And again, instead of addressing my specific points, you make some broad generalization about skeptics. I’m not sure what you think you’re accomplishing with these repeated statements on what you believe skeptics do. It’s certainly not proving your case.
The stumbling block with that account is that Geller is admittedly blowing his own trumpet, and his account might not be accurate. I’d like to see the original article Geller is referencing. I’d love to see video footage of the event itself. Does video footage exist of Geller doing something equally impressive?
Well, what’s stopping Geller from giving such a demonstration? And are you making any kind of guess (even a wildly speculative one) as to how Geller would accomplish this feat, and why, if he can do such things, would he ever have to resort to stage magic?
There are some good theories about gravity, though, which is something lacking in Geller’s case. My stance has always been that an explanation exists, and it is more likely to be an explanation involving trickery than telekinesis. Being a comic-book reader, as stated, I can imagine Geller is a mutant with the superhuman ability to reshape metal. I’d have to ask, though, why he seems to prefer trivial stunts like bending spoons and keys (which anybody with strong hands, psychic or not, can easily do) instead of something really cool, like taking a large block of cold steel and sculpting it into a recognizable statue with his bare hands (if metal becomes soft at his touch, this should be as easy for him as working wet clay), or bending an I-beam into a large circle. So long as he limits himself to actions any competent stage magician could fake (I’ll await an independent account of the spanner-bending incident), he’ll always be suspect.
So, cat, you are saying that with a little skill and practice you can get my ring to bend in my hand without touching it? After all, I’m just an Anthropologist, and should be easier to fool than a rocket scientist.
Bull. If something happens, it happens. Occam’s razor is not a magic tool that makes things go away just cause you can’t explain them other than through your narrow world-view.
Oh, BTW, the moon landings were said by some skeptics to be fakeries, also. Are you in their camp as well?
Heck, I’m willing to bet that if Cat was willing to go through the training and practice to develop the skills and the patter, he could bend someone’s ring and yet convince them that he’d never actually touched it.
You don’t seem eager to believe that Musicat has such powers, so you’d likely spot the trickery if he tried it on you. In Geller’s case, though, there are numerous people who are eager to believe he has such power, so I’m sure they’re quite easy to fool.
Geller claims it’s easy. Heck, if he can bend a chrome-vanadium spanner (as he claims), why can’t he mold steel? If the metal is soft enough in his touch to bend, why can’t he casually poke a finger-hole in a lump of steel? Why doesn’t he do something a little more impressive and harder to fake than bending spoons?
And I can only grasp what you offer me, so straws it is.
You’re exactly right that Occam’s Razor is not a magic tool and exactly wrong that my world-view is narrow. Occam simply states that if several explanations are possible, the best choice is the simplest one. Hence, the best explanation for Geller’s feats is that he is using trickery. Strict testing could eliminate trickery as a possible explanation, but as far as I know Geller has never displayed his abilities while being subjected to such testing.
Besides, “if something happens, it happens” is a weak standard. More accurately, if something happens and someone claims it is because of explanation X, it’s possible that in fact it’s due to explanation Y. A spoon gets bent. Was it trickery or telekinesis? Without careful observation, who knows?
This qustion is sufficiently stupid to not require a response.
That’s what the witnesses say. My “apparently” was in there because I’m getting the information 2nd-hand. “It appears that…” etc. Sorry for the confusion.
Sure it does. He does it without stage magic, ergo he has psi powers. It’s pretty simple.
Sure you see evidence: the evidence that I’m quoting to you in this thread. You may not accept it, but it’s there.
No, I’m not assuming, I’m taking credence in the accounts. Not 100% stake-my-life-on-it credence, but just I’ll believe what these people said until someone prooves that the accounts are fake or that cheating occurred.
And you assume a priori that it must be suggestion, fakery–anything but what the actual witnesses say it was.
Be careful what you wish for. The spanner episode quoted in this thread seems to be just this type of event.
Man, your logic is mixed up. Geller is providing evidence for his claims in the form of demonstrations. It is your contention that what the witnesses saw can be explained by tickery and sleight of hand. That is a separate claim that itself requires proof.
If you don;'t know the principles by which it operates, how can you claim it’s easy?
An atcetylene torch can make a chrome vanadium spanner soft enough to bend, but can’t poke a finger hole in a block of steel. You’re a phoney, using phoney assumptions. You don’t know what you are talking about and you’re not debating in good faith.
But you’re saying it’s the ONLY one. There’s a difference.
Interesting. I make one generalization (in an appropriate fashion), and you seem to think I am ignoring all of your specific claims? I repeat: I think skeptics often invoke Occam’s Razor in an incorrect fashion. If this does not apply to you, please ignore.
Yeah, there exists lots of footage from his lab experiments. I could not find the financial times article on line.
Geller probably isn’t capable of giving such a demonstration. I don’t know if Geller ever uses stage magic or not. I’m saying simply that what he has done over the years is enough to prove that he has psi powers and that therefore psi is real.
Regardless, a lack of an explanation for a phenomena does not mean that the phenomena itself does not exist.
