give you a crash course in why science is so successful in describing the world around us:

It all fits.

It all fits together, across different fields.

Poppycock. That is a myth. It should fit, scientists do their very best to make it fit, but the truth is that it doesn't always fit. Right now both cosmology and particle physics are in crisis precisely because many things seem to currently contradict each other. Last weeks New Scientist carried an article about something called a "pentaquark" which many scientists are being forced to acknowledge the existene of, even though it does not fit..

Having said all that, I am total agreement that the aim must always be that not only science fits, but that science also does not clash with other forms of knowledge.

Whatever geology tells us, fits very nicely together with what paleontology tells us. Whatever paleontology tells us, fits very nicely together with what evolution - biology - tells us. From biology to chemistry. From chemistry to physics.

It all fits.

Apart from when it doesn't! :D

Important progress science is nearly always the result of something turning up which doesn't fit, causing a re-evaluation of something in order to make it fit better.

It is dependent on the different fields. If a basic finding in one field turns out to be wrong, the consequences spreads out to other fields. One could easily make the claim that science is holistic!

This is true, Claus. And it is why I have already said in this thread that people like you find PSI impossible to believe in because it causes a clash with some of the other things you currently believe to be true, because to you PSI doesn't seem to "fit". But what you currently believe to be true may not be 100% correct. I know it looks to you like PSI could not possibly exist. That is why I have accused the skeptics of having already decided all evidence must be fraudulent. You cannot believe any evidence of PSI because you simply do not believe PSI can exist. You claim there is no evidence. The truth is that you would not be able to integrate any evidence into your worldview without something else having to shift. That was my original point, Claus. And guess what, that is why I spent several months on this site trying to explain what else needed to shift in order to make it seem less impossible.

So, if staring can influence the electrical current in our nervous systems, then each and every experiment that has ever been made with electricity has to be re-evaluated. Each and every electrical equipment should function in ways other than expected - and observed.

No, not neccesarily. If the effect is real, we cannot draw any immediate conclusions about the mechanism. It does not immediately imply that electrical theory must change. The mechanism could be something completely unknown to science. QM did not change relativity. Relativity did not change newton. Maybe the possible mechanism behind this effect will not effect existing science. You are jumping to conclusions too easily, because it suits you to do so, because you want to be able to argue that the effect in question is impossible. You are looking for reasons to discount the result.

Ergo, we cannot trust Ørsted's experiment, because he could have influenced the electrical current merely by watching it.

Ergo, we should expect TV anchors to be reduced to a mass of blubber. If one person can make you sweat a bit more by watching you on video, then 50 million watching Barbara Walters should leave her in a puddle.

Yes, the experiment contradicts science. It contradicts what we have discovered about the universe, and how it works.

Who is Orsted? Are you still talking about other experiments, and not the one I am talking about?

Now, why was it again that I don't understand science?

About the experiment itself and the proclaimed results: Let me add a bit of information that Lucianarchy - characteristically - left out:

The only thing that particular experiment showed, was an experimenter effect. No evidence of any paranormal phenomena was found.

Are you accepting the "experimenter effect" exists?

If so, you can move on and discuss what we might imply from the result, instead of going all around the houses trying to manufacture reasons to discount the result.

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 07:59 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Then definately send me the records of each application.

Why? If it's your IP then I can only tell you what you already know. And since you have been claiming credit for the only hit in this series (the first attempt) I assume you accept that they ARE all your IP?

Do you share your computer?

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 08:08 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj

Why? If it's your IP then I can only tell you what you already know. And since you have been claiming credit for the only hit in this series (the first attempt) I assume you accept that they ARE all your IP?

Do you share your computer?

There are other possibilities. Someone who knows my IP could be forging it. Claus Larsen claims to know my IP address, and he is someone who has quite a history of deciept and dishonesty. There is also the possibility that you are, in fact lying. Please send the full records of each attempt to my PM and at least let me analyse them.

BillHoyt

9th July 2004, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

I don't understand why you won't provide me with the IP records of all the applicants who took the test under my name? :con2:
Give us all a break or get some pills for your obtuseness. Sheesh.

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Give us all a break or get some pills for your obtuseness. Sheesh.

Projection noted.

TheBoyPaj

9th July 2004, 08:19 AM

Well, since you probably know your IP adrdess already (go to www.whatismyip.org if not), then this is all the records consist of:

Round 3: *Your IP*
Round 8: *Your IP*
Round 13: *Your IP*
Round 18: *Your IP*
Round 22: *Your IP*

I can also tell you the approximate dates that those rounds took place:

Round 3: 17-18th March
Round 8: 27-28th march
Round 13: 5-6th April
Round 18: 20th-21st April
Round 22: 28th-29th April

If you'd like to have another go at the test now(which I will remove from the records if you wish), I will confirm if the IP used is the same one as you have now.

(And please, nobody else have a go under Luci's name. That would not be funny. :D )

(Just noticed an error in an earlier post of mine. The experiment has been running for 4 months, not 8. Stupid american date formatting)

flyboy217

9th July 2004, 08:21 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
JustGeoff,

Oh, dear.

You simply don't understand science, do you?

Let me give you a crash course in why science is so successful in describing the world around us:

Okay, but first things first. Mr. Larsen, do you have a background in science yourself? Your understanding of it seems to be blatantly wrong. Especially in the RPKP thread, where you simply refuse to accept or understand basic QM.

It all fits.

It all fits together, across different fields. Whatever geology tells us, fits very nicely together with what paleontology tells us. Whatever paleontology tells us, fits very nicely together with what evolution - biology - tells us. From biology to chemistry. From chemistry to physics.

Is that so? QM fits with relativity? How about string theory? The electroweak force with gravity? The point is, at the limits of our understanding, nothing fits together.

It all fits. It is dependent on the different fields. If a basic finding in one field turns out to be wrong, the consequences spreads out to other fields. One could easily make the claim that science is holistic!

So, if staring can influence the electrical current in our nervous systems, then each and every experiment that has ever been made with electricity has to be re-evaluated. Each and every electrical equipment should function in ways other than expected - and observed.

When Einstein refined Newton through special relativity, did everything change? In a sense, yes. Did it topple all of science? No, not really. Did QM, with its "spooky action at a distance" topple the rest of science? No.

Ergo, we cannot trust Ørsted's experiment, because he could have influenced the electrical current merely by watching it.

Who is Ørsted, and why on earth did you bring him uninvited into this thread? Straw man? Please stop with this nonsense, and evaluate the provided evidence.

Ergo, we should expect TV anchors to be reduced to a mass of blubber. If one person can make you sweat a bit more by watching you on video, then 50 million watching Barbara Walters should leave her in a puddle.

Under whose hypothesis? Can you show me where in the paper the authors came to the conclusion that the effect is linear? Have there been studies even trying to measure cumulative effects? Or are you just making this up for your own enjoyment? I strongly suspect the latter. Why would you do that? It is in terribly poor form.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 08:23 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Of course Claus, it is that simple. I don't understand science. I wondered how long it would take for that old chestnut to come out. I am looking forward to your explanation of why I don't understand science. :rolleyes:

I don't think you are.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Poppycock. That is a myth. It should fit, scientists do their very best to make it fit, but the truth is that it doesn't always fit. Right now both cosmology and particle physics are in crisis precisely because many things seem to currently contradict each other. Last weeks New Scientist carried an article about something called a "pentaquark" which many scientists are being forced to acknowledge the existene of, even though it does not fit..

Poppycock. You equate unsolved problems with bombs under the whole structure of science. Neither cosmology or particle physics are "in crisis" - they are constantly developing, constantly finding new evidence.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Having said all that, I am total agreement that the aim must always be that not only science fits, but that science also does not clash with other forms of knowledge.

There you go....

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Important progress science is nearly always the result of something turning up which doesn't fit, causing a re-evaluation of something in order to make it fit better.

Which is the nature of science. But that doesn't mean that science is in crisis. It doesn't mean we cannot rely on it. It is still by far the most convincing method we have.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
This is true, Claus. And it is why I have already said in this thread that people like you find PSI impossible to believe in because it causes a clash with some of the other things you currently believe to be true, because to you PSI doesn't seem to "fit".

