Princhester, is this how you behave when you’re in court?
Why would it not be?
The more thorough answer is that in court lawyers never call me “obsessive”, make assertions about what has been said in court that are inaccurate or assert facts for which they have no evidence.
Barristers who do these things get a nasty reputation, will not be instructed by serious law firms, will never make it to Senior Counsel, and will never make it to judge.
I’m not a barrister, I’m a solicitor, so I don’t respond to this sort of thing myself, usually. However, when other lawyers do such things, the usual behaviour in response is a reprimand from the judge, or being made to look silly by either the judge or opposing counsel.
When witnesses do such things they are usually rebuked, told they are liars, and generally made to look silly.
As to refusing to respond to questions about their case, lawyers who do so can pretty much assume their opponent is going to insist on an answer, and point out the obvious inference to be made when no answer is given. Witnesses who refuse to answer questions ultimately could end up in jail for contempt of court.
In short, my behaviour towards you in this thread is exactly what my behaviour in court would be towards a witness or other lawyer who did what you are doing.
Furthermore, any lawyer who engaged in such histrionics as pointed sighing, who had lightly had the piss taken out of them for doing so, and who then announced that because their opponent had “decided to resort to insults, the argument had ceased to be worth persuing” would be the subject of suppressed snorts of derisive laughter from everyone in the room except the judge (who’d be suppressing a contemptuous smile).
Well, Peter Morris, glad to see you are keeping your standards as high as always with inchoate, and, yes, delusional whining. Followed, as if the latter weren’t enough, by a healthy dose of persecution phobia (which to me seems like a desperate and fallacious --yet deliberate-- attempt to prove your point, but let’s not dwell on such a negative).
Here’s the problem as I see it: in these 7 pages of endless equivocation and unsupported claims, I have yet to see concrete evidence that the Challenge consistently requires unreasonable levels of evidence.
Is it possible to have an answer to that problem?
Peter Morris: Suppose you woke up tomorrow with the ability to predict the outcome of rolling a 6-sided die about 3/4 of the time. Suppose you said to yourself “I intend to use this ability to win the JREF challenge”. What do you think would happen? Do you think Randi and his organization would, in the end, deny you the money that would be rightfully yours? How?
Princhester, to answer your questions :
- People take the tests, they must think they’re fair. "
No, taking a test does NOT mean that “they think it’s fair” only that tyhey think they have a chance of passing. It does not mean that they are convinced that they will pass.
Take a look at B.C.'s application.
She stated that she was not entirely that her power is real. She wasn’t certain that she could do it. Yet she still wanted to take the test.
So, when someone accepts the test, it might be with the thought : * This isn’t fair, it’s not what I usually do, I’m not sure it will work. * When people can’t get what they want, they may have to take the only thing on offer. That does not mean they think it’s fair.
I make no statement about what he thinks. I just say that the test seems unfair to me. He may agree, or he may not. In fact, if YOU wish to say “he thinks it’as fair” then YOU are presuming to read minds. YOU have no right to assume, any more than I do.
And in fact, he didn’t even accept the protocol anyway.
2) This is not to the point and you know it.
I answered the question you asked.
- Quotes, cites, Peter. Or shut up.
I refer you to his application
It’s Kramers own words. They did not involve the applicant in their discussions about the date of the test. They arranged it between themselves, and then demanded that he comply with them.
They did not book an appointment with him, so the claim that he broke an appointment is utterly false. Unless you want to admit that Randi also broke an appointment, which would be an equally valid (or equally invalid) claim.
- I’ve given evidence of your childish insults, and you have followed them with more examples.
This is what is known as a loaded question. You construct an unlikely scenario, then demand to know what would happen * if* that scenario took place.
You might as well ask “If pigs had wings, how high would they fly?” The question is so absurd that any answer would seem silly. Merely to ask this type of question is dishonest.
I’ll just make it a little more hionest, then I’ll answer it.
*Suppose you woke up tomorrow with the ability to predict the outcome of rolling a 6-sided die about 1/3 of the time. Do you think Randi and his organization would, in the end, deny you the money that would be rightfully yours? How?" *
Yes, they would. They would insist that 1 out of three is less than chance and therefore not paranormal. They would demand that I throw the dice 10 times, and get 8 out of 10 right.
I may think “I know I can’t get that high a success rate” and refuse the protocol. Randi will then crow that I’m a fraud, unwilling to have my abilities tested properly. Nope, I’m just unwilling to have it tested by an incompitent old fraud.
Or I may think * “Well, it’s going to be difficult, but if I have exceptionally high performance that day, AND make a couple of good guesses then I just might get lucky. I don’t like it but I’ll do it.”* And then Princhester will claim that I must think it’s fair. No, doing it under unfair conditions is better than not doing it at all.
If it is understood at the outset that your ability is success about 1/3 of the time, then an appropriate test can be constructed, but it may require more repetitions to verify it wasn’t luck.
I don’t understand this statement. Why do they have to be “convinced” they’ll pass? I can understand why they might be confident they’ll pass, but… what exactly are you expecting? A guarantee?
