http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163?format=rss Tribe.net. Local Connections http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#3640d344-623d-49b7-847c-a7c5d22ccc6a As I stated clearly enough, it is not the merits of the case concerning Miz Xray's abilities that we are arguing. It is the merits of the procedures used to test. Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:14:12 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#3640d344-623d-49b7-847c-a7c5d22ccc6a Solari 2009-06-20T04:14:12Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#7c72076c-72e2-4af5-9ed9-2d30354195d9 Interesting, Solari, since you are such a skeptic on other cases and issues: why are you so convinced about this case? Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:54:37 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#7c72076c-72e2-4af5-9ed9-2d30354195d9 Santa the Roué 2009-06-20T02:54:37Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#37abb1d7-2e90-4fc0-b189-34f928990495 With regard to the question: "How would you set up a test?" First of all, in the case of Ms. X-ray, I would not take her away from her routine. I would not take her out of her game by imposing a whole new scenario on her with this multiple choice test that was created. What possible reason could there have been for that when Ms X-ray made claims of a certain modus operandi that would have been statistically far more difficult to satisfy - namely making correct diagnoses from "out of the blue" so to speak with no prompting or suggestion. What the Randi set up was really designed to do I think was take Ms X-ray out of her game. The arbitrariness and semantics of symptom description, by the way, would prevail in either test situation. It's a built in problem with the test in the first place. The only way to get around it would be to do many trials - not just one Game Show style extravaganza such as this was. Ridiculous! But even with this circus Natasha got 4 out of seven correct and damn near won the prize. I bet Randi was pissing himself. Here's another example of CISCOP shenanigans - the notorious homeopathy fiasco: http://www.hpathy.com/papersnew/vithoulkas-james-randi.asp Mind you, I have nothing against the spirit of CISCOP's endeavor and my criticism has nothing to do with the whether or not Natasha is actually endowed with extraordinary powers. I was prompted to bring this topic up because of your previous post on pseudoscience which I think is practiced quite deviously by CISCOP sometimes. Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:55:06 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#37abb1d7-2e90-4fc0-b189-34f928990495 Solari 2009-06-20T01:55:06Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#adda3550-c5e1-4a3a-a316-8ddf68cdec55 "Since 1998 the James Randi Educational Foundation has offered a one million dollar prize for anyone who can demonstrate psychic, paranormal, or occult abilities. The offer’s been in effect for about 10 years now, and no one has been able to earn the cash. Now, while the JREF earns a certain income from having the prize money very conservatively invested, that sum could certainly be used more productively if it were made freely available to us. As of March 6th, 2010 - twelve years after the challenge was first offered - it will be. The James Randi Educational Foundation Million-Dollar Challenge will be discontinued 24 months from this coming March 6th, and those prize funds will then be available to generally add to our flexibility. This move will free us to do many more projects, which will be announced at that time." http://renegadefuturist.com/archives/2008/02/04/attention-magicians-james-randi-prize-ending-in-2010/ Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:28:51 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#adda3550-c5e1-4a3a-a316-8ddf68cdec55 Solari 2009-06-20T01:28:51Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#b53d742b-cad1-4ecc-b6d0-2c19b4153616 You say, "Randi will feel less compelled to rig his tests." However, "All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant." How does Randi rig his tests? Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:16:37 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#b53d742b-cad1-4ecc-b6d0-2c19b4153616 Hoopes 2009-06-20T00:16:37Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#fdf834d9-0d69-48b0-a0fd-2b17ae9fda0c "The good news is that Randi is suspending the million dollar prize." Is that so? The challenge info is still online: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html "At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant." Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:12:50 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#fdf834d9-0d69-48b0-a0fd-2b17ae9fda0c Hoopes 2009-06-20T00:12:50Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#8ea9ddb3-a2a6-4861-838c-1e2d95392f7f "Another obvious question - why was Randi's test on the X-ray girl set up the way it was in the first place? Why did he bother to make it a multiple choice test which on the face of it gives Natasha a boost?" Okay, how would you set up an appropriate test? What controls would you use to make sure it was "fair"? Seems to me diagnosis is a tricky thing. Would saying something like "there's something wrong with his head" be considered correct whether it was a headache, a dental abcess, or a brain tumor? If it were a hearing problem, would it count if she didn't use the words "ear," "hearing," "deafness," etc.? Would saying "he's got an abdominal illness" be judged "correct" whether it affected the intestines, liver, kidneys, bladder, etc.? I don't think it's fair to blame Randi and his associate for trying to set up an intricate test. True believers can be amazingly ingenious at finding ways to prove that they're "right". I'm sure Randi doesn't want to lose a million bucks to someone who's just being clever. Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:07:25 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#8ea9ddb3-a2a6-4861-838c-1e2d95392f7f Hoopes 2009-06-20T00:07:25Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#63b88338-eb03-4c67-af57-00dcd1107089 "I believe the point being made here, Hoopes, as if you did not understand, was that she was tired." She wasn't allowed to sleep or rest before the tests were conducted? I don't recall reading that. I can understand how being jet-lagged might affect sensitivity, but the article doesn't address that specifically. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:59:05 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#63b88338-eb03-4c67-af57-00dcd1107089 Hoopes 2009-06-19T23:59:05Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#94cc52d8-c809-4185-aaf4-0c2774ff2aa3 Another obvious question - why was Randi's test on the X-ray girl set up the way it was in the first place? Why did he bother to make it a multiple choice test which on the face of it gives Natasha a boost? After all, Natasha's usual modus operandi was not to have any such preparatory clues. The reason he did that is because even if Natasha got all the diagnoses correct there would still be the possibility that she had simply guessed correctly or been given enough clues to seach for the outward manifestations of the ailment in the volunteers. Randi was not going to allow Natasha to just waltz in there and start making diagnoses cold. That would have exceeded chance in a most glaring way and would have given Randi no wiggle room at all. Randi would have lost a million dollars but even more devastatingly he would have lost face. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:41:00 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#94cc52d8-c809-4185-aaf4-0c2774ff2aa3 Solari 2009-06-19T23:41:00Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#6b8c0d57-ffaa-40ba-bb3d-78eddaa1eab0 What is most telling here is characteristic of many of Randi's tests. They are in the first place "one offs" which as any self respecting researcher knows cannot possibly be comprehensive enough to determine accuracy. The other telling point concerns the goofiness of the test set up which ingnored the stated parameters of Natasha's alleged skills. This is reminiscent of the test Randi devised to debunk homeopathy - the antihistamine test - which had been apparently supported by previous controlled blind tests. The Randi test though took the homeopathic dilutions way beyond the standard dilution to the point that homeopathic lore would no longer claim efficacy, so it was no surprise that an effect did not show up. The good news is that Randi is suspending the million dollar prize. We can only hope that without the terror of having to pay out a million dollars to a winner looming in the background, Randi will feel less compelled to rig his tests. What's also real telling about the X-Ray girl affair is how willing Randi was to grandstand a conclusion not really merited by the actual performance. In other words, Randi barks these public events as shamelessly as any of the bogus showmen he debunks. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:19:32 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#6b8c0d57-ffaa-40ba-bb3d-78eddaa1eab0 Solari 2009-06-19T22:19:32Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#c6a4f5bc-f13f-41ab-8021-604994aafbd0 I believe the point being made here, Hoopes, as if you did not understand, was that she was tired. Any test of a paranormalist would by design be performed on a rested test subject. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:06:51 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#c6a4f5bc-f13f-41ab-8021-604994aafbd0 Solari 2009-06-19T22:06:51Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#4bbff6a1-c571-4831-afb7-ef0e0e838f54 Skeptical of the skeptics? http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/home.htm Another perspective on "The Girl with X-Ray Eyes": The Girl with Normal Eyes http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/demkina.html Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:00:05 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#4bbff6a1-c571-4831-afb7-ef0e0e838f54 Hoopes 2009-06-19T22:00:05Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#81103b50-2829-4b7f-b4bc-e08309fcf28b "brought to New York (a gruelling 24-hour journey by train, flight and bus)" An all-expense-paid trip to New York City is something that surely every Russian teenager would dread. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:54:14 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#81103b50-2829-4b7f-b4bc-e08309fcf28b Hoopes 2009-06-19T21:54:14Z http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#2ff62567-7845-4462-841d-082201567fa1 The Natasha Demkina Case by Mary Rose Barrington RESPECTED SCIENTISTS? Such was the description given to the gurus of CSICOP, among them Profs. Ray Hyman and (master of ceremonies) Richard Wiseman, in a television programme on the Discovery channel (September 2004). Natasha Demkina, a 17-year-old Russian schoolgirl celebrated in her home town of Saransk for making accurate diagnoses of people's medical ailments just by looking at them, was brought to New York (a gruelling 24-hour journey by train, flight and bus) to have her 'paranormal claims' tested by the self-styled world authorities. She was required to match seven written diagnoses against seven corresponding test persons wearing black-lens spectacles to avoid any eye contact. She said from the outset that two of the diagnoses were outside her range, but she was kindly reassured by Wiseman that she would pass her test if she scored five out of five on the other trials. Under these fairly taxing conditions she was in fact correct in four out of the seven trials, a result yielding a significant p value of .02, an outcome calling for a fair degree of congratulation. But there were no congratulations for Natasha. While noting (in passing) that the odds against this result being due to chance were around 50 to 1, Wiseman told her that she had failed, and the patronising Hyman advised that she should forget her delusions and pursue her proposed medical studies (his own delusion being presumably that the diagnoses of medical practitioners are invariably correct). The commentator crowed that the girl would now return to Russia discredited. Mission accomplished! The experiment itself was a perfectly sound test, although it was for something that Natasha did not actually claim to be able to do, making her performance all the more creditable. Her usual patients had current medical problems that they wanted to have disgnosed, and insofar as their subconscious minds possessed any useful knowledge about them they wantd to obtain this information. By contrast, the test persons had no need for a diagnosis, and if chosen by CSICOP it is very likely that they had no desire to open up the contents of their subconscious minds. Anyone who under these altered circumstances does not expect a diminished degree of efficiency betrays a woeful (or wilful) ignorance of the basics of psychical research. One of the test persons had a metal plate covering part of his brain, and Natasha failed to identify this. But why should she? The man was not suffering from a medical condition. Whatever he had suffered had been treated, and Natasha did not claim to be a metal detector. Wiseman cross-examined her on this 'failure' rather as if she had committed perjury under oath. 'But if you can see inside people surely you would see a big metal plate?' The programme was called The Girl with X-ray Eyes, so perhaps Wiseman thinks this is how clairvoyance is supposed to operate? More probably his naively mechanistic argument was just intended to put over a simple CSICOP message to viewers: She got dsomething wrong - the claim is dismissed. Science has spoken. As a fraction of the whole truth, this pronouncement scores about 2/10. The authentic message from science is that a probability of .02 would be considered sufficient in medical research to support the efficacy of a substance under test, and some fifty similar tests would have to be carried out before the results achieved by Natasha could be expected to arise by chance. So CSICOP's experiment actually demonstrated a prima facie confirmation of Natasha's ability to deliver paranormal diagnoses. Respected by whom? Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:28:58 GMT http://2012.tribe.net/thread/235f6d44-2e55-4da6-b4fd-dc0463e47163#2ff62567-7845-4462-841d-082201567fa1 Solari 2009-06-19T18:28:58Z