"Why I am no longer a skeptic"

 
1) He said according to the normal standards of science, regardless other claims of a similar level of evidence are accepted without question, but psi isn't - this is because of the subject. We've had improvements in research before where skeptics said they'd change their mind, but they didn't. The Honorton, Hyman autoganzfeld research comes to mind. 

2) Do other fields have people specifically trying to debunk when conducting an experiment? Rarely if at all. 

3) Not really, the field has always been small. I'm just stating that if the evidence was as bad as you claimed, I doubt Radin et al would carry on wasting their time. You know that the majority of Parapsychologists historically, and those who are informed today, are proponents. Most skeptics do not conduct experiments and/or are not familiar with the literature. 

4) I agree things could be done to make it popular, and that the evidence could be improved. Hardly anybody as informed as you states that the research is of a low quality, infact many people who read the literature are surprised by the high quality of the research. 

5) If you said otherwise I apologise if I missed it, I'll ask actually, what is your view on the existence of psi?

6) I didn't say that they weren't any skeptics/cynics who are well informed, just that most well informed people at least lean towards psi. Many skeptics, such as Blackmore, aren't even up to date with the research anymore.

1) That was a long time ago when we knew a lot less about where the normal standards of science (which he clarified later as in reference to his field) would take us. There has been tremendous progress in the last 25 years, which is what I have been referring to.

2) They do it all the time in medicine.

3) Like I said, a highly selected sample. Kennedy and Wackermann are fairly doubtful parapsychologists. Wiseman, Alcock, Hyman, and French are skeptical parapsychologists. Saava and Blackmore left the field altogether. Radin has the production of positive results down to an art, so why wouldn't he stay?

4) I said at the beginning where my perspective comes from. I don't know who you're talking about, but medicine is ahead of the game when it comes to understanding levels of evidence and how they inform the validity of your results.

5) http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-28...ml#pid5975

6) I don't see how you would know about the well-informed people who don't lean towards psi.

Linda

Thanks I'll check them out!

We don't know for sure, but we have a good idea based on the fact they were receiving CPR etc, so their sensory state according to our current knowledge should be non existent, if not at least hugely impaired.

We shouldn't make assumptions, so why did you tell me you could hear 60 feet away as if that means Anita (sorry if wrong name) could? It has no bearing because as you said - we don't truly know their sensory states.

I referenced research as to level of awareness during CPR (i.e. "our current knowledge") which suggests otherwise, in my post to jkmac.

I got the impression that the claim was that nobody could hear the conversation under those circumstances - that's why I did the test. I'm wasn't assuming she could hear, just testing the assumption that she couldn't have.

Linda

I am also doubtful that it could happen (just because the descriptions of what people remember wouldn't compel it), but it is at least an example of what you asked for. I can imagine some untidiness in the circumstances which would cast doubt on the process, but let's say that the experiment was running as planned for the sake of our hypothetical.

Linda

So I'm afraid that even if the experiment worked according to the hypothetical, my feeling it is STILL wouldn't satisfy most skeptical, supposed "scientific" demands for evidence. 

I have always assumed that if most competent people were well versed in most of the available evidence, and were reasonably objective, they would be compelled to agree. I am finding now that is not even close to being the case.

Nice to know I guess,, albeit surprising to me. 

I'm not one to keep at it when I have my answer already, so consequently, I think I'll just move on from this train of inquiry. 

I think it would be of more benefit to focus on those who are trying to assemble and weigh the evidence, and NOT those who have comprehensively weighed the evidence and found it lacking, because those people are probably of the same mind-set I am finding now. I had been thinking they were just under-informed or not critical thinkers, but the problem is more confounding than that.

1) That was a long time ago when we knew a lot less about where the normal standards of science (which he clarified later as in reference to his field) would take us. There has been tremendous progress in the last 25 years, which is what I have been referring to.

2) They do it all the time in medicine.

3) Like I said, a highly selected sample. Kennedy and Wackermann are fairly doubtful parapsychologists. Wiseman, Alcock, Hyman, and French are skeptical parapsychologists. Saava and Blackmore left the field altogether. Radin has the production of positive results down to an art, so why wouldn't he stay?

4) I said at the beginning where my perspective comes from. I don't know who you're talking about, but medicine is ahead of the game when it comes to understanding levels of evidence and how they inform the validity of your results. 

5) http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-28...ml#pid5975

6) I don't see how you would know about the well-informed people who don't lean towards psi.

Linda

1) There has, and Parapsychology has progressed too. I would say Parapsychological research is of a higher standard generally then mainstream psychology(some of it strays more into Physics anyway). 

2) Examples please.

3) Kennedy believes in psi, does he not? The rest are pretty much all the skeptical Parapsychologists, so there are definitely more proponents then skeptics. 

4) I think you need to be more honest about the issues in medicine research, it can be of a very high standard, but it has many issues, such as funding, and how that affects the results. There's also many prescribed medicines with low effect sizes out there. 

5) Thanks for your view, goes against the grain of most informed skeptics here . It's interesting that as Parapsychology research has got better, the effect hasn't gone away, yet you're more skeptical. Intriguing!

