Dawkins' Enemies of Reason [Archive]

Explorer

14th August 2007, 12:26 AM

Not bad entertainment, and the mild mannered Dawkins doing his bit for science, which is all for the good.

However, two points. The blind bat example of an original belief that this animal's method of dodging obstacles whilst flying was a paranormal effect, was actually a very good example of how scientific methodology can in a stroke, turn the paranormal, into the normal. This point has been debated on this board before, but rarely recognised, at least from the posts that I have seen before.

Secondly, I thought the dowsing tests were scientifically flawed and consequently, absolutely meaningless. It wasn't made clear at the outset whether or not the participant dowsers had a successful record of "sensing" or "divining" water contained in plastic bottles hidden in a series of polythene buckets, above ground. Dowsers you see, are no different to most of us, they are not experts in designing a correct applied scientific methodology to a test. Why should they be? Unless they are experienced experimental scientists first, and dowsers, second.

At the end of the test, with the inevitable result that the success rate was no better than random guesswork, the dowsers were flabbergasted, and unable to articulate the reason for their failure, apart from the chap who said that his god abandoned him for the day, so that particular clip had to be included for the writer of "TGD."

In previous threads on dowsing, I have made some suggestions for an improved test, principally in the field, rather than using bottles and plastic buckets inside a tent, with onlookers standing in the entrance holding their cups of coffee in close proximity to the test.

Dowsing may be like the bat phenomenon, or the bird migratory instinct. We may have some ability to sense underground running water, which was a survival tool in our ancient past. Or not, of course, but I am afraid that the test in the programme did not add to the scientific debate on this subject in any way.

Diabolos

14th August 2007, 01:09 AM

I thought the dowsing tests were scientifically flawed and consequently, absolutely meaningless. It wasn't made clear at the outset whether or not the participant dowsers had a successful record of "sensing" or "divining" water contained in plastic bottles hidden in a series of polythene buckets, above ground.
It's possible that they were given a "practice run", knowing where the water was, so they can satisfy themselves that their "equipment" and conditions are all working, but was edited out of the final cut.

Given that the experiment appeared to be conducted by Prof. Chris French, a well-known investigator and sceptic of paranormal events, I expect the experiment was probably more rigorous than we saw on the show.

Maybe someone fancies emailing him to ask? mailto:c.french@gold.ac.uk

Shaun from Scotland

14th August 2007, 01:16 AM

I had to laugh at the astrolger from the newspaper (the name of which escapes me) who was being pressed to actually explain how Astrology works. It was obvious that even he knew it was utter cack. "Your'e looking for a mechanism aren't you?"

I had to not laugh...............

The spiritualist didn't come over any better.

All in all, a good shoeing for wooing!!

Explorer

14th August 2007, 01:19 AM

It's possible that they were given a "practice run", knowing where the water was, so they can satisfy themselves that their "equipment" and conditions are all working, but was edited out of the final cut.

Given that the experiment appeared to be conducted by Prof. Chris French, a well-known investigator and sceptic of paranormal events, I expect the experiment was probably more rigorous than we saw on the show.

Maybe someone fancies emailing him to ask? mailto:c.french@gold.ac.uk

OK, I'll do it, and report back with hopefully a lot more detail.

Thing

14th August 2007, 01:27 AM

Neil Spencer, the Observer's pet idiot got an inept pre-emptive hit in on Sunday:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2146775,00.html

Evidently hoping to prove astrologers are know-nothings, Dawkins' interview started with a lengthy grilling about astronomy - the precession of the equinoxes, sidereal and tropical zodiacs, Kuiper Belt objects. There was the usual objection to astrology dividing people into 12 Sun signs, and my usual reply: that's eight more than the Myers-Briggs personality test used by commerce. Actually, astrology's basic personality types number 1,728.
Idiot.

andyandy

14th August 2007, 02:28 AM

Secondly, I thought the dowsing tests were scientifically flawed and consequently, absolutely meaningless. .

where was the scientific flaw? It was double blinded, and significance could have been determined by a simple binomial model.

It was, if i remember, a choice of 1 from 12 repeated three times, so we could use

The probability of 0 =

$ {3 \choose 0 }(\frac{11}{12})^3 = 0.77

the probability of 1 =

$ {3 \choose 1 } (\frac{11}{12})^2 (\frac{1}{12})^1 = 0.21

the probability of 2 =

$ {3 \choose 2 } (\frac{11}{12})^1 (\frac{1}{12})^2 = 0.019

the probability of 3=

$ {3 \choose 3 } (\frac{1}{12})^3 = 0.001

So for any significance on any particular trial you'd need p(>1) = 0.02

(but this is for individual trials, of course if you were testing 50 dowsers in one go you could expect someone to get this by chance)

Explorer

14th August 2007, 02:37 AM

where was the scientific flaw? It was double blinded, and significance could have been determined by a simple binomial model.

It was, if i remember, a choice of 1 from 12 repeated three times, so we could use

The probability of 0 =

$ {3 \choose 0 }(\frac{11}{12})^3 = 0.77

the probability of 1 =

$ {3 \choose 1 } (\frac{11}{12})^2 (\frac{1}{12})^1 = 0.21

the probability of 2 =

$ {3 \choose 2 } (\frac{11}{12})^1 (\frac{1}{12})^2 = 0.019

the probability of 3=

$ {3 \choose 3 } (\frac{1}{12})^3 = 0.001

So for any significance on any particular trial you'd need p(>1) = 0.02

(but this is for individual trials, of course if you were testing 50 dowsers in one go you could expect someone to get this by chance)

You have missed the point Andy. I was not querying the applied maths, only the applied scientific method of the test, which in my view was flawed.

I have e-mailed Professor French with my points and invited him to reply. If he does, I will will post both my and his e-mails for your scrutiny.

Mid

14th August 2007, 02:43 AM

Neil Spencer, the Observer's pet idiot got an inept pre-emptive hit in on Sunday:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2146775,00.html

Idiot.

It's slightly ammusing that he gets the order the programs were going to be broadcast in the wrong way round though:

In the first programme, he attempts to debunk alternative medicine, in the other to rubbish the ideas of astrologers, channellers and other so-called 'New Age' types.

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 03:08 AM

Like explorer I thought the Enemies of Reason was good entertainment. As a show investigating examples of personal belief and delusion it was great. It showed how deluded people fail to use their powers of reason in various circumstances and when presented with certain questions. But a critical examination of controversial topics it was not.

The main criticism I have is that Dawkins choses the weakest of targets.
The "psychic" who gave him a reading was hilarious, complete with Shirley Ghostman vernacular. They must be two a penny at those new age fairs. And it was disappointing, to say the least, that dowsing was the subject of the controlled test, probably using a handful of dowsers pulled from the new age fair seen earlier.

If one of the points of this show was to critically examine the phenomena of "psychic ability" then why didn't he and Chris French spend Channel 4's money to go and see Edwin May and Joseph McMoneagle who might have been happy to give the TV crew a number of demonstration attempts at remote viewing?

I also thought the converstation between Dawkins and Satish Kumar was marred by communication problems. It seemed their language differences were getting in the way of understand what each were talking about. For example, when addressing his audience Kumar says "I was present the entire history of evolution". In reply to that statement I get the feeling that Dawkins would fail to examine the merits of a philosophical switch to mental monism but rather examine the merits of Kumars statement from within scientific materialism where he is bound to find contradiction. I don't think Kumar understood how greatly Dawkins is entrenched in his own metaphysics.

Darat

14th August 2007, 03:18 AM

andyandy

14th August 2007, 03:19 AM

You have missed the point Andy. I was not querying the applied maths, only the applied scientific method of the test, which in my view was flawed.

I have e-mailed Professor French with my points and invited him to reply. If he does, I will will post both my and his e-mails for your scrutiny.

ok, then what aspect do you regard as flawed in the scientific method?

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 03:22 AM

Like explorer I thought the Enemies of Reason was good entertainment. As a show investigating examples of personal belief and delusion it was great. It showed how deluded people fail to use their powers of reason in various circumstances and when presented with certain questions. But a critical examination of controversial topics it was not.

What would be?

The main criticism I have is that Dawkins choses the weakest of targets.
The "psychic" who gave him a reading was hilarious, complete with Shirley Ghostman vernacular. They must be two a penny at those new age fairs. And it was disappointing, to say the least, that dowsing was the subject of the controlled test, probably using a handful of dowsers pulled from the new age fair seen earlier.

I don't see any difference in psychics, regardless of where they are. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to share it.

If one of the points of this show was to critically examine the phenomena of "psychic ability" then why didn't he and Chris French spend Channel 4's money to go and see Edwin May and Joseph McMoneagle who might have been happy to give the TV crew a number of demonstration attempts at remote viewing?

Why don't May and McMoneagle offer to do this, in general?

I also thought the converstation between Dawkins and Satish Kumar was marred by communication problems. It seemed their language differences were getting in the way of understand what each were talking about. For example, when addressing his audience Kumar says "I was present the entire history of evolution". In reply to that statement I get the feeling that Dawkins would fail to examine the merits of a philosophical switch to mental monism but rather examine the merits of Kumars statement from within scientific materialism where he is bound to find contradiction. I don't think Kumar understood how greatly Dawkins is entrenched in his own metaphysics.

"Entrenched"? What do you mean by that?

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 03:35 AM

What would be?

A show that is balanced. Enemies wasn't in this respect. Perhaps it wasn't the intention to be so.

I don't see any difference in psychics, regardless of where they are. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to share it.

I did. I asked why Dawkins and Chris French did not use Channel 4's money to go and see Edwin May and Joseph McMoneagle who have already claimed evidence of remote viewing. Instead Dawkins chooses to go to a local psychic deulsion fair. Thats fine if you want to demonstrate how people can be deluded, which he did very well. But if you want to critically examine the alledged phenomena then I think its common sense to go to the best looking claim.

Why didn't they do that?

Why don't May and McMoneagle offer to do this, in general?

I don't know

"Entrenched"? What do you mean by that?

I think he finds it difficult to look at issues of "spirituality" from a different metaphysical perspective.

Darat

14th August 2007, 03:46 AM

A show that is balanced. Enemies wasn't in this respect. Perhaps it wasn't the intention to be so.

What do you mean by "balance" in this context?

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 03:50 AM

A show that is balanced. Enemies wasn't in this respect. Perhaps it wasn't the intention to be so.

Why does it have to be "balanced"? We sure don't see "balance" on shows that promote superstition.

I did.

Where?

I asked why Dawkins and Chris French did not use Channel 4's money to go and see Edwin May and Joseph McMoneagle who have already claimed evidence of remote viewing. Instead Dawkins chooses to go to a local psychic deulsion fair. Thats fine if you want to demonstrate how people can be deluded, which he did very well. But if you want to critically examine the alledged phenomena then I think its common sense to go to the best looking claim.

Why didn't they do that?

You will have to demonstrate the difference between what you correctly call "delusion" and what May and McMoneagle do.

I don't know

Why is that Dawkins' problem?

I think he finds it difficult to look at issues of "spirituality" from a different metaphysical perspective.

I think Dawkins understand the different " metaphysical perspectives" just fine.

SusanB-M1

14th August 2007, 04:05 AM

Just watched the first episode....it was good stuff.

anyone else catch it?
Wouldn't miss it - very good programme. I went to the BBC MBs this morning to see comments there but couldn't find any so I'll be poised with fingers on keyboard as soon as they appear!

Like explorer I thought the Enemies of Reason was good entertainment. As a show investigating examples of personal belief and delusion it was great. It showed how deluded people fail to use their powers of reason in various circumstances and when presented with certain questions. But a critical examination of controversial topics it was not.
I think on the contrary that because he gave all his interviewees plenty of time to say what they wanted and then relied on viewers to make up their minds, he was providing very adequate balance.

Explorer

14th August 2007, 04:07 AM

ok, then what aspect do you regard as flawed in the scientific method?

The conditions of the tests were not ideal, for starters. Dowsers attempting to "sense" water inside a tent where an onlooker was standing in the doorway with a cup of fluid, presumably, tea or coffee near to their lips, does not suggest good controlled experimental conditions.

More importantly, and I am awaiting confirmation on this from the professor who supervised and presumably designed the test, did the participant dowsers have a successful track record of "sensing" or "divining" water in plastic bottles, hidden inside polythene buckets, most notably above ground? If they had in the past, then indeed this would be a good test for them, but I suspect that they hadn't.

If not, then perhaps the dowsers were simply invited to try the test for the sake of the TV programme. If they agreed to this, then did they as individuals, all believe that the test was representative of their skills successfully demonstrated in the field. Or, as was said above, were they were a just a few casual amateurs grabbed from the deluded in the fair depicted in the programme. Again I am awaiting confirmation on all these points from the professor. Let us be patient!

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 04:09 AM

What do you mean by "balance" in this context?

If Dawkins is claiming that the subject matter of "psychic clairvoyance" is delusion rather than demonstrating that there are many people who are deluded as to their "psychic ability" then I think he should be going to the best sources of the claim. It clearly was not a critical examination of the evidence for ESP, but perhaps it wasn't meant to be.

Explorer

14th August 2007, 04:21 AM

Wouldn't miss it - very good programme. I went to the BBC MBs this morning to see comments there but couldn't find any so I'll be poised with fingers on keyboard as soon as they appear!

I think on the contrary that because he gave all his interviewees plenty of time to say what they wanted and then relied on viewers to make up their minds, he was providing very adequate balance.

The problem is I think that these so-called psychics are unable to formulate any reliable and testable hypothesis behind their claimed skills. Most, if not all of them, like the dowsers, are not scientists acquainted with scientific method. Their usual gullible audience ask not of them for an explanation of their claims, but are simply happy enough to accept it, as they too are unable to articulate an argument for disbelief. These people can only flourish in an environment of ignorance and/or poor educational standards.

However, having said all that, I agree with David that the programme chose the easy targets, and there was no real investigation into the subject matter, but then it was probably never meant to be like that. It was simply enough for Richard Dawkins to provide examples, any examples that is, of the gullible watching the gullible in action. The outcome of the subsequent personal interviews with Dawkins were entirely all too predictable. It served Dawkin's aguments well enough and complimented his views nicely in his book, TGD.

baron

14th August 2007, 04:21 AM

The main criticism I have is that Dawkins choses the weakest of targets.

I agree, and I knew he would. However, I think in this case it was justified. This was not Dawkins attempting to assess the validity of paranormal claims, this was him saying flat out they are bunk. All psychics are frauds and part of the purpose of this particular episode was to get that message across to the audience. Given the limited time, I think having Dawkins tackle more difficult targets would have muddied that message.

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 04:28 AM

Why does it have to be "balanced"?

So as to give a complete an answer as possible to the questions the program poses. I think Dawkins was in part asking something like "are people failing to use their powers of reason when they believe they have ESP?", in which case he gives us lots of examples where people are failing but he fails to go after the stronger claims that are out there. Its an incomplete picture.

So why didn't he use Channel 4's money to go and see May and McMoneagle?

We sure don't see "balance" on shows that promote superstition.

Then these shows are equally guilty of being bad attempts to critically examine what they say they are examining.

You will have to demonstrate the difference between what you correctly call "delusion" and what May and McMoneagle do.

Dawking and French already did that by conducting a double blind test with effectively the same measure of success as tests conducted by May et al, ie they are comparing a target hit rate with chance expectation. Surely, Dawkins and French would regard a successful result of their dowsing experiment are positive evidence, otherwise what's the point of doing their test? If so, then they really should have gone to the best claims with their own test.

Why is that Dawkins' problem?

It isn't his problem. I am asking why Dawkins did not use this opportunity to go and see May and McMoneagle, or perhaps Ingo Swann.

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 04:48 AM

So as to give a complete an answer as possible to the questions the program poses. I think Dawkins was in part asking something like "are people failing to use their powers of reason when they believe they have ESP?", in which case he gives us lots of examples where people are failing but he fails to go after the stronger claims that are out there. Its an incomplete picture.

So why didn't he use Channel 4's money to go and see May and McMoneagle?

Why would he? There isn't any difference between those and the "delusions" you describe. And it sure doesn't seem as if May and McMoneagle are all too keen on participating in such programs.

Then these shows are equally guilty of being bad attempts to critically examine what they say they are examining.

Nonsense.

Dawking and French already did that by conducting a double blind test with effectively the same measure of success as tests conducted by May et al, ie they are comparing a target hit rate with chance expectation. Surely, Dawkins and French would regard a successful result of their dowsing experiment are positive evidence, otherwise what's the point of doing their test? If so, then they really should have gone to the best claims with their own test.

That doesn't demonstrate why remote viewing isn't delusion.

It isn't his problem. I am asking why Dawkins did not use this opportunity to go and see May and McMoneagle, or perhaps Ingo Swann.

Ingo Swann. The guy who went to Jupiter and reported that it had an enormous mountain range, 30,000 feet high, and an orange surface with dunes of large crystals, where a man would sink into the sand surface.

You are kidding, right?

JonWhite

14th August 2007, 04:48 AM

Ingo Swann? The same fruitloop that "remotely" saw a 30,000 foot mountain range on Jupiter?

He's every bit as delusional and would be every bit an easy target as the woos that were included. Our own M.O.D. only recently reported having wasted our hard earned tax pennies on showing once again how "little value" there is in remote guessing.

Given the time constraints, Dawkins was right to go for the targets such as astrology and mediumship that are more prominent generally.

ETA: Rabbits!!! CF beat me to it.

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 04:50 AM

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 04:51 AM

ETA: Rabbits!!! CF beat me to it.

Amateur. :D

andyandy

14th August 2007, 04:55 AM

The conditions of the tests were not ideal, for starters. Dowsers attempting to "sense" water inside a tent where an onlooker was standing in the doorway with a cup of fluid, presumably, tea or coffee near to their lips, does not suggest good controlled experimental conditions.

More importantly, and I am awaiting confirmation on this from the professor who supervised and presumably designed the test, did the participant dowsers have a successful track record of "sensing" or "divining" water in plastic bottles, hidden inside polythene buckets, most notably above ground? If they had in the past, then indeed this would be a good test for them, but I suspect that they hadn't.

If not, then perhaps the dowsers were simply invited to try the test for the sake of the TV programme. If they agreed to this, then did they as individuals, all believe that the test was representative of their skills successfully demonstrated in the field. Or, as was said above, were they were a just a few casual amateurs grabbed from the deluded in the fair depicted in the programme. Again I am awaiting confirmation on all these points from the professor. Let us be patient!

above ground, beneath ground, still water, flowing water, in containers, outside of containers, no conditions have ever shown significance. The trouble is there is a very well worn MO
1) make extraordinary claim (eg. "I can sense water with these rods")
2) undergo scientific trials
3) fail to show better than chance results
4) confabulate a reason for that failure (I can sense water with these rods, but only when the water is underground, and not in plastic bottles, and not on a Wednesday.....)

Of course this is simple backtracking, if you make a claim then it should be suppportable. All the dowsers agreed to the test fully believing that they could perform. If the claim was "I can sense water but only when it's underground" then this would be equally easy to test. To suddenly make this excuse after the failure is just confabulation.

Rrose Selavy

14th August 2007, 05:10 AM

One dowser managed to get the stick to point at the camera ?

-

brettDbass

14th August 2007, 05:23 AM

Did anybody else notice that this programme had a most unusually low number of advertisements in each break? Normally, shows airing at this time of night on Channel 4 would be bursting with ads for everything from washing powder to cars and banking. Last night, virtually nothing - every break was padded with trailers beginning and end. IIRC, one break only had a single actual advert.

Could it be that the large corporations are scared of having themselves associated with Dawkins's message? Why, I wonder. :rolleyes:

It's a real shame actually; if there was more investment from the companies who fund the TV channels into shows like this, there would be more shows made! Bah :mad: cowards.

Spiro

14th August 2007, 05:27 AM

I too liked the show. The cold reading vs psychic ability came over particularly well. But a dowsing experiment was done better on TV by Randi decades ago, the astrology stuff was done better by Derren Brown recently, and Penn & Teller's CAM ******** was such a classic I wonder if RD will compete next week!

What were all those protracted shots of sheep about? Were the sheep making paranormal claims?

Spiro

14th August 2007, 05:29 AM

I'm astonished that the title of a US TV show that has had three series aired is deleted automatically as unacceptable on this Forum!! I thought Penn & Teller were friends of the JREF.

Explorer

14th August 2007, 05:30 AM

above ground, beneath ground, still water, flowing water, in containers, outside of containers, no conditions have ever shown significance. The trouble is there is a very well worn MO
1) make extraordinary claim (eg. "I can sense water with these rods")
2) undergo scientific trials
3) fail to show better than chance results
4) confabulate a reason for that failure (I can sense water with these rods, but only when the water is underground, and not in plastic bottles, and not on a Wednesday.....)

Of course this is simple backtracking, if you make a claim then it should be suppportable. All the dowsers agreed to the test fully believing that they could perform. If the claim was "I can sense water but only when it's underground" then this would be equally easy to test. To suddenly make this excuse after the failure is just confabulation.

Let us use your list above for reference purposes.

1. The claim should be this perhaps. You, my customer have a task for me. I understand that our contract will be that you want me to find a buried water pipe in your field. If I find it for you and track it's path successfully, you will then pay me for my services. No find, no fee!
2. Undergo scientific trials. It would be useful, although difficult, to set up field scientific trials based on the above type of customer contract from a sample of selected proven successful dowsers who earn their living from their claims. The trials, could and should be covert, in other words the dowser is not aware of the test taking place.
3.The results of all covert tests and analysis are then checked against random chance.
4. In my view,failure would mean a real history of unsatisfied customers, no income, and the dowser moving on to some other perhaps more conventional profession.

As for the dowsers fully agreeing that they could perform for the test in the programme, and the circumstances behind the invitation, you and I do not know this as yet, until the professor gives us that information. We were not told of this in the programme. I should know, as I have recorded it.

If, as you say you feel any aspect of dowsing is easy to test, then I suspect that you are only interested in a quick debunking, as opposed to determining the cause of any real or perceived effect. In my view it is not at all "easy", and my scientific instincts forbid me to go along with that kind of statement.

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 05:50 AM

Why would he?

Because May and McMoneagle have claimed to successfully demonstrated remote viewing. If I was in Dawkins position, presumably with funding from Channel 4, I would go to the best looking claims.

But perhaps, as others have said, that wasn't his aim.

There isn't any difference between those and the "delusions" you describe.

Well, yes there is. The stronger claims are experimental, such as May and McMoneagle. As such, approaching them with a proposed test would qualify as a replication attempt and replication is what Dawkins quite rightly puts an emphasis on. Its just a shame he doesn't follow his words with action in that respect.

And it sure doesn't seem as if May and McMoneagle are all too keen on participating in such programs.

How do you know this? Perhaps May and McMoneagle were completely unaware that this program was being made.

That doesn't demonstrate why remote viewing isn't delusion.

If the experiment was successful, it would. Otherwise, why would Chris French conduct an experiment into dowsing if he thought a positive result would be meaningless?

Ingo Swann. The guy who went to Jupiter and reported that it had an enormous mountain range, 30,000 feet high, and an orange surface with dunes of large crystals, where a man would sink into the sand surface.

You are kidding, right?

I'm sure Remote viewers like Ingo Swann often report crazy things that do not correspond to veridical perceptions. I'm only interested in the contolled tests though. We all know how controversial the SRI tests were but my point is that these are experimental claims ready to be replicated with any design improvements the Dawkins and French see fit. So why not test them while they have the opportunity?

AgeGap

14th August 2007, 05:54 AM

Derren Brown appeared much better at 'spiritalism' than the medium. LOL when the girl with the new trainers said the medium had told her the same information as last time. Laughed even louder when he claimed not to remember. Rule8 stops me giving my true opinion of him. He would be better off using;-
http://www.skepticreport.com/lighterside/psychicdice.htm
Thanks to Andrew Endersby for cool pages.

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 06:18 AM

Because May and McMoneagle have claimed to successfully demonstrated remote viewing. If I was in Dawkins position, presumably with funding from Channel 4, I would go to the best looking claims.

