Skeptics, Targ/Puthoff answer 6 of YOUR questions!
WWu777
Dear Skeptics,
I emailed Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff with 6 commonly asked questions that you
skeptics have asked me about military remote viewing tests and the SRI
experiments with Uri Geller. Here are their answers. Both their emails to my
questions are below. Pay special attention to what Hal Puthoff says though,
because it is very REVEALING information from a firsthand source that indicates
that you guys were TOTALLY wrong when you said that the CIA and government
remote viewing tests were a failure and yielded nothing. The truth is actually
the exact opposite of what you thought! Remember, this is from someone who was
directly involved in this stuff for over 20 years.
Subj: Re: Important Questions for Targ and Puthoff
Date: 00-07-13 10:44:57 EDT
From: rad...@pacbell.net (Russell Targ)
To: WWu...@aol.com
> 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the 70's
and
> the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true? Why or
> why not?
Our work was not discredited, rather it was replicated at Princeton,
Edinburgh and many other labs, not to mention SRI for the next 20 years. We
said in Nature, that Geller did NOT bend anything at SRI.
>2. Skeptics have told me that the Introduction part in the Nature article
> about Geller made it clear that the SRI tests were in no way evidence for
> Geller's PSYCHOKINETIC powers. Is that so? If not, why did it sound that
> way? Did the publishers of Nature force you guys to write it that way so it
> wouldn't become a debacle of controversy and anger the skeptics?
We were not forced to write anything.
> 3. Skeptics have also said that the SRI tests with Geller were done with
> inadequate controls, which made it very easy for Geller to cheat. Is that
so?
> How tight were the controls exactly in your tests with Geller? Were
> they controlled enough to prevent cheating? If not, why not? If they were,
> then why do Skeptics say this?
Geller did the same kind of remote viewing in our lab, that more than fifty
others from the government and army have done as part of the 25 year remote
viewing program. If the whole world has remote viewing abilities, why shouldn't
Geller have some?
> 4. You guys said that you did remote viewing experiments for the government
> from the 1970's up til 1995. How successful were they? And if they were
> successful, why haven't they been published in scientific journals, and why
> hasn't the scientific community and the skeptics acknowledged the remote
> viewing phenomenon as fact?
Our work was published in the IEEE proceedings and AAAS proceedings. A similar
paper was published by Prof. Robert Jahn in the 1982 IEEE.
Cheers,
Russell
>
> 5. Skeptics also claim that the CIA and military remote viewing tests were
> all a failure and that the CIA even admitted it. If your tests succeeded,
> why don't the skeptics know about it then? Have the CIA or military admitted
> that the remote viewing experiments you did were a success?
>
> 6. Is the remote viewing phenomenon that you studied the same thing or
> related to the Out of Body Experience phenomenon (OBE)? Have you done any
> tests with OBE's?
>
> I'm sorry there are this many questions, but they are important to our
> debate, so I hope you find time to answer most or all of them. Thank you for
> your time and attention. I (or we) look forward to your answers to shed
> light on these ambiguous issues.
>
> Sincerely,
> Winston
-----------------------------------------
Subj: Re: Important Questions for Targ and Puthoff
Date: 00-07-13 12:36:34 EDT
From: Puthoff
To: WWu777
In a message dated 7/13/00 6:35:48 AM, WWu777 writes:
<< 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the 70's
and the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true? Why
or why not?>>
Not true, just a claim of the skeptics, made out of whole cloth.
<<2. Skeptics have told me that the Introduction part in the Nature article
about Geller made it clear that the SRI tests were in no way evidence for
Geller's powers. Is that so? If not, why did it sound that way?>>
Read it yourself and form your own opinion. They were just being conservative.
<<3. Skeptics have also said that the SRI tests with Geller were done with
inadequate controls, which made it very easy for Geller to cheat. Is that so?
How tight were the controls exactly in your tests with Geller? Were they
controlled enough to prevent cheating?>>
Again, these claims of inadequate controls are generally just repeats of what
Randi says. The truth of the matter is that none of Randi's claimed suspected
inadequate controls actually had anything to do with the experiments, which of
course Randi was not there to know of. This has been independently reported by
Scott Rogo somewhere in the literature, who came out specifically to check each
of Randi's guesses about inadequate controls and found them inapplicable under
the conditions in which the tests were conducted. In fact, all of Randi's
suggestions were amateurish compared to the sophisticated steps we took,
suspecting as we did everything from magician's tricks to an Israeli
intelligence scam.
<<4. You guys said that you did remote viewing experiments for the government
from the 1970s up til 1995. How successful were they?>>
Very. 95% still classified. Joe McMoneagle (one of the INSCOM viewers)
received a Legion of Merit Award for the execution of more than 200 missions,
addressing over 150 essential elements of information (EEI), done for Joint
Chiefs of Staff, DIA, NSA, CIA, and the Secret Service, for "producing crucial
and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source."
<<And if they were successful, why haven't they been published in scientific
journals...>
Much of it (the nonclassified part) has been. See March 1996 Proceedings IEEE
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - - in that paper "visitor"
results are CIA personnel); or AAAS (Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of
Science) Selected Symposium 57, "The role of consciousness in the physical
world," Ed. R. Jahn; or "Mind at Large: IEEE Symposium on the Nature of ESP,"
Ed. Tart, Puthoff and Targ, Praeger Press, or......
<<5. Skeptics also claim that the CIA and military remote viewing tests were
all a failure and that the CIA even admitted it.>>
Yes, that's what skeptics claim. That's not what CIA said. They just said it
wasn't ready for prime time yet as an intelligence collection tool, based on a
report submitted by the American Institutes of Research (who were not privy to
the highly classified results). Lots of politics involved, but that's another
story.
<<If your tests succeeded, why don't the skeptics know about it then?>>
They're classified and will remain so. The unclassified results have been
replicated and published by many labs (Princeton's two-decade program being a
major one), but the skeptics ignore what doesn't fit their belief system. See
Dean Radin's book "Conscious Universe" for a recent overview.
<<6. Is the remote viewing phenomenon that you studied the same thing or
related to the Out of Body Experience phenomenon (OBE)? Have you done any
tests with OBE's?>>
In our opinion these labels carry assumptions about mechanisms and models.
"Remote viewing" is neutral. But yes, there is a continuum.
Hal Puthoff
Ultimate Group
considered evidence. evidence has to be UN BIASED and independantly
verifyable. you can't ask the person you investigating to provide the
evidence, you need an independant outside who can verify what has happened.
as below....
WWu777 wrote in message <20000714065745...@ng-bg1.aol.com>...
>Skeptics, Targ/Puthoff answer 6 of YOUR questions!
>
>Dear Skeptics,
>I emailed Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff with 6 commonly asked questions that
you
>skeptics have asked me about military remote viewing tests and the SRI
>experiments with Uri Geller. Here are their answers. Both their emails to
my
>questions are below. Pay special attention to what Hal Puthoff says
though,
>because it is very REVEALING information from a firsthand source that
indicates
>that you guys were TOTALLY wrong when you said that the CIA and government
>remote viewing tests were a failure and yielded nothing. The truth is
actually
>the exact opposite of what you thought! Remember, this is from someone who
was
>directly involved in this stuff for over 20 years.
and therefor has a vested interest in claiming that it all works and went to
plan so that he can justify his funding. and even though the reports they
have published have been rubbished by people much more qualified in lab
protocol than you or i, you're still quite happy to believe everything they
say without question.
>Subj: Re: Important Questions for Targ and Puthoff
>Date: 00-07-13 10:44:57 EDT
>From: rad...@pacbell.net (Russell Targ)
>To: WWu...@aol.com
>
>> 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the
70's
>and
>> the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true? Why
or
>> why not?
>
>Our work was not discredited, rather it was replicated at Princeton,
>Edinburgh and many other labs, not to mention SRI for the next 20 years. We
>said in Nature, that Geller did NOT bend anything at SRI.
please note here winston, the scientists who you previously claimed PROOVEd
uri gellar's abilities are agreeing that they didn't actually prove any
proof of his metal bending abilities. i am not aware of the duplication they
claimed so won't comment specifically, however i do hope that their reports
are in more detail and list exact protocals and exact results, along wiht
details of ALL controls that they used.
>>2. Skeptics have told me that the Introduction part in the Nature article
>> about Geller made it clear that the SRI tests were in no way evidence for
>> Geller's PSYCHOKINETIC powers. Is that so? If not, why did it sound
that
>> way? Did the publishers of Nature force you guys to write it that way so
it
>> wouldn't become a debacle of controversy and anger the skeptics?
>
>We were not forced to write anything.
Winston, please note, that they wrote the bit about not actually proving any
psychokenetic powers on uri gellars part; of their own free will, they were
not blackballed into doing it, they realised that nothing happend on this
count and therefor they couldn't claim that it had.
>> 3. Skeptics have also said that the SRI tests with Geller were done with
>> inadequate controls, which made it very easy for Geller to cheat. Is
that
>so?
>> How tight were the controls exactly in your tests with Geller? Were
>> they controlled enough to prevent cheating? If not, why not? If they
were,
>> then why do Skeptics say this?
>
>Geller did the same kind of remote viewing in our lab, that more than fifty
>others from the government and army have done as part of the 25 year remote
>viewing program. If the whole world has remote viewing abilities, why
shouldn't
>Geller have some?
maybe remote viewing is for real, but you'll notice how (like many
believers) they don't answer the actual question, they just make a
generalised statment and provide NO independant proof to back it up. So far
they also havn't said how successful the experiments were.
>> 4. You guys said that you did remote viewing experiments for the
government
>> from the 1970's up til 1995. How successful were they? And if they were
>> successful, why haven't they been published in scientific journals, and
why
>> hasn't the scientific community and the skeptics acknowledged the remote
>> viewing phenomenon as fact?
>
>Our work was published in the IEEE proceedings and AAAS proceedings. A
similar
>paper was published by Prof. Robert Jahn in the 1982 IEEE.
so electrical engineers are now experts on the paranormal are they? you'll
also note that again, they don't say that the experiments were successful or
not, just another general statment. just because an experiment is published,
does not mean that it was successful.
sounds to me like we have a scientist here that's getting a bit sick with
gellar and his fans using this experiment as a reference point, you will
note that at NO TIME does he say that uri actually successfully demonstrated
anything, he just keeps saying that they tried various experiments. if i'd
conducted these experiments and had conclusivly proven that uri gellar had
great powers i would be jumping up and down and would give anyone who asked
lots and lots of examples of how successful it had been. again though, not
once does he say that uri was successful.
>> 5. Skeptics also claim that the CIA and military remote viewing tests
were
>> all a failure and that the CIA even admitted it. If your tests
succeeded,
>> why don't the skeptics know about it then? Have the CIA or military
admitted
>> that the remote viewing experiments you did were a success?
>>
>> 6. Is the remote viewing phenomenon that you studied the same thing or
>> related to the Out of Body Experience phenomenon (OBE)? Have you done
any
>> tests with OBE's?
>>
>> I'm sorry there are this many questions, but they are important to our
>> debate, so I hope you find time to answer most or all of them. Thank you
for
>> your time and attention. I (or we) look forward to your answers to shed
>> light on these ambiguous issues.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Winston
>-----------------------------------------
ooh er, doesn't like these last 2 questions so decides not to answer them?
>Subj: Re: Important Questions for Targ and Puthoff
>Date: 00-07-13 12:36:34 EDT
>From: Puthoff
>To: WWu777
>
>In a message dated 7/13/00 6:35:48 AM, WWu777 writes:
>
><< 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the
70's
>and the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true?
Why
>or why not?>>
>
>Not true, just a claim of the skeptics, made out of whole cloth.
buy the back issues of nature yourself and read the editorial by nature, and
in subsiquent issues, people picking holes in the procedure. i'm sorry but
we have an independantly produced magazine, stored in libraries all over the
world that clearly has great concerns about the validity of the whole
experiment. but instead you're probably going to take his word for it?
><<2. Skeptics have told me that the Introduction part in the Nature
article
>about Geller made it clear that the SRI tests were in no way evidence for
>Geller's powers. Is that so? If not, why did it sound that way?>>
>
>Read it yourself and form your own opinion. They were just being
conservative.
actually those conclusions were written in conjunction with the scientists
who wrote the paper. you'll also notice the big difference in responses
between the 2 scientists here. one of them must be mistaken?
><<3. Skeptics have also said that the SRI tests with Geller were done with
>inadequate controls, which made it very easy for Geller to cheat. Is that
so?
>How tight were the controls exactly in your tests with Geller? Were they
>controlled enough to prevent cheating?>>
>
>Again, these claims of inadequate controls are generally just repeats of
what
>Randi says. The truth of the matter is that none of Randi's claimed
suspected
>inadequate controls actually had anything to do with the experiments, which
of
>course Randi was not there to know of. This has been independently
reported by
>Scott Rogo somewhere in the literature, who came out specifically to check
each
>of Randi's guesses about inadequate controls and found them inapplicable
under
>the conditions in which the tests were conducted. In fact, all of Randi's
>suggestions were amateurish compared to the sophisticated steps we took,
>suspecting as we did everything from magician's tricks to an Israeli
>intelligence scam.
so again, they're not going to give us any details of the controls, and
they're going to ignor their peers who thought that they made mistakes about
protocol, they're just going to lauch a tirade against randi. that's a good
clear, honest response, isn't it?
><<4. You guys said that you did remote viewing experiments for the
government
>from the 1970s up til 1995. How successful were they?>>
>
>Very. 95% still classified. Joe McMoneagle (one of the INSCOM viewers)
>received a Legion of Merit Award for the execution of more than 200
missions,
>addressing over 150 essential elements of information (EEI), done for Joint
>Chiefs of Staff, DIA, NSA, CIA, and the Secret Service, for "producing
crucial
>and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source."
so since, it's classified, by definition, he can't tell us the figures as to
how successful they were. we need to know details, otherwise we cannopt
assume ANYTHING and must put this experiment to one side until all the
details are made available.
><<And if they were successful, why haven't they been published in
scientific
>journals...>
>
>Much of it (the nonclassified part) has been. See March 1996 Proceedings
IEEE
>(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - - in that paper
"visitor"
>results are CIA personnel); or AAAS (Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of
>Science) Selected Symposium 57, "The role of consciousness in the physical
>world," Ed. R. Jahn; or "Mind at Large: IEEE Symposium on the Nature of
ESP,"
>Ed. Tart, Puthoff and Targ, Praeger Press, or......
So again electrical enginers are experts on the paranormal? also, he's just
said that the results are classified. so, if they are classified, we don't
know ALL the details, and if we don't know ALL the details, we cannot assume
anything about this test and must wait until all the details are made
available.
><<5. Skeptics also claim that the CIA and military remote viewing tests
were
>all a failure and that the CIA even admitted it.>>
>
>Yes, that's what skeptics claim. That's not what CIA said. They just said
it
>wasn't ready for prime time yet as an intelligence collection tool, based
on a
>report submitted by the American Institutes of Research (who were not privy
to
>the highly classified results). Lots of politics involved, but that's
another
>story.
so, either we have a high level cover-up that prevented this groundbreaking,
allegedly highy effective intelligence gathering tool from bing used. or
could it be that the results were not conclusive enough to prove anything
and therefor this technique was not suitable for use. As in intelligence,
even small snippets of information are vital, the accuracy must be very low
for this not to be worth persuing? or activly investigating further.
>
> <<If your tests succeeded, why don't the skeptics know about it then?>>
>
>They're classified and will remain so. The unclassified results have been
>replicated and published by many labs (Princeton's two-decade program being
a
>major one), but the skeptics ignore what doesn't fit their belief system.
