Hi Burk
>> This [the book Irreducible Mind edited by Kelly an Kelly et al.] is a very apposite suggestion, citing possibly the most comprehensive work available <<
It may be the most comprehensive book on whether the mind is reducible to the brain, but it is certainly not the most comprehensive book on parapsychology. I recommend the following books (among others):
- Radin, D. Entangled Minds, published by Pocket Books in 2006
- Radin. The Conscious Universe, published by HarperCollins in 1997
- Carter, C. Parapsychology and the Skeptics, published by PAJA Books in 2007. This book is the first in a series.
- Broughton, R. Parapsychology: The Controversial Science, pubished by Ballantine Books in 1991
- Sheldrake, R. The Sense of Being Stared At, published by Crown Publishers in 2003
Those books broadly cover non-"afterlife" aspects of parapsychology and don't deal with the afterlife question all that much (I'll recommend some other books on that topic later on, aside from "Irreducible Mind"). If you have not read these books yet, then I strongly recommend reading them carefully and adding them to your library. I also recommend carefully listening to three lectures (including question and answer sessions with skeptics) when you have time:
1. Dean Radin's 2008 lecture here (and see the Q and A session). I'll get to Ray Hyman later on.
2. Sheldrake's 2003 lecture on the extended mind (MUCH better than his recent 2008 lecture on the same topic) here (see the Q and A session)
3. Sheldrake's recent lecture on dogmatic skeptics (some of whom replicated his data): here (scroll down until you see "Spotlight on Sceptics Day. The SPR Study Day on Skeptics -
If you don't have time to listen carefully, then please don't worry about having to comment.
And please don't assume that everything Sheldrake says is wrong just because of his theory of morphic resonance (which may or may not be "stupid"). (I'm not saying that you would; I just want to address that right off the bat). Darwin had some dumb ideas, but he was correct (overall) about evolution.
>> I have not read this book, <<
I think that's where you should have left it, with the added detail of, "but I would be happy to read it when I have time to". I don't think you should comment on a book you haven't read. Instead, you appear dismissive based on hearsay – based on somebody else's attempt to explain away the book. A lot of naïve Christians seem content dismissing Dawkins' work on evolution without ever reading it – at least not carefully and with an open-mind. But similarly, I've seen a lot of dogmatic skeptics make all kinds of false claims about the *replicated* data from parapsychology, and that includes Ray Hyman making inexcusable errors. (I will give a link later on)
At any rate, I'm particularly interested in your careful analysis of the Irreducible Mind's discussion on NDEs (I don't really want to delve into the other things discussed by the authors, except parapsychology). The authors, I think, do a decent job arguing for veridical details that are hard to explain naturalistically. They interact with counterarguments offered by skeptics such as Susan Blackmore. It's the sort of treatment you'd expect from open-minded scholars who do their homework.
Along the same lines, also carefully read David Fontana's 2005 book "Is There An Afterlife?", Stephen Braude's 2003 book "Immortal Remains", and PMH Atwater's "Complete Idiot's Guide to NDEs". Also, have you read Schwartz and Bieschel's 2007 triple-blind study on "Anomalous Information Reception by Research Mediums"?
[3/10 Update: Also read Sage and Robertson's 2009 book on "Mrs. Piper and the Society for Psychical Research"]
These works are long, but of generally high quality, and therefore deserve careful treatments – not dogmatic, ill-informed dismissals. I'm not looking for such dismissals; I'm looking for truth, but people like Ray Hyman don't help. Instead, help in our search for truth can come from *open-minded* skeptics (e.g. Professor Chris French).
Anyway, you said:
>> Please see this review, noting additionally its link to the topic of "explaining away". <<
Sorry, but that is a terrible review that doesn’t really engage any relevant data. The author of the review appears to chalk up the arguments in Irreducible Mind to "coincidences":
>> Just to be clear, exceptional events happen all the time and should be expected from normal random processes. <<
Yes, which is why controlled trials are necessary.
>> In a world of about seven billion people, there are about seven thousand one-in-a-million cases for each and every one-in-a-million chance. When millions of people have cancer, we should expect some spontaneous remissions, including some very quick remissions. <<
Yes, but when we have two groups of cancer patients (all matched for severity, age, locations, type of cancer etc.), and then one group receives medicine X but the other group receives placebo, and then the patients receiving X recover faster than the control group... then it means that X probably "works" – especially if the finding is replicated. Right? Here's the thing: Statistically significant results in methodologically-sound trials have indeed suggested the reality of ESP/ psi phenomena. I will gladly cite studies for you to review for yourself, and I will gladly accept any genuine flaws you can point out in those studies.