But perhaps, as others have said, that wasn't his aim.

You still haven't provided evidence why these claims are the "best looking".

Well, yes there is.

I asked "where".

The stronger claims are experimental, such as May and McMoneagle. As such, approaching them with a proposed test would qualify as a replication attempt and replication is what Dawkins quite rightly puts an emphasis on. Its just a shame he doesn't follow his words with action in that respect.

Baloney. Just because there are stronger claims of evidence doesn't make the evidence strong itself. It sure hasn't convinced anyone outside a small circle of blind believers.

How do you know this? Perhaps May and McMoneagle were completely unaware that this program was being made.

I am talking in general.

If the experiment was successful, it would. Otherwise, why would Chris French conduct an experiment into dowsing if he thought a positive result would be meaningless?

The same can be said for the "delusion" claims.

I'm sure Remote viewers like Ingo Swann often report crazy things that do not correspond to veridical perceptions. I'm only interested in the contolled tests though.

If you don't like the results of Ingo Swann's tests, don't bring them up.

We all know how controversial the SRI tests were but my point is that these are experimental claims ready to be replicated with any design improvements the Dawkins and French see fit. So why not test them while they have the opportunity?

The onus is on May and McMoneagle. They have had many years now to present their evidence, and make all the replicated experiments they need, but so far, they haven't been successful.

Unless you can convincingly show that their claims have more merit than any other delusional believer, don't point fingers at Dawkins.

Big Les

14th August 2007, 06:29 AM

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 07:12 AM

You still haven't provided evidence why these claims are the "best looking".

I asked "where".

Go look at May's experiments on his web site. Try the video clips (we've already discussed them here before). Do some work of your own for once Claus. If you think those experiments are on equal par with a new age fair "sitting" then there's little point carrying on this discussion.

Now, Chris French and Dawkins may feel that there are methodological problems with the May et al research but given the opportunity to conduct an experiment, why did they not choose to collaborate with May et al on a more methodologically sound replication attempt using a remote viewer with reported success instead of a rather silly experiment with people who are obviously delusional?

Baloney. Just because there are stronger claims of evidence doesn't make the evidence strong itself. It sure hasn't convinced anyone outside a small circle of blind believers.

All the more reason to dispell the myth of the nasty believers and show May and McGoneagle to be delusional too! Don't you understand? Remote viewers like McGoneagle are the ones the believers shout about. Why not target them if Dawkins is so strong in his conviction that it is all delusion?

I am talking in general.

Yes you have a habit of doing that.

The same can be said for the "delusion" claims.

This has no resemblance to an answer to the question I asked you.

If you don't like the results of Ingo Swann's tests, don't bring them up.

I wasn't aware the "Jupiter mountain range" was the result of one of his tests. What were the details?

The onus is on May and McMoneagle. They have had many years now to present their evidence, and make all the replicated experiments they need, but so far, they haven't been successful.

Unless you can convincingly show that their claims have more merit than any other delusional believer, don't point fingers at Dawkins.

Well, that is not according to May's experimental papers. And independent replication is important in science. Here we, apparently, have the opportunity for Dawkins and French to make an attempt to replicate May's findings but for some reason it didn't happen. Instead we got some unkown chaps from England waving some metal rods about. To be fair, there might be some well argued reason for not contacting people like May and McMoneagle. If there is, I'd like to hear it.

Darat

14th August 2007, 07:59 AM

If Dawkins is claiming that the subject matter of "psychic clairvoyance" is delusion rather than demonstrating that there are many people who are deluded as to their "psychic ability" then I think he should be going to the best sources of the claim. It clearly was not a critical examination of the evidence for ESP, but perhaps it wasn't meant to be.

That would not have been "balance".

What he did was to use representatives of the vast majority of people who claim "psychic" abilities etc. - to do as you suggest would actually have been "unbalanced" toward a very, very small minority.

Explorer

14th August 2007, 08:13 AM

That would not have been "balance".

What he did was to use representatives of the vast majority of people who claim "psychic" abilities etc. - to do as you suggest would actually have been "unbalanced" toward a very, very small minority.

It depends on how you evaluate balance, Darat.

"Quantity", as you seem to suggest, or "quality" as David is implying.

I would suggest an equal representation of each for true balance.

JoeEllison

14th August 2007, 08:19 AM

It is unfair to provide "balance" for frauds, fakes, and pitiful self-deluding folks. That's like saying that a show on the moon landings should include people who think it was faked "for balance".

Dawkins did the show to make a point. He chose the cases that would best make that point. Why should he "balance" it with other cases that would take significant amounts of time to go through... and why would he give them the legitimacy of spending extra time with them?

Darat

14th August 2007, 08:26 AM

It depends on how you evaluate balance, Darat.

Which is why I asked David what he meant by it, I suspect he and you use it slightly differently to how I understand the term.

"Quantity", as you seem to suggest, or "quality" as David is implying.

That is not quite what I was arguing. My point is that what we saw was a sample of the people who claim to have psychic powers and that sample was a fair representation of all the people who claim to have such powers (that interact with the general public).

That is why it was "balanced", to deliberately add in (as David is stating should have been done) someone who represents a very, very small minority of "psychic power believers" would have been to have unbalanced the programme's representation of the group.

I would suggest an equal representation of each for true balance.
It reads to me that what you would have wanted is a sample that was not representative.

cj.23

14th August 2007, 08:32 AM

bujin

14th August 2007, 08:39 AM

As for the dowsers fully agreeing that they could perform for the test in the programme, and the circumstances behind the invitation, you and I do not know this as yet, until the professor gives us that information. We were not told of this in the programme. I should know, as I have recorded it.

Presumably, having heard and understood the details of the test (i.e. trying to find a bottle of water amongst bottles of sand hidden in opaque plastic buckets hidden from sight), any dowsers who are not happy with the test conditions (say, for example, they claim to only be able detect running water underground, not bottled water in buckets) would have said so and not performed the test.

The ones who took the test obviously believed that their abilities should have worked under those conditions.

cj.23

14th August 2007, 08:40 AM

I have been greatly impressed by the cool and rational discussion on the JREF -- I've been writing a review over on Dawkins forum, but it appears down. I think Darat's superb point needs a mention.

I offer my vague thoughst on the first ten minutes

"Well, I'd been looking forward to this all week! :)

The opening lines about the achievements of Science were excellent: if I was feeling playful I might have also pointed out that the misapplication of science has also killed hundreds of thousands, and placed us in a position to kill every man woman and child on the Earth several times over. I see Science as the most successful methodology we have ever developed for doing stuff: but it's not a religion, or belief system, just a means to an end. Sometimes when I watch Richard, Apostle of Science, I almost forget that. Still the vast achievements of science and technology far outweigh the minuses in my mind - but its worth remembering that Science, like Religion, is a two edged sword, and that humans are responsible for how it is employed with all their silly mamallian prejudices -- Science is a human enterprise, not something above and beyond that.

The lines about Science freeing us from Superstion and Dogma made me smile - I recall Thomas Aquinas saying the same about Christian Theology, and Francis Bacon, and later endless Protestant divines talking about how the Protestant light of reason freed them from "Popish Superstition." I recalled the same sentiments from the "Age of Whoosh", and H.G.Wells, and the terrible pessimism of his last book - was it Mind at the End of it's Tether ? Unhinged by the horrors of Twentieth century war, like Owen, like Kipling? Faith in science and rational human progress seem faintly quaint to me now -- remebrances of an age before the Show Trials, Year Zero, Nagasaki, The Holocaust and Dresden, to name but a few, like find memories of a half remembered childhood holiday, when the world seemed vibrant and beautiful.

As I watch the chanting munchkins i can not but help muse - after the horrors of the twentieth century, to a generation whose clear summer skies were marred by USAF jets and the thought of four minute warnings, the endless spectre of thermonuclear annihilation i knew as a child, can we wonder if some people have turned from Science and Reason to irrational "alternatives"? Are human beings really rational anyway? Can we trust us with Science, and the knowledge of Good and Evil, when we still have so many territorial and mammalian traits governing our choices?

We then move on to a binary opposition, to my mind false: Good Science versus Bad Religion. Sure their is bad religion: there is plenty of bad Science as well, or Science misapplied, to kill, harm and maim. I think the tragedy of Bad Science is greater, for its benefits, its wonders its potential is so awesomely great. We can put a man on the moon! We can destroy the world! We can feed the starving! Our physicists ponder the chance of an experiment destroying the universe! I'm sorry, but the Eschatons of my Wednesday afternoon theology class, vivid apocalypses of imagination, were theoretical - a final Judgement of some unforseen divine action. Science alone has given us potential to bring about the destruction worthy of our Apocalyptic ancestor's faiths.

So some of us are rational huh? We will see, we will see!

"There are two ways of looking at the world, through faith and superstition, or through the rigours of logic, reason and evidence" says Richard (if I may.) It's a false Aristotelian dualism - a false binary opposition, true false, as relentless as binary. Real people are not like that. I'm a professional ghosthunter. :) I'm a pretty heavy process sceptic, and a proud advocate of Randi and the JREF. I'm (like Martin Gardner, founder of CSI(COP)) a theist, and not an atheist. Like Gardner i believe in life after death: unlike Gardner I base that on an examination of the purported evidence, and then a leap of faith (he is a fideist). Yet Gardner and myself would clearly here fall in to the category of enemies of reason? I see no binary distinction. The most woo woo tarot reader may be quite analytical in other areas, and i personally feel that I am a deeply rational, and scientifically minded individual. Yet here it is either or - so am I 100% superstitious dyed in the wool faith head? Can you reconcile that, those of you who have read my posts, with how I think?

It's this false dichotomy, this black and white enthusiasm for truth or heresy which disturbs me. I have seen it too often. :( It's far too close to religion, with orthodoxy versus heresy, for my liking. And I am worried by the militant language "Reason has a battle on it's hands". No - Reason is a tool for understanding, not a dogma. Reason is how we know, not something that fights and kills. We face an "an epidemic of superstition" - and that was the kind of thinking that led to the Inquisition, where the fames of Catholic truth burned the "superstitious" of another era. I''d love to burn the pyramid power rainbow unicorn love wankh new age fraternity, but my common sense tells me that I have just as many superstitions, just as many irrational drives -- I just fail to recognise them as such. Superstition is a complex subject, and i'm too tired to do justice, but we all have all kinds of little irrational quirks which make up our personalities and ways of being. I'd happily close down tarot readers - but who am I to impose my vision of right thought on others? I will educate and confront, but not try to tell even the silliest (to my mind) of people what they should not believe, or create thought crimes - they may see aspects of me, like my patriotism, my love of cats and dogs, or my liking for pop music, as all equally ridiculous. I object fundamentally to thought crimes -- if a behaviour is illegal, then attack teh behaviour by all means, but I firmly believe that people should be able to believe and spend their hard earned on what they like.

Well I've only seen 5 minutes so far, so maybe back to the documentary. Looks good so far, despite my reservations.

OK, six minutes in and I hear a reference to the Age of the Enlightenment! I knew Professor Dawkins would mention this, but I recall just how unenlightened that era really was. I also recall the "Myth of the Enlightenment", the fierce anti-clericalism which as the throne & altar wedding of political power to religious orthodoxy linked anti-clericalism with the revolutionary radicalism and resulted in a grossly distorted picture of "Dark Ages" of religious superstition. One of my hats is a historian and writer on the 13th century, and i can assure you that the "lovely mud over here" stereotypes are just garbage. I don't trace the origins of Science to the Enlightenment, but to Classical Antiquity and even before - and tot he great educational programs f the faiths, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, who founded the universities, spread literacy and developed the tools of reason. What price Maimonides, al-Geber, Bacon? The great minds pre-seventeenth century laid the foundations of our modern world - men sponsored by the Church like Copernicus, Bacon, William of Ockham, and men of deep faith and piety like Sir Isaac Newton. The idea that the Enlightenment, and the rise of English Empiricism and Continental Rationalism as schools in some way marks a sharp disjunct in the history of Science, marking a great and sudden rush forward after centuries of obscurantism and failure, strikes me as a peculiar one for Professor Dawkins to hold - a historical "punctuated equilibrium", whereas I see Science as having made steady progress for century upon century. What price the Renaissance? Da Vinci was by this reckoning mired in some sinister age of Superstition, an idea I find bizarre. I can explain it as the influence of Diderot, Voltair, and the Philosophes - the "Enlightenment" was a terribly clever piece of marketing, and almost offset the horrors pf the French Revolution, but I don't think many modern historians would take its claims seriously; as Hutton has shown they were remarkably popular in the 18th century, and among late 19th century American intellectuals, who could disparage the triumphs of European & Middle Eastern & North African civilisation, and make bold claims of their own age. It wa snot luck or piety that built Chartres - it was engineering genius. The Byzantines, the Persians, the Muslim civilisations, all threw up great works of genius and tremendous breakthroughs in science, and the Enlightenment scholars stood on the shoulders of geniuses like them - even recent ones like Boyle, Kepler and Newton."

Dunno if really anything of interest, but clearly the programme is making me think. :)

cj x

Kahalachan

14th August 2007, 08:42 AM

I liked it. It was a vast improvement on The Root of Evil documentary.

I didn't like that one cause Dawkins mostly criticized religion instead of analyzing it scientifically.

This one was much better with his talk about the bat and BF Skinner's work with the pidgeons. It explained how superstitions arise. This is true from the Behaviorist perspective. Of course there's a lot of cognition and neurology involved, but for the purposes of the program it was sufficient.

I loved the critique of post-modernism there. I for one hate that philosophy. For art it's great. It's ideal even. No art critic should tell me what emotions I should feel. I just feel them.

But for objective truth, stay the F out with your whole "everyone's reality is equally valid" or "everyone is right in their own way"

No they are not. I was outraged to see it make its way in one of my clinical psychology texts. I asked "What should a clinical psychologists do with a mysogynist or racist who worships the X-men?" The answer I got was "Refer them to someone who can handle them" WTF? They had problems. They came to seek help. Deal with the hatred and ridiculous belief. Have compassion for your client but address the issue. Don't think they are right in their own way and have their own appropriate goals.

Someone needs to drag the entire field of psychology kicking and screaming back into the realm of science. A lot of it is wonderfully scientific. And I loved seeing Dawkins showcase that wonderful science for once. This was the first time I heard him teach psychology in anything he said. It was great. :D

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 09:45 AM

That would not have been "balance".

What he did was to use representatives of the vast majority of people who claim "psychic" abilities etc. - to do as you suggest would actually have been "unbalanced" toward a very, very small minority.

Notice that I mentioned a "balanced" show with respect to the issue of the scientific truth of psychic ability rather than balance with respect to the belief of individuals. With respect to the latter, the show does very well. With respect to a balance on the issue of the scientific truth of "psychic" ability it fails, but like I said perhaps the intention was not to go into that. Interviewing representatives of the vast majority of people who claim "psychic" abilities has very little to do with the scientific truth of the matter.

Darat

14th August 2007, 09:54 AM

...snip... Interviewing representatives of the vast majority of people who claim "psychic" abilities has very little to do with the scientific truth of the matter.

No but it has everything to do with the subject of the programme that we are discussing.

andyandy

14th August 2007, 09:56 AM

If, as you say you feel any aspect of dowsing is easy to test, then I suspect that you are only interested in a quick debunking, as opposed to determining the cause of any real or perceived effect. In my view it is not at all "easy", and my scientific instincts forbid me to go along with that kind of statement.

what "scientific instincts" are those? Perhaps you could train your scientific instincts to the numerous, numerous failed attempts by dowsers to provide any evidence for their claims despite many scientific trials. If someone makes a claim then it is contingent for them to actually flesh out what that claim is.

If the claim is "I can detect water with these rods" then it is indeed easy to test.

It is easy to test whether water can be detected in containers.
It is easy to test whether water can be detected underground in containers.
It is easy to test whether water can be detected underground not in containers.
It is easy to test whether water can be detected underground whilst flowing.
It is easy to test whether water can be detected underground whilst flowing whilst listening to the selected hits of Lionel Richie wearing nothing but a frilly pink g-string.

all of these are absolutely facile, and anyone with a minutes reflection should be able to design a sufficient test.

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 09:57 AM

"Reason has a battle on it's hands". No - Reason is a tool for understanding, not a dogma.

Good point. Much of the show was about faulty reasoning and thought processes where reason should have been applied but was not. However, I got the feeling that Dawkins was insisting that reason is the only way by which reality can be understood. Are there philosophers who argue against such a position?

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 10:02 AM

No but it has everything to do with the subject of the programme that we are discussing.

But was the programme simply putting across the message that "there's alot of dumb people out there", or was it going that bit further and saying that "the subject matter these people believe in is bunk". It's unclear to me.

Darat

14th August 2007, 10:04 AM

davidsmith73

14th August 2007, 10:10 AM

If you couldn't understand what the programme was about from watching it than there is no way I will be able to explain it to you. I don't know how the programme could have been clearer about what it was about!

Aww come on you can try!

How about commiting to this question - do you think part of the programme's message was that there's no scientific truth to ESP?

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 10:11 AM

Go look at May's experiments on his web site. Try the video clips (we've already discussed them here before). Do some work of your own for once Claus.

I do plenty of work, both mine and, as you will see, yours.

If you think those experiments are on equal par with a new age fair "sitting" then there's little point carrying on this discussion.

Really? Then, please explain, in your own words, with proper references, why you think it is not delusional.

Now, Chris French and Dawkins may feel that there are methodological problems with the May et al research but given the opportunity to conduct an experiment, why did they not choose to collaborate with May et al on a more methodologically sound replication attempt using a remote viewer with reported success instead of a rather silly experiment with people who are obviously delusional?

Yes, yes, you keep saying this. They didn't.

Perhaps they didn't think the May et al research was worth a second look. You can't really blame them for that, given that there is no difference between that and any other delusion.

Perhaps they hadn't even heard of the May et al research. You can't really blame them for that, given that the results have failed utterly to persuade anyone, save for a tiny fraction of a credulous group of people.

There are all sorts of reasons. But you have no reason to hint that they avoided the May et al research.

All the more reason to dispell the myth of the nasty believers and show May and McGoneagle to be delusional too! Don't you understand? Remote viewers like McGoneagle are the ones the believers shout about. Why not target them if Dawkins is so strong in his conviction that it is all delusion?

Because McMoneagle doesn't do anything different than other delusional?

Yes you have a habit of doing that.

Care to address what I say?

This has no resemblance to an answer to the question I asked you.

That's exactly where you are wrong. There simply is no difference between the claims you are so quick to dismiss as "delusional", and May et al.

I wasn't aware the "Jupiter mountain range" was the result of one of his tests. What were the details?

The Ingo Swann 1973 Remote Viewing probe of the planet Jupiter (http://www.remoteviewed.com/remote_viewing_jupiter.htm)

6:10:20 I get the impression, thought I don't see, that it's liquid.

6:10:55 Then I came through the cloud cover, the surface it looks like sand dunes. They're made of very large grade crystals so they slide. Tremendous winds sort of like maybe the prevailing winds of earth, but very close to the surface of Jupiter. From that view the horizon looks orangish or rose-colored but overhead it's kind of greenish-yellow.

6:12:35 If I look to the right there is an enormous mountain range.

See, David? You ask, I provide. Try doing the same thing.

Well, that is not according to May's experimental papers. And independent replication is important in science. Here we, apparently, have the opportunity for Dawkins and French to make an attempt to replicate May's findings but for some reason it didn't happen. Instead we got some unkown chaps from England waving some metal rods about. To be fair, there might be some well argued reason for not contacting people like May and McMoneagle. If there is, I'd like to hear it.

David. May's experimental papers are years old. Why haven't these results - the best, right? - been independently replicated by now? Could it be because McMoneagle can't remote view?

Don't try to wipe off the total failure of May et al on Dawkins.

cj.23

14th August 2007, 10:12 AM

If you couldn't understand what the programme was about from watching it than there is no way I will be able to explain it to you. I don't know how the programme could have been clearer about what it was about!

Darat, my problem is not the programme, which clearly as you say showed that many New Age and Psychic belief structures are irrational, and clearly showed up some folks.As you say, it hit it's targets, and did so well, and has say no implications for the ongoing discussion of Radin's flawed Ganzfeld meta-analysis, the Mars Effect, or the Robertson/Roy mediumship research.

My issue would be that a large part of the audience might infer from the show that all paranormal claims were bunk. Now, greatly influenced by FLS, I believe that the "paranormal" is a category error, and just because a phenomena is popularly classified therein, that in now way means that said phenomena is spurious. Giant Squids, Earthlights and the NDE all feature in books from the seventies about the paranormal - yet the reality of otherwise of those experiences is in no way contingent upon each other.

My 1996 critique of Dawkins was based on that: and since joining the JREF, I have come to believe it even more. The issue is that if one perinormal, to use Prof Dawkins rather jolly phrase, claim is subsequently validated, for example it is proven that dowsers are sensitive to minute changes in gauss or environmental cues, then the whole critique is weakened.

I'm not sure if this makes much sense - I rarely do - but its why I am in favour of refuting woo by careful experiment, as in the Challenge, rather than sweeping generalisations. After all, one White Crow, as William James would doubtless remind us...

cj x

Big Les

14th August 2007, 10:26 AM

But at what point do you declare something "busted"? There is literally no evidence for the effectiveness of dowsing, and no proposed mechanism by which it could. No light at the end of the woo tunnel. Beyond that, it's been refuted by careful challenge on many occasions. By my estimation at least it's open season on dowsing, and all the other things he touched on in this programme. The "paranormal" category, far from being invalid, exists for everything that fits the above criteria.

You can beat a dead horse but you can't make it drink. Wait, that's not it...

And if some shred of evidence does come out of left field and forces science to reconsider, I don't see how that invalidates the original sceptical position of having no rational reason to believe it could work. When and if new evidence arrives, you can re-assess that and science, far from being undermined by this, becomes the stronger for it. The bat thing backed that up nicely I thought. Dawkins would have been right to poo-poo dowsing before the evidence was presented, and right to re-assess his poo-pooing after it.

JonWhite

14th August 2007, 10:28 AM

Could it be because McMoneagle can't remote view?

My remote guess would be not. :D

I would imagine that Dawkins chose to show dowsers failing miserably at their chosen delusion rather than some remote guessers is most likely to be simply that dowsing is a more widely known practice among the general populace. More visual too.

Big Les

14th August 2007, 10:46 AM

And for most people, far more plausible. My A-Level archaeology tutor taught me that it worked, I believed him. Thought very little about it for many years, applied no critical thought to it, and yet was surprised to be told by a friend in no uncertain terms that it was 100% donkey-dung. I had to check for myself but of course he was right. I expect many viewers either had the same passive belief in it, or at least wouldn't see it as being as obviously whacky as remote viewing. We're talking people's individual BS meters here (that allow them to scoff at UFOs yet believe in tarot), not actual critical thought.

pgwenthold

14th August 2007, 11:40 AM

Soapy Sam

14th August 2007, 01:40 PM

"Rockness". if you will. Here in Scotland the lochs have similar properties.

Surely a loch is essentially defined by the very absence of rockness?

(Were you aware that "Loch" is "hole" in German? I wonder if they are cognates...)

Soapy Sam

14th August 2007, 02:12 PM

Notice that I mentioned a "balanced" show with respect to the issue of the scientific truth of psychic ability rather than balance with respect to the belief of individuals. With respect to the latter, the show does very well. With respect to a balance on the issue of the scientific truth of "psychic" ability it fails, but like I said perhaps the intention was not to go into that. Interviewing representatives of the vast majority of people who claim "psychic" abilities has very little to do with the scientific truth of the matter.

David, bear in mind that Dawkins' job description is "Charles Simonyi Professor in the Public Understanding of Science". The job does not require him to explain alternative worldviews to the scientific, however fascinating they might be.