See
>Dean Radin's book "Conscious Universe" for a recent overview.
not aware of these other experiments so can't comment on specifics, but
would welcome a link as to where i can find them. We would need to know that
the exact same experiemtns were carried out, with near identical results &
accuracy. however as both projects have been running for 20 years, it would
not be possible for one to be testing the whole findings of another so i'm a
little confused as to how they can be verifying each other
><<6. Is the remote viewing phenomenon that you studied the same thing or
>related to the Out of Body Experience phenomenon (OBE)? Have you done any
>tests with OBE's?>>
>
>In our opinion these labels carry assumptions about mechanisms and models.
>"Remote viewing" is neutral. But yes, there is a continuum.
>
>Hal Puthoff
doesn't say what the continuum is, or how it works, just that there is a
continuum, now i'm guessing here, but it could be that they both involve the
subject some-how viewing things from outside their normal position.
Regardless, there is not enough detail here to claim anything.
top tip winston. you'll notice that all the proof you keep bringing up of
uri gellars powers are from the same few people (with a vested interest in
the success), and all relate to experiments carried out 20 years ago.
they've all been covered in detail before, you're not presenting us with
anything new. i wasn't convinced of uri gellars powers the first time i read
them, just spurting them out over and over again isn't going to make me
change my mind.
tom
Zugzwang
Targ were involved:
http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/CIAparapsychology.htm
Also, a declassified report by Dr. Kenneth A. Kress, who was
directly involved with the late Pat Price, brought to the CIA by
Puthoff and Targ:
http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/parapsychologyDoc.htm
--
"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded
that our brains drop out." - Richard Dawkins
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
Chris Clarke
WWu777 wrote:
>
> Skeptics, Targ/Puthoff answer 6 of YOUR questions!
>
> Dear Skeptics,
> I emailed Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff with 6 commonly asked questions that you
> skeptics have asked me about military remote viewing tests and the SRI
> experiments with Uri Geller. Here are their answers. Both their emails to my
> questions are below. Pay special attention to what Hal Puthoff says though,
> because it is very REVEALING information from a firsthand source that indicates
> that you guys were TOTALLY wrong when you said that the CIA and government
> remote viewing tests were a failure and yielded nothing. The truth is actually
> the exact opposite of what you thought! Remember, this is from someone who was
> directly involved in this stuff for over 20 years.
>
> Subj: Re: Important Questions for Targ and Puthoff
> Date: 00-07-13 10:44:57 EDT
> From: rad...@pacbell.net (Russell Targ)
> To: WWu...@aol.com
>
> > 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the 70's
> and
> > the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true? Why or
> > why not?
>
> Our work was not discredited, rather it was replicated at Princeton,
> Edinburgh and many other labs, not to mention SRI for the next 20 years. We
> said in Nature, that Geller did NOT bend anything at SRI.
>
The work was replicated, huh? Then where are the papers-- the original,
and the ones that peer reviewed and replicated them? Why haven't these
been seen in 20 years? Oh wait, they are CLASSIFIED, right? Yet now
these esteemed scientists can talk about it without getting arrested for
revealing classified data, right? This is the same argument UFO
believers use about the government conspiracy with the aliens. Glad to
see someone else getting mileage out of it, but it still doesn't make it
any more true than the bogus "MJ12" documents.
> >2. Skeptics have told me that the Introduction part in the Nature article
> > about Geller made it clear that the SRI tests were in no way evidence for
> > Geller's PSYCHOKINETIC powers. Is that so? If not, why did it sound that
> > way? Did the publishers of Nature force you guys to write it that way so it
> > wouldn't become a debacle of controversy and anger the skeptics?
>
> We were not forced to write anything.
>
Yeah, that point means what, exactly?
> > 3. Skeptics have also said that the SRI tests with Geller were done with
> > inadequate controls, which made it very easy for Geller to cheat. Is that
> so?
> > How tight were the controls exactly in your tests with Geller? Were
> > they controlled enough to prevent cheating? If not, why not? If they were,
> > then why do Skeptics say this?
>
> Geller did the same kind of remote viewing in our lab, that more than fifty
> others from the government and army have done as part of the 25 year remote
> viewing program. If the whole world has remote viewing abilities, why shouldn't
> Geller have some?
>
Now the whole world has powers? Geez, and not one paper on one psychic
has ever stood up to scrutiny. What are the odds, huh?
> > 4. You guys said that you did remote viewing experiments for the government
> > from the 1970's up til 1995. How successful were they? And if they were
> > successful, why haven't they been published in scientific journals, and why
> > hasn't the scientific community and the skeptics acknowledged the remote
> > viewing phenomenon as fact?
>
> Our work was published in the IEEE proceedings and AAAS proceedings. A similar
> paper was published by Prof. Robert Jahn in the 1982 IEEE.
>
> Cheers,
> Russell
Yeah, the were probably printed as representative of the field of "esp"
But they wer not confirmed by anyone. Why wouldn't Nature print these
as well? 1982? 18+ Years ago, and not one confirmation. HMM.
>
> >
> > 5. Skeptics also claim that the CIA and military remote viewing tests were
> > all a failure and that the CIA even admitted it. If your tests succeeded,
> > why don't the skeptics know about it then? Have the CIA or military admitted
> > that the remote viewing experiments you did were a success?
No answer. HMMM.
> >
> > 6. Is the remote viewing phenomenon that you studied the same thing or
> > related to the Out of Body Experience phenomenon (OBE)? Have you done any
> > tests with OBE's?
No answer. HMMM.
> >
> > I'm sorry there are this many questions, but they are important to our
> > debate, so I hope you find time to answer most or all of them. Thank you for
> > your time and attention. I (or we) look forward to your answers to shed
> > light on these ambiguous issues.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Winston
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Subj: Re: Important Questions for Targ and Puthoff
> Date: 00-07-13 12:36:34 EDT
> From: Puthoff
> To: WWu777
>
> In a message dated 7/13/00 6:35:48 AM, WWu777 writes:
>
> << 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the 70's
> and the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true? Why
> or why not?>>
>
> Not true, just a claim of the skeptics, made out of whole cloth.
Yet, there is no support from anywhere.
>
> <<2. Skeptics have told me that the Introduction part in the Nature article
> about Geller made it clear that the SRI tests were in no way evidence for
> Geller's powers. Is that so? If not, why did it sound that way?>>
>
> Read it yourself and form your own opinion. They were just being conservative.
>
And were justified.
> <<3. Skeptics have also said that the SRI tests with Geller were done with
> inadequate controls, which made it very easy for Geller to cheat. Is that so?
> How tight were the controls exactly in your tests with Geller? Were they
> controlled enough to prevent cheating?>>
>
> Again, these claims of inadequate controls are generally just repeats of what
> Randi says. The truth of the matter is that none of Randi's claimed suspected
Yes that demon Randi. He must have great powers indeed if he can
dissuade the rest of the world's scientists(does he have equal power in
China?) from verifying this fascinating research. The paper falls on
its own merits, and if you read it closely, you'd see why.
> inadequate controls actually had anything to do with the experiments, which of
> course Randi was not there to know of. This has been independently reported by
> Scott Rogo somewhere in the literature, who came out specifically to check each
> of Randi's guesses about inadequate controls and found them inapplicable under
> the conditions in which the tests were conducted. In fact, all of Randi's
> suggestions were amateurish compared to the sophisticated steps we took,
> suspecting as we did everything from magician's tricks to an Israeli
> intelligence scam.
But yet, there is evidence that on many occasions, T&P revealed
information to Geller by discussing the targets and stuff within earshot
of him. How is this "controlled"?
>
> <<4. You guys said that you did remote viewing experiments for the government
> from the 1970s up til 1995. How successful were they?>>
>
> Very. 95% still classified. Joe McMoneagle (one of the INSCOM viewers)
> received a Legion of Merit Award for the execution of more than 200 missions,
> addressing over 150 essential elements of information (EEI), done for Joint
> Chiefs of Staff, DIA, NSA, CIA, and the Secret Service, for "producing crucial
> and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source."
>
"I see a red roofed house, somewhere in Italy. There is a man there,
with a gun. He is reading a paper."
See, I can do it too. Give me an award.
> <<And if they were successful, why haven't they been published in scientific
> journals...>
>
> Much of it (the nonclassified part) has been. See March 1996 Proceedings IEEE
> (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - - in that paper "visitor"
> results are CIA personnel); or AAAS (Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of
> Science) Selected Symposium 57, "The role of consciousness in the physical
> world," Ed. R. Jahn; or "Mind at Large: IEEE Symposium on the Nature of ESP,"
> Ed. Tart, Puthoff and Targ, Praeger Press, or......
>
As I thought. Examples of work in the field of "ESP". If these papers
are the best they have, the field doesn't deserve any more study.
Where are the papers sinc 1986? What in the world have they been doing
since then?
> <<5. Skeptics also claim that the CIA and military remote viewing tests were
> all a failure and that the CIA even admitted it.>>
>
> Yes, that's what skeptics claim. That's not what CIA said. They just said it
> wasn't ready for prime time yet as an intelligence collection tool, based on a
See above re: the red roof in italy. What this means is that they wer
unable to give data that cannot be read out of an encyclopedia or
through normal spying methods. In effect, this means that they were
pretty much useless, no matter what he claims.
> report submitted by the American Institutes of Research (who were not privy to
> the highly classified results). Lots of politics involved, but that's another
> story.
Yeah, I understand they have pictures of Clinton shaking hands with the
aliens on Weekly World News though. Too bad they didn't keep the secret
better. Hmm. Maybe if this story is true, T&P ought to be tried for
treason for referring to classified data. Isn't that the kind of
information you want to keep secret? What data is classified?
>
> <<If your tests succeeded, why don't the skeptics know about it then?>>
>
> They're classified and will remain so. The unclassified results have been
> replicated and published by many labs (Princeton's two-decade program being a
> major one), but the skeptics ignore what doesn't fit their belief system. See
Yeah, you can really see how this is evolving into the UFO argument,
can't you? It is true! I just can't tell you why because the US
government won't let me! I swear! And yet, highly secret things seem
to get splashed everywhere lately, but those secrets are so important
they will never be released(or cannot be released because they don't
really exist.)
> Dean Radin's book "Conscious Universe" for a recent overview.
>
Ref: Anecdotal evidence. That convinces me, by golly. Right now I'm
concentrating on bending all the spoons in T&P's houses. Think I'll
hear about it tonight on the news? Nah, they'll probably think Geller
did it.
> <<6. Is the remote viewing phenomenon that you studied the same thing or
> related to the Out of Body Experience phenomenon (OBE)? Have you done any
> tests with OBE's?>>
>
> In our opinion these labels carry assumptions about mechanisms and models.
> "Remote viewing" is neutral. But yes, there is a continuum.
>
> Hal Puthoff
A continuum of what? One form of nonsense leads to another? Why yes, I
think I'll agree on that. And guess what? He claims mechanisms and
models, yet I don't think I've ever seen T&P print any such thing.
Geez. Well at least we can be secure in the knowledge that if the North
Koreans or the Russians or the Bosnian serbs or the Chinese threaten us,
they will find their entire countries spoon supplies too bent to use(or
chopstics broken) and all starve to death. All Hail the US and their
spoon bending powers! We can bring the world to its knees!
Bwahhahahahahah.
Chris Clarke
P.S. This is getting sillier all the time. Post the papers, please.
William Barwell
WWu777 <wwu...@aol.com> wrote:
>Skeptics, Targ/Puthoff answer 6 of YOUR questions!
>
>Dear Skeptics,
>I emailed Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff with 6 commonly asked questions that you
>skeptics have asked me about military remote viewing tests and the SRI
>experiments with Uri Geller. Here are their answers. Both their emails to my
>questions are below. Pay special attention to what Hal Puthoff says though,
>> 1. Skeptics have said that your SRI tests with Uri Geller back in the 70's
>and
>> the report published in Nature have been discredited. Is this true? Why or
>> why not?
>
>Our work was not discredited, rather it was replicated at Princeton,
>Edinburgh and many other labs, not to mention SRI for the next 20 years. We
>said in Nature, that Geller did NOT bend anything at SRI.
T&P were discredited, as was Uri and the entire SRI 'tests'.
The whole series relied on protocol that alledgedly cheatproof,
Uri being a known cheat who used common magicians' tricks
before ending up at SRI.
Ways of cheating were described by skeptics, the protocols, if they were
followed, failed.
The situation at SRI was not as P&T would have one believe,
well controlled and well described. It has been described
later as a "monkey house" with Shipi Strang, a Geller stooge
wandering about along with others, and incidents not admitted
by T&P going on that would have facilitated cheating.
These facts alone were enough to discredit the whole SRI tests series.
But it gets worse. P&T described a series of little games
involving Uri and some dice. Randi described how such
dice tricks were an old magician's trick, several magicians
in fact having built elaborate routines on such tricks.
Which involved manipulating the boxes dice were placed in and shaken.
P&T angrily claimed, in writing, that this was not so, Uri never
touched the dice.
But, at that time, their book was published and Uri was described as
being as excited as a small child as HE SHOOK THE BOX CONTAINING THE DICE.
At this time, the last remaining shreds of P&Ts' credibility
committed suicide.
They had been caught out in a clumsy lie.
If you go to Nature magazine, which first published (with
warnings and an extraordinary preface) the SRI tests,
this was the final coupe de gras for SRI and Uri and P&T.
In science, the competence and honesty of researchers is
the only thing that really matters. If one loses that,
all research is suspect.
Further more, in such cases, in science, if one's
work shows signs of dishonesty or massive incompetence,
one's fellow scientists have a right to demand raw
information, and to examine it.
P&T were so challenged to open up all documentation,
raw notes, photos, ect, for examination. They agreed,
as to have not agreed would have immediately
ended the discussion not in their favor.
But they never did follow through. The scientists who
challenged them, tried repeatedly over two years to obtain
the agreed upon materials, but he was never given that,
despite numerous attempts to get that.
Finally, after two years, in a letter to Nature,
he officially gave up and declared that it was obvious
when the promise was made to allow access to raw data,
it had obviously not been made in good faith. And thus
the serious objections to the SRI tests had not been answered.
In the scientific world, P&Ts' SRI tests are considered
useless, their abilities and honesty in such matters
is considered impeached.
Psychic research has a long history of incomptenece and tricery associated
with it, and thus, an airtight protocal, fallowed exactly,
with no possibilities of cheating or error is demanded
to be considered even approaching scientific.
P&T did not provide this.
In the case of the angry claims that Uri did not
even touch the dice with the near simultaneous
publication of a book where P&T show he did,
plus the two year followup where failure to provide
access as agreed to raw data, have made the SRI tests
irrelevant at best.
The remote viewing is not impressive at best, and
the opportunities for trickery were there, despite
denials from P&T whose word counts for nothing
because of their proven lack of trustworthiness
as exhibited by their contradictions about Uri and
the dice.
But their failure to follow up on promises of access
to raw data is the final straw.
This was published in Nature and that ended it as
far as the editors of Nature were concerned.
And science.
It wasn't science.
It was a farce.
And any other tests, elsewhere, by other people are a seperate
issue. Nothing of the sort will resurrect P&T's reputations
in the scientific community as buffoons when it comes to
psychic research. They are considered pseudoscientists here.
They and Uri did more damage to psychic research that all
the fake mediums and indian readers in America.
Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope of Houston
Slack!
WWu777
>the opportunities for trickery were there, despite
>denials from P&T whose word counts for nothing
>because of their proven lack of trustworthiness
>as exhibited by their contradictions about Uri and
>the dice.
>
>But their failure to follow up on promises of access
>to raw data is the final straw.
>
>This was published in Nature and that ended it as
>far as the editors of Nature were concerned.
>And science.
>
>It wasn't science.
>It was a farce.
>
>And any other tests, elsewhere, by other people are a seperate
>issue. Nothing of the sort will resurrect P&T's reputations
>in the scientific community as buffoons when it comes to
>psychic research. They are considered pseudoscientists here.
