People expect to be looked at when a car passes them, much as they look at other drivers they are passing or pulling up to at an intersection. The same can be said of the social expectations in being stared at in a bar or restaurant. In these situations, the odds are stacked for making eye contact.
If there were several hundred subjects, it’s not incredible that there would be one that was perfect. You are bound to get a few outliers in a large sample.
How on earth do you apply these patterns? Like you say there’ll never be more than 3 of the same in a row, so I guess if numbers 3, 4, and 5 are yes then you’ll mark 6 as no. But how do you know before the trial even begins what 3, 4, and 5 are?
From the report
This is a typical piece of skeptic logic. The idea that they can offer a rational explaination for a phenomenon, and in doing so deny that it exists. He acknowledges that it is possible to become aware if someone is staring at you, if you subconciosly feel their body heat, or subconciously hear them breathing, you can become subconciously aware of their presence. Having acknowledged that this is a likely possibility, he then denies that it counts.
Why not just say that yes, sometimes it works, here’s how it works?
Essentially, the guy has changed the question. The question is ‘can we detect when someone is staring at us’ but he has changed that to [can we detect when someone is staring at us, using only phychic powers and not including subconciously hearing any noises they might make or sensing their body heat or any other normal method** He adds absurdity to the question, then attacks the absurdity that he added himself.
A typical skeptic, in fact.
As for the rest of his test, that’s absurd. He sees what he want’s to see, and disregards the data that he doesn’t like. Five out of forty test subjects said they could feel someone staring, but he simply dismisses them all. After he chooses todisqualify all the positive results, he concludes that all the rest are negative.
Strangely, the other 35 who said they couldn’t feel it, he believes. Is it perhaps possible that some of them did feel it, but when asked said ‘no’ because they though they would sound silly if they said ‘yes’
As for the other experiment where the subjects were told beforehand that they would be stared at, that kind of defeats the whole point, doesn’t it.
All this proves is that skeptics are just as capable of illogic and unreason as true believers.
EEG’s detect electrical activity in the brain without direct contact.
Transformers ‘make’ electricity without conductor contact.
So does radio and tv.
So it’s a little presumptive to flatly state that there can be no natural mechanism for this phenomenon.
That said, I don’t believe you can actually “feel” someone staring at you. But it wouldn’t be hard to convince me otherwise.
Ever noticed that you can “feel” another person when they’re close to you, especially someone with whom you share an emotional bond?
Stephan Hawking once said something that say’s, loosely, that when we think we know anything for sure, we should realize that the sun could have winked out five minutes ago, and we’d know nothing about it.
Peace,
mangeorge
It’s all in the timing. All too often, it seems that someone who has been looking straight ahead turns in my direction as soon as I am looking at them.
oooo…wee…ooo…
Peripheral vision easily accounts for this. I am aware of movement on a concious level easily 90 degrees from looking straight ahead, as are most people. Again, I’m underwhelmed by this.
That description of the ‘scientific’ study does not in any way reflect situations in which a person sense some-one else staring at them.
Thirty seconds? Not long enough.
Focusing on some-one for one’s own reasons is not the same as just looking at them under some-one else direction.
A scientific study should at least try to reproduce the conditions under which an event occurs.
And just what is supernatural supposed to mean? Science does not know how to measure most of human experience.
Only very poor scientists dismiss out of hand any observation that does not agree with their theories and/or premises; calling it ‘coincidence’ is just ignoring it.
Communication occurs without sound or sight or, probably, smell; some people are better at it than others; people who know each other are often better at it than strangers.
And, yeah, I’m a scientist.
Bullshit. Show me the proof.
j66 is right you know, at least on this point - “Communication occurs without sound or sight or, probably, smell; some people are better at it than others;”
Well, yes, there is touch. But I assume he meant that too, obvious as that is.
**
Actually, this is just a typical piece of peter morris strawman-ism. I am yet to meet or hear from any skeptic who says that a phenomenon which has been proven to occur, and for which there is a rational explanation, does not exist. Indeed, the whole suggestion is ludicrous.
Counts as what? Sceptics certainly deny that things that can be explained rationally should count as paranormal. They don’t deny that such things exist.
**
In every single case that I am aware of in which a particular phenomenon has been shown to occur, this is precisely what skeptics do say.