I'm prepared to bet that Dawkins has read a great deal of research into the matters these programmes address. He is not himself a psychic researcher though. His conclusions re paranormal phenomena are well known, based not on psi research, but on the extensive results of scientific research in other areas, which continues to close gaps where psi used to lurk, while persistently finding no evidence for psi effects. His views are broadly in line with the majority of posters at JREF- namely that the whole subject is factually void and shades from simple misunderstanding of scientific reality at one end to outright criminal fraud at the other. (This is not to pretend science lacks frauds or criminals, but that is not the issue of the thread).

He is not likely to create programmes which actually do detailed research into the reality or otherwise of psychic phenomena. To his point of view (with which I fully agree) the evidence is in and there is no case to answer.

While the sort of programme you suggest might also be of value, it is not the sort of thing I would expect from RD. In addition, there would always be special pleading after the event that "better evidence" had been rejected , or was in the pipeline. That is not what the history of science suggests. It suggests that there is no evidence for psi. That is Dawkins' conclusion and the one he is trying to put across.

JoeEllison

14th August 2007, 02:15 PM

Good point. Much of the show was about faulty reasoning and thought processes where reason should have been applied but was not. However, I got the feeling that Dawkins was insisting that reason is the only way by which reality can be understood. Are there philosophers who argue against such a position?
Yeah, I'm sure that there are philosophers that might argue that. That's why they are philosophers, instead of getting real jobs where they can make an actual contribution to our knowledge of the world. It depends on what you mean by "understanding", of course... but none of the philosophical navel-gazing in the world will change the clear, solid fact that dowsers always fail the "can they ACTUALLY DO IT?!?!" test. How many different "ways of knowing" do you need to apply to understand that?

SusanB-M1

14th August 2007, 02:37 PM

volatile

14th August 2007, 03:01 PM

Yeah, I'm sure that there are philosophers that might argue that. That's why they are philosophers, instead of getting real jobs where they can make an actual contribution to our knowledge of the world. It depends on what you mean by "understanding", of course... but none of the philosophical navel-gazing in the world will change the clear, solid fact that dowsers always fail the "can they ACTUALLY DO IT?!?!" test. How many different "ways of knowing" do you need to apply to understand that?

I'm a philosopher, and it is a real job, thanks.

By the way, you'll note that the very methodologies of science have emerged from and are refined by philosophy (see, for example, Karl Popper), so don't pooh-pooh an entire discipline of study just because you don't understand it. In fact, if you're so disdainful of philosophy, why do you even post here? Scepticism itself is a philosophy, as is rationality and reason.

Big Les

14th August 2007, 03:22 PM

volatile

14th August 2007, 03:28 PM

I know exactly the kind of philosophy Joe is dismissing, and it's the sort of relativist waffle used to justify all manner of nonsense and which has no other bearing on real life. Of course there are huge chunks of philosophy that we owe a hell of a lot to, but I don't think that the sort of thing contained within davidsmith73's post(s) above is representative of that.

Well, quite. But I was objecting to his tarnishing of all philosophy with the same brush, particularly the claim that "that's why they are philosophers, instead of getting real jobs where they can make an actual contribution to our knowledge of the world." In fact, even to tar all of relativism or all of post-modernism with the same brush is objectionable - even Dawkins went a little far in last night's show on this particular question, in my opinion.

Whilst I don't doubt that there are some philosophers who might extol the kind of thing Joe accuses them all of, there are also creationists who hold legitimate physics PhDs.

Such thinking is far from mainstream in any branch of philosophy. Beware who you insult, is all I'm saying.

CFLarsen

14th August 2007, 03:50 PM

I'm a philosopher, and it is a real job, thanks.

Philosophically speaking?

volatile

14th August 2007, 03:51 PM

Philosophically speaking?

Exactly... :D

Mojo

14th August 2007, 04:19 PM

Any idea why the name and photo at the head of one of the astrology columns featured was blurred out (I think it may have been Cainer) when others (e.g. Moronic Meg) were not?

volatile

14th August 2007, 04:21 PM

Any idea why the name and photo at the head of one of the astrology columns featured was blurred out (I think it may have been Cainer) when others (e.g. Moronic Meg) were not?

Having been raised in a Daily-Mail-reading household, I can confirm that the blurred paper was the Mail - the typeface and layout are unmistakable. I wondered why they blurred it, too, though.

Rrose Selavy

14th August 2007, 05:23 PM

Possibly the section blurred was covered under copyright and they threatened action if shown within the context of the programme -although I would have thought - though not a lawyer - that the part of the law that allows excerpts as part of criticism would have applied anyway.

Cainer does have some "history" with Randi :

Uri Geller and James Randi
Uri Geller's most notorious critic is a stage magician called James Randi. Randi can bend spoons by sleight of hand. He figures Uri must also be cheating. This is like saying: 'I can dye my hair blonde convincingly. Therefore, there cannot be any such thing as a natural blonde.' David Blaine is another magician who has been drawn to Uri... but instead of getting jealous, he has become inspired. David really is using nothing but mind over matter to stay in that box. And as Uri explains (http://www.cainer.com/thoughts/urigeller/urigeller.html), on his page today, David is encouraging us all to think again about what's possible.

http://www.cainer.com/thoughts/2003/octw3.html

http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-02/021607failure.html#i8

andyandy

14th August 2007, 05:32 PM

Any idea why the name and photo at the head of one of the astrology columns featured was blurred out (I think it may have been Cainer) when others (e.g. Moronic Meg) were not?

dawkins in an interview (maybe i read it on this thread :) ) said that they nailed one particular high profile psychic, who then threatened to sue, and they had to pull the section....he asked if there were any messages from his dad, and after a long waffle about messages from beyond the grave he remarked that it was strange he would be there as he was at B&Q this morning....:D

*i may have made the B&Q bit up, i can't remember, but the gist is there :) *

perhaps this was why it was blurred....

volatile

14th August 2007, 05:38 PM

schlitt

14th August 2007, 08:19 PM

I thought the show was good, but had a few flaws in the way it went about convincing people.

The main issue i see was the lack of hand holding for reaching logical conclusions. The woo people were shown expressing their opinions, and there were no comprehensive rebuttals to what they had just said. Instead it just showed Richard looking puzzled/amused and it was left up to the viewer to draw the conclusion that what they were saying was nonsense. This approach would work if people had the reasoning capability of Richard himself and most of the people here on this forum, however sadly this is not the case.

For people with well developed reasoning capability it is easy to cross reference in your mind new information you are receiving, with existing information, vaildate the consitency between them, and draw a conclusion based on the new data set. However this is not the case for the majority of people out there, and it is too often assumed by those who do have reasoning capability that others can do so just as easily.

Therefore i think there should have been more comprehensive rebuttal of the ridiculous woo opinions, in the shows narrative directly after the interviews. Breaking it down into logical steps, and showing the flaws at each step.
In my experience this seems to be the only way to show those who lack the power to reach the conlusion themselves the point you are trying to acheive.

(by the way, Hi all, this is my first post)

andyandy

15th August 2007, 01:25 AM

Cainer's not a psychic, but an astrologer, so I doubt that was him. Did they really pull that section? I'm sure it was mentioned in some of the pre-screening reviews...

do astrologers not do the whole psychic speel too? I'm not too well versed on woo practitioners, i assumed they had their fingers in as many pies as possible :)

I can't remember where i read the interview - but certainly dawkins was angry (he should watch his blood pressure :D ) that a section with a psychic had had to be pulled due to legal reasons....

davidsmith73

15th August 2007, 01:47 AM

Really? Then, please explain, in your own words, with proper references, why you think it is not delusional.

The experiments are performed double blind. Targets are selected randomly. Results are analysed according to well defined methods. Experimental success is judged by accepted statistical significance levels.

references -http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/academic/library.html

New age fair psychics give readings with no controls in place, no method of random target selection and there is no way to statistically analyse their success rate. Moreover, the example on the show did not even pass the psychological illusion of success.

And you think these two examples are equal...

Perhaps they didn't think the May et al research was worth a second look. You can't really blame them for that, given that there is no difference between that and any other delusion.

Why is there no difference between the May et al experiments and the untested new age fair psychic?

I think its highly unlikely that Chris French thinks there is no difference to the claims of an untested new age fair psychic and the results of a controlled experiment. French may not like some aspects of the May et al methodology but this is my point - given that the experiments report success, this channel 4 show would have been a great opportunity to devise his own method. Perhaps there were budget restrictions.

Perhaps they hadn't even heard of the May et al research. You can't really blame them for that, given that the results have failed utterly to persuade anyone, save for a tiny fraction of a credulous group of people.

Highly unlikely given that Chris French is actively engaged in the field, attends conferences etc.

There are all sorts of reasons. But you have no reason to hint that they avoided the May et al research.

Well, if I was going to say they avoided it, I would guess it was because Dawkins has a set agenda for putting across a specific message - that all of (insert favourite "paranormal" phenomena) is bunk. He would not have wanted to go to the likes of May and McGoneagle because there was a small possibility the results would look favourable for the phenomena and contradict what he was trying to say.

Because McMoneagle doesn't do anything different than other delusional?

That's exactly where you are wrong. There simply is no difference between the claims you are so quick to dismiss as "delusional", and May et al.

Why do you think that, in your own words please ;) ?

The Ingo Swann 1973 Remote Viewing probe of the planet Jupiter (http://www.remoteviewed.com/remote_viewing_jupiter.htm)

That was an exploratory test with no method of accurately assessing his success. Sure, he says there are mountain ranges on Jupiter which is patently false. But should we expect remote viewers imagination to get in the way of veridical impressions? Yes of course we should. We know that remote viewers are not 100% accurate. What you are effectively doing is just what the "woos" do. You are being selective and ignoring the hits and counting the missess. Except in this case its worse because you are also drawing conclusions from an exploratory study with no quantitative analysis.

David. May's experimental papers are years old. Why haven't these results - the best, right? - been independently replicated by now? Could it be because McMoneagle can't remote view?

Perhaps he has but we don't know about it because he hasn't been named in the research. I'm going to email him. Furthermore, it seems Dawkins and French had an opportunity to replicate their research this year, yet it wasn't attempted. Your answer may lay right there. I'm not saying its their obligation to attempt a replication but it would have been much more interesting than a handfull of unknown dowsers.

Mojo

15th August 2007, 01:54 AM

dawkins in an interview (maybe i read it on this thread :) ) said that they nailed one particular high profile psychic, who then threatened to sue, and they had to pull the section....he asked if there were any messages from his dad, and after a long waffle about messages from beyond the grave he remarked that it was strange he would be there as he was at B&Q this morning....:D

*i may have made the B&Q bit up, i can't remember, but the gist is there :) *

perhaps this was why it was blurred....

Cainer's not a psychic, but an astrologer, so I doubt that was him. Did they really pull that section? I'm sure it was mentioned in some of the pre-screening reviews...

Yes, I was waiting for that bit as well. There's an account of it in the Times (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2198063.ece) preview: When Dawkins consulted a medium who has appeared on daytime television and charges £50 for instant phone readings she said she could hear or see his father “on the other side”.

He did his best not to look surprised as she continued: “I’m aware of your father stood right behind you. “On a spiritual level he wasn’t the most openest man with his thoughts and his feelings. Ummm, I kind of want to say that I do love you and I do care – but that wouldn’t have been his character.” (Or that of many middle-class father figures of his generation, a sceptic might have said.)

But Dawkins let her continue. “I’m aware that you don’t have you dad’s photograph out” – it was true, he didn’t – “so I’m a little bit concerned why. So I’m going to ask you: why don’t you have it out?” Dawkins had a bombshell ready: “Well, he might be aware that I don’t have it out because he comes to the house about once a week.” “Oh, he’s still here,” she said, adding after a few seconds: “I don’t feel it’s working.”

“Is that because you thought my father is dead and discovered that he’s still alive?”

“No, nothing to do with that. I don’t know.”

She commented later: “As a clairvoyant you’re only as good as the client.”

That looks to me like a tacit admission of cold-reading right there.

Pesky clients not giving any feedback...

davidsmith73

15th August 2007, 02:00 AM

David, bear in mind that Dawkins' job description is "Charles Simonyi Professor in the Public Understanding of Science". The job does not require him to explain alternative worldviews to the scientific, however fascinating they might be.

I'm prepared to bet that Dawkins has read a great deal of research into the matters these programmes address. He is not himself a psychic researcher though. His conclusions re paranormal phenomena are well known, based not on psi research, but on the extensive results of scientific research in other areas, which continues to close gaps where psi used to lurk, while persistently finding no evidence for psi effects. His views are broadly in line with the majority of posters at JREF- namely that the whole subject is factually void and shades from simple misunderstanding of scientific reality at one end to outright criminal fraud at the other. (This is not to pretend science lacks frauds or criminals, but that is not the issue of the thread).

He is not likely to create programmes which actually do detailed research into the reality or otherwise of psychic phenomena. To his point of view (with which I fully agree) the evidence is in and there is no case to answer.

While the sort of programme you suggest might also be of value, it is not the sort of thing I would expect from RD. In addition, there would always be special pleading after the event that "better evidence" had been rejected , or was in the pipeline. That is not what the history of science suggests. It suggests that there is no evidence for psi. That is Dawkins' conclusion and the one he is trying to put across.

I watched the programme again and I agree, it looks like he does think there is no case to answer, although I think Chris French or Richard Wiseman would be much better making a show about that point of view. I just think that its bad journalism to put a point like that across without letting the audience see your work so that they can decide for themselves. As it stands, the program comes across as an opportunity for the audience to indulge in a bit of confirmation seeking. Its certainly confirmed my opinion of Dawkins ;)

Blue Wode

15th August 2007, 02:19 AM

I can't remember where i read the interview - but certainly dawkins was angry (he should watch his blood pressure :D ) that a section with a psychic had had to be pulled due to legal reasons....

It was mentioned in this Times preview:

The one real row was with a psychic he consulted at a New Age fair, who told him she was in contact with Dawkins’s “dead” father in the spirit world and relayed a message in some detail. “I sat there po-faced and let her go on for quite some time before I said, ‘Actually my father is alive and well and living in Oxfordshire.’ Immediately she said, ‘Stop the camera!’ and tried to terminate the whole thing. To my disgust we had to cut her out of the programme for legal reasons, which is a great shame. She was a real charlatan.”

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article2216595.ece

SusanB-M1

15th August 2007, 04:11 AM

'96 schlitt

The trouble is of course that the majority of people who need convincing would probably not be watching the programme, which is a great pity. One can only hope that enough of those who are close to really hearing what RD was saying were watching and will take another look at their irrational beliefs.

(And welcome, too. I'll look on the Welcome thread in a minute to see if you've posted there.)

Jaggy Bunnet

15th August 2007, 04:58 AM

"There are two ways of looking at the world, through faith and superstition, or through the rigours of logic, reason and evidence" says Richard (if I may.) It's a false Aristotelian dualism - a false binary opposition, true false, as relentless as binary. Real people are not like that. I'm a professional ghosthunter. :) I'm a pretty heavy process sceptic, and a proud advocate of Randi and the JREF. I'm (like Martin Gardner, founder of CSI(COP)) a theist, and not an atheist. Like Gardner i believe in life after death: unlike Gardner I base that on an examination of the purported evidence, and then a leap of faith (he is a fideist). Yet Gardner and myself would clearly here fall in to the category of enemies of reason? I see no binary distinction. The most woo woo tarot reader may be quite analytical in other areas, and i personally feel that I am a deeply rational, and scientifically minded individual. Yet here it is either or - so am I 100% superstitious dyed in the wool faith head? Can you reconcile that, those of you who have read my posts, with how I think?

There is nothing in the statement quoted that says you must either be 100% superstitious or 100% scientifically minded. What it says is that there are two ways of looking at the world, not that there are two types of people - it is perfectly possible for people to adopt different ways of looking at the world in different areas of their life.

The woo woo tarot reader who is analytical in other areas is a perfect example of what the quote is about, in some areas they choose to be superstitious, where in others they apply reason and logic - different ways of looking at the world, not different people.

Big Les

15th August 2007, 05:41 AM

..the program comes across as an opportunity for the audience to indulge in a bit of confirmation seeking.

For me? Too bloody right it was. Cathartic isn't the word. But for people who haven't really thought much about such things either way, it (scepticism and the advocacy of reason) is a position that they won't have come across before. It stands on its own for that reason, even if you (wrongly) disagree with the content.

brettDbass

15th August 2007, 06:04 AM

I'm sure you are right here. I was certainly surprised at the short advert breaks - I hardly had time to look at the computer - but hadn't thought why.

Not having time to make tea or check emails is bad enough ( ;) ) but I'm really concerned about the attitude of big coporations on this matter.
It is clear that there is reluctance on their part to be associated with rational thinking or anything that debunks peoples cossetting beliefs, if I'm right.

The upshot of this would be a steady decline in funding derived from educationally-inclined programmes, making it increasingly likely that the channels will commission fewer of such programmes in order to keep their revenue up.

As a child I used to watch programmes like QED, Horizon, Equinox, Cosmos and Tomorrow's World whenever they were shown and was frequently disappointed at the infrequency of their broadcasts even then. How many of those programmes survive now? Just one - Horizon.

Perhaps it's already happening?

cj.23

15th August 2007, 06:15 AM

There is nothing in the statement quoted that says you must either be 100% superstitious or 100% scientifically minded. What it says is that there are two ways of looking at the world, not that there are two types of people - it is perfectly possible for people to adopt different ways of looking at the world in different areas of their life.

The woo woo tarot reader who is analytical in other areas is a perfect example of what the quote is about, in some areas they choose to be superstitious, where in others they apply reason and logic - different ways of looking at the world, not different people.

Yep Jaggy, completely correct - my argument is rubbish if my quote is correct, and you explain it very well indeed. I'll watch the show again later see what was actually said - they were just notes I wrote while watching, so rather hurried. Cheers!

cj x

articulett

15th August 2007, 06:36 AM

CFLarsen

15th August 2007, 07:56 AM

The experiments are performed double blind. Targets are selected randomly. Results are analysed according to well defined methods. Experimental success is judged by accepted statistical significance levels.

references -http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/academic/library.html

Let's take it from the top:

The primary objective of this study was to conduct a replication, simplification, and extension of similar previous studies that claimed anomalous anticipatory skin conductance responses prior to various stimuli, and to provide sufficient protocol and analysis details in order to foster additional replications.

Note that it doesn't say anything about independent replication. It says "simplification, and extension of similar previous studies".

Do you understand what "independent replication" means, David? It doesn't mean "Let the same people try again, only have them change whatever they like."

It's the same old crap, presented again and again as valid evidence. It isn't.

New age fair psychics give readings with no controls in place, no method of random target selection and there is no way to statistically analyse their success rate. Moreover, the example on the show did not even pass the psychological illusion of success.

And you think these two examples are equal...

Why is there no difference between the May et al experiments and the untested new age fair psychic?

You can wrap the delusional mumbo-jumbo up in technobabble all you like, it will still be delusional mumbo-jumbo.

I think its highly unlikely that Chris French thinks there is no difference to the claims of an untested new age fair psychic and the results of a controlled experiment. French may not like some aspects of the May et al methodology but this is my point - given that the experiments report success, this channel 4 show would have been a great opportunity to devise his own method. Perhaps there were budget restrictions.

Perhaps. But you are speculating in favor of the supernatural, when you should be turning your critical eye towards May et al.

Highly unlikely given that Chris French is actively engaged in the field, attends conferences etc.

...

Well, if I was going to say they avoided it, I would guess it was because Dawkins has a set agenda for putting across a specific message - that all of (insert favourite "paranormal" phenomena) is bunk. He would not have wanted to go to the likes of May and McGoneagle because there was a small possibility the results would look favourable for the phenomena and contradict what he was trying to say.

Oh, come on, David. You've been hinting that they avoided your precious studies all along.

Why do you think that, in your own words please ;) ?

Like I said, you can put it in a lab and wrap it up in fancy words all you like. It still is the same schtick, from the same kind of people with the same kind of thinking.

That was an exploratory test with no method of accurately assessing his success. Sure, he says there are mountain ranges on Jupiter which is patently false. But should we expect remote viewers imagination to get in the way of veridical impressions? Yes of course we should. We know that remote viewers are not 100% accurate. What you are effectively doing is just what the "woos" do. You are being selective and ignoring the hits and counting the missess. Except in this case its worse because you are also drawing conclusions from an exploratory study with no quantitative analysis.

No, David. I am including all the results and pointing out that there are so glaring errors that nobody in their right minds can possibly claim that Ingo Swann remote viewed Jupiter. Nobody.

What you are doing, is coming up with the same pathetic excuses for people like Swann. If he gets it that wrong, why should we accept the hits as evidence of remote viewing? How can we distinguish between a hit and a correct guess? We can't.

Perhaps he has but we don't know about it because he hasn't been named in the research. I'm going to email him.

If they had independently replicated the results, why would they keep quiet about it? They sure blow their own horn when it comes to the studies that purportedly show evidence of remote viewing - as you do here.

Perhaps the question is not if they have replicated the results. Perhaps the question is: Why don't you know if they have?

Furthermore, it seems Dawkins and French had an opportunity to replicate their research this year, yet it wasn't attempted. Your answer may lay right there. I'm not saying its their obligation to attempt a replication but it would have been much more interesting than a handfull of unknown dowsers.

You keep blaming Dawkins for the failures of McMoneagle.

davidsmith73

15th August 2007, 12:13 PM

Let's take it from the top:

Note that it doesn't say anything about independent replication. It says "simplification, and extension of similar previous studies".

Do you understand what "independent replication" means, David? It doesn't mean "Let the same people try again, only have them change whatever they like."

It's the same old crap, presented again and again as valid evidence. It isn't.

Ok, two points here.

Firstly, you were not asking me to present evidence of an independent replication. You were asking me to provide reasons why I think the McMoneagle experiments are not a par with the delusions of a new age fair "psychic", and that is what I did. The point of this discussion was to get you to understand that the McMoneagle experiments should be taken seriously as an experiment upon which Dawkins and French could perform an independent replication. I shall take the fact that you are now throwing a tantrum and demanding that Dawkins and French are provided with independent replications as evidence that you know you are wrong.

Secondly, the experiment you refer to above was not a remote viewing experiment. It was the first on the list of references I provided you with, but I thought you would realise that there were several other types of experiment on the list if you actually read them that is. The others were there for your perusal ;)

You can wrap the delusional mumbo-jumbo up in technobabble all you like, it will still be delusional mumbo-jumbo.

No. Only until you show me why will I accept your assertions.

Perhaps. But you are speculating in favor of the supernatural, when you should be turning your critical eye towards May et al.

Do you know what "supernatural" means? "Supernatural" means above and beyond natures laws and therefore unexplainable in principle. The act of performing experiments means that we assume we are studying something natural and within the laws of nature. I am not speculating in favour of the "supernatural".

Oh, come on, David. You've been hinting that they avoided your precious studies all along.

I think its possible, considering what we know about confirmation bias. I am also aware I could be wrong about this.

Like I said, you can put it in a lab and wrap it up in fancy words all you like. It still is the same schtick, from the same kind of people with the same kind of thinking.

Give me some content please. Empty assertions are not good enough.

No, David. I am including all the results and pointing out that there are so glaring errors that nobody in their right minds can possibly claim that Ingo Swann remote viewed Jupiter. Nobody.

How do you know what are erroneous and what are not? Some impressions may be obviously erroneous but others may not be. That was an exploratory study with no decoy targets and so no way of statistically analysing the results. So what method are you using to form your conclusion? It isn't that horribly unreliable method of qualitative psychological assessment is it? Oh yes, it is. You are doing exactly what "woos" do when they claim confidence in their remote viewing success without any method of quantitative analysis. I am quite willing to say "I don't know" in the absence of quantitative analysis.

What you are doing, is coming up with the same pathetic excuses for people like Swann. If he gets it that wrong, why should we accept the hits as evidence of remote viewing? How can we distinguish between a hit and a correct guess? We can't.