No, that is not correct. I have seen no evidence of psi, but I don't find it impossible. There is nothing to "fit"!

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But what you currently believe to be true may not be 100% correct. I know it looks to you like PSI could not possibly exist.

I am still waiting for the evidence to show.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
That is why I have accused the skeptics of having already decided all evidence must be fraudulent. You cannot believe any evidence of PSI because you simply do not believe PSI can exist.

No, that is not my position.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
You claim there is no evidence.

There is none.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
The truth is that you would not be able to integrate any evidence into your worldview without something else having to shift. [b]That was my original point, Claus. And guess what, that is why I spent several months on this site trying to explain what else needed to shift in order to make it seem less impossible.

The truth is that the experiment you pointed to showed no evidence of psi.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
No, not neccesarily. If the effect is real, we cannot draw any immediate conclusions about the mechanism. It does not immediately imply that electrical theory must change. The mechanism could be something completely unknown to science. QM did not change relativity. Relativity did not change newton. Maybe the possible mechanism behind this effect will not effect existing science. You are jumping to conclusions too easily, because it suits you to do so, because you want to be able to argue that the effect in question is impossible. You are looking for reasons to discount the result.

Whoa...if no conclusions about the mechanism can be made, why does this have to be supernatural?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Who is Orsted? Are you still talking about other experiments, and not the one I am talking about?

You've never heard of Ørsted? The discoverer of electromagnetism? And you wonder why I say you don't understand science?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Now, why was it again that I don't understand science?

That's one very good reason.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Are you accepting the "experimenter effect" exists?

Yes, it seems well documented by now. You could also call it "experimenter bias", which, IMO, is a more suitable term.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
If so, you can move on and discuss what we might imply from the result, instead of going all around the houses trying to manufacture reasons to discount the result.

Sure, let's move on: What, in the Wiseman/Schlitz experiment was not due to the experimenter effect? What was so supernatural about it?

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 08:28 AM

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
Well, since you probably know your IP adrdess already (go to www.whatismyip.org if not), then this is all the records consist of:

Round 3: *Your IP*
Round 8: *Your IP*
Round 13: *Your IP*
Round 18: *Your IP*
Round 22: *Your IP*

Then someone is definately forging my IP.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 08:29 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
There are other possibilities. Someone who knows my IP could be forging it.

That is a possibility.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Claus Larsen claims to know my IP address

I do? Where do I claim to know your IP address?

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
and he is someone who has quite a history of deciept and dishonesty.

I challenge you to provide evidence of that.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
There is also the possibility that you are, in fact lying.

Indeed. However, it would be the first time, while you have a long, long history - proven, no less - of lies and deceit.

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Please send the full records of each attempt to my PM and at least let me analyse them.

What's to "analyze"? They are is 5 identical numbers.

Stitch

9th July 2004, 08:32 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy There are other possibilities. Someone who knows my IP could be forging it. Claus Larsen claims to know my IP address, and he is someone who has quite a history of deciept and dishonesty. There is also the possibility that you are, in fact lying. Please send the full records of each attempt to my PM and at least let me analyse them.

Golly, that's bordering on Paranoia.

To start thinking sombody would undertake illegal activity to spoof your IP address, to record 4 false enties on what has already been identified as a "fun" paranormal test website seems a tad far fetched to me. But then again, compared to some of the claims out there, it actually seems quite rational :D

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by flyboy217
Okay, but first things first. Mr. Larsen, do you have a background in science yourself? Your understanding of it seems to be blatantly wrong. Especially in the RPKP thread, where you simply refuse to accept or understand basic QM.

I don't have a background in science. I do not need a background in science to understand it. I did neither refuse to accept basic QM or claim to understand it.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Is that so? QM fits with relativity? How about string theory? The electroweak force with gravity? The point is, at the limits of our understanding, nothing fits together.

That different theories exist does not mean that "nothing fits together". Based on the accumulating evidence, one theory will gain support, while others fade away.

Originally posted by flyboy217
When Einstein refined Newton through special relativity, did everything change? In a sense, yes. Did it topple all of science? No, not really. Did QM, with its "spooky action at a distance" topple the rest of science? No.

And nobody expected it to - because QM and Newtonian physics deal with different levels. On "our" scale, Newton works fine. Once we go sub-atomar (or VERY big), QM kicks in. There is no contradiction, it fits.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Who is Ørsted, and why on earth did you bring him uninvited into this thread? Straw man? Please stop with this nonsense, and evaluate the provided evidence.

Oh, my god. You have never heard of him either. Back to Physics 101 you go.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Under whose hypothesis? Can you show me where in the paper the authors came to the conclusion that the effect is linear? Have there been studies even trying to measure cumulative effects? Or are you just making this up for your own enjoyment? I strongly suspect the latter. Why would you do that? It is in terribly poor form.

No, I am not making it up, I am trying to explain the consequences of the proclaimed results. Of which, I might add, there are none, so the examples are a bit redundant...

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by Stitch
Golly, that's bordering on Paranoia.

Well, now that you mention it...

Originally posted by Stitch
To start thinking sombody would undertake illegal activity to spoof your IP address, to record 4 false enties on what has already been identified as a "fun" paranormal test website seems a tad far fetched to me. But then again, compared to some of the claims out there, it actually seems quite rational :D

The problem for Lucianarchy is that this smashes any attempt he has and will made that his psychic abilities yet again have been proved.

He tried 5 times, failed to produce more than one hit, so there has to be someone out to get him.

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by Stitch

Golly, that's bordering on Paranoia.

Is it? Or is it being sceptical? Claus has claimed that my IP is "very similar" to one he tries to allude is responsible for some stupid anti-Randi psot he dredged up from elsewhere on the 'net, in order to promote a disgraceful smear campaign agaisnt me. (see his Questions For Lucinanarchy' thread) He has also threatened to follow me and my family everywhere we go on the internet. (see the 'Moderation of 'oo' thread under the 'Transition' Forum) I realise that you are new here, Stitch, but Larsen has a dark, disturbing history fanaticism, deception and trying to re-write history which you would be well advised to research further..

Stitch

9th July 2004, 08:42 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

The problem for Lucianarchy is that this smashes any attempt he has and will made that his psychic abilities yet again have been proved.

He tried 5 times, failed to produce more than one hit, so there has to be someone out to get him.

When TheBoyPaj has already said the experiment is "for fun" and is not controlled in what would be considered a reasonable manner, Lucianarchy seems to be taking things way to seriously.

Stitch

9th July 2004, 08:51 AM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

Is it? Or is it being sceptical?

If you had said "Someone who knows my IP could be forging it" and stopped then I would have said that "You don't yet know what has happened, but have proposed a reasonable hypothesis for investigation".

The problem was that you immediately went on to reference CL, suggesting he may be responsible (I may be mis-interpretting, but if that was not your intent, it may have been wise to have started a new paragraph) So before you have determined if the hypothesis holds water, you go on to start drawing conclusions from an un-tested hypothesis. :eek:

I realise that you are new here, Stitch, but Larsen has a dark, disturbing history fanaticism, deception and trying to re-write history which you would be well advised to research further..

An assumption, based no doubt, on my registration date. I have been a lurker for a significant time, but felt no need to register as I wasn't ready to post yet. I am well aware of the history between You and CF (and indeed a few others).

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 09:07 AM

Claus,

You have pretty much demonstrated that what I am saying is correct. For as long as you believed the evidence in question (a positive result for the experimenter effect) was evidence of PSI you tried every fallacious argument in the book in order to discount that evidence, withouth even having read the paper. You didn't need to read it, did you? Because you already knew that if it was evidence of PSI then it must be wrong. But then, when you finally bothered to read the paper and realised the skeptic involved had himself accepted the result but claimed it need not neccesarily be evidence of PSI, there was a miraculous change in attitude. Suddenly, the experiment and the result was not the subject of repeated attempts by you to manufacture reasons to reject it. Suddenly you found yourself able to accept the positive result. All that had changed was the implication of the result. The evidence had not changed. So, if you believe some evidence is evidence of PSI, then you wil manufacture reasons to dismiss it. If you believe the same evidence is not evidence of PSI, then you might accept it. QED, Claus. You aren't looking at the evidence. All you are looking at is the conclusion. Cart before horse. If you think it's evidence of PSI, then you will believe it must be faulty evidence and you will use all sorts of bogus arguments to defend that pre-decided conclusion. Hardly surprising that you don't think any evidence exists, really, is it? :)

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 09:19 AM

CFLarsen,

Now for your post itself :

Poppycock. You equate unsolved problems with bombs under the whole structure of science. Neither cosmology or particle physics are "in crisis" - they are constantly developing, constantly finding new evidence.

