Psience Quest

(2017-09-07, 02:05 AM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]The allegations of fraud came from two photographers, Charlie Reynolds and David Eisendrath.

Len Peyronnin. (2011). Psychic Projections Were a Hoax. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

I have no idea which side of the argument is more accurate, but in his SPR encyclopaedia article, Stephen Braude writes:
"The primary source of this skeptical allegation was the article, ‘An Amazing Weekend with the Amazing Ted Serios’, in the October 1967 issue of Popular Photography, written by David B Eisendrath and Charles Reynolds. That article left most (if not all) readers thinking that the authors had successfully exposed the pretensions of an alleged psychic. However, the article was seriously misleading, and few learned later that no one had accepted Eisenbud’s challenge (in the following November issue)5 to duplicate Serios’s results under conditions similar to those imposed on Serios (more on that issue below). Before long, Eisendrath’s and Reynolds’s criticism evolved into the unverified assertion that Serios’s feats had been duplicated easily by the magician the Amazing Randi, and soon many people had accepted that falsehood as an established fact. The noted science author Martin Gardner undoubtedly moved this process along by repeating the allegation in his book, Science, Good, Bad and Bogus,6 and by claiming in the journal Nature that Randi ‘demonstrates it [the Serios phenomenon] regularly and with more skill.’7 However, Gardner’s claim is completely unsubstantiated. Randi never even attempted publicly to duplicate the Serios phenomenon under conditions resembling those that prevailed during Serios’s tests. He did, however, fail to duplicate the phenomenon under the much looser test conditions allowed on the television show Today on October 4, 1967."

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/ted-serios

All I can say is... read Braude's first hand investigations on the subject. He's always been an accurate, finicky researcher of tremendous integrity.

Also to ask if his photographs were genuine or fraudulent is an ill-posed question. There might have been fake pictures among a good number of genuine ones.
In fact there is pretty strong evidence for anomalous phenomena that defeates conventional explanations.

(2017-09-06, 11:27 PM)E. Flowers Wrote: [ -> ]If you have ever stumbled upon one of his papers, you will know what I mean.

I haven't. Would it be worth my time? or am I better off looking elsewhere for useful info?

(2017-09-06, 11:09 PM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from Rationalwiki? 

Am I wrong to think of it as the National Inquirer of information sources? Or that it is to psi, what Newsmax is to politics?

Maybe it's just me.

It's not just you, that's a sensible reaction, it's an awful, awful website.

(2017-09-07, 08:23 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]You can always check their sources.  I doubt they would lie and then put a reference.  One could say, Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from an avid psi believer.  It's the same story - you present your evidence and there will always be evidence to the contrary.

It's not just the sources themselves, it's the one sided nature of the sources they use, and the snarky, condescending tone they take on 'rationalwiki'. Its frustrating cause many of us want the truth with psi/the afterlife etc, sites like 'rationalwiki' don't help us find the truth, they hinder it.

(2017-09-07, 08:23 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]You can always check their sources.  I doubt they would lie and then put a reference.  One could say, Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from an avid psi believer.  It's the same story - you present your evidence and there will always be evidence to the contrary.

Funny you mention that Brian-

Yes- We drew straws, and I lost,,, I had to spend a couple hours of what I assumed would be a waste of time, because I figured you would ask. And yes, I found it was a total waste of my time...

I checked the Rational sources. The were 4 listed by the way, pretty lame for the substantial nature of your claims. 

I also, just for comparison checked out Wiki. Imagine using Wiki as the fair arbiter of information! Yikes!!!

Wiki had 22 sources, Rational had 4.

Of the 4 rational sources. 
1-100 words or so describing name birth and death dates and the Jules E. book. VERY thin on actual psi info. 
2- the Jules E. book which reportedly supports (or at least reports) Serios' claim for the most part
3- A photography book which essentially says Randi and other skeptics claim it was a fraud
4- A Randi book.

Oh one last thing- 
Rational's only web link, and one of Wiki's 4 listed, is the "skeptic's dictionary".

