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Azrael 5
2nd May 2007, 03:24 PM
From a poster on Digital Spy(see previous topic)this post.Maybe some on here can offer skepticism/insights or just the truth for the claims referenced.
The Kulagina cine film (Journal of phsyics) of a woman who has been X-rayed for hidden objects of a housewife from Leningrad moving a compass by waving her hand over it.
Magician/skeptic Harry Price's own lab test investigation into a girl who could make a light bulb that was supended within a glycerine bubble flash on and off. (Steiger -Your Sixth Sense.)
JB Rhine of Duke University, Carolina who investigated a gambler who claimed to be able to predict dice throws. In one test of 6,744 throws dice he beat chance by over a billion to one. After twenty five years of further carefully controlled studies into telekinesis he concluded 'the mind does have a force that can affect physical matter directly.' He concluded that the weight of evidence in favour of of Psychokinesis was so great that 'merely to repeat PK tests with the single objective of finding more evidence of the PK effect itself should be an unthinkable waste of time.' Incidentally elements of his data collection were challenged, but generally these only corroborated the way in which the mind seemed to influence results (e.g. the more bored the subject was the worse they performed) and no fraud was alleged.
Chauvin and Genthon achieved scores of a billion to one against chance in a test on schoolboys set the task of either accelerating or slowing down Geiger counter blips produced by uranium nitrate. (This was chosen because of the random way in which it worked.)
Helmut Schmidt at Duke University used the same principle to design a random light switching machine, his subjects were instructed to influnce the direction of the lights. In thirty two thousand trials his subjects managed to do this with odds of 10 million to 1 against chance.

If you want to look into a very strictly controlled study check out Genady Sergeyev a neurophysiologist from the Utomskii Institute in Lenigrad who studied a woman called Nelya Mikhailova who was reputed to be able to move objects with her mind alone. A raw egg was broken into a saline solution in an aquarium six feet from her and with cameras recording every second, Nelya struggled to separate the white of the egg from the yolk and move the two apart-an act that nobody could ever attribute to hidden strings or magnets.' She was strapped to an electroencephalograph and cardiac harness in a physiology lab.
'While the demionstration was taking place, her EEG showed intense emotional excitement...the pulse soared to 240 beats a minute, four times its normal level, and high percentages of blood sugar wee recorded together with other bendocrinal disturbances all characteristic of a stress reaction. The test last thirty minutes and during this time Nelya lost over two pounds in weight.' Lots of other stuff happened to instruments in the lab at the same time, and they did other tests on her as well, but you will have to look into them yourself I'm afraid.
I could offer other studies if you really want me to, but I'm a little tired myself right now. Post #161
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=570273&page=7&pp=25

On face value it all sounds liek the very evidence all skeptics seek.:confused:

I have some results from a forum search,should have searched first!!

John Jackson
2nd May 2007, 04:00 PM
I'm not familiar with those Russian studies but I wouldn't place too much weight on them - and they seem a tad far-fetched. Are the studies available to view from a scientificly-reviewed source for example?

RB Rhine did get some amazing results (although not without criticism) but he suffered the same fate as all parapsychologists before and since: he never managed to replicate his results either with the same participants or in repeat experiments with other participants.

A keystone of science is that its findings are replicable. This stands to reason. If something is real then it shouldn't matter who the participant is or who is doing the measuring/testing.

(Serious) parapsychology is unique amongst the sciences in that it has never produced a single reproducible experimental result (!)

Now we know why we have to have an 'open-mind' to accept these things. http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/496246391741e1d69.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=5502)

Ask for sources of the info and ask whether the results have ever been replicated - and if so, ask for those sources.

Azrael 5
2nd May 2007, 04:05 PM
He got the information from a book something to so with Human animals or something..aah Lyall Watson's "Supernature".So he isn't coming up with his own info.I don't even think he knows Nina Kuligina has an alter ego!

I have asked for study references.It's a long and drawn out thread that is going nowhere really;not when likes of Faeden post in it.

John Jackson
2nd May 2007, 04:24 PM
A book!! :eek:

Must be true then. :D

Gord_in_Toronto
2nd May 2007, 05:44 PM
Well for one "JB Rhine of Duke University" has been completely and utterly discredited. The rest I would take with a homeopathic pinch of salt.

T'ai Chi
2nd May 2007, 06:54 PM
(Serious) parapsychology is unique amongst the sciences in that it has never produced a single reproducible experimental result (!)


Which is infinitely better than areas of science that have no experimental results, ie. string theory.

Czarcasm
2nd May 2007, 06:56 PM
Which is infinitely better than areas of science that have no experimental results, ie. string theory.

So you think that having a theory that has been proven wrong over and over again is better than having a theory that hasn't been tested yet? How silly.

T'ai Chi
2nd May 2007, 08:22 PM
It looks like Ganzfeld studies are pretty robust. :)

Czarcasm
2nd May 2007, 09:57 PM
It looks like Ganzfeld studies are pretty robust. :)

They have large muscles? They taste good? What do you mean by "robust"?

Ersby
3rd May 2007, 12:35 AM
Magician/skeptic Harry Price's


Harry Price was a skeptic?!

Is this the same one who investigated Borley Rectory, or is there another one?

sophia8
3rd May 2007, 02:46 AM
Harry Price was a skeptic?!

Is this the same one who investigated Borley Rectory, or is there another one?Yup - it's the same Harry Price (http://www.harryprice.co.uk/). Although he was a lifetime student and fan of stage magic and spent much of his early career testing and debunking mediums, he seems to have continued to be a believer in all things paranormal, establishing a code of practice for psychics and even faking some of the 'poltergeist' activity at Borley Rectory.