Can psychics really see the past/future?

[Chronos]

You must be the only person on this board with as many posts as you have that believes that compelling evidence has to be conclusive and irrefutable. It doesn't all it has to do is support a claim well enough to force you to take notice.

Not at all, so far as I am concerned. The evidence need only be statistically valid at the 3 sigma level before it works for me. Devise an experiment that is sound and meets that criteria and I will buy into it [I routinely risk my job at that level of risk on a daily basis].

Ive tried to break it down as simply as i can..THERE IS EVIDENCE FOR ESP WHICH MAKES IT WORTHY OF FURTHER STUDY AND ATTENTION. While i can provide evidence, what i can't do is provide an experiment which concludes that esp has occurred without one shadow of a doubt or with any room for error or chance. Or at the very least i do not know of an experiment that conforms to these expectations.

See above.

Russ i will more than happily post evidence which has been compiled by universities and research centres and which has appeared in nature magazine. What i won't do is pander to unrealistic requests.

Be sure and include the raw data and controls applied in gathering the data.

Note: i haven't quoted your whole posts as there were too many paragraphs to 'chop up' most of which were just re-stating the same point over and over.

Apply the scientific method, publish your results and see what happens. You are the one who is making unsubstantiated claims. You are relying upon unscientific evidence to make a case that is not supported by facts in evidence.

 

[russ_watters]

You must be the only person on this board with as many posts as you
have that believes that compelling evidence has to be conclusive and irrefutable. It doesn't all it has to do is support a claim well enough to force you to take notice.

Maybe you'll need to start a poll on what "compelling" means. Or at the very least, for this thread elaborate on what "well enough to force you to take notice" means, in a scientific sense. That's a very subjective statement. You can start with explaining why something that you admit is inconclusive should "force [me] to take notice." For a typical scientist, I'd think the response would be: 'come back when you have something conclusive (to scientific standards of proof), and that'll force me to take notice.'

The argument Ivan and I have in another thread over UFOs comes down to, what I consider, an argument over how strict scientific critereon are. It is my opinion that what is accepted as useful/compelling by proponents of against-the-mainstream ideas is far from the level that mainstream require (and have) for their mainstream theories.

THERE IS EVIDENCE FOR
ESP WHICH MAKES IT WORTHY OF FURTHER STUDY AND ATTENTION.

That's great! All I asked is to see one such example.

(Note: that's actually a weaker claim than you made before, but I'll accept that too.)

While i can provide evidence, what i can't do is provide an experiment
which concludes that esp has occurred without one shadow of a doubt
or with any room for error or chance.

That's fine too. Nothing in science is that conclusive and suggesting that that's what I'm asking for is a straw-man. Conclusive simply means beyond a reasonable chance of error. Call it 90% certainty. That's what (to me, and I submit to science) "compelling" and "well enough to force you to take notice" means.

And before you complain about my critereon being too strict, consider the level of proof of General Relativity: last I heard it was accurate to something like nineteen (someone correct me) decimal places. That's 99.99999999999999999% certainty that its correct. And NASA still spent several hundred million dollars on a probe to test it and see if it is correct to a couple more decimal places. But hey - against-the-mainstream types will attack GR (more often SR) with even that while pushing their theories that don't even actualy work at all.

Note: i haven't quoted your whole posts as there were too many paragraphs to 'chop up' most of which were just re-stating the same point over and over.

Yeah, that's fine. This is getting redundant. But you can stop it: My request was pretty simple and straightforward. You have chosen, instead, to attack the validity of the request.

 

[russ_watters]

Perhaps this is the crux of the problem:

Well this is the crunch, how much detail needs to be there to be a 'direct hit' ? At what point do you say...right, this is just too much of a coincidence, this person has seen the future; no question. The problem is there never comes a point like this, you can always invoke coincidence...
This is the problem of researching ESP, the separation of prediction from chance. All you can do is try to statistically work out how likely or unlikey it is that someone could get a prediction right. This in essense is what was done in the Mandell's case, and the conclusion was that he was certainly 'over the odds'.

