# That Fox Psychic show **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2000, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280 "2000-05-12T00:46:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/81 "2000-05-19T21:46:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > Sorry; I’m not one of the scientists here, just an amused bystander. But, to be fair, _ma’am_, I guess I should’ve said “You _seem_ to be a wonrously facile charlatan. _Brava!_” \*\* That would be acceptable. > [@](#): > > \*\* > I’m assuming you’ve not thoroughly read this thread or any other threads in “Great Debates”, or that you’re not familiar with generally accepted rules of debate. Otherwise I’d have to believe your statement that proof is unnecessary for such an assertion made in this forum to be highly disingenuous. > \*\* I did not assert that proof was unecessary. I stated that I did not have it. I also stated that this makes no difference in what I do. If you wish to find proof of this, you’ll have to try it, and settle for subjective proof–like the rest of us. We have no reason to dismiss what our senses tell us, after all. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/82 "2000-05-19T21:48:14Z")
> [@](#): > > I do find “mass hallucination” to be even less plausible than psi. . . . Mass hallucinations have actually been observed and repeatedly documented. “Psi” has not. But I’ll bite–teach me. I’ll go into it with a completely open mind, and undertake whatever training regimen you specify. E-mail me at the address in my profile if you’re up to the task. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/83 "2000-05-19T21:52:24Z")
As an aside, it just occurred to me what an eminently silly claim it is to state that the less successful one is at trials, the more proof it is that they **really** have psychic powers. ---
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/84 "2000-05-19T21:56:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > As an aside, it just occurred to me what an eminently silly claim it is to state that the less successful one is at trials, the more proof it is that they **really** have psychic powers. > \*\* Not when you consider how incredibly complex exercise of such abilities must be. It is not a matter that the less successful they are, the more likely they are to be real–it is that if someone is 100% accurate, that should make folks suspicious. Reasonable accuracy is 60 to 90%, probably lower in such a stressful situation. McMoneagle did extraordinarily well–because he actually did what he claimed. The rest of them did TOO well to be believeable as real psychics, even without any other way to guage them. Perfect performance is expected only from charlatans, because what they’re doing is much less difficult than what a real psychic does. ---
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/85 "2000-05-19T22:15:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > I do find “mass hallucination” to be even less plausible than psi. > > . . . Mass hallucinations have actually been observed and repeatedly documented. “Psi” has not. But I’ll bite–teach me. I’ll go into it with a completely open mind, and undertake whatever training regimen you specify. E-mail me at the address in my profile if you’re up to the task. > \*\* Mass hallucinations have been observed and documented–however, a remotely plausible explanation for why a mass of people would see the same complex hallucination has never been presented. Psi phenomena have been observed and documented–same problem. WHY they occur has not yet been explained. And all these parapsychologists are stuck in a loop gathering more and more evidence to try to prove the phenomena exist when all they will ever be able to say is INCONCLUSIVE. But I’m a psion, not a parapsychologist. I’m too scientific for the mystics, and too mystical for the scientists. I’m going at it from the view that what my senses tell me is real–and making real progress as a result. They’re worried about whether psi exists. We’re discovering which nerve clusters in the body produce various energy formats associated with specific abilities. I will indeed e-mail you. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/86 "2000-05-19T22:27:02Z")
> [@](#): > > I did not assert that proof was unecessary. I stated that I did not have it. I also stated that this makes no difference in what I do. > If you wish to find proof of this, you’ll have to try it, and settle for subjective proof–like the rest of us. We have no reason to dismiss what our senses tell us, after all. Sheesh! (Maybe this won’t be quite so much fun after all…) Okay, I gotta ask; why did you post your claims in this forum if you have no intention of backing them up in any way? Neither I nor any other posters to this forum have to disprove or _dismiss_ anything. On the other hand, if you’re going to claim you possess powers or abilities which are in dispute, you should at least offer up an argument in support of the existence of the abilities. If you’re not willing to do so, you’ve chosen **the wrong forum**! Might I suggest MPSIMS? If, however, you wish to engage in a rational discourse, you’ll find the skeptics here quite open-minded and encouraging. ('Cept for me; I’ve already pegged you. —But even recalcitrant bastards like myself can be swayed by things like, oh, objective evidence.) ---
