W. A. H. Rushton was the President of the Society for Psychical Research (1969-1971). I am going to email Robert McLuhan, the owner of the Psi Encyclopedia about this. Hopefully he will then include Rushton's important paper on Stephen E. Braude's article.
Quote: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.
No he is not entirely accurate. He ignores skeptical literature on the subject, even papers that are negative written by psychical researchers. In most cases he will only look at positive evidence. See the Rushton example above.
(2017-09-07, 01:34 PM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]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.
I think we should ban Rationalwiki from being cited on this forum. Are you with me on that? All I have seen so far is it cause problems. In my OP I tried to be fair by citing both positive and negative sources. I did not even refer to the Rationalwiki article I created...
Also dont take everything rationalwiki says so seriously. A lot of the time the articles are just for fun, as I said before it is not an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Many of the articles are deliberately done in a snarky way. See my link above for clarification.
(2017-09-07, 02:02 PM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]I think we should ban Rationalwiki from being cited on this forum. Are you with me on that? All I have seen so far is it cause problems. In my OP I tried to be fair by citing both positive and negative sources. I did not even refer to the Rationalwiki article I created...
Also dont take everything rationalwiki says so seriously. A lot of the time the articles are just for fun, as I said before it is not an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Many of the articles are deliberately done in a snarky way. See my link above for clarification.
Appreciate the thought.
Interesting for me, Leuders, is the second paragraph in the quote above. I don't see anything "fun" or otherwise wholesome about skeptical snarkiness. Its what really turns me off to guys like Krauss, Dawkins, and other materialists. I find that type of approach insulting, disingenuous and utterly, intellectually dishonest. Further, I do not believe it advances the cause of its proponents. I think it actually pours gasoline on the fire of "anti-science" if you will.
Sorry for the rant, but my personal desire for this community is for it to be as devoid of both proponent and skeptic "snarkiness" as possible. For there to be honest, polilte, discussions from both skeptics and proponents.
As I mentioned previously, I've found you to be quite respectful thus far so please don't take my rant as an attack against you.
(2017-09-07, 02:02 PM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]I think we should ban Rationalwiki from being cited on this forum. Are you with me on that? All I have seen so far is it cause problems. In my OP I tried to be fair by citing both positive and negative sources. I did not even refer to the Rationalwiki article I created...
Also dont take everything rationalwiki says so seriously. A lot of the time the articles are just for fun, as I said before it is not an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Many of the articles are deliberately done in a snarky way. See my link above for clarification.
OK if not taken seriously then why in the world would anyone use it as a reference?
If you are serious about banning it from the forum, you have earned points from me. Not that you need or want them.
(2017-09-07, 11:03 AM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]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.
As I hope I made clear, I wasn't endorsing what Stephen Braude's article says because I don't know about the subject. But I thought it was helpful to make it clear there was another point of view.
And yes, I have seen some indications of concern about some articles in the Psi Encyclopaedia, which I think are all written by indviduals. In particular, Tom Ruffles, who's in charge of the SPR Facebook page, said there that the unbalanced nature of a recent article on Sai Baba made him uncomfortable. As I'm sure you know, the SPR itself has a policy of not adopting a position on the existence of psi, and I'm sure that's the best approach for a learned society.
(2017-09-07, 08:18 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]I'm willing to stop but are there any sources that will be accepted by the proponents here that are not biased in their favour?
How about referring directly to the original sources?
(2017-09-07, 08:45 PM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]How about referring directly to the original sources?
I should add that I'm not really a 'proponent' as such. In very many topics I am neutral and find the discussions interesting, especially when evidence is evaluated. For example I recently discussed some photographic evidence. But that doesn't mean I am a proponent of either that topic in general, or of that specific case. I'm usually a bystander in most discussions, with no axe to grind on the subject itself. I am however concerned that evidence is assessed on its own merits, and not on the basis on either my own or anyone else's prior opinions.
(2017-09-07, 08:18 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]I'm willing to stop but are there any sources that will be accepted by the proponents here that are not biased in their favour?
This is a very important paper that should be taken seriously by both proponents and skeptics:
W. A. H. Rushton. (1968).
Serios Photos: If Contrary to Natural Law, Which Law? Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 44: 289-293.
I will try and upload it online so we can all discuss it.
I consider myself a proponent. But I'm not interested in seeing any person, place or thing banned.
If rational wiki can come up with a lucid and compelling refutation, I'm all ears . Otherwise it seems(in my experience) fairly effortless to dismiss their nonsense.
(2017-09-07, 09:58 AM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]I haven't. Would it be worth my time? or am I better off looking elsewhere for useful info?
You would be reading a pastiche of New Age -No, more "out there" than just New Age...- arguments peppered with references that are *way* more conservative when discussing anything resembling the point that Deepak wants to make. But, just as our bard says of RW, I suppose that he isn't "lying" per se... Just extrapolating to a wild extent and omitting the other side.
However, I must make an exception for some of the papers where he appears as a "co-author"... Those that are mostly written by the other party (his "Quantum (Orch-OR) soul" paper with Hammeroff, for example, was quite tame).