Things like "touch therapy" are easy to analyze statistically. This junior high school girl got 10 touch therapists to sit behind a wall with two holes in it for their hands. She held her hand over one of theirs and they "sensed" which hand hers was over. A 50% hit rate is what you get from completely random answers. The higher the hit-rate and the bigger the sample, the stronger the correlation gets. But remember, there is a real chance that if you flip a coin ten times in a row, it'll come up heads every time.

Now remember what I said before: I want 90%. My statistics is a little thin, so I couldn't tell you how many heads' have to come up in a row before you hit 90% odds against it, but that's what I'm looking for (wait, maybe I can: is it just 1/10=10% odds of it happening?).

Honestly, that wouldn't do it for me for your original claim (that there is compelling evidence ESP is actually happening), but that would be enough on a single test to convince me of your second claim (that evidence is compelling enough that further study is warranted). For your original claim, I'd need something pretty solid: a 90% hit rate 90% of the time on an open-ended basis for the "touch therapy" test, for example, would probably convince me there is a basis for "touch therapy".

For this guy who painted things, its the perfect clarvoyance claim: it is completely subjective and open to vast and wide interpretation that it could mean almost anything. Its exactly like the Nostradamus thing. Utterly, utterly meaningless - except to a true believer. To convince an honest skeptic (as opposed to a closed-minded pseudo-skeptic), you still need something pretty compelling: a hand drawn photo that looks like the cover of a "Time Magazine" that hasn't been printed yet or a drawing of the 19th hijacker good enough to pick him out of a line-up with people who look similar to him. Those are good and would probably convince me (if there was good evidence it wasn't a clever hoax), but I'd still like something a little more concrete: if he can give lottery numbers a few percent of the time, that'd be better.

 

[Chronos]

That is even a better deal than the Randi offer. Why settle for a measly million when you can win 100M by picking a mere 6 numbers in power ball. You would think the psychic syndicate could make a few bucks selling sell stock in that company.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

How do you know that they don't?

 

[matt_chosen]

yes do you know the purpose of their abilitys is to help people know more about them selfs for most people are clueless on their life path and the phycics job is to show the way. you people condem every thing that you don't know about (not to be mean or anything) but that's not right because there are people who do know the truth about it but then you condem them because they know more than you. you could instead ask them questions and learn more about it but you chose to continue mocking. my job is to help I am a phycic healer in training my grandma is teaching me the art of healing.and if you mock me your mocking my grandma she is the one teaching me this stuff and i won't be happy

 

[russ_watters]

yes do you know the purpose of their abilitys is to help people know more about them selfs for most people are clueless on their life path and the phycics job is to show the way. you people condem every thing that you don't know about (not to be mean or anything) but that's not right because there are people who do know the truth about it but then you condem them because they know more than you. you could instead ask them questions and learn more about it but you chose to continue mocking. my job is to help I am a phycic healer in training my grandma is teaching me the art of healing.and if you mock me your mocking my grandma she is the one teaching me this stuff and i won't be happy

I'll certainly admit that I mock psychics. But its tough not to - you hear the joke about Ms. Cleo? She didn't predict her own arrest for fraud (but then - since she's a fraud, she couldn't predict it, could she?).

But there are a lot of self-labeled psychics out there who honestly do think they are psychic. How do they know? In the example I gave, the "touch therapists" the little girl experimented on really did think they had the power they proclaimed to have. They were utterly convinced of it. And they couldn't believe it when it was demonstrated to them that they couldn't do what they thought they could do. I feel sorry for these people and other people who think without knowing that these powers exist. And what is even more sad is those who acknowledge that there are a large number of frauds out there and still believe the powers exist. Why should I believe you? Do you trust a doctor who doesn't have a degree to perform surgery on you? He seems like a nice guy, so you should just take his word for it?

But in this thread, matt, I've asked repeatedly for evidence. I am asking questions. But I'm not getting answers. That makes me skeptical. Just telling me the powers exist and the evidence exists isn't good enough: show me.

 

[Chronos]

How do you know that they don't?

Good point. Those would be the ones you never hear about because they don't need TV shows, carnival booths or book deals to make a living.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Haven't you ever heard of the Secret Society of Rich Psychics?

Funny enough, I guess you would want to keep it quiet. Why ruin a good thing? Seriously though, if some people are "gifted" I would expect that any genuine "psychic" winners wouldn't even know it. They would likely never know that they had a statistical advantage as compared to the average person.

