So, in order for you to even look at the evidence, I need to provide you with evidence of the evidence? Isn’t this just a tad unreasonable? The point of this thread was supposed to be about Radin’s book; not about the existence of the paranormal in general, but about RADIN’S BOOK. I do not feel that it is unreasonable to ask debaters to read the book the debate is about before they debate it. Now, several people have posted responses which actually refute statements made in the book, and for that, I’m thankful, because this is what I’m looking for. You say the ball is in my court to produce evidence. Well, the book contains a great deal of evidence, or so Dr. Radin says. I’m NOT trying to start a general debate on the paranormal; I’m trying to start a debate about RADIN’S BOOK. Why do so many people feel it is unreasonable to ask them to read the book before debating its conclusions? Do you understand why this is so frustrating? I come here asking for people to debate Radin’s book, and most of them just say, “No, I’m not interested.” If you’re not interested, then why post at all? And as for Bell’s Theorem, it states that no local hidden variable theory can be true. Nonlocal hidden variables could still exist, and one of Radin’s main points is that psi is nonlocal. But hey, I’m not a psi researcher. I’m not even a scientist. I just got this book by a guy who IS a psi resarcher and a scientist who makes some (to me) very convincing arguments about the existence of psi. All I wanted was the opinions of people who had READ THE BOOK, whether they agreed with it or not. Recently, there was a thread about a creationist book by a guy named Behe. Everybody disagreed with it, but all of them had either READ THE BOOK or had read articles by people who had. Do you mean to say you take psi research even less seriously than creationism? Is it any wonder that Dr. Radin declined my invitation to join this thread? He said that since no one was willing to read his book in the first place, it would just be a waste of his time. I agree. It’s a waste of his time, my time, and your time. I’m sorry I bothered you. Maybe I’ll have better luck with my next topic.
Oh, by the way, I DID read Ray Hyman’s report at the link above. Here are some quotes from it WITH the context:
At this point, Hyman admits that IF the experiments are methodologically sound, that they DO provide evidence of psychic phenomena. Of course, he goes on to say:
So what he’s saying here is, basically, “These experiments have to have SOME kind of flaw in them. I have no idea what that flaw might be, of course, but, gosh darn it, it MUST be there, because everyone KNOWS that psi doesn’t exist!”
Well, you see, I AM willing to read YOUR sources. Why are you so bound and determined to avoid reading mine?
While I’m at it, I figured I might as well throw in some quotes from Jessica Utts’s response to Hyman’s report, since, after all, there probably isn’t enough evidence to get anyone to read it.
She goes on to address some of Hyman’s statements, such as:
The rest of this paragraph goes on to talk about the effects of electromagnetic fields on health. There is a statistically significant effect there, but no one has a proposed mechanism from how it works. Utts notes that just because we don’t have a proposed mechanism for something doesn’t mean it can’t exist.
Note that Radin mentions the studies showing the relationship between taking aspirin and preventing heart attacks in his book. He shows the statistical evidence for that, and makes the claim that his statistical evidence for psi phenomena is just as rigorous as that. You wanted evidence from other sources? You got it.
In reading your OP I assumed that you wanted to discuss the ideas you found engaging in THE BOOK. Generally, I find that intelligent people are quite capable of discussing ideas without having read exactly the same source material. However, it appears you are interested only in discussing THE BOOK. Pity. Other people have written about and investigated psi phenomena, and other ideas exist which might have proven interesting despite being absent from THE BOOK.
For instance: while Bell’s Theorem was originally structured in response to Bohm’s search for hidden variables to account for the results predicted by quantum mechanics, it has since been proven in other ways which make no reference to Bohm’s assumption of local hidden variables. Interestingly, Bohm’s own theories of quantum potential and implicate order are quite detailed and it would perhaps be interesting to discuss how the purported deviations from expected raondomness might be viewed as an effect of Bohm’s quantumpotential. Alternatively, it might be fun to discuss the results in comparison to other apparent violations of locality and proposed explanations. Oh well, maybe someone else will write A BOOK about that so we can have another thread.
