Proof of the Paranormal??

Dagon

These guys are offering 1 million dollars to anyone who can proove that the paranormal exists!

http://www.randi.org/research/challenge.html

Sceptics use this example all the time, e.g. "Why is that money still in the bank of ghosts exist" etc.

Oryx

Said it before, if I could produce evidence unfailingly every time I wouldnt need his money, cos Id already be loaded
I visit that site a lot because its interesting, but he is such a dyed in the wool sceptic that I think youd have to produce Jesus Christ and Ghandi holding hands with Mother Teresa before he would believe you...

Sapien

KatieK wrote:

Said it before, if I could produce evidence unfailingly every time I wouldnt need his money, cos Id already be loaded
I visit that site a lot because its interesting, but he is such a dyed in the wool sceptic that I think youd have to produce Jesus Christ and Ghandi holding hands with Mother Teresa before he would believe you...

Actually, Randi is the best thing to have happened to the study of the paranormal since its inception, and indeed has been of invaluable help to mainstream science in preventing it from veering into superstition on one or two occasions. I have read many interviews with him, and he frequently states that he would love nothing more than to have demonstrated to him an instance of a genuine supernatural phenomenon. But he has pledged himself to the difficult, boring, and much maligned role of the disprover, a role which absolutely needs to be fulfilled. Paranormalists should be thankful for his noble commitment, and tolerant of his demanding standards. I believe that he is open to being convinced.

6th

Sapien surely you could convince him?

ISAW

KatieK wrote:

Said it before, if I could produce evidence unfailingly every time I wouldnt need his money, cos Id already be loaded

One does not have to produce unfailing psychic or paranormal ability. One only has to beat the laws of chance. for example if one can guess the "right answer by chance alone one time in twenty and if you can do it two times in twenty and still get eighteen guesses wrong then you would win the million.

I visit that site a lot because its interesting, but he is such a dyed in the wool sceptic that I think youd have to produce Jesus Christ and Ghandi holding hands with Mother Teresa before he would believe you...

the challenge had legally nothing to do with him. If anyone can beat the laws of chance then they win whether he believes it or not. Believing is not the importaan legal factor. Beating the laws of probability or the defying known science IS! Furthermore if you visit that site you should know that the challenge is a minor sideline there.

Zillah

Sapien wrote:

Actually, Randi is the best thing to have happened to the study of the paranormal since its inception, and indeed has been of invaluable help to mainstream science in preventing it from veering into superstition on one or two occasions. I have read many interviews with him, and he frequently states that he would love nothing more than to have demonstrated to him an instance of a genuine supernatural phenomenon. But he has pledged himself to the difficult, boring, and much maligned role of the disprover, a role which absolutely needs to be fulfilled. Paranormalists should be thankful for his noble commitment, and tolerant of his demanding standards. I believe that he is open to being convinced.

Now thats a little bit more understandable

Oryx

ISAW wrote:

the challenge had legally nothing to do with him. If anyone can beat the laws of chance then they win whether he believes it or not. Believing is not the importaan legal factor. Beating the laws of probability or the defying known science IS! Furthermore if you visit that site you should know that the challenge is a minor sideline there.

I realise that but it does get mentioned a lot in relation to him. He uses it a bit as a prod to those he believes to be charlatans. I was being facetious in my remarks about him, as I find him to be on the extreme end of the sceptic scale.

In_the_sea

Ask them then to prove that we are alive and not dreaming!
I think paranormal is just generalised theres a lot more to it beyond our understanding. I mean if one was to say "how did the universe begin from absolutely nothing"?
Head wrecking question. Most people dont even think about it but they are quick to doubt the existance of spirits etc. Ignorance can be the most annoying type!

ISAW

KatieK wrote:

I realise that but it does get mentioned a lot in relation to him.

Of course! because it was originally "The RANDI Challenge" since he first set it up. It is still called that by some but the "million dollar" or JREF challenge is more usual. JREF by the way is James Randi Educational Foundation

He uses it a bit as a prod to those he believes to be charlatans.