Burk, how much data have you actually read? If I askd you to comment on the replicated EEG-correlation studies, what would you say? Would you know what I'm talking about? Would any researcher names come to mind? For example, have you read any of these:
- Standish et al. Electroencephaolographic evidence of correlated event-related signals between the brains of spatially and sensory isolated human subjects. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, volume 10, 307-314.
- Radin, D. (2004). Event-related EEG correlations between isolated human subjects. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, volume 10, 315-324.
- Grinberg-Zylberbaum, J. et al. The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox in the brain: The transferred potential. Physics Essays, volume 7, 422-428. (and others could be cited)
Have you read those? EEG correlations are just one area of psi research, and I'd be happy to cite perhaps more relevant data (since the above data could perhaps be explained away as macro manifestations of quantum entanglement). I don't want to come close to be condescending, but I also don't want to discuss this with somebody who isn't willing to look long and hard at all (or at least most) of the data.
Anyway, the author of that review goes on to say:
>> Have you ever thought of someone then received a call from them? Odds are, neither of you are telepathic. <<
Has this guy done any research? Sheldrake has done over 1,000 telephone telepathy trials where the subject has to name which 1 of 4 persons is calling on a phone without caller I.D. By chance alone, the expected outcome would be around 25%. Instead, the average is over 40%, way above chance level.
Admittedly, Sheldrake needs to improve a few things and do *better* experiments. He plans on doing work with Prof. Chris French (the aforementioend skeptic who denies the reality of psi...). But my point here is that the author of that review doesn't even mention a single study by Sheldrake. He seems to be a typical in-your-face dogmatic skeptic who reviews 5% of the literature and thinks he's an authority.
>> The broader your range of "notable," the more successes you get. So if a "staring study" counts it as a success if the subject becomes uncomfortable, comfortable, anxious, relaxed, or aroused, you have many chances to show an "effect." <<
I refer you back to Sheldrake's 2003 lecture, but also see the following publication in the Journal of Consciousness Studies: "Sheldrake and his critics: the sense of being glared at", volume 12, number 6, 2005.
>> Having a paragraph saying, "This can't just be chance!" does not change the probability. <<
No, statistical analyses do that...
>> The authors frequently say, "There is a wealth of evidence," without actually presenting it <<
Actually, the authors present the evidence in painstaking detail. Did that reviewer really read the book? At any rate, readers can look at the additional sources I gave earlier in this reply.
>> I should also be able to find someone who has won the lottery more than once or who has been struck by lightning a few times. <<
Okay, but if there are two people (matched for age, race, sex etc.) standing in an open field during a thunder storm, and if one of them is holding a metal rod and the other is not holding anything, and if the man holding the metal rod gets struck more frequently, then it probably means that the metal rod played a role – especially if the effect is replicated. Right? The author seems to think that psi-demonstrating data come from bad studies, but actually many such studies are well-constructed and performed, and sometimes even replicated by skeptics (by people who don’t expect replication).
>> This book appears to be the last stand by a couple of psychic phenomena researchers (interview here), and better titled an approach to a nineteenth century psychology, than to one of the twenty first century (note the fringe media it is popular in- Esalen, Skeptiko.com, Institute of Noetic Sciences, etc. Stigmata, reincarnation? Please. <<
See my earlier comments on parapsychology. Also, why do you dislike skeptiko? Have you heard this pod cast? In that pod cast, Alex Tsakiris of skeptiko offers a response to Steven Novella (host of skeptics guide show), and he lists some of the errors made by Ray Hyman.
>> This is not to say they are necessarily wrong, but that this campaign has very strong signs of crack-pottery, similar to AIDs-not-caused-by-HIV, classical ESP research, and the like. <<
Comparing parapsychology to “crack-pottery” reveals ignorance of the data. Open minded skeptics (including Chris French) acknowledge that there is at least some evidence that should be taken seriously.
okay, I have rambled on long enough.