Spiritus Mundi, I appreciate your response. It seems that you, at least, desire intelligent debate on this subject. For that I am very grateful. I don’t want this thread to degenerate into a flame war. I have apologized for my previous insults against DrMatrix, and I assure you, I won’t throw insults around again. I agree that there are other sources of information on psi phenomena out there that can be discussed. I used Radin’s book for this thread because it’s the only one on the subject I actually own. Well, besides the Time-Life books on the psychic, but they are mostly filled with interesting anecdotes rather than any scientific arguments. Radin’s book is also one of the most recent works on this subject, as far as I know. If you’ve got any other sources you feel would contribute to this debate, by all means, let me know. I’ll be more than happy to read them. So, let’s start over. FORGET about the book. Let’s just deal with Radin’s main ideas instead. For instance, he says that the state of the evidence for psi is as convincing as the evidence in any other branch of science. Obviously, you disagree. Tell me why you don’t find the evidence convincing. Keep in mind Ray Hyman’s quotes above, in which he admits that if the experiments had no methodological flaws, they would indeed be proof of the existence of psi, then goes on to say that he can’t think of any flaws in the experiments, but that there must be some. That doesn’t sound very convincing for the skeptical side. Here’s hoping we can have a pleasant debate from here on without any emotional outbursts from ANYONE, including me. Thank you.
ricksummon, your posts are difficult to read. I’m not trying to be mean to you, but my eyes are old and tired, as is my brain. I need line breaks and paragraph structure nowadays just to be able to make sense of stuff.
One problem with psi research are methods of “statistical correlation.” Essentially, using traditional methods of determining statistical significance, you say that an experiment shows “meaning” if the null hypothesis has a ~5% chance of explaining the result. The problem with that method is that if you do enough experiments by definition 5% of them will show spurious “meaning”. I’m very intrigued by Robert Matthews’ alternative of iteratively applying Bayes theorem to evaluate objective results against subjective estimates of confidence (Facts versus Factions: the use and abuse of subjectivity in scientific research).
Regardless of the outcome of various experiments, in order to confidently ascribe a mechanism of causation, you first have to propose a theory that provides strong predictive value. In other words, you have to find some way of predicting the outcome of an experiment before you do it, not waiting until it’s done and looking for correlations. Correlation is never proof of causation; there are too many ways for correlations to fool even the best scientists to place much confidence in it alone.
Likewise, the amount of study, or the presence or absences of scientists who “believe” in a theory has no relevance, pro or con, towards the its truth. The alchemists worked for centuries to turn lead into gold by chemical means and yet (aside from a nuclear reactor) never acheived success.
I would love it if psychic phenomena were to be conclusivelyl demonstrated, and a real predictive theory were to emerge. I remain skeptical of psychic phenomena not because I don’t want to believe in it, but because, so far, I have never seen convincing evidence in its favor.
What pisses people here off is when someone comes in, not understanding scientific empiricism, and calls us closed-minded for not immediately subscribing to their pet belief. Scientific people are the most open-minded people there are; just look at the bizarre metaphysics we have to swallow to explain Quantum Mechanics. But swallow it we must because the facts, the observations compel us to.
You haven’t offered any evidence. You’ve offered some guy’s claim that he finds the evidence compelling. We’re absolutely not accusing anyone of outright lying, but people’s standards of acceptance vary widely. What we want to see is the actual experiment: a complete description of the methodology, all the raw data gathered, the mathematical and statistical methods applied to analyze the data, and the logical basis for assuming the conclusion from the data. This is not asking for something extraordinary, this is the normal form for communicating scientific research.
Yes, actually. I married a True Believer (whom I love and respect) and as I have always been inquisitive I’ve been reading from her library. I appreciate the opportunity to broaden my experiences. Radin’s book was interesting and respectable.
In fact, I recently participated in a ganzfeld experiment - I got to sit in a room with red light shining on my ping-pong ball covered eyes while wearing an EEG skull-cap and white noise spewing headphones. I got the right answer, which means I’m psychic.[sub]Note to the irony challenged: Kidding.[/sub]
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I have brought this book up in the past here and in other threads I can’t find.
I’m very interested in the RNG experiments, though I suspect that eventually they too will vanish into the ether of parapsychology. I hope they do not as I really want to bend minds with my spoon (sorry Ayesha), but these things always seem to evaporate. I read that Radin was working on a telepathic switch based on this phenomenon - now that would be convincing.