 

[Overdose]

Maybe you'll need to start a poll on what "compelling" means. Or at the very least, for this thread elaborate on what "well enough to force you to take notice" means, in a scientific sense. That's a very subjective statement. You can start with explaining why something that you admit is inconclusive should "force [me] to take notice." For a typical scientist, I'd think the response would be: 'come back when you have something conclusive (to scientific standards of proof), and that'll force me to take notice.'

Your right it is subjective, which i why i couldn't understand it when you started replying to my posts as if your idea of what constitutes compelling evidence was held by everyone. Personally i don't think evidence has to be conclusive atall to be compelling as I've already established.

The argument Ivan and I have in another thread over UFOs comes down to, what I consider, an argument over how strict scientific critereon are. It is my opinion that what is accepted as useful/compelling by proponents of against-the-mainstream ideas is far from the level that mainstream require (and have) for their mainstream theories. That's great! All I asked is to see one such example.

No you didnt, you asked for conclusive proof, if you made a sensible
request to start with we could have moved on by now.

(Note: that's actually a weaker claim than you made before, but I'll accept that too.) That's fine too. Nothing in science is that conclusive and suggesting that that's what I'm asking for is a straw-man. Conclusive simply means beyond a reasonable chance of error. Call it 90% certainty. That's what (to me, and I submit to science) "compelling" and "well enough to force you to take notice" means.
And before you complain about my critereon being too strict, consider the level of proof of General Relativity: last I heard it was accurate to something like nineteen (someone correct me) decimal places. That's 99.99999999999999999% certainty that its correct. And NASA still spent several hundred million dollars on a probe to test it and see if it is correct to a couple more decimal places. But hey - against-the-mainstream types will attack GR (more often SR) with even that while pushing their theories that don't even actualy work at all. Yeah, that's fine. This is getting redundant. But you can stop it: My request was pretty simple and straightforward. You have chosen, instead, to attack the validity of the request.

Your request was never straight forward it was ill thought out, and deserved to be attacked imo.
But now we finally understand each other's interpretation and evidential standard hopefully we can move on...your standard of proof lies at around 90%, that's perfectly fine and your entitled to demand this level of proof. But bear in mind that my original statement was simply that there is compelling evidence for esp, not there is evidence which compells Russ.
As such i will take note of your request and if i find any research
that fits your criteria i'll post it up, i'll take the liberty of also
adding evidence that is statistically significant (anything over 55% and
above) bracket because personally i find this valid evidence as well.
If that doesn't meet your standard that's fine, feel free to ignore those
posts, but they will be there for the benefit of others.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I don't think the current paraphysics evidence can even pass the lower standard of evidence common in the life sciences. Physical scientists tend to scorn the kind of evidence that supports IQ or Spearman's g, but those correlations are much more soundly based than the ones, for example, for the Rhine experiments. Big samples, longitudinal sampling and other heavy duty methods are what undergirds life sciences results. Thin samples, shaky experiments and personal opinions are what undergirds paraphychology.

 

[matt_chosen]

well did you know that in japan you can't go any where without seeing one phychic and more so the fact that at one time they made an intire language out of their abilitys they would crack bones and read the cracks that is also the root of their language it slowly evolved into kanji which takes parts of their names and puts meanings into them of course there is no meanings in the english language because of the language barriors and what about tarrot that is a from of reading and i know it works and my grandma is currently teaching me palm reading did you know that palm reading came from the bone reading its called the evolotion of phychics

 

[selfAdjoint]

Indeed the characters are supposed to be based on the oracle bone cracks, but that occurred in prehistoric China, not Japan. Of course Japan got the characters (not the two syllabaries) from China.

 

[matt_chosen]

my point is we still use it in current day and only way to prove its there is the fact its been here forever and people will believe in phychics until the end there may be no way to prove it but you can believe it or not that's your choice

 

[arivero]

and one man in england even went so far as to paint a picture of the planes hitting the twin towers,

Ibañez, the spanish author of the comic "Mortadelo y Filemon", also had a picture of a plane crashed into the twin towers, just decoration in one of the *published* comic books. He has not claimed credit for it.