**Author:** ![JonF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JonF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonF)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/87 "2000-05-19T23:18:36Z")
> [@](#): > > As for being a charlatan–according to whom? Have you spoken with anyone who knows me, or has encountered me? Have you talked to any of my students? Tested my abilities? Shame on you, using such poor scientific method to make a determination… I know this wasn’t addressed to me, but I have a comment… sadly, in the absence of any other information, when someone claims paranormal powers the odds-on guess is that person is a charlatan. There are a lot of charlatans. I personally wouldn’t voice that guess without more evidence. > [@](#): > > If you can get them to work when you want them to, even 60% of the time, you’re pretty good at it. If you can do better than 90% of the time at anything, you’re a master–but no one’s 100%. A _consistent_ 60% or better over many trials at any task with a probability of 50% or less would earn anyone that million dollars. > [@](#): > > Think about exactly how much information the brain is being asked to sort through to do something like remote viewing. It is absolutely awe-inspiring. It’s staggering. Well, ordinary people do things all the time that involve processing staggering amounts of information, often very quickly. Exceptional people do things that are incredible, and we barely notice. Try standing hundreds of feet away from home plate in Fenway Park … when the batter hits the ball, you have about a second to predict the path of the ball and start your sprint at top speed to the point where it will fall. There are _hundreds_, maybe thousands or more, of people in the world that can do that! And Steven Hawking does freakin’ _multidimensional path integrals_ in his head! I’m better at math than most ( I went to MIT) and I can’t do the d\*\*n things without pages and pages of paper and repeated references to tables and many false starts and help from other people. > [@](#): > > The only one who can really give you evidence in this case is you In the absence of evidence I won’t believe _that_ assertion… I have some reason to believe that your claimed abilities are testable; you stated that you can detect an “energy field” and a particular “signature” of that field. If you can detect “signatures” that indicate mood, state of health, or any other property that is at least measurable statistically, then you are physically capable of providing evidence by submitting to scientific testing. If you choose not to do that, again it’s your call. > [@](#): > > We have no reason to dismiss what our senses tell us, after all. In the general case, we have many reasons to dismiss what our senses tell us. People are notoriously poor witnesses. Our senses tell us many things about the world that, according to extremely thoroughly tested and verified theories, is not true. (I’m using the word “theory” in a scientific sense, not the popular sense which includes connotations of “untested and unproven”). Light travels in straight lines? Well, in most cases you can’t tell the difference, but in fact it does not. If you are driving a car at 50 miles per hour and another car is approaching you and that car’s speedometer indicates 50 miles per hour, is that car travelling 100 miles an hour relative to you? Damn close, but no, it is not. > [@](#): > > Psi phenomena have been observed and documented. I’ve got to call you on that one; can you provide references that support that assertion? All I know of is many claims that are flawed and a few _possibly_ significant studies that appear to show slight and subtle effects. Have the people who documented these phenomena attempted to claim Randi’s million? > [@](#): > > And all these parapsychologists are stuck in a loop gathering more and more evidence to try to prove the phenomena exist when all they will ever be able to say is INCONCLUSIVE. Pardon? Unless I misunderstand, that appears to contradict the statement I quoted just above. Are you saying that psi and parapsychology are diferent? If so, how would you define them? > [@](#): > > We’re discovering which nerve clusters in the body produce various energy formats associated with specific abilities. Sounds as if you’re claiming to be able to measure something that scientists would find very interesting … ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/88 "2000-05-20T01:27:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Not relevant to the question of whether parapsychological phenomena exist or not. > \*\* Certainly not, but one of the questions thats been running on this board is about methodology. ---
