Virtual Reality Gaming System Tests for Telepathy 649
Big Ben writes "UK scientists have built a virtual computer world designed to test telepathic ability. Approximately 100 participants will take part in the group gaming experiment at the University of Manchester which aims to test whether telepathy exists between individuals using the system. The project will also look at how telepathic abilities may vary depending on the relationships which exist between participants." Note: for their sakes, I hope they succeed in proving anything paranormal's going on — if they can reproduce such a result, it could earn them the $1 million prize long offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation.
Tax payer money at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Hoping they win the Randi prize?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fakes, Crooks, & Liars (Score:3, Insightful)
Still not quite perfect (Score:2, Insightful)
They've gone to great lengths to keep the first subject from marking the objects in any way to indicate which one was chosen, but this won't completely eliminate false positives.
The first subject still has to make an entirely subjective choice of objects. If the second subject knows the first subject extrememly well, it may still be possible for that person to guess which object was originally chosen just because he or she knows which object would grab the attention of the first subject.
More cynically, there's nothing to stop the subjects from creating some kind of heuristic before the test. For example, always choose the larger object or the one with the name that comes first alphabetically. Of course, I suppose you prevent this by refusing to reveal the details of the study to either participant before they are separated.
Telepathy Vs. Intelligent Design (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are people outraged over Intelligent Design but not this kind of stuff?
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:2, Insightful)
If you had told someone from 200 years ago that you could communicate with people across the globe in real-time, they'd probably think you were some kind of sorcerer. But since then we've discovered radio waves...
-matthew
Re:Randi is viewed as a fraud by 'people who can'. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there's also the slight difference that he has facts on his side. None of these so-called "people who can" have ever been able to demonstrate their alleged abilities under controlled conditions. Until they can do that, they're nothing more than "people who lie to others", or at best, "people who lie to themselves".
I see. It's a pity that there's no evidence that these experiences actually took place in reality, not just in the participants' imaginations, don't you think? Because if there were evidence, someone would be a million dollars richer.
Re:Telepathy Vs. Intelligent Design (Score:5, Insightful)
Such an experiment does not - even in theory - exist for ID.
Re:Telepathy Vs. Intelligent Design (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you can actually test for telepathy. You can't test for ID.
-matthew
Re:Randi is viewed as a fraud by 'people who can'. (Score:5, Insightful)
About 4 years ago, I went to a local music venue for the weekly talk show hosted by musicians and some pathetic psychic was there claiming "quantum physics proves crystals can heal you". Every other claim she made was punctuated with a bunch of keywords about quantum mechanics (esp. strange action at a distance and observability).
I finally got the mic and asked her opinion of Schrodinger's dissent and if she could respond to one of the founder's main gripes, and she had never even heard of Schrodinger. I asked how she could possibly quote QM every other sentence and never had heard of it's primary founder. She brushed it off with some analogy about knowing how to hit a baseball without understanding all that complicated math.
Don't fall for people who pick a hole in scientific understanding and try to defend pseudoscientific babble while hiding behind things they don't understand.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:1, Insightful)
No, they wouldn't have. They had telescopes, so they knew light could be amplified, and they knew that there was invisible light. They would have believed easily that invisible light could be used for communication given the proper scientific advances.
But that's not a good argument anyway. The fundamental law of nature which states that two people cannot communicate over a distance without sound or visual cues is the law that given the same circumstances, the same action produces the same result. Nobody claiming psychic powers has reproduced their results under close, reliable observation. All verified phenomena HAVE been reproduced. You can waste away your live oohing and aahing over bent spoons; I'm putting my money elsewhere.
Re:I think it happens but is currently unprovable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Science Fiction (Score:1, Insightful)
His dismissive attitude towards the "supernatural" is well founded.
By the way, why do you say "so-called skepticism."
Axe to grind? He resents pseudo-science and the load of crap that is the occult. What is wrong with that?