 

[russ_watters]

Your right it is subjective, which i why i couldn't understand it when you started replying to my posts as if your idea of what constitutes compelling evidence was held by everyone.

Not everyone - just scientists.

Personally i don't think evidence has to be conclusive atall to be compelling as I've already established.

That's fine for you personally, but that isn't good enough for a scientist and you are trying to convince scientists.

No you didnt, you asked for conclusive proof, if you made a sensible
request to start with we could have moved on by now.

Sensible according to whom? Who is trying to convince who here? If you want to convince me of something, you have to satisfy my criterea! That's the whole problem with the way most against-the-mainstream ideas are presented! They get rejected for being unscientific, then the originators of the ideas attack science for being too scientific! Thats not an argument that can be won. Saying that my criterea are unreasonable doesn't help you convince me of anything. Try using your current tactic to argue against a technical journal and see how far it gets you.

Further, you implied earlier that you could satisfy my criterea:

...theres plenty of compelling evidence for psychic Phenomena being done by reputable people who conform to the most stringent guidelines.[emphasis added]

Saying "the most stringent guidelines" on a science bulletin board implies you have a scientific level of proof (ie, my criterea). Do you have it or not? Coninuing to argue that a scientific level of proof is unreasonable isn't going to change the scientific method or the way its applied.

...your standard of proof lies at around 90%, that's perfectly fine and your entitled to demand this level of proof. But bear in mind that my original statement was simply that there is compelling evidence for esp, not there is evidence which compells Russ.

Scroll back and reread some of the earlier parts of this thread. Your initial claim was made to Chronos in post #16 and Locrian responded that "Your definition of well documented is aparently more lenient than mine. Much, much more lenient." So that begs the question: if your evdience is not of the sort that would compell Russ or Chronos or Locrian, who would it compel? Do you see the problem now? You make the claim that its compelling without ever saying according to what criterea. In fact, you still haven't laid out your crierea (standard of proof) - all we know so far is its compelling to YOU. But yet you still claimed that what you had was compelling according to "the most stringent guidelines." Clearly, it isn't.

This should be self-evident, but since this is a science forum - that means our criterea/guidlines are for scientific level of proof. So if you're going to claim you have something compelling, it needs to be of that level of proof.

 

[Overdose]

This should be self-evident, but since this is a science forum - that means our criterea/guidlines are for scientific level of proof. So if you're going to claim you have something compelling, it needs to be of that level of proof.

Saying that this is a science forum therefore any standards that we demand on here must be scientific, sorry complete rubbish. There is no criteria to join this forum, it doesn't even require that you've passed any basic exams in science. So to say that is naive in the extreme. Do you even speak for everyone on this forum? no you are just one lone voice, demanding a level of proof. Nothing more.
My orginal statement was that the evidence for esp is compelling, i think it is, many scientists agree with me, some esp trials have been compelling enough to be printed in nature.
However there is no all-encompasing standard or level of compelling proof which spans all the sciences, nor is what is and isn't compelling entirely objective. I don't feel we are ever going to move forwards if you can't acknowledge this.

 

[Overdose]

Btw i will be posting up various esp experiments in the weeks to come : p

 

[russ_watters]

Overdose, clearly there is nothing left to discuss. You can choose to accept the scientific method or not, its up to you - but here, you will find that we hold it in high regard. And for future reference, if you assert that something is "compelling" without stating the critereon (in fact, you still haven't), people will assume that you mean compelling in a scientific sense.

 

[Fredrik]

Where is the money? Frankly, I don't trust Randi any more than I trust Sylvia Brown. I have doubts that the money even exists. I keep asking for proof but none of his devotees ever produce any.

If you actually believe that the Randi million doesn't exist, why don't you investigate it yourself? Why don't you just ask the James Randi Educational Foundation to prove that they have the money, instead of making ridiculous accusations here? (Their web page clearly states that they will provide the evidence if you just ask them).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Why don't you? If you are defending Randi then where's the proof? This is all I have ever asked for from any of his true believers. They just go stomping off and never show up with any proof.

What is most telling is that none of his devotees have even bothered to check. So much for skepticism.