>
>They and Uri did more damage to psychic research that all
>the fake mediums and indian readers in America.
>
>Pope Charles
>SubGenius Pope of Houston
>Slack!
Dude, where do you get all of this, from Randi's books? Randi was NOT at SRI
when they were testing Geller, so he knows nothing about it. Why don't you ask
Puthoff at Put...@aol.com? He can answer your questions about it because he
was there. Randi wasn't.
Skeptical Dogma:
"I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that
stones fell from the sky" - Thomas Jefferson, after hearing reports of
meteorites.
U-G uk
WWu777 wrote in message <20000822065808...@ng-fs1.aol.com>...
<snip>
>>This was published in Nature and that ended it as
>>far as the editors of Nature were concerned.
>>And science.
>>
>>It wasn't science.
>>It was a farce.
>>
>>And any other tests, elsewhere, by other people are a seperate
>>issue. Nothing of the sort will resurrect P&T's reputations
>>in the scientific community as buffoons when it comes to
>>psychic research. They are considered pseudoscientists here.
>>
>>They and Uri did more damage to psychic research that all
>>the fake mediums and indian readers in America.
>>
>>Pope Charles
>>SubGenius Pope of Houston
>>Slack!
>
>Dude, where do you get all of this, from Randi's books? Randi was NOT at
SRI
>when they were testing Geller, so he knows nothing about it. Why don't you
ask
>Puthoff at Put...@aol.com? He can answer your questions about it because
he
>was there. Randi wasn't.
what is your obsession with randi??? you seem to be of the view that anyone
who questions "psycic phenomina" is automatically a full supporter and
mouthpiece for randi. the whole point of skepticism is to question things.
now to your point. you're obviously forgetting that 6-8weeks ago YOU mailed
targ & puthoff and asked them to provide you with details about their
controls and protocals, and you published their responses. They didn't
provide anything that actually answered your question, they just complained
that the world was out to get them. They have been asked on numerous
occasions to provide more infortmaion to substanitate their claims, they
have REPEATEDLY failed to do so, so, until they answer their critics and
publish full reports for scrutiny, their experiemnts are worthless. This is
not part of some vendetta agaisnt them, ALL scientific experiments have to
go through the same basic procedure of review and scrutiny. if they want the
scientific community to accept their research, they're going to have to go
through the useual channels.
> Skeptical Dogma:
> "I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that
> stones fell from the sky" - Thomas Jefferson, after hearing reports of
> meteorites.
quit using this useless quote winston, you've been told numerous times that
it is wrong, it only serves to weeken your chances of acceptance as a
trustworth and accurate witness.
Dan Kettler
> >The remote viewing is not impressive at best, and
<snip>
> >It wasn't science.
> >It was a farce.
<snip>
DK: See the links from...
http://www.psicounsel.com/scistudy.html
WW: > Dude, where do you get all of this, from Randi's books?
DK: I have pointed out that "Randism" is a cult...
http://www.psicounsel.com/randicha.shtml
DK: When people read, and believe, everything a cult reader
writes, it's cultism.
> ...Randi was NOT at SRI
> when they were testing Geller,
> so he knows nothing about it.
DK: WWu, but he knows _everything_. To cultists, their leader knows
_everything_!
DK: Don't you know _that_?
<snip>
--
www | k-e-t-t-l-e-r-e-n-t-e-r-p-r-i-s-e-s | com
WWu777
>who questions "psycic phenomina" is automatically a full supporter and
>mouthpiece for randi.
BECAUSE, the dude who posted the post I was responding to was using data that
Randi stated, and I was saying that that data is suspect because Randi was not
there at SRI when they tested Geller.
> the whole point of skepticism is to question things.
He wasn't questioning ANYTHING! He was trying to DISCREDIT SRI and trying to
call Targ and Puthoff loonies! That's not questioning, that's debunking
without evidence!!!!!!!!!!
>now to your point. you're obviously forgetting that 6-8weeks ago YOU mailed
>targ & puthoff and asked them to provide you with details about their
>controls and protocals, and you published their responses. They didn't
>provide anything that actually answered your question, they just complained
>that the world was out to get them.
Yes they did. I asked them where their findings were published, and they cited
some sources, and I posted those sources here! But no one bothered to take
that into account. I've posted the sources five times already.
William Barwell
>>denials from P&T whose word counts for nothing
>>because of their proven lack of trustworthiness
>>as exhibited by their contradictions about Uri and
>>the dice.
>>
>>But their failure to follow up on promises of access
>>to raw data is the final straw.
>>
>>far as the editors of Nature were concerned.
>>And science.
>>
>>It was a farce.
>>
>>issue. Nothing of the sort will resurrect P&T's reputations
>>in the scientific community as buffoons when it comes to
>>psychic research. They are considered pseudoscientists here.
>>
>>They and Uri did more damage to psychic research that all
>>the fake mediums and indian readers in America.
>>
>>Pope Charles
>>SubGenius Pope of Houston
>>Slack!
>
I followed this along from day one starting with Nature magazine.
Randi's books of course debunked him and were a part of the
process. Also targ and Puthoff's books, Skeptical Inquirer,
(I was a charter subscriber) and other stuff.
Are you implying reading Randi's books is less than
acceptable? Are we to read T&P's books only, hmmmmm?
Did you ever dig through nature and see what went on there
from the initial article to the final failure?
You oughta.
Randi was NOT at SRI
>when they were testing Geller,
No shit Sherlock.
So he knows nothing about it.
He knew enough to throw quite a few doubts on the proceedings.
He did know enough about how fraud works to put people on their
guard, and he gained enough info to show it was not the
clean, simple test as claimed.
Thanks to Randi, a lot of little facts came out and things
at SRI were not as P&T tried to portray them.
Randi scored. Face facts.
Why don't you ask
>Puthoff at Put...@aol.com?
I have indeed had a few words in the past with Puthoff
on this very subject. Why don't you ask Randi what happened
when P&Ts' book came out and it was obvious that the claim
Uri never touched the dice was proven false.
Or Ask Puthoff.
At this point, it became obvious Puthoff was not trustworthy,
he seems to know less about what was going on than Randi.
Basically, he was called on his contradictory claims, and he
did not follow through.
With Randi's criticisms, the facts ferreted out about what
a "monkey house" the whole SRI show as, (10 point bonus if
you know what other 'famous' psychic viewer called the SRI
tetst that), lax controls, and minimally written up
reports leaving out major information as to how some tests
were really preformed, these tests were at best sloppy and
improperly reported.
Sorry, it isn't science.
He can answer your questions about it because he
>was there. Randi wasn't.
>
In the case of the famous dice incident, Puthoof showed his word
is NOT adequate.
He was called on it.
He failed to make good on his promise
to allow raw records to be examined.
Sorry, but that right there is the fact of the matter, it wasn't science.
It was, in fact, just a big waste of everybody's time.
> Skeptical Dogma:
> "I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that
> stones fell from the sky" - Thomas Jefferson, after hearing reports of
> meteorites.
You boy was cuaght lying. He stated that despite Randi's
hypothesis Uri manipulated the box, Uri never handled teh dice.
His own book claims Uri was like a little child, rattling the
box with the dice in it.
With so many loose ends, angry declarations, denials,
from P&T et al, in light of the fact that Puthoff
got caught out like that, challenged, and refused,
despite promises and more than a few attempts to
remind him, to allow access to raw records, in the end,
all that P&T and SRI have, is garbage.
It isn't science.
It was not a bona fide test.
It was just another pratfall from the psi boys
pretending to do science.
And note, Uri will not allow him self to be tested by Randi or
any other knowledgable magician.
That's a clue, son.
William Barwell
WWu777 <wwu...@aol.com> wrote:
>>what is your obsession with randi??? you seem to be of the view that anyone
>>who questions "psycic phenomina" is automatically a full supporter and
>>mouthpiece for randi.
>
>BECAUSE, the dude who posted the post I was responding to was using data that
>Randi stated, and I was saying that that data is suspect because Randi was not
>there at SRI when they tested Geller.
Randi didn't have to be there to find out from people who were there that
P&T were not telling the whole story as it happened
>
>> the whole point of skepticism is to question things.
>
>He wasn't questioning ANYTHING! He was trying to DISCREDIT SRI
The SRI study (not SRI) is discredited.
By P&T who did a piss poor job of it.
and trying to
>call Targ and Puthoff loonies! That's not questioning, that's debunking
>without evidence!!!!!!!!!!
Evidence is PLENTIFUL that much that went on there
was not the clean, dispassionate, well run tests
P&T wanted the scientific community to believe was
the situation there.
And in the final analysis, this came out,
it was well chwed over in teh pages of Nature,
P&T got called out, they failed to respond.
Randi did a lot of good detective work, but it was
a scientist that put the kibosh on SRI by challenging
Puthoff to show everything was kosher by giving all
raw data in their posession for examination by a bona fide
scientist, and Puthoff agreed and dodged for two years afterwards
actually allowing access as promised.
This is why it ain't science and why nobody in the
scientific community belives SRI was anything more than
another embarressment in a long line of embarressments
in the world of psychic research.
Puthoff was given a chance to show and demonstrate
that the SRI tests were on the up and up and
he ran from the challenge.
Repeatedly.
In science, when you do that, you lose all credibility.
Its a dead issue as far as the scientific community is concerned.
Im Sad Mommy
Bob is gonna be so mad at you on XXX-Day. Maybe Eris will take pity on
you and give you a basement office in the Building of Thrusting Gerbils.
LondonRiot
Braise Eris
U-G uk
WWu777 wrote in message <20000822185537...@ng-cp1.aol.com>...
<snip>
>BECAUSE, the dude who posted the post I was responding to was using data
that
>Randi stated, and I was saying that that data is suspect because Randi was
not
>there at SRI when they tested Geller.
well then whoever provided that information must have been. this however is
an un-clear point with no conclusive data to support either side so there's
nothing left to debate on this one until we get some facts through.
>> the whole point of skepticism is to question things.
>
>He wasn't questioning ANYTHING! He was trying to DISCREDIT SRI and trying
to
>call Targ and Puthoff loonies! That's not questioning, that's debunking
>without evidence!!!!!!!!!!
they have been asked to prove and verify their data on numerous occasions,
and they have failed to. they are discrediting themselves by failing to
follow basic scientific procedures. there is no evidence to question, that's
the whole point, they won't give anyone all the evidence to work with:-
that's what we're complaining about.
>>now to your point. you're obviously forgetting that 6-8weeks ago YOU
mailed
>>targ & puthoff and asked them to provide you with details about their
>>controls and protocals, and you published their responses. They didn't
>>provide anything that actually answered your question, they just
complained
>>that the world was out to get them.
>
>Yes they did. I asked them where their findings were published, and they
cited
>some sources, and I posted those sources here! But no one bothered to take
>that into account. I've posted the sources five times already.
you also asked them what controls they used and how secure were they, and
they didn't answer that.
now, the publications they referenced, and which you keep referencing, i'm
going to cover one last time to clear this all up. Nature magazine only
published the artical with a huge editorial rider because they found so many
procedural errors that they though the whole experiemtn was un-sound. In
various follow-up articals and letters, everyone complained that the
write-up was so vague, and T&P so resistant to handing over data that no-one
could scrutinise their experiment, and so, as accepted scientific protocals
demand, the experiement is considered nothing more than an experiment which
proves nothing of any worth. until they allow their data to be checked, and
duplicated to the accepted international standards, their experiemnet means
nothing. They/you also cited 2 other publications. One was the "journal for
the advancment of science" (i think) which is a publication which i am not
familiar with so can't comment. however questions must be asked about their
procedures if they witheld evidence for one publication, but gave it out for
another. The third publication was the trade magazine for electricians, as
in the sort who wire up your house. it is not a peer review journal, it is
of no scientific relervance to their claims, and i suggest you stop citing
it as it only serves to casts further doubt over their procedures.
i have followed every link you have proposed on this topic, so kindly
refrain from making blank, sweeping statments that are not true, purly to
further your own cause.
FYI i am a true skeptic, i question everything, and base my beliefs in
testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists. i will however
continue to search and apply the same standards of scrutiny and verification
to psycic phenomina as i would to anything else.
> Skeptical Dogma:
> "I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that
> stones fell from the sky" - Thomas Jefferson, after hearing reports of
> meteorites.
stop using this quote, it is WRONG, you can look it up and check for yorself
quite easily. plenty of people on this NG have told you how.
tom
John C. Randolph
WWu777 wrote:
>
> Dude, where do you get all of this, from Randi's books? Randi was NOT at SRI
> when they were testing Geller, so he knows nothing about it. Why don't you ask
> Puthoff at Put...@aol.com? He can answer your questions about it because he
> was there. Randi wasn't.
Gee woo-woo, why wouldn't Mr. Barwell just ask Uri Geller whether he was
a fraud? After all, Uri was there too, wasn't he?
Your questions discount the fact that Puthoff was caught in a lie,
probably to sell the book.
-jcr
William Barwell
Im Sad Mommy <Londo...@webtv.net> wrote:
>Pope Charles,
>
>Bob is gonna be so mad at you on XXX-Day. Maybe Eris will take pity on
>you and give you a basement office in the Building of Thrusting Gerbils.
>
But can these gerbils bend spoons?
William Barwell
The lies started when Randi's book showed how some
magicians had in the past, used dice in tricks.
Puthoff denied Uri had even handled the dice.
Their own book showed that was false.
Now, here is the important part, obviously the
credibility here of Puthoff was impeached by his
own words. Targ by this time mostly stopped
speaking or writing about any of this.
It wasn't to sell books. It was to discredit Randi and
to keep up the pretence that such tests had a
strict protocol that was followed.
Up to this point, they really had not published much
in great detail. And Randi and other critics,
such as Marks and Kammerer, had thrown much cold
water on the cold reading claims. That is, the
whole test series was strictly relying on the
credibility of P&T, working with a 'psychic'
who had been caught cheating in the past.
Their credibility went up in flames when Puthoff
denied Uri had access to the dice. And their
own book showed otherwise.
Other quirks up to then had been noted in their
reporting. For example, one test was written up
seemingly showing Uri in an isolated chamber alone.
Later, it was discovered he was not alone, Judy
Skutch had also been in the chamber. Which P&T admitted.
Such criticisms had also sapped P&T of credibility,
nobody could take anything they published, officially
or unofficially at face value.
It took persistant critics, especially Randi,
to dig out such little nuggets, which were not
forthcoming from SRI or P&T.
The dice bit simply was the final straw, it got
an official challenge from a fellow scientist
who wished for once and for all to use raw collected
data to find out what, if anything, had actually happened
during these tests.
This will not mean anything to the woo-woos, but in
the world of science, it means these SRI tests
are an example of how not to do psychic research.
Nature, and other major journals have since, had
nothing to do with psychic research. Funding
for such has all but dried up. Science as a whole
treats psychic research as pseudoscience, because
fraud and incompetence is usually what one finds in such
cases.
After SRI, psychic research took on again, the odor
of fakery and pseudoscience, the editors of nature
had taken a real chance that this time, maybe, Trag
and Puthoff at SRI had managed to learn from past
errors and do it right.
It was not to be.
The woo-woos simply have no idea how much damage
SRI did to the idea of parapsychology as a bona
fide subject in science.
Instead, they make Randi the scapegoat.
Poor babies.
WWu777
>testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
>research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
>international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic. Whether you are or not will be
judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be one or
not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and experiments
that support psi. Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3 out of
4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones as well.
Why don't you read Dean Radin's "The Conscious Universe". It will put you up
to date, rather than leave you in 19th century science. Much of what you
probably believe has been debunked anyway.
Besides, you just showed your selectivism above by saying that when experiments
are scrutinized to international standards, that psi fails. This allows you to
say that any experiment that supports psi must not have been properly
controlled, and so that ALWAYS gives you an excuse to say "no evidence" no
matter how many times evidence is given to you. Shame shame. You can't pull a
fast one on me like that anymore. I've learned to spot it now :)
>stop using this quote, it is WRONG, you can look it up and check for yorself
>quite easily. plenty of people on this NG have told you how.