Which is what it was set up for! And he hasnt seen any evidence of paranormal yet. I didnt ask him if he was religious or believed in God.

I was being facetious in my remarks about him, as I find him to be on the extreme end of the sceptic scale.

I met the guy. He is a howl! and indeed he sopke of the father of French homeopathy as a nice guy though he didnt believe there was anything to it. He was quite happy to get along with people who believed in paranormal. He just didnt like claims which couldnt be supported or some people who knew they had no ability but tricked people and took their money. He had exposed many of these but they still thrive. He pointd to so called psychic powers by people who claim for example to bend spoons. He did it himself and said if others were using psychic powers or calling on god then they were doing it the hard way. This is not too bad when it is spoons but not when a charlitan tells you to forget you cancer medication he can cure you!

The people he had most sympathy for were thosesome people actually believe, are not looking for money but nothing is really happening. I am not talking about religious belief like transsubstantiation which requires a different type of evidence. I refer to say water diviners. They are tested and one after another they all fail. But they still think they can do it! All they same they are otherwise normal people.

Anyway thats Randi for ye. By the way his tricks are truly amazing.

Oryx

ISAW wrote:

I met the guy. He is a howl! and indeed he sopke of the father of French homeopathy as a nice guy though he didnt believe there was anything to it. He was quite happy to get along with people who believed in paranormal. He just didnt like claims which couldnt be supported or some people who knew they had no ability but tricked people and took their money. He had exposed many of these but they still thrive. He pointd to so called psychic powers by people who claim for example to bend spoons. He did it himself and said if others were using psychic powers or calling on god then they were doing it the hard way. This is not too bad when it is spoons but not when a charlitan tells you to forget you cancer medication he can cure you!

His attitude and humour come across on his website. I do admire him going for the cheaters, I think thats a good thing - someone has to police this area.

ISAW wrote:

The people he had most sympathy for were thosesome people actually believe, are not looking for money but nothing is really happening. I am not talking about religious belief like transsubstantiation which requires a different type of evidence. I refer to say water diviners. They are tested and one after another they all fail. But they still think they can do it! All they same they are otherwise normal people.

Just like me And if he tested me Id fail too. Thats where problems of research in this field occur. If I said I could *guarantee* to contact the dead for him anytime, anyplace, I would be as bad a charlatan as anyone. I cant. BUT things have happened to me which are out of the realm of the ordinary, with honest to god proof, that I have no way to explain.
And they continue to happen. I wish you or Randi or anyone could tell me how this occurs but to say Im sad and deluded just doesnt cut it.
So thats where Randi and I part ways.

ISAW wrote:

thats Randi for ye. By the way his tricks are truly amazing.

Hence his stage name the Amazing Randi

stevenmu

A huge problem is that there will always be disagreement over what constitutes proof. The University of Edinburgh has gotten consistent results testing esp with the Gansfeld technique (http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/ click 'Psi' on the left then ESP at the top for details, which have been repeated in laboratory conditions in other places around the world. Even Skepdic has a hard time refuting this, but it generally seems to be refuted because they can't actually prove that telepathy of some form is responsible for the results. Of course this kind of proof can't be provided because no one has any idea how telepathy actually works, let alone how to monitor it. Incidentally if the same level of proof was required for general science to accept black holes, we would have to fly to one and actually measure it !

Another example where possible proof has been thrown out was shown in the Discovery channels The girl with x-ray eyes. Essentially a young Russian girl was reported to have been able to see inside people and diagnose their health problems, cancers, ulcers, breaks, fractures etc. She was brought to the US for testing by CSICOP. They conducted two test on her. The first was like her normal way of working, they brought people to her and she would sit with them and tell them what was wrong with them. In this test (I think it was roughly 20 people) she got everything right, even telling some people about problems they weren't aware they had at the time. For the next test they got 7 people with known conditions and assigned them all numbers. They then gave her a list of the conditions and told her to match them to the person. Straight away she pointed out that two of the conditions were ones she wouldn't be able to detect. It was decided if she got 5 of the 7 correct, at odds of about 350 to 1, it would indicate there was something there worth further testing. In the end she got 4 out of 7 right, at odds of only 50 to 1, which they decided meant she was a fraud (altough they were nice enough to say that she possibly didn't realise it herself). I don't know about anyone else, but to me 50 to 1 still sounds pretty good, even if it's not conclusive.