Imagine the need for such a thing. Reminds me of the book two very close relatives used to have as young Jehovah's Witness's. They carried them around so they would have the answer to any of the multitude of questions they may be asked. Sort of a JW Cheat sheet. Interesting to see that you guys (Skeptics) have a "bible" of sorts to keep you on the same page... Literally..  

Don't you ever wonder why you need to be lead around like a bunch of cattle and fed pre-written answers??

Anyway- so yes, I HAVE read the available on-line material and found that:
-The counter augments come almost exclusively from one person, guess who?: Randi. Most others simply point to Randi.
-Randi has decided to call it fraud (of course he would)
-Randi, even though he claimed to be able to, NEVER successfully replicated the event 
-Ted Serios offered to demonstrate this under controlled conditions, and Randi never took him up on it (strange right?)

So. No I'm not planning to make this a multi-day and $$ effort of buying the complete books and reading them. But I've found out, to my utter surprise that there is little or nothing here. 

Next time you might want to research this stuff yourself so you can understand how superficial the material is that you base your reputation on. 

If you did research this, and are satisfied with the information, it is a testament to how little information you need to be convinced. Although you are already convinced aren't you? You just needed something to agree with your POV to point to. 

Don't fret about that though, that's what most people do, so you are not alone.

(2017-09-07, 07:39 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]I have no idea which side of the argument is more accurate, but in his SPR encyclopaedia article, Stephen Braude writes:
"The primary source of this skeptical allegation was the article, ‘An Amazing Weekend with the Amazing Ted Serios’, in the October 1967 issue of Popular Photography, written by David B Eisendrath and Charles Reynolds. That article left most (if not all) readers thinking that the authors had successfully exposed the pretensions of an alleged psychic. However, the article was seriously misleading, and few learned later that no one had accepted Eisenbud’s challenge (in the following November issue)5 to duplicate Serios’s results under conditions similar to those imposed on Serios (more on that issue below). Before long, Eisendrath’s and Reynolds’s criticism evolved into the unverified assertion that Serios’s feats had been duplicated easily by the magician the Amazing Randi, and soon many people had accepted that falsehood as an established fact. The noted science author Martin Gardner undoubtedly moved this process along by repeating the allegation in his book, Science, Good, Bad and Bogus,6 and by claiming in the journal Nature that Randi ‘demonstrates it [the Serios phenomenon] regularly and with more skill.’7 However, Gardner’s claim is completely unsubstantiated. Randi never even attempted publicly to duplicate the Serios phenomenon under conditions resembling those that prevailed during Serios’s tests. He did, however, fail to duplicate the phenomenon under the much looser test conditions allowed on the television show Today on October 4, 1967."

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/ted-serios

There is a problem I have with the Psi Encyclopedia. They tend to ignore skeptical papers in their own journal.

The Psi Encyclopedia is supposed to represent the Society for Psychical Research but many negative papers about mediums, psychics or psychical research cases published in the Journal for the Society for Psychical Research are not cited on their new encyclopedia project. I know the project is 'work in progress' but it really does them no favours. It is suppression of information.

Example. Stephen E. Braude's piece in the Psi Encyclopedia does not refer to this paper:

W. A. H. Rushton. (1968). Serios Photos: If Contrary to Natural Law, Which Law? Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 289-293.

Rushton was a professor of physiology. He successfully replicated the Serios photographs by fraudulent methods (using a reflecting prism that contained a microfilm picture against the camera lens).

There is also a critical review by electrical engineer Colin Brookes-Smith of Eisenbud's book.

Colin Brookes-Smith. (1968). Review of The World of Ted Serios by J. Eisenbud. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 260-265.

In that review he goes on to give several naturalistic explanations for how the thoughtographs might have been produced. Now he may have been right or wrong, but that is beside the point. It is no surprise that this review is not cited on the Psi Encyclopedia.

Users here say Wikipedia is biased but both the Rushton study and the review by Brookes-Smith is mentioned on the Wikipedia article for Ted Serios not the Psi Encyclopedia.