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:4, Insightful)
It's because the mainstream scientific community can't think of any obvious mechanism that would work at a distance given our current understanding of physics, plus the lack of hard empirical evidence, that causes most reasonable people to think there is a very low probably of ESP claims being true.
We haven't been able to find focussed point-to-point radio transmitters in our brains, and the generalized EM "chatter" given off by our brains seems so weak compared to the threshhold voltages required to make neurons fire (esp. taking into account distance) that it seems highly unlikely that any kind of EM effect would be responsible for such an effect.
There aren't too many other options in our current understanding of physical "law" that could account for a significant ESP effect, so if it can be empirically determined that there _is_ such an effect, discovering its cause would probably cause mainstream science to react like it had collectively gone on a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster bender...
Re:Try the ESP Game (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I think it happens but is currently unprovable (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many times to be coincidence has things like this happened. But trying to force it never has produced any results...
That statement implies that you've done the statistics. Let's see them. How many times have you guys not thought the same thing at the same time vs. how many times have you thought about the same thing? Keep in mind that because you are in the same family, some of the things you think about will inevitably be related. I mean if you're thinking about your mother, it's pretty reasonable to think your daughter might also think about her grandmother at some point during the day.
There is a wealth of literature on what is likely going on. You are only noting the times it happens, rarely or never the times it doesn't. So when you "think back on it" the hits greatly outnumber the misses in your memory when in reality the hits are just coincidences amidst a sea of misses.
Re:Hoping they win the Randi prize?!?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still not quite perfect (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Who said telepathy has (if it is exists) no physical channel and spends no energy?
-matthew
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple hundred years ago people thought that you could change lead into gold with chemicals and herbs. Then people began to realize that you couldn't change lead into gold with chemicals and herbs. People soon picked up on this and called alchemists idiots and kooks, and rightly so. Is it possible to change lead into gold? Absolutely, you have to rearrange the nucleous and electrons, but it's possible, just not feasible. We routinely make new elements out of other elements.
So, yeah, a couple hundred years ago people tought that telepathy was possible, then people began to believe that it wasn't. Does this mean it's impossible? Just because we don't know how it might work doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Perhaps it uses some kind of vibration in the fabric of space-time, perhaps it uses tiny particles that permiate everything.
Saying that there is no doubt that it doesn't exist is stupid, and would only show your ignorance.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:1, Insightful)
Then it would have to be a physical channel that is unknown. Postulating that kind of stuff is best left for when you have very strong evidence that something very funky is going on. It would also be measurable in that humans would seem to remove energy from a closed system for no apparent reason. I don't think this has been observed.
Saying that telepathy is impossible is strictly speaking wrong, since it IS possible if you are free to postulate all kinds of weird and previously unknown physical phenomena. Of course, people saying that telepathy is impossible do not intend their statement to include cases where the laws of physics are substantially wrong and where this has an effect on the case at hand.
The matter at hand is not if telepathy is possible, it is whether researching telepathy is a useful way to expend limited research resources. I would have to say no.
Argument from ignorance (Score:2, Insightful)
Two hundred years ago such questions would have made sense. Today we know there isn't any mechanism for that.
This is an argument from ignorance. [wikipedia.org] You're saying that you haven't seen a mechanism, therefore one doesn't exist.
Can you honestly tell me that in a universe where 90% of the matter is, by our best science, missing [utk.edu] - there is no possibility that we may have overlooked something?
Remember, less than a hundred years ago we thought radio traveled through the luminiferous ether. [wikipedia.org] And at the time, it made sense.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
I am, at least nominally, a physicist.
You wouldn't catch me saying any such thing as "telepathy can't exist."
However, you first need to demonstrate that it does exist if you expect me to do work on that basis. If and when that happens I will not posit any "paranormal" event, but rather that there is a quite normal mechanism at work. Then it will be my job to find it, because, at the moment, there is no valid theory of such a mechanism ("Well, maybe it could be. .
Which brings us back to the need to show me it exists, particularly since everything I have ever seen so far indicates that the world works just spiffily in accordance with the rules of chance.