You miss my point. That Jupiter example is not evidence of anything. It's impossible to say either way whether he was successful or not. I could take a handfull of his impressions that on the surface sound like they are an accurate description of jupiters atmosphere, but I would be foolish to draw any conclusions from that because there is no quantitative way to measure their accuracy. And it doesn't surprise me one bit that there are what looks like massive errors. We should expect imagination to play a part in the generation of a certain portion of impressions because properly controlled remote viewing experiments are not 100% accurate.

If they had independently replicated the results, why would they keep quiet about it? They sure blow their own horn when it comes to the studies that purportedly show evidence of remote viewing - as you do here.

Perhaps the question is not if they have replicated the results. Perhaps the question is: Why don't you know if they have?

Like I said, I'm emailing Edwin May and Joe McMoneagle about this. I'll let you know.

You keep blaming Dawkins for the failures of McMoneagle.

Which failures?

zooloo

15th August 2007, 12:36 PM

Whole programme is here www.badscience.net/?p=504 (http://www.badscience.net/?p=504)

:)

CFLarsen

15th August 2007, 12:47 PM

Ok, two points here.

Firstly, you were not asking me to present evidence of an independent replication. You were asking me to provide reasons why I think the McMoneagle experiments are not a par with the delusions of a new age fair "psychic", and that is what I did. The point of this discussion was to get you to understand that the McMoneagle experiments should be taken seriously as an experiment upon which Dawkins and French could perform an independent replication. I shall take the fact that you are now throwing a tantrum and demanding that Dawkins and French are provided with independent replications as evidence that you know you are wrong.

Let me refer you to post #57:

Well, that is not according to May's experimental papers. And independent replication is important in science. Here we, apparently, have the opportunity for Dawkins and French to make an attempt to replicate May's findings but for some reason it didn't happen. Instead we got some unkown chaps from England waving some metal rods about. To be fair, there might be some well argued reason for not contacting people like May and McMoneagle. If there is, I'd like to hear it.

Yeah, David. It's yours. You pointed to the importance of independently replicated experiments. Don't act all surprised now.

Secondly, the experiment you refer to above was not a remote viewing experiment. It was the first on the list of references I provided you with, but I thought you would realise that there were several other types of experiment on the list if you actually read them that is. The others were there for your perusal ;)

Why do you provide this reference, if it hasn't anything to do with remote viewing? Stop playing games.

No. Only until you show me why will I accept your assertions.

I have already explained.

Do you know what "supernatural" means? "Supernatural" means above and beyond natures laws and therefore unexplainable in principle. The act of performing experiments means that we assume we are studying something natural and within the laws of nature. I am not speculating in favour of the "supernatural".

Wrong. Supernatural isn't unexplainable in principle. It is unexplainable based on the existing natural laws.

Phenomena like remote viewing and telekinesis certainly qualify as supernatural.

I think its possible, considering what we know about confirmation bias. I am also aware I could be wrong about this.

Oddly enough, you present this as the only valid reason why Dawkins didn't include it.

Give me some content please. Empty assertions are not good enough.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. But you have a habit of feigning ignorance when it is convenient.

How do you know what are erroneous and what are not? Some impressions may be obviously erroneous but others may not be. That was an exploratory study with no decoy targets and so no way of statistically analysing the results. So what method are you using to form your conclusion? It isn't that horribly unreliable method of qualitative psychological assessment is it? Oh yes, it is. You are doing exactly what "woos" do when they claim confidence in their remote viewing success without any method of quantitative analysis. I am quite willing to say "I don't know" in the absence of quantitative analysis.

...

You miss my point. That Jupiter example is not evidence of anything. It's impossible to say either way whether he was successful or not. I could take a handfull of his impressions that on the surface sound like they are an accurate description of jupiters atmosphere, but I would be foolish to draw any conclusions from that because there is no quantitative way to measure their accuracy.

What baloney. Of course it is not only possible to say whether he was successful or not, we can say certainty that he was unsuccessful. There are no sand dunes on Jupiter.

And it doesn't surprise me one bit that there are what looks like massive errors. We should expect imagination to play a part in the generation of a certain portion of impressions because properly controlled remote viewing experiments are not 100% accurate.

How do you distinguish between a guess and a true remotely viewed incident? You need to explain this, David.

Like I said, I'm emailing Edwin May and Joe McMoneagle about this. I'll let you know.

That doesn't answer the question: Why don't you know if they have replicated the results?

Which failures?

To show evidence of remote viewing.

davidsmith73

15th August 2007, 02:22 PM

Let me refer you to post #57:

Yeah, David. It's yours. You pointed to the importance of independently replicated experiments. Don't act all surprised now.

Yes, I pointed to the importance of independently replicated experiments in post 57. However, in post 55 you asked this:

Unless you can convincingly show that their claims have more merit than any other delusional believer, don't point fingers at Dawkins.

My answer in post 57 about the importance of independent replication served to illustrate that Dawkins and French seemed to have had an opportunity to perform a replication attempt.

Now, you were subsequently asserting that there is no difference between the delusions of a new-age fair psychic and the May et al experiments. I pointed out why the May et al experiments were not delusional in post 95. These points are not dependent on any existing independent replications. You can clearly see the differences regardless of whether independent replications have been done or not.

The fact that you are desperately trying to change the discussion here is evident. Its a tactic I've noticed you try many many times. I'm sure its boring everyone.

Why do you provide this reference, if it hasn't anything to do with remote viewing? Stop playing games.

Like I said, I thought you could peruse through these references yourself. If you are not intelligent enough to know the difference between a remote viewing experiment and a presentiment experiment then that's your problem.

I have already explained.

Wrong.

Supernatural isn't unexplainable in principle. It is unexplainable based on the existing natural laws.

No, that is the definition of "paranormal".

Oddly enough, you present this as the only valid reason why Dawkins didn't include it.

Getting you to correctly understand my point of view is what I'm really trying to do.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

No I don't. I only have a vague idea what you are talking about because vague answers are the best I am getting from you.

What baloney. Of course it is not only possible to say whether he was successful or not, we can say certainty that he was unsuccessful. There are no sand dunes on Jupiter.

In properly controlled remote viewing experiments, erroneous impressions occur all the time. I would not expect a remote viewers impressions to be 100% veridical. Again, you are doing exactly what the "woos" do and basing your conclusions on your intuitive sense of what constitutes a failure. If I were guilty of using the same method, but from the opposite angle, I would point you to all of the impressions he gave that seemed accurate (and they are indeed there). But you wouldn't accept that, right?

How do you distinguish between a guess and a true remotely viewed incident?

Above chance correspondence with the randomly chosen target.

That doesn't answer the question: Why don't you know if they have replicated the results?

Considering I don't know if they have been replicated, I don't know why I don't know! It could be a number of things. I could not have looked enough into the literature, I could have inadvertantly read a replication but not realised it or there could not be any replications.

To show evidence of remote viewing.

Well this is just it. I think there is evidence in those papers. So I would not be blaming Dawkins for the failures of May and McMoneagle because their experiments show evidence. I would be blaming Dawkins and French for not taking the opportunity to attempt a replication with their own approved methodology.

CFLarsen

15th August 2007, 02:40 PM

Yes, I pointed to the importance of independently replicated experiments in post 57. However, in post 55 you asked this:

My answer in post 57 about the importance of independent replication served to illustrate that Dawkins and French seemed to have had an opportunity to perform a replication attempt.

Now, you were subsequently asserting that there is no difference between the delusions of a new-age fair psychic and the May et al experiments. I pointed out why the May et al experiments were not delusional in post 95. These points are not dependent on any existing independent replications. You can clearly see the differences regardless of whether independent replications have been done or not.

The fact that you are desperately trying to change the discussion here is evident. Its a tactic I've noticed you try many many times. I'm sure its boring everyone.

Baloney. You suddenly develop amnesia to obfuscate.

Like I said, I thought you could peruse through these references yourself. If you are not intelligent enough to know the difference between a remote viewing experiment and a presentiment experiment then that's your problem.

Baloney. You bring up irrelevant examples to obfuscate.

Wrong.

Baloney.

No, that is the definition of "paranormal".

supernatural (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=supernatural)
1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

...you were saying?

Getting you to correctly understand my point of view is what I'm really trying to do.

Baloney.

No I don't. I only have a vague idea what you are talking about because vague answers are the best I am getting from you.

Baloney.

In properly controlled remote viewing experiments, erroneous impressions occur all the time. I would not expect a remote viewers impressions to be 100% veridical. Again, you are doing exactly what the "woos" do and basing your conclusions on your intuitive sense of what constitutes a failure. If I were guilty of using the same method, but from the opposite angle, I would point you to all of the impressions he gave that seemed accurate (and they are indeed there). But you wouldn't accept that, right?

You brought up Swann. If you dismiss the Jupiter fiasco, what makes you think Swann have performed so well that it would justify a test by Dawkins?

Above chance correspondence with the randomly chosen target.

"Correspondence" is a weasel word. Remote viewing experiments invariably use targets that are interpreted post-hoc, in order to increase the number of hits.

Why on Earth don't they just try the old Zener cards, where no post-hoc interpretation is needed? Oh, yeah, that's right: They did. And came up with nothing.

Considering I don't know if they have been replicated, I don't know why I don't know! It could be a number of things. I could not have looked enough into the literature, I could have inadvertantly read a replication but not realised it or there could not be any replications.

It could indeed be a number of things. But, given your interest in this, and the importance of such a replication, don't you think someone would have noticed? Especially on this forum?

Well this is just it. I think there is evidence in those papers. So I would not be blaming Dawkins for the failures of May and McMoneagle because their experiments show evidence. I would be blaming Dawkins and French for not taking the opportunity to attempt a replication with their own approved methodology.

Since the "evidence" only convinces the most gullible, you are, in effect, blaming Dawkins and French for not being as gullible as you.

davidsmith73

15th August 2007, 03:50 PM

Baloney. You suddenly develop amnesia to obfuscate...

...Baloney. You bring up irrelevant examples to obfuscate...

...Baloney...

...Baloney...

...Baloney...

No less than 5 answers devoid of any content. Well done Claus, you've excelled yourself this time.

...you were saying?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/supernatural

You brought up Swann. If you dismiss the Jupiter fiasco, what makes you think Swann have performed so well that it would justify a test by Dawkins?

http://www.remoteviewer.nu/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3396

"Correspondence" is a weasel word. Remote viewing experiments invariably use targets that are interpreted post-hoc, in order to increase the number of hits.

Wrong. Interpretation occurs alongside the random selection of target image which does not increase the number of hits.

Why on Earth don't they just try the old Zener cards, where no post-hoc interpretation is needed?

Wrong again. Interpretation is always needed because the remote viewer has to interpret what zener card his impressions belong to. "Post-hoc" is irrelavent because the remote viewer known the nature of the decoys at the moment he has to interpret his impressions. Example, the viewer gets "I'm getting the impression of night time at sea". Would that be the star or wavy lines? Issues of internal bias don't matter of course because the targets are randomised. Clearly you haven't thought this through Claus.

Oh, yeah, that's right: They did. And came up with nothing.

Which experiments are you talking about?

It could indeed be a number of things. But, given your interest in this, and the importance of such a replication, don't you think someone would have noticed? Especially on this forum?

Possibly, possibly not. Perhaps McGoneagle was not mentioned in an independent replication. Perhaps he wasn't able to travel to another lab. Lots of speculation here. Are you going to draw conclusions from such speculation? I'll wait untill I get confirmation from May or McGoneagle.

BTW, you think a replication attempt by Dawkins and French would be important now?

Since the "evidence" only convinces the most gullible, you are, in effect, blaming Dawkins and French for not being as gullible as you.

If that's what you want to think, I'll leave you to it.

cj.23

15th August 2007, 07:38 PM

Interesting - I have just posed this to Professor Dawkins on his forum -- and as it was directly inspired by The Enemies of Reason I thought I'd share it here.

"Tonight I have been reading The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, by noted Mathematician, Science Writer and Skeptic Martin Gardner. In 1976 Martin Gardner was a founder member of CSI(COP), which has done a great deal over the years in debunking paranormal claims and fighting the rise of superstition. Many readers of this forum may have enjoyed his Fads & Fallacies In the Name of Science.

In Chapter 3, "Why I am not a Paranormalist" Gardner mounts a blistering attack on superstition. It contains many of the themes touched in The Enemies of Reason, and one curious disagreement.
Martin Gardner, 1983 wrote:As always with such manias, causes are multiple: the decline of traditional religious beliefs among the better educated, the resurgence of Protestant Fundamentalism, disenchantment with science for creating a technology that is damaging the environment and building horrendous war weapons, increasingly poor quality of science instruction on all levels of schooling, and many other factors...
I found that first bit fascinating. Now Gardner is obviously not a Christian, rejects all special revelation, but remains a theist. Like me he sees Fundamentalism as arising recently (within the last century pretty much) and a bad thing-- but he regards the "decline of traditional religious beliefs among the better educated" as a key factor in the rise of pseudo-science, cults and superstition? It in no way justifies Religious Belief, but it is very interesting as a claim.

OK, so I doubted. Gardner is a theist - he must be biased. What are his sources? Luckily he references them. It is the article Superstitions Old and new by William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark in The Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 4, Summer 1980. That's at least eight years before my collection starts, so I have not read the article, but i am sure a few forum members will have copies? Could they oblige? Gardner says
...reported on their surveys of how beliefs in certain aspects of the current occult mania correlated with religious faith. They found people with no professed religion were the most inclined to believe in ESP and extraterrestrial UFOs. Paranormal cults were strongest in areas where the traditional churches were weakest.
Never trusting anyone's opinions I have just been through the Sheep/Goat tests from my 1993 Paranormal Beliefs Survey of attendees at a lecture series. The test used by the group was an early Sheep/Goat test which measured some religious claims as well as paranormal ones. Later we adopted the 1979 New Australian Sheep/Goat Test my Michael Thalbourne, but this earlier version suited my purposes. There were 83 respondents, and while I have not had time to perform a proper statistical test - the data is on stapled questionnaires, not in electronic format and it's too late to type it all in tonight - there does appear to be a very strong correlation between non-belief in God and belief in UFOs as alien visitors, and between non-belief in Jesus as divine and belief in both ghosts & magic, to give a few examples.

I recall now (moderator) asked me if many parapsychologists were Christian - and I said none at all that I knew of, they were all atheists. I have just looked at my "psychics" who I sometimes work with - only one identifies as Spiritualist, two as atheist (Atheism is VERY common among UK Spiritualists following the example of Arthur Findlay) and seven "none"; six more are unclassifiable. Not one professed belief in any "orthodox" faith.

Now i'm sure Richard would regard my Anglicanism as just as much superstitious woo as does say crystal power, so this is a false distinction to him: but the evidence seems to suggest to me that the modern irrationalist supernaturalism is inversely related to traditional (non-fundamentalist) religious beliefs.

I think whoever misquoted G.K. Chesterton was perhaps right, even if as is possible Chesterton never actually said it
"when a man stops believing in God he does not believe in nothing: he believes in anything".

cj x

Explorer

16th August 2007, 12:16 AM

"...reported on their surveys of how beliefs in certain aspects of the current occult mania correlated with religious faith. They found people with no professed religion were the most inclined to believe in ESP and extraterrestrial UFOs. Paranormal cults were strongest in areas where the traditional churches were weakest."

Surely you have forgotten all about the Christian Spiritualist Church.

This is a statement from one of their many websites:

"Spirit Communion or Spirit Communication has always existed, and it is given by God for the furtherance of mankind and his spiritual progression"

Doesn't really fit with the theory does it?

CFLarsen

16th August 2007, 01:15 AM

No less than 5 answers devoid of any content. Well done Claus, you've excelled yourself this time.

On the contrary, "Baloney" is very much full of content. It accurately describes your stance.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/supernatural

Where does it say that it is unexplainable in principle?

http://www.remoteviewer.nu/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3396

Pick one, and explain why it convinced you.

Wrong. Interpretation occurs alongside the random selection of target image which does not increase the number of hits.

Interpretation also happens when a "tall object" is determined to be a tree, a mast or a tower.

Wrong again. Interpretation is always needed because the remote viewer has to interpret what zener card his impressions belong to. "Post-hoc" is irrelavent because the remote viewer known the nature of the decoys at the moment he has to interpret his impressions. Example, the viewer gets "I'm getting the impression of night time at sea". Would that be the star or wavy lines? Issues of internal bias don't matter of course because the targets are randomised. Clearly you haven't thought this through Claus.

Yes, I have. If the viewer doesn't get a clear result, that guess is simply relegated to the "not a clear result" bin.

Which experiments are you talking about?

Rhine.

Possibly, possibly not. Perhaps McGoneagle was not mentioned in an independent replication. Perhaps he wasn't able to travel to another lab. Lots of speculation here. Are you going to draw conclusions from such speculation? I'll wait untill I get confirmation from May or McGoneagle.

Oh, come on! You know damn well how much attention such an independent replication would get.

BTW, you think a replication attempt by Dawkins and French would be important now?

I think any replication attempt would be important. It isn't particularly important who does it.

Do you think the experimenter is important?

SusanB-M1

16th August 2007, 02:02 AM

cj.23

Now i'm sure Richard would regard my Anglicanism as just as much superstitious woo as does say crystal power, so this is a false distinction to him: but the evidence seems to suggest to me that the modern irrationalist supernaturalism is inversely related to traditional (non-fundamentalist) religious beliefs.

If associations such as the BHA could establish an organisation similar to the Anglican church - but without the God part of course - then there would be a strong, positive structure for atheists to step into, rather than the irrational area of superstition. It's a mountain to climb of course, but they, JREF, etc are well on the way ... or perhaps I am being just a bit too optimistic there!

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 02:58 AM

On the contrary, "Baloney" is very much full of content. It accurately describes your stance.

No, you are asserting, not explaining my stance. "Its just baloney, and that is all there is to it". It's a very immature response to make.

Where does it say that it is unexplainable in principle?

"of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural"

"a being, place, object, occurrence, etc., considered as supernatural or of supernatural origin; that which is supernatural, or outside the natural order."

"above nature, transcending nature"

Pick one, and explain why it convinced you.

Persinger claims to have found a neurophysiological correlate of relevant target mentation. Surely, this would be worth another look to see if there's something to it? It would surely have made a more interesting experiment than watching dowsers walk around a tent of plastic bottles. It may even have worked.

Interpretation also happens when a "tall object" is determined to be a tree, a mast or a tower.

Of course it does. This was the process of interpretation I was refering to in my last post, ie, remote viewer mentation is interpreted to correspond to certain aspects of an image in order to make the choice as to whether it is the target. And as I said, this process occurs along side the randomisation of target images. If the targets are randomised then you will not get an inflation of hit rate.

Yes, I have. If the viewer doesn't get a clear result, that guess is simply relegated to the "not a clear result" bin.

And what about when they get a "clear result"? Don't you think that, inside their head, the remote viewer is doing their own bit of interpretation? Remember, inside their head, they are thinking "mmm, I am getting the impression of being on the sea. That must be the wavy lines. Yes, I'll say wavy lines". They could be doing all sorts of interpretation inside their head because they alredy know what all the zener cards look like. Effectively, the situation is no different from the free response version. Internal bias still comes into play.

Rhine.

According to Dean Radin's description of Fiona Steinkamp's chapter "Forced choice experiments: Their past and their future" in Thalbourne and Storm's book "Parapsychology in the 21st Century (2005), the odds of the best controlled Rhine zener card experiments were 375 trillion to 1.

Oh, come on! You know damn well how much attention such an independent replication would get.

What are you concluding?

I think any replication attempt would be important. It isn't particularly important who does it.

But you originally said that the May et al experiments were delusion. Why do you think someone should bother to do a replication if you think the original experiment is delusion?

Do you think the experimenter is important?

no

kieran

16th August 2007, 03:19 AM

Interpretation is always needed because the remote viewer has to interpret what zener card his impressions belong to. "Post-hoc" is irrelavent because the remote viewer known the nature of the decoys at the moment he has to interpret his impressions. Example, the viewer gets "I'm getting the impression of night time at sea". Would that be the star or wavy lines?
Great example! Lets extend it and add a triangular boat, with a square cabin and a round port-hole and we can make it always a hit! A remote viewer's dream!!!

Doesn't this only illustrate that vague statements by remote "viewers" only cloud the issue.

Isn't another possibility that these people are just making guesses, and using broad terms in order to maximize their chances of a hit? ... oh wait, am I confusing it them with "psychics"? Mmmm, same MO - are they just re-packing the same trick???

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 03:40 AM

Great example! Lets extend it and add a triangular boat, with a square cabin and a round port-hole and we can make it always a hit! A remote viewer's dream!!!

Remember that the RVer must choose between the five cards as to which is the correct target for that particular trial, and the targets are selected randomly. If the RVer has a mental impression containing all geometric symbols then that would not be a hit unless they choose the correct target card. Your situation would actually be a remote viewers nightmare! Which symbol should they choose?! My previous point was simply to illustrate that interpretation of internal mentation is not eliminated in a zener card experiment.

Doesn't this only illustrate that vague statements by remote "viewers" only cloud the issue.

They make the interpretation process more difficult. But it will not inflate the hit rate if the targets are randomised. I'm quite willing to admit I'm wrong on that if someone can show me some sophisticated simulation out there that shows otherwise. However, it stands to reason that internal cognitive bias is not controlled for just because zener cards are used in a forced choice design. It just shifts the interpretation process to internal cognitive processes of the remote viewer rather than an independent judge.

Isn't another possibility that these people are just making guesses, and using broad terms in order to maximize their chances of a hit?

If they think that, they are wrong. There may well be some frauds or deluded people who think they can get away with it that way, but it won't work if the targets are randomised.

kieran

16th August 2007, 03:44 AM

We know that remote viewers are not 100% accurate.

I would not expect a remote viewers impressions to be 100% veridical.

We should expect imagination to play a part in the generation of a certain portion of impressions because properly controlled remote viewing experiments are not 100% accurate.

This upper bound of accuracy on remote viewing that you keep alluding too - while correct (less than 100%) - is as vague as a remote viewers description (good simile!)

Can you make it more useful by tightening it? What is the best accuracy achieved by the best remote viewer? What the the average accuracy achieved by an average remote viewer? Can you also compare those to the accuracy achieved by someone making guesses using vague terms? When you've done all that - come back and report your findings ... Feel free to check your results for consistency and repeatability, and also to tune your tests to eliminate as many sources of error as possible.

Q: Why should you do all this work?
A: Why should I waste my time looking for your evidence for you?

You could save a bit of effort for yourself by getting a remote viewer to "vaguely describe" the result to you ...

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 04:00 AM

This upper bound of accuracy on remote viewing that you keep alluding too - while correct (less than 100%) - is as vague as a remote viewers description (good simile!)

Can you make it more useful by tightening it? What is the best accuracy achieved by the best remote viewer? What the the average accuracy achieved by an average remote viewer? Can you also compare those to the accuracy achieved by someone making guesses using vague terms? When you've done all that - come back and report your findings ... Feel free to check your results for consistency and repeatability, and also to tune your tests to eliminate as many sources of error as possible.

Q: Why should you do all this work?
A: Why should I waste my time looking for your evidence for you?

According to Edwin May, Joseph McMoneagle's lifetime success rate in experiments, where 20% hit rate is chance, is about 50%
source:
http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/media/videoclips/Precog/precog.html

So, apparently remote viewers are not 100% accurate. Thus we should expect their mentation to contain both veridical and non-veridical impressions. What we shouldn't do is take a long list of mentation and make firm conclusions about it without any method of quantitative analysis.

kieran

16th August 2007, 04:08 AM

There may well be some frauds or deluded people who think they can get away with it that way, but it won't work if the targets are randomised.
... but there will be some randomly bad results and some randomly good ones - if you put undue emphasis on the odd random good result, without looking at the integrity and repeatibility of it, then you are assisting in the fraud/delusion ...

Find a remote viewer that can actually do something tangeable - then you have a starting point rather than wishful thinking ...

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 04:22 AM

... but there will be some randomly bad results and some randomly good ones - if you put undue emphasis on the odd random good result, without looking at the integrity and repeatibility of it, then you are assisting in the fraud/delusion ...