The impression I get is that the JREF wouldn’t go to the trouble of testing a vague claim. How would they know if it was successful or not?
It looks like he refused to comply with a major point; that of supplying his own receiver. JREF making this a requirement seems perfectly reasonable to me, and unless Carey is a friendless hermit, why couldn’t he comply?
You have no basis for that assumption. The phrase “based upon their communications with the applicant” suggests the date was agreed to by Carey.
How do you know this? There are numerous details missing from Kramer’s account, naturally, simply because he didn’t print every single letter from the three parties involved. It’s not clear to me why you’re filling in the blanks with assumptions unfavourable to the JREF.
Incidentally, the 25-point protocol suggested by the ISS sounded perfectly reasonable to me. Heck, Carey was given at least a week to make arrangements for himself and a receiver to just show up for a test to take place on a Saturday. The ISS had the more difficult task of arranging for observers and video equipment. Considering Carey’s earlier eagerness, I don’t understand why you think he was treated unfairly.
Well, I can guess, but I’ll hold back.
…followed, rather hypocritically, by…
You’re jumping to wild and insulting conclusions about Randi’s response. Would they insist that one in three is “less than chance”? I could buy that it was a mistake for Kramer to say something like that in response to the candle-flame proposal, but I doubt he’d say one-in-three was less than one-in-six. Further, are you sure they’d insist on something far beyond your stated ability?
In any case, I’d be curious what the actual reply to such a proposal would be. Could you ask the JREF, posing it as a hypothetical, and report the results? Is it fair or unfair for me to make such a request of you?
Offhand, I’d guess they’d simply consider a claim of one-in-three to be too difficult to confirm, but hearing it from them would be nice.
Peter Morris has made himself a bit of a gadfly over at JREF. Mostly with demands about dry holes and suchlike.
It is doubtful he would get a reply from anyone, as they seem to have dismissed him as someone without honest interest in scientific inquiry and debate.
Perhaps someone else might be better suited to ask.
This doesn’t make sense. You seem to be suggesting that because she wasn’t sure she could pass a test, she though it unfair. Which simply doesn’t follow.
You have no evidence that applicants who takes tests think them unfair. The fact they agree to tests suggests they think them fair. It is simply your unfounded assumption that they take tests despite thinking them unfair.
So you have no evidence of unfair tests. As we have all known for some time. This will of course not alter your opinion.
How do you know it was unfair when you don’ t know what Carey can and cannot do? That is the heart of the matter. What you said was:
You made a definite statement about what he could and could not do. After three pages of pressing you, you have come up with no foundation for your assumption that he could not do what the test involved. You simply apply your (as you admit) non-existent knowledge of what the applicant cannot do as the basis for an assumption that the test is unfair.
How, without any knowledge of what the applicant can do, can you say that the test is unfair?
I simply don’t make any assumptions, other than that Carey is sane and can speak for himself. I don’t know for myself that the protocol was fair, I just assume that unless he’s said it wasn’t, it probably is.
You assume that Carey is too much of an idiot to even point out what you (someone who admits they don’t even know what Carey can do) think is unfair about the protocol.
For someone who thinks Randi treats applicants unfairly, you sure do have a patronising attitude towards them.
For an unrelated reason as you well know.
Clearly you don’t even remember what this aspect of the debate was about. It didn’t even concern a question from me.
What you quote is at best ambiguous. Kramer says the date has been confirmed, and that a protocol has been devised which the applicant is yet to confirm. It’s a bit uncertain, but in no way can his statement be read as a definite indication that the applicant was not consulted on the date.
However, as is normal for you, any ambiguity shall always be resolved in favour of Randi being unreasonable.
I’m genuinely curious. Does it give you any pause at all in your whinging about my non-existent insults that you started slinging the mud at me (in posts 128 and 139), before I even entered this thread? Does hypocrisy give you the slightest cause for concern? Are you able to acknowledge, even to yourself, that you started with the insults before I even got here, or is that something you’ve just blanked out of your mind?
As explained on the Paul Carey 1 Million Dollar Challenge thread, in the Million Dollar Challenge forum on Mr. Randi’s site, Mr. Kramer is having some personal issues right now, and recognizes he has gone a bit over the top.
It’s “dishonest”? That’s a pretty harsh accusation there. Some might even call it a personal attack… I also don’t see how proposing a hypothetical paranormal ability is dishonest, in a thread about hypothetical paranormal abilities. Carry to explain?
So, first of all, despite the fact that you (as far as I know) claim not to believe in the paranormal, and claim to have no particularly knowledge of the paranormal, you somehow know that it’s “so absurd as to be dishonest” to hypothetically propose that someone could call a six-sided die roll 3/4 of the time, but it’s NOT as absurd to say that someone could call it 1/3 of the time? Where on earth did you get that idea, and how can you support it?