Peace and best wishes
- Pat
16 comments:
Hi, Patrick-
Let's take a step back and ask some basic questions about this research. Why is it published in J. Alternative Medicine, Alternative Therapy and other "house" journals? Why has this research gone on so long, only to remain at the fringe, at best, of science? Why are the effects so marginal and hard to demonstrate, and especially to build on? Why are all the experiments bizarrely engineered to pick up the most fleeting and statistically tenuous signals as evidence? All this, after decades, even a century of research?
To take a counter-example, DNA was originally a hypothesis, but after some years of research became increasingly well-supported, with structures, large-scale production, and a whole edifice of clear and successful research piled on top of it. Black holes may be a better example, which seemed far out and unprovable at first, but now are observed astronomically all the time.
What I am saying is that if a phenomenon is real, and a great deal of research has been devoted to it, as has certainly been true in the psi field, then that research is going to find ways to make the phenomenon consistently observable, as a first order of business. (As a small example, does the spatial proximity of two subjects correlate linearly to their psi interaction? If so, then putting them within inches would presumably make the effect far more large and reliable. That would seem to be extremely helpful in a technical sense, if true.)
That first order of business has not been taken care of in this field. Why? I would posit because it is not real. Why all the research, all the quasi-respectable institutions devoted to it? Because of specific bequests and individual interest by very rich funders, combined with general popular interest, as Radin refers to at the beginning of this talk. (I have now listened to the whole thing). At the end of the questions, he speaks about the huge size of a study required to show a sufficiently significant result to win a prize/proce the case. Here he is wrong- he is assuming that all the studies work as poorly as those that have taken place to date. Granted this is poor. But if a better, more specific, and isolated experimental regime were found, (like eventually found for radioactivity, perhaps), the statistics would be far better, even unnecessary, and smaller studies would suffice. This is the essence of real science.
This topic is compelling, and he is right that you can hardly get through a TV show or movie without some spine-tingling coincidence or "special" event from taking center stage in the plot. The simple reason is that this is a psychological fixation. See the book "Supersense". Humans are irremediably wishful and imaginative thinkers, hoping to have super-powers and super-senses. But the hope has not been reliably justified. I am a big fan of Carl Jung, and he dabbled in similar ideas, called synchronicity. Again, it had a certain amount of surface plausibility, even scientific cachet but ends up being complete BS once you look at the ideas and the data more carefully.
The most important point is that, once the suggestive research is done (as Radin recounts extensively), the next step in the research program is to isolate the reliable part of the phenomenon. At this point, scientists expect to see a 100% correlation, not tiny correlations extractable only by statistics. The point of suggestive research is not to be repeated with questionable results and methods for 130 years, but to lead to definitive demonstrations of the effect. Radioactivity is a classic example- what must have at first been a very minor, vanishing phenomenon was purified, and better detection technology was developed to show it more reliably. Now radioactivity is a bread-and-butter tool of science and industry. The military does not seem to have adopted PSI in any similar way- nor have you, and nor have I.
cont...
So I am happy that this research is on-going. But they have to do a better job with definitive experiments and isolating their variables before anyone will taken them seriously. Radin says that this work is pre-scientific, and I agree. He also says "I am not much of a theorist". Well, I agree with that as well.
Obviously, I do not have the time or interest in pursuing this topic with the care and interest you have in it (it unlikely that my library is going to stock the Kelly book and I am certainly not going to buy it). I am a scientist by training and a programmer by trade. I stick to regular science, which, I think you would have to agree, has some rather amazing and novel findings to its credit as well. As soon as some ESP-type powers are regularly and reliably demonstrated, a Nobel prize will probably be awarded. But until then, this research is far better accounted for by psychological theories than by physical ones.
PS- I read the abstract of the 2004 Radin study., I would have to say that I give this field far more credit than the Intelligent Design field, which spends its time putting out press releases instead of doing anything one could call experiments. Nevertheless, I can not critique the work, not knowing the details. Even if I had access to the paper in full, I would still not really know the details of their setup, which is all quite important if one is to accept their highly significant and revolutionary conclusions. So no amount of reading on my part is really going to resolve it, until these researchers themselves deal with two basic issues- isolating their variables and demonstrating clear, not statistical, effects (of prime importance), and developing theories that tie into the rest of the scientific corpus to account for the effects (not as important, really).
