The Truth Is Out There - Story of Stephen Braude

[jacob]

A reporter for the Chronicle magazine to an article in a magazine about Stephen Braude, his story and latest book. I've written about the article with some of my thoughts about it here:

The Truth Is Out There - Story of Stephen Braude - Parapsychology articles and blog

The link to the article is inside the post and the free link is only active for 5 days from today (after that paid registration to the Chronicle magazine might be required).

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Randi is described as a “publicity hound” who “weaseled out” of a challenge to explain phenomena produced by Ted Serios, who some believe could make odd and spooky images appear on Polaroid film.

Oh please, no one takes Serios seriously. It's like taking Geller seriously.

~~ Paul

[Topher Cooper]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Oh please, no one takes Serios seriously. It's like taking Geller seriously.

~~ Paul

Your right Paul -- or at least no one takes Serios seriously who is credible (and taking Serios seriously is proof that one is not credible). After all, Randi has said that he could easily reproduce everything that Serios has done under the same conditions any time he feels like it, and that should end the matter, it being completely irrelevant that Randi has never "felt like it" in all the decades since he first made the claim. More importantly, Serios has done stuff that if it were real would constitute evidence of phenomena that we know absolutely and with certainty cannot be true -- it makes no sense to accept as evidence anything that would constitute evidence to something we don't believe in, after all. The mere fact that nobody has ever been able to do more than a rough approximation of Serios's demonstrations under very much looser conditions (and while sober), and that no one has actually been able to demonstrate Serios cheating, despite multiple sessions under tight laboratory conditions with trained magicians and hours and hours of video tape to examine is completely irrelevant.

<Sarcasm mode off>

I tend to distrust really outstanding subjects like Serios. The more spectacular the results, the more motivation to find a way of cleverly cheating, and the more the experiment depends on the single person.

In all the films I've seen of him working though, I have never seen anything that looks like a magician: no really questionable moves, few moves that are innocent but which might be clever opportunities, generally cooperative and never seemingly anxious to control angles or procedures. On the other hand, he is clearly and unmistakably a person with severe personality problems -- and not just his drinking. I would, just guessing, say that he would probably today be diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome or even high functioning autism.

Randi has frequently reproduced vaguely similar results, but only vaguely, and only under loose conditions, while acting very much like a magician (of course, he always seems to act like he is ready to steal your underwear, even when he is just having a casual conversation).

Persi Diaconis (a top-notch magician, and Stanford statistician) claims to have once spotted Serios in cheating, but the method claimed would not have worked under the laboratory conditions that Serios worked under, despite the results being highly consistent in appearance. I have great admiration for both Diaconis's legerdemain and his statistical research, but as a Skeptic he has appeared on several occasions to allow the "greater truth" to take precedence over the actual details of what has occurred.

So, was Serios for real? Can't say for sure. Does "no one take him seriously"? Lots of people do. All I can say is that he has all the characteristics that would make for a lousy magician, but he gets results that would make him one of the best in the world (though he only does a single trick).

[Mike]

Michael Prescott's Blog: Let's get Serios

[Topher Cooper]

“It ain't so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.” -- Josh Billings

[jacob]

That was a great reading, Mike. Prescott often has good posts on his blog and I don't think I've read this one.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Topher

Your right Paul -- or at least no one takes Serios seriously who is credible (and taking Serios seriously is proof that one is not credible). After all, Randi has said that he could easily reproduce everything that Serios has done under the same conditions any time he feels like it, and that should end the matter, it being completely irrelevant that Randi has never "felt like it" in all the decades since he first made the claim. More importantly, Serios has done stuff that if it were real would constitute evidence of phenomena that we know absolutely and with certainty cannot be true -- it makes no sense to accept as evidence anything that would constitute evidence to something we don't believe in, after all. The mere fact that nobody has ever been able to do more than a rough approximation of Serios's demonstrations under very much looser conditions (and while sober), and that no one has actually been able to demonstrate Serios cheating, despite multiple sessions under tight laboratory conditions with trained magicians and hours and hours of video tape to examine is completely irrelevant.

Sorry, I don't have to take him seriously even if you do give me another browbeating lecture about what a good skeptic would do. If a good little skeptic is required to treat every ridiculous claim with equal respect, then skeptic is a synonym for Milquetoast.

He needs the paper gismo. That surely has something to do with the brand new science that came out of all the experiments with him.

Oh wait, somehow what he does with his brain and the camera receives absolutely no acknowledgment in scientific theory.

I'm required to assume that a guy can think of an image, encode the image somehow, convert it to electromagnetic radiation in the appropriate pattern, and beam the radiation out of his skull.

I'm required to stifle my feeling that perhaps, instead, there is an optical device in the gismo.

I'm required almost to make my brain explode in rejecting the obvious probabilistic argument here.

~~ Paul

[jacob]

Paul, have you actually read Prescott's post on this subject that I pasted earlier.

By the way, Michael Prescott just posted an article about Braude's book, at
Michael Prescott's Blog: Pure gold

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by jacob

Paul, have you actually read Prescott's post on this subject that I pasted earlier.

Sorry Jacob, which post? Mike posted a link to an article by Prescott.


~~ Paul

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

He needs the paper gismo.

The Prescott article I linked to says that Serios did not always use the gismo, that sometimes the gismo was created by others instead of Serios, and that sometimes they deliberately blocked the end of the gismo during the experiments. Yet the article says that Serios still obtained results. (Some of this information might be in the comments section after the artilce.)