>
>tom
And you said you were a true skeptic? The only thing that someone offered to
prove that Jefferson never said that quote was to show that people who heard
that quote remember it differently. That is just plain stupid. Are you
seriously agreeing that just because people remember a quote differently, that
that proves that it was never said? LOL Get outta here if you still think
you're a skeptic and believe bull shit like that.
People saw the Titanic sink differently too, but that doesn't mean it never
sunk. But with you guys' logic, I don't know.........
Winston
Skeptical Dogma:
"I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that
stones fell from the sky" - quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, after
hearing reports of meteorites.
sl
news:20000825085614...@ng-bg1.aol.com...
> >FYI i am a true skeptic, i question everything, and base my beliefs in
> >testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
> >research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
> >international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
>
> Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic. Whether you are or not will be
> judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be
one or
> not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and
experiments
> that support psi. Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3
out of
> 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones as
well.
> Why don't you read Dean Radin's "The Conscious Universe". It will put
you up
> to date, rather than leave you in 19th century science. Much of what you
> probably believe has been debunked anyway.
Ok, lets break it down:
(1) "Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic."
So far so good.
(2) "I am a true skeptic . . . ."
Lending some support to the claim made in No. 1 -- i.e., if you claim to be
a true skeptic then I suppose it is actually likely that *anyone* and/ore
everyone may.
However, I make no claim to being a skeptic, "true" or otherwise. I am
willing to admit the possibility of some psi effects, but the evidence
produced to date is not sufficient to call it a probability, much less a
certainty.
Of course, because you disagree, I must be immediately labeled by you as (a)
a cynic, (b) stupid, (c) ignorant, (d) or dishonest by denying evidence that
you find compelling.
(3) "Whether you are or not will be judged by your words and how you
reason. . . ."
Probably all right as far as it goes, although I suspect you have set
yourself up as the only true judge of how people reason -- i.e., if they
don't come to the same conclusions as you regarding any psychic phenomena,
you will immediately judge them to be not "true" skeptics.
In your world, it appears that persons may not look at the same body of
evidence and come to different conclusions without one of them being
dishonest or dumb.
Some support for this assertion appears in the same message from you:
> Besides, you just showed your selectivism above by saying that when
experiments
> are scrutinized to international standards, that psi fails. This allows
you to
> say that any experiment that supports psi must not have been properly
> controlled, and so that ALWAYS gives you an excuse to say "no evidence" no
> matter how many times evidence is given to you. Shame shame. You can't
pull a
> fast one on me like that anymore. I've learned to spot it now :)
Bingo. Neither of you have discussed *any* studies or controls, but you
have already accused him of dishonesty simply because he has come to a
conclusion different than yours.
Of course, you then had to add the obligatory condescension that we have
come to know and love.
Perhaps the use of "dude" and "LOL" would help here.
[rest snipped]
sl
PS: Didn't you leave the newsgroup and move to a higher level of
consciousness or something?
U-G uk
>>research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
>>international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
>
>Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic. Whether you are or not will be
>judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be one
or
>not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and
experiments
>that support psi. Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3 out
of
>4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones as
well.
an amazing number of americans also claim to have been abducted by aliens,
believe they have seen elvis alive, believe that little pixies live at the
bottom of their garden. Just 'cause a lot of people think somthing is so,
doesn's make it so (and yes this argument works both ways). People are very
gullable, if they see somthing that they don't understand, and somone gives
them an explanation they'll believe it, whther it's true or not is
irrelervant, the first explanation that people are given is the one they'll
remember (this is the basis of the human learning mechanism). Thus, when a
spoon bends that uri gellar is touching, and he goes on about his psycic
powers and using his mind to bend spoons, people put the 2 together and
assume that the spoon bent BECASUE of uri gellars powers. Thus they have
just witnessed a psycic event. What actually happened is often a completly
different story, but that is irrelervant, the brain locks on to the first
explanation it gets.
> Why don't you read Dean Radin's "The Conscious Universe". It will put you
up
>to date, rather than leave you in 19th century science. Much of what you
>probably believe has been debunked anyway.
That's a bit rich comming from someone who's (nearly) every word for the
last 3 months on sci.skeptic has been debunked.
>Besides, you just showed your selectivism above by saying that when
experiments
>are scrutinized to international standards, that psi fails. This allows
you to
>say that any experiment that supports psi must not have been properly
>controlled, and so that ALWAYS gives you an excuse to say "no evidence" no
>matter how many times evidence is given to you. Shame shame. You can't
pull a
>fast one on me like that anymore. I've learned to spot it now :)
I've NEVER said that ANY experiment that deals with Psi must not have been
properly controlled, and i'll thank you not to try to put words in my mouth.
My position is as follows. It is perfectly possible that "psi" exisits and i
would love to be the one who finds the proof for it. HOWEVER, to date, NO
experiment (that i have ever seen or read about) that has been through the
accepted international standards of scrutiny, duplication & verification,
and has taken all reasonable controls to prevent trickery, mistake or fraud
has, so far, proven the existence of Psi powers. The psi community then does
itself even further damage by launching vicious personal attacks that have
no relrvance to PSi on individuals, often refuse to take part in further
scientific experiements, and often withhold valuble data to support their
claims without giving good reason. I say again, TO DATE no experiment
(carried out with full controls and properly peer reviewed) that i am aware
of (and i've done a lot of looking) has so far proven the existence of psi.
I have been involved in desiging and scrutinising such experiments in the
past and will gladly offer help and advice to anyone wanting to design an
experiment. As part of being a skeptic, my only beliefs are those that can
be tested and proven to accepted standards. I have NO pre-conceptions about
anything, i rely on tests and facts.
>>stop using this quote, it is WRONG, you can look it up and check for
yorself
>>quite easily. plenty of people on this NG have told you how.
>>
>>tom
>
>And you said you were a true skeptic? The only thing that someone offered
to
>prove that Jefferson never said that quote was to show that people who
heard
>that quote remember it differently. That is just plain stupid. Are you
>seriously agreeing that just because people remember a quote differently,
that
>that proves that it was never said? LOL Get outta here if you still think
>you're a skeptic and believe bull shit like that.
I sugget that if you wish to engage in serious debate with anyone about
anything, you refrain from using personal attacks and such course language,
it does nothing to further your claims, and in the eyes of some could damage
your reputation. The onus with this quote, is for YOU to PROOVE (to accepted
international standards and definitons) that he DID say it befor you start
mailing it around the world. if jefferson were alive today he could sue you
for mis-quoting him, and the onus would be on you to prove that he did say
it. As a side note, Rocks falling out of the sky (which the religious kooks
of the day thought was a big dome, through which god sent the weather) is a
pritty wild thing to have to assume. If somone came up to you and told you
that pink elephants were falling out of the sky, what would be more likely
to be true, that pink elephants drop from the sky, or that somone was
pulling your leg?? As i was not present when jefferson (allegedly) said
this, i don't know if he did say it or not, but i'm pritty sure you wern't
there either, so unless you have some PROOF he said this, stop mis-quoting.
>People saw the Titanic sink differently too, but that doesn't mean it never
>sunk. But with you guys' logic, I don't know.........
And we're not doubting that rocks fell from the sky, or that when uri gellar
comes into contact with spoons they bend, or that the titanic sank, what is
doubted is HOW these things happen. You say it is stupid of me to assume
that my explanation is correct (despite the balence of proberbility being on
my side, not to mention the fact that uri has been caught out bending spoons
with his hands before) yet think it is perfectly reasonable for you to
assume that some (as yet) untestable "mystic" powers originating from some
(as yet) unknown place have some (as yet) unknown effect in some way on
metal that causes it to bend, often in exactly the same way as it would as
if he had bent it with his hands.
I deal in FACTS, if you can show me an experiment (to international
standards and with fully scrutinised controls) that prove the existence of
PSI i would LOVE to read up on it, however nothing (i have seen) you post so
far has. I deal in a world of testable, verifyable facts, not assumptions,
guesses, slander and half-truths that so many of the "psi-belivers" who post
to NG's seem to live in.
I look forward to receiving the proof you've been promising for so long.
tom
WWu777
>
>Lending some support to the claim made in No. 1 -- i.e., if you claim to be
>a true skeptic then I suppose it is actually likely that *anyone* and/ore
>everyone may.
Why do you say that? What about me demonstrates that I'm not a skeptic? I do
not believe everything I hear, so we can rule that out. I might believe in
things that there is strong evidence for, but just because you don't agree
doesn't mean that I'm not a skeptic. A skeptic isn't someone that CAN ONLY
believe in established science and nothing else. Mystics have known things
that science was later able to prove. For example, mystics have always known
that there was a mind/body connection. Skeptics in the 19th century though
said that the idea that the body is affected by mental states is rubbish and
pure superstition. Those skeptics and scientists were proven wrong and the
mystics were proven right.
>However, I make no claim to being a skeptic, "true" or otherwise. I am
>willing to admit the possibility of some psi effects, but the evidence
>produced to date is not sufficient to call it a probability, much less a
>certainty.
Well I think you're definitely wrong about it not being a probability. It is
VERY VERY much a probability at least. If you don't think that BILLIONS of
psychic claims (3 out of 4 Americans) constitutes a probability, then you are a
real fundamentalist my friend.
Not only are there experiments that back it up, but I've seen PK happen
firsthand as well. Even if psychic events are rare, the fact that they DO
happen means that they are possible. Remember that quote from Arthur C. Clarke
that if something happens even once then it's possible?
>Of course, because you disagree, I must be immediately labeled by you as (a)
>a cynic, (b) stupid, (c) ignorant, (d) or dishonest by denying evidence that
>you find compelling.
Well if there is evidence, like in PEAR for instance, you shouldn't just
rationalize it away to keep your beliefs. PEAR was analyzed by Ray Hyman, who
found no flaws in their methodology.
>Probably all right as far as it goes, although I suspect you have set
>yourself up as the only true judge of how people reason -- i.e., if they
>don't come to the same conclusions as you regarding any psychic phenomena,
>you will immediately judge them to be not "true" skeptics.
Nope, I'm not the judge, and not everyone who disagrees with me is not a true
skeptic. I go by how much those who call themselves skeptics rationalize away
things even though they are facts.
>In your world, it appears that persons may not look at the same body of
>evidence and come to different conclusions without one of them being
>dishonest or dumb.
Not so. That is only true in the pseudo-skeptic world, not in mine. I respect
differences of opinion.
>Bingo. Neither of you have discussed *any* studies or controls, but you
>have already accused him of dishonesty simply because he has come to a
>conclusion different than yours.
I've been posted studies, and so have other people on this board, for months
now. It's been exhausted, and I don't feel I should have to repost every
single thing to every pseudo-skeptic. I accused him of intellectual dishonesty
because people like him when they can't explain something away they pretend
that it doesn't exist, and for other things too.
>Of course, you then had to add the obligatory condescension that we have
>come to know and love.
With what I've had to put up with from fake skeptics and cynics here, you can't
blame me. I am far more patient than most people.
John C. Randolph
WWu777 wrote:
>
> >FYI i am a true skeptic, i question everything, and base my beliefs in
> >testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
> >research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
> >international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
>
> Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic.
No, it's only you woo-woos who made up the terms "true skeptic" and
"pseudo-skeptic", since even you realized that opposing skepticism is ludicrous.
There are skeptics here, and there are looneys like yourself who simply
can't stand the fact that smarter people won't swallow bullshit like
spoon-bending and "remote viewing", simply because it doesn't hold up
under competent observation.
> Whether you are or not will be
> judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be one or
> not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and experiments
> that support psi.
You're NOT a skeptic, woo-woo. You're a starry-eyed Geller fan, as
you've demonstrated repeatedly by ignoring the fact that he's been debunked.
> Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3 out of
> 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones as well.
Not evidence, coincidence. People have hunches all the time, and the
ones that coincide with events are remembered, while the ones that don't
are discarded.
-jcr
John C. Randolph
WWu777 wrote:
>
> >(2) "I am a true skeptic . . . ."
> >
> >Lending some support to the claim made in No. 1 -- i.e., if you claim to be
> >a true skeptic then I suppose it is actually likely that *anyone* and/ore
> >everyone may.
>
> Why do you say that? What about me demonstrates that I'm not a skeptic?
Your continuous pig-headed disregard of Geller's deceptions. The other strong
indication is your gleeful trotting out of slanderous accusations
against Randi, all of which have been answered long ago.
>I do not believe everything I hear, so we can rule that out.
Oh, that's for sure! You absolutely refuse to believe that Geller's
been debunked,
since it doesn't fit in with your fervent desire to believe that fraud.
-jcr
sl
> >(2) "I am a true skeptic . . . ."
> >
> >Lending some support to the claim made in No. 1 -- i.e., if you claim to
be
> >a true skeptic then I suppose it is actually likely that *anyone* and/ore
> >everyone may.
>
> Why do you say that? What about me demonstrates that I'm not a skeptic?
> not believe everything I hear, so we can rule that out.
Those are not the only two positions. Do you see how you are setting up a
false dichotomy here? Either you (1) are skeptical, or (2) "believe
everything [that you] hear."
These are not the only two choices.
I do not see that there is any "pure" skeptical position that can or has
been taken, nor do I claim to have a ruler for skepticism. However, I
believe that a skeptic requires consistent, repeatable proof before
accepting extraordinary claims such as those for Psi.
As an example, you have repeatedly asserted as facts claims that Geller can
bend objects without touching them based on anecdotal (and sometimes third-
and fourth-party hearsay, as well). Different alternative explanations were
offered -- including the very basic premise of most magic, which is that
people will not report how a trick is done accurately. Several people from
the magic newsgroup gave examples, and I am familiar with this phenomena, as
well.
I could produce a number of people that would claim that I never touched a
prop or came near them during an effect -- when in fact I was the one that
handed it to them in the first place. The two Canadian magicians who fooled
a number of scientific testers before admitting that they were using tricks
(back in the 80's -- names are blank to me right now) -- had the scientists
swearing to the same types of statements -- i.e., that cheating was not
possible, and that they never handled the props, etc. Yet it happened -- a
well established phenomena.
Does it prove that this is what happened with Geller - No. Does it raise
doubts about these various claims and their veracity? It had better.
Instead of taking these different viewpoints and reserving judgment, you
replied to the people answering your posts with a lot of "LOL's" --
condescension without any reason for it, as far as I could see. The problem
is not that you come to a different conclusion, its that you automatically
dismiss the other person's reasoning with the lightest of superficial
remarks.
At the time the thread was going, I went looking for video of Geller and
reports of his testing, as it had been quite a while since I had any real
interest in it. I found only a few clips, but I didn't see any case in
which he wasn't handling the spoon himself. When he was not allowed to pick
them up -- as with Carson -- he failed.
From the body of evidence (including these clips and the Italian video that
I have not seen but which is supposed (according to a magician friend) to
have clearly shown him cheating like mad), you may want to believe that
Geller is still bending spoons mentally.
Fine.
But don't try to accuse the people who see things differently as dishonest,
as you do below. First of all, it is a cheap ad hominem that nets you
nothing, and second, it is simply wrong.
> I might believe in things that there is strong evidence for, but just
because you
> don't agree doesn't mean that I'm not a skeptic. A skeptic isn't someone
that
> CAN ONLY believe in established science and nothing else.
Do you see how you are again using a false dichotomy? This is a variation
of the straw-man: you declare a position for me that I have never used,
then knock it down.
