Having said that, Aeschines, let me say this. While you are IMHO utterly wrong in principle when you suggest that controlled testing cannot establish abilities that do not work all the time, reading that Beth Clarkson stuff is a real eye opener as to whether the JREF, with Kramer involved, could cope with such things.
Kramer is a guy who:
1/ is the major contact point for a challenge that involves controlled testing of abilities
2/ thinks “level of confidence” in the context of statistical analysis is something to do with the state of mind of the test subject
3/ thinks that doing something “one in three” is necessarily “worse than chance” as if random chance causes everything in life to occur half the time.
I think Kramer may have eventually understood point 3/ (when enough people explained it to him) but that a guy who could make such a mistake could be allowed within a mile of anything called “controlled testing” beggars belief.
I’ve already done so in a previous post. I can’t speak definitively on the statistical significance of 6 trials but I think my other point is definitely valid. That is, the extent to which the “healer” believes in the efficacy of the “treatment” would likely be communicated nonverbally to the “patient” thus giving a potentially greater placebo effect. Just because I think the test is poorly designed doesn’t mean I think it favors Randi.
Yes. Let’s take the healing one: In order to design the best possible experiment I’d need to know a few things. For example, does the healer need to have either visual or physical contact or both to treat the patient? Does the patient need visual contact with the healer? Does the patient even have to know he/she has been treated? Depending on the answer to these questions, the experimenter can avoid some potential problems of the placebo effect.
What is the healer’s purported success rate with given illnesses? This will certainly effect the number of trials necessary to construct a legitimate sample. Does the healer have a specific mechanism by which he believes the patient is healed and if so, what implications does this have for experiment design?
I don’t know that Randi et al hasn’t done the above, but it doesn’t seem like they ask enough questions to find out.
But, who cares if it’s poorly designed, as long as it’s poorly designed, favoring the side that it ended up not supporting?
If I design a test that is likely to give false positives, and it STILL gives a negative, that doesn’t hurt the negative. Unless you’re saying that it shows I’m too dumb to design a good test, whereas it might just be the case that it was easier to design the test that way, since I was so sure that it would give a negative result. Which, in fact, it did.
Correct. I fail to see what relevance this has, though. Scientifiic prizes in most disciplines are set with clear conditions in mind. In the field of pseudoscience, though, where any wild claim is possible, conditions have to be worked out on a per-case basis. They may have a generic test for common claims that they trot out, but there’s no way there can be a precondition in place for every single one of the claims the JREF has to sift through.
This is as oppozed to, say, the X Prize which was set with a clear condition in mind.
Sigh. There are a phenominal number of lies in that paragraph.
I have not “kept repeating” anything of the sort. I have said it ONCE so far.
He was given an ultimatum - reply in ONE day, not four.
Maybe he did say he was ready “anytime” but obviously he needs sufficient notice.
“He offered no alternative dates,” - a lie, plain and simple. He offered to do it after Christmas.
"Now you’re claiming Randi asking him to provide a receiver was unreasonable, " Another lie, I said no such thing.
The unreasonable thing was that Randi & co simply dictated the conditions of the test to him, and refused to negotiate on any part of it. They would not negotiate the location, they ordered it. They would not negotiate the time, they ordered it. They would not negotiate the details of the test, they ordered it.
I’ve been saying for years that Randi’s tests are unfair. Randi’s supporters only answer to that is ‘but every test is negotiated, so it must be fair’ Patently, your only excuse is a lie.
"You’re going to just accuse Randi of cheating no matter what, even if it means you have to claim things that are not true. "
Rather than accuse him of “cheating” I’ll just accuse him of not knowing how to conduct a test. The problem is that he treally doesn’t know any better.
As for the rest, YOU are the one making things up.
And I don’t “hate” him, I just see that the test is worthless. I hate the fact that he has deceived many people that he is compitent to perform a test.
Ammuntion? You don’t seem to understand. Randi & co have been doing that same sort of thing for years. The opinion you now have, I formed the first time I ever saw Randi in action. And he just gets worse and worse.
agreed.