KFG
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:3, Insightful)
You're confusing the question. The question you ask, "Couldn't it exist?" is a pretty boring question with the obvious answer, "Sure." But the question that is more often asked by "paranormal" proponents is, "Does it exist?" although it's more often not a question but rather the statement "it does exist". To that, the answer from people who you call "rational" is "there's no good evidence that it does." Note this is different than saying it couldn't exist or that it doesn't exist. It's only saying there's no real evidence, and so there's no reason to treat it like it exists until some shows up.
Re:Calling bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't you just prove that it does exist? :-)
Don't discount the possibility of outright fraud. (Score:5, Insightful)
To test and debug the system, have they hired a couple of good magicians skilled at "mentalist" acts, with a promise to pay them well for their time if they can successfully cheat?
Or, like most scientists, are they just protecting against unconscious cheating by honest, good-faith participants?
I find it disappointing that TFA doesn't really discuss the possibility of conscious, clever cheating... or implies that it's impossible because, well, gee, the system is so high-tech.
People have smuggled transmitters and receivers into casinos, where the management is probably far more savvy, cynical, and experienced at detecting cheating... and financially motivated to do so... than these scientists.
I predict that this will have the same outcome as all other parapsychology experiments: a very slightly better-than-chance statistical outcome, and endless ambiguity and debate about whether the statistics were done in a valid way.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
While there may be some out there shouting paranormal things couldn't possibly exist, most of us are just pissed. Pissed that for every genuinely deluded person who believed they had witnessed a paranormal event, there are 20 others out there looking at using it to scam people out of money.
We have looked, and looked, and looked and come up empty handed EVERY TIME. The vast majority of the people who have said they had special powers were LIARS. The rest were just wrong. Nobody has ever passed muster. There are people out there doing genuine harm to others under the veil of paranormal abilities.
For example EVERY instance of "psychic surgery" (where someone performs surgery with just their hands, leaving behind no scar or wound) has been a scam for money.
James Randi has a web site with a forum that documents applicants for the $1 Million Challenge. Go follow those threads and watch how people weasel out of taking the test. Like the most recent guy who said he had a computer program that could produce accurate horoscopes for people. So accurate that their wives would confirm that the horoscope was indeed that of their husband. The JREF people said "fine, we'll give you 8 people, produce 8 horoscopes, we'll give the 8 to the wives and ask the wives to tell us which of the 8 is her husband." Apparently that was a ridiculous requirement to him. I don't see why. If the horoscopes are specific to the person, and not just general feel-good crap, why would someone's spouse be unable to determine which was for his/her partner?
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:4, Insightful)
We have looked, and looked, and looked and come up empty handed EVERY TIME.
Ahh, but thats what THEY want you to believe. These are not the telepaths you are looking for... *waves hand*
In all seriousness, and snake oil salesmen aside, I don't know why so many people feel personally threatened by the possible existence of "powers". Well okay, maybe its the extraordinary quantity of snake oil salesmen out there, I can see that. For myself, I don't want to believe (those posters with a picture of flying saucers, "I want to believe", are the height of ignorance- if there are flying saucers we are pw3nd six ways from Sunday- now thats scary), but I remain clinically open to the idea of telepathy, or numerous other extra-sensory abilities. The line from Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" has always resonated with me...
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
The fact of the matter is that we as a race and species are in our infancy, having just crawled down from the trees an eyeblink ago in terms of the age of just about anything. Our technological prowess is counterpointed by our social retardation, the surging fight or flight chemicals that serve almost no purpose in a modern world, but influence everyone up to and including our elected leadership. We know very very little about the universe, having just barely chipped off enough knowledge to make some of us reasonably comfortable for the time being.
There are a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of peculiar occurences that we cannot simply brush under the carpet. Things like near death experiences (before I get dogpiled, yes I know there are more merchants of dubiousity in that than anything else, but I have learned a lot about it, and there do seem to be some genuine cases of patients noting conversations after brain death occurs), concurrence, where two unrelated individuals have the same ideas at the same time, even the simple mystery of dreams or music, to name but a few. And don't leap in with links flailing telling me someone solved what dreams are, because they haven't.