In this black-white example, you set up me as supposedly arguing that a
skeptic is someone who "CAN ONLY believe in established science and nothing
else." First of all, I never said it. Second, the terms are so vague that
I have no idea what "Believ[ing] in established science" is. Third, I said
in my original post that I was claiming to be a skeptic, and I have no
intention of setting up a yardstick of what a "true" skeptic is -- people
have varying degrees of skepticism on different matters, and to lump people
together in a group as "true" or "pseudo" skeptics does them a disservice.
It is another form of dismissing their arguments without having to think
about them -- you simply apply the label and move on.
It is especially inappropriate when you have not had a number of previous
posts from the person to compare to, but are calling someone "intellectually
dishonest" because they disagree on the strength of the evidence presented.
You are clearly not trying to "bring another beggar to the bread," but
instead trying to hit him over the head with the loaf.
> Mystics have known things that science was later able to prove. For
example,
> mystics have always known that there was a mind/body connection. Skeptics
> in the 19th century though said that the idea that the body is affected by
mental
> states is rubbish and pure superstition. Those skeptics and scientists
were proven
> wrong and the mystics were proven right.
You have trotted out a number of these types of claims -- someone claimed
something was either true or could be done. Someone disagreed. You label
the "disagreer" as a skeptic, then claim that virtue triumphed over
skepticism.
Not to be rude (seriously), but so what?
As has been pointed out to you previously, these types of claims --
accepting arguendo that your version is accurate -- prove nothing. You
might find 10,000 such examples for one side and another 10,000 where the
person making the claim was wrong (n-Rays, end of the world, invisibility,
dragons) -- *and none of it has anything to do with whether any *other*
claim is true*.
"Mystics" have claimed a large number of things over the centuries -- but
whether they were right about some, none, or all it those claims, it has
*nothing* to do with people's claims about Psi now.
Someone was wrong once about giant squids -- how can that possibly prove
that telekinesis works?
If your point is that people make mistakes and are fallible -- it is no
shock. But there are people on both sides of all of these arguments, and
neither side enjoys infallibility. So the examples are irrelevant.
> >However, I make no claim to being a skeptic, "true" or otherwise. I am
> >willing to admit the possibility of some psi effects, but the evidence
> >produced to date is not sufficient to call it a probability, much less a
> >certainty.
>
> Well I think you're definitely wrong about it not being a probability. It
is
> VERY VERY much a probability at least. If you don't think that BILLIONS
of
> psychic claims (3 out of 4 Americans) constitutes a probability, then you
are a
> real fundamentalist my friend.
And this is where we part company. Not on opinions -- we knew that -- but
on how you express yourself.
The first sentence or two of this paragraph I have no problem with. You
feel I am definitely wrong -- you state your position and we disagree.
Fine. We're adults, everything is still civil, and there is a possibility
that we might exchange views on the evidence (even argue about it, perhaps).
Then you slip right back into your "I am the only judge of the evidence"
mode: "If you don't think that BILLIONS of psychic claims (3 out of 4
Americans) constitutes a probability, then you are a
real fundamentalist my friend."
In your world, it is simply impossible for anyone to disagree with you and
remain a rational thinker, isn't it? If you don't see the arrogance of your
position, think harder.
(1) Three out of Four Americans does not equate to billions of anything;
(2) you are using that statistic out of context from the show, and that
point has been discussed by others with you ad nauseum;
(3) Likewise, the reasons that people do not -- quite reasonably -- accept
that kind of reasoning has also been explained a number of times.
(4) Many people have claimed to see all sorts of things -- bigfoot, Nessie,
unicorns, centaurs -- do we simply accept every claim from everyone?
Do we declare that people are being abducted by aliens (or probably are)
because a large number of people claim that they are extra-dimensionally
moved from their beds at night and returned the next morning without
evidence of their leaving? Do we accept that martians landed on Halloween
in 1939 because people reported seeing the invasion after hearing about it
on the radio?
But you cannot allow anyone to have a contrary opinion -- True to form,
people can't disagree with *your* analysis of the evidence, and so they are
dismissed as stupid, or disingenuous, or "fundamentalist."
What does "fundamentalist" mean here, anyway?
> Not only are there experiments that back it up, but I've seen PK happen
> firsthand as well.
If you are discussing that paper wheel thing again, see the earlier threads
on why people doubt that this is "PK."
> Even if psychic events are rare, the fact that they DO
> happen means that they are possible. Remember that quote from Arthur C.
Clarke
> that if something happens even once then it's possible?
You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
You cannot use the happening of an asserted event to prove that it happened.
Do you see the circular reasoning?
I claim to have driven a spaceship yesterday. Because I claim that it
happened, it must be evidence that it happened -- because it must be
possible if it happened, right?
We'll just skip through all of the "evidence/testing" phases and go right to
belief.
> >Of course, because you disagree, I must be immediately labeled by you as
(a)
> >a cynic, (b) stupid, (c) ignorant, (d) or dishonest by denying evidence
that
> >you find compelling.
>
> Well if there is evidence, like in PEAR for instance, you shouldn't just
> rationalize it away to keep your beliefs. PEAR was analyzed by Ray Hyman,
who
> found no flaws in their methodology.
It is you rationalizing -- you rationalize that, because anyone who isn't
(a) a cynic, (b) stupid, (c) ignorant, (d) or dishonest (or maybe now (e) a
"fundamentalist") would *of course* agree with you.
Also, I have read the papers put out by Hyman and I don't think he gives
PEAR the endorsement that you imply here. He, as a result of a couple of
studies, have stated that he hoped they led to more testing because he
thought the work showed promise, but he has never said that the PEAR, or any
other study, has proven that Psi is probable or true.
But then, I guess he is another "fundamentalist" "pseudo-skeptic" who isn't
bright enough to see the truth.
> >Probably all right as far as it goes, although I suspect you have set
> >yourself up as the only true judge of how people reason -- i.e., if they
> >don't come to the same conclusions as you regarding any psychic
phenomena,
> >you will immediately judge them to be not "true" skeptics.
>
> Nope, I'm not the judge, and not everyone who disagrees with me is not a
true
> skeptic. I go by how much those who call themselves skeptics rationalize
away
> things even though they are facts.
I.e., if they disagree on the interpretation of the evidence as you see it,
you judge them as not "true" skeptics.
There is not one whit of difference between what I wrote and your attempt to
distinguish your position from it.
> >In your world, it appears that persons may not look at the same body of
> >evidence and come to different conclusions without one of them being
> >dishonest or dumb.
>
> Not so. That is only true in the pseudo-skeptic world, not in mine. I
respect
> differences of opinion.
Except that they are "fundamentalists" who are "fake skeptics" and "cynics"
that practice "intellectual dishonesty" for disagreeing with you.
You respect whose opinions, exactly?
> >Bingo. Neither of you have discussed *any* studies or controls, but you
> >have already accused him of dishonesty simply because he has come to a
> >conclusion different than yours.
>
> I've been posted studies, and so have other people on this board, for
months
> now. It's been exhausted, and I don't feel I should have to repost every
> single thing to every pseudo-skeptic.
And again the position shifts -- no one ever said anything about re-posting
"every single thing" to "every 'pseudo-skeptic.'" No one.
What I said was that you should hold off on calling people dishonest because
they disagree with you.
I assume now, because I disagree on whether Psi is probable or not, that
I -- in addition to being a "fundamentalist" -- am now also intellectually
dishonest.
> I accused him of intellectual dishonesty because people like him when they
> can't explain something away they pretend that it doesn't exist, and for
other
> things too.
>
> >Of course, you then had to add the obligatory condescension that we have
> >come to know and love.
>
> With what I've had to put up with from fake skeptics and cynics here, you
can't
> blame me. I am far more patient than most people.
That works both ways. The vast majority of messages answering your posts in
the beginning were pretty civil, as I recall. It was only after a few
replies with the tones of "Dude, LOL, you're intellectually dishonest, no
one but a simpleton can dismiss 3 out of 4 Americans' claims, LOL" types of
posts that people began responding with less and less civility.
And, were I the poster that you called dishonest in the exchange above, I
would likely not respond too well, myself.
sl
PS Didn't you leave the newsgroup and move on to a higher intellectual
plane or something?
Write You
> >FYI i am a true skeptic, i question everything, and base my beliefs in
> >testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
> >research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
> >international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
>
> judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be one or
> not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and experiments
> 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones as well.
Occam says that each and every one of these witnesses can't ALL be wrong.
Ergo, the most likely explanation is that PK, RV etc actually occur.
It is simply irrational to conclude that EACH and EVERY one of the witnessed events
is false.
> Why don't you read Dean Radin's "The Conscious Universe". It will put you up
> to date, rather than leave you in 19th century science. Much of what you
> probably believe has been debunked anyway.
>
> Besides, you just showed your selectivism above by saying that when experiments
> are scrutinized to international standards, that psi fails. This allows you to
> say that any experiment that supports psi must not have been properly
> controlled, and so that ALWAYS gives you an excuse to say "no evidence" no
> matter how many times evidence is given to you. Shame shame. You can't pull a
> fast one on me like that anymore. I've learned to spot it now :)
>
> >stop using this quote, it is WRONG, you can look it up and check for yorself
> >quite easily. plenty of people on this NG have told you how.
> >
> >tom
>
> And you said you were a true skeptic? The only thing that someone offered to
> prove that Jefferson never said that quote was to show that people who heard
> that quote remember it differently. That is just plain stupid. Are you
> seriously agreeing that just because people remember a quote differently, that
> that proves that it was never said? LOL Get outta here if you still think
> you're a skeptic and believe bull shit like that.
>
> People saw the Titanic sink differently too, but that doesn't mean it never
> sunk. But with you guys' logic, I don't know.........
>
Write You
<snip>
> e-mailed response as follows....
> I deal in FACTS, if you can show me an experiment (to international
> standards and with fully scrutinised controls) that prove the existence of
> PSI i would LOVE to read up on it, however nothing (i have seen) you post so
> far has. I deal in a world of testable, verifyable facts, not assumptions,
> guesses, slander and half-truths that so many of the "psi-belivers" who post
> to NG's seem to live in.
>
> I look forward to receiving the proof you've been promising for so long.
Hi, the following is not "proof", but it presents some of
the most tantalising and significant evidence from a skeptical
perspective.
http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ap]/getdoc.xp?AN=658044166&CONTEXT=967288869.1319698455&hitnum=3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 'Tantalising Perceptions' - A Progressive Sceptical View.
Date: 08/14/2000
Author: Peek At You <dr.w...@freeuk.com>
Dean Radin ( Conscious Universe ) and Dr Lyall Watson ( Supernature )
give plenty of evidence of demonstrations of 'non locality' perception.
The evidence so eloquently demonstrated by Radin and Watson gives
significant credibility to substantiate the findings of the " existence of
one or more perceptual modalities through which individuals obtain
information about their environment."
Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ ( above quote) gave evidence of
demonstration of the
" existence of one or more perceptual modalities through which
individuals obtain information about their environment."
http://www.tcom.co.uk/hpnet/sria.htm
Puthoff, ( a senior research engineer at Stanford, Lieutenant in Naval
intelligence, NSA operative and military consultant in computer
technology ) and Targ ( a senior research physicist specialising
in plasma physics and a pioneer in laser development) are both
credible scientists with a verifiable record of professional integrity.
The collaboration with the research at the SRI. The report [2]
significantly substantiates the participation of CIA operatives.
There is no no reason to think that P&T are lying or that the
operatives were somehow deluded into "performing well under
controlled laboratory conditions (that is, generated target
descriptions of sufficiently high quality to permit blind matching
of descriptions to targets by independent judges)."
The SRI experiments involved a number of PK and
RV ownership's ( a popular dysfunctional 'meme' is
that the SRI experiments centred on only one person ).
Claims of poor scientific method levelled at the experiments
has been shown to be mainly unsubstantiated personal
opinion and second hand 'Chinese Whispers', yet its
continued repetition has enabled such claims to become
a 'meme' for the mantra of pseudo-skeptics.
Unbiased research demonstrates that:
1.The 'editorial' was the *opinion* of *three* anonymous individuals.
2. In the face of three anonymous individuals, the CIA decided to
carry on with Targ and Puthoff and the SRI for another twenty
years.
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#2.1
3. The CIA found that the results were "significant".
4. The CIA did NOT find that RV did not work.
5. The CIA found that RV *worked*.
Pseudo skeptics rejected the data while the CIA took the SRI
research on-board and went on to work with physicists and RV
owners in order to exploit any appropriate application.
The CIA / SRI collaborative evidence can be found at:
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html {*}
It is impossible to dismiss the evidence of the CIA initiated programme.
"a recent unclassified report [23] prepared for the CIA by the American
Institutes for Research (AIR), concerning a remote viewing effort carried
out under a DIA program called Star Gate (discussed in detail elsewhere
in this volume), cites the roles of the CIA and DIA in the history of the
program, including acknowledgement that a cadre of full-time government
employees used remote viewing techniques to respond to tasking from
operational military organizations." {*}
Russell Targ, is quoted as saying:
" The SRI program was not discredited. The SRI remote viewing experiments
continued from 1972 to 1995 for many agencies of the Federal government.
I personally showed dozens of government officials (up to the under sec. of
defense) and army officers how to do remote viewing.
Many of these are teaching it today."
Puthoff has a background in magic, research physics and also a history
in Naval intelligence and as NSA operative.
".. we tore apart the ceiling tiles every evening looking for bugs.
Our concern that this was an intellignece plot resulted in our paranoia
being much deeper than the typical sceptic would say."
" My position is that I am a total scpetic, and that's a sword that cuts both
ways. I am sceptical about PSI phenomena existing, and similarly, I am
totally sceptical of the sceptics who, without evidence and without investigation,
dismiss it out of hand as being an impossibility. .... I imagine there are some
honest sceptics but for a lot of them it's an emotional issue." - Puthoff.
PSI / PK / RV should exist according to Occam.
It would be unlikely for an overwhelming positive reporting significance on
phenomena to be in each and every case false. It is possible that scientific
research lacks sufficient comprehension to study the phenomena.
This lack tempts dogmatism to insert what human logic demands in such
instances, denial of existence.
There is plenty of theoretical underpinning to RV.
Go to Theoretical Physicist, Dr Jack Sarfatti's site.
Col Alexander ( ex director of the Advanced Systems Concept Office,
Army Laboratory Command, and later as Chief of Advanced Human
Research with INSCOM, moving on to Los Alamos NL ) who has the
unusual Ph.D in 'Thanatology' says of 'pseudo' skepticism:
" The overall problem with the professionally sceptical class of people
is that they are very scared. If PSI is true, their world- view is incorrect.
I worked with an Army engineer once on a PSI related project, and he
actually came out and said, "Don't tell me something that says I have
to relearn Physics, because I do not want to hear it." They will just say
It's not true, therefore it isn't. When all else fails, ignore the facts. "
Of course, some pseudo skeptics go one step beyond what Alexander
says, they try to level insult at the physicists who provide the facts.
John Hasted, world leader in atomic theory and Chair of Experimental
Physics at Birkbeck, London, is quoted as saying:
" I found these professional sceptics to be every bit as much a menace
to scientific truth and impartial observation as the worst psychic charlatans.
They write that researchers in the parapsychology field are emotionally
committed to finding phenomena, yet forget conveniently that they themselves
are emotionally committed to finding there are no phenomena.
I was often reminded of a saying:
"Them as believe nowt, will believe owt." "
Indeed.
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html
http://www.tcom.co.uk/hpnet/sria.htm
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#2.1
Tantalising.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ap]/getdoc.xp?AN=658044166&CONTEXT=967288869.1319698455&hitnum=3
Mr. Adequate
<Andrija's.inn...@spectra.com> wrote:
> WWu777 <wwu...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20000825085614...@ng-bg1.aol.com...
<SNIP>
>> Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3 out of
>> 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones
>> as well.
>
> Occam says that each and every one of these witnesses can't ALL be
> wrong.
Occam says nothing of the kind.
> Ergo, the most likely explanation is that PK, RV etc actually occur.
