RE: The dog/kicking offer.
What if the person is paralyzed from the waist down?
I think I’m just being a smartass. 
To princhester
Actually, it is the other way around. I mafde the claim that Randi makes them sign pieces of paper sdaying its fair, and wont let them take the test unless they say its fair.
You denied that he disd any such thing.
I ptrovided you with a cite showing he does do that.
You screamed and screamed and claimed that the cite I provided are different from his normal behaviour, so you would ignore it.
Now you are claiming the opposite.
To Musicat: [uote]
What? Peter Morris a skeptic?? What??? Peter Morris??? I is to laugh!!!
[/quote]
No, I’m not a skeptic, thank god.
I’m a sceptic
Please excuse the spelling errors.
Sceptic: Variant of Skeptic.
In other words, the same thing.
On the first page of this thread Peter castigates skeptics, their allegedly faulty logic, their insistence (he says) on seeing the paranormal everywhere, then on this page he says he is a sceptic.
According to the OED, skeptic is just the US spelling of sceptic. But what Peter is seems to depend on how you spell it. Go figure.
Peter is a sceptic, but of a limited kind: he is sceptical about Randi. Period. He will give near unlimited latitude to dowsers. He will ignore their excesses and wild claims, find excuses for them going back on signed agreements, treat them like children (he knows more about their powers than they do, seemingly) etc. He thinks Randi is being unfair to dowsers by asking them to firmly state whether they think a test conditions are fair before the test (presumably Peter thinks they should be allowed to wait until after the test before saying whether the test was fair!). Indeed, Peter the sceptic will attack any control upon dowsers’ testing conditions that mean, nasty Randi might impose, regardless that the dowsers themselves don’t seem to feel the controls are a problem (until afterwards).
But if Randi designs a test that is basically fair but does not control for things even the testee does not worry about, if Randi says something that (on Peter’s strained interpretation) could be less than 100% accurate, then Randi is according to Peter a fraud and a liar and probably a cad for all I know. He believes (one is forced to assume) that Randi has extraordinary powers that make him able to force dowsers to sign agreements that they don’t agree to. He is near-obsessed with one Australian dowsing test on set testing conditions, and desperate to ignore Randi’s 20 odd years of other testing of dowsers on individually agreed conditions.
Once again, go figure.
Taion, welcome to the boards. Yes, you are being a smartass. You should fit right in around here.
Nope.
In the first place, sceptic is the original (British) spelling, skeptic is the variant.
In the second place, and more importantly, sceptics don’t believe, but are willing to look at evidence, are open minded, and willing to believe if strong evidence is given.
Those who insist on calling themselve skeptic are invariably closed-minded fundamentalists.
Skeptics and believers are opposite sides of the same coin, both of them seize on any absurd argument however weak to reinforce their position. They are willing to ignore scientific innacuracies and outright lies in any article, as long as it disputes the existence of phenomena they don’t care about accuracy.
Provide a cite there peter.
I’m not buying it. Your not a sceptic nor a skeptic, and your only fooling yourself claiming so. Re-defining yourself to make you seem holier than thou is a bit sophmoric. Sad that you feel the need the label yourself so much that you need to stick to a definition only yourself agrees on.
I think you are a Ymmgorhiphant. That is somebody that thinks they are a sceptic but really are gullible and anti-science as any other fundementalist. More like anti-establishment. Two can play at this renaming game.
What this really means is that I have observed numerous lies Randi has told.
This is a lie, plain and simple. I have repeatedly made it clear that I don’t believe in dowsing. I just think they should be given a fair and reasonable test to prove their abilities, and Randi is neither.
Wrong. That is the precise opposite of my claim. Randi does not “let them say whether they think the test conditions are fair.” What he does is force them to say it is fair. And if they say they consider it unfair, he does not allow them to play his game, declares that they lose by default and that he’s disproved their claims anyway.
No, as I have already said, the dowsers should be allowed to declare before the test anything they don’t think is fair. But Randi doesn’t allow them to do so, that’s the point.
