I thought PSI was the term we tossed the unexplained into until it was explained? That makes it an “is.” Like UFOs, they may not be aliens, they may not be airplanes. We don’t know what they are till we investigate, but we have to call them something… for convention, and understanding.
If Bryan were to say “I know “suggestion” can’t have any effect on UFOs,” it’s the same thing. How can he know?
Are you kidding? No spoon would be safe! They’d rebel with spoon riots and spoon sabotage and an underground spoon railway. The soup industry would collapse! Ice cream would only come on sticks, never in bowls, and “spooning” would go from being romantic to being sick and perverse!
Anyway, I’ll concede pre-1801 meteors being paranormal, if it’ll help spare us any more microanalysis on this painfully moot subject.
I’ll point out that repeatedly calling me stupid (well, that would be against GD rules; rather you’ve repeatedly said I look stupid, which I suppose is acceptable) doesn’t, either. And actually, it’s not really a victory I revel in, because arguing that science is better than pseudoscience isn’t exact an Everest-level challenge.
The burden of proof has always been on you, because you’re making the extraordinary claim that PSI powers exist. All I’ve done is point out the inconsistencies within the claims made by Geller and by you on Geller’s behalf.
Well, if that was true, I’d be using a false assumption (doubt doesn’t affect PSI)about a false assumption (PSI exists). What I’ve actually done is pointed that IF PSI exists in the form that Geller claims to have, the only evidence that observer doubt affects it is Geller’s claim that it does. The mechanism of the doubt-interference is unclear (as is the PSI itself) and you’ve used an irrelevant argument about the power of suggestion. Consider a professional basketball player at an away game (you’ve used athletic analogies before, though claimed they are irrelevant when it suits you, but I’ll give it a shot anyway). He is fouled, and thus gets to take a free throw. Now, he is surrounded by 50,000 local fans screaming at him. They all want him to fail. They all hope he fails. If negative PSI energy exists, it surely exists in this situation (or if it doesn’t, please explain why not). Even with all this, visiting NBA players can and do make free throws, far more often than failing.
Is it your claim that the presence of a doubter will disrupt a PSI demonstration? What if the doubter is sitting quietly and not screaming, as an NBA fan might be? Does it matter if the doubter doesn’t identify himself as a doubter until after the demonstration? If a PSI demonstration fails in the presence of a doubter, there is always a huge possibility (and given the evidence of history, I’d call it a high probability) that the PSI claim is fake and the doubter either spotted the sleight-of-hand (in a telekinesis demo) or would not cooperate with a cold-reading by giving the psychic visual clues to which guesses were correct (in a telepathy demo).
I’ve said this before: I’d love to see existence of telekinesis. I’m hoping someone in this world has reliable telekinesis. The existence of telekinesis would be cool. But I’m not interested in being lied to by a fraud. As a result, if someone wants me to believe they’re a telekinetic, they first have to prove they are not a fraud (and be honest; there have been a lot of frauds throughout history, but not a whole lot of proven telekinetics). If a claimed telekinetic says “Look! I can bend spoons with my mind!”, the reasoned response is something along the lines of: “Spoon bending can be faked by any competent magician; let’s see you bend a crowbar made of the same type of metal as the spoons.” If the psychic then claims my doubt is making a crowbar demonstration (or even further spoon demonstrations) impossible and he can’t or won’t explain how, then the reasoned response is that the psychic is a fake. Why would a person’s abilities vanish if someone expresses doubt? You’ve accused me of trying to put limitations on PSI. This is ridiculous, as long as you maintain (completely without evidence, mind you) that observer doubt can put a limitation on PSI.
Well, I’ve just given you a second line of reasoning. If you will answer specific points I have made (and it has to be a legitimate effort, not just vague claims of “You’re wrong about this! And this! And this!”), I’ll cheerfully withdraw the charge of bad faith. If you just restate your ad hominems, I’ll just restate the charge, with your post as further evidence. If you don’t respond at all, I’ll say nothing further on the subject of your bad faith and simply let my earlier claim stand or fall on its own meritis.
Where? maybe in an old post in IMHO, or in an old post in GD before I understood the rules, but not here. I have made no such extraordinary claim. My only claim has been that investigating reports of PSI-type activities is a valid path.
You can’t worm out of it with another attempt to shift the burden of proof and a long irrelevent post you use to perhaps “show your fans how smart you are.”