The most likely explanation is that they are deluding themselves.
> It is simply irrational to conclude that EACH and EVERY one of the
> witnessed events is false.
It is simply irrational to conclude that 3 out of 4 (or 3 out of 400, or
even 1 out of 260 million) Americans would have psychic experiences that
are consistent only OUTSIDE of acceptable testing conditions.
U-G uk
covered many times, both by myself and others. put simply, there are a
number of factual errors which immediatly casts doubt over the rest of the
post. When the experiment it references was put up for peer review, 95% of
the data was withheld, and even then it was ripped to shreads by people much
more qualified than you or i to comment on scientific protocall. Also the
scientist in question have consistantly failed to back up their claims with
proof, or submit all their data for independant scrutiny. there are so many
holes in this that it is simply not worth considering. if they produce all
the data and respond to the scutiny, THEN we could consider it to be
interesting or compelling. based on the data provided, there's nothing to
say that T & P didn't make the whole thing up?? (it's possible)
tom
Write You wrote in message ...
Write You
> sorry, don't recognise your header, however the data you've posted has been
> covered many times, both by myself and others. put simply, there are a
> number of factual errors which immediatly casts doubt over the rest of the
> post.
Please provide evidence, sources and references, otherwise you are
providing baseless opinion.
> When the experiment it references was put up for peer review, 95% of
> the data was withheld, and even then it was ripped to shreads by people much
> more qualified than you or i to comment on scientific protocall.
Speak for yourself. In the meantime, please provide evidence of your
claims.
> Also the
> scientist in question have consistantly failed to back up their claims with
> proof, or submit all their data for independant scrutiny.
Please provide evidence for your claims.
> there are so many
> holes in this that it is simply not worth considering.
Please provide evidence for your claims.
> if they produce all
> the data and respond to the scutiny, THEN we could consider it to be
> interesting or compelling. based on the data provided, there's nothing to
> say that T & P didn't make the whole thing up?? (it's possible)
Where are the sources and references which provide evidence of
your assertions above?
sl
news:_NNp5.398$SR1....@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
> > >testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
> > >research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
> > >international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
> >
> > Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic. Whether you are or not will
be
> > judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be
one or
> > not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and
experiments
out of
> > 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones
as well.
>
> Occam says that each and every one of these witnesses can't ALL be wrong.
Perhaps you can post the citation where your "Occam" says this -- because
the only Occam I am familiar with devised a logical tool that has little to
do with detecting the truthfulness or falsity of witnesses.
> Ergo, the most likely explanation is that PK, RV etc actually occur.
Along with how many other phenomena under your theory -- Elvis is alive,
obviously, and there were many fairie sitings even into the 20th century . .
. .
> It is simply irrational to conclude that EACH and EVERY one of the
witnessed events
> is false.
It is simply irrational to declare that EACH and EVERY one must be true --
or if you claim that just one is, how do you pick which one? A lottery?
sl
kessec
"Write You" <Andrija's.inn...@spectra.com> wrote in message
news:_NNp5.398$SR1....@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
> WWu777 <wwu...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000825085614...@ng-bg1.aol.com...
> > >FYI i am a true skeptic, i question everything, and base my beliefs in
> > >testable facts. i would like to point out that to date, i have seen NO
> > >research or experiment (carried out and scrutinised to accepted
> > >international standards) that proves psycic phenomina exists.
> >
> > Everyone here claims to be a true skeptic. Whether you are or not will
be
> > judged by your words and how you reason, not by whether you claim to be
one or
> > not. I am a true skeptic and I have seen PLENTY of research and
experiments
> > that support psi. Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3
out of
> > 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones
as well.
>
> Occam says that each and every one of these witnesses can't ALL be wrong.
>
>
witnessed events
> is false.
That is not what Occam's Shaving Implement says at all. It simply says
that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably correct.
That every one of the "millions" of reports cannot be wrong ignores the
following facts:
1) human perception is prone to errors resulting from prior beliefs, the
pattern-matching abilities of the brain, enumeration of favorable
circumstances, misunderstanding, selective memory, and other fallacies.
2) memories are fallable and prone to reconfiguration according to personal
desires.
3) contrary to claims, people really do enjoy the fame (or infamy) of
reporting paranormal experiences.
4) the possibility of psychic experiences provides a feeling of control and
comfort in an otherwise uncertain world.
5) people are fascinated with the notion that "magical" things exist, and
are pleased to "prove" that it is so.
6) people tend to leap immediately to conclusions which support their a
priori views.
There are other problems with such anecdotes, well-documented and
understood, that render every one of them entirely suspicious (at best).
--
Michael.
Contributing Editor
Scientium.com - http://scientium.com/direct.htm
Scientium Book Review: "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael
Shermer - http://scientium.com/reviews.htm
August 2000 Featured Article - Cell Phone Radiation: Media Manipulation -
http://scientium.com/features.htm
Terry Smith
"Write You" <Andrija's.inn...@spectra.com> wrote in message
news:_NNp5.398$SR1....@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
> Occam says that each and every one of these witnesses can't ALL be wrong.
>
> Ergo, the most likely explanation is that PK, RV etc actually occur.
Otherwise summed up as "Eat shit, 60,000 flies can't be wrong". Occam has
nothing to say regarding phenomena *until* they have been demonstrated, and
is applied when discussing the mechanism of the observed phenomena.
Not only don't you have a mechanism, you don't have a phenomena to explain.
Haunter
Then I can only presume that you are both dumb -and- blind. It's that
kind of closed-minded psuedo-skepticism that gives real skeptics a bad
name. The phenomena exist:
telepathy
clairvoyance
psychokinesis
precognition
The only debate is at the level of proof, not whether or not evidence
exists.
--
White Crow Society:Knowledge is the Antidote for Fear
http://www.whitecrowsociety.com
http://www.geocities.com/soho/gallery/3549/stories.htm
http://www.legendsmagazine.net/pan/rayn/rpm
U-G uk
i'll pick out some of the basics below....
>> sorry, don't recognise your header, however the data you've posted has
been
>> covered many times, both by myself and others. put simply, there are a
>> number of factual errors which immediatly casts doubt over the rest of
the
>> post.
>
>Please provide evidence, sources and references, otherwise you are
>providing baseless opinion.
evidence that it has been covered many times, well check your favourite NG
archive service and check for yourself, it has been covered many times.. the
most obvious factual error is in the statments....
"The SRI program was not discredited" there were many pages of follow-up in
nature magazine, discrediting the experiemtn, procedures, write-up and veil
of secrcy. the project was also discredited by the authors own admission
that 95% of the data was "top-secret" and as such cannot be published at
this time. unless the WHOLE experiment is published, indepandantly
duplicated & peer reviewed then technically, yes, it has not been
dis-credited, it would have to have been "credited" or accepted to be
discredited.
"5. The CIA found that RV *worked*." depite numerous requests for details of
where this claim was made, and numerous searchs of available archives, i
have been unable to find ANY comment by the CIA on this project, other than
that the project was "interesting" or "significant" depending on the report.
>> When the experiment it references was put up for peer review, 95% of
>> the data was withheld, and even then it was ripped to shreads by people
much
>> more qualified than you or i to comment on scientific protocall.
>
>Speak for yourself. In the meantime, please provide evidence of your
>claims.
in postings to this NG on numerous occasions, Targ and puthoff have both
claimed that 95% of the data they gathered is classified / top secret. I'm
quite happy to believe this as they were, after all, working for a "secret"
organisation. With only 5% of the data available for publication, it cannot
be concluded that this experiemtn prroves or dis-prooves anything. As for
better people than you or i ripping the procedures apart, i would reference
the nature editorial that accompanied the original publication, also the
follow-up letters that nature carried (at various times) over the following
2 years picking holes in procedure and critising T&P's refusal to release
the information needed to properly scrutinse their experiment.
>> Also the
>> scientist in question have consistantly failed to back up their claims
with
>> proof, or submit all their data for independant scrutiny.
>
>Please provide evidence for your claims.
completely forgotten the name of the scientist in question but another of
the threads in this NG deals with one scientist who set out to verify T&P's
work, and was met with 2 years of silence and excuses as to why they failed
to hand over the data for basic scrutiny. Also, about 7 weeks ago, WWu77
sent T&P an e-mail asking them to give some details as to procedures &
controls used. Rather than providing information they just said the
"....controls were used" and then went on a rampage about how the whole
world was out to get them.
>> there are so many
>> holes in this that it is simply not worth considering.
>
>Please provide evidence for your claims.
have above, most compelling is the statment by T&P themselves that 95% of
their data is classified, without access to the FULL data and reports,
followed by indepndant scrutiny and peer review, this experiment/program
cannot be considered, there's just WAY to much that is un-known for it to
proove anything either way.
>> if they produce all
>> the data and respond to the scutiny, THEN we could consider it to be
>> interesting or compelling. based on the data provided, there's nothing to
>> say that T & P didn't make the whole thing up?? (it's possible)
>
>Where are the sources and references which provide evidence of
>your assertions above?
there arn't any, and that's the problem, they have published so little data,
it can't even be prooved that they did conduct the experiment at all. The
problem is that this programm has so many un-knowns it cannot be taken as
prooving or disprooving anything until ALL data is made available.
tom
Write You
> rather bogged down answering some e-mails about procedure and controls, but
> i'll pick out some of the basics below....
> Write You wrote in message ...
> >U-G uk <ma...@ultimatedreams.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:8o90dh$f65$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
> >> sorry, don't recognise your header, however the data you've posted has been
> >> covered many times, both by myself and others. put simply, there are a
> >> number of factual errors which immediatly casts doubt over the rest of the
> >> post.
> >
> >Please provide evidence, sources and references, otherwise you are
> >providing baseless opinion.
>
>
> evidence that it has been covered many times, well check your favourite NG
> archive service and check for yourself, it has been covered many times..
No, the burden on proof is on you. Please cite the factual errors you claim
exist together with error validation.
> the most obvious factual error is in the statments....
>
> "The SRI program was not discredited" there were many pages of follow-up in
> nature magazine, discrediting the experiemtn, procedures, write-up and veil
> of secrcy.
The 'editorial' was the opinion of three anonymous individuals. As such it carries
no verifiable credibility and is worthless past mere opinion. Letters to the editor
are also nothing more than opinion.
> >> When the experiment it references was put up for peer review, 95% of
> >> the data was withheld, and even then it was ripped to shreads by people much
> >> more qualified than you or i to comment on scientific protocall.
> >
> >Speak for yourself. In the meantime, please provide evidence of your
> >claims.
>
> in postings to this NG on numerous occasions, Targ and puthoff have both
> claimed that 95% of the data they gathered is classified / top secret. I'm
> quite happy to believe this as they were, after all, working for a "secret"
> organisation. With only 5% of the data available for publication, it cannot
> be concluded that this experiemtn prroves or dis-prooves anything. As for
> better people than you or i ripping the procedures apart, i would reference
> the nature editorial that accompanied the original publication,
anonymous opinion of three people. Do you know who they were or what their
credibility foundation rests on? Without such, it is worthless as a credible
reference.
>also the
> follow-up letters that nature carried (at various times) over the following
> 2 years picking holes in procedure and critising T&P's refusal to release
> the information needed to properly scrutinse their experiment.
More opinion. Please provide verifiable evidence of fault, not opinion.
> >> Also the
> >> scientist in question have consistantly failed to back up their claims with
> >> proof, or submit all their data for independant scrutiny.
> >
> >Please provide evidence for your claims.
>
>
> completely forgotten the name of the scientist in question but another of
> the threads in this NG deals with one scientist who set out to verify T&P's
> work, and was met with 2 years of silence and excuses as to why they failed
> to hand over the data for basic scrutiny. Also, about 7 weeks ago, WWu77
> sent T&P an e-mail asking them to give some details as to procedures &
> controls used. Rather than providing information they just said the
> "....controls were used"
More claims without reference, please have the courtesy to provide verification
to back up your claims.
> and then went on a rampage about how the whole world was out to get them.
You are talking subjective nonsense. Please try to remain rational.
> >> there are so many
> >> holes in this that it is simply not worth considering.
> >
> >Please provide evidence for your claims.
>
> have above,
No you haven't, just unverifiable opinion.
> most compelling is the statment by T&P themselves that 95% of
> their data is classified, without access to the FULL data and reports,
> followed by indepndant scrutiny and peer review, this experiment/program
> cannot be considered, there's just WAY to much that is un-known for it to
> proove anything either way.
What's wrong with the data that's been published? What faults can you identify?
> >> if they produce all
> >> the data and respond to the scutiny, THEN we could consider it to be
> >> interesting or compelling. based on the data provided, there's nothing to
> >> say that T & P didn't make the whole thing up?? (it's possible)
> >
> >Where are the sources and references which provide evidence of
> >your assertions above?
>
> there arn't any, and that's the problem,
Thanks for finally being honest.
> they have published so little data,
> it can't even be prooved that they did conduct the experiment at all. The
> problem is that this programm has so many un-knowns it cannot be taken as
> prooving or disprooving anything until ALL data is made available.
What's wrong with the data provided?
What are the faults?
Please be specific, not hand waving or opinion.
The following is not "proof", but it presents some of
http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ap]/getdoc.xp?AN=658044166&CONTEXT=967288869.1319698455&hitnum=3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.tcom.co.uk/hpnet/sria.htm
Unbiased research demonstrates that:
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#2.1
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html {*}
Indeed.
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html
http://www.tcom.co.uk/hpnet/sria.htm
http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#2.1
Tantalising.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ap]/getdoc.xp?AN=658044166&CONTEXT=967288869.1319698455&hitnum=3
Write You
> In article <_NNp5.398$SR1....@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>, "Write You"
> <Andrija's.inn...@spectra.com> wrote:
>
> > WWu777 <wwu...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:20000825085614...@ng-bg1.aol.com...
>
>
> >> Not only are there billions of anecdotal evidence (3 out of
> >> 4 Americans claim to have had psychic experiences) but scientific ones
> >> as well.
> >
> > wrong.
>
>
>
*All* of them? How so? What evidence do you have to support your claim?
William Barwell
kessec <kes...@no.mindspring.spam.com> wrote:
>
>
>That is not what Occam's Shaving Implement says at all. It simply says
>that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably correct.
>That every one of the "millions" of reports cannot be wrong ignores the
>following facts:
What Occam said was, one should not mulitiply entities,
or in otherwords, if factors A, B, and C explain something,
you don't add anything to the explanation by adding factor D.
He was complaining about theological philosphers of his day
that tried to work god into every explanation.
What we usually think of Occam's razor is actually the
law of parsimony, simplest answers are best.
Which is often wrong.
For example, "god wanted it that way". Simple, but uninformative.
It explains nothing, even when added to an materialistic
explanation of some phenomenon.
The simple answer is ESP exists because so many people seem
to experince it. The real and more complex answer is, we have
so many ways of fooling ourselves, especially when we work at it.
Listing such manners of fooling ourselves and showing decades of
parapsychology are a good case study of a pathological pseudo-science
which has taken self delusion to new heighths is complex,
and not simple, but more likely to explain why such beliefs
persist based on our mind's ability to perform such little
brain farts.
U-G uk
Write You wrote in message
>U-G uk <ma...@ultimatedreams.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8ob4q0$u7i$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
>> rather bogged down answering some e-mails about procedure and controls,
but
>> i'll pick out some of the basics below....
>> Write You wrote in message ...
>> >U-G uk <ma...@ultimatedreams.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:8o90dh$f65$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
>> >> sorry, don't recognise your header, however the data you've posted has
been
>> >> covered many times, both by myself and others. put simply, there are a
>> >> number of factual errors which immediatly casts doubt over the rest of
the
>> >> post.
>> >
>> >Please provide evidence, sources and references, otherwise you are
>> >providing baseless opinion.