You are touching on two issues here. The first is whether a single experimental series will produce randomly good results. This is true, but its solved by performing many trials. You can then esitmate the odds that such a result was due to chance. I was assuming that we were talking about experiments that do this. Under such conditions, interpretation of vague mentation will not inflate the results if the targets are randomised.

The other issue is selective reporting. Selective reporting is a serious concern in psi research but there are ways of calculating how many unknown failed experiments it would take to nullify the results of a successful one.

Find a remote viewer that can actually do something tangeable - then you have a starting point rather than wishful thinking ...

I'm curious to know what you mean by tangeable? What you seem to be doing is imposing your own expectation of how a natural phenomenon should behave rather than looking at how the phenomena really behaves and trying to explain it.

kieran

16th August 2007, 05:02 AM

According to Edwin May, Joseph McMoneagle's lifetime success rate in experiments, where 20% hit rate is chance, is about 50%
source:
http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/media/videoclips/Precog/precog.html

Gee - a video clip - that is independently verifiable ...

And when May and McMoneagle went to others to demonstrate their claims - how did that go?

Has McMoneagle been able to demonstrate this claim in a skeptical environment?

So, apparently remote viewers are not 100% accurate. Thus we should expect their mentation to contain both veridical and non-veridical impressions. What we shouldn't do is take a long list of mentation and make firm conclusions about it without any method of quantitative analysis.
So why not drop the "not 100%" and start using the 50% accuracy from your May source - or is that just too easy to pin down in a test as a obvious failure?

In any case, in this thread, you do seem to be drawing conclusions on flimsy evidence - for instance your stance appears to be that there is credible evidence that McMoneagle can actually remote view. Others are dubious (to say the least.) So what's wrong with trying to firm up this evidence? Or will the evidence mysteriously evaporate under scrutiny - like that of the sampled dowsers in "The Enemies of Reason" ?

If McMoneagle - your best current shot - can not actually do what is claimed ... would you just ignore that and move on to the next one in the infinite line? That is the lesson of history here ...

kieran

16th August 2007, 05:12 AM

You are touching on two issues here. The first is whether a single experimental series will produce randomly good results. This is true, but its solved by performing many trials.
Agreed.

You can then esitmate the odds that such a result was due to chance. I was assuming that we were talking about experiments that do this. Under such conditions, interpretation of vague mentation will not inflate the results if the targets are randomised.
I think the estimation that the result could be due to chance is where the roads diverge. If the design of the experiments does not actually do this despite it's claims, this then the inflation of results would still happen.

The other issue is selective reporting. Selective reporting is a serious concern in psi research but there are ways of calculating how many unknown failed experiments it would take to nullify the results of a successful one.
... and is there any evidence that these "unknown" failed experiments did or did not take place?

In any case, if the experiment is flawed, then all the claims on accuracy are null and void. Again, what is wrong with analysing such experiments, looking to improve them, and repeating them with un-biased observers? If they work, then they work ... simple.

I'm curious to know what you mean by tangeable? What you seem to be doing is imposing your own expectation of how a natural phenomenon should behave rather than looking at how the phenomena really behaves and trying to explain it.
I did not mean it in any rigorous sense - but I'll try to post-interpret it to you now as .... something that can be observed to the satisfaction of all interested parties.

CFLarsen

16th August 2007, 05:30 AM

No, you are asserting, not explaining my stance. "Its just baloney, and that is all there is to it". It's a very immature response to make.

Have you ever thought something was just baloney?

"of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural"

"a being, place, object, occurrence, etc., considered as supernatural or of supernatural origin; that which is supernatural, or outside the natural order."

"above nature, transcending nature"

No, that doesn't make it unexplainable in principle. It just makes it "not being able to be explained, at the present moment".

Persinger claims to have found a neurophysiological correlate of relevant target mentation. Surely, this would be worth another look to see if there's something to it?

Is it the first example?

It would surely have made a more interesting experiment than watching dowsers walk around a tent of plastic bottles. It may even have worked.

Why would it be more interesting? At least the dowsers claim to find water, something that is very much needed in the world today. Remote viewing landmarks? Why is that more interesting?

Of course it does. This was the process of interpretation I was refering to in my last post, ie, remote viewer mentation is interpreted to correspond to certain aspects of an image in order to make the choice as to whether it is the target. And as I said, this process occurs along side the randomisation of target images. If the targets are randomised then you will not get an inflation of hit rate.

But why have that interpretation at all? Stick to the simplest symbols and get rid of this interpretation.

And what about when they get a "clear result"? Don't you think that, inside their head, the remote viewer is doing their own bit of interpretation? Remember, inside their head, they are thinking "mmm, I am getting the impression of being on the sea. That must be the wavy lines. Yes, I'll say wavy lines". They could be doing all sorts of interpretation inside their head because they alredy know what all the zener cards look like. Effectively, the situation is no different from the free response version. Internal bias still comes into play.

But when focusing on the simplest symbols, we get rid of the interpretation of what the experimenters think. Surely, that is a much better way, don't you think?

According to Dean Radin's description of Fiona Steinkamp's chapter "Forced choice experiments: Their past and their future" in Thalbourne and Storm's book "Parapsychology in the 21st Century (2005), the odds of the best controlled Rhine zener card experiments were 375 trillion to 1.

What about the overall results?

I find it interesting that you point to a forced choice experiment, when you have just argued against such experiments. Which is it? Should it be forced choice or not?

What are you concluding?

That we would definitely have heard about a result, had there been one.

But you originally said that the May et al experiments were delusion. Why do you think someone should bother to do a replication if you think the original experiment is delusion?

That's up to them.

no

Then, you have no reason to complain about what Dawkins did or did not do.

Great example! Lets extend it and add a triangular boat, with a square cabin and a round port-hole and we can make it always a hit! A remote viewer's dream!!!

Doesn't this only illustrate that vague statements by remote "viewers" only cloud the issue.

Isn't another possibility that these people are just making guesses, and using broad terms in order to maximize their chances of a hit? ... oh wait, am I confusing it them with "psychics"? Mmmm, same MO - are they just re-packing the same trick???

Spot on.

Remember that the RVer must choose between the five cards as to which is the correct target for that particular trial, and the targets are selected randomly. If the RVer has a mental impression containing all geometric symbols then that would not be a hit unless they choose the correct target card. Your situation would actually be a remote viewers nightmare! Which symbol should they choose?! My previous point was simply to illustrate that interpretation of internal mentation is not eliminated in a zener card experiment.

They should say "No, I'm not getting a result", and move on.

Is that a problem?

They make the interpretation process more difficult. But it will not inflate the hit rate if the targets are randomised. I'm quite willing to admit I'm wrong on that if someone can show me some sophisticated simulation out there that shows otherwise. However, it stands to reason that internal cognitive bias is not controlled for just because zener cards are used in a forced choice design. It just shifts the interpretation process to internal cognitive processes of the remote viewer rather than an independent judge.

The key is not more "sophistication", but less. We should always aim to get as simple an experiment as possible.

If they think that, they are wrong. There may well be some frauds or deluded people who think they can get away with it that way, but it won't work if the targets are randomised.

Nonsense. As long as you have interpretation of the target, you don't have a true result.

According to Edwin May, Joseph McMoneagle's lifetime success rate in experiments, where 20% hit rate is chance, is about 50%
source:
http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/media/videoclips/Precog/precog.html

So, apparently remote viewers are not 100% accurate. Thus we should expect their mentation to contain both veridical and non-veridical impressions. What we shouldn't do is take a long list of mentation and make firm conclusions about it without any method of quantitative analysis.

You do realize that a 50% hit rate would earn him a million bucks? Not to say eternal fame?

In the event that it is accepted scientifically, of course. Clearly, it isn't. Why not?

FarSideOfTheMoon

16th August 2007, 06:16 AM

Not having time to make tea or check emails is bad enough ( ;) ) but I'm really concerned about the attitude of big coporations on this matter.
It is clear that there is reluctance on their part to be associated with rational thinking or anything that debunks peoples cossetting beliefs, if I'm right.

The upshot of this would be a steady decline in funding derived from educationally-inclined programmes, making it increasingly likely that the channels will commission fewer of such programmes in order to keep their revenue up.

As a child I used to watch programmes like QED, Horizon, Equinox, Cosmos and Tomorrow's World whenever they were shown and was frequently disappointed at the infrequency of their broadcasts even then. How many of those programmes survive now? Just one - Horizon.

Perhaps it's already happening?

I'm not sure there is anything sinister here. It is quite normal when there are factual programmes on C4, not to have long commercial breaks. You see the same effect when Dispatches is on. I've no idea whether they just can't sell the advertising, or the programmes are genuinely made to be slightly longer in duration.

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 06:25 AM

Gee - a video clip - that is independently verifiable ...

There are a handfull of papers available on their site. You'll find the less than 100% hit rate there. Look, if you don't want to accept that remote viewers perform less than 100%, thats fine. I'm not interested in giving you a precise figure. The purpose of this discussion was to illustrate why we should expect some of their mentation to be non-veridical. We do not have to agree on a precise hit rate to make that kind of reasoning. If you think otherwise, then please point out a paper that shows a remote viewer acheiving 100% hit rate!

And when May and McMoneagle went to others to demonstrate their claims - how did that go?

I don't know. I'm still waiting for a reply from May about any independent replications.

Has McMoneagle been able to demonstrate this claim in a skeptical environment?

You don't count Edwin May as a spectic? Doesn't performing controlled experiments count as scepticism?

So why not drop the "not 100%" and start using the 50% accuracy from your May source - or is that just too easy to pin down in a test as a obvious failure?

No, its not an obvious failure. Although I don't know the significance level that would accompany the 50% I would guess it is highly significant. In addition, its not relevant to the argument that we agree on a precise figure. If its less than 100% then we should expect non-veridical impressions.

In any case, in this thread, you do seem to be drawing conclusions on flimsy evidence - for instance your stance appears to be that there is credible evidence that McMoneagle can actually remote view. Others are dubious (to say the least.) So what's wrong with trying to firm up this evidence? Or will the evidence mysteriously evaporate under scrutiny - like that of the sampled dowsers in "The Enemies of Reason" ?

Why don't we discuss this paper then?

http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/library/RVsender.pdf

If McMoneagle - your best current shot - can not actually do what is claimed ... would you just ignore that and move on to the next one in the infinite line? That is the lesson of history here ...

If it turns out the controlled experiments are fundamentally flawed in some way then perhaps I would indeed have to wait until the next promising individual arrives.

But are the experiments fundamentally flawed?

Ethan Thane Athen

16th August 2007, 06:53 AM

cj.23

16th August 2007, 07:02 AM

kieran

16th August 2007, 07:06 AM

There are a handfull of papers available on their site. You'll find the less than 100% hit rate there. Look, if you don't want to accept that remote viewers perform less than 100%, thats fine. I'm not interested in giving you a precise figure. The purpose of this discussion was to illustrate why we should expect some of their mentation to be non-veridical. We do not have to agree on a precise hit rate to make that kind of reasoning. If you think otherwise, then please point out a paper that shows a remote viewer acheiving 100% hit rate!

I'd be happy to - but I don't think there is any credible evidence for remote viewing ... However since you don't accept any disproving of particular instances of remote viewing, then the burden of proof is upon you here ...

I don't know. I'm still waiting for a reply from May about any independent replications.
Let us know how you get on ...

You don't count Edwin May as a spectic? Doesn't performing controlled experiments count as scepticism?
Calling an experiment "controlled" does not make it so. Why is there no evidence of independent replication? Why doesn't everyone in the world know who MacGoneagle is? If he has a remote viewing power, why is he so selective about showing it?:confused:

No, its not an obvious failure. Although I don't know the significance level that would accompany the 50% I would guess it is highly significant. In addition, its not relevant to the argument that we agree on a precise figure. If its less than 100% then we should expect non-veridical impressions.
If we toss a fair coin and you ask me to predict heads or tails, then with random guesses I will be accurate 50% of the time. My thinking process might include chewing gum in a swimming pool, but my call must be heads or tails. Should I just make that call and be judged solely on that or should I record my thinking? ... how much lee-way would be allowed to map "chewing gum in a swimming pool" to either heads or tails?:confused:

Why don't we discuss this paper then?

http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/library/RVsender.pdf
Excuse me if I wait for independent replication as a first step before I waste my time. Call it a hunch, or call it common sense ...

If it turns out the controlled experiments are fundamentally flawed in some way then perhaps I would indeed have to wait until the next promising individual arrives.
Then I will happily step out of your infinite loop ... wake me up when you have the "real" thing ...

But are the experiments fundamentally flawed?
Looks like we are back to the independent verification again doesn't it?

Step 1 - does the experiment actually give the results claimed?
Step 2 - are there any way we can improve or simplify the experiment to increase our knowledge of what causes the results?

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 07:18 AM

Have you ever thought something was just baloney?

yeah like when someone makes a claim without any scientific evidence to back it up.

No, that doesn't make it unexplainable in principle. It just makes it "not being able to be explained, at the present moment".

no, i think the word you are looking for there is "unexplained"

Is it the first example?

yes

Why would it be more interesting? At least the dowsers claim to find water, something that is very much needed in the world today. Remote viewing landmarks? Why is that more interesting?

Because it would have been an independent replication of an experiment that has already been claimed to be successful.

But why have that interpretation at all? Stick to the simplest symbols and get rid of this interpretation.

As far as I can see, interpretation in a free response type experiment would not confound the statistical analysis of hit rate and neither would interpretation in a zener card experiment. Proof oriented experiments can be performed in either paradigm. Saying we should "get rid" of the free response experiments is not based on any reasoning. It is based on your inherent dislike of the fact positive results are being found. It doesn't matter how much interpretation goes on, if the targets are randomised then it will not inflate the hit rate. The reason why free response was introduced was to bring the experiment closer to how anomalous cognition seems to operate "in the field" so to speak.

But when focusing on the simplest symbols, we get rid of the interpretation of what the experimenters think. Surely, that is a much better way, don't you think?

No different, as I explained. Furthermore, we don't need an independent judge for free response. It can also be done by the receiver.

What about the overall results?

Dean Radin doesn't say, but he included a graph in "Entangled Minds" which shows that the overall results produced a larger effect size than the well controlled experiments so I presume this would correspond to a higher level of significance.

I find it interesting that you point to a forced choice experiment, when you have just argued against such experiments. Which is it? Should it be forced choice or not?

I find it interesting that you think I have been arguing against forced choice! Forced choice experiments are just as legitimate as free response. I was in fact arguing that forced choice experiments are prone to an intereptation process, as are free response.

That we would definitely have heard about a result, had there been one.

Interesting view. I'm not so sure.

Then, you have no reason to complain about what Dawkins did or did not do.

The validity of experimental results does not depend on who the author is. That would be an appeal to authority. What I am complaining about is what appears to be a missed opportunity for them to perform a relpication attempt which was instead squandered on delusional dowsers.

They should say "No, I'm not getting a result", and move on.

Is that a problem?

Not a problem at all. Its when they say they do get a result that we should be focusing on. In such a situation, there could be all sorts of interpretations going on in their mind that we don't know about, even interpretations that they are not conscious of!

The key is not more "sophistication", but less. We should always aim to get as simple an experiment as possible.

Yes, but relevantly simplistic. Using zener cards doesn't make the analysis any simpler. Look at the ganzfeld experiments and will see essentially the same statistical analysis. This is because the free response mentation is reduced to a single datum, just like the zener card experiments.

Nonsense. As long as you have interpretation of the target, you don't have a true result.

You can't get away from the interpretation issue. Can you devise an experiment where it is eliminated (not that it is at all important anyway)?

You do realize that a 50% hit rate would earn him a million bucks? Not to say eternal fame?

If you say so.

In the event that it is accepted scientifically, of course. Clearly, it isn't. Why not?

That's an enduring mystery in itself! It clearly isn't down to scientific issues.

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 07:24 AM

I am finding the Remote Viewing discussion very interesting, but perhaps it deserves its own thread, if only to make finding it in future easier? :) Sorry to contribute nothing of worth whatsoever,just a brief suggestion?

cj x

yes, I'm happy to do that. Is that something the moderator does, to kind of split the thread?

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 07:39 AM

I'd be happy to - but I don't think there is any credible evidence for remote viewing

I'm not asking you to commit to a belief in the credibility of the results. Just find me a paper where the remote viewer performs with 100% accuracy. I don't think such a paper exists.

... However since you don't accept any disproving of particular instances of remote viewing,

Of course I do. However, I only accept reasoned argument not empty assertions.

then the burden of proof is upon you here ...

Well, I provided a paper to discuss, but you seem intent on not discussing it.

Let us know how you get on ...

Will do.

Calling an experiment "controlled" does not make it so.

Are you suggesting fraud here, or do you have a specific criticism of the published methodology?

Why is there no evidence of independent replication? Why doesn't everyone in the world know who MacGoneagle is? If he has a remote viewing power, why is he so selective about showing it?:confused:

awaiting email.

If we toss a fair coin and you ask me to predict heads or tails, then with random guesses I will be accurate 50% of the time. My thinking process might include chewing gum in a swimming pool, but my call must be heads or tails. Should I just make that call and be judged solely on that or should I record my thinking? ... how much lee-way would be allowed to map "chewing gum in a swimming pool" to either heads or tails?:confused:

I'm not sure I understand your point, but you could do what Claus suggests and "pass" on that trial. At some point though, you have to make some guesses otherwise there is no experiment. And if you are continually receiving "chewing gum in a swimming pool" then you're not much of a remote viewer. This does not invalidate the experiment however. Remember the randomisation of targets.

Excuse me if I wait for independent replication as a first step before I waste my time. Call it a hunch, or call it common sense ...

Disappointing. Probably just as well, as I must get back to the real world soon...

Then I will happily step out of your infinite loop ... wake me up when you have the "real" thing ...

Hang on, I said if the experiments are found to be fundamentally flawed. I hold high confidence that they are not so.

Looks like we are back to the independent verification again doesn't it?

erm no. I was asking whether the experiments are fundamentally flawed, which was perhaps an invitation for you to put your money where your mouth is and show me some flaws! Independent verification with exactly the same protocol would only replicate these mysterious flaws. You are falling back on suspicions of fraud.

kieran

16th August 2007, 08:45 AM

I'm not asking you to commit to a belief in the credibility of the results. Just find me a paper where the remote viewer performs with 100% accuracy. I don't think such a paper exists.

Are you being serious here? Neither of us has claimed 100%, but I asked you for a tighter upper bound on the accuracy that the virtually meaningless "<100%" you keep using. Your rebuttal is that I should find a paper with 100% accuracy. Have I got lost in the logic somewhere here? Please feel free to lead me trough how my in-ability to produce such a paper proves anything? Your inability to commit to anything more meaningful than "<100%" is the problem I was pointing out ... how am I supposed to fix that?

Well, I provided a paper to discuss, but you seem intent on not discussing it.
I thought that I made clear before that independent verification is a fundamental step here. (Hint: That's why I called it "Step 1" at the end of my last post.) There may be absolutely no flaws in the method as reported, doesn't mean the results will be re-produceable when the experiment is repeated independently. If the results are repeatable then there are things worth thinking about, the method of the experiment being one such thing. Why is that such a strange position to adopt?

Are you suggesting fraud here, or do you have a specific criticism of the published methodology?
Fraud is possible. Sloppiness is another. Flaws are also possible. Statistical anomalies also. Without replication it is all pointless speculation.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but you could do what Claus suggests and "pass" on that trial. At some point though, you have to make some guesses otherwise there is no experiment. And if you are continually receiving "chewing gum in a swimming pool" then you're not much of a remote viewer. This does not invalidate the experiment however. Remember the randomisation of targets.
"randomization of targets" ... a.k.a. whatever helps get the results you want? Why are random targets necessary, other than RV doesn't seem to work with non-random targets, and random targets, despite what you claim, leave wiggle room i.e. are open to interpretation ... ?

My remote viewing of chewing gum in a swimming pool is as good as I can post-hoc interpret ... that's makes me as good a remote viewer as my interpretation. If I keep receiving that, and interpret it differently each time, then I may be a great remote viewer (where interpretation of received views would be my special subject). I doubt that though. If you need the interpretation to get it to work ... then you are just hanging on to your wiggle room.

Hang on, I said if the experiments are found to be fundamentally flawed. I hold high confidence that they are not so.
Despite the fact that you don't know if they have been, or could ever be, reproduced ... so why exactly do you have such "high confidence"?

erm no. I was asking whether the experiments are fundamentally flawed, which was perhaps an invitation for you to put your money where your mouth is and show me some flaws! Independent verification with exactly the same protocol would only replicate these mysterious flaws. You are falling back on suspicions of fraud.
erm no back achya... if no-one ever reproduces these results, then why should I waste my time on looking for flaws in the reported method when there may be none ... my previous post made it clear that "putting my money where my mouth is" can wait until these results are verified. You have used the word "fraud" (and incorrectly claimed that is my suspicion), I concede that it is one possibility, but there are others, and I mentioned some above.

davidsmith73

16th August 2007, 10:35 AM

Are you being serious here? Neither of us has claimed 100%, but I asked you for a tighter upper bound on the accuracy that the virtually meaningless "<100%" you keep using.

We do not need a tighter upper bound. Every remote viewing experiment I've read does not get 100%. That is sufficient for the specific point I was making with regards to expecting non-veridical mentation.

Your rebuttal is that I should find a paper with 100% accuracy. Have I got lost in the logic somewhere here? Please feel free to lead me trough how my in-ability to produce such a paper proves anything?

It would suggest that a remote viewer can perform without error. That such a paper does not exist, as far as I know, means that we should expect their mentation to contain non-veridical impressions which was the original point of this discussion.

Your inability to commit to anything more meaningful than "<100%" is the problem I was pointing out

Why is it a problem for the specific point I was making?

I thought that I made clear before that independent verification is a fundamental step here. (Hint: That's why I called it "Step 1" at the end of my last post.) There may be absolutely no flaws in the method as reported, doesn't mean the results will be re-produceable when the experiment is repeated independently. If the results are repeatable then there are things worth thinking about, the method of the experiment being one such thing. Why is that such a strange position to adopt?

It is a strange position to adopt because no scientist interested in these matters would refuse to even look at a paper before independent replications were done. Do you think much progress would be made if scientists refused to even look at original research?

However, I agree that reported methodology does not necessarily mean it was followed in practice. But that should not stop you from looking at original research. Are you actually interested in the possibility of remote viewing or are you here simply to stir up trouble? If the former, then why don't you look at the paper to see if you can narrow down the possibilities, ie, see whether the results were due to reported methodological flaws or not?

Flaws are also possible

If you look at the paper ;) Look, I'm quite happy to agree there are flaws if they are there. I can't see them. I don't understand this hostility towards this research.

"randomization of targets" ... a.k.a. whatever helps get the results you want? Why are random targets necessary, other than RV doesn't seem to work with non-random targets, and random targets, despite what you claim, leave wiggle room i.e. are open to interpretation ... ?

I don't think you understand whats going on here. You have to have randomisation of targets if you are going to control your experiment properly and have a method with which to compare your result with chance. Zener cards are randomised just like free response targets. If you don't randomise your targets then you are left open to the influence of cognitive bias in the selection of target and you will get artifactually inflated results. This is what people like Derren Brown rely on all the time. Do you understand?

My remote viewing of chewing gum in a swimming pool is as good as I can post-hoc interpret ... that's makes me as good a remote viewer as my interpretation. If I keep receiving that, and interpret it differently each time, then I may be a great remote viewer (where interpretation of received views would be my special subject). I doubt that though. If you need the interpretation to get it to work ... then you are just hanging on to your wiggle room.

There is no "wiggle room" if you randomise your targets, as I keep telling you. If you indeed "get it to work" then this would be evidence of anomalous cognition, even though you were convinced you weren't receiving any relevant imagery. Its not a very realistic scenario, but the results would speak for themselves.

Despite the fact that you don't know if they have been, or could ever be, reproduced ... so why exactly do you have such "high confidence"?