The point was that in many areas, things "don't fit". Please stop going off on a tangent.

Which is the nature of science. But that doesn't mean that science is in crisis. It doesn't mean we cannot rely on it. It is still by far the most convincing method we have.

Sure, Claus. Just because science does go through periodic episodes of crisis does not mean it is about to collapse.

I am still waiting for the evidence to show.

But Claus, you just spent the thread discounting perfectly valid evidence of the experimenter effect, for the sole reasons that you thought it implied the existence of PSI. When you didn't think it neccesarily implied this, then you changed your attitude to the evidence. QED, Claus, think about it.

There is none.

That's right Claus, and God does not play dice with the Universe! :D

The truth is that the experiment you pointed to showed no evidence of psi.

We haven't even got to that point in the debate yet!

What do you think it shows evidence of?

Whoa...if no conclusions about the mechanism can be made, why does this have to be supernatural?

Maybe it doesn't, Claus. But it has been fascinating watching your reaction to it when you thought it did. Can you really put your hand on your heart and claim you are being impartial about the evidence, and not changing your attitude to the evidence depending on the conclusion?

You've never heard of Ørsted? The discoverer of electromagnetism? And you wonder why I say you don't understand science?

Claus, I do not need have a detailed knowledge of every significant person in the history of science, in order to understand science.

Yes, it seems well documented by now. You could also call it "experimenter bias", which, IMO, is a more suitable term.

Then the next question is, how could experimenter bias have produced these results?

Sure, let's move on: What, in the Wiseman/Schlitz experiment was not due to the experimenter effect? What was so supernatural about it?

I think we have to understand more about the experimenter effect before we can draw conclusions. Also, the term "supernatural" is a bit misleading. Maybe it is not "supernatural", but rather a natural phenomena currently not understood by science. The question is "why should the beliefs and attitudes of the experimenter have any effect on the results of experiments designed to detect PSI?", agreed?

9th July 2004, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I think we have to understand more about the experimenter effect before we can draw conclusions. Also, the term "supernatural" is a bit misleading. Maybe it is not "supernatural", but rather a natural phenomena currently not understood by science. The question is "why should the beliefs and attitudes of the experimenter have any effect on the results of experiments designed to detect PSI?", agreed? [/B]

I think that any hypothesis concerning this issue is non-falsifiable. That is to say that the experiment cannot be constructed with a modicum of control.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 09:46 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
You have pretty much demonstrated that what I am saying is correct. For as long as you believed the evidence in question (a positive result for the experimenter effect) was evidence of PSI you tried every fallacious argument in the book in order to discount that evidence, withouth even having read the paper. You didn't need to read it, did you? Because you already knew that if it was evidence of PSI then it must be wrong. But then, when you finally bothered to read the paper and realised the skeptic involved had himself accepted the result but claimed it need not neccesarily be evidence of PSI, there was a miraculous change in attitude. Suddenly, the experiment and the result was not the subject of repeated attempts by you to manufacture reasons to reject it. Suddenly you found yourself able to accept the positive result. All that had changed was the implication of the result. The evidence had not changed. So, if you believe some evidence is evidence of PSI, then you wil manufacture reasons to dismiss it. If you believe the same evidence is not evidence of PSI, then you might accept it. QED, Claus. You aren't looking at the evidence. All you are looking at is the conclusion. Cart before horse. If you think it's evidence of PSI, then you will believe it must be faulty evidence and you will use all sorts of bogus arguments to defend that pre-decided conclusion. Hardly surprising that you don't think any evidence exists, really, is it? :)

It is very interesting to see how you can misrepresent things. Oh, well.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
The point was that in many areas, things "don't fit". Please stop going off on a tangent.

Why is an explanation a "tangent"? It is very much on subject.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Sure, Claus. Just because science does go through periodic episodes of crisis does not mean it is about to collapse.

What "crisis" are you talking about? I don't see a lot of desperate scientific wars. Could you be a bit more specific?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But Claus, you just spent the thread discounting perfectly valid evidence of the experimenter effect, for the sole reasons that you thought it implied the existence of PSI. When you didn't think it neccesarily implied this, then you changed your attitude to the evidence. QED, Claus, think about it.

Not at all. I point out that there is no evidence of psi. I have not denied the existence of experimenter bias/effect. You want to mix two things together.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
That's right Claus, and God does not play dice with the Universe! :D

If you claim that there is evidence of psi, let's see it.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
We haven't even got to that point in the debate yet!

No? I thought you wanted to "move on" and discuss the evidence of psi?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
What do you think it shows evidence of?

I have already answered that.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Maybe it doesn't, Claus. But it has been fascinating watching your reaction to it when you thought it did. Can you really put your hand on your heart and claim you are being impartial about the evidence, and not changing your attitude to the evidence depending on the conclusion?

Yes, I can. Now, are you arguing that there is evidence of a supernatural phenomenon or not? Please clarify your position.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Claus, I do not need have a detailed knowledge of every significant person in the history of science, in order to understand science.

No, you don't. But it would be nice if you were aware of one of the most fundamental discoveries in science, and - juuuust perhaps - the name of the man who discovered it. Have you had time to look him up to understand why I say you don't understand science?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Then the next question is, how could experimenter bias have produced these results?

I wasn't there, and I have not seen a very detailed description of the experiment.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I think we have to understand more about the experimenter effect before we can draw conclusions. Also, the term "supernatural" is a bit misleading. Maybe it is not "supernatural", but rather a natural phenomena currently not understood by science. The question is "why should the beliefs and attitudes of the experimenter have any effect on the results of experiments designed to detect PSI?", agreed?

No, I don't agree. That would assume that psi experiments were the only experiments that we would see bias in. We know that experimenter bias/effect also shows up in other experiments, e.g. in placebo experiments.

The experimenter bias/effect has nothing to do with whether it is a supernatural phenomenon that is being investigated.

Let's sum up, to clarify:

What "crisis" are you talking about? I don't see a lot of desperate scientific wars. Could you be a bit more specific?
Do you claim that any evidence of any paranormal phenomenon exists?
If yes, can we see it, so we can discuss it?

9th July 2004, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by Ed

I think that any hypothesis concerning this issue is non-falsifiable. That is to say that the experiment cannot be constructed with a modicum of control.

The point is that the possibility of cheating and experimenter influence appear to me to be confounded. How can you get around that?

flyboy217

9th July 2004, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

I don't have a background in science. I do not need a background in science to understand it. I did neither refuse to accept basic QM or claim to understand it.

Oh, my god. You have never heard of him either. Back to Physics 101 you go.

Let me get this straight Claus. You claim to have no background in science, and don't claim to understand basic QM, but are happy to argue it anyway (in the RPKP thread: "just change ONE zero to a one," a nonsense argument if there ever was one). I was a semifinalist in the US Physics Olympiad, and have published papers in Computer Science which have won awards (e.g. IEEE best paper). I didn't recognize the name of one physicist (btw, over here it's transliterated Oersted) that was suddenly brought up in conversation, and I need to go back to Physics 101? And you're lecturing me about science? I think I'll pass. I don't need lectures from armchair scientists, thanks.

No, I am not making it up, I am trying to explain the consequences of the proclaimed results.

They are being stared at by millions. They should be reduced to quivering blobs of goo.
...
Ergo, we should expect TV anchors to be reduced to a mass of blubber. If one person can make you sweat a bit more by watching you on video, then 50 million watching Barbara Walters should leave her in a puddle.

Yes, you are making this up. If you are not, then please explain where the paper (or indeed anyone but you) suggests that the effects are cumulative.