>>
>>
>> evidence that it has been covered many times, well check your favourite
NG
>> archive service and check for yourself, it has been covered many times..
>
>No, the burden on proof is on you. Please cite the factual errors you claim
>exist together with error validation.
actually i was answering the bit about this being covered many times B4. i'd
also sited some factual errors below.
>> the most obvious factual error is in the statments....
>>
>> "The SRI program was not discredited" there were many pages of follow-up
in
>> nature magazine, discrediting the experiemtn, procedures, write-up and
veil
>> of secrcy.
>
>The 'editorial' was the opinion of three anonymous individuals. As such it
carries
>no verifiable credibility and is worthless past mere opinion. Letters to
the editor
>are also nothing more than opinion.
In any publication the editorial can (and is) considered to broadly
represent the views and opinions of its readership. The editoral &
subsequent letters did deal with facts, they dealt with the FACT that this
experiment has not been fully written up, the fact that T&P have been asked
to provide more data and have failed/been un-able to do so.
Part of getting an hypothesis developed into being accepted as a fact is
publishing it in a peer review journal, and thus asking your peer to
"double-check" your work, make sure you've not made any mistakes, jumped to
any hasty conclusions etc. The reports authors clearly considered the
opinions of the nature editorial team, and the peer review process and
credentials of nature to be fair and acceptable as they choose to use it to
have their work scrutinised. As such, they requested that people question
their work and help them to refine it. The authors of this report must have
considered the opiniors of nature and its readers to be worthy of
consideration, otherwise they wounldn't have submitted their experiment for
scrutiny/publication.
>> >> When the experiment it references was put up for peer review, 95% of
>> >> the data was withheld, and even then it was ripped to shreads by
people much
>> >> more qualified than you or i to comment on scientific protocall.
>> >
>> >Speak for yourself. In the meantime, please provide evidence of your
>> >claims.
>>
>> in postings to this NG on numerous occasions, Targ and puthoff have both
>> claimed that 95% of the data they gathered is classified / top secret.
I'm
>> quite happy to believe this as they were, after all, working for a
"secret"
>> organisation. With only 5% of the data available for publication, it
cannot
>> be concluded that this experiemtn prroves or dis-prooves anything. As for
>> better people than you or i ripping the procedures apart, i would
reference
>> the nature editorial that accompanied the original publication,
>
>anonymous opinion of three people. Do you know who they were or what their
>credibility foundation rests on? Without such, it is worthless as a
credible
>reference.
as above, the editorial of any publication is accepted to broadly represent
the opinions of its readership. Also, by submitting their experiment to
nature for review/publication the reports authors must have considered and
accepted the validity and credability of the editors and readers to question
and scruinise their work. The authors of the editorial are largly
irrelervant as they picked up on many points that anyone could see, the main
being that there was a lack of data relating to controls and protocals used,
and that vast ammounts of data were not published (or publishable). T&P
asked (by submitting their report to nature) for people to scrutinse what
they have done, they cannot then complain that people questioned them, when
they asked to be questioned/scrutinised.
>>also the
>> follow-up letters that nature carried (at various times) over the
following
>> 2 years picking holes in procedure and critising T&P's refusal to release
>> the information needed to properly scrutinse their experiment.
>
>More opinion. Please provide verifiable evidence of fault, not opinion.
sadly i don't have a complete cross-referenced index to nature magazine to
hand to get you exact references, but you (or if you wish i) could post an
open request to the NG and i'm sure there will be plenty of people who can
give you exact issue, page and line reference. Also, by publishing in
nature, the reports authors are accepting the authority of the readers /
editors to question their work. What the follow-ups said was (and i'm
paraphrasing here) "there is a lack if this....." or there isn't enough data
provided to disprove this possible cause". Overall, it is impossible to
scrutinise the data and thus verify the experiment, as the authors wouldn't
/couldn't provide ALL the data generated, nor would they fully and properly
answer the questions people tabled.
>> >> Also the
>> >> scientist in question have consistantly failed to back up their claims
with
>> >> proof, or submit all their data for independant scrutiny.
>> >
>> >Please provide evidence for your claims.
>>
>>
>> completely forgotten the name of the scientist in question but another of
>> the threads in this NG deals with one scientist who set out to verify
T&P's
>> work, and was met with 2 years of silence and excuses as to why they
failed
>> to hand over the data for basic scrutiny. Also, about 7 weeks ago, WWu77
>> sent T&P an e-mail asking them to give some details as to procedures &
>> controls used. Rather than providing information they just said the
>> "....controls were used"
>
>More claims without reference, please have the courtesy to provide
verification
>to back up your claims.
well, WWu77's letter and their responses was the start of this thread so go
back to the top of this thread and you can see the e-mails/responses they
sent. I'll bang out an open request for somone to give me the name of the
scientist who chased T&P for 2 years to verify their data.
>> and then went on a rampage about how the whole world was out to get them.
>
>You are talking subjective nonsense. Please try to remain rational.
go back up to the first few posts in this thread (posted by wwu77) where
Targ & Puthoffs answers were posted and you'll see them going on about how
everyone is out to get them etc just scrol up and the data is there for you.
>> >> there are so many
>> >> holes in this that it is simply not worth considering.
>> >
>> >Please provide evidence for your claims.
>>
>> have above,
>
>No you haven't, just unverifiable opinion.
by definiton, other than asking the author if it is their opinion, all
opinion is unverifiable. T&P, by publishing their work for peer review, have
asked people to scrutinse their experiments. People have scrutinised (as
requested) and have (generally) come to the conclusion that there is not
enough data provided to reach ANY conculsions as to whether this experiemnt
prooves or dis-proove anything. Now that people have provided their opinions
(as T&P, by implication of their request to be published, have requested)
the authors have to fully answer the questions tabled and address their
concerns if this experiment is to progress to the next stage in the
accepted, international order of events required to verify and proove a
scientific claim.
FYI, the procedure, heavily paraphrased (and i've given a more detaied
run-down in "open letter to wwu77" posted to sci skeptic 2 months ago) is
Theory - Hypothesis - Experiment Design - Experiment Review - Experiment -
Data Verification - Initial conclusions - Publication for Peer Review /
scrutiny - Answering of concerns and where necessary refinement of
experiment and repition - more peer review - independant duplication and
verification of experiment, procedures, controls etc - publication of both
sets of experiments for further review - addressing of further concerns
raised..... and on and on until all reaonable queries have been answered
(useually achieved by providing enough data for people to be able to go away
and conduct the experiment themselves) and then finaly after it has all been
refined and scrutinised..... Acceptance (until or unless compelling evidence
otherwise is produced by following the same procedures of scrutiny) as being
valid.
>> most compelling is the statment by T&P themselves that 95% of
>> their data is classified, without access to the FULL data and reports,
>> followed by indepndant scrutiny and peer review, this experiment/program
>> cannot be considered, there's just WAY to much that is un-known for it to
>> proove anything either way.
>
>What's wrong with the data that's been published? What faults can you
identify?
the simple fact that 95% of the data is not available means that we cannot
review or scrutinise the experiment. Maybe the 5% of data published provides
compelling evidence for their claims, however it is POSSIBLE that the other
95% of data actually completly dismisses their ideas and produces a much
more "normal/conventional" explanation (ref the proverb about 4 blind men
and an elephant). The simple point is, because we don't know the WHOLE
story, it cannot be claimed that this experiment prooves or dis-prooves
anything. There is too much un-known.
>> >> if they produce all
>> >> the data and respond to the scutiny, THEN we could consider it to be
>> >> interesting or compelling. based on the data provided, there's nothing
to
>> >> say that T & P didn't make the whole thing up?? (it's possible)
>> >
>> >Where are the sources and references which provide evidence of
>> >your assertions above?
>>
>> there arn't any, and that's the problem,
>
>Thanks for finally being honest.
but there is no data to proove that they did do the experiment, there is not
data to proove they didn't do the experiment. Becasue such a small ammount
of data is made available, there are way to many unknowns to be able to
claim PROOF of anything, my point is, there's not enough data produced.
>> they have published so little data,
>> it can't even be prooved that they did conduct the experiment at all. The
>> problem is that this programm has so many un-knowns it cannot be taken as
>> prooving or disprooving anything until ALL data is made available.
>
>What's wrong with the data provided?
by their own admission it's only 5% of the data produced so it is not a
full, fair picture of what happened. Also, they have not answered questions
(that they have requested people to ask) about the controls and procedures
used to ensure the validity and purity of the data. As i keep saying, there
isn;t enough information provided to prove or disprove anything, that's the
problem.
>What are the faults?
the faults are that they have not / will not / can not provde ALL the data
produced by the experiments, and thus we cannot get a full picture about
what has happened. They have not / can not / will not answer very fair and
basic questions about procedures and controls used. In short, by their own
admission, they have not provided ALL the data, and without ALL the data we
cannot assume ANYTHING.
They have also show a resistance to take part in the scrutiny procedure that
they intialy requested to be part of, suggesting that they might not have as
much faith in their data and project as they did at first. Afterall if i had
made such a scientific breakthough, i'd gladly answer very simple, fair
questions on elements of the procedure that could only further strengthen my
claims, not to do so would suggest a fear on my part.
>Please be specific, not hand waving or opinion.
I've not hand waved, and my whole point is that we cannot throw specific
critism at their data as there are so-many un-knowns, and so much data
witheld this experiment (as published) cannot be taken to proove or
disproove anything.
>The following is not "proof", but it presents some of
>the most tantalising and significant evidence from a skeptical
>perspective.
ok, people have been over this loads of times but here we go again....
>http://x61.deja.com/[ST_rn=ap]/getdoc.xp?AN=658044166&CONTEXT=967288869.131
9698455&hitnum=3
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------
>
>Subject: 'Tantalising Perceptions' - A Progressive Sceptical View.
>Date: 08/14/2000
>Author: Peek At You <dr.w...@freeuk.com>
>
>
>
>Dean Radin ( Conscious Universe ) and Dr Lyall Watson ( Supernature )
>give plenty of evidence of demonstrations of 'non locality' perception.
>The evidence so eloquently demonstrated by Radin and Watson gives
>significant credibility to substantiate the findings of the " existence of
>one or more perceptual modalities through which individuals obtain
>information about their environment."
>
>Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ ( above quote) gave evidence of
>demonstration of the
>
> " existence of one or more perceptual modalities through which
> individuals obtain information about their environment."
until the procedure has been peer reviewed, refined, etc etc then this
sentence should start with the word possible/potential (or somthing similar)
>http://www.tcom.co.uk/hpnet/sria.htm
>
>Puthoff, ( a senior research engineer at Stanford, Lieutenant in Naval
>intelligence, NSA operative and military consultant in computer
>technology ) and Targ ( a senior research physicist specialising
>in plasma physics and a pioneer in laser development) are both
>credible scientists with a verifiable record of professional integrity.
in science, the credibility of the authors is largly irrelervant, a well
constructed experiment will produce data that stands on it's own and can be
verified by anyone at any time
>The collaboration with the research at the SRI. The report [2]
>significantly substantiates the participation of CIA operatives.
>There is no no reason to think that P&T are lying or that the
>operatives were somehow deluded into "performing well under
>controlled laboratory conditions (that is, generated target
>descriptions of sufficiently high quality to permit blind matching
>of descriptions to targets by independent judges)."
without producing data and or details of controls and protocal used to
eliminate and possibility of people lying, cheating, mistakes etc this
statment is useless. in the peer-review responses, a number of people
suggested possible (very simple) explanations for the results they claimed.
T&P now have to provide proof / information as to what they did to counter
this possibility.
>The SRI experiments involved a number of PK and
>RV ownership's ( a popular dysfunctional 'meme' is
>that the SRI experiments centred on only one person ).
>Claims of poor scientific method levelled at the experiments
>has been shown to be mainly unsubstantiated personal
>opinion and second hand 'Chinese Whispers', yet its
>continued repetition has enabled such claims to become
>a 'meme' for the mantra of pseudo-skeptics.
as they have not answered their critics by following the accepted scientific
protocals, concerns are very real and very valid. They asked to be critised,
they now have to answer their critics fully and frankly before they can
claim anything.
>Unbiased research demonstrates that:
it can only be considered to be un-biased when all the data has been
published and peers allowed to check for the possibility of bias.
> 1.The 'editorial' was the *opinion* of *three* anonymous individuals.
and like all editorials, can be consdiered to broadly represent the opinions
of the readership. Also, T&P have accepted the credentials andvalidity of
this method of scrutiny by submitting their experiments for review.
> 2. In the face of three anonymous individuals, the CIA decided to
> carry on with Targ and Puthoff and the SRI for another twenty
> years.
>
> http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#2.1
research projects are often set up to run for long periods of time and once
started, cannot be stopped as contracts have been signed. Just because T&P
continued to work on this all encompasing project dose not proove its
succes, in the absence of any data it is just as possible that they were
told to come up with some new experiments 'cause the last lot didn't yield
the deired results. I'm not saying that this is the case, but just because
thay had another 20 years work doesn't mean that they were successful.
> 3. The CIA found that the results were "significant".
or "interesting" depending on which reprt you read. Not successful or
posertive, or un-successful, or a failure. In short, nothing that prooves or
disprooves anything.
> 4. The CIA did NOT find that RV did not work.
>
> 5. The CIA found that RV *worked*.
actually, i've never found any actual verifiable reports from the CIA that
say either of these things, all the said was as pt 3. please point me to an
exact reference and substanciate this very important claim.
>Pseudo skeptics rejected the data while the CIA took the SRI
>research on-board and went on to work with physicists and RV
>owners in order to exploit any appropriate application.
so genrally all the readers of nature magaize are "pseudo-skeptics" are
they. T&P considered them to be educated and acceptable enough to ask them
for their scrutiny in the first place.
> The CIA / SRI collaborative evidence can be found at:
>
> http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html {*}
>
>It is impossible to dismiss the evidence of the CIA initiated programme.
as not all the data has not been released it is stuck in limbo, it cannot be
either dismissed or accepted.
>"a recent unclassified report [23] prepared for the CIA by the American
>Institutes for Research (AIR), concerning a remote viewing effort carried
>out under a DIA program called Star Gate (discussed in detail elsewhere
>in this volume), cites the roles of the CIA and DIA in the history of the
>program, including acknowledgement that a cadre of full-time government
>employees used remote viewing techniques to respond to tasking from
>operational military organizations." {*}
note it doesn;t say how successful or otherwise the techniques are/were, and
anyway, we need DATA to back up claims, not just vague statments that don't
proove or disproove anything.
>Russell Targ, is quoted as saying:
>
> " The SRI program was not discredited. The SRI remote viewing
experiments
> continued from 1972 to 1995 for many agencies of the Federal
government.
> I personally showed dozens of government officials (up to the under
sec. of
> defense) and army officers how to do remote viewing.
> Many of these are teaching it today."
you'll have to define discredited. i would say that the pograme was not
discredited, it is nowhere near the stage where it could be discredited as
they havn't provided the data needed to properly review and scrutinise the
experiments.
>Puthoff has a background in magic, research physics and also a history
>in Naval intelligence and as NSA operative.
>
> ".. we tore apart the ceiling tiles every evening looking for bugs.
>Our concern that this was an intellignece plot resulted in our paranoia
>being much deeper than the typical sceptic would say."
there are many different things they could have done to eliminate trickery,
however they have failed to provide DETAILED data about the controls and
protocals they used to eliminate more "conventional" explanations and so we
only have their word that they had strick controls. Science is not about
people's word, it is about data that stands up on its own.
> " My position is that I am a total scpetic, and that's a sword that
cuts both
>ways. I am sceptical about PSI phenomena existing, and similarly, I am
>totally sceptical of the sceptics who, without evidence and without
investigation,
>dismiss it out of hand as being an impossibility. .... I imagine there are
some
>honest sceptics but for a lot of them it's an emotional issue." - Puthoff.