I was talking about confidence that there are no fundamental flaws in the published methodology. I am quite willing to accept that independent replications would fail. However, I am still investigating whether there have been independent replications.

erm no back achya... if no-one ever reproduces these results, then why should I waste my time on looking for flaws in the reported method when there may be none ... my previous post made it clear that "putting my money where my mouth is" can wait until these results are verified.

Then why the hell were you discussing methodology in your first post on this thread if you are not interested in methodology until we get reproduced results? :rolleyes:

CFLarsen

16th August 2007, 11:39 AM

yeah like when someone makes a claim without any scientific evidence to back it up.

In which case, you should call these experiments "baloney".

no, i think the word you are looking for there is "unexplained"

No, no, no: Unexplained for now. It doesn't make it unexplainable in principle.

yes

Let's look at it, then:

Several times during subsequent days, he was asked to sit in a quiet chamber and to sketch and to describe verbally distant stimuli (pictures or places) beyond his normal senses.

So, he "describes" and "sketches" something that has to be interpreted. Not just by himself, when getting the impressions, but also by those who evaluate his sketches.

What, exactly, is being measured here? His hit rate?

Because it would have been an independent replication of an experiment that has already been claimed to be successful.

But claiming to be successful is not the same as being successful.

As far as I can see, interpretation in a free response type experiment would not confound the statistical analysis of hit rate and neither would interpretation in a zener card experiment. Proof oriented experiments can be performed in either paradigm. Saying we should "get rid" of the free response experiments is not based on any reasoning.

That's where you are wrong: Getting rid of the "free response" experiments is very much based on reasoning, namely the reasoning that it eliminates interpretation. Either the RV'er gets it right, or he doesn't.

It is based on your inherent dislike of the fact positive results are being found. It doesn't matter how much interpretation goes on, if the targets are randomised then it will not inflate the hit rate. The reason why free response was introduced was to bring the experiment closer to how anomalous cognition seems to operate "in the field" so to speak.

Ah, so it is due to my "dislike" now. I'm just in denial of this fantastic evidence of remote viewing. :rolleyes:

No different, as I explained. Furthermore, we don't need an independent judge for free response. It can also be done by the receiver.

But it isn't, is it? If someone else than the receiver does the judging, would that weaken the experimental design?

Dean Radin doesn't say, but he included a graph in "Entangled Minds" which shows that the overall results produced a larger effect size than the well controlled experiments so I presume this would correspond to a higher level of significance.

Gee, David. Dean Radin doesn't say!

This doesn't ring a bell somewhere with you? Raise just one single red flag? Why wouldn't he say what the overall results would be, if the evidence was there?

I find it interesting that you think I have been arguing against forced choice! Forced choice experiments are just as legitimate as free response. I was in fact arguing that forced choice experiments are prone to an intereptation process, as are free response.

The one good thing about forced choice experiments is that there is no judging by the experimenters. So, why not focus on that experimental setup?

Interesting view. I'm not so sure.

Oh, come on, David! We are talking about the single most fantastic discovery of our time. People can remote view! Independent experiment shows this!

And those promoting these beliefs in remote viewing are just, ho-hum, blasé about this? Considering how much they promote the experiments that they claim show evidence?

The validity of experimental results does not depend on who the author is. That would be an appeal to authority. What I am complaining about is what appears to be a missed opportunity for them to perform a relpication attempt which was instead squandered on delusional dowsers.

May et al - or anyone - can be tested by JREF, if they like. And win money, too.

Not a problem at all. Its when they say they do get a result that we should be focusing on. In such a situation, there could be all sorts of interpretations going on in their mind that we don't know about, even interpretations that they are not conscious of!

If it is no problem, they should focus on the experimental setup that would give them the most robust results. Yet they don't.

Yes, but relevantly simplistic. Using zener cards doesn't make the analysis any simpler. Look at the ganzfeld experiments and will see essentially the same statistical analysis. This is because the free response mentation is reduced to a single datum, just like the zener card experiments.

Who says anything about the analysis? This is about getting as clear a result as possible.

You can't get away from the interpretation issue. Can you devise an experiment where it is eliminated (not that it is at all important anyway)?

Yes: Zener cards. Or, just pick the Cross and the Circle cards. A binary result: Either the lines or the circle. If you don't get either, in the bin it goes.

Is this not a much better experimental design that having the experimenters interpret some sketches?

If you say so.

David, come on. Evidence of remote viewing? An independently replication of remote viewing?

That's an enduring mystery in itself! It clearly isn't down to scientific issues.

Yes, it is: When they insist on vague sketches, instead of simple, clear answers, they insist on obfuscation.

We do not need a tighter upper bound. Every remote viewing experiment I've read does not get 100%. That is sufficient for the specific point I was making with regards to expecting non-veridical mentation.

Who has demanded a 100% hit rate here?

schlitt

16th August 2007, 06:21 PM

David Smith, I have read the link to the study you provide.

I have a couple of questions,

Did the remote viewer know the static images being used? it says in the study they had been using the same images for years.

Were the decoy images selected from the same pool of images?

Were the decoys selected at random to avoid subconcious bias?

From reading the analysis, there were at least two pictures containing waterfalls, why would they have similar images, surely this would increase the chances?

Why would they use images so open to interpretation? surely simple completely distinguishable shapes would be the best thing to use?
In one of the claimed successes, a simple drawing of a road is compared to a waterfall, ridiculous.

This experiment seems overly complicated, and there are too many variables relying on interpretation, in my humble opinion. (and it is very humble, as i am not a scientific researcher :))

davidsmith73

17th August 2007, 03:16 AM

In which case, you should call these experiments "baloney".

Yes, but I would have the courtesy to explain why the claim is baloney.

No, no, no: Unexplained for now.

That is a loose definition of "paranormal"

It doesn't make it unexplainable in principle.

Which is "supernatural" :D

Let's look at it, then:

So, he "describes" and "sketches" something that has to be interpreted. Not just by himself, when getting the impressions, but also by those who evaluate his sketches.

What, exactly, is being measured here? His hit rate?

I assume so. I don't have access to the full text. What impressed me about the abstract was the claim that Persinger found a correlation between neurophysiology and relevant target mentation. Hence why I suggested Ingo Swann as a potential testee for Dawkins and French because we have several well characterised physical measures to replicate. Perhaps the reason why Dawkins and French did not focus on this study is because it is fundamentally flawed in some way. If it is, I haven't seen a published or non-published criticism. Maybe someone can provide a link.

But claiming to be successful is not the same as being successful.

All the more reason for Dawkins and French to have taken their opportunity (assuming they had the budget) to replicate scientific claims that are already out there. With their own approved methodology, they could have provided the experiment results "under sceptical conditions".

That's where you are wrong: Getting rid of the "free response" experiments is very much based on reasoning, namely the reasoning that it eliminates interpretation. Either the RV'er gets it right, or he doesn't.

1) Interpretation does not inflate the hit rate if the targets are randomised
2) Interpretation is cognitive bias, which will be present in any test. The only way round it is 1)

Ah, so it is due to my "dislike" now. I'm just in denial of this fantastic evidence of remote viewing. :rolleyes:

No, you're in denail of points 1) and 2) above.

But it isn't, is it? If someone else than the receiver does the judging, would that weaken the experimental design?

I don't see how.

Gee, David. Dean Radin doesn't say!

This doesn't ring a bell somewhere with you? Raise just one single red flag? Why wouldn't he say what the overall results would be, if the evidence was there?

Because the overall results had a larger effect size than the most well controlled sub-group, which he presented in a graph. If the well controlled experiments had odds of 375 trillion to one, then the overall results would have been more highly significant. He obviously felt that there was no need to mention the odds for every subgroup. If you're trying to convice the reader of the evidence, it makes sense to focus on the result for the most well controlled experiments.

The one good thing about forced choice experiments is that there is no judging by the experimenters.

There is nothing wrong with the judging process if the targets are randomised. Why do you keep ignoring this?

Oh, come on, David! We are talking about the single most fantastic discovery of our time. People can remote view! Independent experiment shows this!

And those promoting these beliefs in remote viewing are just, ho-hum, blasé about this? Considering how much they promote the experiments that they claim show evidence?

I don't know why we haven't heard of an independent replication of Joseph McMoneagle's ability. It could be any number of reasons, as we've discussed.

May et al - or anyone - can be tested by JREF, if they like. And win money, too.

Do you think it's a possibility that McMoneagle could be reluctant to take the challenge because he might get nervous on the day and perform well below the agreed success rate? Its quite a big risk considering how a fail would look in the eyes of the scientific and sceptical community.

If it is no problem, they should focus on the experimental setup that would give them the most robust results. Yet they don't.

The free response experiments get larger hit rates than zener card experiments.

Who says anything about the analysis? This is about getting as clear a result as possible.

If the analysis is not affected by this interpretation issue (which it isn't) then you have no grounds to complain. You keep trying to make the assertion that using zener cards is somehow more valid than free response which is not true. Either you don't understand or you are lying.

Yes: Zener cards. Or, just pick the Cross and the Circle cards. A binary result: Either the lines or the circle. If you don't get either, in the bin it goes.

As I've said many times now - what about when an actual guess is made? Don't you think it's possible that interpretation of cognitive imagery is going on inside the mind of the receiver as to whether he should say cross or circle? Furthermore, we would have no way of telling how much interpretation is going on. The issue is the same as free response. The solution is to randomise the targets.

Is this not a much better experimental design that having the experimenters interpret some sketches?

In terms of eliminating the effects of cognitive bias - no different.

Yes, it is: When they insist on vague sketches, instead of simple, clear answers, they insist on obfuscation.

wrong, for the reasons above.

Who has demanded a 100% hit rate here?

The point of mentioning less than 100% hit rate was to illustrate that we should expect non-veridical impressions from the remote viewers.

gambling_cruiser

17th August 2007, 03:42 AM

I'm glad the remote viewers helped to find OBL or any one else looking for like missing persons. Police and the CIA would be lost without their remote viewing units.

CFLarsen

17th August 2007, 06:11 AM

Yes, but I would have the courtesy to explain why the claim is baloney.

I have.

That is a loose definition of "paranormal"

No. Paranormal is "not scientifically explainable". But not this "in principle", either.

Which is "supernatural" :D

Nonsense.

I assume so. I don't have access to the full text. What impressed me about the abstract was the claim that Persinger found a correlation between neurophysiology and relevant target mentation. Hence why I suggested Ingo Swann as a potential testee for Dawkins and French because we have several well characterised physical measures to replicate. Perhaps the reason why Dawkins and French did not focus on this study is because it is fundamentally flawed in some way. If it is, I haven't seen a published or non-published criticism. Maybe someone can provide a link.

You haven't even read the abstract. Nowhere does it say anything about his hit rate.

So: You want Dawkins to test Swann, based on what you think is a good experimental result.

You do this, not because you have read the full text.

You do this, not because you have read the abstract.

You do this, not because you can point to actual results.

You do this, because you see a claim of actual results.

All the more reason for Dawkins and French to have taken their opportunity (assuming they had the budget) to replicate scientific claims that are already out there. With their own approved methodology, they could have provided the experiment results "under sceptical conditions".

But many people have claims, David. It doesn't mean their claims are true.

1) Interpretation does not inflate the hit rate if the targets are randomised

2) Interpretation is cognitive bias, which will be present in any test. The only way round it is 1)

Yes, it does inflate the hit rate: If the experimenter has to interpret the results.

No, you're in denail of points 1) and 2) above.

Nonsense.

I don't see how.

Because if the experimenter has to interpret the guess to see if it fits with the target, bias is inevitable.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Because the overall results had a larger effect size than the most well controlled sub-group, which he presented in a graph.

How do you know that it had a larger effect size?

If the well controlled experiments had odds of 375 trillion to one, then the overall results would have been more highly significant. He obviously felt that there was no need to mention the odds for every subgroup. If you're trying to convice the reader of the evidence, it makes sense to focus on the result for the most well controlled experiments.

How did he calculate those huge odds?

There is nothing wrong with the judging process if the targets are randomised. Why do you keep ignoring this?

See above.

I don't know why we haven't heard of an independent replication of Joseph McMoneagle's ability. It could be any number of reasons, as we've discussed.

You don't find it odd at all?

Do you think it's a possibility that McMoneagle could be reluctant to take the challenge because he might get nervous on the day and perform well below the agreed success rate? Its quite a big risk considering how a fail would look in the eyes of the scientific and sceptical community.

Sure it is. But he sure didn't have those qualms when he did so fantastically. If he is nervous about JREF testing him, you should be nervous too.

The free response experiments get larger hit rates than zener card experiments.

Because there are so many more ways to interpret the guesses as hits. A "tall figure" can be a tower, a tree, a bridge, a pole.

If the analysis is not affected by this interpretation issue (which it isn't) then you have no grounds to complain. You keep trying to make the assertion that using zener cards is somehow more valid than free response which is not true. Either you don't understand or you are lying.

Since the analysis is affected by this interpretation issue, we have every reason to complain.

As I've said many times now - what about when an actual guess is made? Don't you think it's possible that interpretation of cognitive imagery is going on inside the mind of the receiver as to whether he should say cross or circle? Furthermore, we would have no way of telling how much interpretation is going on. The issue is the same as free response. The solution is to randomise the targets.

At some point, the claimant has to make that decision, precisely when you decide if you see a circle or a cross, and when the experimenter sees the written guess of the claimant. That is no different than any other situation.

In terms of eliminating the effects of cognitive bias - no different.

Are you serious? How can an extra layer of interpretation, this time by someone who knows what the correct result is, not mean a worse experimental design?

wrong, for the reasons above.

Because there is way too much wiggle room. When that wiggle room is removed, the fantastic results disappear.

The point of mentioning less than 100% hit rate was to illustrate that we should expect non-veridical impressions from the remote viewers.

That doesn't answer the question: Who has demanded a 100% hit rate here?

davidsmith73

17th August 2007, 06:29 AM

David Smith, I have read the link to the study you provide.

I have a couple of questions,

Did the remote viewer know the static images being used? it says in the study they had been using the same images for years.

I'm not sure if they could remember all of them, but page 289 says:

"They (the receivers) were, however, knowledgable about the general characteristics of the two target pools."

and further down on page 292:

"the receivers in our experimetns have learned the natural limitations of the photographs in our usual target pool by experience and by instruction"

Were the decoy images selected from the same pool of images?

For the '92 experiment I think they non-randomly divided their 50 static images into 10 sets of 5 photos and then randomly selected their targets from within each set of 5 for each trial, a bit like the zener card scenario.

For the '93 experiment on page 296 it says:

"Decoys were chosen by computer at analysis time. First the computer selected the topic set of five packets from which the actual target was chosen. Then, the computer randomly selected one target from each of the remaining 4 target packs for the decoys"

Were the decoys selected at random to avoid subconcious bias?

I don't follow you. Why would non-random selection of decoys introduce a bias? Its only the target that needs to be selected at random from the same pool, surely.

From reading the analysis, there were at least two pictures containing waterfalls, why would they have similar images, surely this would increase the chances?

For the '93 experiment, they divided their 50 initial images into categories of similar type, eg, natural water scenes and created two sets of 5 images for each of 5 categories. I don't see how having two images with waterfalls would increase the chances of a hit if any single waterfall image has an equal chance of being the target as another waterfall image. Remember that the judge has to choose the correct waterfall image (a target chosen at random) if faced with two that are similar. However, the judge was unlikely to be faced with such a scenario because they separated their total image pool into categories and only one image was picked from each category for each trial.

Why would they use images so open to interpretation?

The purpose of using rich images was not because they are more open to interpretation. They use them to bring the experiment closer to the conditions that the RVers claim to perform under, ie, use cognitively rich images and let them "free form" their responses.

surely simple completely distinguishable shapes would be the best thing to use?

Why? Cognitive bias would still be free to act in the mind of the receivers. If you use simple shapes, you would be reducing the cognitive richness of the target images. This would be an interesting experiment to perform, to see how well the best RVers do, but it wouldn't make the experiment any "tighter". It might tell us something about how RVing works though.

In one of the claimed successes, a simple drawing of a road is compared to a waterfall, ridiculous.

The experimental protocol required that judges must assign a rank and score to each picture. In other words, no matter how crappy the match to each picture out of the set, each got a rank and score. Hey, if chance is all that is operating here, then its highly unlikely to produce a highly significant above chance hit rate. If they were to ignore such a crappy response, then they would be guilty of selecting data.

CFLarsen

17th August 2007, 06:42 AM

You wouldn't happen to have a link to those photos, David?

davidsmith73

17th August 2007, 07:16 AM

No. Paranormal is "not scientifically explainable". But not this "in principle", either...

..Nonsense.

Lets just agree to disagree over this. Otherwise we'll be here all year :rolleyes:

You do this, because you see a claim of actual results...

...But many people have claims, David. It doesn't mean their claims are true.

Yes, I am disappointed in Dawkins and French for not testing this claim, that I have only read an abstract of. It is because the claim is an experiment published in a journal by a scientist. And this brings us right back to my original complaint (made, it feels like, in the distant past) that Dawkins and French had the opportunity to carry out a replication attempt of a what is claimed to be a successful, published experiment rather than carry out an experiment with some unknown dowsers in a tent.

Yes, it does inflate the hit rate: If the experimenter has to interpret the results.

No, this is your belief. It doesn't work because the targets are randomised. Lets say that a judge has a pathological cognitive bias that makes him interpret all receivers transcripts as relating to water. Now, in our image pack of 5 images we have 1 image that contains water. The probability of this image being picked as the target is 0.2 but every trial will result in this image being picked by the judge. Over many trials, the water image will be picked correctly 1 in 5 times, despite the judges leanings towards interpreting everything as water.

How do you know that it had a larger effect size?

He presented a graph taken from Steinkamp's analysis.

How did he calculate those huge odds?

I don't know. But it kind of contradicts your claim in post 110 that the zener card experiments found nothing. What source did you use for that?

Because there are so many more ways to interpret the guesses as hits. A "tall figure" can be a tower, a tree, a bridge, a pole.

Its not a hit untill they correctly pick the randomly selected target from a pool of 5! Please read through my example above carefully.

At some point, the claimant has to make that decision, precisely when you decide if you see a circle or a cross, and when the experimenter sees the written guess of the claimant. That is no different than any other situation.

But as I keep saying, the decision as the whether the receiver sees a cross or circle in their mind, is open to interpretation in the mind of the receiver. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing how much concious or unconscious interpretation is going on in their mind. Cognitive bias comes into play there too.

Are you serious? How can an extra layer of interpretation, this time by someone who knows what the correct result is, not mean a worse experimental design?

The judge does not know the correct result. Are you familiar with these experiments at all? And an independent judge does not mean a worse experimental design because it doesn't impact on the analysis.

Because there is way too much wiggle room. When that wiggle room is removed, the fantastic results disappear.

No, you can't say that. There is no "wiggle room" to remove in the first place.

That doesn't answer the question: Who has demanded a 100% hit rate here?

Nobody. Like I said, if there is any doubt as to the fact that remote viewers perform less than 100% accuracy then please provide a reference with 100% accuracy.

davidsmith73

17th August 2007, 07:17 AM

You wouldn't happen to have a link to those photos, David?

No sorry

CFLarsen

17th August 2007, 07:41 AM

Lets just agree to disagree over this. Otherwise we'll be here all year :rolleyes:

It isn't a matter of disagreement. You are wrong, plain and simple.

Yes, I am disappointed in Dawkins and French for not testing this claim, that I have only read an abstract of. It is because the claim is an experiment published in a journal by a scientist. And this brings us right back to my original complaint (made, it feels like, in the distant past) that Dawkins and French had the opportunity to carry out a replication attempt of a what is claimed to be a successful, published experiment rather than carry out an experiment with some unknown dowsers in a tent.

But you don't even know what the experiment purports to show.

No, this is your belief. It doesn't work because the targets are randomised. Lets say that a judge has a pathological cognitive bias that makes him interpret all receivers transcripts as relating to water. Now, in our image pack of 5 images we have 1 image that contains water. The probability of this image being picked as the target is 0.2 but every trial will result in this image being picked by the judge. Over many trials, the water image will be picked correctly 1 in 5 times, despite the judges leanings towards interpreting everything as water.

You don't know that, unless you have seen the images. Which you haven't.

He presented a graph taken from Steinkamp's analysis.

I've seen Radin's graphs, and he uses them in quite innovative and manipulative ways. To say the least.

I don't know.

Another thing you don't know.

But it kind of contradicts your claim in post 110 that the zener card experiments found nothing. What source did you use for that?

Nice misrepresentation. I didn't say I agree with the odds.

Its not a hit untill they correctly pick the randomly selected target from a pool of 5! Please read through my example above carefully.

And the way to determine this is by interpreting the guess.

But as I keep saying, the decision as the whether the receiver sees a cross or circle in their mind, is open to interpretation in the mind of the receiver. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing how much concious or unconscious interpretation is going on in their mind. Cognitive bias comes into play there too.

Forget the receiver! It doesn't make any difference how he comes to the guess. What matters is how the experimenter finds out if it is a hit or not.

The judge does not know the correct result. Are you familiar with these experiments at all? And an independent judge does not mean a worse experimental design because it doesn't impact on the analysis.

Very familiar. If the "judge" doesn't know the correct result, how does he find out if it's a true guess or not?

No, you can't say that. There is no "wiggle room" to remove in the first place.

False.

Nobody. Like I said, if there is any doubt as to the fact that remote viewers perform less than 100% accuracy then please provide a reference with 100% accuracy.

"Nobody". Stop this straw-man, then.

No sorry

Another thing you don't know.

Elaedith

17th August 2007, 08:06 AM

Why don't we discuss this paper then?

http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/library/RVsender.pdf

But are the experiments fundamentally flawed?

I'm having some difficulty working out the basis for the statistical analyses reported in this paper, although I've only glanced at it. But could you or anyone who has read it propery explain the basis for their reported sample sizes and degrees of freedom?
For example in experiment 2, 4 receivers did 10 trials in each of two conditions - not a large sample. The t test reported, however, appears to be a comparison of their results with those obtained in an earlier study. Degrees of freedom reported is 143, for a paired t test this implies 144 pairs of observations. What observations are used to arrive at the cited df?

davidsmith73

17th August 2007, 09:30 AM

ok, one thing at a time.

You don't know that, unless you have seen the images. Which you haven't.

My example was the worst possible scenario you could imagine. It illustrates how, given the most serious condition of cognitive bias, we should still get chance results according to the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter what the actual images in the experiment were. I was illustrating that the principle of inflating the hit rate through cognitive bias does not work.

If you disagree, please explain the mechanism by which cognitive bias will inflate the hit rate.

Gord_in_Toronto

17th August 2007, 11:49 AM

Just for those in not in the UK (and even those in the UK who did not see the show, or those who would like to see it again :) ) I watched the show last night on video.google.ca after searching for the name of the show. The whole thing is there in widescreen, high quality video, sans commercials. I think you could probaly find it on video.google.uk or even video.google.com. :D

Nicely done. But of course these weren't the real pyschics, water witchers, astrologers, etc. The real ones will not appear on TV because they know they will be exposed as the quackish woos they are, :mad:

CFLarsen

17th August 2007, 12:13 PM

I think we're done for the foreseeable future, David.

You don't know what the experiment with Ingo Swann purports to show, because you haven't read neither the abstract, the full study or the actual results.

Yet, you still blame Dawkins for not testing Swann.

You don't know what the images used show.

Which means you don't know how much bias there is.

Which means you don't know how much wiggle room there is.

You refuse to acknowledge that if the experimenter has to interpret the guess, there is bias.

You don't know how Radin calculated the huge odds which you gobble up as the everlasting truth.

You don't know if it had a larger effect size, because Radin didn't say what it was.

You don't know why we haven't heard of an independently replicated experiment.

You equate a claim of a result with a result.

And so on, and so on.

Yet, you still claim there is evidence of remote viewing.