Or maybe it’s just more distraction, smoke and mirrors, cause it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about here.
The “power of suggestion” is well established as a psychological phenomenon. It’s even used by your hero, “The Amazing Randi” to show how easy it is to fool people.
You’re on the spot, Bryan, you’re losing ground quickly. If you don’t answer the question, I submit, at this point, it brings your integrity into question.
Which does not mean mangling the history of the development of science. You are trying to force square pegs into round holes.
Fortunately, in science it is possible to provide slightly more in-depth examination than the one you imply. Even in centuries past there were rudimentary tests one could carry out if one wished, such as matter analysis. Which is precisely how the Krasnojarsk meteorite of 1749 was suggested to have originated far from the Earth – by examination of its rock and iron composition.
Real evidence existed for a real phenomenon independently of what people thought. That’s why we have science. To attempt to remove the subjectivity from it all.
At the time, many people didn’t think that stones in the sky were a possibility, but combined with the very real evidence the meteorite claim successfully brought about a relatively small paradigm shift, and stones from the sky became a common accepted concept that squares perfectly with everything we then went on to learn about geology and astronomy.
Arguing that the case of historical meteorite studies is identical to paranormal claims today is another variation of “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet I, v). It is an appeal to ignorance and attempts to avoid the fact that reliable evidence is very simply lacking.
Ignorance is never sufficient reason for acceptance of a claim.
That was not the totality of the evidence presented. If it were left up entirely to eyewitnesses, it would have taken much longer to demonstrate that meteorites actually do occur, fortunately we had the best evidence possible: the sky rocks themselves, analysis of which confirmed the various anecdotes that they “fell from the sky”.
The problem with the paranormal is there is currently no confirmation for the anecdotes provided. All there is is the anecdotes and sloppy or inconclusive science.
You can’t attempt independent replications of ALL phenomena, because it is beyond our means to do so in certain cases. As you say, you can’t make rocks fall from the sky; even if you could I wonder what that would achieve, since you would presumably have to provide the rock itself to begin with. Geology and stellar evolution, for example, are a little beyond our experimental control, and we therefore do not apply the criterion of independent replication as such to test their hypotheses – but other methods exist.
In the case of paranormal claims, however, we are dealing with effects that proponents claim are testable and most often voluntary. Therefore the criterion of independent replication is not only extremely useful, but also strictly mandated.
Yes, inasmuch as some of the Church’s early claims on meteorites are involved, this is a supernatural claim essentially no difference from the waffling of pseudoscientists on topics such as mysterious powers and hidden energies. By good fortune scientists of better calibre existed even back in the 1700s and 1800s, whose work was of rather better quality than the usual unsupported hand-wave of divine attribution.
Mystical attribution is not part of the scientific method.
You are missing the point entirely. Who indeed cares whether someone has the uncanny ability to bend spoons? Nobody. I can do that easily enough, it’s certainly not going to change the world. But we do care about how this particular person can bend spoons, because the method claimed is entirely foreign to and incompatible with existing scientific models. Meteorites changed our understanding NOT of science, but of a specific branch of inquiry (in addition to large objects like planets and moons there are also smaller objects outside the Earth’s atmosphere). Geller’s spoon bending, if genuine, would change considerably more than that, it would be a complete revolution in the generation and application of force by a human body, it would seriously question a host of laws (including the conservation of energy and Newton’s third). We’re not talking about discovering a new exotic particle here, but a paradigm shift of vast chunks of scientific knowledge. Not to mention industry and economy.
And can you imagine the applications Geller’s ability would have in our increasingly obese world? Forget cardio, sit-ups, and barbells! To lift a 10 Kg mass such as a dumbbell, you have to exert enough force to overcome a weight of 98 newtons – that’s for pussies! Now you can burn all the calories you need by exerting a massive 6,000 newtons in one go!
Geller makes extraordinary claims that lack extraordinary proof. That’s why they are paranormal and pseudoscientific.
At any rate meteorites were emphatically not paranormal. When cosmic background radiation was accidentally discovered in 1965 by Penzias and Wilson tinkering with their new antenna, it wasn’t paranormal, it was simply an unexplained phenomenon to explain. The unknown is not paranormal.
