Not in this forum. If you want to insult your fellow posters, we have a whole forum for that.
I think the factual question has been answered as well as it can be in this forum. Those wishing to continue to debate can do so in the appropriate forum.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Thread reopened and moved to Great Debates by request of the OP.
Play nice, folks.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Oh, I’m glad we reopened this debate, as I feel that I should post a link to Mr Sheldrake’s reply to the CSICOP article I linked to earlier; he makes a reasonable argument for evenhanded tratment of his results.
http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-03/stare.html
Most people count five senses; I am certain that there are more that we can add, like the senses of balance and prioperception;
have you ever felt heat radiating off an object with your skin- this could be used as an additional sense to detect warm objects without directly touching them where sight is not available.
Small hairs on the back of your neck might do the same by detecting air currents…
of course Sheldrake eliminated these by using glass between his subjects, but I am still not convinced by his results.
It just seems to me that the well known sensation of being watched may sometimes be entirely due to tiny sense cues you can only pick up on an unconscious level.
Stop Staring at ME!!!
I used to have a method to get through GCSE multiple choice questions that was absolutely fail safe. The trick was to choose the answer that was most like the other answers. So if the choices were:
(a) B7423
(b) C6532
© B6523
(d) C7432
(e) C6423
You know it starts with a C, the second digit must be a 6, the third a 4, then a 2 then a 3. So easy. I used to do answer after answer like this, not even having to look at the questions.
It stemmed from realising how people try to “hide” the correct answer.
There may well be an easy scientific explanation for this (infra red?) but when I’m filming a crowd of people, from some distance away, and zoom in on one of them, so very often they look round, or look shifty, or hide their face. I am too far away for them to hear the camera, and as I’m filming from the side, they are not facing me. I find it hard to believe they could detect the zoom lens change with peripheral vision, much less detect that it was zooming on them.
It’s very frustrating, because I’ll be filming a crowd, pick someone nice and still for a close up, then they’ll look round or fidget. It’s almost like I’m nudging them or blowing on them or something.
How far away are you most of the time, and how crowded is the environment?
Either the person begins to fidget because you are looking at him/her or you simply notice the person begin to fidget because you happen to be watching him/her. The first possibility implies that you have some influence on their behavior. But I think that it is likely that by focusing on the behavior of one person, you are likely to catch them doing a lot of things you otherwise wouldn’t notice. It is very normal for people to look around their surroundings or become antsy to move. The person you were watching for a while could have gotten bored of her conversation or may have needed to go somewhere soon. She may have just been looking around while people-watching. If standing while people-watching she may have appeared more restless than similar behavior while sitting. Additionally, since you desire to film a close up of someone that is unaware of the camera, it makes you very sensative to them spotting you. So you set up the camera far away and zoom in, but still fear that they may “catch” you. In this heightened state of perception, you could misread any change in their behavior as caused by you.
When I was younger, I spied on people around my neighborhood. Probably 90% of the time I watched them they gave no sign that made me think they knew someone was there. The other times, maybe they would look in my direction briefly or somehow change their behavior. I would freak out and run away with the fear that they had spotted me. Of course I never knew for sure, but I was geared up for any type of signal that may give me away, hence false positives.
Ok, let me try the polite* version.
I personally don’t think this sort of experiment provides any scientific data.
There are no controls (e.g. of people not being watched turning round), you didn’t interview the subjects to see if they felt they were being watched etc.
Therefore I dismiss this as anecdotal.
However you may feel that you have genuinely demonstrated a 100% proof that you can make people’s heads turn.
If so, why not apply to the Randi Foundation for $1,000,000?
I can assure you that simply repeating this demonstration with a few scientific safeguards will earn you the money.
*I felt irritated by your earlier comparison of Randi’s dedicated scientific investigations with this irrelevance:
I don’t see being considered anecdotal as a dismissal. Sorry.
Also, I guess I don’t hold Randi in quite as high esteem as you do. I’ve watched him on tv, and read some of his stuff. He’a pretty smart, alright, but he’s just not my cuppa tea. And his offer has no legs, as proof of the absence of anything, imo. There’s always that word “yet”, you see.
My offer and Randi’s are, essentially, the same.
If something cannot be reliably repeated, then it’s not very useful.
You are correct that his offer cannot prove that the supernatural doesn’t exist. Still, it is quite telling that no one has yet to win the money. It may not prove that supernatural abilities do not exist, but it strongly hints at it.
How do you figure? Randi’s offer doesn’t have a built-in contradiction. If the supernatural exists, then it is possible to win.
Unlike Randi’s offer, your offer can never result in someone getting the money. It is designed so that the only way to win is to die, which, by your own rules, invalidates that person from winning.
No, your and Randi’s offers are most definitely not essentially the same.
Useful in what way, Joe? This debate is more about feel than about anything of real consequence. At least that’s how I approach it. More an exercise in opinion than a debate. There’s no proof for either side. That’s why I allow non-scientific experimentation.
Strong hints are fodder for opinion. Told ya. 
Oh, this part is too easy. I never said “alive”.
The question posed by the OP is whether one can tell if one is being watched, not by what means. If I were to show Randi that some people can tell, wouldn’t conditions of his reward compel me to proof that it is supernatural?
What good is a monetary reward to a corpse?