Hi Burk
To start off by quoting something you said in your second reply:
>> Obviously, I do not have the time or interest in pursuing this topic with the care and interest you have in it (it unlikely that my library is going to stock the Kelly book and I am certainly not going to buy it) <<
I think that’s all you needed to say. Instead, you seemed to be making generalizations about a field you’re not very knowledgeable of.
Anyway,
>> Let's take a step back and ask some basic questions about this research. <<
Sure
>> Why is it published in J. Alternative Medicine, Alternative Therapy and other "house" journals? <<
I assume you’re referring to Radin and Standish’s EEG studies, which showed the same effect. You didn’t comment on the replication, but instead tried to place doubt on the credibility of the journal. Three quick answers:
First, a study on EEG correlations has also been published in the *Journal of Physics Essays*, which is surely not “fringe”. Other studies that have demonstrated psi effects have appeared in other mainstream journals, and Radin listed several in his lecture. You seem to think that all “pro-psi” papers occur in “fringe” journals. That is not true.
Second, publications from the Journal of alternative and complementary medicine are available on pubmed.com, which means that it has been (in some sense) affirmed by U.S. National Library of Medicine, which doesn’t allow certain journals to be on pubmed.com (e.g. the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine is still not on Medline).
Third, you didn’t even provide a compelling critique of J Altern Complement Med (which is *peer reviewed* by the way). You assumed that it is flawed, which would hae been irrelevant anyway since a lot of other data are in mainstream journals.
>> Why are the effects so marginal and hard to demonstrate, and especially to build on? <<
Some effects are *not* marginal or hard to demonstrate, including fMRI and EEG correlations. Others are a bit difficult to demonstrate, but I think that reflects normal variations in human performance. We see similar difficulties in consistently demonstrating effects in other fields, including sports (e.g. it’s hard to consistently hit a “home run”, which is why you have to look at and compare player averages. Btw, I hate watching baseball; it’s so boring!).
>> As a small example, does the spatial proximity of two subjects correlate linearly to their psi interaction? <<
That’s been tested.
>> That first order of business has not been taken care of in this field. <<
Yes it has.
>> At the end of the questions, he speaks about the huge size of a study required to show a sufficiently significant result to win a prize/proce the case. Here he is wrong- he is assuming that all the studies work as poorly as those that have taken place to date. <<
He’s talking about James Randi, an extremely dishonest man who has a history of lying about this very topic. I don’t trust the man, and I’m certain that Radin doesn’t either. At any rate, many people have tried to get appointments with JR, but have been turned down. The fact that nobody has won JR’s prize is irrelevant. Nobody won Kent Hovind’s prize – over twenty thousand dollars to anybody who could give Hovind evidence for evolution... Does that mean evolution is “not real”? Of course not. These “prizes” are set up by ideologically driven people who will not let anybody win.
Cont...
>> But if a better, more specific, and isolated experimental regime were found, (like eventually found for radioactivity, perhaps), the statistics would be far better, even unnecessary, and smaller studies would suffice. This is the essence of real science. <<
Most scientific studies use statistical analysis to rule out chance effects. And various single psi studies have yielded strong effects above chance.
>> Humans are irremediably wishful and imaginative thinkers, <<
which is why we need data
>> hoping to have super-powers and super-senses. But the hope has not been reliably justified. <<
I agree if you mean very large-scale effects (e.g. moving a piano with one’s mind); parapsychology has not provided evidence for the “super-powers” we see in X-Men and the like.
>> At this point, scientists expect to see a 100% correlation,<<<
I don’t think we should expect 100% consistency when we’re dealing with human performance variables. I can pretty consistently swim “freestyle” for 50 meters under 30 seconds (90% or 95% of the time), but 5-10% of the time it takes me longer than 30 seconds. Human performance varies, and we shouldn’t expect otherwise.
>> not tiny correlations extractable only by statistics. <<
I don’t think the correlations are “tiny”, and again most correlations in science require statistical analysis (e.g. a study showing the effectiveness of Tylenol against placebo).
>> Radin says that this work is pre-scientific, and I agree. <<
But he doesn’t mean that psi phenomena are “not scientific”. He thinks the idea of psi existing is indeed scientific.
>> He also says "I am not much of a theorist". Well, I agree with that as well. <<
Despite that, he devotes a large portion of “Entangled Minds” to discussing theories. Of course, there is a huge difference between knowing *whether* something occurs and knowing *how* it occurs. The former does not require the latter.
cont..