The urge to confine humans to being just meat machines is almost as dangerous as the urge to praise the sky wizard of your choice; it reduces people to little more than automatons in the eyes of rational men, and it is my firm belief that we are far more than the sum of our parts. Not that I have any particular evidence for that. Yet.
Lets not forget, as one poster above pointed out, just a short time ago, radio was believed to travel over the lumineferous ether.
As for the Randi foundation, I have zero confidence in their ability to make an unbiased report on anything they might find. Why? Because if they do find real, actual psychic powers, thats a million they owe. And I don't know about anyone else here, but if I can avoid forking over a million, I will, and thats not even considering the knock-on effects. Some people have pointed out to me that they would get super rich from the merchandising or something. Sorry, try again, the psychic gets super rich. They get to cease existing. Just because you find someone with some sort of powers doesn't mean they owe you anything more than a receipt for a cool million. Oh yes, and you are out of a job.
"Unpractical?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Randi's "silly excuses" are simply science in action. Extraordinary cliams require extraordinary proof, although in this case, I think what he asks adds up to simply ordinary scientific methods. In order to prove that you have paranormal powers, you have to show that what you are doing is not being done by other means. Randi's challenge simply says that the parameters of the test assure that. For example, claims that a person can turn the page of a book by telekinetic powers never work if the book is inside of a clear plastic box. Strangely, the person who claims these powers will claim that this is unfair. If you need more details, check out the rules [randi.org].
When you get down to the nut cutting with Occam's Razor, the paranormal claims always fade out. They always reappear with the same claims and no evidence. The credulous will always be with us. The good news is that many of them like to play cards for money.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:2, Insightful)
Who knows what we don't know yet. That's why it's called "what we don't know"
Also, just pulling up a theory and misapplying it doesn't prove your point. Where was it written that telepathy was "without a physical channel"? You're the only one to say that, and throwing out that unfounded assumption makes your wiki_link irrelevant.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:4, Insightful)
The quantum particles in the phenomena you speak of do not communicate at a distance. Entanglement just means that a particle has a kind of "twin", but there is no information exchanged between the two locations. But telepathy implies that you are communicating over a distance. Entanglement has nothing to do with the possibility of telepathy and I am sick of people misusing and twisting concepts from quantum physics to "prove" paranormal phenomena.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Telepathy, invisible pink unicorns, elves, Zeus, telekenesis, Narnia, rain dances, flying potions, the Tooth Fairy, I'm always surprised at the reaction of rational people when they think that these things do not exist.
I mean, just because there is absolutely no reason to think that they *do* exist is not a reason to think that they don't. I really don't get rational people. They are so screwed up like that. Thank god I'm not a rational person.
-
Re:Randi is viewed as a fraud by 'people who can'. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, they didn't get results:
In one particular study on remote viewing, the "psychics" scored above the result expected from chance by getting the right answer approximately 33% of the time when there were four choices, which Science News characterized as "a moderate increase over chance." But the judgment of success was determined by the project's director, who rated the similarity of each response to the target display and to other randomly chosen pictures. Hyman argued that these studies offer no insight as to why the scoring is above chance--it's just assumed that it must be psychic ability. He also noted that the accuracy ratings should have been done by independent judges--not the project director--and that none of the studies have yet undergone peer review. In other words, there were severe methodological flaws in those studies that did seem to show a hint of something. Indeed, a former CIA technical director who monitored these programs said on Nightline that he wasn't aware of any significant results from the "psychics."
An interesting note in this regard is that "psychics" interviewed by CIA evaluators said the program worked well as long as it was run by those "who accepted the phenomenon." Sorry, guys, but objective scientific results shouldn't depend on who's running a study! (The Straight Dope [straightdope.com])
The only form of "remote viewing" that has been shown to work involves a video camera, a monitor, and a cable or wireless link connecting them.