How do those consequences necessarily follow from the experiment? Do you understand the word "consequence?" Or "necessarily?" If one person watching you can be noticed, then the effect of millions of people watching would necessarily melt you? That's a wild-ass conjecture that nobody but you has proposed. That is the definition of "making it up," Claus. So I repeat: please stop making up nonsense and putting it on us. That is very clearly not what science is about.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 11:10 AM

Originally posted by Ed

I think that any hypothesis concerning this issue is non-falsifiable. That is to say that the experiment cannot be constructed with a modicum of control. [/B]

Why not?

9th July 2004, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Why not?

Very simply, the question will revolve around the definition of proximity and involvement.

At some point proximity and involvement will become inseperable from collusion and fraud. If that is the point where the experimenter effect is made manifest then you have no experiment.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 11:23 AM

Originally posted by flyboy217
Let me get this straight Claus. You claim to have no background in science, and don't claim to understand basic QM, but are happy to argue it anyway (in the RPKP thread: "just change ONE zero to a one," a nonsense argument if there ever was one). I was a semifinalist in the US Physics Olympiad, and have published papers in Computer Science which have won awards (e.g. IEEE best paper). I didn't recognize the name of one physicist (btw, over here it's transliterated Oersted) that was suddenly brought up in conversation, and I need to go back to Physics 101? And you're lecturing me about science? I think I'll pass. I don't need lectures from armchair scientists, thanks.

A semifinalist in the US Physics Olympiad - who has never heard of Ørsted? It isn't merely the name, I also mentioned why he was so famous - but still you didn't recognize him?

Sorry, I am trying to grasp that concept.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Yes, you are making it up.

How do those consequences necessarily follow from the experiment? Do you understand the word "consequence?" Or "necessarily?" If one person watching you can be noticed, then the effect of millions of people watching would necessarily melt you? That's a wild-ass conjecture that nobody but you has proposed. That is the definition of "making it up," Claus. So I repeat: please stop making up nonsense and putting it on us.

What difference does it mean how many people come up with this explanation? Is there some kind of magic number that determines whether an explanation should be considered?

My suggestion was not as "wild-assed" as you want it to look like. First, we know that, in proven physics, the more you do something, the bigger effect. The more energy you put into something, the bigger readout on the meter. Second, I had the Global Consciousness Project in mind, when I suggested it: More people, bigger effect. I could also point to the prayer-by-healing experiements.

Science invites all kinds of explanations. That's what I was trying to do, and I based it not on pure imagination, but on what we know from proven science, as well as on the various explanations from the field of paranormals.

Do you mind if I check your credentials?

9th July 2004, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Do you mind if I check your credentials?

JustGeoff:

Don't be terribly offended. We had a guy here named Grenard who positioned himself as an expert on clinical recording of EEG and such. Turned out he did not understand the distinction between resistance and impedence. He subsequently threw a hissy fit about something or other and stalked off. Point is that his thoughts on electonics were a tad flawed. I am sure you understand. As Waugh said "To understand all is to forgive all". Words to live by.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

What "crisis" are you talking about? I don't see a lot of desperate scientific wars. Could you be a bit more specific?

Who said anything about a war? There's lots of examples. The clash between the current believed age of the Universe and the current believed age of some of the stars is a classic recent example. There are stars in the observable Universe which seem to be older than the Universe itself. This problem is getting worse, not better, because recent Hubble images have thrown up structures in the far distant Universe which appear to be older than they could possibly be, given how old we believe the Universe is and how far away the objects are.

Another example I already gave you : the pentaquark. The first paragraph of last weeks lead article in NS :

"There is something the matter with matter. Around the world, several research groups have reported seeing a particle which does not fit comfortably with our standard picture of matter. As if that wasn't bad enough, the only group of researchers to predict the existence of this particle hold to a picture of physics so radical that most physicists just can't swallow it."

Not at all. I point out that there is no evidence of psi. I have not denied the existence of experimenter bias/effect. You want to mix two things together.

I don't actually. Unlike you, I haven't made my mind up already.

If you claim that there is evidence of psi, let's see it.

For the record, I did not claim there was evidence of PSI. What I claimed was that if such evidence existed, the skeptics would refuse to believe it because they have already decided PSI could not possibly exist - because for the skeptics, PSI "doesn't fit".

No? I thought you wanted to "move on" and discuss the evidence of psi?

I said you could move on, actually. I see little point in discussing the evidence with you, because it is already so obvious that you will reject any line of reasoning or any evidence that supports the existence of PSI. No point in flogging a dead horse, Claus. You are not capable of believing it, so why have the conversation? :D

Yes, I can. Now, are you arguing that there is evidence of a supernatural phenomenon or not? Please clarify your position.

I am not arguing that there is and I am not arguing that there isn't. I am arguing that if there was valid evidence, the skeptics would reject it anyway. If you go back and check my posts, that is what I have been arguing from the start.

No, you don't. But it would be nice if you were aware of one of the most fundamental discoveries in science, and - juuuust perhaps - the name of the man who discovered it.

Claus, this is silly. I have 3 science A-levels, a computer science degree, 20 years of reading New Scientist from one cover to the other and I am just about to go back to University to study cognitive science and philosophy. Science and critical thinking have been a central part of my life.

Have you had time to look him up to understand why I say you don't understand science?

I am perfectly aware of who you are talking about now. And I am aware of the episode of scientific discovery you mention because Kuhn talks about it in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" which I read earlier this year.

No, I don't agree. That would assume that psi experiments were the only experiments that we would see bias in. We know that experimenter bias/effect also shows up in other experiments, e.g. in placebo experiments.

I'm not sure I follow this. First you say PSI experiments were the only ones we see bias in. Then you say it shows up in other experiments. Eh? :confused:

The experimenter bias/effect has nothing to do with whether it is a supernatural phenomenon that is being investigated.

How do you know?

There is a history to this. The paranormalist involved had produced a positive result for this phenomenen, and repeated it. There were then lots of questions asked, and lots of challenges made. In response to the challenges, she asked a skeptic to carry out exactly the same experiment and he got different results. They then refined the experiment further and carried out a new set of tests with both the skeptic and the paranormalist experimenters, and again they got different results. This suggests two things to me. Firstly, that phenomenen does exist, and secondly that whether or not it manifests is dependent on the beliefs and attitude of the person carrying out the experiment. You seem to be arguing that all that has been shown is that the paranormalist was somehow doing the experiment wrong. Yes?

flyboy217

9th July 2004, 11:49 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

A semifinalist in the US Physics Olympiad - who has never heard of Ørsted? It isn't merely the name, I also mentioned why he was so famous - but still you didn't recognize him?

Sorry, I am trying to grasp that concept.

That's right, I did not recognize the name (in that spelling) in this context:

How can we know that Ørsted didn't move his compass needle by influencing the electrical current by thought?

I hope I can be forgiven.

What difference does it mean how many people come up with this explanation? Is there some kind of magic number that determines whether an explanation should be considered?

My suggestion was not as "wild-assed" as you want it to look like. First, we know that, in proven physics, the more you do something, the bigger effect. The more energy you put into something, the bigger readout on the meter. Second, I had the Global Consciousness Project in mind, when I suggested it: More people, bigger effect. I could also point to the prayer-by-healing experiements.

Science invites all kinds of explanations. That's what I was trying to do, and I based it not on pure imagination, but on what we know from proven science, as well as on the various explanations from the field of paranormals.

Let me repeat your quote here:

Ergo, we should expect TV anchors to be reduced to a mass of blubber

Ergo. That means "therefore," implying direct consequence. And you state "we should expect." All this, before even addressing the original result. If you would like to suggest this conclusion, we can examine it carefully. Until then, it sounds like a poor attempt to discredit the original result by attaching an unfounded extrapolation.

Do you mind if I check your credentials?

I do not mind. I can PM you with my personal information, if you will allow me. I would prefer my personal information remain private on internet forums.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 11:53 AM

Originally posted by Ed

Very simply, the question will revolve around the definition of proximity and involvement.

At some point proximity and involvement will become inseperable from collusion and fraud. If that is the point where the experimenter effect is made manifest then you have no experiment.