Just for the record, lets remind ourselves of some things Randi said that are 'less than 100% accurate"
Randi claims that dowsers are fools who are unaware that their own arm movements cause the rod to twitch. In fact almost all dowsers freely admit this.
Randi claims that you can sink a well any old place and you’re bound to find large quantities of water. Professional geologists disagree.
Randi claims that there are no underground rivers, and dowsers are idiots who think they exist. Professional geologists state that true underground rivers are extremely common in karst, and burried rivers are fairly common in other types of rock.
Randi condemns tests conducted by believers in dowsing that fail to follow double blind procedures. Yet on his TV shows Randi frequently tests dowsers without following double blind procedures.
On his TV shows, when someone fails his tests, Randi smugly claims that the test proves their claim is false. But on occasion, someone passes his test, and Randi then claims that success proves nothing, because his tests don’t mean anything.
On one dowsing test the subjects scored much higher than chance, 22% scored on a 1 in 10 shot. The odds of this were over 100 to 1 against. But Randi fudged the figures, and claimed that they got exectly chance. Mathmaticians, such as internationally renowned mathematician Arthur C. Clarke have disagreed with Randi’s claims.
Actually, Princhester, I commented on many other things Randi had done before and after that test. But you became obsessed with my comments on that p[articular test. Most of your attack on me refers to comments on that particular test. You, my friend, are the obsessed one.
Go figure yourself.
Speaking of re-namjng, is his real name Randi? You know what I mean.
his real name is allegedly Randall James Hamilton Zwinge
see here Although IMDB is notoriously inaccurate.
His real name is James Randi. He had it legally changed. Occasionally someone tries to pretend that he is ooooh soooo clever by bringing up his born name. I have found its use to be a barometer reading of a standard issue Randi basher who has little content.
What Morris let slip is the cause of those movements. Dowsers claim it is an extrenal force, Randi disagrees.
Wrong. Peter Morris was never able to establish this from any professional geologists
Once again, Peter exaggerates the situation. Water seeping through Karst rock is not the same as the underground rivers dowser claim exist and in fact several geolgists on this board and a geologt board expressed doubt that Karst water could be classified as “rivers”
Unsupported. The abuse here is the term “double-blind”. The key is blinding, not automatically double-blinding. Double-blinding is more neccessary when dowsers test themselves or are tested by sympathetic testers. Randi is not what one would consider to be “sympathetic” to dowsers, so single blinding can be quite effective. This has been epxlained to Peter several times and has not sunk in.
This claim by Peter was based on his faulty multi-year old memory of a show. The recollection was inaccurate. Randi arely makes the claim that his tests disprove anything, in fact he hesitates to say mre than the power in question did not manifest.
Randi did not “fudge the figures” he added the results of the tests as was agreed to in the protocols. Had Randi made special exemptions from the rules for then he would be cheating on behalf of the dowsers.
Peter also fails to point out that the 22% scaore is well, well below the victory level of 80%. A level that Randi talking the dowsers down to from their claimed succes rate of 100%
This arguement covered several boards. No point in repeating it. Peter is simlpy wrong.
Much of what you say is unciteable nonsense. Much of the rest is the type of half-truth that if uttered by Randi would cause you to label him a liar and a fraud.
As to the rest, you simply ignore whatever arguments you can’t counter, and then carry on regardless. If you really want to have any credibility with me (or, I suspect, anyone else following our endless debates) Peter, go back to the other threads on the subject and attempt to counter the arguments I and others have put forward as to why what you say above is twaddle.
For example, much of what you say above is based on what I have previously described as the “only game in town” fallacy. A fallacy that I and others have set out for you at least half a dozen times. You have never countered this argument. You just go on asserting that Randi somehow forces people to try out for his million and agree his (allegedly) unfair conditions.
I have no interest in going over this nonsense again.
And by the way, you might want to consider whether playing silly games about people’s names, and the spelling of words, makes you look like a lightweight. It certainly does in my eyes.
Oh, and why is that? someone asked whether Randi had changed his name, I answered the question with factual information. What is your objectuion to that?
