which form of psi is concidered to be the most evidence based ?

[sparky]

hello , everyone

I concider myself to be a skeptic.
I am new to posting on forums , and also fairly new to the viewpoints from the "other" side .
Alex's show is my only source on the "believer" side ( please correct me if i use jargon that is misplaced )
The show , although i often disagree , is well made and always interresting
So i guess i want to establish som sort of baseline
are staring experiments concidered to be valid ?
I often hear presentiment discribed as being proven .
...
is there any concencus about this in your community ?

please let me know what you think

[Open Mind]

I'd recommend Dean Radin's 'Entangled Minds' book .... nice Christmas present

His book goes through these ....

Dream Telepathy : 47 studies, 1027 sessions
Odds against chance of 22,000,000,000 to 1

Ganzfeld Telepathy 88 studies, 3145 sessions
Odds against chance of 29,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1

Detection of being stared at 65 studies, 34,097 sessions
Odds against chance of 8.5 x 10^46 to 1

Detection of distant Intention 40 studies, 1055 sessions
Odds against chance of 1000 to 1

Unconscious detection of being stared at 15 studies, 379 sessions
Odds against chance of 100 to 1

Dice PK 169 Studies , 2.6 million tries
Odds against chance of 2.6 x 10^76 to 1

RNG PK 595 Studies , 1.1 billion random events
Odds against chance of 3052 to 1

All the above take into account potential selective reporting biases using trim and fill algorithm.

Combining the above psi studies produces odds against chance of ....
13000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000 to 1

I might have missed missed or added an extra '0' there .... you get the picture though .... as Radin would say 'something interesting is occurring' ...

Nor does the above include Presentiment, which again a meta-analysis would definitely, currently, be significant

Above Information from Dean Radin's 'Entangled Minds' Book. Also you can watch his video on You Tube ....
YouTube - "Science and the taboo of psi" with Dean Radin

Now that is only lab based evidence.... weak effects mounting to astronomical odds against chance using ordinary people not particularly claiming to be psychic....

[Open Mind]

I should also point out that 'Skeptic' organizations will try to rubbish these claims .... when reading their side of the debate, bear this in mind ....

Randi's 1 million challenge
Number of scientific experiments capable of detecting weaker effects = Zero

Number of claimants tested in an experiment = Average 2 preliminary tests per year (estimate of less than 30 tests for 1 million challange) *

Number of failed applications that never reached an experiment = estimate well over 400

Percentage of applicants being tested = less than 5%

How close to chance expectation? 'far below chance' *

Amount of attempted replications of parapsychology lab claims = none

*According to the words of 'Kramer' in the JREF forum - JREF/Randi's former 1 Million Dollar Challenge Manager in 2005

Skeptic Organization CSI, formerly called CSICOP
Number of scientific studies in their 30+ years existence capable of replicating parapsychological effects = None

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Combining the above psi studies produces odds against chance of ....
13000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000 to 1

We're already abusing meta-analysis pretty seriously, but this certainly wins the prize. Let's combine completely unrelated studies and come up with a really big number.

I don't buy any of it. I think there are many different reasons why the protocols are flawed, the statistical analysis is flawed, the file drawer is being ignored, meta-analysis is being abused, people are cheating, and so forth. But then there are those really big numbers that sound so impressive.

I'm waiting for the fall-out technology.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I don't buy any of it.
~~ Paul

Paul you should ....don't donate all your money to skeptic organizations!

[Ersby]

Just sticking to those areas I have some resources about...

Ganzfeld Telepathy 88 studies, 3145 sessions
Odds against chance of 29,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1

No inclusion criteria. Merely a collection of the most famous (ie, most successful) experiments.

Detection of being stared at 65 studies, 34,097 sessions
Odds against chance of 8.5 x 10^46 to 1

This includes data using Sheldrake’s random sheets, with feedback. Beirman has already demonstrated a simple learning technique can give the same results as those reported.

Detection of distant Intention 40 studies, 1055 sessions
Odds against chance of 1000 to 1

“Remote Intention On Electrodermal Acnvtiy: Two Meta-Analyses”, Stefan Schmidt, Rainer Schneider, Jessica Utts, Harald Walach
“ The authors found a small mean effect size of d= 0.11, which was highly significant (p = .001).
This finding is undermined by a best-evidence synthesis of 7 studies with the highest methodological standard, which show a smaller, nonsignificant mean effect size (d = .05). [...] After a correction for sampling error, it yielded a mean effect size of d = 0.13 (p = .01)”

RNG PK 595 Studies , 1.1 billion random events
Odds against chance of 3052 to 1

“On the false hypothesis of PSI-mediated Mean-Shift in Tests with Random Generators”, Pallikari
“The first thing we notice is that it converges to 0.5 for very large study sizes, which is the effect size expected by chance, suggesting no micro-PK mean shifting mechanism underway. The second thing to notice is that it is not symmetrical.
There are more data on the right hand side, on the side of successes than the left hand side, the side of failures. The database is biased. An attempt to estimate the statistical average of all these scores will bring it to a value above 0.5 quite different from the true effect size where the funnel plot converges, i.e. 0.5."

Personally, I think the answer to the question in the first post is presentiment.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ersby

Personally, I think the answer to the question in the first post is presentiment.

Ten years ago we would have said Ganzfeld. Ten years from now we'll be saying something new.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm really leery of anything Sheldrake does. I think he is a sloppy experimenter.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm really leery of anything Sheldrake does. I think he is a sloppy experimenter.

~~ Paul

Can you be specific - I mean I tend to feel people say that about RS because he gets large effect sizes (by devising emotionally relevant experiments), and people don't know how else to criticise him!

I think I would vote for Rupert Sheldrake and/or Dean Radin!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

Can you be specific - I mean I tend to feel people say that about RS because he gets large effect sizes (by devising emotionally relevant experiments), and people don't know how else to criticise him!

Well, there was the clock synchronization leak in telephone telepathy experiments. On the same subject, we have this video:

YouTube - Rupert Sheldrake: Telephone Telepathy

but the paper contradicts it and leaves out important information. Some of the problem might be due to sloppy video editing.

I just don't get warm and fuzzy thinking of his methodology.

~~ Paul