This is based on your view of how Reality itself works, not on a careful examination of the evidence itself. You are arguing a priori.
Be careful of what you wish for. Did you read the spanner episode I quoted? Superhuman strength was required to bend the wrench.
The irony is that, if in another thread I claimed it were possible to bend a ring supplied by the owner in the owner’s hand without touching simply by means of stage magic and no psi whatsoever, the same skeptics (or different skeptics) would jeer me for making the claim, even though they are willing to concede that such a trick is possible in this thread.
This is quite a common and sophisticated way of attacking the opposing side, and I call it the “layered approach.” For example, if a medium seems to be doing well, Skeptic A will say it’s just telepathy at best, which would seem to halfway concede that at least psi is real, while Skeptic B at other times will deny any evidence exists for telepathy. Since it’s a different person each time, voila, no contradiction.
This is done in politics, too. The Swift Boat Vets impugn Kerry’s war record outright lies, while those closer to Bush mildly praise Kerry for his “service.” Different attackers, no contradiction, and mission accomplished.
This is only like detecting that certain chips were active in a desktop computer. What program or information that activity represents, according to the current neuropsychological paradigm, cannot be transmitted.
No, human brains are not pigeon brains: they are not sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Ockham’s razor tells us not to multiply entities unnecessarily. If you believe that it says “always choose the simplest explanation”, you have fallen for a widespread fallacy (Bryan, take note also).
Light is not a force, but its intensity most certainly does diminish very rapidly with distance: like gravity and countless other phenomenon, it obeys an inverse square law. ESP would have to run directly counter to all of these instances.
Susan Blackmore is one of Britain’s leading authorities on the study of consciousness, and her entire career’s worth of experiments seeking any parapsychological and paranormal phenomena are a model of rigour and soundness. Dismissing her based on what she does to her hair is grandstanding of the kind you have found so distasteful to date.
I would suggest “making genuine attempts to actually find any candidate ability or phenomenon at all, after centuries of looking, without wasting our oh-so-short lives chasing statistical shadows.”
If these things, any of them, exist, why are they so ridiculously hard to find that they do a perfectly good impression of not being there at all? If you now understand the principle of Ockham’s Razor, you might use it to answer this question.
Wrong again, it’s effect diminishes, but not its force.
And what ESP are you proposing? What do you know about it, what instances are you referring to? How would it work? What principles are involved?
When in Rome… whoop-te-doo! Aeschines and I have been called worse things than I said about her. All I said was if she’s your model of sane science, you better get another model!
I’m not wasting your time, you are. You don’t like the program? Change the channel.
I haven’t found them ridiculously hard to find, none are so blind as those who ***will not ** * see!
Snake, I no longer believe that you are debating in good faith. That may be understandable given that you and Aeschines are rather being ganged up on here, but I must ask myself whether it is really worth engaging somebody who will not even accept that light is not a force.
Dear me. Willing to believe anything that doesn’t specifically conflict with the ol’ worldview, eh Bryan? I’d love to see the ring trick performed.
I repeat: if something looks like stage magic to people, they will label it as such whether it’s done by “paranormal” means or not. If he really is just doing plain ol’ been-around-since 1255 stage magic, then I’m curious to know why his career has gone so well for so long. Either he has powers or he’s pulling some tricks that are truly amazing. You pretty much have to pick one or the other.
Cite?
He did. He bent a spanner, which feat was later proven to require super-human strength.
Cite for where I called you “narrow-minded”? You want to know the truth? Unlike skeptics, who seem to think that “believers” are worthy of contempt, I do not think self-labeling skeptics are worthy of contempt. In fact, they are usually quite intelligent, well-read people who think for themselves and don’t take a lot of BS. I also think that people who self-label as skeptics are required to hold a fairly comprehensive set of views, i.e. worldview, due to social pressure, and this leads to a dogmatic approach when it comes to what they consider “paranormal.” I was an atheist myself at one point and understand where you’re coming from. In fact, I am apt to give, in my mind, self-labeling skeptics an extra pat of admiration butter as a default. So if you think I think you’re something negative, incorrect! If you think I think you’re off the mark on this topic… correct!
Except when trickery is a poor explanation, at which point you have to go to a more advanced explanation.
That’s a matter of opinion.
What I mean by the phrase “If something happens, it happens,” is that you have to deal with it if it’s there, even if it doesn’t fit your worldview. If Geller has done just one thing that we cannot deny happened, then our scientific worldview must take it into consideration. It’s not as though you can say, “You must do that in a lab 100 times with James Z. Randi standing by and the cameras rolling before we accept that it really happened.” If it happened and it’s documented with sufficient rigor, then it happened.
Drawing that line is not easy. If you go too far, you get the Moon Hoax people. They view themselves as skeptics, rational doubters, but they have a strange worldview in which witnesses, video tape, and a bunch of physical evidence mean nothing. I’m sure we can agree that these people are seriously mixed. But if you would like to know the kind of frustration I feel toward skeptics on the topic of the “paranormal,” consider your own frustration as regards the Moon Hoaxers. No matter what evidence is presented: lab experiments, credible witnesses, etc., it’s deny–deny–deny.