 

[Chronos]

The most usual criticisms by Randi's detractors is he 'rigs' the testing to ensure no one can pass, and, refuses to accept challenges when he knows the challenger has genuine 'powers'. Given those circumstances, the existence of the million dollars is a rather moot point. Anyways, I'm not sure what would constitute proof. The validity of just about any manner of documentation could be challenged. The prize at one time was $10,000. The million dollar prize was, according to Randi, raised from contributors to his [non-profit] foundation. This was Randi's reply when skeptics challenged whether or not he actually could come up with the million

"Bet me US$1,000 that we don't have the money. Send your check for US$1,000, payable to the Foundation, to any reputable lawyer you choose to name. I'll do the same, sending a US$1,000 check payable to YOU, to that same lawyer.

As soon as I'm informed by the lawyer that both checks have been received, I'll send the lawyer a financial statement, notarized by our bank, which establishes that the prize can be covered. At that point, both checks will be sent to the Foundation. Of course, if I can't, don't, or won't, supply that statement, the lawyer will send both checks to you."

Anyways, it is not even that hard. Randi was just annoyed at that particular whiner when he made the bet. According to the Randi website, a written validation of the account is available from the JREF in return for a stamped, self-addressed envelope. No, I haven't sent for a copy.

I am amused by notion Randi's advocates are "true believers". Believers in what? They're all skeptics. Has Randi elevated skeptiscism to a cult?

 

[russ_watters]

I am amused by notion Randi's advocates are "true believers". Believers in what? They're all skeptics. Has Randi elevated skeptiscism to a cult?

Yes, Ivan stated quite explicitly in another thread that, in essence, there are crackpot skeptics who are mirror images of the crackpot flying saucer advocates. I pointed out the flaw in that reasoning as well.

To point out the obvious (again), the main objection here is that Randi could be lying and therefore could be a crackpot. Ergo, if he's telling the truth that he has the money and telling the truth that he'll evaluate claims openly and scientifically, then he's not a crackpot. The difference between that and the flying saucer and ESP advocates is that they are crackpots whether they are lying or not.

 

[Fredrik]

Ivan, I think you know that your accusation is false. If you actually believed in it, you would investigate the matter yourself. It's not hard to do.

Why don't you?

Because there are plenty of believers in the paranormal out there, who hate Randi and everything he stands for. These people would love to see him exposed as a fraud. If the $1 million really didn't exist, one of them would have proved it by now.

If you are defending Randi then where's the proof?

At the James Randi Educational Foundation.

This is all I have ever asked for from any of his true believers. They just go stomping off and never show up with any proof.

You're obviously asking the wrong people. If you really wanted to see proof, you would be talking to the JREF.

What is most telling is that none of his devotees have even bothered to check. So much for skepticism.

No, what is most telling is that people like you haven't even bothered to check. Think about it for a while. There must be someone out there who believes in the paranormal and hates James Randi, who has checked. Why don't we ever hear anyone of them saying that the money doesn't exist?

 

[Chronos]

Yes, Ivan stated quite explicitly in another thread that, in essence, there are crackpot skeptics who are mirror images of the crackpot flying saucer advocates. I pointed out the flaw in that reasoning as well.

To point out the obvious (again), the main objection here is that Randi could be lying and therefore could be a crackpot. Ergo, if he's telling the truth that he has the money and telling the truth that he'll evaluate claims openly and scientifically, then he's not a crackpot. The difference between that and the flying saucer and ESP advocates is that they are crackpots whether they are lying or not.

Of course the equivalent of crackpot skeptics to crackpot advocates exist when it comes to such things as ET, bigfoot, ghosts and other 'paranormal' phenomenon. They are usually referred to as scientists. They have this annoying tendency to distract people from the real issues by obscuring them with facts.

 

[Overdose]

The difference between that and the flying saucer and ESP advocates is that they are crackpots whether they are lying or not.

I think that's the first honest statement youve made in this thread,
For you the data and the facts are completely irrelevant, youve already made up your mind. Which begs the question why are you even posting here?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I ask for proof so I get double-talk. I think this makes things pretty clear. When someone claims evidence for ghosts or ESP, do the skeptics go out and get proof to support the claim. No, they demand proof from those who also argue for the claim.

If you are defending Randi then you get the proof. Otherwise, consider yourself a hypocrite.