6) I don't know them all, I don't consider myself that well informed, but on this forum etc nearly everybody is a proponent. And in my experience most skeptics are not well informed, I've debated these guys and been on their forums - part of the issue is how they take each others word for granted etc. I've seen you say you're not part of the skeptical community, I can see why.

None of these cases were documented prior to feedback being offered. And they also, by and large, do not involve sense data obtained when this was impossible.

For example, Denture man was undergoing CPR when some sensory data seemed to be obtained. Research with BIS shows that CPR can be sufficient to provide some awareness. (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...5815623293 - Figures 2 and 3, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJ...#t=article - Figure 2). 

I remember that I tested the idea that Anita Moorjani couldn't hear the conversation over the distance she described in her book (I read the book) and I could hear it. (Through an open door, around a corner, and about 60 feet away, I could hear a TV at low/normal volume, IIRC.)

I'm not sure that we want to start on Pam Reynolds, but Rudolph Smit underwent a test of whether a statement could be heard under the conditions for Pam's Auditory Evoked Potentials (moulded earpieces - one playing loud clicks and one playing white noise) and he could hear it. She was reportedly under burst suppression at the time (we do not have a record of the specifics). The BIS shows that awareness does not begin to decrease due to burst suppression until the suppression ration is greater than 50% (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12580235). Spetzler (the surgeon) gives his opinion that she wouldn't have been able to hear due to being under burst suppression, but does not provide the suppression ratio.

The Maria story is just too poorly documented to say anything with it.

Does documentation matter? It seems to. In Sartori's NDE research where she actually records everything carefully, it can be seen that she provides information to many of the patients she interviews about the details of their resuscitation. And in one case, in her research paper, the statements that she found remarkable from her subject came from her or were not recorded (the most remarkable statement turned out to have come from a third-hand report).

Linda

Looked at the research with BIS you linked, not sure if it tells us what you think it does. It's talking about BIS levels vs survival rates, and the BIS levels are all over the place, with no significant differences between those who survive or not. (There's also the issue that BIS has it's criticisms in it's reliability to measure awareness, with many saying it's better at measuring the effects of anaesthetic drugs rather than anything else). Basically, this research doesn't tell us anything other then people receiving CPR can have BIS levels all over the place.

More here  http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/qu...tudy.3723/

The link in the OP also leads to a little more back ground.

Thanks Max, did anyone manage to ask Penny about the discrepancies? Regardless she seems to include a lot if data which is good. 

Regardless, it seems patient 10 at least was forthcoming to Penny about his/her experience, and didn't repeat statements Penny had made back at her.

1) There has, and Parapsychology has progressed too. I would say Parapsychological research is of a higher standard generally then mainstream psychology(some of it strays more into Physics anyway). 

2) Examples please.

3) Kennedy believes in psi, does he not? The rest are pretty much all the skeptical Parapsychologists, so there are definitely more proponents then skeptics. 

4) I think you need to be more honest about the issues in medicine research, it can be of a very high standard, but it has many issues, such as funding, and how that affects the results. There's also many prescribed medicines with low effect sizes out there. 

5) Thanks for your view, goes against the grain of most informed skeptics here . It's interesting that as Parapsychology research has got better, the effect hasn't gone away, yet you're more skeptical. Intriguing!

6) I don't know them all, I don't consider myself that well informed, but on this forum etc nearly everybody is a proponent. And in my experience most skeptics are not well informed, I've debated these guys and been on their forums - part of the issue is how they take each others word for granted etc. I've seen you say you're not part of the skeptical community, I can see why.

1) I haven't looked into it in detail, although I think there is some good quality psychology research.

2) Some of the research in to alt med therapies. Testing drugs against each other (esp. trying to debunk the idea that the expensive new drug is better than the cheap standard, or my new drug is better than your new drug). Comparing expensive screening tests with the standard (e.g. colonoscopy vs. occult blood tests for colon cancer). We'd rather discover that the cheap stuff is just as good as the new, expensive stuff or the difficult to implement stuff (e.g. anti-coagulants in atrial fibrillation).

3) Kennedy seems to believe in psi and be skeptical of the research to the same degree as me.

4) I know there are issues in medical research. But you've heard about them because of the work in evaluating the level of evidence. 

5) Probably that varies by mood - the more proponents berate me about how great the evidence is, the more it gets my back up.

6) I've noticed that the people who get the most attention are those who don't tend to be well-informed - they're more familiar with the talking points than with the actual research. I came across a lot of well-informed skeptics on the JREF forum, but they tended to get drowned out. There isn't really anywhere for them to gather, and I suspect a lot of them just move on.

Linda

Looked at the research with BIS you linked, not sure if it tells us what you think it does. It's talking about BIS levels vs survival rates, and the BIS levels are all over the place, with no significant differences between those who survive or not. (There's also the issue that BIS has it's criticisms in it's reliability to measure awareness, with many saying it's better at measuring the effects of anaesthetic drugs rather than anything else). Basically, this research doesn't tell us anything other then people receiving CPR can have BIS levels all over the place.

That was the point - BIS levels were all over the place, rather than universally low as some have tried to lead us to believe. So some sensory registration will be possible in some cases during CPR.

Linda