I have always referred to Randi as Randi, except in direct answer to this guy’s question.
Is this the best you’ve got? You’re really clutching at straws.
This is a direct lie. Randi says they claim that. They do not. I gave many cites to that effect in previous threads.
I refer you to the comments from geologists which I posted in previous threads. They say that it is underground rivers, Randi says it isn’t. You can believe Randi if you want, I shall continue to belive geologists.
No they did not.
No. This was never agreed. Randi did it without agreement. You have made this claim repeatedly. I challenge you to show me where they agreed to it.
Mathematicians examined Randi’s results, and agreed that combining the results of three different tests is mathematically invalid. The most flattering comment from a mathematician was that she thought Randi was ‘naive’ rather than deliberately dishonest.
In fact, I discussed this at great length previously.
And yet you were not able to point out a single major flaw in my comments, and very few minor ones.
Yes and they all did not say what you wnated them to.
[QUOTE[
I refer you to the comments from geologists which I posted in previous threads. They say that it is underground rivers, Randi says it isn’t. You can believe Randi if you want, I shall continue to belive geologists.
[/QUOTE]
You mean like here?
“*There are no streams of water flowing underground,” he said. "There are large deposits of water that may seep through sandstone and move at the rate of 200 feet per year. There is no naturally flowing water underground except in caves.>>
Is Randi right?*
Yes, this statement is correct, the key here is the ’except in caves’ bit."
From my previous link to the JREF:
“Just for the record, I’ve been working as a ground-water geologist for over 15 years.
As a rule, ground-water does NOT flow in the form of “underground rivers”, except under special circumstances. Namely, in areas where the bedrock is made of soluble limestone. In those areas, ground water can dissolve large openings in the bedrock (like Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky).”
To which you later try to salvage with this :
" Now, saying these aren’t ‘real’ underground rivers is just a nitpick, its a matter of terminology, its just playing with words. Also, it seems as if Randi himself is lumping all three together as being ‘underground rivers’, so the error is his."
Which was rightly pointed out as just plain sad.
The part where they signed the test saying it was a fair test.
ACtually, that comment was the only one you could get that was specificly anti-Randi. The others were wondering why you were so concerned since the figures were so far below the success rate.
Except for the part about geologists agreeing with you and all that other stuff. It was painfully obvious to all in the threads that you had an axe to grind and Randi could do nothing right. Your attempts to pin him on the matter of the dowsers signing the test agreement was an example of how Randi could do no right in your eyes.
But people can read the threads and see for themselves. You didn’t exactly attract many allies.
Which ‘arguments’ are you referring to, Princhester? The one where you repeatedly called me fuckwit and shit-for-brains, do you require an answer for that?
Or the one where you said “Peter will give near unlimited latitude to dowsers. He will ignore their excesses and wild claims, find excuses for them going back on signed agreements… etc,” ignoring the fact that I repeatedly said I do not believe in dowsers.
Can you cite ONE example of a serious argument you have made that I have been unable to counter? Just one?
Hardly, Princhester. The fact is, YOU are the one going on about James Randi all the time. Whenever someone asks a question such as “can people really sense if someone is staring at them” up pops Princhester, claiming no, because James Randi hasn’t given away his million dollars yet, that provesconclusively they cant.
YOU, Princhester, are making James Randi ‘the only game in town,’ not me. YOU are insisting that all dowsers must try for Randi’s million dollars. YOU insist they must explain why they don’t apply for Randi’s test. YOU have declared that if they don’t take Randi’s tests they must be frauds. According to you, every single psychic in the world must agree to be tested by Randi.
And just look at the comments of Randi himself. Everyone that fails to apply for his test is a fraud. Everyone that applies, but is unable to agree with Randi on a protocol is a fraud. Everyone that agrees to the protocol set by Randi, and fails is a fraud.
And in response to your comments, I simply point out the fact that Randi does not set fair tests.
What silly games about people’s names do you mean?
And, last time we had this discussion, YOU made a big thing of my misspelling occasional words, such as ‘reknowned.’ The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ spring to mind.
