Alternative science

[Dcdrac]

http://www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm

This knocks the challenge, i do not agree with it jsut drwaing it to your attention.

[Aepervius]

This guy misunderstand the difference between a challenge (or "bet") and scientific study of a phenomenon. The challenge is about a person showing capability not explainable by current science (identifying 30C homeopthic solution, contacing the dead, dowsing...). It was never about explaining stuff or using scientific method to gather "evidence" of a phenomenon. In other word this guy skew completly the challenging meaning to allow himself to spew some negatif stuff about it.

Furthermore somewhere in the challenge it has been added with the year that no test will be allowed putting somebody's life in danger. And living on water only is a form of brethianarism, which is dangerous to health.

i think the particular site has been disected many time over. You can probably search the forum for it. But IMHO "nothing to see, move along".

[rjh01]

Brief discussion on it here http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=32466

Also see Breatharian Tested - Video (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59245)

[Mojo]

And here: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=49416

[maatorc]

http://www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm
This knocks the challenge. I do not agree with it. Just drawing it to your attention.

Dcdrac -

The site is one of very many which question the rules of the challenge, and compared to others it does not really have much to say. In themselves the rules cannot be grounds to question the challenge, and any such questions at the level of the rules will, as they have all done, on this and other sites, result only in endless and essentially unresolveable verbal dispute.

The real problem with the challenge is much simpler, although a little more subtle, and perhaps a little more difficult to grasp.

This problem is the very principle which governs the actual rules of the challenge. The idea of the challenge within the skeptical tradition of question and doubt is not in question here.

The challenge includes a statement governing the rules of the challenge that cannot be proved or disproved under the rules of the challenge.

The preamble to the twelve rules of the JREF $1m challenge includes the statement "...demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability..."

To be a statement governing the rules of the challenge, this statement must be a proven truth outside the rules of the challenge.

There is no known proof outside the challenge that any person can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability.

Performing an event described by the challenge as, or characterised as, or presumed to be, or claimed to be, a psychic, supernatural, or paranormal event, must not be confused with actually demonstrating any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability, as required by the challenge.

The JREF $1m challenge therefor cannot decide whether or not any person can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability: There is no way it can know, measure, or determine the possession of such an ability by any person.

maatorc.

[Apathia]

Let me get this straight.
Say someone demonstrates his or her marvelous thing. The agreed upon protcols are all met, and there is no sign of trickery?

But what has she done? Has she actually done anything paranormal or supernatural? Could it be she's just used a natural law in odd circumstances?
Who is going to say it was paranormal and therefore worthy of the million?

She's done something alledgedly paranormal? No, that won't do.
She's done something paranormal? No, that won't do.

She's done somthing careful observers and a magician can't explain?
No. that's not the milliom either.

A sticky wicket!

[rjh01]

To win the $1m the applicant and JREF agree on what would constitute protocols that would be a win. This is then a contract. The applicant then does their side of the contract successfully. JREF then does their side by paying the $1m. So far no-one has come close to winning.

This is highly simplified. You will understand it a lot better if you read the rules of the challenge.

What certain other sites say about the $1m challenge has nothing to do with the facts.

[Ashles]

Let me get this straight.
Say someone demonstrates his or her marvelous thing. The agreed upon protcols are all met, and there is no sign of trickery?

But what has she done? Has she actually done anything paranormal or supernatural? Could it be she's just used a natural law in odd circumstances?
Who is going to say it was paranormal and therefore worthy of the million?
That is a common area where people get confused.

It is very simple. There is no judging involved, no decision of who says it is paranormal.

All that matters is... did the person do what was agreed upon?

What will constitute a successful result is agreed upon by the JREF and the claimant before the test ever starts. There is no room for opinion.

Why do people still not understand this?

The wicket is not at all sticky - all anyone has to do is read and nderstand the rules.

If this is still unclear please provide an example of a paranormal claim and we will endeavour to explain using examples.

[Gr8wight]

What will constitute a successful result is agreed upon by the JREF and the claimant before the test ever starts. There is no room for opinion.

Why do people still not understand this?

They do not wish to understand it.

[Apathia]

That is a common area where people get confused.

It is very simple. There is no judging involved, no decision of who says it is paranormal.

All that matters is... did the person do what was agreed upon?

What will constitute a successful result is agreed upon by the JREF and the claimant before the test ever starts. There is no room for opinion.

Why do people still not understand this?

The wicket is not at all sticky - all anyone has to do is read and nderstand the rules.

If this is still unclear please provide an example of a paranormal claim and we will endeavour to explain using examples.