What a load of bullshit. It'd only take one person who actually has these magical powers, and is willing to demonstrate them, to legitimize the whole thing. If there were visible proof that even a single person is psychic, claims of psychic abilities would be taken far more seriously. The first person to stand up and prove his magical powers would be a hero, vindicating everyone else who has been ridiculed for making such claims. But so far, everyone who has attempted to prove them has failed, and most people who make the claims make no attempt to prove them at all ("it doesn't work when nonbelievers are around", "I'm not in this for fame or money or contributing to human understanding", etc.).
Again, there is no such thing. The success rate of so-called psychics solving crimes is no better than educated guessing.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Before addressing anything else in your post, I wanted to address this because this is by far the most often used excuse for arguing against the JREF's million dollar prize. They have this one nicely covered:
Both sides must agree before the test is administered what will constitute a positive result.
If what you say is true, then please find several examples of JREF making the challenge impossible to complete with a positive result assuming the person under test has the ability as they claim. JREF publicly posts all the properly presented challenge applications.
This argument that they will somehow weasel out of it after the fact is nonsense. I know that is not the specific charge you made, but it sure seemed implicit to me. It does not work that way. Before you take the challenge all the ground rules are laid out including what must happen for you to get the million. There can be no alteration after both sides have agreed.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is an alternate theory. Mothers tend to spend far more time with developing children than fathers. This contributes to a Psychological association; mother and child have a special relationship. We then latch on to stories that support this theory, and reject those that contradict it.
Here is another. Moms tend to worry a lot about their children becoming ill or sustaining an injury. Dads tend to worry more about crash test ratings and how to pay for Jill's orthodontia. If Moms fret far more it is only natural that bad news will more frequently arrive during a fretting session.
These theories have the distinct advantage of fitting what we already know about the Universe, and not relying on some untestable mechanism.
What you have done is wrapped typical superstitious gobbledy-gook in Scientific language. Using the phrase "Quantum entanglement" in place of "psychic link" does not make it any more Scientific.
The fact is that people have been desperately trying to demonstrate the sort of connection you are talking about for generations without result. You have just given an elaborate explanation of the mechanism for an effect that doesn't seem to exist.
Our world is a beautiful and awe-inspiring place. It doesn't need to be spiced with superstition and self-deception.
-Peter
PS: My sisters are twins. They often claim to have Psychic powers for the purpose of fucking with people.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:2, Insightful)
Both sides must agree before the test is administered what will constitute a positive result.
Yes, and that leaves no wiggle room at all for JREF. From the site FAQ...
"Mutually agreed upon" means that neither side can force the other side into doing or saying something that they don't want to, and that if no agreement can be reached, the application process is terminated, with no blame or fault attributed to either side.
I like that little disclaimer there, about no blame or fault. And in no place could I find any assertions that they publicly post all the properly presented challenge applications. They do, however post the most ludicrous ones, which make the site a very entertaining read, and which should also tell you all you need to know about the James Randi Educational Foundation. A model of the scientific method, it is not.
Re:Fakes, Crooks, & Liars (Score:2, Insightful)
And how confident is he? So confident that he has NEVER accepted a formal challenge. Remember, I don't believe in that stuff, but in more than 40 years to not even accept a challenge is ridiculous. Are you telling me that there has not been a single true-believing tin-foil hat-wearing nut-job since 1964 who wanted to read minds for fun and profit? Gotta call bullshit. This is pure Randi publicity, and that's my biggest problem. He claims to be the materialistic, fact-finding, scientifically minded debunker. Fine. But he does no research (scientific or "otherwise"), holds no advanced scientific degrees, and doesn't actually do anything but promote Randi. To wit:
"What projects are you working on at this moment?
In some cases, we can't say. Sorry. There are always investigations underway, but because of their very nature, those matters cannot be openly discussed. But, TV specials are being developed and written, books are nearing completion, and lectures are being contracted, all over the world."