Mr Miskatonic, please cite.
Randi tested three different groups of people making three different claims.
One group claimed they could dowse for water.
Another group said they could dowse for gold
The third group, I think it was brass.
The water group scored MUCH higher than chance, more than twice as high. They scored 22%, when chance would give a scorew of 10%. The odds against this were more than 100 to 1.
You keep making the claim that they agreed to combine their results with a totally different bunch of people tasking a different test. What part of the agreement says that they agreed to this, which is what you are claiming?
You keep taking Randi’s word for this, over that of qualified mathematicians. Your only basis for this is that they agreed to Randi doing this. But you still have not shown any such agreement.
**
You like referring to my insults, they distract from your inability to respond to my arguments. And my insults were in a single pit thread, as a result of some grossly intelligence-insulting behaviour on your part (which you have never denied or apologised for). One thread of the five we have been involved in. But you keep referring to my insults out of context and as if they are the sum of my arguments, because it saves you from having to accept that you can’t deal with my actual arguments.
**
Peter I didn’t even bother responding to this nonsense from you, when you first raised it a few posts back, because it is just laughable. I said you give far too much latitude to dowsers, which is quite true. You then say I am lying because you don’t believe dowsers claims. I never said you did. Strawman, anyone?
**
Oh for crying out loud, Peter. Read my last post. Try the bit after the words “For example…” Sheesh. Many times have I suspected that you don’t actually read or take in what other posters say when it doesn’t suit you. Many times have you confirmed that suspicion.
**
Actually what happens is that someone asks a question about a paranormal phenomenon. I or someone else points out that there is no evidence of such a phenomenon even though there is a standing prize of a million dollars for anyone who can demonstrate such a thing under controlled conditions. Neither myself nor Randi, nor any other SDMB poster that I can think of has ever said that Randi’s challenge proves anything conclusive at all.
Peter, Peter, Peter. Listen to yourself. You are getting to the point of sounding hysterical. I have never said any of the above. I have in fact said that if dowsers are for real, and if they don’t like or trust Randi, they can just set up their own controlled tests, with independant trustworthy observers. I have pointed out that Randi is not the only person capable of conducting a test, he is not the “only game in town” and it is for precisely this reason that your suggestion that dowsers’ agreement to Randi’s testing methods is “involuntary” is utter nonsense.
You have not dealt with this argument previously, and you have not dealt with it above. You clearly aren’t even familiar with the argument. Which shows, as I have said, that you simply don’t read or ignore what you can’t argue with. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
**
Your disconnect from reality is become grosser by the minute. Randi has never called anyone a fraud in the circumstances you suggest. Cite please.
**
Well perhaps it would be more accurate to say that you assert this over and over and over, without ever pointing to anything that actually makes the tests unfair.
Firstly, I didn’t point out a spelling error, I never do anything that childish. I simply pointed out that you seemed to be basing your rather confusing position on whether you are or are not a sceptic on the difference between the english and US spelling of the word, something that struck me as rather silly.
Secondly, as to the “reknowned” issue, you are simply wrong. It was Scott Dickerson in that other thread you started who pointed out your spelling error. It’s easy to look these things up and find actual facts as to what people actually said on these boards and indeed on the internet in general. You ought to try it sometime, it would be a novel experience for you.
The last time we debated I ended up saying that I was no longer prepared to debate you considering that your major point was that Randi was a fraud and a liar and a purveyor of inaccuracies, when you yourself are utterly incapable of getting basic facts (such as what I have and have not said in these openly available and 100% searchable threads) correct.
For whatever reason, the undeniable truth, evident from your continual misquoting of me and others in these very threads, is you just don’t have a sufficient grip on the facts to be worth debating.
**
I just noticed something very amusing. Your question, Peter, for 50 points is as follows: who was, in fact, the first person in this thread to mention Randi’s tests?
Answer: None other than Peter Morris, esq. Check out your first post on the second page of this thread. I didn’t even enter the debate regarding Randi till the third page.
