Psience Quest

(2017-09-06, 08:37 AM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]Yes I post negative things about psychics because I am a skeptic and biased atheist as I have been called! The negative evidence in psychic research seems to be ignored here... nobody wants to comment about it. I guess I am not afraid to bring it up.

As for Randi, all magicians are liars, you should know that.

I will try and find the sources debunking the SRI tests.

"As for Randi, all magicians are liars, you should know that."

That's your defence? I guess that must apply to Richard Wiseman too - another stage magician turned professional sceptic. As is your other hero, Joe Nickell. All liars then.

(2017-09-06, 07:02 AM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]Do you accept Geller's spoon or key bending was done by fraudulent methods? Randi replicated them all.

Also see 6:50 in the above video. When Geller could not touch or use his own objects in an experiment for the Tonight Show he could not move the objects and the whole thing was a failure. What do you think about that? You see it is easy to mention negatives!

Your evidence against Randi seems to be that he lied about something and he made a lot of money? Is that why you hate Randi?  How do you comment about the good things he has done?

I actually like Randi, which I know is rare for someone who is a moderate proponent. That said, I hardly think he debunked Geller in this video. His explanation for how he reads people's minds with the drawings is a mirror in his hand while his back is turned? Needless to say, that bit of "debunking" leaves more than a bit to be desired. How does the mirror allow him to see what the person is drawing when they have their pad held up and facing them? (as I imagine every sensible person would do in such a situation). And how does this help with debunking the SRI tests? 

Randi's key bending example was also pretty meh. It was obvious that he took the key out of sight and into his lap for multiple seconds. Unless you are some kind of rube, that doesn't explain how Geller did the key bending. The idea that you would allow someone to take the key into their lap for two seconds while you were sitting there watching them and not say, "hey, why did you just put the key under the table?" is pretty unlikely. I don't doubt that you could fool children and maybe some really gullible adults with that kind of stunt, but it wouldn't work with anyone who was invested in trying to make sure Geller didn't take the key out of their sight. 

Anyway, I do think it's very possible that Geller faked it all, but I don't think Randi knows how Geller did it, so Randi's smug assertions that it's all so simple to explain come off as quite hollow to me. And that's kind of the issue I have with armchair debunking in general. Don't just claim that it's easy to explain. It isn't. Randi didn't explain it. No one really has. That doesn't make it psi in any way, but let's not pretend that Randi can just replicate what Geller did because it's all just simple tricks. Randi doesn't know how Geller did it, bottom line, and he cannot replicate what Geller did. That doesn't mean it's psi when Geller does it, of course, but it does mean that it's not fair to say that Randi has debunked him.

Maybe I missed this but why did Geller cheat at all? Did he offer an explanation or did some other proxy do so?

For someone who is admittedly unwilling to dig into the details except when REALLY motivated, this cheating thing is a major red flag. While I won't dare make any absolute comments about the veracity of all things related to Geller, it certainly doesn't make me motivated to dig deeper.

(2017-09-06, 03:42 PM)Silence Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe I missed this but why did Geller cheat at all?  Did he offer an explanation or did some other proxy do so?

For someone who is admittedly unwilling to dig into the details except when REALLY motivated, this cheating thing is a major red flag.  While I won't dare make any absolute comments about the veracity of all things related to Geller, it certainly doesn't make me motivated to dig deeper.

I think it's entirely fair and natural to treat cheating as a "major red flag". And if a parapsychologist had a policy of not experimenting on anyone who was known to have cheated - or indeed not experimenting on any "professional psychic" - that would be a reasonable attitude.

On the other hand, if someone is making money out of their supposed psychic abilities, then they do have an obvious incentive to cheat if those abilities don't manifest themselves. The old scenario of a medium supplementing genuine powers with trickery when needed doesn't seem implausible - provided genuine powers aren't implausible in themselves.

To my mind, the question is whether the psychic abilities have ever been demonstrated under conditions where trickery can be ruled out. Obviously the researchers at SRI took precautions to rule out trickery by Geller or an accomplice, but were the precautions adequate? I hope I'll have a chance tomorrow to copy what Marks and Kammann said about it, and if so I'll post it here.