As long as you can eliminate any known natural detection means, then that shouldn’t be a problem.
I think this could happen just because people with a close bond will have learned each other’s habits/patterns/whatnot and will be able to extrapolate from the environment whether the other is likely to be looking at them at that time.
Julie
I’m not Randi, nor do I speak for him, but I don’t think this is quite right. I don’t think you need to eliminate the known natural stuff, I think that’s up to Randi.
My understanding is that you don’t need to prove the particular ability/phenomenon under test is supernatural to collect the money, it just has to happen in some way that Randi doesn’t know about or can’t figure out how to control for. And of course, convince Randi that it’s worth testing for.
Assuming you pass the required preliminary test, and then move on to the actual JREF test, Randi and his people will consult with you and propose a test protocol, you look at the protocol and make changes, lather, rinse repeat until both parties are satisfied.
In this test, it is up to Randi (and his people) to propose controls that eliminate the mundane stuff, not you. All you have to do is to perform in the manner you say you can within the controls the two of you have agreed upon. You do not need to explain your ability in any way.
So if you perform as stated with the agreed upon controls in place, you get the money. Period. Even if there is a perfectly mundane explanation, and even if you knew that going in. It is Randi’s responsibility to design a test to keep you from cheating, and if he fails to do that, to bad so sad, you get 1 megabuck.
But he’s pretty good at weeding out the mundane and putting controls in place, witness the fact that many people have tried, but none have collected.
Of course none of this applies if you feel that there is some mundane explanation, and that eliminating those stops the ability from working. In that case looking paranormal explanations isn’t the way to go, you’d want to investigate the combinations of ordinary perceptual phenomena that are causing what looks like magic.
Well the thread is discussing whether something exists. By far the best method to test this (proven over centuries) is to do scientific experiments where other causes are excluded. The experimental results should be reproduceable by anyone (to avoid mistakes or corruption), and should lead to the extension of our knowledge.
Anecdotes are interesting, but not evidence. They may provide a suggestion for something to explore scientifically, but are not data.
The trouble with anecdotes is the lack of controls.
In your example, you saw three people turn round, while you were staring at them. But (as I said earlier) there are all sorts of things you didn’t check:
The important thing is his scientific method, not his personality. What aspect of his testing do you disagree with?
My reason for mentioning him was that if you happen to believe that you can make people turn and look at you solely because you are staring at them, then you can win $1,000,000.
Sadly lots of people (for example the British Society of Dowsers) refuse to be tested, saying ‘the money doesn’t interest us’. (Of course they continue to charge for ‘teaching’ dowsing…)
His offer is genuine - the money exists and people have agreed, and taken, tests for it.
He does not claim that he is proving whether paranormal powers exist or not.
However it is fascinating that people who make a lot of money out of unsubstatiated claims (psychics, fortune-tellers etc) refuse to be tested.
No, they are not.
Randi has stated that any paranormal power can be discussed. Both Randi and the claimant agree a test procedure, which is designed scientifically. Provided the claimant can do what he says, he gets the money.
Plenty of claimants have turned up, some with lawyers.
Your ‘offer’ is a trivial paradox.
if the claimant is alive, you say “You might kick a dog soon”, and refuse to pay.
If the claimant is dead, you say “You must collect in person”, and refuse to pay.
Irritatingly, you then seem to conclude that this total refusal to pay somehow constitutes ‘proof’ that everyone is a dog-kicker.
Yes - I have considered all these, and all in all it’s probably more coincidence than their actual perception. It’s probably the frustration factor for me of them fidgeting that makes me notice it more.
But it is weird, when you zoom in to someone across quite a wide audience, and and that instant they sort of look up, and look round.
Yes - I have considered all these, and all in all it’s probably more coincidence than their actual perception. It’s probably the frustration factor for me of them fidgeting that makes me notice it more.
But it is weird, when you zoom in to someone across quite a wide audience, and and that instant they sort of look up, and look round.
This makes me think of the phone call phenomenon, when you are thinking of a person, and within minutes the phone rings and it’s that person. Or, the phone rings and you guess who’s calling and are right.
Those situations don’t prove anything. What one has to do is recall how many times one thought of somebody and they didn’t call within a few minutes, or hours, and how often the phone rang, and the guess as to the callers identity was wrong.
People have a tendency to remember odd things and forget the more common events that would put them in better perspective.
I don’t make any money from this thing. I work on life safety and security stuff, fer crissakes. I’m just curious, is all, so I perform little casual experiments. You’ll notice I didn’t draw any significant conclusions from my observations. Only that those people didn’t seem to pay any attention to me until I started watching them. That’s interesting, and fun, and I don’t have to rent a hall to do it.
And I’m obviously not very interested the Randi money, or else I would have at least visited the website by now.
By the way, I didn’t say anything disparaging about Randi, or his methods. Only that he somewhat bores me. He’s an entertainer, and that’s good for those who enjoy his shtick. But I don’t, and that’s cool too. 
Why can’t you skeptics accept that this isn’t a debate that can be won or lost. It’s one of those questions that we don’t yet have the means to answer. It makes for an interesting discussion, though.
I wonder how many people who profess a belief in god also dismiss the supernatural as bs, because it can’t be proven? Oh well.
Perhaps you missed this thread, where we covered that topic pretty well.