>> As soon as some ESP-type powers are regularly and reliably demonstrated, a Nobel prize will probably be awarded. <<
I think there is already enough evidence, but I welcome further evidential studies. I also doubt that a Nobel Prize will be given out any time soon.
>> But until then, this research is far better accounted for by psychological theories <<
Such as? Please note that many studies are carefully designed to rule out conventional explanations, and so such explanations won’t work. We would have to appeal to large-scale fraud, which is possible but unlikely in my mind.
>> PS- I read the abstract of the 2004 Radin study. <<
Great, thank you :)
>> I would have to say that I give this field far more credit than the Intelligent Design field, <<
Ditto
>> [I.D.] spends its time putting out press releases instead of doing anything one could call experiments. <<
Agreed
>> Nevertheless, I can not critique the work, not knowing the details <<
Fair enough.
best wishes
- Pat
Hi, Patrick-
There is one point I should re-emphasize. Which is that statistics are not necessary once the scientist has set up appropriate conditions. I spent many years in the lab doing experimental biology, and never needed statistics, because the effects were clear cut. Delete a gene, and the effects were dramatic. Label a molecule with radioactive markers, and follow it through subsequent metabolism with no statistics.
The message is that once a suggestive result is obtained, (often as detected through statistical analysis of a marginal phenomenon), that is only the beginning of a scientist's work, which is then to devise procedures and controls that cleanly show the phenomenon to skeptical observers, and >compels< them to take it seriously.
As for psychological theories, you may have heard of the Clever Hans episode. There are countless ways to subtly cue people to give responses. This is what the psi researchers are trying to avoid with all the complex rooms, separation, etc. But it is very difficult to get away from these hypotheses when the effects barely rise above noise, and when experimenters (like Radin) can not get their experiments to go reliably and with a robust signal, etc.
You refer to human performance and its vagaries. But the problem here is not whether humans can swim the 50 in 30 seconds, the problem is whether humans can swim at all. If we really had telepathy and telekinesis, etc, we would really have it, and not flutter around at undetectable levels, or only among gifted persons at marginal levels, or only when the moon is full, as Radin intimates at the end of the talk. After decades of apparently dedicated research, this is patently not enough to overcome suspicion.
Best wishes!
Hi again Burk,
>> I spent many years in the lab doing experimental biology, and never needed statistics, because the effects were clear cut. Delete a gene, and the effects were dramatic. Label a molecule with radioactive markers, and follow it through subsequent metabolism with no statistics. <<
You seem to think that evidence for psi comes from weird statistical gymnastics, but that’s not the case. Here’s one example I mentioned earlier:
Two people are separated in EMF-resistant chambers with EEG equipment attached to their skulls. Person A is exposed to light at a random time, but person B is not. Despite being un-exposed and despite being unaware of what’s happening, person B shows the same EEG changes when person A is exposed to light. Ditto with fMRI research. That is a “clear cut” demonstration of information transfer that cannot be explain through conventional explanations. Perhaps there is a sort of physical energy system that we do not currently understand and which acted as a medium. That’s possible. But it’s still an example of anomalous sharing/ transfer of information. Here’s the other thing: The correlation is more likely if the subjects meditate on each other. But this seems pretty clear cut to me.
There are others examples like this (including data on micro-PK, although there’s also controversy there too). So I can only encourage you to look at all of the data that you are able to get your hands on.
>> As for psychological theories, you may have heard of the Clever Hans episode.<<
Yes
>> There are countless ways to subtly cue people to give responses. <<
And that is why more and more parapsychologists are using careful methodology to rule out subtle sensory cues.
>> This is what the psi researchers are trying to avoid with all the complex rooms, separation, etc. But it is very difficult to get away from these hypotheses when the effects barely rise above noise, <<
I don’t think that the neuroimaging correlations and the micro-PK effects are only “barely above noise”, but I recognize the importance of agreeing to disagree.
>> and when experimenters (like Radin) can not get their experiments to go reliably and with a robust signal, <<
Well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean that a significant effect is replicated by independent investigators, then I would say that they have done so. But not everybody thinks there’s enough evidence. So perhaps agreeing to disagree is the best thing to do. All I ask is for fair representation of what has been reported.