In 1796, the british scientist Edward Jenner was told by a milkmaid that people who contracted cowpox (a harmless disease caught from cows), never seemed to get smallpox (a deadly disease). So he injected a boy with pus from a cowpox’s sufferer sores, waited a few months while the boy developed cowpox, and then injected him with the deadly smallpox. The boy didn’t get smallpox, and the vaccine was invented on the basis of successfully testing anecdotal claims (even though, of course, Jenner was utterly reckless and irresponsible to experiment on a boy).
In 1895 Röntgen was studying cathode rays and noticed that some light seemed to pass easily through a light barrier and was projected on a wall over a metre away, most curious behaviour given the understanding of the time. They were X-rays, whose properties were decidedly unusual at the time. Paranormal? Of course not, neither did Röntgen think so.
Early discoveries of dinosaur fossils prompted the Greeks and Romans to make up stories about giants, ogres, and griffins, while the Chinese thought they were the bones of dragons. Finally, in 1824, William Buckland named the first genus of the first dinosaur to be examined scientifically (Megalosaurus). Two decades later the anatomist sir Richard Owen officially recognized these remains as being from an extinct suborder of reptiles that he named “dinosauria”. And the march of knowledge continued until today we have photorealistic representations of animals that died out several millions of years ago.
If you wish to liken them to the current state of the paranormal --that is hammer square pegs in circular holes-- you can do so for all the above examples and thousands of other unexpected discoveries. It won’t, however, prove anything other than a sloppy argument.
Here’s a shot at recapping the situation:
Note on item 2: Because an actor’s state of mind (which can be influenced by many variables including the known doubt of an observer) has been shown to affect performance in almost every aspect of our lives, it would be reasonable to assume that spoon bending should be included.
As an additional propsed statement on item 2: it has also been shown that remarkable feats can be accomplished despite major distractions, including life-threatening ones, and it would be reasonable to assume that a psychic exists who finds it easy to bend spoons under ideal conditions (and thus, for him, the bending is not in the least “remarkable”) and could also do so under the mildly trying condition of having a doubter in the room carefully checking for signs of trickery.
I take it then we are in agreement with the various other points I have brought up since my entry in this thread. I can tell you do appreciate the sceptical method, I just don’t think you are applying it quite correctly, for example in your attitudes to provisional agreement based on available knowledge.
But on this particular point, let me point out that you were apparently arguing in defence of paranormal non-falsifiable nonsense with your whole blow-up on the subject of doubt and bad vibes.
As far as I can tell we were not talking about the levels of personal confidence required to provide a good athletic or mental performance, which are the examples you cited in your response to Bryan. These are internal, subjective characteristics. We were referring to the unsubstantiated claims about “bad vibes” and the like that frauds like Geller attribute to sceptics like Randi, and that they blame for the failure of their unsubstantiated powers.
It’s a nonsensical argument, and I demonstrated how Geller had no problem performing in front of Randi when he didn’t know Randi was present. The “bad vibes” argument is nothing more than a cheap, intellectually bankrupt attempt to explain away the failures of frauds (or their inability to fool other experts at trickery).
For the rest, I would suggest ceasing the present pissing competition. Bryan’s arguments represent accepted scientific and sceptic philosophy as far as I can see, and your points are likewise – with a few important exceptions – also in the right direction. But you seem to have a willingness to give paranormalists the benefit of the doubt at all costs, which is why I mention that it is not exactly the position of an informed sceptic who is aware of existing scientific models and knowledge, and who must remain at top alert against trickery.
Basically you have come across as actively wanting paranormal claims to be demonstrated and arguing fiercely that they can be (something I particularly thought when you decried my criticism of magic/mysticism) which is perhaps the root cause of the current friction and misunderstanding.
By gum, you haven’t make a direct claim to believe in ESP. You’ve just implied it strongly here and there. My favourite example:
Emphasis added. I like the idea that mental telepathy is first on the list of alternative explanations. If nothing else, it implies a belief in the existence of mental telepathy.
Now that, I’m afraid, requires a call of “bullshit!” because if it were true, you’d be agreeing with me instead of throwing ad hominems. I’ve made several proposals on how PSI could be tested (i.e. how to distinguish it from trickery) as well as pointed out that trickery must always be suspected because it’s known to be common among claimed psychics.
How exactly were you suggesting this “valid path” be followed, if not by the above means?
And, of course, this doesn’t even address the other claims you’ve made in this thread about skeptics generally or me personally.