Thanks for the clarity. All long as it's doing a task agreed upon as opposed to something called a "paranormal" or "supernatural event," there's no confusion.
of course the task has to be something unusual.

[rjh01]

The rules are here http://www.randi.org/research/challenge.html

Compare the above with what the alternative science site says and you will see that it is junk.

[Paul2]

Performing an event described by the challenge as, or characterised as, or presumed to be, or claimed to be, a psychic, supernatural, or paranormal event, must not be confused with actually demonstrating any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability, as required by the challenge.

The JREF $1m challenge therefor cannot decide whether or not any person can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability: There is no way it can know, measure, or determine the possession of such an ability by any person.

maatorc.The words you choose to distinguish are only a difference without a distinction. If you perform an event X, you have demonstrated having an ability Y which is necessary for performing event X. If I perform the action of jumping up into the air, I have demonstrated the ability to jump. Same thing.

You're getting too wrapped up in the words.

[Kosop]

I don't think semantics is going to win you the money, having an unexplained ability will.

Look, it is really very very simple. Make something fly using telekenisis. Bring a ghost with you to the trial. Read my mind. Read someone elses mind. Do it under controlled conditions. I show you a card, a person in the other room says what card I showed you and does it over and over.

If anyone, anyone at all, can actually win the challenge, a million bones is not going to be worth their time, it will be what they tip the valet.

Folks who spend their time on here arguing the rules are looking for a loophole. If you walk into the JREF office and physically turn a bowling ball into a cabbage, I daresay they will not quibble much over the testing process.

[Pup]

The words you choose to distinguish are only a difference without a distinction. If you perform an event X, you have demonstrated having an ability Y which is necessary for performing event X. If I perform the action of jumping up into the air, I have demonstrated the ability to jump. Same thing.

Not at all. Let's say that event X is levitating. That would qualify for the challenge. Presumably, ability Y is the power to raise myself from the ground by spiritual means without the use of wires, optical illusions, opposing magnets, or any mundane means, and the test is set up with enough controls in place that the JREF believes no mundane means can possibly be used.

So I levitate, and pass the test. I've performed event X. But I don't have ability Y. What I do have is the ability to invent a new anti-gravitational device which will be considered as mundane as it gets, once I explain how it works.

Still, I'd walk away with the prize money, no problem at all, because I performed event X according to the agreement between me and the JREF, even though I didn't have ability Y.

[maatorc]

Paul2 wrote
[QUOTE]The words you choose to distinguish are only a difference without a distinction.[QUOTE]

Paul2 -
A comment on this comment is that merely quoting a standard dictionery comment on difference and distinction in the difference and distinction between the words 'difference' and 'distinction' is a comment on which one cannot really make a comment.

[QUOTE]If you perform an event X, you have demonstrated having an ability Y which is necessary for performing event X.[QUOTE]
It is not quite a demonstration of an 'ability': One could, for example, be an unidentifiable trickster, and, if the demonstration is accepted, the JREF has no way of knowing if it does demonstrate a psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability. No-one, including the JREF has ever established that any person can demonstrate such an ability. Note that the JREF is not seeking to scientifically establish that anyone can, but is trying to find someone who it will accept as one who can. But such an acceptance by the JREF will not scientifically establish that anyone actually has this ability because it is not scientifically established outside the JREF that anyone has or is capable of having this ability.
The principle on which the challenge rules rest cannot be proved or disproved. The actual rules as such are therefor not an acceptable basis to determine such an ability.

[QUOTE]If I perform the action of jumping up into the air, I have demonstrated the ability to jump. Same thing.[QUOTE]
Yes, you can measure any material event by material means, but there is no known way of measuring immaterial ability, for which there no scientific proof, by material means.

maatorc.

[aggle-rithm]

Yes, you can measure any material event by material means, but there is no known way of measuring immaterial ability, for which there no scientific proof, by material means.

maatorc.

Luckily, the challenge makes no attempt to do this. If someone says they can bend a spoon without touching it, the challenge tests whether they can bend a spoon without touching it.

[Kaarjuus]

What I do have is the ability to invent a new anti-gravitational device which will be considered as mundane as it gets, once I explain how it works.

Still, I'd walk away with the prize money, no problem at all, because I performed event X according to the agreement between me and the JREF, even though I didn't have ability Y.

True. If you manage to make a secret breakthrough in science, you will be able to win the million. If the JREF challenge had existed 110 years ago, Aleksander Popov might have been able to win it.

