Fine by me.
Don’t give any clues!
What % success does pramanujan say he can achieve?
What is a ‘good score’?
Let’s see if I understand this image test. Pramanujan says:[ul][li]The rods respond one way for a live person, another for a dead one.[]Except for the times it is reversed.[]And the TV screen interferes with the analysis.[/ul][/li]I don’t see how he can lose. Even if he is wrong, he is right, because maybe the rods worked backwards that time, or the TV interefered. Not just one, but multiple outs.
This test is stupid, and won’t give any valid conclusion.
If you can find one people who is able to dowse, and he hasn’t yet won the Million Dollar Challenge, which only takes a few hours and very little equipment, what does that say about the claim?
It makes no sense to talk about how something works until you know that it does. Prove that first, then we’ll talk.
Cool! I’ve sent the answers to the email address from your profile.
Let’s ask him.
pramanujan, how many of the 50 do you think will be correctly identified?
No real argument from me.
But presumably doing his test using the printed pictures (which he has said he will do) will eliminate any possible interference from the monitor.
At any rate, I’m not interested in how the rods actually move, only in Pramanujan’s interpretation and final verdict for each picture. He will say which of the pictures he thinks show people who are dead and which ones show people who are alive. I don’t care how he gets that answer, if he get’s them correct, that will certainly be cause for additional investigation no matter what method he employs.
If he doesn’t get them correct, well then we’ll be back where we started, having learned nothing. But what the hell, I didn’t have anything better to do for a couple of hours anyway. 
Shhh…don’t tell Pramanujan about Google image search.
It has been suggested, and I think it’s a good idea, that if a few other people looked at the pictures and made guesses, that would give us a baseline to judge against as to whether any particular level of success is out of the ordinary.
Any other takers want to look at 50 pictures and guess alive or dead?
Here are my picks, inside a spoiler tag for no apparent reason:
f01 - Alive
f02 - Alive
f03 - Dead
f04 - Dead
f05 - Alive
f06 - Dead
f07 - Alive
f08 - Alive
f09 - Alive
f10 - Dead
f11 - Alive
f12 - Alive
f13 - Dead
f14 - Dead
f15 - Alive
f16 - Alive
f17 - Alive
f18 - Alive
f19 - Dead
f20 - Dead
f21 - Alive
f22 - Alive
f23 - Dead
f24 - Alive
f25 - Dead
f26 - Alive
f27 - Alive
f28 - Alive
f29 - Dead
f30 - Dead
f31 - Alive
f32 - Alive
f33 - Alive
f34 - Dead
f35 - Alive
f36 - Alive
f37 - Dead
f38 - Dead
f39 - Dead
f40 - Dead
f41 - Alive
f42 - Alive
f43 - Alive
f44 - Alive
f45 - Alive
f46 - Alive
f47 - Dead
f48 - Alive
f49 - Alive
f50 - Dead
Thanks for helping out.
Obviously I won’t post the answers until all the replies are in.
Let me clarify:
Since the pictures were went by email, I just opened the mail and saw them. One by one I tested them with the dowsing rod, anticipating any interference from the computer. This was the first time I tried it on the computer monitor. But let me assure you. The test was full success. The TV screen did not interfere with the results.
Normally, when you hold the pictures, of dead persons, facing south direction, the rods swing outwardly. This has happened with the monitor too. I now understand that the medium on which the image is does not have any effect on the result. To be more sure, I will come back today with the results after getting the prints.
It is my experience that a blank monitor or for that matter most of the electronic and electrical equipments radiates negative energy (i.e. the rods move inwardly). But when an image of a person is seen on the screen, the rods react differently.
Please be patient. I shall let you know the results soon.
Pssst, jeanjaz, you’ve just posted this on a board where the regulars all consider themselves to be skeptics.
Now I get it - you don’t know what a skeptic is. A skeptic is a person who withholds belief until sufficient evidence is found, but a skeptic always has an open mind, so if new evidence comes out the skeptic can change his mind. The skeptical position is the most open-minded way to live, because nothing is given preferential status - everything you believe has to have a reason to believe it. It also entails learning the common mistakes people make, and the way they end up fooling themselves.
It’s something to be proud of.
How many do you expect to get right?
How reliable is your power?
Count me in.
But explain the deal. You will be sending me 50 photos of dead and alive people, and I am to determine which is which?
I’m not at all sure how that is supposed to be done.
The 50 photos were all taken when the people were alive, some have died since. You mission, should you decide to accept it, is to determine which are still alive and which have died.
pramanujan says he can do this by using dowsing rods over the pictures.
We’re trying to get an idea of how many can be correctly determined or guessed correctly by someone not claiming to use paranormal means. This means you’re going to be pretty much guessing.
If you want to try, I’ll send you a copy of the 50 photos.
Not sure if this predates the challenge, but wasn’t there a guy who claimed he could identify records just by looking at them who Randi challenged and whose ability was legit? He was challenged by Randi, delivered, but because he never claimed it was paranormal wasn’t able to claim the prize?
This is incorrect. Read about it here:
In short, Time magazine heard of the guy (Arthur Lintgen) and wanted to find out whether he was legit, and they called in Randi because of his experience with testing unusual claims. Randi didn’t challenge him (except in the sense of testing him when asked by Time to do so) and it wasn’t done as part of “the Challenge” for the prize. As far as I know, no one involved said anything about “paranormal”.
Whether Randi would prior to the test have accepted Lintgen’s claimed ability for the prize if the issue had been raised is a moot point: as far as I know Randi has never commented. I tend to assume not, since he usually only seems to accept abiilties for challenge that are either claimed to be paranormal by the claimant, or which are so manifestly outside reality that (regardless of the claimant’s view) they would be paranormal abilities if they were real.
In other words, in the latter instance it is not necessary that the claimant says that their ability is paranormal, it is sufficient for Randi to decide that he will challenge someone, regardless. He has accepted any number of dowsers for the challenge and my understanding is that many say they have no paranormal ability. He has challenged absurd claims by hifi buffs despite the fact that they would usually say that their claims are based on technology and science.
Just posting to subscribe. Want to see results of the test.
I’d like to try.
Like this, silly. Hold your dowsing rod(s) up to the computer screen.
See?
For all people taking the baseline test, this information is available to the test subject as well. You may/should use it in your guesses.