It isn't up to me, or anyone else, to explain why you are wrong. It is up to you to start realizing that you are a blind believer.

faithlessgod

17th August 2007, 12:25 PM

Hi

New user here. I noticed requests to see this on youtube or equivalent and dont know if this has already been done but I have the links on my blog. As a new user I cannot post url's yet but they are the first post on my blog

impartialism.blogspot.com

The direct post link is
impartialism.blogspot.com/2007/08/watch-richard-dawkins-enemies-of-reason.html

schlitt

17th August 2007, 03:59 PM

I'm not sure if they could remember all of them, but page 289 says:

"They (the receivers) were, however, knowledgable about the general characteristics of the two target pools."

and further down on page 292:

"the receivers in our experimetns have learned the natural limitations of the photographs in our usual target pool by experience and by instruction"

For the '92 experiment I think they non-randomly divided their 50 static images into 10 sets of 5 photos and then randomly selected their targets from within each set of 5 for each trial, a bit like the zener card scenario.

For the '93 experiment on page 296 it says:

"Decoys were chosen by computer at analysis time. First the computer selected the topic set of five packets from which the actual target was chosen. Then, the computer randomly selected one target from each of the remaining 4 target packs for the decoys"

I don't follow you. Why would non-random selection of decoys introduce a bias? Its only the target that needs to be selected at random from the same pool, surely.

For the '93 experiment, they divided their 50 initial images into categories of similar type, eg, natural water scenes and created two sets of 5 images for each of 5 categories. I don't see how having two images with waterfalls would increase the chances of a hit if any single waterfall image has an equal chance of being the target as another waterfall image. Remember that the judge has to choose the correct waterfall image (a target chosen at random) if faced with two that are similar. However, the judge was unlikely to be faced with such a scenario because they separated their total image pool into categories and only one image was picked from each category for each trial.

The purpose of using rich images was not because they are more open to interpretation. They use them to bring the experiment closer to the conditions that the RVers claim to perform under, ie, use cognitively rich images and let them "free form" their responses.

Why? Cognitive bias would still be free to act in the mind of the receivers. If you use simple shapes, you would be reducing the cognitive richness of the target images. This would be an interesting experiment to perform, to see how well the best RVers do, but it wouldn't make the experiment any "tighter". It might tell us something about how RVing works though.

The experimental protocol required that judges must assign a rank and score to each picture. In other words, no matter how crappy the match to each picture out of the set, each got a rank and score. Hey, if chance is all that is operating here, then its highly unlikely to produce a highly significant above chance hit rate. If they were to ignore such a crappy response, then they would be guilty of selecting data.

The reason i would suspect unintentional bias in selecting decoy images if they were not chosen at random would be choosing themes which are perhaps similar amoung the decoys, and which vary from the target.
Yes the RVer does not know the target, but it improves his chance greatly of being either similar to or dissimilar to the 4 decoys, which overall is highly advantagous to the RVer.
If the viewer picks a common theme they know in the pool of photos they have a good chance of hitting by cross referencing the themes, merging them in their mind and creating something which has a chance of hitting on many of the themes. This is why it is important the decoys are from the same pool, but would not fix the suboncious bias if the decoys were not chosen at random, which apparently they were :)

I would love to see this experiment replicated with Zener cards.

davidsmith73

18th August 2007, 07:04 AM

The reason i would suspect unintentional bias in selecting decoy images if they were not chosen at random would be choosing themes which are perhaps similar amoung the decoys, and which vary from the target.
Yes the RVer does not know the target, but it improves his chance greatly of being either similar to or dissimilar to the 4 decoys, which overall is highly advantagous to the RVer.
If the viewer picks a common theme they know in the pool of photos they have a good chance of hitting by cross referencing the themes, merging them in their mind and creating something which has a chance of hitting on many of the themes. This is why it is important the decoys are from the same pool, but would not fix the suboncious bias if the decoys were not chosen at random, which apparently they were :)

I would love to see this experiment replicated with Zener cards.

Your point about the decoys being selected from the same pool is quite correct. I don't know of any experiments where they are not.

In the sense that the entire image pool was chosen by subjective methods at the very start of the experiment, the decoys were chosen non-randomly. However, the decoys were not selected non-randomly, in the sense that you are talking about. This is what happened in the '92 study:

50 images (selected subjectively, ie non-randomly) were subjectively grouped into 10 sets of 5 images. Then a target image was selected randomly from each set of 5 images. The remain 4 images in each set acted as the decoys for each trial. Therefore, each image in a set of 5 had an equal chance of being the target.

Take your hypothetical scenario,

Lets say the RVer, who is also acting as the judge, is faced with a set of five images after his period of receiving. Lets also say that the RVer knows that most images in the target pool having a running theme. Even if he knows this, and tries to pick the image which does not have this running theme in it, this particular image will still have a 1 in 5 chance of being the target.

Also, if he tries a different strategy and sticks to picking images with the running theme, he will still be faced with a 1 in 5 chance of picking the correct running-theme image (its still 1 in5 because the non-themed image also has a chance of being picked as the target in any trial).

Thus, there is no way that this mechanism could inflate the hit rate, if the targets are randomised. I think this is why so much effort is made to adequately randomise the targets.

The same argument applies for the 93 experiment, but I haven't time to go into it right now.

Rrose Selavy

18th August 2007, 10:01 AM

I am finding the Remote Viewing discussion very interesting, but perhaps it deserves its own thread, if only to make finding it in future easier? :) Sorry to contribute nothing of worth whatsoever,just a brief suggestion?

cj x

I second/third that - As davidsmith73 has indicated he has no objection to this can a mod split the RV discussion to it's own thread ?

davidsmith73

18th August 2007, 02:35 PM

Just reporting that I haven't received an email response from Edwin May yet.

CFLarsen

18th August 2007, 03:24 PM

Just reporting that I haven't received an email response from Edwin May yet.

Let me make a prediction, OK?

You will get what amounts to a "no" to your question if the experiment has been independently replicated.

It may not be as clear as that (given the history of waffling when challenged), but the answer will come down to that.

Just for the sake of argument: What will your reaction be, if that is the case?

davidsmith73

19th August 2007, 04:27 AM

Claus,

Care answer post 147 before we move on?

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 02:29 AM

I'm having some difficulty working out the basis for the statistical analyses reported in this paper, although I've only glanced at it. But could you or anyone who has read it propery explain the basis for their reported sample sizes and degrees of freedom?
For example in experiment 2, 4 receivers did 10 trials in each of two conditions - not a large sample. The t test reported, however, appears to be a comparison of their results with those obtained in an earlier study. Degrees of freedom reported is 143, for a paired t test this implies 144 pairs of observations. What observations are used to arrive at the cited df?

For the t-test, the degrees of freedom is the total number of observations minus 2 isn't it?

The '92 experiments provided them with 100 trials with static images. 5 receivers did 20 trials each, 10 with a sender, 10 without a sender.

The '93 experiment provided them with 45 trials with static images. 3 receivers did 10 trials each and the 4th receiver did 15 trials. All trials were without a sender.

I think they were justified in combining the sender and no sender conditions in the first experiment because they found no significant effect for the sender condition.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:49 AM

Claus,

Care answer post 147 before we move on?

See post #149.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 03:05 AM

See post #149.

I assume you are referring to this portion:

You don't know what the images used show.

Which means you don't know how much bias there is.

Which means you don't know how much wiggle room there is.

You refuse to acknowledge that if the experimenter has to interpret the guess, there is bias

Point 1) The precise nature of the images is irrelevant.

This is because we know that randomisation of the targets will nullify cognitive bias regardless of the content of the images, as I described in my previous example.

Point 2) The amount of cognitive bias present is irrelevant.

This is because we know that randomisation of the targets will nullify cognitive bias regardless of how much is present, as I described in my previous example.

Thus, there is no "wiggle room" in these experiments. It is simply not possible. I refuse to acknowledge that interpretation of the guess will artificially inflate the hit rate because this is based on reasoned argument[/b. That is, if the targets are randomised, then cognitive bias (indeed present) will not inflate the hit rate as I described in my previous example.

Now, I shall ask you again,

[b]If you disagree, please explain the mechanism by which cognitive bias will inflate the hit rate.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 03:28 AM

I assume you are referring to this portion:

No, I am referring to the whole post. You are generally ignorant of what you try to argue. Sometimes, even willfully.

Point 1) The precise nature of the images is irrelevant.

This is because we know that randomisation of the targets will nullify cognitive bias regardless of the content of the images, as I described in my previous example.

Point 2) The amount of cognitive bias present is irrelevant.

This is because we know that randomisation of the targets will nullify cognitive bias regardless of how much is present, as I described in my previous example.

No, it won't. Because whenever you have interpretation by the experimenter, you will have bias.

Here's a little exercise for you: Find two photos, that you think are suitable to use in a remote viewing experiment, or that you know were used.

Thus, there is no "wiggle room" in these experiments. It is simply not possible. I refuse to acknowledge that interpretation of the guess will artificially inflate the hit rate because this is based on reasoned argument[/b. That is, if the targets are randomised, then cognitive bias (indeed present) will not inflate the hit rate as I described in my previous example.

Now, I shall ask you again,

[b]If you disagree, please explain the mechanism by which cognitive bias will inflate the hit rate.

Find the two photos, and I'll show you.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 03:37 AM

No, it won't. Because whenever you have interpretation by the experimenter, you will have bias.

Of course you will have cognitive bias present. I have said that all along. What this will not do, however, is inflate the hit rate if the targets are randomised.

Here's a little exercise for you: Find two photos, that you think are suitable to use in a remote viewing experiment, or that you know were used.

No Claus. You claim that cognitive bias will inflate the hit rate even when the targets are randomised. The onus is on you to prove your claim. I'm not going to waste my time providing you with material.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 03:55 AM

No Claus. You claim that cognitive bias will inflate the hit rate even when the targets are randomised. The onus is on you to prove your claim. I'm not going to waste my time providing you with material.

It has to be you who finds the photos. Otherwise, you will simply say "Oh, well, you chose two who had obvious similarities".

Find two photos, and I'll show you bias.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 04:04 AM

It has to be you who finds the photos. Otherwise, you will simply say "Oh, well, you chose two who had obvious similarities".

Find two photos, and I'll show you bias.

Seriously, I won't say that because its irrelevant.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 04:20 AM

Seriously, I won't say that because its irrelevant.

What are you afraid of? That I am right?

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 04:39 AM

What are you afraid of? That I am right?

Just get on with it and show me

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 05:44 AM

Just get on with it and show me

Is this a fair reenacting of what a remote viewer says?

"Well, I see...some structures, it's definitely man-made. It is highly technological.

There's some green, but it isn't very clear. There's a structure, too. It looks like a church, or a place that inspires awe.

I see a strong primary color. Red, reddish. It simply draws the eye, you can't look away from it. It's outside, it's a clear day."

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 05:53 AM

Is this a fair reenacting of what a remote viewer says?

"Well, I see...some structures, it's definitely man-made. It is highly technological.

There's some green, but it isn't very clear. There's a structure, too. It looks like a church, or a place that inspires awe.

I see a strong primary color. Red, reddish. It simply draws the eye, you can't look away from it. It's outside, it's a clear day."

Yes

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 05:56 AM

Good.

Which photo does that fit?

001
http://www.skepticreport.com/images/jref/rv001.jpg

002
http://www.skepticreport.com/images/jref/rv002.jpg

003
http://www.skepticreport.com/images/jref/rv003.jpg

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 06:05 AM

image 1

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 06:09 AM

image 1

Why?

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 06:11 AM

Why?

Because I felt it had the most relevant matches to the transcript

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 06:13 AM

Because I felt it had the most relevant matches to the transcript

For each photo, what were the hits, and misses?

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 06:19 AM

For each photo, what were the hits, and misses?

For me, it was as follows

image 1 hits -

some structures, it's definitely man-made. It is highly technological.
There's some green, but it isn't very clear.
I see a strong primary color. Red, reddish. It simply draws the eye, you can't look away from it. It's outside, it's a clear day."

image 2 hits -

some structures, it's definitely man-made
There's a structure, too. It looks like a church, or a place that inspires awe.

image 3 hits -

some structures
There's some green, but it isn't very clear
It's outside, it's a clear day."

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 06:42 AM

For me, it was as follows

Yes, David. For you.

image 1 hits -

some structures, it's definitely man-made. It is highly technological.
There's some green, but it isn't very clear.
I see a strong primary color. Red, reddish. It simply draws the eye, you can't look away from it. It's outside, it's a clear day."

Yet, a miss would be the place of awe. No church.

image 2 hits -

some structures, it's definitely man-made
There's a structure, too. It looks like a church, or a place that inspires awe.

But, the structures are definitely highly technological as well. It took a lot of technology to create them. Nothing that can be interpreted as a church.

And, of course there is green - it's just the photo that's blueish in hue.

The color missing? Well, remote viewers can't be expected to be 100% correct. Right?

You missed on hit: It's outside, it's a clear day.

image 3 hits -

some structures
There's some green, but it isn't very clear
It's outside, it's a clear day."

Likewise, there's a lot of technology in a bike. The woman's pants are reddish.

And so on, and so on.

See, David? It all comes down to the bias of the experimenter.

Now, if we used Zener cards - e.g. the Circle and the Cross, do you think there would be so much bias?

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 07:02 AM

Yes, David. For you.

Yet, a miss would be the place of awe. No church.

But, the structures are definitely highly technological as well. It took a lot of technology to create them. Nothing that can be interpreted as a church.

And, of course there is green - it's just the photo that's blueish in hue.

The color missing? Well, remote viewers can't be expected to be 100% correct. Right?

You missed on hit: It's outside, it's a clear day.

Likewise, there's a lot of technology in a bike. The woman's pants are reddish.

And so on, and so on.

See, David? It all comes down to the bias of the experimenter.

Now, if we used Zener cards - e.g. the Circle and the Cross, do you think there would be so much bias?

I find all this rather amusing.

No Claus, the results do not come down to the bias of the experimenter. As I said, cognitive bias is always going to present in the selection of image, and you've provided a nice demonstration of that point. What you haven't done is show how this cognitive bias will artificially inflate the hit rate.

A hit in these experiments is not defined by whether a bit of the transcript matches each image. A hit is counted as correctly guessing the image that was randomly selected as the actual target.

According to the null hypothesis, it doesn't matter whether I chose the red fire engine, the presidents faces or the girl. Each image will have an equal chance of being the actual target if they are randomised properly.

Do you understand this point? Its very important that you do in order to see how you are wrong.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 07:56 AM

I find all this rather amusing.

No Claus, the results do not come down to the bias of the experimenter. As I said, cognitive bias is always going to present in the selection of image, and you've provided a nice demonstration of that point. What you haven't done is show how this cognitive bias will artificially inflate the hit rate.

A hit in these experiments is not defined by whether a bit of the transcript matches each image. A hit is counted as correctly guessing the image that was randomly selected as the actual target.

According to the null hypothesis, it doesn't matter whether I chose the red fire engine, the presidents faces or the girl. Each image will have an equal chance of being the actual target if they are randomised properly.

But they didn't. These images would have an equal chance of being the actual target. All fit the description enough to have been chosen. Yet, it came down to what you thought would fit. You even left out one part that would increase the chance of it being selected.

Do you understand this point? Its very important that you do in order to see how you are wrong.

I understand perfectly, David. What you don't want to admit - because at this time, it is clear that you refuse to do so - that, when these targets are used, it all comes down to bias.

That's why targets that cannot be interpreted the way you interpreted the above targets must be chosen. Otherwise, you get an inflated number of hits.

You know this, because you have just demonstrated this bias. And yet, you still try to explain it away.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 08:37 AM

But they didn't. These images would have an equal chance of being the actual target. All fit the description enough to have been chosen. Yet, it came down to what you thought would fit. You even left out one part that would increase the chance of it being selected.

You misunderstand spectacularly. Please just take the time to think about what you are saying.

You are correct in saying that the images will have an unequal chance of being picked by the judge. I have also said this all along.

However, each image has an equal chance of being the actual target, ie, the image randomly chosen by the computer as being the target.

Therefore it doesn't matter how much bias is present when the judge picks which image to rank 1st place because chance alone is dictating which image will be chosen as the actual target.

Do you understand now? You keep parroting the fact that there is cognitive bias present in the judging phase. Yes, we know this already. But as I've explained half a dozen times now, it will not inflate the hit rate.

But somehow, I feel that you will continue with your delusion.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 10:11 AM

You misunderstand spectacularly. Please just take the time to think about what you are saying.

You are correct in saying that the images will have an unequal chance of being picked by the judge. I have also said this all along.

However, each image has an equal chance of being the actual target, ie, the image randomly chosen by the computer as being the target.

Therefore it doesn't matter how much bias is present when the judge picks which image to rank 1st place because chance alone is dictating which image will be chosen as the actual target.

Do you understand now? You keep parroting the fact that there is cognitive bias present in the judging phase. Yes, we know this already. But as I've explained half a dozen times now, it will not inflate the hit rate.

But somehow, I feel that you will continue with your delusion.

I do not misunderstand anything.

When the experimenters choose the images to be used in the experiments, they cannot choose ones who are open to interpretation.

All this "free form" crap is just a very transparent excuse to inflate the number of hits.

And yes, David: It will inflate the hit rate. You proved this yourself by your biased evaluation of the three images I posted.

Based on the statements I provided, and which you agreed would be acceptable statements from a Remote Viewer, all three could have been chosen.

The only way you can get around this, is to choose images that are not open to interpretation.

Tez

20th August 2007, 10:24 AM

I do not misunderstand anything.

When the experimenters choose the images to be used in the experiments, they cannot choose ones who are open to interpretation.

All this "free form" crap is just a very transparent excuse to inflate the number of hits.

And yes, David: It will inflate the hit rate. You proved this yourself by your biased evaluation of the three images I posted.

Based on the statements I provided, and which you agreed would be acceptable statements from a Remote Viewer, all three could have been chosen.

The only way you can get around this, is to choose images that are not open to interpretation.

Ok I didnt really read everything, but I think davidsmith has a point Claus.

The way I would do it is this.

Let the RV'er use a set of N different images, which are completely chosen by the RV'er themselves as ones they find easy to view. Who cares about the images - if they pick similar pictures its their own stupid fault because it'll be harder for them to provide a description that distinguishes them (if, of course, they really are able to view them - if they cant then they cannot do better than random chance by construction). The only important thing is that which picture is to be viewed is selected completely at random, and the judges have had no prior contact with the RV'er (so that no "code" can have been pre-arranged etc).

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 10:44 AM

Ok I didnt really read everything, but I think davidsmith has a point Claus.

The way I would do it is this.

Let the RV'er use a set of N different images, which are completely chosen by the RV'er themselves as ones they find easy to view. Who cares about the images - if they pick similar pictures its their own stupid fault because it'll be harder for them to provide a description that distinguishes them (if, of course, they really are able to view them - if they cant then they cannot do better than random chance by construction). The only important thing is that which picture is to be viewed is selected completely at random, and the judges have had no prior contact with the RV'er (so that no "code" can have been pre-arranged etc).

But that's the point: If they pick similar pictures, the experimenters have to evaluate which picture is the right one.

You can't have images where you have to judge if the image was the right one or not. The answer has to be self-evident. It cannot be, if the images chosen resemble each other.

Tez

20th August 2007, 10:50 AM

You can't have images where you have to judge if the image was the right one or not.

But all thats going to do is decrease the number of correct outcomes! Imagine every picture is identical, and the judge just ends up picking any old one, even though the description will of course be spot on. If there is no information in what the RV'er says (as I personally believe there won't be) then its a simple fact of information theory the judge cannot pick the picture with better than 1/N odds.

Tez

20th August 2007, 10:55 AM

Actually I dont understand why I thought the judges shouldnt have prior contact with the RV'er - they could be their best friend for all I care. As long as the RV'er doesnt get to see which picture it actually is before they write their description, its also irrelevant. They cannot transmit information which isn't availableto them...

Tez

20th August 2007, 10:57 AM

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 11:07 AM

Ok I didnt really read everything, but I think davidsmith has a point Claus.

The way I would do it is this.

Let the RV'er use a set of N different images, which are completely chosen by the RV'er themselves as ones they find easy to view. Who cares about the images - if they pick similar pictures its their own stupid fault because it'll be harder for them to provide a description that distinguishes them (if, of course, they really are able to view them - if they cant then they cannot do better than random chance by construction). The only important thing is that which picture is to be viewed is selected completely at random, and the judges have had no prior contact with the RV'er (so that no "code" can have been pre-arranged etc).

Thankyou Tez for providing another voice in this discussion, which I am aware has probably become quite boring for everyone else due to the amount of times I've had to explain this to Claus...

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 11:16 AM

But all thats going to do is decrease the number of correct outcomes! Imagine every picture is identical, and the judge just ends up picking any old one, even though the description will of course be spot on. If there is no information in what the RV'er says (as I personally believe there won't be) then its a simple fact of information theory the judge cannot pick the picture with better than 1/N odds.

No, it will increase the number of possible correct outcomes. If the images have similarities, how will you decide which one the RV'er got? Especially when RV'ers are so vague that their guess can apply to a lot of images?

Actually I dont understand why I thought the judges shouldnt have prior contact with the RV'er - they could be their best friend for all I care. As long as the RV'er doesnt get to see which picture it actually is before they write their description, its also irrelevant. They cannot transmit information which isn't availableto them...

Given the history of fraud in parapsychology, it is vital that every possible leak is prevented.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 11:22 AM

I do not misunderstand anything.

When the experimenters choose the images to be used in the experiments, they cannot choose ones who are open to interpretation.

All this "free form" crap is just a very transparent excuse to inflate the number of hits.

And yes, David: It will inflate the hit rate. You proved this yourself by your biased evaluation of the three images I posted.

Based on the statements I provided, and which you agreed would be acceptable statements from a Remote Viewer, all three could have been chosen.

The only way you can get around this, is to choose images that are not open to interpretation.

As Tez has also now explained, what you have said is nonsense.

According to the null hypothesis ,the experimenters can choose whatever images they like. All the null hypothesis requires is that the targets are selected randomly and a sufficient number of trials are performed in order to achieve sufficient statistical power. 1 trial is obviously not enough to make a statistical inference.

A biased evaluation of the three images will not inflate the hit rate if the targets are randomised. How many times do you need to be told this? All we demonstrated with your images was that I prefered one image over the other two.

To try to get you to understand this principle, consider a very simple example - a fair coin toss. Imagine that I have a preference to call heads over tails. It doesn't matter why I have this preference, just that I do, in the same manner that I have a preference over the red engine image. Would the fact that I have a preference over heads mean that more heads would show up? Of course not!

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 11:44 AM

No, it will increase the number of possible correct outcomes. If the images have similarities, how will you decide which one the RV'er got? Especially when RV'ers are so vague that their guess can apply to a lot of images?
.

ok lets say that we performed 100 trials with those very images you provided.

Given the hypothetical transcript you also provided, its clear that I had a bias towards the red engine. So lets say that overall, with 180 transcripts for 180 trials I choose the following frequency of images:

red engine 90 times

presidents 60 times

girl 30 times

Since each image has a 1 in 3 random chance of being the correct target then:

1/3 of 90 = 30

1/3 of 60 = 20

1/3 of 30 = 10

which gives me a total of 60 correct hits.

Guess what, thats a 1 in 3 hit rate.

Now do you understand?

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 12:30 PM

Oh - I think I see what you're saying. However, the point is even if the N pictures are identical they need to be individually numbered - and the judge must pic the correct *number* picture!! If they agree to that then you can let the RV'er choose both the pictures and the judge.

But then, they would be RV'ing the numbers and the judge would simply pick the image with the right number.

As Tez has also now explained, what you have said is nonsense.

Where did he say it was "nonsense"? You have a peculiar ability to see something where there is nothing.

ok lets say that we performed 100 trials with those very images you provided.

Given the hypothetical transcript you also provided

No. You can't use that, because we know that RV'ers are so vague and "get" so many different things that no two "viewings" are the same. And therefore, the experimenter would not be judging from the same guess.