[Ririon]

True. If you manage to make a secret breakthrough in science, you will be able to win the million. If the JREF challenge had existed 110 years ago, Aleksander Popov might have been able to win it.
For radio transmission? I beg to differ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Popov_%28physicist%29

Popov: I can transfer a signal from this electric box to this other electric box.
Grandpa Randi: Impressive, sure, but isn't that a telegraph?
Popov: No. See: No wires between them!
Grandpa Randi: Cool, but not really paranormal. It doesn't even break any laws of physics that I know of. Go get yourself a patent for it. I might want to invest...

[Paul2]

I concede the diffrence noted above between ability and demonstration, but post #16 still makes the point moot.

[maatorc]

Luckily, the challenge makes no attempt to do this. If someone says they can bend a spoon without touching it, the challenge tests whether they can bend a spoon without touching it.

aggle-rithm -

You are quite right, but that is not what I am talking about.
I am saying the governing principle of the rules of the challenge is false in that the statement: "... demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability..." cannot be proved or disproved under the rules of the challenge because there is no known scientific proof that anyone actually can or is capable of demonstrating such an ability independently of the rules of the challenge.

This means that even if someone does bend spoons without touching them it is not a demonstration of "...a psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability..." because the challenge is incompetant to make such a judgement, although it requires the demonstration to be such an ability.

maatorc.

[drkitten]

You are quite right, but that is not what I am talking about.
I am saying the governing principle of the rules of the challenge is false in that the statement: "... demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability..." cannot be proved or disproved under the rules of the challenge because there is no known scientific proof that anyone actually can or is capable of demonstrating such an ability independently of the rules of the challenge.

The proof doesn't need to be "scientific," for purposes of this challenge.

Specifically, Randi is willing to stipulate up-front that certain categories of abilities are paranormal by definition, and therefore is operating under an ontological framework that accepts, without proof, that certain abilities are "paranormal."

Even under this loose definition, no one has ever been able to demonstrate these abilities.


This means that even if someone does bend spoons without touching them it is not a demonstration of "...a psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability..."

Yes, it is, by stipulation. Now, if this were to actually happen, then there would be a lot of demand for further investigation and replication precisely because a lot of folks would suspect that there was something non-paranormal going on underneath. For Randi (and many of us), that's not a problem -- that's how science works.

But for the specific philosophical question you raise, it's not a problem precisely because Randi's test is a one-sided test. It can demonstrate the existence of a phenomenon that is stipulated to be paranormal; e.g. it errs on the side of acceptance and is more likely to produce a false positive as a result.

The fact that even a test knowingly biased towards a false positive has never been successfully passed argues strongly that the so-called "paranormal" does not exist because it can't even be demonstrated under condition known to be too broadly accepting....

the challenge is incompetant to make such a judgement, although it requires the demonstration to be such an ability.

Not at all. Consider an analogy. Suppose you tell me that you can run the 800m dash in fifty seconds. I, having had some experience at competitive running, consider this unlikely. So I challenge you -- "there's a rock about 400 meters down the road. I'll bet you can't run to there in thirty seconds or less!" I'm actually setting a less stringent test than you claimed -- but if you can't pass my test, you can't pass your claim either, so my challenge is competent to demonstrate that you're not as fast a runner as you claim.

[maatorc]

The proof doesn't need to be "scientific," for purposes of this challenge.
Specifically, Randi is willing to stipulate up-front that certain categories of abilities are paranormal by definition, and therefore is operating under an ontological framework that accepts, without proof, that certain abilities are "paranormal."
Even under this loose definition, no one has ever been able to demonstrate these abilities.
Yes, it is, by stipulation. Now, if this were to actually happen, then there would be a lot of demand for further investigation and replication precisely because a lot of folks would suspect that there was something non-paranormal going on underneath. For Randi (and many of us), that's not a problem -- that's how science works.
But for the specific philosophical question you raise, it's not a problem precisely because Randi's test is a one-sided test. It can demonstrate the existence of a phenomenon that is stipulated to be paranormal; e.g. it errs on the side of acceptance and is more likely to produce a false positive as a result.
The fact that even a test knowingly biased towards a false positive has never been successfully passed argues strongly that the so-called "paranormal" does not exist because it can't even be demonstrated under condition known to be too broadly accepting....
Not at all. Consider an analogy. Suppose you tell me that you can run the 800m dash in fifty seconds. I, having had some experience at competitive running, consider this unlikely. So I challenge you -- "there's a rock about 400 meters down the road. I'll bet you can't run to there in thirty seconds or less!" I'm actually setting a less stringent test than you claimed -- but if you can't pass my test, you can't pass your claim either, so my challenge is competent to demonstrate that you're not as fast a runner as you claim.

drkitten - Rather than diverting this thread from the opening post, I will consider a separate thread on my challenge reservations.
maatorc.