The ganzfeld stuff is based on meta analysis, and was exciting to me until I read more about other meta analyses that disagreed. My own experience with ganzfeld was less than impressive, it appeared from a cursory glance at the data that there was no deviation from chance. There was more data sorting-out to be done, but so far, so-so.
I really do like the ‘field consciousness’ stuff, too, but I want more data on this, and predictable experimental results. The RNG and field consciousness stuff comes closest to this, and could very easily be refined to the point where it would convince me. I guess it just takes money and time, neither of which I have to donate to the cause.
So, in short, it is an interesting book, but I view it as a starting point. What is ‘stage 2’? “The effect may be there, but so weak as to be borderline uninteresting.” That’s where I’m at right now, with the caveat that further data has always in the past moved me back to stage 1 (“There is no effect.”) This time could be different, but I’m not holding my breath.
I certainly agree with this statement. However, it does seem a bit unreasonable to ask me to copy hundreds of entire scientific articles and type them into this message board. That’s why I wanted to discuss the book, which contains a great deal of such data, plus a list of sources for further study.
I’m not a parapsychologist, just an interested citizen. I’ve never done any experiments of my own, nor have I written any scientific articles. You ask me for evidence; I offer you a book written by a man who’s spent his lifetime gathering the data from hundreds of experiments, some of which he’s done himself, and compiling it into an easy-to-read form, and you say, “Nah.” How can I take your requests for evidence seriously when you won’t even read the evidence offered?
When I brought up Ray Hyman’s quote, I did so because he’s a known skeptic, so he’s got no incentive to lie in favor of psi, AND he’s had the chance to personally examine a great deal of the experimental data. Even he agrees that it’s convincing. Of course, that’s not exactly what he said, but the full quote is above in the thread.
As noted before, I am perfectly willing to discuss other sources of information besides Radin’s book. Do you have any skeptical literature I could read? Then bring it on! All I have is this one book. I don’t have the time or inclination to go to the university library and read every single psi experiment published since 1882. I don’t have the statistical knowledge to do my own meta-analysis. I’m not an expert in the field of parapsychology. Does that mean I can’t debate this topic?
I’d like you all to look at douglips’s post here. This is exactly the response I was looking for. He’s read the book, he thinks it’s interesting, but he’s not totally convinced of its validity. That’s perfect!
Just one more thing. Dr. Radin HAS made predictions of experimental results. For instance, he was able to predict how psi performance could be influenced by the intensity of the geomagnetic field. If you want to find out more about it, then all you have to do is re-- do I really need to say it?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ricksummon *
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Umm, thanks for validating my pathetic existence? 
The main reason I’m not a raving believer after this is that the effects are of the ‘who cares’ variety. I guess that’s firmly “stage 2” territory for me. In addition, there seems to be a lot of reasoning that appears to me at first glance to be ad hoc hypotheses. In the case of the magnetic field thing, I remember being underwhelmed by Radin’s account of it - maybe I missed something.
In the ganzfeld experiment I participated in, they were attempting to determine if classically trained musicians were more psi capable than others. I heard later during the analysis phase someone speaking of some of the things they should try to analyze the data for - “Did you read Dr. X’s study of sidereal time and its effect on psi? We should study the data for that. Too bad we didn’t plan the sessions based on that…” At times it seems like what Feynman would call Cargo cult science - waving dead chickens over stuff without knowing if it works or not, but doing it because that’s the way it’s always been done. What I’m really trying to say is that it seems some of the experiments try to account for way too many variables with too small a sample size.
Fortunately, not all of it seems that way - Radin’s book is a good example, but it needs to be thoroughly critiqued before it will get me beyond stage 2. Another good example is a study done by Marilyn Schlitz and a psychologist (I think) from England, named Wiseman (I think.) They did some studies of the ‘being stared at’ sense, and Schlitz (a believer) gets positive results while Wiseman (a skeptic) does not. I remember one statement that was along the lines of
They noted the effect in the data, but did not jump to a conclusion because they realized it could have just been an artifact of slicing data and that it must be replicated to be validated.