>> If we really had telepathy and telekinesis, etc, we would really have it, and not flutter around at undetectable levels, <<
It’s not “undetectable”
>> or only when the moon is full, as Radin intimates at the end of the talk. <<
He said there is an inkling that the lunar cycle may be involved, and that people may do better depending on that cycle, but he did not suggest that people can perform *only* when the moon is full.
At any rate, I don’t think it’s surprising that performance can vary so greatly. We know that people can swim, but we also know that people don’t swim very well when they’re drugged up (or asleep!). Some days I can think sharply, but other days my brain is mush! Psychological functions vary. And similarly, it shouldn’t be too surprising that psi functions can vary in intensity.
>> After decades of apparently dedicated research, this is patently not enough to overcome suspicion. <<
But the suspicion of whom? Many people that are now “believers” started off as “hard-nosed skeptics”, but ended up convincing themselves through their own experimentation and that of others. I would say that the suspicion is driven more by taboos than by reasonable critiques of studies.
It’s one thing to be unconvinced, but it’s another to say that “there is absolutely no evidence”.
Here's one suggestion- if performance varies greatly, then there must be some people capable of performing consistent and highly significant psychic actions, whether pre-cognition, clairvoyance, etc. Even if you had only one person, that would be enough to turn the world on its head (not to mention make a ton of money on the stock market). That one person could then be extensively tested by all the skeptics in the world, and, if truly and reliably psychic, this would be clear, wouldn't it? I would submit that such a person does not exist, and has never existed.
Burk, there are people that fit that description over the last 100 years. Several remote viewers such as Joe McMoneagle would also fit that description today.
There is a reason that over a decade ago in 1995 that Jessica Utts wrote this:
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html
One can pursue experiments to test an observation and assemble data... or sit around theorizing a million reasons as to why something just can't be. The former is good science, the latter gets nobody anywhere.
But these arguments are useless. One side knows the requisite research and other side makes up excuses as to why the phenomenon can't be therefore the data is not there.
Hi, Goonch-
I'm sorry- this guy is a kook, not a reliable seer. What has happened to the Stargate project? It seems to have been closed, I presume for lack of effectiveness.
As for the Utts document, why do I not find it compelling? Remember that it is not my job to make someone else's scientific claims compelling- it is the job of the scientist, by so arranging their experiments and variables to make a convincing case, hopefully without the need for high-power statistics, which are so prone to mishandling and self-delusion, as we have seen numerous times in the field of conventional drug testing.
1. "A number of other patterns have been found, suggestive of how to conduct more productive experiments ..."
This is the whole issue. She admits that the research so far has been suggestive, not productive. It is hardly an effect to get the scientific community excited, even if it were real. But given the difficulty/complexity of doing these experiments and the associated statistics, there remains quite a bit of doubt (over in the normal scientific community) whether the effects are real at all. Suggestive data is not enough. "It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works" I would say amen- this really means experiments that demonstrate more reliable, consistent sub-aspects of the phenomenon.
2. Note that Jan Utts is not an independent observer...
Member, Board of Directors, Parapsychological Association
3. "There is no reason to treat this area differently from any other area of science that relies on statistical methods."
This is not true. Psychics and psychism has historically been replete with charlatans of all stripes, so special suspicion is warranted. The field continues to be. A few years back, I met a self-described "clairsentient" at a block party. The separation of these people from the more high-level psi research establishment is not at all clear (cf Joseph McMoneagle). That establishment is hard for me to characterize, but all they need for better respectability is better results. If psi is as fleeting and variable as it seems to be, at best, in the hands of the most enthusiastic researchers, then who needs it or wants it?
4. "In most cases the viewer eventually receives feedback in which he or she learns the correct answer, thus making it difficult to rule out precognition as the explanation for positive results, whether or not there was a sender."
Actually, the cleanest way to run this experiment would be to give no feedback at all, which would make the experiment "blind" in the usual clinical testing sense. And the experimenters should also get no feedback until all the trials are over and they are writing up the results- that would make it double-blind, as these experiments should be.
5. "The latter [forced choice] may be easier to evaluate statistically but they have been traditionally less successful than free-response experiments."
This is a tip-off. Why should any of these experiments be "less successful" Doesn't psi work? And why would a method that is easier to evaluate turn out to be less successful. Doesn't this set off alarm bells?
cont....
