**
Ouch! That was a little harsh. It was on Dateline last spring. I don’t think I said it was proof. I just said It sounded possible.
CityBoy916 said it may take some time, maybe a year. Maybe I’m compulsive, but leaving something on my desk without disturbing it for a year would disturb me.
Obviously,I’m not welcome on this thread. I won’t invade your space again.
Control guesses from non-psychic:
Dear IWLN,
I understand you are from the other side of the pond (as we Brits say).
I appreciate that this usually means you are pretty straight-talking folk. Most refreshing to us chaps who waffle on before getting to the point…
Anyway I would like to point out that it is very difficult to stop talk about us when you continue to use phrases like ‘then I’ll let you have it’ :eek: 
Please remember this is a public board, so kindly mind your language.*
Next I am sure you will be horrified to learn what alternate meaning is attached over here to your fine phrase ‘All these smilies are giving me the willies’. 
If you have multiple boyfriends, you should say so. I’m too shy to compete. 
*This is how English chaps approach flirting. Honestly, I don’t know how we ever get to the next generation. :smack:
First, welcome to the thread!
This is a serious test, and we have spent some time discussing the best way to proceed, since it’s unproductive to have arguments about what was supposed to happen (and whether it constitutes a success) after a test.
So please excuse any over-sensitivity to your suggested late change.
As for your post of astral projection, you did say it was a ‘fairly credible report’, not that it just sounded possible.
Unfortunately you didn’t give any details, nor apparently was there any preparation of the test or examination of the conditions etc.
Well there’s only me and the cleaning lady*, so my scientific propensities make it all right by me.
Also I think that cityboy916 is attempting two separate psychic feats. Finding my desk from just an Internet identity is as remarkable (in my opinion) as remotely viewing the object on the desk.
*No, she is not IWLN!
Thank you!
No, it’s not that you’re not welcome. I agree the response was a bit hasty, but you didn’t have a cite. Would you happen to remember the patient’s name? I tried to look for a cite for this case but to no avail. Maybe if I could search for the patient’s name something might turn up.
Anyway, if I pass this test then there will be conclusive evidence for astral projection. Learning to control it (whatever the phenomeon may be) isn’t easy but I’m getting there.
Anyone is welcome in this thread, even you. 
However --and I am assuming your posts and responses are due more to innocence or ignorance than deliberate trolling – this forum has a semi-scientific bent; it is called, not by accident, “Great Debates.” This means that unlike other forums such as IMHO, MPSIMS, or the Bigfoot Forum, any assertion, especially one that purports to overturn a few hundred years of scientific progress, is likely to be challenged. In short – you make a claim, be prepared to back it up with the best evidence you’ve got.
Did you see something on a TV show? Give us, as a minimum, a link to the show. Did you read it in a book? Give us the name of the book. A web site or a personal contact? At least post the URL or name of the contact. See how it’s done?
Some of us are less than impressed by “I saw something about that once…” And FYI, Dateline is not a scientific show. It exists to sell products like beer and maxi-pads. Sensational topics bring viewers and viewers bring ad dollars.
And it is a maxim of scientific inquiry that anecdotal evidence, no matter how many tales you may accumulate, is worthless as proof of anything. Why? Because facts get distorted, people lie, and the evidence cannot be verified. This is not how we add to scientific knowledge.
Now we are engaged in a test of a claim of a supernatural power by a doper who volunteered to be tested. That in itself is admirable, as many claimants refuse to submit to a test or their abilites. We want to find out, in the fairest possible way, with all conditions known by all sides, if the claim is valid. Nothing more.
Please, continue to read the boards, and contribute where you can. Don’t mind me.
Musicat, Your response to picunurse is poignantly reminiscent of the first post you addressed to me. It was the first reply I had ever received here at SDMB. I’ve never forgotten the sweetness of the moment. :rolleyes:
Thanks for the memories, Musicat. You helped me learn to take a punch without crying.
I appologize for not being clear. Glee and cityboy916 thank you both for being polite.
If my rush in knocked anything over, I’ll sweep it up.
I really am fairly bright, & well educated. I’m quite familar with the stess of collecting & organizing research data. I was thoughtless.
I wanted to come back to appoligize, but, I won’t be offering any further feedback. I just don’t heal as easily as I did before I retired.
Musicat It’s a shame you’re so unhappy. Carrying around that much free floating anger must be unbearable at times.
No hard feelings. Good luck on your endeavor I’ll be waiting to read the break-through single sample study. just kidding.
Sorry sir, I guess I forgot myself. Great Debates, is it. So you are aware that although there seem to be some psychic predictions about AP “not” working, there has not been much cooperation in the list making department? This scientific study is in jeopardy because of skeptical skeptics. Do something. Quick, before Cityboy shows up. Before they move this to MPSIMS!