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/89 "2000-05-20T01:41:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Sheesh! (Maybe this won’t be quite so much fun after all…) \*\* Should I take that as a compliment? \ > [@](#): > > \*\* > Okay, I gotta ask; why did you post your claims in this forum if you have no intention of backing them up in any way? \*\* The backing up of my claims simply requires a bit of work on the person desiring the evidence. Surely this is not unreasonable. \ > [@](#): > > \*\* > Neither I nor any other posters to this forum have to disprove or _dismiss_ anything. On the other hand, if you’re going to claim you possess powers or abilities which are in dispute, you should at least offer up an argument in support of the existence of the abilities. \*\* Ok–about 10% of the population, with no prompting whatsoever, will experience psi phenomena at some level throughout their lives. That’s just an approximation. (Don’t even bother to ask for documentation on this, it’s incomplete original research). Most psis don’t actually think much of their abilities–they take them for granted, and some actively try NOT to think about them. Little things–answering the phone before it rings, knowing when a relative is in trouble, dreaming of an event and then having it unfold just as you dreamed it–those are all relatively commmon manifestations of what I’m talking about. Have any of you had such experiences? Then there’s the little fact that the government used remote viewers for years. (Actually they probably still are, but that’s classified…lol…) They did not at any point conclude that remote viewing does not work. Quite the opposite, actually. They said that it was not quite as successful as they’d hoped. However, even if an RVer is wrong about the target 5 times out of 6, if the 6th attempt is accurate, the information is invaluable. That is why it continued for as long as it did. Remote viewing was what McMoneagle did, right there on live television. The only prosaic explanation for what he did involves inside aid by the helicopter pilot, or the host of the show–assuming that those persons were not lying, do you have another explanation handy? Most any other I can think of involve events more improbable than remote viewing. > [@](#): > > \*\* > If you’re not willing to do so, you’ve chosen **the wrong forum**! Might I suggest MPSIMS? > > If, however, you wish to engage in a rational discourse, you’ll find the skeptics here quite open-minded and encouraging. ('Cept for me; I’ve already pegged you. —But even recalcitrant bastards like myself can be swayed by things like, oh, objective evidence.) > \*\* Just as with tachyons, there is as of yet no objective evidence of the subatomic particles of which psi is likely to be comprised. The atom was still theoretical when the first atomic bomb was created. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/90 "2000-05-20T01:55:04Z")
Dang. I go to work, a self-proclaimed psychic shows up, and a whole new discussion breaks out! Alas, as I suspected, no retraction of Horselover’s erroneous statement is to be found… I don’t have much to add right now 'cus Jon and Phil and others already said pretty much everything I would say. But, one point: The new “psychic” said: > [@](#): > > There was a grand total of one psychic on the entire show–the rest were fakes, as far as I could tell. Sorry, you’re one too high. ---
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/91 "2000-05-20T02:33:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > I know this wasn’t addressed to me, but I have a comment… sadly, in the absence of any other information, when someone claims paranormal powers the odds-on guess is that person is a charlatan. There are a lot of charlatans. I personally wouldn’t voice that guess without more evidence. \*\* I’ll have to agree with you on that–most of the money grubbers out there are charlatans. Very few publically known psychics have real ability. Most psychics prefer not to be publically known. Unfortunatly that extends to participating in laboratory research as well. I know quite a few psis who would rather pay Randi a million, if he had a way to take AWAY their ability. > [@](#): > > \*\* > A _consistent_ 60% or better over many trials at any task with a probability of 50% or less would earn anyone that million dollars. \*\* What I’d heard was that one failure out of those trials constitutes a failure for the whole deal. I don’t personally know–I haven’t actually looked over Randi’s proposal. As I said, it simply makes me uneasy. Besides, I have few abilities that would be easily tested, and the ones that could be are not at all consistant. I doubt Randi would be impressed by the ability to locate “ghosts”…lol… > [@](#): > > \*\* > Well, ordinary people do things all the time that involve processing staggering amounts of information, often very quickly. Exceptional people do things that are incredible, and we barely notice. Try standing hundreds of feet away from home plate in Fenway Park … when the batter hits the ball, you have about a second to predict the path of the ball and start your sprint at top speed to the point where it will fall. There are _hundreds_, maybe thousands or more, of people in the world that can do that! And Steven Hawking does freakin’ _multidimensional path integrals_ in his head! I’m better at math than most ( I went to MIT) and I can’t do the d\*\*n things without pages and pages of paper and repeated references to tables and many false starts and help from other people. \*\* Not only that–consider how much information your brain processes just in terms of input from your senses alone. How much information is your brain receiving from your eyes? From your ears? There is constant input, and massive amounts of