Ed,

Proximity isn't an issue. The person being stared at is completely isolated from both the starer and from the experimenter. Any proximity close enough to provide direct physical cues destroys the validity of the experiment. There can be no proximity at all because that way there can be no fraud at all. "Collusion" is a bit different. Basically you are saying you don't trust people who are not skeptics to carry out experiments honestly. If that is your position then we cannot progress, because nobody can do anything to prevent you accusing them of cheating.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by Ed

JustGeoff:

Don't be terribly offended. We had a guy here named Grenard who positioned himself as an expert on clinical recording of EEG and such. Turned out he did not understand the distinction between resistance and impedence. He subsequently threw a hissy fit about something or other and stalked off. Point is that his thoughts on electonics were a tad flawed. I am sure you understand. As Waugh said "To understand all is to forgive all". Words to live by.

Ed,

I don't know if you meant this response to be directed at me. I think CFLs post was directed at flyboy. As far as my own scientific credentials are concerned, I would like to think that given the number of and quality of the science-related posts I have made at this site over the previous few years that nobody would seriously question my understanding of science in general. Maybe I'm being a bit hopeful, but who knows?

"To understand all is to forgive all" is a wonderful quote. Perhaps the hardest person of all to forgive is yourself.

:)

Geoff.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 12:07 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Who said anything about a war? There's lots of examples. The clash between the current believed age of the Universe and the current believed age of some of the stars is a classic recent example. There are stars in the observable Universe which seem to be older than the Universe itself. This problem is getting worse, not better, because recent Hubble images have thrown up structures in the far distant Universe which appear to be older than they could possibly be, given how old we believe the Universe is and how far away the objects are.

Another example I already gave you : the pentaquark. The first paragraph of last weeks lead article in NS :

"There is something the matter with matter. Around the world, several research groups have reported seeing a particle which does not fit comfortably with our standard picture of matter. As if that wasn't bad enough, the only group of researchers to predict the existence of this particle hold to a picture of physics so radical that most physicists just can't swallow it."

.........I'm sorry, but I don't see a "crisis" in either of these examples. Can you point them out to me?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I don't actually. Unlike you, I haven't made my mind up already.

I haven't made up my mind at all.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
For the record, I did not claim there was evidence of PSI. What I claimed was that if such evidence existed, the skeptics would refuse to believe it because they have already decided PSI could not possibly exist - because for the skeptics, PSI "doesn't fit".

So, your whole point was not to argue the existence of psi, but to criticize skeptics for imaginary flaws?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I said you could move on, actually. I see little point in discussing the evidence with you, because it is already so obvious that you will reject any line of reasoning or any evidence that supports the existence of PSI. No point in flogging a dead horse, Claus. You are not capable of believing it, so why have the conversation? :D

Hey, don't feel obligated to convince me. Like I use to say, we don't post to each other, we post for those who merely reads. If you feel like there is evidence (and you seem to say there is, because how can you discuss it with me, if there was none?), just present it. Perhaps someone else than me might pop in and say their piece?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I am not arguing that there is and I am not arguing that there isn't. I am arguing that if there was valid evidence, the skeptics would reject it anyway. If you go back and check my posts, that is what I have been arguing from the start.

But that is truly a silly point of view. Why are you here, then? Only to imagine what skeptics think?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
Claus, this is silly. I have 3 science A-levels, a computer science degree, 20 years of reading New Scientist from one cover to the other and I am just about to go back to University to study cognitive science and philosophy. Science and critical thinking have been a central part of my life.

Great! Can I check your credentials, too?

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I am perfectly aware of who you are talking about now. And I am aware of the episode of scientific discovery you mention because Kuhn talks about it in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" which I read earlier this year.

No, that was not it. I was only talking about Ørsted.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
I'm not sure I follow this. First you say PSI experiments were the only ones we see bias in. Then you say it shows up in other experiments. Eh? :confused:

Where do I say that psi experiments are the only ones we see bias in???

Originally posted by JustGeoff
How do you know?

Because we experience it in other fields as well. Real, scientific fields.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
There is a history to this. The paranormalist involved had produced a positive result for this phenomenen, and repeated it. There were then lots of questions asked, and lots of challenges made. In response to the challenges, she asked a skeptic to carry out exactly the same experiment and he got different results. They then refined the experiment further and carried out a new set of tests with both the skeptic and the paranormalist experimenters, and again they got different results. This suggests two things to me. Firstly, that phenomenen does exist, and secondly that whether or not it manifests is dependent on the beliefs and attitude of the person carrying out the experiment. You seem to be arguing that all that has been shown is that the paranormalist was somehow doing the experiment wrong. Yes?

Yes, that's what I am saying: We see a documented case of experimenter bias.

Originally posted by flyboy217
I hope I can be forgiven.

I hope you can convince me that you did not recognize him.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Ergo. That means "therefore," implying direct consequence. And you state "we should expect." All this, before even addressing the original result. If you would like to suggest this conclusion, we can examine it carefully. Until then, it sounds like a poor attempt to discredit the original result by attaching an unfounded extrapolation.

Not at all. Based on the examples I gave you, it would be in conflict with those not to reach that conclusion.

Originally posted by flyboy217
I do not mind. I can PM you with my personal information, if you will allow me. I would prefer my personal information remain private on internet forums.

Of course. I don't PM, though. You can email me at editor@skepticreport.com

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Where do I say that psi experiments are the only ones we see bias in???

You didn't. I misread your post.

You said

No, I don't agree. That would assume that psi experiments were the only experiments that we would see bias in.

and it was a response to :

The question is "why should the beliefs and attitudes of the experimenter have any effect on the results of experiments designed to detect PSI?", agreed?

And I take your point. Why should beliefs and attitudes of the experimenter be having an effect on this particular experiment which is designed to test whether people can tell they are being stared at by a currently unknown mechanism.

Yes, that's what I am saying: We see a documented case of experimenter bias.

But how did you reach that conclusion? You have put the cart before the horse. You have no evidence of experimenter bias, you just don't believe there can be any other explanation for the result. So your conclusion is a result of your belief system (that there can be on other rational explanation, because you don't believe PSI is possible) not a result of an unbiased appraisal of the result itself. Unless somebody can point out where in the experiment the experimenter can influence the result, your argument fails. It cannot rest on your personal conviction that PSI "doesn't fit", and right now that is all that it rests on.

As for what I am doing here, I think it is perfectly valid to try to defend the claim that there is bias within the skeptical community when it comes to evaluating evidence for so-called paranormal phenomena. It is quite legitimate to examine this seperately from a discussion of the phenomena themselves.

CFLarsen

9th July 2004, 01:22 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff
You didn't. I misread your post.

Thank you.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
And I take your point. Why should beliefs and attitudes of the experimenter be having an effect on this particular experiment which is designed to test whether people can tell they are being stared at by a currently unknown mechanism.

Thank you.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
But how did you reach that conclusion? You have put the cart before the horse. You have no evidence of experimenter bias, you just don't believe there can be any other explanation for the result. So your conclusion is a result of your belief system (that there can be on other rational explanation, because you don't believe PSI is possible) not a result of an unbiased appraisal of the result itself. Unless somebody can point out where in the experiment the experimenter can influence the result, your argument fails. It cannot rest on your personal conviction that PSI "doesn't fit", and right now that is all that it rests on.

No, I am not putting any cart before any horse. I am merely applying Occam's Razor here. I am also looking at what both Schlitz and Wiseman concludes.

Neither Schlitz or Wiseman thinks it is due to experimental artifact. Or caused by receivers' cheating. Or caused by experimenter fraud. Or that Schlitz was working with a more "psychically gifted" population than Wiseman was.

In fact, the whole idea was to study the phenomenon:

In conclusion, this study reveals the value of developing collaborative relationships between skeptics and psi proponents. Both authors view this study as an initial step in the investigation of experimenter effects in psi research. Additional experiments would further aid our understanding of such effects.
Source (http://www.hf.caltech.edu/ctt/show212/article2.shtml)

But they don't think it is psi either.

Originally posted by JustGeoff
As for what I am doing here, I think it is perfectly valid to try to defend the claim that there is bias within the skeptical community when it comes to evaluating evidence for so-called paranormal phenomena. It is quite legitimate to examine this seperately from a discussion of the phenomena themselves.

Sure, provided that such bias exists. You have yet to show it.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 02:03 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

No, I am not putting any cart before any horse. I am merely applying Occam's Razor here. I am also looking at what both Schlitz and Wiseman concludes.

