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Originally Posted by Open Mind  Randi's 'standards' are heading towards impossible to win ....When Randi was asked by Ted Dace, odds of 1000 to 1 in preliminary followed by 100,000 (or was it 1,000,000 to 1? I can't recall without checking) ....this is not scientific .... Randi in theory could still stamp ridiculous odds like 800,000 to one a failure.
The only way to debunk Randi's (propaganda against psi claims) prize is to get him involved without prize or to endorse a less arbitrary, more scientific standard, not giving him the excuse to raise the bar by offering money as in a competition.
If you work out the odds it could take an effect size of the Ganzfeld experiment running one experiment per day, every day over 4 years to win prize, the applicant pays the costs, how much would it cost?
Hopefully dogs have stronger psi |
Ok - I'm genuinly trying to see the arguements from both sides here so bear with me... I'm fascinated by paranormal claims, and I would love to see someone conclusively demonstrate the existence of psi. However if it were my money and I was offering to *give* it away I expect I would want a similar benchmark. It would be a different story if I was *betting* someone, but thats not the case.
To put the 1 in 1,000,000 in context, if you correctly guessed a number between 1 and 1,000 once that would be impressive, but realistically could be random chance. If you do it twice in a row I think you would be on to something.
As far as the Ganzfeld experiment, yes it's *possible* that some psi is being demonstrated, but if the results are so marginal that it would take 4 years of nonstop testing to produce a 1 in 1,000,000 certainty, isn't is also possible that some inconsistency in the controls is causing the result rather than psi? In other words, if psi does exist why wouldn't someone - anyone (or any dog) - be able to demonstrate a near 100% hit rate?