ISAW

stevenmu wrote:

A huge problem is that there will always be disagreement over what constitutes proof. The University of Edinburgh has gotten consistent results testing esp with the Gansfeld technique (http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/

No they havent!
you stated yourself one reason why:

it generally seems to be refuted because they can't actually prove that telepathy of some form is responsible for the results. Of course this kind of proof can't be provided because no one has any idea how telepathy actually works, let alone how to monitor it.

The next comment however doesnt stand up:

Incidentally if the same level of proof was required for general science to accept black holes, we would have to fly to one and actually measure it !

Because astronomy particularly cosmology is not a "hands on" science!

But anyway as regards Ganzfeld. the findings WERE better than chance!
http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/lilienfeld.html

The logic of the Ganzfeld technique relies on the concept of the signal-to-noise ratio. The mental information ostensibly detected by ESP percipients is posited to be an extremely weak signal that is typically obscured by a large number of extraneous stimuli. By placing the percipient in a uniform sensory field, the Ganzfeld technique is hypothesized to decrease the proportion of noise relative to signal and thereby permit investigators to uncover normally weak ESP effects.

With the aid of a statistical technique termed meta-analysis, which permits researchers to quantitatively pool results across a number of studies, Bem and Honorton reported what appeared to be strong, if not convincing, evidence for ESP. The subjects in their meta-analysis obtained overall target "hit" rates of approximately 35 percent, where chance performance would be only 25 percent.

but then

referenced enclosed wrote:

Julie Milton of the University of Edinburgh and Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire published an updated meta-analysis of thirty recent Ganzfeld studies not reviewed by Bem and Honorton. Milton and Wiseman's findings, which were published recently ("Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process at Information Transfer," Psychological Bulletin 125(4): 387-391), stand in stark contrast to those of Bem and Honorton and raise serious questions concerning the replicability of the Ganzfeld findings. Specifically, Milton and Wiseman reported a mean effect size across all thirty studies of .013, which corresponds to essentially chance performance and can most charitably be described as negligible.

As regards the Russian girl who could "see through " things:

Another example where possible proof has been thrown out was shown in the Discovery channels The girl with x-ray eyes.

Essentially a young Russian girl was reported to have been able to see inside people and diagnose their health problems, cancers, ulcers, breaks, fractures etc.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2005-05/demkina.html

Which states:

Natasha claims to see through people's clothing, yet she says she cannot see through a fabric screen, which we wanted to use to prevent her from seeing the test subjects.
...
Natasha claims she can see everything inside of people's bodies down to the cellular level, and her mother says her readings are 100 percent accurate. So the test-which required her to match at least five of the target medical conditions to the correct subjects-should have been very easy compared with her normal readings. She didn't have to scan entire bodies looking for unknown conditions. She was told exactly what to look for and exactly where to look
...

In the end she got 4 out of 7 right, at odds of only 50 to 1, which they decided meant she was a fraud

Nobody said any such thing about her. She is the one making the claim it is for her to prove it is true and not for others to prove she is a fraud! Thats one of my main points above! she and her team agreed in advance that four out of seven was not good enough for futher tests. these are only preliminary screening tests. Nobody has ever passed even them!

50 to 1 still sounds pretty good, even if it's not conclusive.

Indeed it does and if you were doing the test you migh agree in advance to that and pass the preliminary test. But given her remarcable claims dont you think she would have no problem passing? Also what about the testing.
I mean there are say 250 million people in Russia. Say one in 1000 claimed paranormal power. thats 250,000 people say you test all of them at 50 to 1 like you want. Thats 5000 people who would pass your test! PSICOP just want to screen it down so if you tested the odds are 350 people one of them could get through by blind guessing and not 7 people by guessing.

stevenmu

ISAW wrote:

No they havent!
you stated yourself one reason why:
...
The next comment however doesnt stand up:
...
Because astronomy particularly cosmology is not a "hands on" science!