Personally, I think this debate will last for eternity anyway. Maybe that is just the way it has to be.

:)

Stitch

9th July 2004, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by JustGeoff

Personally, I think this debate will last for eternity anyway. Maybe that is just the way it has to be.

:)

I think any and all debates of this nature will last for eternity. Some members of both camps will not change their views regardless and some closer to the middle will migrate from one camp to the other and vice versa.

It's all good fun though huh? :D

(I will get enough posts to have my own avatar soon :D )

Lucianarchy

9th July 2004, 04:42 PM

Originally posted by Stitch

An assumption, based no doubt, on my registration date. I have been a lurker for a significant time, but felt no need to register as I wasn't ready to post yet. I am well aware of the history between You and CF (and indeed a few others).

My mistake. It often seems like the forum is host to about 5 archetypes, and a whole draw full of socks. There are obviously a lot of lurkers like yourself judging by the views though. Welcome.

BillHoyt

9th July 2004, 04:52 PM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy

My mistake. It often seems like the forum is host to about 5 archetypes, and a whole draw full of socks. There are obviously a lot of lurkers like yourself judging by the views though. Welcome.

Quick, mama, where's that camera? Isn't that precious? Luci's playing nice, in a back-handed sort of way! Will wonders never cease? Next thing you know, Luci might be rational in a post. Maybe we can even get one honest post out of Luci. And if we do that in a single thread, we've got the hat trick.

This post has been reported. Let's try to avoid unnecessarily ragging on other members and keep the conversation moving along.

UndercoverElephant

9th July 2004, 05:23 PM

Originally posted by Stitch

It's all good fun though huh? :D

Yes. Isn't life wonderful? :D

flyboy217

9th July 2004, 06:35 PM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

I hope you can convince me that you did not recognize him.

:rolleyes: I hope you don't really think I care.

Not at all. Based on the examples I gave you, it would be in conflict with those not to reach that conclusion.

The examples you gave me were based on other psi claims... like the Princeton Noosphere experiment, which we were not discussing. I thought we had agreed to stick to this experiment. As such, it would be imprudent to jump to conclusions about how millions of people watching a person would affect her. As I said, it can make for an interesting topic, but only once we've resolved the one presented to us.

But since you brought it up, I want to mention that I considered the exact same thing (news anchors) before you said it. I've got an idea for an experiment, but I don't want to discuss that until we've discussed the experiment in question. Suffice it to say that I see no reason to conclude that the cumulative effect would turn a person to mush.

Of course. I don't PM, though. You can email me at editor@skepticreport.com

For the record, my email to Claus has provided evidence that, at my time at the University of Michigan, I:

Was affiliated with the Quantum Circuits group, where
I coauthored several (published) papers, one of which won an IEEE Best Paper award
Demonstrated exceptional talent in mathematics

I promised Claus I would dig up my certificates for the US Physics Olympiad upon my next visit home, but hopefully my demonstrated prowess in math competitions and quantum computing will convince him I'm not purposely stalling.

Anyway, I hope to dispel the rumor that only those who fail at math and science are interested in psi and related topics. Indeed, I believe one must acquire a solid reputation in the hard sciences before attempting to undertake research in psi.

CFLarsen

10th July 2004, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by flyboy217
The examples you gave me were based on other psi claims... like the Princeton Noosphere experiment, which we were not discussing. I thought we had agreed to stick to this experiment. As such, it would be imprudent to jump to conclusions about how millions of people watching a person would affect her. As I said, it can make for an interesting topic, but only once we've resolved the one presented to us.

But what's to discuss in the experiment? There is no evidence that people sweat more, just because they are stared at through videos.

...well, yes, if the experimenter believes in psi, but I hope you won't call that evidence of psi.

Originally posted by flyboy217
But since you brought it up, I want to mention that I considered the exact same thing (news anchors) before you said it. I've got an idea for an experiment, but I don't want to discuss that until we've discussed the experiment in question. Suffice it to say that I see no reason to conclude that the cumulative effect would turn a person to mush.

Feel free to open a new thread. Don't let one discussion depend on another, especially not if it is another claim.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Was affiliated with the Quantum Circuits group, where

Tell us more about this group.

Originally posted by flyboy217
I coauthored several (published) papers, one of which won an IEEE Best Paper award

Tell us more about the papers, and the award.

Originally posted by flyboy217
Demonstrated exceptional talent in mathematics

I don't see any evidence of this.

Originally posted by flyboy217
I promised Claus I would dig up my certificates for the US Physics Olympiad upon my next visit home, but hopefully my demonstrated prowess in math competitions and quantum computing will convince him I'm not purposely stalling.

Oh, I'm not. I would just like to see some corresponding evidence. As I understand you, this is impossible?

Originally posted by flyboy217
Anyway, I hope to dispel the rumor that only those who fail at math and science are interested in psi and related topics. Indeed, I believe one must acquire a solid reputation in the hard sciences before attempting to undertake research in psi.

Huh?? Who has spread that rumor? I have never seen that before.

CFLarsen

10th July 2004, 12:21 AM

flyboy217

10th July 2004, 02:06 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen

But what's to discuss in the experiment? There is no evidence that people sweat more, just because they are stared at through videos.

...well, yes, if the experimenter believes in psi, but I hope you won't call that evidence of psi.

Feel free to open a new thread. Don't let one discussion depend on another, especially not if it is another claim.

Feel free to re-read the last page or so. I've spent it trying to explain to you why you shouldn't be bringing in things like anchormen turning to a "mass of blubber" (your quote, not mine). Nice attempt to turn it around on me, though.

Tell us more about this group.

Tell us more about the papers, and the award.

I don't see any evidence of this.

If you want to know more about the group, papers, or award, I've e-mailed you more than sufficient information on all three.

I've even given you ways to externally verify each of them (for my math talent, the name and phone of the math professor whose recommendation I showed you; for my IEEE award, the number (732-465-5853), e-mail (h.zazza@ieee.org), and street address of the award committee; for the Quantum Circuits Group, a link to our homepage).

I don't care to discuss my qualifications further in this thread. If you want to do it by e-mail, let me know.

(Edited for length)

Lucianarchy

10th July 2004, 06:12 AM

Experimenter Expectations - Dr R Sheldrake

requently things turn out just as expected or prophesied, not because of a mysterious knowledge of the future, but because people's behaviour tends to make the prophecy come true. For example, a teacher who predicts that a student will fail may treat the student in ways that make failure more likely, thus fulfilling the original prophecy. The tendency for prophecies to be self fulfilling is well known in the realms of economics, politics and religion. It is also a matter of practical psychology. Various ways of using these powers are the bases of countless self-help books, showing how avoiding negative attitudes and adopting positive ones help to bring about remarkable successes in politics, business and love. Likewise confidence and optimism play an important part in the practice of medicine and healing - and in sports, fighting and many other activities."

http://www.sheldrake.org/experiments/expectations/

Lucianarchy

10th July 2004, 02:49 PM

Claus, would you mind deleting your duplicate post. Thanks.

Lucianarchy

10th July 2004, 02:54 PM

Kennedy, J E & Taddonio, Judith L (1976). Experimenter effects in parapsychological research. Journal of Parapsychology, 40(1), (pp. 1-33)

Abstract

Outlines the types of E effects that occur in parapsychological research. A distinction is drawn between those effects that seem to be mediated by psychological variables and those that result from extrasensory processes. The term "psi experimenter effect" is introduced to refer to unintentional psi which affects experimental outcomes in ways that are directly related to the E's needs, wishes, expectancies, or moods. Several channels for the operation of psi E effects are discussed, as well as numerous studies which support their existence. A review of the literature suggests that E psychokinesis can influence laboratory investigations of psychokinesis and precognition. In addition, psi E effects are indicated in studies showing variations in the Ss' reactions to different Es and in studies involving unintentional psi tasks.