6. Section 2.2 on reliability. I completely disagree. Why should psychic ability be fleeting and variable? That makes no sense, unless one is actually covering up for it not being real at all. There is no reason to think that in a rigorous setup that some kind of psychic ability, if real, couldn't be exercised 100% of the time, reliably and consistently. Why is that too much to ask? Extremely difficult sports tasks are not an appropriate analogy for an ability we supposedly all have, which is supposedly "real". You are setting the bar too low, in a rather strained effort for plausibility.
7. Section 2.2.2- I agree about the importance of effect size. In this research, the effect sizes are routinely paltry, necessitating huge sample sizes and high-power statistics, which impairs the intrinsic plausibility of the results. Larger effect sizes (like 100%) would be extremely helpful... "evident to any observer".
8. Section 2.3 was very good, in abstract. But I should note that anyone even knowing the results of the experiment as they come in is unacceptable. The experiment should be designed, then run blind, and then the results later analyzed in their entirety.
9. 2.4 Prima Facie Evidence- Overall, the prima facie evidence in this field is that humans have no psi. This is my experience day to day, and I think that of most others. The burden is very much to prove otherwise.
10. Section 3.3- These are very promising comments, especially the observation that 1% of subjects can do remote viewing on a reliable basis. Why has this not developed into a regular job description and class of work? Why has this not been used to make gobs of money, such as from private detective work? I would submit that these claims do not stand up to serious scrutiny.
11. Section 4.2- The Entropy II experiment seems very interesting, with large effect sizes. Why is this not followed up with replicates and better designs to isolate and improve this effect? The appendix is quite unclear how this is actually run, so I can not critique its methods. Why so many types of experiments at this late date in the mid-90's, still flailing around to find a way to show psi? Why even in section 4.3 run each trial differently? For real scientists, all this stuff would be preliminary unpublished exploration, after which they arrange definitive, decisive, and compelling experiments to show the effect clearly and succinctly. You should read the journal Science sometime.
12. Section 4.4- "Therefore, we see a repeated and, more importantly, hopefully a repeatable level of functioning above chance for these individuals. An effect of this size should be reliable enough to be sustained in any properly conducted experiment with enough trials to obtain the long run statistical replicability required to rule out chance." Well, has it? Have these individuals been tested by more skeptical researchers?
13. Section 4.6.2- Here Ms Utts seems to have reached even the limits of her own credulity.. "If these results are indeed sound". Well, why wouldn't they be sound, if all the statistical and methodological notes made up to this point are to be accepted? Is there something basically dubious about all this research?
14, Section 6, usefulness. Note that if real, these capabilities, even at low reliability, would be extremely remunerative in settings like casinos and stock markets. All you need is a slight statistical advantage on the house to make quite a lot of money. So do casinos throw out psychics? No they don't. They throw out card counters and mathematicians, not psychics.
15. Conclusion.. "we know very little" This is certainly true, but even the existence of the phenomenon is questionable, given all we have seen above. This is a special field, much abused through history from the earliest myths and scriptures up to the psychic charlatans of today. The burden of proof for reasonable people is simply quite a bit higher than Ms. Utts believes it to be.
Best wishes !
Burk, you seem to have a serious problem with letting your preconceived notions get in the way of your analysis.
Calling someone a 'kook' says very little about their reliability. You didn't say anything in regards to Joe's 'effectiveness'. In the same paragraph you presume that it was discontinues because of a lack of 'effectiveness'. Do you know what they say about assumptions?
You're making a claim that the data isn't any good but you didn't list a single legitimate complain in those several paragraphs in regards to the actual data. The burden of proof is on you if you're making a claim, which you are. Its armchair skepticism and its a red flag that there is no reason to carry on a lengthy conversation with you.
1. In no way is that what she is saying. She is suggesting that the experiments could be tightened up even further but there is no such thing as an airtight/perfect experiment. Did you miss the entire conclusion section?
2.Why would anyone expect an expert analysis on anyone not familiar and involved with the field? This is like saying an astronomer would be too biased to summarize his thoughts on astronomy. Unbelievable.
3.This is exactly why claims of psi are put to rigorous test. You don't even know the results in any depth but you think they need to be better. This statement could be used on to infinity and personally, I think that is your intention.