In my experience, arguments between skeptics and woo-woos tend to have two aspects. Firstly, woo-woos often claim that a particular phenomenon occurs where skeptics say that there is no reliable evidence of the phenomenon at all. Secondly, woo-woos often claim that a particular phenomenon occurs due to some sort of unexplained mind power or whatever, and not due to any mechanism known to science, and skeptics say the opposite.
But of course Peter if you can find an example of a skeptic who denies that something exists because there is a rational explanation for it, you go right ahead, I’m waiting with baited breath.
**
No, the guy you quote is asking a question about alleged parapsychic ability. You are the only one pretending that he was ever attempting to answer whether people could tell if they were being stared at through normal means. You are the one changing the question. Only in your mind was the former question ever on the table.
**
A behaviour you demonstrate very nicely during the balance of your post.
**
I would quite agree with you that Baker’s first experiment was a piss poor effort, but it no more demonstrates a paranormal phenomenon than disproves it. Quite simply, no control was done so we have no idea whether 5 out of 40 would have reported that they were being stared at even if they were not.
Which leads us to this gem:
**
So you start off by castigating Baker for seeing what he wants to see in the results and only taking note of the data favourable to his hypothesis, and then you proceed to do precisely that. To answer your question, it is possible that some of the participants misreported what they actually felt. And that is true for both those who reported they did, and those who reported they didn’t feel the stare.
But you choose only to mention the possibility that some of the 35 misreported. You do not acknowledge the possiblity that the only five that misreported were the five who said they knew they were being stared at.
We all know what you like to call people who are selective in their comments about experiments, don’t we Peter?
**
Does it? Why? Baker was testing whether people knew when they were being stared at. The test conditions did not allow the subjects to know when they were being stared at. What’s the problem?
You might choose to ask the question “can people tell if they are being stared at, when they have no idea they are participating in a staring experiment.” It would be a valid question. But it was not the question Baker was asking.
I disagree with this, although I do think people can communicate in ways they aren’t conscious of.
An example on the border between conscious and unconscious communication, as relevant to this thread, would be a person knowing someone is walking behind him [A] by cues in a person walking towards him that he can see **. Maybe person B’s gaze becomes directed slightly behind the person, or there is a slight posture change. Let’s not forget other environmental hints like a twig snapping under person A’s foot or audible responses by other people to A’s passing.
This situation is overly simplified, the full environment a person occupies is full of a virtually unlimited number of details to help figure out what is going on.
Two people I have spoken to that adamantly claim to have this ability are each only able to name one specific memory to prove their claim. The rest of their proof comes in just some vague sense that they have been accurate before. When asked if they have any other memories for proof they draw a blank. Doesn’t there need to be some pattern of positives responses before it is accepted as an ability?
The first roommate’s story is how she was standing by the window of her new apartment when she felt like someone was watching her. Looking across the street to another building, she saw a man staring at her.
The second roommate’s story is of slipping away from a camping group and skinny dipping in a lake. Sensing someone watching her, she looks up on a mountainside and sees someone from camp looking at her.
While these are likely vivid stories in the minds of the roommates, to me they don’t prove they have any greater sensing ability. After all, both instances involve a woman being in a vulnerable position. The first having just moved into a new apartment and town, the second nude and outside for anyone to see. In either case, they could have scanned the environment and seen the person without realizing they had until later. It isn’t unreasonable to see someone looking into a window, nor is it to see someone around a campground lake. But because of the shock they felt when their suspicions were confirmed, this sensing ability took on a powerful importance.
This is such a common experience, in fact (the tendency to remember interesting exceptions while forgetting the overwhelming amount of uninteresting reality), that it has a name. It’s called “confirmation bias.” Read about it here. It’s quite a well-studied phenomenon; you can gather all sorts of information to use in discussions with your friends, so they understand how their memories can lead them astray.
Oh, by the way:
Please stop spreading misinformation.
staring? pffft. in the city it is easy to creep up on people even…
To Princhester
You see it all the time from skeptics, who refuse to see what’s under their noses. This is a prime example of such. The author of the study admits that people can become aware when people are watching them, through means such as feeling their body heat, or hearing them. Having said that, hre quickly explains why he isn’t going to count that.
Sigh. Where does one even begin with such rubbish.