But anyway as regards Ganzfeld. the findings WERE better than chance!
http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/lilienfeld.html

What I meant was that they have achieved mathematically signifigant results. It has not, and Thats one of my main points above! she and her team agreed in advance that four out of seven was not good enough for futher tests. these are only preliminary screening tests. Nobody has ever passed even them!currently can not be proven that ESP is reponsible for these because the research of ESP is not fully "hands on" either. There is no means to see or machines capable of measuring ESP taking place, in that information/energy being transmitted from one person to another can not be detected. It can only be detected through it's effects, i.e. one person being aware of information that they couldn't otherwise be aware of, just like with a black hole. Even though the most likely rational explanation for this transfer of information is ESP, sceptics still refuse to accept the results as there is no hard, visible, evidence of the ESP process itself.

I have very little respect for CSICOP's objectivity after their investigation of Natasha Demkina. The reults you've quoted from them differ from those published at The University of Edinburgh's website.

Four creative groups were examined: artists, musicians, creative writers and actors. Each group had 32 participants for a total of 128 ganzfeld sessions, and all participants completed personality (NEO-FFI) and creativity assessments (Torrence Tests of Creative Thinking, TTCT) prior to their ganzfeld session. Overall, there were 60 direct hits out of 128 trials, a direct hit rate of 47% (p = 7x10-8, ES(h)=0.46). Correlations for the group with the TTCT and extraversion scores were nonsignificant. As a subgroup, musicians obtained 18 direct hits in 32 trials (56%, p = 0.0001, ES(h)=0.65 ), artists obtained 16 direct hits in 32 trials (50%, p = 0.002, ES(h)=0.52 ) and both writers and actors obtained 13 direct hits in 32 trials (41%, p = 0.037, ES(h)=0.33 ). Correlations with the TTCT were significant for the musicians (rho = 0.358) and the actors (rho = -0.336), but not for the artists or musicians.

ISAW wrote:

Thats one of my main points above! she and her team agreed in advance that four out of seven was not good enough for futher tests. these are only preliminary screening tests. Nobody has ever passed even them!

They agreed that in advance to knowing what the conditions she would have to identify were. As soon as she found out what the conditions were she immediatly pointed out that 2 of them were conditions she could not identify and asked for them to be changed. CSICOP refused, meaning that not only would she not be able to identify 2 conditions, meaning not only that she had to get all 5 others correct, there was also a possibility of getting one of them confused with one of the ones she couldn't identify. This is exactly what happened and it's not much of a surprise, medical diagnosis isn't always an exact science, a doctor could look at a rash on your skin and think it means one thing when in fact it's something completly different.

Incidentally, during the documentary on Discovery Channel they did call her a fraud.

stevenmu

ISAW wrote:

Also what about the testing.
I mean there are say 250 million people in Russia. Say one in 1000 claimed paranormal power. thats 250,000 people say you test all of them at 50 to 1 like you want. Thats 5000 people who would pass your test! PSICOP just want to screen it down so if you tested the odds are 350 people one of them could get through by blind guessing and not 7 people by guessing.

That's completely different. As a counter example imagine giving 52 decks of cards to 52 different people and asking each to draw a card at random. The chances of one of them pulling out the ace of spades are pretty good, it'd even be a surprise if none of them did. On the other hand if I claimed I could pick the ace of spades out of a deck of cards, and did, then that'd be a huge surprise (assuming it was established that it wasn't some form of trick).

Zillah

stevenmu wrote:

That's completely different. As a counter example imagine giving 52 decks of cards to 52 different people and asking each to draw a card at random. The chances of one of them pulling out the ace of spades are pretty good, it'd even be a surprise if none of them did. On the other hand if I claimed I could pick the ace of spades out of a deck of cards, and did, then that'd be a huge surprise (assuming it was established that it wasn't some form of trick).

Also, even if five thousand or however many Russians passed the test once, they would be subjected to it again, and again. They have to show consistent ability, not just get it right once, for the very reason your stating.