You can't have it both ways, David. Either the RV'er can consistently get the same impression of the same image, or he can't.

Which is it?

Elaedith

20th August 2007, 01:17 PM

No, it will increase the number of possible correct outcomes. If the images have similarities, how will you decide which one the RV'er got? Especially when RV'ers are so vague that their guess can apply to a lot of images?

There is only ONE possible correct outcome on each trial. A correct picture is the one that was randomly chosen as the target before the description was written. The probability of the judge choosing this one by chance alone is 1 in 3. It remains 1 in 3 regardless of whether the judge thinks that all pictures could match or the judge thinks that only one picture could match. The number of pictures that resemble the description does not alter the fact that there is ONLY ONE CORRECT ANSWER and the correct answer was randomly determined before the description was written.

If picture 1 had been chosen as the target and the receiver gives a perfect description of picture 3 and the judge matches it to picture 3 they will score a miss.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 01:28 PM

There is only ONE possible correct outcome on each trial. A correct picture is the one that was randomly chosen as the target before the description was written. The probability of the judge choosing this one by chance alone is 1 in 3. It remains 1 in 3 regardless of whether the judge thinks that all pictures could match or the judge thinks that only one picture could match. The number of pictures that resemble the description does not alter the fact that there is ONLY ONE CORRECT ANSWER and the correct answer was randomly determined before the description was written.

If picture 1 had been chosen as the target and the receiver gives a perfect description of picture 3 and the judge matches it to picture 3 they will score a miss.

But that's not how it goes: The judge compares the RV'ers description of the "impression" (or whatever) to the right image. It is inevitable that there will be confirmation bias.

Let's not forget that the RV'er doesn't need to be 100% correct. He can throw out as many guesses as he wants.

Tez

20th August 2007, 01:53 PM

Claus would you be happy with this modification of the experiment:

N cards have a number written on them, 1 through N. One randomly selected card is hidden in the remote box. The RV'er tries to view it, and can say whatever they want to the judge, e.g. "I think its related to spiders legs, or maybe the godhead." Or they can simply state the "image" they see (which is of course a number!). Their friend, the judge,who does not know what number is in the box has to judge which number the RV'er is seeing.

If, after multiple repeats, the RV'er and his buddy the judge score better than chance, then they win.

I cannot see how anyone could have a problem with that.

Now, what if they are allowed to add colors and pictures to the numbered cards to "help" the RV'er focus. It will make no difference. The only requirement is no-one knows what was in the box until after the whole thing is unblinded. Now what if each image is simply unique (no matter how in particular), and we drop the actual numbers on the cards. It doesnt matter anyway - they either can gain information about whats in the box or they cant. Forget all the rest of the fluff, thats what it comes down to...

Elaedith

20th August 2007, 02:02 PM

But that's not how it goes: The judge compares the RV'ers description of the "impression" (or whatever) to the right image. It is inevitable that there will be confirmation bias.

Let's not forget that the RV'er doesn't need to be 100% correct. He can throw out as many guesses as he wants.

Not in the research I've read. The judge is blind to which is the correct picture. The judge ranks the pictures according to how well they fit the description. Either the picture that is judged to best match the description is the correct one or its not.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:05 PM

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:07 PM

Not in the research I've read. The judge is blind to which is the correct picture. The judge ranks the pictures according to how well they fit the description. Either the picture that is judged to best match the description is the correct one or its not.

There you have the problem.

If they can get a tree, or a "tall structure", then they can bloody well get a cross or a circle.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 02:08 PM

No. You can't use that, because we know that RV'ers are so vague and "get" so many different things that no two "viewings" are the same. And therefore, the experimenter would not be judging from the same guess.

And so the farce continues.

It doesn't matter whether the transcript varies or not. I was actually trying to keep things simply for you.

Consider my 180 trial example using your images. Any combination of image frequencies picked by the judge will result in a 1 in 3 hit rate. I'll give you another example. Lets say 180 transcripts over 180 trials results in the judge picking this number of images:

red engine 46

presidents 12

girl 122

Now, each image has a 1 in 3 chance of being the actual target. So this gives:

1/3 of 46 = 15.3 (recurring)

1/3 of 12 = 4

1/3 of 122 = 40.66 (recurring)

Which gives a total of 60 hits, a 1 in 3 hit rate.

Claus, you will find that every single combination of image frequencies picked by the judge will result in a 1 in 3 hit rate. Cognitive bias is irrelevant.

Do you understand now?

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:11 PM

And so the farce continues.

Yes, it does.

They can see a cross on top of a building, but they can't see a cross on a card?

Give me a break. :rolleyes:

Moochie

20th August 2007, 02:16 PM

<snip>

Well this is just it. I think there is evidence in those papers. So I would not be blaming Dawkins for the failures of May and McMoneagle because their experiments show evidence. I would be blaming Dawkins and French for not taking the opportunity to attempt a replication with their own approved methodology.

Sorry if this has already been asked (I've only just reached this point in a very interesting thread), but do you know for a fact that May and McMoneagle weren't approached to participate in this program?

M.

Elaedith

20th August 2007, 02:24 PM

There you have the problem.

If they can get a tree, or a "tall structure", then they can bloody well get a cross or a circle.

It doesn't matter what the judge 'gets'. If the picture they think is the best match is not the actual target, they don't score a hit.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 02:30 PM

Sorry if this has already been asked (I've only just reached this point in a very interesting thread), but do you know for a fact that May and McMoneagle weren't approached to participate in this program?

M.

No!

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:30 PM

It doesn't matter what the judge 'gets'. If the picture they think is the best match is not the actual target, they don't score a hit.

I'm not talking about the judge, but the remote viewer.

davidsmith73

20th August 2007, 02:36 PM

Claus, just to clarify, you do understand why you are wrong yes?

Will I return to this forum again in a few months and find you peddling the same rubbish about "wiggle room"?

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:42 PM

Claus, just to clarify, you do understand why you are wrong yes?

Will I return to this forum again in a few months and find you peddling the same rubbish about "wiggle room"?

This is what it boils down to, David: Simplicity.

There is no need for all this hullabaloo of yours. If they can see a cross on top of a building, they can see a cross on a card.

If they can't see a cross on top of a building, they can't remote view.

It's that simple.

Elaedith

20th August 2007, 02:46 PM

I'm not talking about the judge, but the remote viewer.

That makes no sense.

Suppose you have three pictures, a red flower, a red car and a red ball.

The red flower is randomly chosen as the target.

The 'remote viewer' says 'I see something red'. The description could equally match to all 3 pictures.

The judge compares all 3 pictures to the description 'I see something red'. The judge doesn't know which picture is meant to be the target. The judge can only pick which one best matches the description. If the judge picks the red ball or the red car they miss. If they pick the red flower they hit. They have a 1 in 3 probability of getting the red flower by chance.

Neither the judge nor the viewer has any say in deciding whether the red flower is the correct answer, because that was randomly chosen by computer.

CFLarsen

20th August 2007, 02:51 PM

That makes no sense.

Suppose you have three pictures, a red flower, a red car and a red ball.

The red flower is randomly chosen as the target.

The 'remote viewer' says 'I see something red'. The description could equally match to all 3 pictures.

The judge compares all 3 pictures to the description 'I see something red'. The judge doesn't know which picture is meant to be the target. The judge can only pick which one best matches the description. If the judge picks the red ball or the red car they miss. If they pick the red flower they hit. They have a 1 in 3 probability of getting the red flower by chance.

Neither the judge nor the viewer has any say in deciding whether the red flower is the correct answer, because that was randomly chosen by computer.

But that's the inherent weakness: If the experimenter doesn't have a clear answer, he should not interpret the guess.

Keep it simple. Can they spot a cross, yes or no? That, Ophelia, is the question.

Rrose Selavy

20th August 2007, 03:12 PM

So...erm...did anyone else actually watch the second programme?

-

HarryKeogh

20th August 2007, 03:15 PM

So...erm...did anyone else actually watch the second programme?

-

Not yet. Waiting for it to sprout up on the web. I really enjoyed the first episode though. Closest thing we have to it in the states is probably P&T's BS! but I liked this show quite a bit better. Aside from being informative it wasn't as "loud" as BS! :)

JonWhite

20th August 2007, 03:36 PM

I've just posted my 2 cents in the thread in the science forum, so suffice to say I felt that he wasn't quite strident enough in challenging the likes of Chopra or homeo Fisher.

Still very good though and at least he now has his DNA triangles re-aligned!

Moochie

20th August 2007, 04:04 PM

David Smith, I have read the link to the study you provide.

I have a couple of questions,

Did the remote viewer know the static images being used? it says in the study they had been using the same images for years.

Were the decoy images selected from the same pool of images?

Were the decoys selected at random to avoid subconcious bias?

From reading the analysis, there were at least two pictures containing waterfalls, why would they have similar images, surely this would increase the chances?

Why would they use images so open to interpretation? surely simple completely distinguishable shapes would be the best thing to use?
In one of the claimed successes, a simple drawing of a road is compared to a waterfall, ridiculous.

This experiment seems overly complicated, and there are too many variables relying on interpretation, in my humble opinion. (and it is very humble, as i am not a scientific researcher :))

I am not a researcher, either. I'm just an interested bystander and I don't apologize for it.

This entire notion of RV seems utterly ridiculous to me.

A "sender" "sends" a thought. How does anyone know this? because the "sender" says so? What is "sending"? Is this "sending" directional, or omni-directional? How do we know the "receiver" is "receiving"? Because the "receiver" says so? What, exactly is being "received"? How does anyone, including the "receiver", know that what is being "received" is coming from the "sender" and not from one or more of the 6+ billion other people on the planet, or that pooch next door, or that crab in the "receiver's" pubic hair, or, indeed, an alien spacecraft somewhere in the ether?

The impression (pun intended) I'm getting from some in this thread is that if the experimental design is "sophisticated" enough, or subtle enough, then the likelihood of success is increased.

Isn't this the same damned argument that all firm believers in untenable propositions make, time and time again?

To the believers I say this: I can't see electricity, either, but I damn well know how to satisfy myself as to its existence in the real world. I want no less quality of evidence for the preposterous notion you are promulgating here. I consider my chances of ever being offered such evidence at zero percent.

M.

cyborg

20th August 2007, 04:07 PM

It should be telling that discriminating very simple, very clear, images is hard for RVers.

Simple is hard.
Complex is easy.

It should be telling. What is with the bag full of stupid here?

Soapy Sam

20th August 2007, 04:39 PM

That bag is never full. Yet ever filling.

Saw the second programme tonight. I was disappointed. There was too much filler - pointless shots of RD walking, or of pages turning, or whatever.
I was hoping for more challenge, less tolerance. I don't care if Peter Fisher has a good bedside manner, he is still peddling snake oil. The fact he's nice about it is of no importance.
As Larry Niven once said- I do not shoot a man for being bad in the Devil's work; I shoot him for being good in the Devil's work.

I would have liked to see more numbers and fewer grimly tolerant smiles.
ETA- I was amused by the double reference to HRH Prince Chuck. No Knighthood for RD, methinks.

Tez

20th August 2007, 07:01 PM

But that's the inherent weakness: If the experimenter doesn't have a clear answer, he should not interpret the guess.

Keep it simple. Can they spot a cross, yes or no? That, Ophelia, is the question.

Claus there is no weakness in that whatsoever, and I think you know it.

The standard principle is to let the claimant have complete control over everything which is irrelevant to actually testing the claim. Your proposal for which pictures to use is completely a waste of the skeptics time, and in fact just provides the testee with a different sort of wiggle room ("I only see bright colors well, or natural formations,"...) So point is, I (and I'm sure Randi) would be happy to let them use whichever pictures they want, and they can use their mother or their monkey as the judge for all I care. The only task of the skeptic is to ensure the blinding is done properly.

In fact the judge could even just give a score out of 100 to each of the N pictures on each trial: e.g 30,45,78,23,... where the higher score indicates they think that picture is more likely than the lower scores.
Its trivial statistics to determine if their scores are assigned by better than random guess.

articulett

20th August 2007, 07:57 PM

I want to encourage anyone to post a torrent link to the second show or PM me if they find one.

CFLarsen

21st August 2007, 12:43 AM

I am not a researcher, either. I'm just an interested bystander and I don't apologize for it.

This entire notion of RV seems utterly ridiculous to me.

A "sender" "sends" a thought. How does anyone know this? because the "sender" says so? What is "sending"? Is this "sending" directional, or omni-directional? How do we know the "receiver" is "receiving"? Because the "receiver" says so? What, exactly is being "received"? How does anyone, including the "receiver", know that what is being "received" is coming from the "sender" and not from one or more of the 6+ billion other people on the planet, or that pooch next door, or that crab in the "receiver's" pubic hair, or, indeed, an alien spacecraft somewhere in the ether?

You just described prayer healing. It works just as well.

The impression (pun intended) I'm getting from some in this thread is that if the experimental design is "sophisticated" enough, or subtle enough, then the likelihood of success is increased.

Isn't this the same damned argument that all firm believers in untenable propositions make, time and time again?

Yes.

To the believers I say this: I can't see electricity, either, but I damn well know how to satisfy myself as to its existence in the real world. I want no less quality of evidence for the preposterous notion you are promulgating here. I consider my chances of ever being offered such evidence at zero percent.

Indeed.

Claus there is no weakness in that whatsoever, and I think you know it.

The standard principle is to let the claimant have complete control over everything which is irrelevant to actually testing the claim. Your proposal for which pictures to use is completely a waste of the skeptics time, and in fact just provides the testee with a different sort of wiggle room ("I only see bright colors well, or natural formations,"...)

Then test for bright colors. Red, blue, green, or yellow. Even white or black.

"Natural formations"? A mountain or a canyon.

Keyword is "or".

So point is, I (and I'm sure Randi) would be happy to let them use whichever pictures they want, and they can use their mother or their monkey as the judge for all I care. The only task of the skeptic is to ensure the blinding is done properly.

In fact the judge could even just give a score out of 100 to each of the N pictures on each trial: e.g 30,45,78,23,... where the higher score indicates they think that picture is more likely than the lower scores.
Its trivial statistics to determine if their scores are assigned by better than random guess.

Either they can remote view, or they can't.

If all they can remote view is so vague that there is no clear result, then the question is, can they remote view at all?

If you can't get a clear result in your scientific work, you know you are either doing something wrong, or the effect isn't there. You do not, however, begin to construct elaborate methods of detecting what you have weaker and weaker evidence of, the more controls you employ.

It should be telling that discriminating very simple, very clear, images is hard for RVers.

Simple is hard.
Complex is easy.

It should be telling. What is with the bag full of stupid here?

What is most telling is that "simple" wasn't "hard" in the beginning.

They had no problems remote viewing simple cards in the beginning of parapsychology. It wasn't until it became blindingly clear that no paranormal abilities could be found by simple tests, that the tests began to get increasingly complex. They discovered that by being vague, they got more hits.

So, to elaborate on your list:

Simple was easy.
But no evidence was found.
Simple became hard.
Complex is easy.

SusanB-M1

21st August 2007, 12:47 AM

Soapy Sam

21st August 2007, 01:39 AM

And yet there she was, apparently making money from talking hogwash.
Now she has a perfect right to advertise "As seen on TV with Richard Dawkins".

Lothian

21st August 2007, 02:08 AM

I thought it was good. He is not trying to convince the disbelievers.

What he did was make copious references to the fact that alternative medicine is untested & unproven. He clearly labelled them snake oils shams etc, but he explained why they appear to work. Why billions of pounds a year is spent on them.

This programme was all about the placebo effect. He showed how the treatments felt good, he stressed how these scammers are “nice people” who invest in quality time with their patients, while they dispense worthless remedies or engage in ineffective treatments.

This is an important message. If we just tell people that the alternative medical industry is full of evil money grabbing leeches with ineffective cures they will compare this to the reality of caring practitioners and glowing testimonials and reject the criticisms.

We need to, as Dawkins does here, accept the positive benefits, but explain them. In the last series he was criticised from being too straight with his opinions and being closed minded. Here, I think he readdresses that perception well.

davidsmith73

21st August 2007, 02:10 AM

That makes no sense.

Suppose you have three pictures, a red flower, a red car and a red ball.

The red flower is randomly chosen as the target.

The 'remote viewer' says 'I see something red'. The description could equally match to all 3 pictures.

The judge compares all 3 pictures to the description 'I see something red'. The judge doesn't know which picture is meant to be the target. The judge can only pick which one best matches the description. If the judge picks the red ball or the red car they miss. If they pick the red flower they hit. They have a 1 in 3 probability of getting the red flower by chance.

Neither the judge nor the viewer has any say in deciding whether the red flower is the correct answer, because that was randomly chosen by computer.

Exactly. Good example. But don't expect Claus to either admit he is wrong on this or take the time to understand this point. He's reminds me of the person who believes that throwing a fair die and getting 6, ten times in a row, means that 6 is less likely to be thrown the next time...

Matt the Poet

21st August 2007, 02:39 AM

So...erm...did anyone else actually watch the second programme?

-

I have to say that although the segment was brief, he gave the Pharmaceutical Industry more of a free pass than was either necessary or accurate. The ‘drugs cost a lot because of R&D’ mantra went by without challenge, and there was little mention of the ‘bad science’ promoted by medical communications agencies hiding marketing rhetoric inside ghostwritten ‘papers’ on ropey clinical trials.

I know the programme wasn’t exactly about that, but if you’re looking for a reason why people distrust proper medicine today, then this sort of behaviour is probably a factor in the overall equation.

davidsmith73

21st August 2007, 02:41 AM

This is what it boils down to, David: Simplicity.

There is no need for all this hullabaloo of yours. If they can see a cross on top of a building, they can see a cross on a card.

If they can't see a cross on top of a building, they can't remote view.

It's that simple.

You are imposing your own expectation of how natural phenomena should behave. Science requires that you find out how phenomena behave through experimentation.

Tez

21st August 2007, 02:52 AM

Y
If you can't get a clear result in your scientific work, you know you are either doing something wrong, or the effect isn't there. You do not, however, begin to construct elaborate methods of detecting what you have weaker and weaker evidence of, the more controls you employ.

I'm going to say this one last time, and you either understand it or you don't - I don't care, I just simply have better things to do. It is trivial to prove, by a rigorous mathematical theorem if you'd really like, that your preferred "You must use the circle/cross test" and the evidence you gather from the "let them use whatever picture they like and whatever judge they like" test are exactly equally strong. The evidence gathered has identical information content (or lack thereof).

There is no chance for more equivocation on the latter test, despite your vague intuition that "it must be so because the RVer can use vague terminology and the pictures could be very similar" etc. It is completely and categorically obvious to anyone with any knowledge of statistics that both tests would distinguish a RV'er who is obtaining information from one who isn't, with exactly the same level of certitude, after exactly the same number of runs. That means the tests are equally valid, with just as "self evident" answers. In such cases there is no harm in letting the RV'er choose the conditions they prefer.

Anyway, you can blather around some more for all I care - I've tried my best. My advice is, think about is some more before you respond, and if you do see why you're wrong then admit you're wrong. If you don't, then either quit this line of argument until you do, or ask the many people on this board who you may trust as experts in this stuff to try and explain it to you until you do get it.

pgwenthold

21st August 2007, 06:43 AM

Why is a judge needed at all? Why not just as the RV which of these three pictures best represents what you saw?

Darat

21st August 2007, 06:48 AM

tez (and davidsmith73) thanks for the very clear explanations - you cleared up some wrong assumptions I had been using in my reasoning.

CFLarsen

21st August 2007, 07:23 AM

Exactly. Good example. But don't expect Claus to either admit he is wrong on this or take the time to understand this point. He's reminds me of the person who believes that throwing a fair die and getting 6, ten times in a row, means that 6 is less likely to be thrown the next time...

Not at all. You have misunderstood my point. See later.

You are imposing your own expectation of how natural phenomena should behave. Science requires that you find out how phenomena behave through experimentation.

First, we must find out if phenomena exist. How it works comes much, much later.

I'm going to say this one last time, and you either understand it or you don't - I don't care, I just simply have better things to do. It is trivial to prove, by a rigorous mathematical theorem if you'd really like, that your preferred "You must use the circle/cross test" and the evidence you gather from the "let them use whatever picture they like and whatever judge they like" test are exactly equally strong. The evidence gathered has identical information content (or lack thereof).

There is no chance for more equivocation on the latter test, despite your vague intuition that "it must be so because the RVer can use vague terminology and the pictures could be very similar" etc. It is completely and categorically obvious to anyone with any knowledge of statistics that both tests would distinguish a RV'er who is obtaining information from one who isn't, with exactly the same level of certitude, after exactly the same number of runs. That means the tests are equally valid, with just as "self evident" answers. In such cases there is no harm in letting the RV'er choose the conditions they prefer.

Anyway, you can blather around some more for all I care - I've tried my best. My advice is, think about is some more before you respond, and if you do see why you're wrong then admit you're wrong. If you don't, then either quit this line of argument until you do, or ask the many people on this board who you may trust as experts in this stuff to try and explain it to you until you do get it.

It isn't a question of me being wrong - I'm not saying that the statistical method you describe is invalid. I am saying that it is not necessary. We should strive to find simple solutions and boil it down to the essentials, that's all.

Take alchemy. Now, there's a "trial and error" discipline if there ever was one. Mix goat dung with dried placenta from a white mare, boil it over a fire made from wood from coffins of witches, and add three bat wings. See what happens. Whoa, maybe something did. But not always. So, it's a mystery. Word has it, it helps chanting these Aramaic spells. At full moon. And the more complicated it gets, the easier it is to get a result of some kind.

What happens? Slowly, it is discovered that you don't get real results from mindlessly repeating old recipes. You discover that there are such things as elements. Compounds are made from elements. And, lo and behold: You get consistent results, once you got the basics right. Copper sulfate makes green fire - every time. Put a current through water, and you get hydrogen from one wire and oxygen from the other - every time.

That's what we have to do with psychic research as well: We have to find out what really happens. We don't mindlessly repeat old "spells", especially not when we know from real science that we don't increase complexity until we have shown a clear phenomenon. We don't begin adding bat wings before we know what's in the pot.

The first work to make the crucial distinction was called The Sceptical Chymist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sceptical_Chymist) for a reason.

kieran

30th August 2007, 01:47 AM

Then why the hell were you discussing methodology in your first post on this thread if you are not interested in methodology until we get reproduced results? :rolleyes:
Good point - got me there. I can only say because I don't want to waste my time when I know others will (and have since on this thread) go down the line of critiquing the finer points of the methodology.

Now ... so that I can make some sense of your position ...

If McMoneagle - your best current shot - can not actually do what is claimed ... would you just ignore that and move on to the next one in the infinite line? That is the lesson of history here ...
If it turns out the controlled experiments are fundamentally flawed in some way then perhaps I would indeed have to wait until the next promising individual arrives.

But can I remind you of your original post (#30) in this thread ...
The main criticism I have is that Dawkins choses the weakest of targets.
The "psychic" who gave him a reading was hilarious, complete with Shirley Ghostman vernacular. They must be two a penny at those new age fairs. And it was disappointing, to say the least, that dowsing was the subject of the controlled test, probably using a handful of dowsers pulled from the new age fair seen earlier.

If one of the points of this show was to critically examine the phenomena of "psychic ability" then why didn't he and Chris French spend Channel 4's money to go and see Edwin May and Joseph McMoneagle who might have been happy to give the TV crew a number of demonstration attempts at remote viewing?

... If Dawkins had done just what you claim you wanted to see, and May and McMoneagle had been thoroughly debunked, wouldn't you have just have used the next best "as yet un-debunked" item in your never-ending list in the exact same argument?

Aren't the "weakest of targets" basically those that have been de-bunked, and the "next promising individual"s basically those that have not yet had the harsh spotlight directed at them? That is the "lesson of history" I was referring to above.

There isn't enough time in the world (and especially not in a one hour TV programme) to de-bunk every possible example. But which ever one he does go for, still won't be enough for you. So why should he have to focus on dis-proving your "latest one" in particular?