Dawkins' Enemies of Reason

[andyandy]

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


anyone else catch it?

ooh! New smilies....

:clembarrassed: :clfrown: :cllaugh:

[cyborg]

Yep. Good program.

[Mid]

Yep, saw it too thought it was quite good also managed to cover quite a few JREF sub forums (even CT :D )

[Civilized Worm]

Now the poor guy is going to have to deal with conspiracy theorists at every turn on top of all the other woo!


Great show though, I had a good laugh at that guy who argued that "a rock has a very rock-like quality to it".

[bujin]

Very good programme, but annoying camera work at times!

One woolly believer on another forum has already dismissed everything he's said, saying that his astrology experiment was unscientific (therefore everything he says is utter rubbish).

Naturally, I've tried to put her right on that, but let's face it, she's never going to change her beliefs on the basis of what Dawkins says...

[articulett]

Does anyone have a torrent to it or is it up on youtube-- we probably won't get the show in the US...

[mummymonkey]

Great show though, I had a good laugh at that guy who argued that "a rock has a very rock-like quality to it".
"Rockness". if you will. Here in Scotland the lochs have similar properties.

[Rrose Selavy]

As one of the people who while agreeing with him, was critical of "Root of Evil" - this was a much better programme.

Now I need help. I think I am in danger of falling out with a close friend who is into "Woo" - just now had a phone conversation with them when I mentioned the programme . It will probably be in vain as they are unlikely to budge but I need a link to a good critique of Astrology to assist me when we next meet .

[andyandy]

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

indeed, there's plenty of woo in your lochness :D

[JonWhite]

Great programme. Really enjoyed it and Brooker was right in that Dawkins came across much better than in the "Root..." progs. I almost felt that he was probably suppressing a laugh at the stupidity of it all rather than the obvious anger that the previous religious zealots fostered.

Any woos that saw it will probably still retreat into the same form of denial as the dowsers did and ignore the reality staring them in the face. But as long as he (and everyone else) keep chipping away...

Roll on next weeks woo therapy based show.

[andyandy]

Great programme. Really enjoyed it and Brooker was right in that Dawkins came across much better than in the "Root..." progs. I almost felt that he was probably suppressing a laugh at the stupidity of it all rather than the obvious anger that the previous religious zealots fostered.

I can't help but think that any woos that saw it will still retreat into the same form of denial that the dowsers did and ignore the reality staring them in the face. But as long as he (and everyone else) keep chipping away...

I'm really looking forward to next weeks more woo therapy based show.

i agree - i got the impression he was being more conscious as to how he would come across than in "The Root...". The only shame of the program is that it wasn't able to devote an entire episode to each astrology, cold reading and dowsing - but perhaps that is just being greedy :)

[JonWhite]

Absolutely. If I were to make a complaint of the prog it would be that it really was far too short. :)

[Civilized Worm]

There should be at least one program a week where Dawkins stares at people while they try to explain their woo.

[articulett]

As one of the people who while agreeing with him, was critical of "Root of Evil" - this was a much better programme.

Now I need help. I think I am in danger of falling out with a close friend who is into "Woo" - just now had a phone conversation with them when I mentioned the programme . It will probably be in vain as they are unlikely to budge but I need a link to a good critique of Astrology to assist me when we next meet .

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=youtube+randi+astrology&btnG=Google+Search

This is a good clip from Randi's Secrets of the Psychics (a great video)...

For my students I cut out the horoscope from the day before and all identifying labels and have them try and guess which one was their horoscope from yesterday...

[TheDoLittle]

I'll have to wait till it comes out on YouTube. No station here in the states would dare show it.

[Big Les]

indeed, there's plenty of woo in your lochness :D

Not to mention actual "rockness" (http://www.rockness.co.uk/).

A good all-round effort I think. I got the distinct impression that the spiritualist guy knew perfectly well it was all nonsense, but genuinely felt he was helping them out and was terrified Dawkins was going to show them that there was no wizard behind the curtain. Just my impression - he was damned shifty and far less sure of himself than that insufferable Observer asstrologist. God he got up my nose with his smug mannered defensiveness. How would a test of his abilities be "perverse" exactly? What a turd.

[JoeTheJuggler]

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

Nice! ;)

Edit: I wanted to add that The Untouchables have a certain Eliot quality to them. . . .but I couldn't figure out how to work it in.

[cj.23]

As you may have guessed, I have reservations... I have posted them on the Dawkins forum, in my short review, and feel it in bad taste to just cut and paste them or link them here, but on the whole a good show.

cj x

[ChainLightning]

I found a link of a morning show in England that had Richard Dawkins on. He give a preview and talks with the hosts.http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/66043/detail/

[ChainLightning]

Sorry, did not know that someone posted this earlier.

[The Shank]

Do you understand this, do you understand that, did anyone else think that priest/psychic copied his act straight from the "Colin Fry Handbook"?

[Explorer]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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?



Probably because what he was interested in was people who are representative of the majority of "psychics" and other people who claim to have magic powers; in other words the majority that actually interacts and influences the general public's view of these claims day-in-day out.

[andyandy]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

What evidence?

[CFLarsen]

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

Amateur. :D

[andyandy]

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]

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

-

[brettDbass]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

That caught me out actually - not enough time to get a brew on!

[davidsmith73]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.


I think that is a very true and an important point :)

cj x

[bujin]

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]

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]

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]

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]

...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]

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]

"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]

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]

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!

[davidsmith73]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.


Not to be rude or anything, but says who?

You might not think so, but did the dowsers object? (beforehand?)

If the dowsers claimed they could do it, even with an onlooker carrying a cup of liquid, then who are you to excuse it?

In the end, the thing that makes it an acceptable test is that the dowsers claimed they could do it under those conditions.

[Soapy Sam]

"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]

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]

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]

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.


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.

[volatile]

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]

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.

[volatile]

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]

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

Philosophically speaking?

[volatile]

Philosophically speaking?

Exactly... :D

[Mojo]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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...

[schlitt]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

'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]

"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]

..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]

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]

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]

'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.)

Well, I'm a teacher... I can force my students to watch it... and develop a healthy dose of skepticism in spite of themselves. :)

[CFLarsen]

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]

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]

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

:)

[CFLarsen]

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 ta