Also, you seem to have taken a single incident in which a single person who no one (even Randi supporters) has much respect for (this Kramer character) and blown it way out of proportion. So you think that the entire JREF foundation is filled with idiots/charlatans who don’t understand a thing about probability, and whatever claim you make, however miniscule the chances of it working, they’ll insist that it always be done 8 times out of 10? Is that their magic number? If you go in and say “think of a number between one and 1,000,000, and I’ll guess it about 50% of the time” they’ll say “unless you can do it 8 out of 10, we’re not interested”? I mean, if the JREF challenge was THAT incompetent and phony, it would have been discredited years ago.
A professional basketball player averages what percentage from the free throw line? What is the average ERA of professional pitchers in baseball, or the batting average of hitters? A particularly good typist makes, on average, how many errors? How many pieces does a grandmaster lose in chess when playing someone of average rank? There are a host of people that are well-nigh universally considered skilled by everyone but which exhibit plenty of problems with this kind of testing.
I don’t give a crap one way or another, and I generally consider nothing like the paranormal to exist like a “Crossing Over” kind of thing, but these tests sound fishy to me for absolutely anything that would qualify as “an exceptional skill or ability,” rather than “an immutable law of physics.” YMMV.
On the other hand, if you and I perform a test in which you hold up fingers, and I use my eyes to see how many fingers you’re holding up, I’ll have no trouble getting the precise number, every single time. If we lived in the land of blind people, who thought that this “sensing fingers from across the room” was paranormal, they might be impressed if we could get a 40% success rate, but we could easily get 100%. And, of course, as has been argued before, both sides agree to the terms of the test, and what is tested is only what is claimed. If you go in and say “I can predict a die roll 100% of the time”, they will test that. If you then fail that test, and say “wait, I can predict a die roll 80% of the time, but they refused to test that, those wankers”, whose fault is it?
Which is not to say that this Kramer fellow won’t screw things up due to ignorant incompetence (if he’s as bad as some people are saying), but at worst, that reflects on him, and somewhat on the judgment of the people who hired him, not on the fundamental soundness of the JREF challenge. Bear in mind also that until we convince a doper to volunteer for the JREF challenge undercover, and that person precisely records every communication they have with the JREF people, in both directions, we won’t really know for certain what the application process is like.
No, I am not. Stop inventing my opinions.
This example shows that people can want a test WITHOUT being certain they will pass.
Therefore a test CAN be unfair and people might still be willing to take it.
Evidence given, over and over. Denying it doesn’t make it go away.
The fact is, many people who have taken the tests have said they weren’t fair. See the dowser, Mike Guska for an example.
No, I pointed out that Randi’s protocol was badly flawed. That is not the same.
I never presumed to say what he can do.
And yet you refuse to understand that he refused the protocol on offer. He was not happy with the test, he tried to get it changed, and when Randi refused he wouldn’t go through with it.
What part of this don’t you understand?
Actually, I knew fine. You found yourself in a corner, tried to change the subject and got yourself into even worse trouble. I just answered the question you asked. The fact that it was a dumb question is your fault.
The facts clearly show that they consulted each other for a mutually agreeable date, but didn’t bother including him in the discussion. This is not ambiguous in the least.
Well, this is typical of your logic. You deny your insulting behaviour, and while doing so, you accuse me of “whingeing” and “hypocrisy.”
It would seem that hatred is so deeply rooted in your personality that you simply don’t realise you’re doing this sort of thing. You keep on coming out with this, then simply cannot understand that you’ve done it.
And you have been relatively polite in this thread. You have come out with some pretty vile stuff in the past.
Peter Morris: Please respond to my post #334. Thank you.
Because it’s a classical logical fallacy. It’s called a loaded question. Look it up.
[qwuote] So, first of all, despite the fact that you (as far as I know) claim not to believe in the paranormal,
[/quote]
true so far
wrong. I’ve read a lot about it.
As I pointed out in the thread, people claiming paranormal powers hardly ever claim to have such a great accuracy rating.
Claims of doing it occasionally, at about double the chance rate, are fairly common.
Claims of doing it 75% of the time hardly ever happen.
In the Rhine experiments the star performer claimed a success rate of 32% on a 1 in 5 chance. Many self-proclaimed psychics claim even lower scores.
I’ll say that Randi’s tests WOULD be fair if psychics actually claimed a 75% hit rate. But they don’t. Or at least not usually.
Not at all. Kramer is just Randi’s lackey. What he did was on Randi’s instructions. Randi is the one that should be blamed for the fiasco.
See Kramer’s own words :
**" The more I think about this, the more I feel convinced that this is simply not a paranormal claim. Randi agrees 100%.
…
IS THIS A PARANORMAL CLAIM?
Randi will not entertain any suggestion that a one-out-of-three demonstration constitutes a success. " **
Pretty much seems to be. I’ve read many of Randi’s accounts of his tests. The number 4 out of 5, or 8 out of 10 crops ujp time after time.
Sometimes he asks for 10 out of 10.
I have been trying to tell people for a long time that this is how Randi works. They refused to believe it.
Less than a minute. how’s that for fast service?