Lucianarchy

10th July 2004, 02:58 PM

'Empirical Evidence for a Non-Classical Experimenter Effect: An Experimental, Double-Blind Investigation of Unconventional Information Transfer' - Journal of Scientific Exploration 11.1

Harald Walach and Stefan Schmidt, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Rehabilitation Psychology, D-79085 Freiburg, Germany

We set up a rigidly controlled, double-blind dowsing experiment with three repetitions to test whether dowsers are able to extract information out of a system in an unconventional way. One hundred and four professional and lay dowsers had to distinguish between randomly distributed, sealed and indistinguishable probes of pure mineral water or parathione, using a one-hand dowsing rod. The subjects were unable, on the whole, to distinguish between the probes better than chance. Performance was significantly negatively correlated with paranormal beliefs. Subjects instructed by one among three blinded experimenters were able to distinguish between the probes significantly better than chance. As we have excluded any conceivable way of leakage of relevant information, we conclude that we found a non-classical experimenter effect.

10th July 2004, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Experimenter Expectations - Dr R Sheldrake

requently things turn out just as expected or prophesied, not because of a mysterious knowledge of the future, but because people's behaviour tends to make the prophecy come true. For example, a teacher who predicts that a student will fail may treat the student in ways that make failure more likely, thus fulfilling the original prophecy. The tendency for prophecies to be self fulfilling is well known in the realms of economics, politics and religion. It is also a matter of practical psychology. Various ways of using these powers are the bases of countless self-help books, showing how avoiding negative attitudes and adopting positive ones help to bring about remarkable successes in politics, business and love. Likewise confidence and optimism play an important part in the practice of medicine and healing - and in sports, fighting and many other activities."

http://www.sheldrake.org/experiments/expectations/

And your interpretation is..........?

10th July 2004, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
Kennedy, J E & Taddonio, Judith L (1976). Experimenter effects in parapsychological research. Journal of Parapsychology, 40(1), (pp. 1-33)

Abstract

Outlines the types of E effects that occur in parapsychological research. A distinction is drawn between those effects that seem to be mediated by psychological variables and those that result from extrasensory processes. The term "psi experimenter effect" is introduced to refer to unintentional psi which affects experimental outcomes in ways that are directly related to the E's needs, wishes, expectancies, or moods. Several channels for the operation of psi E effects are discussed, as well as numerous studies which support their existence. A review of the literature suggests that E psychokinesis can influence laboratory investigations of psychokinesis and precognition. In addition, psi E effects are indicated in studies showing variations in the Ss' reactions to different Es and in studies involving unintentional psi tasks.

And your interpretation is..........?

10th July 2004, 08:09 PM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
'Empirical Evidence for a Non-Classical Experimenter Effect: An Experimental, Double-Blind Investigation of Unconventional Information Transfer' - Journal of Scientific Exploration 11.1

Harald Walach and Stefan Schmidt, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Rehabilitation Psychology, D-79085 Freiburg, Germany

We set up a rigidly controlled, double-blind dowsing experiment with three repetitions to test whether dowsers are able to extract information out of a system in an unconventional way. One hundred and four professional and lay dowsers had to distinguish between randomly distributed, sealed and indistinguishable probes of pure mineral water or parathione, using a one-hand dowsing rod. The subjects were unable, on the whole, to distinguish between the probes better than chance. Performance was significantly negatively correlated with paranormal beliefs. Subjects instructed by one among three blinded experimenters were able to distinguish between the probes significantly better than chance. As we have excluded any conceivable way of leakage of relevant information, we conclude that we found a non-classical experimenter effect.

And your interpretation is..........?

Ratman_tf

10th July 2004, 09:49 PM

So where's this new Psi forum Luci?

CFLarsen

11th July 2004, 08:36 AM

flyboy217,

Who has spread the rumor that only those who fail at math and science are interested in psi and related topics?

Ersby

11th July 2004, 09:15 AM

I think he saud eariler it was a quote from Feynman. But I've read Feynman quite a lot, and I don't recognise it.

flyboy217

11th July 2004, 10:22 AM

Originally posted by CFLarsen
flyboy217,

Who has spread the rumor that only those who fail at math and science are interested in psi and related topics?

Originally posted by Ersby

I think he saud eariler it was a quote from Feynman. But I've read Feynman quite a lot, and I don't recognise it.

Ersby, my previous claim was:

Both Feynman and Hawking are/were fond of claiming that only those who fail at math and science turn to mysticism.

This was one of the quotes I recall reading from Hawking:

If you find theoretical physics and mathematics too hard, you turn to mysticism. I think people who have this idea about mysticism in physics are people who really can't understand the mathematics.

The rumor regarding psi is just the impression I have gotten. Please forgive me if it is wrong--I understand that psi and mysticism are not necessarily related, but often seem to get correlated. I certainly don't claim the rumor as fact.

Anyway, considering that we have strayed pretty far from the topic we were discussing (the remote staring experiment), I'm happy to end this deviation here before we derail it.

Lucianarchy

11th July 2004, 11:18 AM

remote staring

"[...]This model is called Decision Augmentation Theory and holds that people can use their ESP ability to systematically bias decisions toward favorable outcomes. When applied to the vast literature of random number generator experiments where subjects are asked to use their minds to alter the statistical outputs, the analysis strongly favors the ESP over the influence model. In short, these subjects are PSI-mediated statistical opportunists in that the initiate runs to capture locally deviant subsequences form larger unperturbed and unbiased binary sequences. Similar techniques may be applied to future DMILS data. [...]" http://www.hf.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/hnctt/get/show212/10.html?nogifs

Aussie Thinker

11th July 2004, 10:24 PM

JustGeoff,

The “experimenter” effect seems to evoke its own “interpretation” effect depending on our own bias.

When I (and most sceptics it seems) see an experiment that produces the results differently (and positively) according to the experimenters viewpoint/bias I interpret it as a BAD EXPERIMENT..

When you see it you interpret it as an experimenter effect that INFLUENCES the result.

That is WHY we must remove experiments that can have a bias or an “effect”.

The same RV experiments could be done with a machine that measures and reports on any “psi” effect (clamminess/ perspiration etc)

As they stand the experimenters cancel each other out and we have a net NO psi effect.

Important Question for you and Flyboy…

You both seem well versed in science and seem mostly rational..

What was the defining issue/vision/experiment/experience that caused you to give credence to psi/immaterialism/ etc ?

Aussie Thinker

11th July 2004, 10:32 PM

Dang.. double post?

Lucianarchy

12th July 2004, 04:26 AM

Originally posted by Aussie Thinker

That is WHY we must remove experiments that can have a bias or an “effect”.

Since the experimenter effect is well documented and also appears in controlled parapsychology experiments, it actually supports the 'psipothesis'.

Lucianarchy

12th July 2004, 02:55 PM

Latest remote staring experiments

"Scientists have found evidence to suggest we do have a sixth sense and can tell when we are being watched, even through CCTV.

This shows humans could have paranormal powers, say researchers at Germany's Freiberg University.

Dr Stefan Schmidt and his team carried out two experiments a thousand times and believe they have finally proved the reality of the sixth sense."

Telegraph July 2nd 2004
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/printerfriendly.jsp?sectionid=1260&storyid=1561944

UndercoverElephant

12th July 2004, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by Aussie Thinker

The “experimenter” effect seems to evoke its own “interpretation” effect depending on our own bias.

Seems so, yes. We have to be careful here, because there are too many examples from the history of science of clear evidence that was ignored again and again and again because what it appeared to be suggesting was beyond what the scientist in question was capable of believing. The scientist just thinks "that can't be right", and moves on. Often it takes a maverick to believe his own eyes. I am not saying that this is definately what is happening here, but if it is then it wouldn't be the first time. But this is particularly tricky here because the "experimenter effect" could in itself be a prime example of an effect that parapsychologists have been claiming exists for decades. The idea that a persons beliefs and attitude could have an effect on goings-on in the physical world is totally alien to materialistic science, but to many people with in an interest in parapsychology and the like, it is considered common knowledge. So it is hardly surprising that when this effect turns up experimentally, and when further experiments are designed specifically to detect it, and repeatably find it, that people like Lucianarchy and myself claim that scientific evidence of the effect is being ignored. From our POV, there is a case to answer. From the POV of the skeptic, who "knows" PSI is bulls**t, there couldn't possibly be a case to answer - it is a simple case of the experimenter making a mistake (even though the skeptic cannot point out where the mistake/bias occurs). Claus tried to argue that it was 'simply occams razor' to assume experimental error. It doesn't look that way to me. To me, occams razor says that we assume that the experimenter is competent and accept the result. But that is easy for me.