4. Double blind studies of telepathy have been done ad nauseum. Your ignorance is again showing. Do you ever ask yourself in any honesty why it is that you don't read the research in depth but have such a strong opinion about it?
5. Stop approaching a phenomenon with preconceived notions about how it should work. Tests are constructed to rule out other causes, its not enough to say 'theoretically something must be wrong here cuz this sounds fishy...'.
6. Okay, this is the height of absurdity. Does a professional basketball player hit the three every time? Does a base player hit a home run every time? Do you know anything about the variability of human skill in any endeavor whether it be physical or mental? There is ZERO reason to assume that a person could be capable of doing something one hundred percent of the time and the only way you could possibly think otherwise would be to have preconceived 'x-men' like notions of what you think psi is.
9. And its been proven otherwise, over and over again. Not only was this paper written over a decade ago testifying to the existence of the phenomenon but since then its only grown stronger.
10. Once again, understand how something works, the nuances of its application, and then make judgments about what should and shouldn't be present given those facts.
11. Maybe you should follow up on this material besides just reading this paper? Mid-90's is a 'late date'? Maybe you should read a few books like Radin's 'Entangled Minds' so that you can get a proper overview and then follow his references instead of just throwing out criticism that only stands up on its surface but not too deep?
12. Depends on who you want to call 'skeptics'. Many have replicated it and moved on from the question of 'is it real' to more particular questions like 'does distance matter' etc. If it wasn't well beyond statistically significant than we wouldn't be having this conversation.
13. This is undue criticism based on nothing but semantics. She says very clearly that in her opinion there is no more reason to pursue experiments regarding its validity in existence but to pursue details about its mechanism and nature. You're being overly flippant here.
14. And are casinos aware of any effect like this? This is like assuming that others (such as casinos) are playing with all the facts. It could be perfectly reasonable that many card players using their 'intuition' as many do in various aspects of life are displaying a form of precognition. Again, making assumptions.
15. I'll go ahead and agree with Utts (a statistician) and the many parapsychologists that actually do this for a living as well as the overwhelming data that its proven beyond reasonable doubt. You can deny it all you want to (you'd be in good company) but denial will only lead you to be playing without a full deck. Its entirely your choice as to whether you accept it or not but as of yet, you, and countless others, haven't even scratched the surface of the data and yet you seem to know all about what psi should be capable of.
As I said before these arguments get nowhere. And this is likely my last post here so I'll try and at least be helpful with my farewell.
Here is what you should read and know in-depth before commenting on this material:
http://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Minds-Extrasensory-Experiences-Quantum/dp/1416516778/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247800223&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Psychic-Phenomena/dp/0061778990/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247800223&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Parapsychology-Skeptics-Scientific-Argument-Existence/dp/1585011088/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247800258&sr=1-1
To name just a few anyway. Also, if you can get a hold of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-hard-find-contemporary/dp/0742547922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247800303&sr=1-1
Its okay to disagree with mainstream science every once in a while. In fact, its necessary if science wants to advance. Step out of your comfort zone, drop your preconceived notions, and read the material right up to this current point in time.
Hi, Goonch-
I don't deny that I am biassed as you say. I come at this from a perspective as I have laid out at length. Everyone has a perspective. But I have tried to point to serious issues. Indeed, I would expand on point 14. The entire casino industry would be untenable were psi to be real to the degree claimed by you, Utts, and the paranormal community. Whether by precognition, remote seeing, clairvoyance- you name it, all casinos would fold up and blow away if this phenomenon were real to any extent.
The sad truth is the casino industry duns customers day in and day out precisely because those customers nurse the glimmer of hope that their intuition and psi capabilities will afford them a better than even chance. It is only human, but it is also incorrect.
"I'm sorry- this guy is a kook, not a reliable seer. What has happened to the Stargate project? It seems to have been closed, I presume for lack of effectiveness."
Question 1: Do you have *any* knowledge of classified research in the USA?
Question 2: Are you acquainted with President Jimmy Carter's opinion of Stargate?
Question 3: Do you have an opinion on the oversized rolling gantry found by Stargate?
Question 4: Do you have evidence-based opinions concerning Pat Price and Ingo Swann?
Here's a new post offering some brief reflections on the exchanges here:
http://tacoseasoning.blogspot.com/2009/08/brief-reflections-on-replies-to-my-last.html
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