Now as I am a skeptic and not liked on this forum I am not expecting my post to be liked. But I am 100% correct about this. Proponents should agree with me about this. The Psi Encyclopedia is a strongly biased source, they do not want to refer to negative information from their own journal. The same happens on many other of their articles.

I personally find it funny that they fail to cite studies from their own journal and doing this they are not representing the entire story. What they are doing is no different than what proponents usually accuse pseudo-skeptics of doing. Cherry-picking information or not looking at all the literature.

(2017-09-07, 10:46 AM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]Funny you mention that Brain-

Yes- We drew straws, and I lost,,, I had to spend a couple hours of what I assumed would be a waste of time, because I figured you would ask. And yes, I found it was a total waste of my time...

I checked the Rational sources. The were 4 listed by the way, pretty lame for the substantial nature of your claims. 

I also, just for comparison checked out Wiki. Imagine using Wiki as the fair arbiter of information! Yikes!!!

Wiki had 22 sources, Rational had 4.

Of the 4 rational sources. 
1-100 words or so describing name birth and death dates and the Jules E. book. VERY thin on actual psi info. 
2- the Jules E. book which reportedly supports (or at least reports) Serios' claim for the most part
3- A photography book which essentially says Randi and other skeptics claim it was a fraud
4- A Randi book.

Oh one last thing- 
Rational's only web link, and one of Wiki's 4 listed, is the "skeptic's dictionary".

Imagine the need for such a thing. Reminds me of the book two very close relatives used to have as young Jehovah's Witness's. They carried them around so they would have the answer to any of the multitude of questions they may be asked. Sort of a JW Cheat sheet. Interesting to see that you guys (Skeptics) have a "bible" of sorts to keep you on the same page... Literally..  

Don't you ever wonder why you need to be lead around like a bunch of cattle and fed pre-written answers??

Anyway- so yes, I HAVE read the available on-line material and found that:
-The counter augments come almost exclusively from one person, guess who?: Randi. Most others simply point to Randi.
-Randi has decided to call it fraud (of course he would)
-Randi, even though he claimed to be able to, NEVER successfully replicated the event 
-Ted Serios offered to demonstrate this under controlled conditions, and Randi never took him up on it (strange right?)

So. No I'm not planning to make this a multi-day and $$ effort of buying the complete books and reading them. But I've found out, to my utter surprise that there is little or nothing here. 

Next time you might want to research this stuff yourself so you can understand how superficial the material is that you base your reputation on. 

If you did research this, and are satisfied with the information, it is a testament to how little information you need to be convinced. Although you are already convinced aren't you? You just needed something to agree with your POV to point to. 

Don't fret about that though, that's what most people do, so you are not alone.

I believe you misunderstand the aims of Rationalwiki.

Please read this:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWi...article%3F

Rationalwiki is not an encyclopedia, it does not have to use sources. It is not neutral... yes sometimes done in a funny way.

(2017-09-07, 08:23 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]You can always check their sources.  I doubt they would lie and then put a reference.  One could say, Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from an avid psi believer.  It's the same story - you present your evidence and there will always be evidence to the contrary.

You apparently missed my point...

I don't recoil; when I read a post from a skeptic,, I recoil when the evidence they point to is not from a serious source. There is a HUGE difference.

(2017-09-07, 08:23 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]You can always check their sources.  I doubt they would lie and then put a reference.  One could say, Am I the only one who recoils when I see anyone presenting evidence from an avid psi believer.  It's the same story - you present your evidence and there will always be evidence to the contrary.

Maybe how I said it is not that clear. So let me try saying this way,,

I don't expect people to take the word of any wide-eyed psi believer who happens down the road. However, when someone has an opinion and offers evidence, I think it is reasonable to look at the source of the evidence to assess its credibility. We do that every day. 

It is the source of your evidence I am recoiling from. And the source of your evidence is very suspect. If you were a bit more objective, you might see that..

Rationalwiki is all about refutation. All about shooting holes in things.. All sort of things. 

It is not odd to see a book written about a topic such as lucid dreaming or mediumship. These are things that people are truly interested in, and may have some interesting information to share. You can't compare that sort of resource, with one that is all about denying all manner of things. They just aren't equivalent.