When I (and most sceptics it seems) see an experiment that produces the results differently (and positively) according to the experimenters viewpoint/bias I interpret it as a BAD EXPERIMENT..

When you see it you interpret it as an experimenter effect that INFLUENCES the result.

That is WHY we must remove experiments that can have a bias or an “effect”.

Yes, but unfortunately if you follow this line then if the experimenters beliefs really do influence the outcome of the experiment then you have made it impossible to conduct a scientific experiment to find out! All you are doing is disallowing on principle the specific phenomena that the parapsychologists set out to prove the existence of! It is perfectly understandable that they call foul. If you read any books on "magick", anything by Robert Anton Wilson, any books on eastern/"new age" creative visualisation, then you will discover that this is the meat and vegetables of practical applied "magick". According to these traditions, peoples beliefs, attitudes and thoughts can have far more profound effects on the physical world than altering some statistical outcome of an experiment - it is just the chain of cause-and-effect is hidden from us. None of this actually contradicts science, but to the skeptic it contradicts his "common sense". What is particularly irksome is when the skeptic accuses the parapsychologists of inventing these theories for the specific purpose of escaping scientific scrutiny. Not only are they following the scientific method, but the phenomena in question has not been invented to frustrate the skeptics - knowledge of it is as old as the hills (except, of course, the phenomena doesn't exist ;) ).

The same RV experiments could be done with a machine that measures and reports on any “psi” effect (clamminess/ perspiration etc)

Somebody has to be in charge of the experiment, don't they? If it could be entirely automated then maybe it solves the problem. I wonder why it has not been done.

As they stand the experimenters cancel each other out and we have a net NO psi effect.

Well, since we can't agree on the rules, we can't agree on that conclusion. I think the parapsychologists have a case for saying that there is a psi effect, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for the skeptics to acknowledge it! :D

What was the defining issue/vision/experiment/experience that caused you to give credence to psi/immaterialism/ etc ?

Initially it was finally getting a grip on a number of scientific issues that I had always been told were unrelated, but which I now believe are very much related. This includes QM and the whole Schroedingers cat business, the question of how on earth subjective experiences (qualia) could possibly "arise" from inanimate physical matter (I now see this as being as believable as Jesus Christ "arising" from the dead - it is totally absurd), the question about why something exists instead of nothing, the cosmological anthropic problem (why the Universe appears fine-tuned for our existence), the relationship between mathematical objects and physical existence. Most fundamental of all was the realisation that a principle of dynamic balance and polarity underlies absolutely everything, and the fact that I had to acknowledge that the ancient Taoists managed to come to precisely the same conclusion and encode it in their Yin/Yang symbol without ever lifting a finger to do an experiment. I mean....how did they figure it out?

Subsequently, I experienced things which made the above theorising unneccesary. Interestingly enough given the opening part of this post, my belief system had to change first - it was not until I was completely open to the possibility of paranormal phenomena existing that I experienced paranormal phenomena. As for what happened, it is my policy not to discuss it in public at this site because I do not wish to make claims I cannot back up experimentally. I had no control over what happened to me, and I have no wish to convince any skeptics that what I experienced was real. There is simply no point. As far as they are concerned, I am either lying or mistaken, because as far as they are concerned, there are no paranormal phenomena.

Lucianarchy

12th July 2004, 04:18 PM

That is exactly what happened for me.

Psironically, it was skepticism which enlightened me to the reality of 'psi effects'. The more skeptical I became, the more I discovered that what I had been lead to believe had gaping holes in it. skepticism lead me to do my own research, and not to rely on the skeptic 'party line'.

The nature of the effect seems to be very dependant on conscious belief and a willing connection of interactive relationships between mind and the symbolism in the material.

UndercoverElephant

12th July 2004, 04:39 PM

Originally posted by Lucianarchy
The nature of the effect seems to be very dependant on conscious belief and a willing connection of interactive relationships between mind and the symbolism in the material.

Well phrased. The beliefs and conscious will of those involved is not just another factor - it is absolutely critical.

UndercoverElephant

12th July 2004, 05:00 PM

I think you will find many informed paranormalists will say exactly what we just said, and I think it is quite important. If true, then it means that any person who believes they can prove to skeptics the existence of anything more than borderline, ambiguous paranormal phenomena is destined to fail and Randis money is safe. It also means that any skeptic who would like to live in a world where humanity has "grown out" of its belief in the paranormal is also destined to be disappointed because it's never going to happen.

Aussie Thinker

12th July 2004, 05:17 PM

Justgeoff,

Yes, but unfortunately if you follow this line then if the experimenters beliefs really do influence the outcome of the experiment then you have made it impossible to conduct a scientific experiment to find out! All you are doing is disallowing on principle the specific phenomena that the parapsychologists set out to prove the existence of! It is perfectly understandable that they call foul. If you read any books on "magick", anything by Robert Anton Wilson, any books on eastern/"new age" creative visualisation, then you will discover that this is the meat and vegetables of practical applied "magick". According to these traditions, peoples beliefs, attitudes and thoughts can have far more profound effects on the physical world than altering some statistical outcome of an experiment - it is just the chain of cause-and-effect is hidden from us. None of this actually contradicts science, but to the skeptic it contradicts his "common sense". What is particularly irksome is when the skeptic accuses the parapsychologists of inventing these theories for the specific purpose of escaping scientific scrutiny. Not only are they following the scientific method, but the phenomena in question has not been invented to frustrate the skeptics - knowledge of it is as old as the hills (except, of course, the phenomena doesn't exist).

Such a Catch 22 situation just seems like a complete cop out to sceptics… like Lucianarchy’s.. “You effected the result of my prediction with your “negative” psi.

When the ONLY effect of “psi” seems to raise its head when tested by someone who WANTS to find doesn’t that ring alarm bells for you ?

Somebody has to be in charge of the experiment, don't they? If it could be entirely automated then maybe it solves the problem. I wonder why it has not been done

Because when it is done it produces nothing except random chance.. not very sexy results to report on !

Well, since we can't agree on the rules, we can't agree on that conclusion. I think the parapsychologists have a case for saying that there is a psi effect, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for the skeptics to acknowledge it!

When it is something that can be shown without subjectivity involved we WILL acknowledge it.. when its very existence DEPENDS on subjectivity we will shun it !

Initially it was finally getting a grip on a number of scientific issues that I had always been told were unrelated, but which I now believe are very much related. This includes QM and the whole Schroedingers cat business, the question of how on earth subjective experiences (qualia) could possibly "arise" from inanimate physical matter (I now see this as being as believable as Jesus Christ "arising" from the dead - it is totally absurd), the question about why something exists instead of nothing, the cosmological anthropic problem (why the Universe appears fine-tuned for our existence), the relationship between mathematical objects and physical existence. Most fundamental of all was the realisation that a principle of dynamic balance and polarity underlies absolutely everything, and the fact that I had to acknowledge that the ancient Taoists managed to come to precisely the same conclusion and encode it in their Yin/Yang symbol without ever lifting a finger to do an experiment. I mean....how did they figure it out?

But “balance” is EXACTLY what you would see purely because you exist. Any creature that evolves from a Universe will find that Universe ordered and balanced.

If a Universe existed that was chaos and anti matter then any creature it produced would find it ordered and balanced.

Subsequently, I experienced things which made the above theorising unneccesary. Interestingly enough given the opening part of this post, my belief system had to change first - it was not until I was completely open to the possibility of paranormal phenomena existing that I experienced paranormal phenomena. As for what happened, it is my policy not to discuss it in public at this site because I do not wish to make claims I cannot back up experimentally. I had no control over what happened to me, and I have no wish to convince any skeptics that what I experienced was real. There is simply no point. As far as they are concerned, I am either lying or mistaken, because as far as they are concerned, there are no paranormal phenomena.

Now Geoff.. I asked that particular question for a reason. I often find that people are UNWILLING to give up their “supernatural” experience or are particularly vague about it.

As a sceptic I often think that is from fear of ridicule, unwillingness to examine the experience logically, unwillingness to have the issue examined by others with a critical eye or a need to “hold on” to the experience..

I do not doubt you experienced something which you FULLY believe… but will you accept that it could have been a figment of your own mind ?