>
>PSI / PK / RV should exist according to Occam.
that "should" should actually be "could"
>It would be unlikely for an overwhelming positive reporting significance on
>phenomena to be in each and every case false. It is possible that
scientific
>research lacks sufficient comprehension to study the phenomena.
>This lack tempts dogmatism to insert what human logic demands in such
>instances, denial of existence.
but without publishing ALL their data, it is impossible to scrutinise the
procedure and eliminate the possibility of errors, trickery or other
explanations for the data. Without publishing ALL the data this experiment
cannot be reviewed & scrutinised and as such cannot be taken as prooving or
dis-proving anything.
>There is plenty of theoretical underpinning to RV.
there's plenty of theoretical underpinning to time travel, angels, santa
clause, perpetual motion, teleportation, people flying etc. just because
somthing is theoretically possible, dosen't mean that in the real word it
exists.
a series of quotes and theories that apply equally to both sides in this
argument, and as such cancel themselves out and so are not worth chipping
into this discussion. just replace the word skeptic with the word
"psi-beleiver" and it is just as true and valid.
in short, the T&P programme write-ups contain so little data that it is
impossible and indeed foolish to try and reach any conclusions, based on
these reports, as to the validity or reality of PSi or any of the phenomina
they set out to test (and this has been the crux of many of the critisms
leved agianst the reports, it is impossible to verify as there is not enough
data provided)). Only when all the data has been produced, and scrutinsed to
the useual standards & procedures, can the data then be used to verify the
existence or otherwise of psi phenomina.
tom
Haunter
Barwell) wrote:
Now your POV becomes clearer: rather than try to apply the Scientific
Method in an attempt to hypothesize about, and study, anomalous
experiences, we should disband all such endeavours and revert back to
animistic spiritualism as the main paradigm of explanation for such
activity; yep, really makes a lot of sense.
David Rysdam
>On 27 Aug 2000 16:24:50 -0500, wbar...@starbase.neosoft.com (William
>Barwell) wrote:
>
>>In article <8oa198$am9$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>,
>>kessec <kes...@no.mindspring.spam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>That is not what Occam's Shaving Implement says at all. It simply says
>>>that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably correct.
>>>That every one of the "millions" of reports cannot be wrong ignores the
>>>following facts:
>>
>>Actually, it doesn't.
>>What Occam said was, one should not mulitiply entities,
>>or in otherwords, if factors A, B, and C explain something,
>>you don't add anything to the explanation by adding factor D.
>>He was complaining about theological philosphers of his day
>>that tried to work god into every explanation.
>>
>>What we usually think of Occam's razor is actually the
>>law of parsimony, simplest answers are best.
>>Which is often wrong.
>>
>>For example, "god wanted it that way". Simple, but uninformative.
>>It explains nothing, even when added to an materialistic
>>explanation of some phenomenon.
Actually, this is not the simplest answer in a global sense. For one
thing, it adds the entity "god". "God" is then assigned further new
entities "omnipotence", "omniscience", etc. Each of these has
paradoxes that must be resolved with further entities. Etc.
--
My public encryption key is available from www.keyserver.net
Scott Craver
>
>What we usually think of Occam's razor is actually the
>law of parsimony, simplest answers are best.
>Which is often wrong.
>
>For example, "god wanted it that way". Simple, but uninformative.
While verbally simple, I'd say that explanation must
link in a great deal of complexity. Similarly for the one-
word explanation of "aliens."
>The simple answer is ESP exists because so many people seem
>to experince it. The real and more complex answer is, we have
>so many ways of fooling ourselves, especially when we work at it.
But, difficult as it is to assign probabilities to these
things, I'd say that the fooling ourselves explanation
requires the least amount of contradiction with observed
physical law. If we require that an explanation may not
leave any contradictions with other observations but
provide any explanations for those, we have that the
ESP explanation is very complex.
>Pope Charles
>SubGenius Pope of Houston
-S
Terry Smith
"Write You" <Andrija's.inn...@spectra.com> wrote in message
news:1Fbq5.2966$SR1....@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
> U-G uk <ma...@ultimatedreams.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8ob4q0$u7i$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
> The 'editorial' was the opinion of three anonymous individuals. As such it
carries
> no verifiable credibility and is worthless past mere opinion. Letters to
the editor
> are also nothing more than opinion.
Let's rehash this. Woo-woo claim Targ et al did a wonderful study `proving'
psi abilities. This study was one that couldn't be rejected by sceptics, as
it was published in "Nature" - The scientific equivalent of qualifying for
an Olympic finals team.
The authors, as is standard procedure with *any* scientific paper, were
requested for sufficient data to replicate the study - the sole legitimate
reason for publishing such a paper. This was not forthcoming, and further
examination and a book by one of the authors himself showed that, not only
was insufficient data offered, but that some of the comments regarding the
procedures were incorrect.
Having attempted to use "Nature" as a reputable source validating a claim,
the woo-woos now wish to intimate that `Letters' in Nature, and Nature's
editorial staff are somehow equivalent to the local rag, or some Murdoch
trash-sheet. The `three anonymous individuals' [*all* peer-review being
`anonymous, as part of the `blind' protion neccessary for science] were
chosen to examine whether the paper met the requirments of a scientific
paper. It didn't. Targ and his mate acknowledge that it didn't - as in "we
can't release all the details as it's a "sekrit CIA study". The `experiment'
couldn't be replicated, and serious doubts were raised regarding its
findings.
They published a work as a paper, *knowing* that it did not meet the
requirments of a paper, offered the data, and, after two years, still
haven't delivered.
They may have gained a few more months funding. I hope, for their sakes, it
was worth it. They have no scientific career left, and no organisation would
expect to employ them and retain any credence as a scientific organisation.
William Barwell
Haunter <Hau...@castles.com> wrote:
>On 27 Aug 2000 16:24:50 -0500, wbar...@starbase.neosoft.com (William
>Barwell) wrote:
>
>>In article <8oa198$am9$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>,
>>kessec <kes...@no.mindspring.spam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>That is not what Occam's Shaving Implement says at all. It simply says
>>>that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably correct.
>>>That every one of the "millions" of reports cannot be wrong ignores the
>>>following facts:
>>
>>Actually, it doesn't.
>>What Occam said was, one should not mulitiply entities,
>>or in otherwords, if factors A, B, and C explain something,
>>you don't add anything to the explanation by adding factor D.
>>He was complaining about theological philosphers of his day
>>that tried to work god into every explanation.
>>
>>law of parsimony, simplest answers are best.
>>Which is often wrong.
>>
>>For example, "god wanted it that way". Simple, but uninformative.
>>explanation of some phenomenon.
>>
>>to experince it. The real and more complex answer is, we have
>>so many ways of fooling ourselves, especially when we work at it.
>>
>>parapsychology are a good case study of a pathological pseudo-science
>>which has taken self delusion to new heighths is complex,
>>and not simple, but more likely to explain why such beliefs
>>persist based on our mind's ability to perform such little
>>brain farts.
>>
>>
>>SubGenius Pope of Houston
>
>Now your POV becomes clearer: rather than try to apply the Scientific
>Method in an attempt to hypothesize about, and study, anomalous
>experiences, we should disband all such endeavours and revert back to
>animistic spiritualism as the main paradigm of explanation for such
>activity; yep, really makes a lot of sense.
150 years of parapsychological study have not shown a single,
good, soild, unmistakable, repeatable tests for the bare existance
of PSi, ESP, PK ect.
Much less any details about any such things.
Now the question is, why? Why does such a belief
persist, despite lack of provable phenomenon?
Why has parapsychology been awash with fraud, trickery,
why do so many otherwise intelligent peoples'
brain turn to mush when it comes to parapsychology, why do teh sorry old
mistakes get repeated every generation?
There are a lot of little brain fart tricks we play on ourselves,
for example, out-of-body experiences. This is a little trick, a
disassociative state readily achieved, yet many allow these little tricks
to convince them that they really can leave their body and
view things from a distance when it just doesn't work.
Scientology has built an entire cult around this little trick.
Yet nobody can go into OBE mode and read a card pinned
to a wall in thenext room and win Randi's million dollars.
Many little tricks like this exist, NDEs,and more.
This gives us ideas about things parapsychological
that are not true.
If there is no such thing as parapsychological
abilities, these little altered states of conciousness
certainly explian why so many people think they are.
Few people really ever study these things in any depth,
with the exception maybe of NDEs. Susan Blackmoore
spent years studying OBE in hopes it was more than
illusion. It wasn't.
What other illusions, big and small are out there?
Ever get really stoned, have That Thought, the key to life, existance
and everything, write it feverishly down, and next day read
it and find its some sort of idiot drivel?
How many SUBTLE little effects like this mislead us?
Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope of Houston
Slack!
Haunter
Harold Puthoff had some training/interest in sleight-of-hand and
magic. It was suggested that somebody write him and ask. I did that.
He was kind enough to write back tonite and indicated that it was
Russell Targ, not he, that had such a background.
Haunter
Barwell) wrote:
OBEs and NDEs are indeed non-paranormal states of consciousness,
according to the best available evidence. Research by
parapsychologists leads us to this conclusion.
There is plenty of evidence for ESP; it's the level of proof that is
the issue. That's why funding for such research should be tripled,
imo.
Parapsychologists are the best equipped, in conjunction with
neuroscience and perception-based psychologists, to seperate out the
"trick of the mind/perception" from true anomalous experiences; that's
why it's such an incredibly important area of research, and I'm happy
to see that you agree with me on that issue.
Peek At You
> : "I wanna tell you something, I've seen some things here today.
> : Uri bent a spoon for me. The first time he did it, you know, I
> : though there must be a trick. The second time I was stunned,
> : completely, completely stunned and amazed. It just bent in my
> : hand. I've never seen anything like it. It takes a lot to impress me.
> : Uri Geller is for real and anyone who doesn't recognise that is either
> : deluding himself, or is a very sad person." - David Blaine.
> :
> : > WHY NOT show up Randi and the skeptics? WHY NOT prove your nemesis wrong, in
> : > clear and convincing fashion, for all to see, and establish your abilities?
> :
> : Why on earth have "Randi and the skeptics" got to be held as some
> : divine arbiter? Feel free to have these guys as *your* eyes, ears and nose
> : if you want, the rest of the world holistically marches on regardless.
> :
> : Do you think David Blaine was deluded by Uri Geller?
> :
> : Do you know of someone better equipped to judge sleight of hand or
> : staged magic than David Blaine?
>
> James Randi !!
Now *that's* funny!!!
Haunter
>150 years of parapsychological study have not shown a single,
>good, soild, unmistakable, repeatable tests for the bare existance
>of PSi, ESP, PK ect.
>Much less any details about any such things.
>Pope Charles
>SubGenius Pope of Houston
>Slack!
Of course they have; you just refuse to admit it:
There have been hundreds of experimental sessions, conducted in dozens
of labs, using the Ganzfeld technique, that consistently show highly
statistical significant evidence for telepathy.
But you already knew this.
Go ahead and make your close-minded, incorrect, sweeping
generalizations, just remember tha I will always come in behind you to
set the record straight.
From CRL's Parapsy FAQ
http://www.psiresearch.org/para2.html#ten
Common criticisms about parapsychology
Constructive criticism is essential in science and is welcomed by
the majority of active psi researchers. Strong
skepticism is expected, and many parapsychologists are far more
skeptical about psi than most scientists realize.
However, it is not generally appreciated that some of the more
vocal criticisms about psi are actually
"pseudo-criticisms." That is, the more barbed, belligerent
criticisms occasionally asserted by some skeptics are
often issued from such strongly held, prejudicial positions that
the criticisms are not offered as constructive
suggestions, but as authoritarian proofs of the impossibility of
psi.
It is commonly supposed by non-scientists that skeptical debates
over the merits of psi research follow the
standards of scholarly discussions. Unfortunately, this is not
always the case. Disparaging rhetoric and ad
hominem attacks arise too often in debates about psi. The social
science of parapsychology, and the way that
science treats anomalies in general, is a fascinating topic that
starkly illuminates the very human side of how
science really works. A more complete description of this topic
is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but is contained
in The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin.
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Criticism 1
Criticism: Apparently successful experimental results are
actually due to sloppy procedures, poorly trained
researchers, methodological flaws, selective reporting, and
statistics problems. There is therefore not a shred of
scientific evidence for psi phenomena.
Response: These issues have been addressed in detail by
meta-analytic reviews of the experimental literature .
The results unambiguously demonstrate that successful experiments
cannot be explained away by these criticisms.
In fact, research by Harvard University specialists in scientific
methods showed that the best experimental psi
research today is not only conducted according to proper
scientific standards, but usually adheres to more
rigorous protocols than are found in contemporary research in
both the social and physical sciences. In addition,
over the years there have been a number of very effective
rebuttals of criticisms of individual studies, and within
the past decade, experimental procedures have been developed that
address virtually all methodological
criticisms, even the possibility of fraud and collusion, by
including skeptics in the experimental procedures.
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Criticism: Parapsychology does not have a "repeatable" experiment.
Response: When many people talk about a repeatable psi
experiment, they usually have in mind an experiment
like those conducted in elementary physics classes to demonstrate
the acceleration of gravity, or simple chemical
reactions. In such experiments, where there are relatively few,
well-known and well-controllable variables, the
experiments can be performed by practically anyone, anytime, and
they will work. But insisting on this level of
repeatability is inappropriate for parapsychology, or for that
matter, for most social or behavioral science
experiments. Psi experiments usually involve many variables, some
of which are poorly understood and difficult or
impossible to directly control. Under these circumstances,
scientists use statistical arguments to demonstrate
"repeatability" instead of the common, but restrictive view that
"If it's real, I should be able to do it whenever I
want."
Under the assumption that there is no such thing as psi, we would
expect that about 5% of well-conducted psi
experiments would be declared "successful" (i.e., statistically
significant) by pure chance. But suppose that in a
series of 100 actual psi experiments we consistently observed
that 20 were successful. This is extremely unlikely
to occur by chance, suggesting that psi was present in some of
those studies. However, it also means that in any
particular experiment, there is an 80% probability of "failure."
Thus, if a critic set out to repeat a psi experiment to
see if the phenomenon was "real," and the experiment failed, it
would obviously be incorrect to claim on the basis
of that single experiment that psi is not real because it is not
repeatable.
A widely accepted method of assessing repeatability in
experiments is called meta-analysis. This quantitative
technique is heavily used in the social, behavioral and medical
sciences to integrate research results of numerous
independent experiments. Starting around 1985, meta-analyses have
been conducted on numerous types of psi
experiments. In many of these analyses, results indicate that the
outcomes were not due to chance, or
methodological flaws, or selective reporting practices, or any
other plausible "normal" explanations. What remains
is psi, and in several experimental realms, it has clearly been
replicated by independent investigators.
Haunter
patrick said to bill:
>>Now your POV becomes clearer: rather than try to apply the Scientific
>>Method in an attempt to hypothesize about, and study, anomalous
>>experiences, we should disband all such endeavours and revert back to
>>animistic spiritualism as the main paradigm of explanation for such
>>activity; yep, really makes a lot of sense.
>
>No, you got it exactly 180 degrees backwards.
>
>150 years of parapsychological study have not shown a single,
>good, soild, unmistakable, repeatable tests for the bare existance
>of PSi, ESP, PK ect.
>Much less any details about any such things.
>
>Pope Charles
>SubGenius Pope of Houston
>Slack!
Ok, now your position becomes clearer. We should disband all those who
call themselves parapsychologists and instead concentrate all such
research under the auspices of those trained in perceptual, clinical,
experimental and transpersonal psychology. Oh wait! That's exactly the
fields of study of those who make up most of the field of
parapsychological research! Yep, that makes a lot of sense. Try again
Billy, you're digging a really nice ditch for yourself.