Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Noble  I think you misunderstand the purpose and scope of peer review. The vague innuendo appears to be that Randi is cheating. Peer review doesn't necessarily prevent fraud. The reviewers don't come and check your lab books to see whether you have really done the experiments that you claim to do. They generally trust that you are reporting the experimental results accurately.
Are you suggesting that there are people that have taken the MDC and have been cheated by Randi? This is the innuendo. These people have signed documents with the agreed to conditions. Are you really suggesting that they did what they claimed they could do and Randi didn't give them the money? |
Why are you accusing me of "suggesting" things I've never said? Why are you putting things in my mouth, like "are you really suggesting that they did what they claimed they could do and Randi didn't give them the money?" Where on Earth did you get
that from? I've never said anything like it. Please stop fabulating and argue the points I've made, not the ones you have made up yourself.
Look, I'm
not suggesting that Randi et al cheat, I'm suggesting that perhaps the conditions are not fair, and that the methods aren't good enough. And of course I understand that peer-review doesn't prevent fraud! It
can help detecting it though, as it did in the case of the Soal experiments in telepathy.
Why is it okay for Randi's organization to say they have debunked all kinds of claims, without even publishing the evidence, when a parapsychologist never could do the same without receiving severe criticism? It's quite ironic that you complain about Alex videos and the lack of information in them, but at the same time defend Randi's claims about having debunked all kinds of things, without a shred of supporting documentation. You have to be more consistent. You can't set other standards for skeptics than for proponents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Noble A large number of the applicants to the MDC challenge have been dowsers. Do you really think that you could publish numerous accounts of self deluded would be dowsers who fail miserably when they are asked to do what they claim they can do? Most rejection letters from journals complain about the lack of novelty. Self deluded dowsers are hardly novel! |
The Ganzfeld experiments were replicated dozens of times and reported over and over again. Why shouldn't the JREF investigation teams be able to publish their tests over and over again? Anyway, they could at least do it
once, but it seems they haven't even done that.