And we know that NONE of these investigations are formal demonstrations of paranormal phenomena - he himself admits nobody has been allowed, yes, ALLOWED to challege for the $1 million - so what the hell is it he DOES do?
I see him has no better than the people he claims to debunk. He is an entertainer who waves the flag of "science" (while having no training) solely for profit. And, THAT, dear slashdotter, is my problem with him. Well, that and being a turd to more than 300 gifted students who gathered to hear him speak and wanted to know about him and what he did.
_______
As for the $1 mil, I see nothing in his FAQ that comes to more than a promise to pay... and if not we can sue him. Yes, his response is "So sue me!" The fancy language of IRS 990s and Goldman Sachs bonds don't mean anything. All the 990s show are the assets of JREF. Nowhere do I see proof of where those assets are held, the convertablitiy of the alleged bonds, a GS statement of liquidity, nothing. All we see are vague terms "immediately convertible," unnamed "investors", undisclosed underwriters. I personally like "The contract between the claimant and JREF is binding enough that the JREF must pay the prize if someone wins it." That may very well be true, but James Randi admits that in more than 40 years he has NEVER ONCE enterd into such a contract. After invoking the "990s" "Goldman Sachs" and vague but official sounding contract language, he leaves us with "Rest assured: the money is there."
Further, a bond is merely debt security. As a CPA, at the very least I'd like to know the terms under which the bond become convertible. Time limits wouldn't be appropriate in this case, so is it tied to the validity of this challenge? After winning the challenge that Randi has avoided his whole life, would a potential claimant be obliged to enter into legal action against the bond issuer with whom they do NOT have a contract?
Here Randi does it again - behaves just like those he claims to debunk: uses jargon and arrogance to strongly suggest something but stops short of actual proof. In the end we are only left with his word, and for 38 years of the challege's existence, he couldn't back it up. The remaining 4 are up for debate. In the end, it is not hard to get an official account statement or use an escrow service.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Thus far, any time psychic powers of any kind are tested under proper scientific conditions, it is found to be nothing but random chance. This has been studied for a while too, 50 years or so, with no evidence. Thus you are in a hard position to claim they havne't done their job.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly the point. And nobody has made it past the preliminary challenge where the million dollars is NOT in jeopardy.
So find someone who was presented a proper challenge (meaning they've proposed a test protocol, they've made a positive statement of measurable paranormal phenomena, testing the phenomena would not hurt anybody, etc.) and hasn't been recorded. You've made several statements in opposition to JREF's prize, support one.
And there are many examples on non-ludicrous claims. They only highlight the outrageous ones. Check the jref forums. All challenges, even those sent in handwritten and requiring transcription, are there.
Re:Odd feeling (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you might not. I think the operative word is "might".
But if you take the test 100, 200 times and average the results......
Telepathy and natural selection (Score:4, Insightful)
Prehistoric humans with even a little telepathy would have enormous survival advantage. You'd be able to tell whether a predator was hiding behind the next rock, or whether it's an animal you're hunting for food. Or nothing, in which case you go off and hunt somewhere else.
In that case, natural selection would at the same time pressure animals, both predators and prey, to evolve to a form where they could block the effect so that their adversary (human or other) would have no idea where they were hiding.
Even if we can't tell where animals are hiding, even a little telepathy between humans could be used in group hunting and teaching offspring, or summoning help in a dire emergency. Even a brief feeling which influences your actions based on information from another human would confer enormous advantage.
Some people have reported that they have gotten "feelings" that some loved one is in trouble, but frankly there is an overwhemingly enormous number of dire incidents throughout human history, each one of which would select for having the telepathic trait. Something as simple as children having the ability to alert their parents that they are in trouble would still confer enormous survival advantage.
From an evolutionary perspective, telepathy is a strong survival trait. Since we don't see it in the gene pool, it's unlikely that it's even possible.
Circumstantial I know, but it's hard to prove that something doesn't exist...
A prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
This experiment is very poorly controlled (who's to say that two people aren't also on the phone to one another, for example), and some startlingly accurate correlations will occur. These will be debunked as the players come under scrutiny and the communication channels between players are detected.
However, after these have been removed, some correlations between players will still remain, below the level of staistical significance. Rather than being dismissed as insignificant, the woo-woo crowd will seize on these random correlations as "proof of need of more research".
This prediction is not the result of clairvoyance, rather it is an educated guess based on previous observations of this kind of setup.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:3, Insightful)
Except for the fact that the mere measurement to determine an electron's state is what causes the state to change on that electron, and by entanglement, the state of the other electron too. So, how are you going to know how often an electron is changing state without any observation?
Re:Randi is viewed as a fraud by 'people who can'. (Score:4, Insightful)
Among other things, Dubois told Schwartz "the deceased was telling me that I must share the following - I don't walk alone," a seemingly innocuous piece of information, but critical to him.
"My friend had been confined to a wheelchair in her last years - there is no way Allison could have known that," he said.
Gosh! That's incredible! Or... not. How about the other example:
According to a summary of the reading done by Schwartz, she told him the deceased person was a man of great stature, extremely handsome, had beautiful women around him, was known to politicians and other well-known people, and was cremated - all accurate, according to Chopra's evaluation.
But she also told him his father was connected to the U.S. oil and steel industry, and there was a small dark terrier dog in his life - not true, Chopra said. Her accuracy score - 77 percent, according to Chopra's scoring, Schwartz said.
Maybe she meant me. I'm tall, handsome, have a beautiful fiance, and I'm known to politicians and other well-known people. Haven't been cremated yet, though.
See? This is goofy - all of the things she got right would apply to just about anyone... "great stature" could mean tall, important, etc. Everyone knows a "well-known" person. Also, the specifics - oil and steel, the terrier - were wrong.
The scoring is also questionable... If I guess that you're "handsome, have great stature, have beautiful women around you, and are a member of the royal family of Greece", did I just score 75 percent? 'Cause if so, I'm psychic too. I'll even say that despite having never met you, I know you're male. Now I'm at 80 percent, beating out Schwartz.
Re:Randi is viewed as a fraud by 'people who can'. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Randi's made claims for which he has absolutely no evidence what-so-ever? People have demonstrated categorically that what he claims is false? Wow, there must be a WEALTH of information to support that assertion - I mean, he's THE public skeptic, so surely if he's been discredited you'll be able to provide a link or 3?
My favorite part of your post is:
He's a very smart man. "I only work with scientists" (he's now retired). He'd prepared some notes, and held up his copies of Scientific American and other mainstream sources...
Nothing like a little rented credibility! I can hold up a copy of a magazine and read from notes, too. It doesn't say a thing about my intelligence, nor about the veracity of what I'm saying. If my audience, however, is easily fooled by simple props, it might say something about their intelligence, however...
In the land of the blind (Score:3, Insightful)
A story my mother told me as a child was about a group of blind women. Everyone they ever knew was blind. But one of them had just partial peripheral vision in one eye. She would tell the others, "Sometimes I just seem to know something is there, it is blurry and off to the side, but I just know it is there." The other blind women would mock her and make fun of her. The whole idea that someone could "see" was simply ludicrous.
Imagine if there are senses most people are "blind" to. The people who have them, even mild versions would seem, well ludicrous.
Re:I know what you're thinking (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullpucky. If telepathy were proven they would be shouting their results from the mountaintops to let everyone know. The CIA et al would be all over them like flies to a 3-day old raccoon carcass on the Alabama asphalt in mid July. Oh wait, they already have and found that if there is such as a thing as remote viewing it is highly subjective and not able to be used for anything other than parlor tricks. In other words, it's reproducable.
Further, if they could prove and replicate their results they would go to the James Randi Foundation (as others above have said), sign the contract and get their $1 million.