I have fans? Wow, I thought at best I was mildly liked or at least not widely disliked. Thanks. I’ll take this as a compliment, just to balance the insults a little.
Yes, it is, and so I’ve stated. The connection between suggestion and PSI power is not established, however, and it can’t be established until PSI is established.
If it’s the same question about doubters shouldn’t be able to affect psychics, it’s been adequately answered and my integrity is intact (or at least not made un-intact by anything I’ve said or not said in this thread).
In conclusion, I stand by my “bad faith” assessment. You have not addressed a single point in either of my earlier statements on the “observer doubt” question; merely dismissed them in total.
“Who’s right-him or me? Provide cites!” Not in my forum, bucky. You can keep your fight here in Great Debates.
Abe, I don’t see any disagreement between you and I. At all.
AFAIK, Nonsense! If “suggestion” affects mental processes, why shouldn’t it affect them all???
Why should PSI performance be different?
>As far as I can tell we were not talking about the levels of personal confidence required to provide a good athletic or mental performance, which are the examples you cited in your response to Bryan. These are internal, subjective characteristics. We were referring to the unsubstantiated claims about “bad vibes” and the like that frauds like Geller attribute to sceptics like Randi, and that they blame for the failure of their unsubstantiated powers.
No, I’m talking about the documented, proven affect that expectation has on results!
Randi is a no -issue. He hasn’t proven to be tue.
>For the rest, I would suggest ceasing the present pissing competition. Bryan’s arguments represent accepted scientific and sceptic philosophy as far as I can see, and your points are likewise – with a few important exceptions – also in the right direction. But you seem to have a willingness to give paranormalists the benefit of the doubt at all costs, which is why I mention that it is not exactly the position of an informed sceptic who is aware of existing scientific models and knowledge, and who must remain at top alert against trickery.
It’s called “suspending judgement.”
>Basically you have come across as actively wanting paranormal claims to be demonstrated and arguing fiercely that they can be (something I particularly thought when you decried my criticism of magic/mysticism) which is perhaps the root cause of the current friction and misunderstanding.
[/QUOTE]
OK, they CAN be, if they are real.
Whether they will or not will be independent of our opinion.
It’s dependent upon results.
SnakeS
How surprising.
A moderator who is actively involved in a debate denies the appropriate forum for the debate, and insists it be kept in an inappropriate forum.
Polls are no longer permitted in IMHO?
[QUOTE]
In My Humble Opinion
“What’s your favorite …?” For frank exchanges of views on less-than-cosmic topics. **This is also the place for polling.[/**QUOTE]
So, then, where do we take our polls?
Poland.
Incidentally, I never wanted or requested a poll asking the questions you put in your IMHO thread. As far as I’m concerned, I come out on top for all of those. I solely wanted to examine your oft-repeated claim that my posts in this thread have made me look stupid (to the readers, I presume). I’ve noticed that you rather casually speak on behalf of others, using “we” a lot and, in this case, trying to claim that your opinion about me is a commonly-held one. I am essentially requesting justification for an ad hominem attack, and you never answered my question that if it became clear that the readers of this thread didn’t feel that I sounded stupid , would you withdraw the statement?
Though I’d be equally satisfied if you dropped the personal attacks altogether and if you choose to respond to me at all, you do so on my specific points.
You first. You never responded adequately to my first point. That you can’t assume “suggestion” would not affect PSI.
Why do you assume that?
Well, I could write another 500 words in reply, but would it matter? There’s no indication you’re even reading these posts, let alone giving them serious consideration.
OH? Who’s not reading these posts? Who’s not giving them serious consideration?
Looks like you’re trying to escape the question again! I consider that proof (after five challenges unmet) that MY point is proven!
You got proof otherwise ???
I didn’t think so.
The same guy that won’t respond to the specifics of them but instead dismisses them wholesale with a shrug and a sneer, I guess.
Well, congratulations. You’ve managed to satisfy yourself.
Bryan I think you’re being paged. here
You said that as far as we know magicians can do things that psi cannot do. Two possibilities follow from that statement–
—There are some things that psi *can *do.
or
—The statement is essentially meaningless, along the lines of “As far as we know, there are no Grizzly bears actively involved in researching cost efficient methods of hydrogen production.”
To state that psi cannot do some things strongly implies 1) that psi exists, and 2) that it can do some things. I will ask you flat out. Do you believe that psi exists? if so,do you believe that it can do things? If so, what are those things?