I meant to add (and I haven't read the whole of the thread) that judging by Wikipedia the evidence that Geller cheated seems rather limited - a suspicious-looking bit of fiddling about with his fingers and thumbs before an experiment with a compass, and a video that appeared to show him using force on a spoon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller...rformances

Maybe there's more, but Wikipedia being what it is, I wouldn't expect it to omit the strongest available evidence of cheating.

(2017-09-06, 04:57 PM)I Chris Wrote: [ -> ]I think it's entirely fair and natural to treat cheating as a "major red flag". And if a parapsychologist had a policy of not experimenting on anyone who was known to have cheated - or indeed not experimenting on any "professional psychic" - that would be a reasonable attitude.

On the other hand, if someone is making money out of their supposed psychic abilities, then they do have an obvious incentive to cheat if those abilities don't manifest themselves. The old scenario of a medium supplementing genuine powers with trickery when needed doesn't seem implausible - provided genuine powers aren't implausible in themselves.

To my mind, the question is whether the psychic abilities have ever been demonstrated under conditions where trickery can be ruled out. Obviously the researchers at SRI took precautions to rule out trickery by Geller or an accomplice, but were the precautions adequate? I hope I'll have a chance tomorrow to copy what Marks and Kammann said about it, and if so I'll post it here.

I agree with your comments Chris but there is another scenario, if one accepts for arguments sake, that mediums are able to communicate with discarnate entities,  and that there an element of control by a spirit: Mediums have on occasion said that the thoughts and emotions of others can influence their own thinking. In the case of trance mediumship, the medium is, allegedly, under the direct control of another (discarnate) person and the medium's actual movements may be controlled deliberately or inadvertently by this other party.

I recall reading somewhere that a medium was ostensibly under the control of a purported communicator when the communicator thought about moving to pick up and object, to his surprise, the medium himself moved. Another good reason for physical restrains perhaps.

(2017-08-30, 11:03 PM)fls Wrote: [ -> ]For the drawing experiments, there was a window (one-way mirror) between the room where Geller sat unobserved and the room where the drawings were produced. A bulletin board covered the window, and Marks and Kammann noted that a pinhole in the bulletin board would allow Geller to observe the production of the pictures (as well as listen to any conversation as an intercom was present between the rooms). 

[my emphasis]

I looked at the chapter on the Geller SRI experiments in the book by Marks and Kammann yesterday, and also the article in Zetetic, volume 1, of which I had seen a "snippet" online previously.

At least that does clarify the issue of the "pinhole". Apparently what Linda meant was not that Marks and Kammann had seen a hole in the bulletin board, but that they speculated that Geller might have made one himself. The suggestion comes in a section in which they give what they call a "Feasible Script", containing speculations about how Geller might have obtained the results he did. What they say there is this:
"Most importantly, they [Geller and Shipi Shtrang] now cut a handy peephole into the bulletin board in front of the one-way window, and then leave the cut covered with a poster or graph between trials. Alternatively, they find they can slide the board to one side to create a slice of vision along the edge of the window. In fact there may have been no bulletin board at all, but only curtains or some other by-passable screen."
[p. 134]

This hypothetical peephole figures in their speculations about Experiments 1, 2, 4 and 8 (and also presumably 9 and 10, as those also assume Geller can see what is happening in the adjacent room).