it. > [@](#): > > \*\* > In the absence of evidence I won’t believe _that_ assertion… \*\* You don’t have to believe…merely to try it, if you want to see for yourself. \ > [@](#): > > \*\* > I have some reason to believe that your claimed abilities are testable; you stated that you can detect an “energy field” and a particular “signature” of that field. \*\* Yes…I suppose I might be good at picking an individual out of a crowd if I have sensed their energy pattern ahead of time. I’ll have to do some experiments with that myself, it might be interesting to document. I’ve gotten to the point where when I meet someone I know online IRL for the first time, I do not bother to describe myself, nor get a description of them. I have yet to be wrong, out of around 4 or 5 occasions, and I’ve always found the person quickly. The one incidence which took longer, the person had an almost undetectable psi-active signature…that makes for a lot less to pick out of a crowd. > [@](#): > > \*\* > If you can detect “signatures” that indicate mood, state of health, or any other property that is at least measurable statistically, then you are physically capable of providing evidence by submitting to scientific testing. If you choose not to do that, again it’s your call. \*\* Mood I cannot do–I am not an empath. I have almost no ability in that area at all. State of health…possibly. I might be better at detecting a physical injury, I’ve detected scars from surgery before, but I am not sure how consistant I would be. The trouble is that most of my abilities are of the type that aren’t so easily measured–sensing and manipulating psychic energy. Other psis can detect what I’m doing, but non-actives cannot. This is ok for me–I can get plenty of validation of what I am doing from the psis I know–but not so good for proving it to Nons. > [@](#): > > \*\* > In the general case, we have many reasons to dismiss what our senses tell us. People are notoriously poor witnesses. Our senses tell us many things about the world that, according to extremely thoroughly tested and verified theories, is not true. (I’m using the word “theory” in a scientific sense, not the popular sense which includes connotations of “untested and unproven”). Light travels in straight lines? Well, in most cases you can’t tell the difference, but in fact it does not. If you are driving a car at 50 miles per hour and another car is approaching you and that car’s speedometer indicates 50 miles per hour, is that car travelling 100 miles an hour relative to you? Damn close, but no, it is not. \*\* Quite true. And it’s possible that some of what we perceive are these types of illusions. However, we at least perceive them consistantly. That consistancy suggests that something is indeed there, even if we cannot be entirely certain of what it is. Acting upon what we perceive often offers more validation, as what we perceive consistantly shows the effects of our actions. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Psi phenomena have been observed and documented. > [@](#): > > \*\* > I’ve got to call you on that one; can you provide references that support that assertion? All I know of is many claims that are flawed and a few _possibly_ significant studies that appear to show slight and subtle effects. Have the people who documented these phenomena attempted to claim Randi’s million? \*\* There’s no real need to go into the libraries’ worth of documented information on psi phenomena. If psi were any subject less controversial socially, it would have already been accepted as proven, many ages ago. And in fact there are plenty of persons in the scientific community who do accept the current level of proof as valid evidence of psi phenomena. Unfortunately there are not enough of them. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Pardon? Unless I misunderstand, that appears to contradict the statement I quoted just above. Are you saying that psi and parapsychology are diferent? If so, how would you define them? \*\* Parapsychology is the study of psi phenomena. Psionics is the application thereof. I suppose you could say that psionics is to parapsychology what technology is to physics. That’s not entirely accurate, but I think you can get the picture. Psions primarily use psi–studying it is secondary. Parapsychologists primarily study psi, and almost never use it. > [@](#): > > We’re discovering which nerve clusters in the body produce various energy formats associated with specific abilities. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Sounds as if you’re claiming to be able to measure something that scientists would find very interesting … > \*\* They would if we had any evidence for them. \ The method of testing we tend to use is “try this, and see if it works better”. \ Having an empath attempt to move a water glass several times, concentrating enegy from different areas of the body–and having her succeed on the second try focusing from the solar plexis suggests that the solar plexis produces the format of energy that is required to affect telekinesis. There’s no way on earth you’re going to get this person into a lab, even if you offered her Randi’s million up front, but she did it. She’s only done it a few times, and seems disinclined to pursue it. But from that experiment, suggestiosn to others to try focusing energy from the solar plexis when attempting telekinesis have resulted in a much larger number of reported successes than any of the other techniques which have been tried. This isn’t good science, but it is progress for us. ---