First of all, you claim that skeptics “do say that” in “every single case” yet you ignore the fact that this particular skeptic says the exact opposite.
Then you feel the need to imnsult anyone withan open mind, anyone who is willing to consider the possibility is called a ‘woo-woo.’ Thus you substitute abuse for rational argument., which just shows how weak your position.
And then “woo-woos often claim that a particular phenomenon occurs due to some sort of unexplained mind power or whatever, and not due to any mechanism known to science, and skeptics say the opposite” This is a typically ridiculous Princhester statement. In fact its just the opposite. ‘Woo-woos’, ie open mined people, claim that it works through perfectly natural, normal and explainable methods, its the skeptics that insist on bringing mysterious mind powers into it.
Just look at the article. The author ackinowledges that people may become aware when somebody is staring at them throu8gh normal means. But he dismisses those normal means himself, and only counts it as true if it is done through mysterious mind power.
Where do you get that idea, Princhester? I have pointed out that the guy has believed the ones that suit him, and i9gnored the ones that don’t. I pointed out the possibility that some of the ‘misses’ weren’t telling the truth. What gives you the idea that I’m doing the same?
My point exactly. Baker changes the question, adding several whole layers of absurdity, then claims to have ‘proved’ that his own absurdity isn’t true.
Princhester,
Is this really going to be worth your time and effort?
Peter Morris,
Reading comprehension lessons would do you good.
Peter, I think you’re missing something here. From one of your posts:
Okay, if somebody offers a rational explanation for a phenomenon, how is that denying it exists? What the person is doing is saying “the phenomenon exists and this is how it happens.”
Skeptics don’t try to prove things don’t exist or can’t happen. They simply look for the most logical, rational explanation for claims. Take the examples given. It’s not unreasonable that a person might sense another person’s presence based on nonverbal, nonvisual clues. Sense of smell, feeling of heat, movement felt through our feet or hands on a surface (such as a floor) can all tell us that somebody is around. If we get subliminal clues to a person’s presence in certain circumstances, such as when we know we should be alone, that can be alarming and give us hints as to how to react. It’s not psychic, though. It’s simple, rational and natural. That’s all a skeptic would look for in a case like that.
I sugest you read the article, in particular the paragraph I quoted. That is exactly the argument he has presented.
To recap: He says that it is possible to know when someone is staring at you through “subtle signals from the environment that are not strong enough to let us know exactly what caused them…subtle physical cues in the environment that we normally do not attend to” He gives examples, including smelling their shaving lotion, or feeling air currents, etc. So he admits there could be subliminal signals that you are not conciously aware of, yet they really do tell you that someone is staring at you.
But having admitted that this works, he then decides that this isn’t really knowing when someone is staring at you. It’s merely smelling them, and not really feeling them looking at you, actually. In order for it to count as knowing-when-someone-is-staring-at-you, it must be done by magic, he says. If it happens through normal means, then according to him, it doesn’t happen at all.
So, by giving a simple rational explaination for the phenomenon, he thinks he can prove it doesn’t exist.
Ridiculous, isn’t it.
No, I’m saying that, he’s saying it doesn’t exist at all.
That’s what they claim they’re doing.
Actually, they look for the most illogical, irrational explaination, and try to debunk it, usually by ignoring the results that don’t meet their expectations. It takes an open mind to look for rational explainations, which skeptics lack by definition.
Exactly. And any rational, open-minded person would say that therefore you CAN feel when someone is staring at you. This guy, however says that its proof that you CAN’T
I never said it was. You, not I, insist upon bringing magic into it. I look for the simple rational explaination, that doesn’t need psychic powers to explain. You add layers of absurdity, then seek to disprove the absurdity that you yourself added.
No, its what an open-minded sceptic would look for. A skeptic would, and does, ignore it.
Would you care to explain to me exactly how “sensing someone’s presence” translates to “knowing you were being stared at”? The first experiment was sone in a public place, with people everywhere. The only way for a subject to know if he’s being stared at under those conditions is through some kind of supernatural ability.
And skeptics do not try to prove the nonexistence of anything, because it can’t be done. It’s not logically possible to prove something does not exist. It is only possible to prove something does exist. Show me a skeptic who states outright that he is trying to prove the nonexistence of something.