Here I disagree. The tests Randi proposes are frequently problematic. Consider the Paul Carey example. The protocol designed by Randi is that Carey must transmit a message such as “THE SKY IS BLUER TODAY THAN YESTERDAY” and the receiver must note it down. Any deviation, however tiny, Randi marks him wrong. Receive "THE SKY’S BLUER TODAY THAN YESTERDAY " it’s a wrong answer. Receive “THE SKY IS BLUER THIS DAY THAN YESTERDAY” and its a wrong answer. He has to transmit 5 messages. He is permitted one wrong answer in the whole test. Two errors (however small) and he fails the whole test. Get every one of them exactly right, but in the wrong order, he fails the test.
I don’t brelieve Paul Carey has telepathic powers. But if he does, there is no way on Earth he would pass that test. The test is way too difficult. It is simply not a fair test of his ability.
I frequently see similar problems in all Randi’s tests. And Randi is deeply in love with his own test designs, and unwilling to budge a millimetre.
Exactly. I don’t have a problem with the the challenge, in principle. It’s just that Randi is entirely the wrong man to run it. He doesn’t act in a professional manner, and he just doesn’t have the knowledge required.
Just to remind you of what I said,
** “He could have respected her anonymity during the discussions, at least, only publishing it when she actually took the test.” **
You see, I’m sure it’s right to publish her name if she actually proceeds to testing. But to publish her name while negotiating the protocol, repeatedly calling her ‘deluded’ and similar insults, subjecting her to public humiliation, that’s really low.
That you have corrected yourself on the number of times you said this does not make it any less wrong.
He was given this ultimatim after he cancelled the date some days before. By your own link a lot of work had gone into making this date, and he just dismissed it casually. That he was given this last chance (the ultimatim) is a lot more than he deserved.
He had plenty of notice. Your link makes that apparent.
Yes, my concern is the guy’s ability to design a proper experiment in general. Having said that, something I didn’t consider before is that it is possible that a non-believer could read the insincerity of a non-healer and boost his purported healing out of disdain for the subject matter.
If I want to do something really badly (which Carey did right up till when he was going to be put on the spot) which involves other people and they suggest a date I can’t make, I say: “Sorry, can’t do that day. How about Tuesday? Or I’m free on Saturday. I can do any date next month. I’m free for the last two weeks of this month. Let’s get on with this.”
As always, JREF’s always in the wrong, no matter what they do, and the applicant’s never in the wrong, no matter what they do.
This is just a massive assumption on your part. Carey didn’t say “I can’t be that accurate”. He thought he could be. But of course Peter you know his powers better than him.
As always, JREF are always in the wrong with you, even when they design a test that the applicant thinks he can pass, they are in the wrong because you, Peter Morris, think he can’t.
Let me put it another way: you don’t even think Carey has telepathic powers. And yet you know that the telepathic powers that you don’t think he has aren’t good enough to pass the proposed test.
I just finished reading the Beth Clarkson exchange with Kramer (and only that one) and have to agree that Kramer is not only a total idiot, but completely incapable of objectivity. First off, he assumes that “chance” must necessarily mean “>50%.” He couldn’t quite get his head around the concept that something with a 1 in 10 chance of occurring doesn’t need a 50% success rate to prove valid. But worse yet was his statement that ’ if telekinesis is valid then it shouldn’t depend on feeling.’ So now he is theorizing about something he doesn’t believe in? He doesn’t know how it could work but somehow knows that it can’t be related to the state of mind of the testee? That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I am embarrassed to call myself a skeptic but am slowly learning not to label myself as such.
Kramer’s comments remind me of an exchange I had on the SD with another typically obtuse hyper-“skeptic.” The thread was about the PEAR experiments at Princeton that attempted to test telekinesis. The experiment, IIRC, came up with some significant conclusions but later was found to be slightly flawed. In that experiment the object of telekinesis was electrons. Someone in the thread cited similar experiments conducted with photons as evidence that the results of the PEAR experiment were never reproduced. I mentioned that the tests weren’t similar because electrons have mass where photons do not and that this could conceivably be an important variable. He laughed at the ridiculousness of such a statement. Could he not imagine that mass might be an important factor in something where momentum is of obvious concern? Absolutely mind-boggling.
To paraphrase Kramer in describing Kramer: "I can only imagine that his beliefs are completely blinding an otherwise intelligent person to reality. " Kramer strikes me as someone who is deathly afraid of the unknown and must therefore deny the unknown completely.