What criteria do you use to determine whether or not someone claiming to have paranormal abilities really has them?
Only believers are allowed to answer?
Nuts.
I’m assuming that doubters don’t make a distinction between claimants of paranormal abilities as to the relative validity of the abilities.
Or do they?
You probably came here from that train-wreck of a thread on the “great beyond”. Well, the question of judgement was posed repeatedly and never answered by the true believers. Good luck.
Criteria?
Criteria?
Having “Criteria” presumes “critical thinking” is operative.
The Criteria that works for me is: Has the psychic in question claimed their million dollars?
AmbushBug
To be fair, it would be very difficult to prove paranormal ability, especially psychic ability. No matter how many times a person could correctly identify something, it would probably still be classified as “great statistical chance”.
As for criteria; when someone performs something that I can’t find a single natural explanation for, I consider that paranormal. One of the many examples is that one famous guy (can’t remember name, might post later) who can have objects stick to him without the use of anything, he can do it with* any * kind of objects. He’s not hiding his back or being sly or anything. There are many other people who can perform this feat to a lesser extent. It’s either a well known magician’s trick to which I haven’t heard how the deception occurs, or something more. Mind you, this is one of many examples.
Kelsonk said:
At some point “great statistical chance” gives way to “Something is happening here.” At least it would if it ever happened.
For example, in Randi’s challenge (linked by AmbushBug, above) both sides lay out ahead of time what is expected and what will be considered “success.” The psychics (or dowsers or whatnot) agree that they will be able to do A, B, and C. Then they fail and make excuses.
As for the question posed for this thread, as far as I can tell the only criteria used are personal experience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Well, sure, MOST of them are frauds, but MY psychic is real.” Gag.
Why is “chance” even an option with psychics? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get why psychics are wrong at all.
Let’s say you have a group of 20 psychics/dowsers are in an experiment and the standards are set for success. If 19 of these people fail in the experiment, and 1 proves a success, is he suffering from stastistical chance simply due to the 19 other failures? I believe that the success of that 1 person shouldn’t be diminished due to the failure of the other 19.
And also, if somebody could just give me a plausible (or even wild) explanation of the object magnestism thing I’d greatly like to hear it.
What is the “object magnestism” thing?
So you repeat the experiment to weed out the statistical anomoly. It’s not like you only get one chance to prove your case, you can obtain more data, and use real statistical analysis to determine if something falls outside random chance.
This isn’t rocket science, it’s statistics. It’s pretty easy to determine when something is significant or not.
Is that that thing where that guy used all those weird navy equipment to make things suddenly magnetic?
I saw a discovery channel exclusive about it. It was werd!
I was only referring to my previous post above where people would suddenly have objects stick to themselves without the use of adhesives or such. Just read the fifth post in this thread.
Lets say you have 100 people guess a number between 1 and 100 and 1 of them gets it right, would that make them psychic?
Or hows this. Pay me $50 and I’ll guarantee to make your next child be the sex you want or I’ll give you your money back.
It * might * make them psychic, but probably not. As that one guy said, it would be appropriate to do more experiments.
I’ll take your $50 dollar deal if you pay me double my money back. 
These experiments probably have a lesser ratio than a 1:2 chance for success. I’ll post back here later, I’m reading up on some stuff.
I see, I was a bit tired last night and I totally missed that. Thanks.
I still don’t understand why psychics are wrong at all. I’ve heard that it’s because they are interpreting pictures, but this doesn’t make sense because if the “ghost” can hold up pictures, why can’t it clarify things, maybe have a blackboard or something.
I’m confused. Are the “spirits” playing Pictionary or Charades?
Meatros – it really depends on how they define their abilities. Some claim just to see flashes and pictures and the like. If that is the case, I could see how they could be occasionally wrong. But the thing is that most don’t portray themselves that way. And, of course, for those who do – it makes you wonder why it is worthwhile to even listen to them.
The main problem I have with this is that some of them will put together lists of predictions and then when something happens that is vaguely within the bounds of one of them, they take credit. For example, you will often hear psychics or their defenders argue that even though they predicted something in 1999, if it happens in 1998 or 2000, then that should be acceptable because it was close enough. But if the supposed psychic wasn’t really sure of the date, why did he or she assign one to it?
Basically, if they claim a certain level of accuracy, I think it’s perfectly fair to hold them to it. But we have to make sure not to try to hold them to something they never claimed or else we are vulnerable to a legitimate counter-attack. Believe me, there is plenty to hold them to without worrying about things they never claimed.