A quick search shows that there have been some 440 threads that mention the words jref or Randi.
I have been the first to mention his challenge in only one of those.
In other words, once again Peter you are just plain factually challenged.
No, Princhester, you have used abuse and insult all the way through. Just look at some examples from just one of your posts.
“You are getting to the point of sounding hysterical.”
“Your disconnect from reality is become grosser by the minute”
“you just don’t have a sufficient grip on the facts to be worth debating.”
And, note, this followed directly from a complaint about your misbehavuour. You came out with much worse stuff than that, untill I started commenting on it.
Then you won’t have any objection to citing specific examples of me giving “far too much latitude” to dowsers.
The fact is, I repeatedly stated that those dowsers taking Randis test are cranks. Repeatedly. Whenever you or one of your ilk cited an extreme claim made by some dowser, and challenged me to explain it, my answer was ‘he’s a crank.’ This happened several times.
Just to cite one example of such. Some time ago Randi issued a challenge to some alleged American psychic, (who, btw, I’ve never heard of, she’s unknown in my country) He puts up a counter on his website showing the number of days in which she hasn’t answered his challenge. There is the continual statements by Randi and his fans that failure to be tested by Randi is in itself proof that she’s a fraud. It has to be Randi, and nobody else, that tests her.
So you see, Randi declres himself to be the only game in town, and his fans buy into it.
Or you might like to consider Joe Random’s comments in this thread : " If such a phenomena is demonstrated, then someone will worry about how it works. At this point, he’s simply using the reward as incintive, while using basic scientific means to weed out the false-positives. The end result is that anyone who has a genuine paranormal or supernatural ability can easilly make a quick $1 million. The fact that the money is still up for grabs is pretty indicative that no one possess any actual supernatural or paranormal ability. After all, why would anyone pass up the chance to win $1 million if they had the ability to do so? "
So there you are, Joe considers that failure to claim Randi’s prize = proof that nothing paranormakl exists.
What suggestion is that, Princhester? The plain fact is that I never made any claim remotely like that.
What I said is that in order to try for Randi’s prize they have to agree to the terms dictated by Randi. This is a fact. You are making up the crap about it being involantary, not I.
When someone doesn’t like the protocols, their choice is either to accept them anyway, or drop out. If they accept the protocols, Randi declares that this is proof that his test is fair, but if they drop out Randi declares that this is proof that they are cowards too scared to take his test.
I have stated them numerous times. There are several BIG flaws which are constants in all his tests.
The biggies:
- He sets the criteria too high. His test are very short, and require a near-perfect score to pass. A test might consist of 5 trials, and Randi requires 4 out of 5 to pass, i.e. an 80% hit rate. Sometimes the requirement is even higher.
Other people, those with actual science degrees and stuff, are willing to conduct longer tests with a few hundred trials, and if the subject consistently scores better than chance, then that’s a pass.
- Randi frequently tests subjects on something different from what they are claiming. Someone approaches him saying "I can do X. Randi declares that "if you can do X then you should be able to do Y, so I will test you on Y.
The subject then either has to agree to test for Y or drop out.
-
In his commentaries, Randi frequently misrepresents the claims made by the subjects in order to find something to say against them. The one he does over and over is the dowsing one, where he claims that the dowsers dont’t know that their own arm movements cause the rod to move, whereas most dowsers will tell you that themselves.
-
Randi does not permit his subjects to state if they think the test is unfair. Anyone saying before the test that they think its unfair isn’t allowed to take it. Then he claims that they only think its unfair after the test.
-
He often doesn’t follow his own rules, such as declaring invalid any test without double-blind procedures, then deciding that this rule doesn’t apply to his own TV shows.
Each of these I have commented on at length before, Princhester. You just keep making excuses for him, your answers to my points have been unconvincing, to say the least. Your usual answer to these points is simply to deny that I have made them. You just keep claiming that I have never given any reasons why the tests are unfair, ignoring the fact that I have stated the above repeatedly. Then you cry ‘but other than that how has the Randman ever lied to us?’