Earlier in the chapter, they referred to the window as follows:
"The second channel was a dark-glass window, commonly called a one-way vision screen, next to the double doors. Apparently, it had been covered over with a bulletin board."
[p. 131; my emphasis again]

This book was first published in 1980. Fortunately we also have a description of the situation in a footnote to an article by the same authors in Zetetic 1 (1977), based on a visit to SRI by Kammann in November 1975:
"Perhaps just as important as the four-inch hole is the window between the "shielded" room and the anteroom. It appeared to be a one-way-vision screen (i.e., a reversible mirror) about two feet wide and 1.5 feet high. In November 1975 it was covered by a bulletin board screwed over it in the anteroom. Dr. Puthoff stated that it was even more thoroughly covered by a shield when Geller was being tested."
[p. 9, note 1; my emphasis again]

So in fact the elaborate "script" concocted by Marks and Kammann relies heavily on a hypothetical "peephole" cut by Geller in a bulletin board which they had been told wasn't even there at the time of the experiment (or was perhaps covered by an additional shield). Or else on Geller having pushed that billboard to one side. Of course, the information about the bulletin board being screwed to the wall, the bulletin board having been absent at the time of the experiments, and the shield having been present, is omitted from the preamble to this script. They even go so far as to suggest the window may only have been covered by curtains.

I don't consider that to be an honest presentation of the facts by any means. And of course, we wouldn't have known anything was wrong if the fact hadn't been given away by that footnote in the earlier paper. On that basis I'm not inclined to waste time on the speculative script presented by these authors. But I did photograph the chapter and the Zetetic paper (mainly about some non-SRI informal experiments on Geller), and if anyone is interested to see them I'll be happy to send them a copy.

(2017-09-08, 04:13 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]So in fact the elaborate "script" concocted by Marks and Kammann relies heavily on a hypothetical "peephole" cut by Geller in a bulletin board which they had been told wasn't even there at the time of the experiment (or was perhaps covered by an additional shield). Or else on Geller having pushed that billboard to one side. Of course, the information about the bulletin board being screwed to the wall, the bulletin board having been absent at the time of the experiments, and the shield having been present, is omitted from the preamble to this script. They even go so far as to suggest the window may only have been covered by curtains.

I don't consider that to be an honest presentation of the facts by any means. And of course, we wouldn't have known anything was wrong if the fact hadn't been given away by that footnote in the earlier paper. On that basis I'm not inclined to waste time on the speculative script presented by these authors. But I did photograph the chapter and the Zetetic paper (mainly about some non-SRI informal experiments on Geller), and if anyone is interested to see them I'll be happy to send them a copy.

Vindicated:

(2017-09-01, 09:26 AM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]I have no doubt that the claims which Linda references are at the same level of fantasy.

Thanks, Chris, for taking the trouble to investigate claims that were bound to be nonsense - it's good that you dot Is and cross Ts when others of us lose patience.

Thanks, Laird.

Another point, along the same lines, struck me when comparing the chapter by Marks and Kammann with the footnote in their earlier article.

Admittedly the cable conduit doesn't play a prominent role in their "Plausible Script", but I think they are less than candid in their description of it in the book chapter. It's described there just as "a hole of 3-4 inches in diameter used for running cables into the steel room". They explain that Puthoff told them it had a metal cover, which was no longer around, and that it was "supposedly" stuffed with cotton, but that that could be removed from the inside. That's as much as they say in their 21-page chapter. But the 14-line footnote in Zetetic includes more information: that the hole was tubular and "at least one foot in length" and about three feet above the floor, and that it would provide a cone (disc?) of visible area against the opposite wall of the anteroom perhaps 3-5 feet in diameter. (Given their vagueness about the length of the conduit, surely that can only be an educated guess.)

Obviously that's much more restrictive than the reader would guess from the bare fact that there was a hole in the wall 3-4 inches wide. But taking the figures at face value, the disc of visibility would extend to a height of 4.5-5.5 feet from the floor, so if it happened to be in exactly the right place it might include the position of a drawing stuck on the wall at eye-level. But even then, we have to bear in mind Scott Rogo's claim that the conduit was not three feet above the floor, but only a little above floor level. That would restrict the disc of visibility to knee-level and below. It's hardly likely the picture would be stuck on the wall at knee-level!

(2017-09-10, 09:29 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]But you could possibly hear the discussions of what they were to draw, by putting ones ear against the hole.

Yes, but my point really was the extent to which Marks and Kammann suppressed information - even information they had earlier published themselves - in order to make their case seem more plausible. So I don't think their work is to be relied on, except where it can independently checked.