To sum up, some of this is “good science”, in that it is being done in a rigorous way. My experience thus far is that all the exciting reports I’ve seen have eventually evaporated under scrutiny. This makes me expect that the rest will also, but I do not rule out the possibility that they will be upheld and I can say “I was the first to say this was legit.” (stage 4. ) Whether we’ll get my dream of psi input to computers or not remains to be seen - I’m not holding my breath.
All that psi stuff is just BS.
PeeQueue
(I’m sorry, I really had to…)
A quick question ricksummon: Does Radin tell you in the book what his methods of assessing the emotional moods of the nation are?
Douglips, you must be a gift from God. That is exactly what this debate is supposed to be about! I WANT Radin’s book to be critiqued. I want the skeptics to critique the HELL out of it. But if no one reads it, that can’t happen. Do you mean to tell me that not even CSICOP has read the book? There’s got to be an article in the Skeptical Inquirer about it somewhere.
(By the way, did you notice that CSICOP is pronounced the same as Psi-Cop from Babylon 5? Maybe the whole organization is being run by telepaths eager to conceal their existence! )
How does Radin determine what the emotional state of the nation is? Well, I have to admit, it’s pretty subjective. For instance, in his analysis of the Academy Awards, he had some people decide which parts of the show were “high interest” and which parts were “low interest.” The RNGs showed greater deviations from chance during the “high interest” parts.
Now, you’re probably saying, “But that’s not scientific! You can’t objectively determine what’s ‘high interest’!” I agree that this part is a bit suspect. However, you have to admit that it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the emotional state of the nation was VERY intense when the OJ verdict was announced. Plus, all you need are TV ratings to determine how many people were interested in things like the Academy Awards and the Super Bowl.
And as for you, PeeQueue, I’ve just got one thing to say: (in Darth Vader voice) I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to Hogwarts and practice my Avada Kedavra curse.
Well, I knew before asking that it wouldn’t be all that scientific. Some real things are just not amenable to objective measurement, emotions among them. I should have phrased my concerns more fully. Specifically, I wondered whether the emotional responses gathered were gathered after the fact, or whether the questions were asked during the event. I’m still abit troubled by the abstract I linked to because it tends to ‘explain away’ the lack of any finding, not just a lesser degree of response, when Mother Teresa died, as opposed to the Academy Awards for instance. I question whether one can use TV ratings as an indicator of emotional response, rather than just general interest. I tend to think Mother Teresa should have provoked a response greater than the oscars, but maybe that’s my own bias talking. In any case, even if Radin is on to something, it may be that the type of emotion is a factor.
There is a great opportunity coming up though, to test his theories. He should make a prediction on election day. Surely that is something that focusses national attention and stirs many emotions. That could be the perfect venue to get skeptics to sit up and take notice if his prediction were published beforehand and came to pass.
Oh, no. CSICOP has definitely read the book and yes, there are a few articles in the SI about this:
[ul][li]Research Review: New Analyses Raise Doubts About Replicability of ESP Findings - in which discussions of the meta-analyses of the ganzfeld work take place. Excerpt:[/li]
Emphasis mine. Also, the ‘Wiseman’ mentioned above is the same one I mentioned previously.
[li]The Best Case for ESP? - a sort of Bem vs. Hyman grudge match. Haven’t read it yet.[/li]
[/ul]
Outside of CSICOP:
[list][li]This review of The Conscious Universe appeared in Nature.[/li]
[li]Responses by Radin and Josephson[/li]
[li]Another response, from Nick Herbert - which I sense ricksummon will like.[/li]
That’s all I’ve got time for now. Be excellent to each other.
I’m having a really difficult time conceiving of a way that one could determine how a random number generator can deviate from chance. It’s random. You can’t say, “Well, it shouldn’t be doing that,” because there’s no should to randomness. You get what you get. Where’s the control? Perhaps my lack of understanding comes from an unfamiliarity with statistical methods.
Well, Lux Fiat, as nearly as I can tell, these random number generators produce binary numbers, with a 50% chance of getting a 0 and a 50% chance of getting a 1. So, if you get either 0’s or 1’s more often than 50% of the time, you’re deviating from chance. We know this because most of the time, the RNGs produce 50% 0’s and 50% 1’s. That’s the control. The experiments determine whether these probabilities can be influenced by psi phenomena, and, according to Dr. Radin, they can indeed.