This we have to discuss seriously, scientifically, if you will. I spent countless hours on the internet searching for willie, even asked a few strange men, who’s eye’s didn’t light up until I explained why I was asking.:eek: There were Willie bars, bands, maybe even a cult and some whale, but no hard evidence that what you said is true. So I’m going to need a cite for that!
You’re the only Glee in my life right now. That should be enough for you.
Well you might have to get off your computer now and then. But still, One of God’s Mysteries, I guess. I love that phrase now that I know it means “beats me.” Too irreverent for a sig line I guess.
picunurse, Come back. Musicat grows on you, really. At least give your guess of the 12 items on Glee’s desk. Do it for science.
That’s what I tell all my girlfriends.
Picunurse, just for the record, this is glee’s thread and test. I have some minor reservations about how it is conducted, but glee knows that, and we all know that one test isn’t likely to be sufficient to definitively prove much of anything, no matter how well-designed. Cityboy916 is free to do another test of my (or Randi’s) design in the future, but for now, we’ll await the outcome of this one.
Good. Then you’re the kind of person that would be an asset to the boards.
IWLN, now that you’ve been around the block and are no longer a SDMB virgin, so to speak, does the deflowering response I gave you so long ago now seem to make a little more sense? Can you now see where I was coming from? Ah, memories!
Is that before or after you tell them about all that “free floating anger”?
Yes. And I apologized for calling you that name too. Okay, now I guess I have to be honest. It was a shock initially to get that kind of a response. That was my first inkling that Dorothy wasn’t in Kansas anymore. My sense of humor kicked in and I laughed so hard. That made me better equipped for later being called a moron, etc. And it never bothered me again. It did challenge me to try harder to stop being a moron. Tough to carry a grudge about being called something, when you discover they’re right. Arguing politely just doesn’t have the same kick as heated debate. And I learned the most from the meanest. So yes Musicat, inhabitor of the darkside, you were the wise one. Or you were just having a crummy day? Either way, I’m good. (I hope this doesn’t make Glee jealous, you know how sensitive he is)
May I ask what you mean by ‘conclusive evidence’ please? I’ve not heard this before - normally evidence is described as being compelling, convincing, etc. whereas conclusive is used to describe a valid proof. If you meant to say something like ‘convincing evidence’ then fine (although I would probably take issue with that) but if you deliberately used the phrase ‘conclusive evidence’ can you elaborate?
Of course you are right to ask for a cite:
Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th Edition
willie - variant of willy
willy - British slang the penis
I am delighted to reciprocate by saying that you are the only IWLN in my life. Now that’s interesting!
Yes, this test (as I said in the intial post) is cheap and easy, but not well-supervised.
If cityboy916 can state what the object on my desk is, then one of the following is true:
he guessed it (this is where the control group will come in handy. If some of them get it right too, it means I made a bad choice of object.)
I’m joking / in league with cityboy (well I’m not, but I can’t prove it)
he has a paranormal power (but only on the evidence of one test)
So I hope to run another test, based on suggestions in this thread.
I understand the basis of your test and await the results with interest (particularly if I am correct and you do actually have Kylie Minogue on your desk). However, my question was not about the details of your proposed test but of cityboy’s use of the phrase ‘conclusive evidence’ (of astral projection), which I have not heard before.
I suspect he meant to say something like ‘convincing evidence’ instead. If that is the case then I would beg to differ. As you have pointed out your test is not really subject to strict scientific controls. As such, any positive result would, in my opinion, barely constitute anecdotal evidence and be far from compelling.
On the other hand, if he did deliberately use the term I would like to know what he means by ‘conclusive evidence.’
Sorry if this seems like a pedantic nitpick but this is GD after all, and terminology is important (especially when it accompanies extrordinary claims). It seems to me that anecdotal evidence being presented as incotrovertible fact is somewhere near the root of the perpetuation of belief in the paranormal.
Now, I’ll let you get back to the more entertainging business of flirting with IWLN
I did mean to say that originally but on second thought, because of the test conditions I can see why the evidence would not be compelling to a skeptic. However I do believe that if this test succeeds, then it will carry more weight than just an anecdote.
I withdraw my usage of the word “conclusive” in my previous post. :smack:
By my calculations, it will carry .027463% more weight than a single anecdote, vs 1.3.
At sea level and pressure of 1 atmospheres, that is. :rolleyes:
Hey, CityBoy916, taken any interesting trips lately? Float on by, guy!
No mocking the test subject here. How did you calculate that? Did you factor in me seducing Glee and in a weak moment getting him to tell me what “this one” is? Or that Cityboy916 is still friends with a hot English foreign exchange student who is as we speak looking in a certain window. If not, just forget about those things. Seems like there are too many unknowns to come up with a number, but then again you didn’t exactly increase the odds noticeably either. No God, no AP. You guys don’t believe in much, do you?
Using quantum psychics, of course!