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/92 "2000-05-20T02:41:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > The new “psychic” said: > > > [@](#): > > > > There was a grand total of one psychic on the entire show–the rest were fakes, as far as I could tell. > > Sorry, you’re one too high. > \*\* Produce of direct evidence of that assertion, and I’ll concede the point. Otherwise you can only truthfully declare the incident to be inconclusive. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/93 "2000-05-20T02:58:13Z")
> [@](#): > > The backing up of my claims simply requires a bit of work on the person desiring the evidence. Surely this is not unreasonable. \ If the “work” involves checking studies or other material that you reference to back up your claims, then no. If the “work” means we have to prove your assertions wrong, then yes, it’s unreasonable. > [@](#): > > Then there’s the little fact that the government used remote viewers for years. (Actually they probably still are, but that’s classified…lol…) Absolutely right. This is the same government that buys $500 toilet seats. > [@](#): > > Remote viewing was what McMoneagle did, right there on live television. The only prosaic explanation for what he did involves inside aid by the helicopter pilot, or the host of the show–assuming that those persons were not lying, do you have another explanation handy? Most any other I can think of involve events more improbable than remote viewing. Well, I didn’t see the show, but from comments posted here, and from Joe Nickell’s column, I’d say you may be missing some fairly obvious explanations, such as a description of the “viewing” so general as to be equally applicable for literally hundreds of locations in Los Angeles — this is the same reason why horoscopes sometimes seem uncannily accurate (but aren’t). > [@](#): > > Just as with tachyons, there is as of yet no objective evidence of the subatomic particles of which psi is likely to be comprised However, tachyons have a theoretical basis that supports observed phenomena; what is the basis for your hypothetical subatomic “psi” particles? > [@](#): > > The atom was still theoretical when the first atomic bomb was created. Please… Atomic theory is fundamental to the physical sciences, and was the foundation for the scientific development of the bomb. Are you claiming equal footing for your “psi” particles? > [@](#): > > Ok–about 10% of the population, with no prompting whatsoever, will experience psi phenomena at some level throughout their lives. That’s just an approximation. (Don’t even bother to ask for documentation on this, it’s incomplete original research). -I took this quote from earlier in your reponse than the other quotes, but I saved it for last because I think it’s most representative of the fallacious nature of your arguments. Can you not see that the mere act of proposing that a condition exists is not proof of the condition? This is called “begging the question,” and I’m sure you know what that means. For instance, I could argue in support of the proposition that pink unicorns are responsible for all unexplained phenomena because 10% of all people will see a pink unicorn during their lifetime. Do you have any _real_ arguments to present? ---
**Author:** ![Winged\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Winged\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winged_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/94 "2000-05-20T03:19:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > The backing up of my claims simply requires a bit of work on the person desiring the evidence. Surely this is not unreasonable. \ > > If the “work” involves checking studies or other material that you reference to back up your claims, then no. If the “work” means we have to prove your assertions wrong, then yes, it’s unreasonable. \*\* Actually, neither of the above…lol. It means you have to try it for yourself. It’s not even so strenuous as looking up printed resources. Get a little activity into these hindbound folks here…\ > [@](#): > > Then there’s the little fact that the government used remote viewers for years. (Actually they probably still are, but that’s classified…lol…) > [@](#): > > \*\* > Absolutely right. This is the same government that buys $500 toilet seats. \*\* You do have a point, there! But it’s also the same government that funded the research which produced the atom bomb, the space shuttle, and the Voyager probe. In other words, that could mean just about anything. I would point out that a toilet seat is a useful item, however expensive. \ > [@](#): > > Remote viewing was what McMoneagle did, right there on live television. The only prosaic explanation for what he did involves inside aid by the helicopter pilot, or the host of the show–assuming that those persons were not lying, do you have another explanation handy? Most any other I can think of involve events more improbable than remote viewing. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Well, I didn’t see the show, but from comments posted here, and from Joe Nickell’s column, I’d say you may be missing some fairly obvious explanations, such as a description of the “viewing” so general as to be equally applicable for literally hundreds of locations in Los Angeles — this is the same reason why horoscopes sometimes seem uncannily accurate (but aren’t). \*\* Actually, the location had some rather unique structures, which McMoneagle identified. He drew them. Some were a bit displaced from their actual locations, but this is common with RV. My own experience with it has been that it’s easy to transpose objects and structures between floors, and to get things backwards. > [@](#): > > Just as with tachyons, there is as of yet no objective evidence of the subatomic particles of which psi is likely to be comprised > [@](#): > > \*\* > However, tachyons have a theoretical basis that supports observed phenomena; what is the basis for your hypothetical subatomic “psi” particles? \*\* A “dense electron” may cover just about all the effects we’ve seen with psi energy, including penetration of a Faraday Cage. Psi has a very plasma-like quality, as well as a marked similarity to EM. Another suggestion considered was some sort of particle of smaller size and mass than a quark. > [@](#): > > The atom was still theoretical when the first atomic bomb was created. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Please… Atomic theory is fundamental to the physical sciences, and was the foundation for the scientific development of the bomb. Are you claiming equal footing for your “psi” particles? \*\* Not yet. \ > [@](#): > > Ok–about 10% of the population, with no prompting whatsoever, will experience psi phenomena at some level throughout their lives. That’s just an approximation. (Don’t even bother to ask for documentation on this, it’s incomplete original research). > [@](#): > > \*\* > -I took this quote from earlier in your reponse than the other quotes, but I saved it for last because I think it’s most representative of the fallacious nature of your arguments. \*\* Overuse of the word “fallacious” seems to be a problem in this forum. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Can you not see that the mere act of proposing that a condition exists is not proof of the condition? This is called “begging the question,” and I’m sure you know what that means. For instance, I could argue in support of the proposition that pink unicorns are responsible for all unexplained phenomena because 10% of all people will see a pink unicorn during their lifetime. > > Do you have any _real_ arguments to present? > \*\* In this case, the unexplained phenomena are what is being witnessed–not a cause for those phenomena. Psi is a catch-all term. It first arose in parapsychology, it’s simply a Greek letter which was used to denote the unknown factor in parapsychological experiments and research. I use it a bit more narrowly than that–it’s come into popular useage to refer more specifically to psychic abilities. I would not presume to claim that all unexplained phenomena are the result of pyschic abilities–far from it. Merely that some very specific unexplained phenomena are. I am less of an arguing person than a showing person. \ ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/95 "2000-05-20T05:03:03Z")
I poked my head into a discussion over at alt.magic. I don’t do mentalism (I’m a card guy), but the ones over there said that this stuff was all fairly old-school stage material. The opinions are pretty evenly divided between 1.)Fox was irresponsible for suggesting that these performers had actual powers, and 2.) Of course they claimed that the performers had actual powers–all mentalists do. How much fun would it be to start your show by saying, “You know this is a trick, right?” I’m torn, myself–I certainly wouldn’t stop a card routine to make sure everyone realizes that it’s not real. Then again, a lot of people believe that this sort of thing is real (as we’ve seen), and it is somewhat irresponsible to play on that. Then again, the performer in me says, “Of course you play on that! They’ll eat it up!” So I’m torn between the two sides of my personality–rational skeptical scientist, and deranged carny. > [@](#): > > A consistent 60% or better over many trials at any task with a probability of 50% or less would earn anyone that million dollars. Screw Randi’s million–he and I could have one hell of a weekend in Vegas. (Before Sal and Vinnie escorted us to the state line, that is.) Dr. J ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/96 "2000-05-20T12:45:34Z")
Winged\_Wolf said: > [@](#): > > If psi were any subject less controversial socially, it would have already been accepted as proven, many ages ago. Prove it. Show us the scientific results that back up this claim. Horselover couldn’t (wouldn’t, whatever) do it. Now I guess it’s your turn. After all, you seem to be taking Horselover’s place by acting like you don’t understand that if you are making the claim, you have to back it up – as in the way you asked me to prove there were no psychics in the show. Wrong. You prove there were _any_. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/97 "2000-05-20T12:57:59Z")