The fact is that they can't reproduce their results under controlled conditions, they haven't proven anything other than they can manipulate their subjects AND they haven't gone to claim their million dollar prize.
In short, they haven't proven squat.
Re:In the land of the blind (Score:4, Insightful)
-Eric
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like the flatlander story and what it would be like to see a sphere. [sciencenews.org] (forget the rest, just look at that part) While we may not be able to understand what is going on (3D sphere being inserted into flatland), we most certainly see elements of SOMETHING going on (changing diameter circle appearing out of nowhere). Like the flatlander example of a changing diameter circle just appearing out of nowhere -- if telepathy really exists, then we would see some derivative of it show up in a meaningful pattern of somekind in this world.
Right now, we see none of the above when it comes to telepathy.
Re:Tax payer money at work (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah Slashdot. It's always the ignorant guy who has to get insulting. I take it from your simple setup of you and your buddies that you have never set up a scientific experiment. Or if you have you have let go of that training in this instance. Perhaps it's my fault and I should have been more clear. I will do so here.
Firstly, no experiment planned by the test subject would be considered valid. Nobody is going to let a supposed psychic set up the conditions for their own testing. James Randi has volumes to say on that matter so I refer you to him if you want more clarity. So in terms of the analogy, you and your buddies at a baseball diamond with a video camera proves nothing. Heck, I could go to a baseball diamond with a video camera and saw a lady in half. Have I proved that I'm magical?
Secondly, "proving" does not mean having evidence of something ever happening. Not in this case. If that were so then the argument for psychic functioning would have been resolved long ago. It happens. It happens under laboratory conditions too (see reference below). What has not yet been demonstrated under laboratory conditions is "does it happen in a statistically significant number?" (Actually, that's a debatable point depending on how you do the stats. Reference = An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning [ucdavis.edu]) In other words, is a persons ability to know something greater than the chance of guessing. If it's not greater than chance than it's not a phenomena. It's just random luck.
Look at the baseball analogy in this light. With just current baseball statistics (where 0.30 is a great batting average) is the home run an actual phenomena or is it just chance? It all depends on how you do the stats. Over all pitches thrown home runs are statistically insignificant. It's just chance. But batter by batter there are those players who have a greater statistical likelihood to hit a home run. They get paid a lot more because of it.
Take one of those players (Sammy Sosa? Mark McGuire?) and put them in a laboratory with conditions arranged by the experimentors. Perhaps the first random factor that would need to be removed would be the pitcher. Too much variation. A machine would be designed that would throw a certain kind of pitch all the time. Or perhaps that is also too random. Maybe the ball should be attached to a high speed mounting that runs on a rail? This is where assumptions come in to play. Since we're all (relatively) familiar with baseball the odds are the the experimentor would choose some reasonable pitch, say a 70 mph fastball right in the strike zone. In the tests of psychic functioning we don't have this advantage. What if we set up the pitching machine to throw 160 mph curveballs? How about a 25 mph pitch at an elevation of 8 ft off the ground? We would call that a ball (an unreasonable pitch), but in an experiment to detect "mind reading" how would we know what constitutes an unreasonable condition? We're totally in the dark here. Already, in our baseball experiment, we see that the conditions can be set up where our subject can hit a home run every time or not at all. What if he was just "off his game" that day? I would actually be very curious to see if just the environment, not in a ball park but in a lab, would affect the psychology of the player enough that his home runs would become statistically insignificant, ie. no greater than chance. Neither Sammy nor Mark can hit a homer "at will". Not unless they set up the conditions themselves, which is not a valid test.
That's the state of psychic research today. It's very statistically oriented and some researchers claim that it has been proven (repeatedly) while others disagree with their statistical method or experimental arrangement and say nothing was proven. Both sides agree that the subject got the right answer sometimes - a home run. The question is do we have any McGuires or Sosas. Until we can say that the phenomena is proven it is near impossible to have a conversation about about how it works. This apparatus is an attempt to gather enough data to say one way or the other.
;->