From the new book (I’m not actually sure it’s out yet, but I have a review copy) _Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud_, by Robert Park: “In 1987, at the request of the U.S. Army, the National Academy of Sciences undertook a complete study of all the literature on parapsychology as part of a larger study of unconventional methods of enhancing human performance. The report concluded that there was ‘no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena.’ That has not changed, except to add more years of failure. As one set of experiments is shown to be flawed, however, new, more bizarre experiments…are devised. Hope springs eternal. There is always the promise that the next study will finally produce convincing proof of extrasensory perception.” (p. 197) Regarding the use of “random” number generators and statistical analyses to supposedly show psychic powers: "Why, you may wonder, all this business of random machines? … It is not clear that any of these machines are truly random. Indeed, it is generally believed that there are no truly random machines. It may be, therefore, that the lack of randomness only beings to show up after many trials. Besides, if the mind can influence inanimate objects, why not simply measure the static force the mind can exert? Modern ultramicrobalances can routinely measure a force of much less than a billionth of an ounce. Why not just use your psychokinetic powers to deflect a microbalance? It’s sensitive, simple, even quantitative, with no need for any dubious statistical analysis. “The reason, of course, is that the microbalance stubbornly refuses to budge. That may explain why statistical studies are so popular in parapsychological research: they introduce all sorts of opportunities for uncertainty and error. And error has a way of seeming to support the biases of the experimenter.” (p. 199) “No proof of psychic phenomena is ever found. In spite of all the tests devised by parapsychologists … and huge amounts of data collected over a period of many years, the results are no more convincing today than when they began their experiments. No mechanism is ever uncovered. No testable theory ever emerges.” (p. 200) ---
**Author:** ![JonF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JonF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonF)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/98 "2000-05-20T13:16:43Z")
While lying in bed, half-asleep, this morning I made the connection … Winged\_Wolf is the WingdWolf2 mentioned in the first post of [What could this be?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=23631). Obviously not a major epiphany, but … **Winged\_Wolf** , I’ve got to say that (assuming your views are correctly stated in that thread) diagnosing a condition such as that described by **Honesty** based on text communications is rash, irresponsible, and possibly dangerous to **Honesty**. > [@](#): > > Then there’s the little fact that the government used remote viewers for years. (Actually they probably still are, but that’s classified…lol…) They did not at any point conclude that remote viewing does not work. Quite the opposite, actually. They said that it was not quite as successful as they’d hoped. However, even if an RVer is wrong about the target 5 times out of 6, if the 6th attempt is accurate, the information is invaluable. That is why it continued for as long as it did. There’s no reason (of which I’m aware) to believe that the government is still investigating RV. One of the government’s consultants coincluded that the experiments were failures, the other concluded that some statistically significant results were obtained. The results were not good enough for "field use’; if 5 of 6 pieces of information are wrong and you don’t know which piece is right, the overall set of information is almost always useless. This subject was addressed on this board in [Did the U.S. government fund psychic research?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpsychicfed.html) and there is a good discussion with lots of links at [STAR GATE {Controlled Remote Viewing}](http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm). > [@](#): > > The atom was still theoretical when the first atomic bomb was created. The existence of atoms was established beyond any reasonable doubt before 1900. See [Introduction to Atomic Theory](http://www.sel.k12.oh.us/brush/Teeter/InterNet/Chemistry%20Review/Atomic%20Theory/main.html) (although this source gives no credit to Democritus, who had an atomic trheory B.C.E.) and [Atomic Theory: What Is It?](http://library.thinkquest.org/10380/briefing.shtml) > [@](#): > > What I’d heard was that one failure out of those trials constitutes a failure for the whole deal. I don’t personally know–I haven’t actually looked over Randi’s proposal. That indicates that your sources are untrustworthy. [Here are the rules.](http://www.randi.org/research/challenge/challtxt.html) > [@](#): > > You don’t have to believe…merely to try it, if you want to see for yourself. You’re just repeating the assertion I questioned. My question is _why_ is it not possible for you to demonstrate your claims? A _statistically significant_ number of trials in which a _statistically significant_ better-than-chance result is achieved would be very convincing (and I’ll bet that would be good enough for the million). !00% is not necessary. If you can do it that twice under the direction of different investigators who have expertise in illusions and methods used by charlatans, the vast majority of scientists will be convinced. > [@](#): > > I’ll have to do some experiments with that myself, it might be interesting to document. Without controlled conditions and without supervision by an appropritae expert, I would only find such experiments _indicative_. > [@](#): > > I’ve detected scars from surgery before, but I am not sure how consistant I would be. The trouble is that most of my abilities are of the type that aren’t so easily measured–sensing and manipulating psychic energy. Other psis can detect what I’m doing, but non-actives cannot. Are you sayng that “non-psychics” cannot detect whether or not a surgery scar is present? Are you saying that your “manipulation of psychic energy” has no effect? Very subtle effects can be detected and measured in properly designed studies. > [@](#): > > And it’s possible that some of what we perceive are these types of illusions. However, we at least perceive them consistantly. That consistancy suggests that something is indeed there It’s also possible that the “something that is indeed there” is that your senses are consistently lying to you; the same inputs producing the same outputs. Also, I’m not going to be convinced by a subjective evaluation of consistency. > [@](#): > > There’s no real need to go into the libraries’ worth of documented information on psi phenomena. If psi were any subject less controversial socially, it would have already been accepted as proven, many ages ago. And in fact there are plenty of persons in the scientific community who do accept the current level of proof as valid evidence of psi phenomena. There’s certainly a lot written about psi… the vast majority of it scientifically worthless, most of the remainder is flawed, and _maybe_ a little of the remainder is _possibly_ significant. The fact that most of the scientific community does not accept psi has nothing to do with social pressures or social controversy; it has to do with evidence. I don’t see why you say that psi is controversial socially; there’s plenty of surveys that show that many if not most people believe that psi exists, there’s thousands of psychic web sites, there are psychic fairs and meetings and journals. Although I’ve admitted the _possibility_ of a witch hunt, the result so far is many psychics investigated for fraud and a few “bible-thumpers” preaching with no discernable effect. Your talk of fear and witch hunts appears to be a cop-out. The percentage of scientists who beleive in psi is small, there are not enough because there’s not enough evidence. Please note that 100% successs is not required (although less than 100% requires more trials to establish significance) and anything that is repeatably detectable or measurable can be tested. > [@](#): > > Parapsychology is the study of psi phenomena… But you said “And all these parapsychologists are stuck in a loop gathering more and more evidence to try to prove the phenomena exist when all they will ever be able to say is INCONCLUSIVE.” Well, formally, nothing in science is ever _proven_, but there are a lot of things for which the evidence is so good that we can practically regard them as proven. You seem to believe that it is impossible to bring psi to that level; I do too, but I think that my reasons are different {grin}. Why do you think that? > [@](#): > > A “dense electron” … Another suggestion considered was some sort of particle of smaller size and mass than a quark What is a dense electron? Note that scientists won’t accept a particle invented to explain a phenomenon when it’s not yet been sufficiently established whether that phenomenon exists. And it’s _really really hard_ to come up with new particles that fit all the well-established observations and math. You can _extend_ the observations and math, but the existing ones work\* and any extension is going to have to replicate a _lot_ of existing predictions and results. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/99 "2000-05-20T13:24:47Z")
Jon asked: > [@](#): > > What is a dense electron? An electron that isn’t very bright? Thanks for posting that link to the Mailbag item on government-sponsored psychics. I had forgotten about it (which is kind of embarrassing) and was going to dig up my original info to link to or post again. ---
**Author:** ![JonF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JonF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonF)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280/100 "2000-05-20T14:12:36Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Not relevant to the question of whether parapsychological phenomena exist or not. > > Certainly not, but one of the questions thats been running on this board is about methodology. Agreed. However, the issue is that you made a strong statement based on _one_ study by a person who _could_ possibly have biased the results (consciously or subconsciously) and which included a _suspiciously small_ number of papers in the paranorrmal field. Do you still feel that your original stament is justified? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-fox-psychic-show/19280.md?page=6)