Blindness of Debunkers and Radical Skeptics (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove, explores psi phenomena, consciousness, intuition
and how radical skeptics are ignoring advances in our understanding of
human consciousness: "The same kind of blind unconsciousness that
led the United

Click here to read more ...

[kokopellikairo]

I had seen the position of skepticks,but frankly i really don't understand
their validity in these subjects,and their claims what they really reflect
are conflicts of psychological nature within themselves

[jacob]

Exactly, many of them are totally incompetent to criticize but do so anyway, since they think it's just not possible because it's not possible.

I suggest they read Dean Radin's 'Entagled Minds' book.

[Opcnup]

The position of Skeptics is that an incredible claim like psi (which would be frikkin awesome) needs incredible proof. a Well designed experiment that iseasily reproducable would qualify as proof, yet the experiments all seem to have something wrong with them, which makes skeptics doubt.

[jacob]

But what about all the research and analysis that Dr. Dean Radin wrote about in his books, like 'Entangled Mind', for example. I've read it and it describes many studies, many with very significant results, even if they are statistical.

[Opcnup]

I haven't seen the experimental design, or any critique about it, so I can't speak as to the accuracy of it. I would imagine I would have heard about it from more than ne person if it were valid, the gansfeld experiments were heard about all over the place, but had no validity at all.

Can you point me towards more information where I don't have to pay or read a hundred pages? I am weary of putting a great deal of effort in to something that will probably turn out to be full of holes.

[jacob]

For an example (not from the book) but from Dean Radin's blog, see:
Entangled Minds: Quantum observation experiment.

It's only an abstract but looks interesting.

[Opcnup]

According to Dean what he did was correcting one way in the first experiment, then correcting another way in the second, and a third way in the third time, then retroactively applied his goofy (my words) methods back to the previous sets of data, essentially poisoning the data.

By his own admission on the skeptiko podcast he did something which anyone with statistical knowledge knows absolutely kills the credibility of his analysis.

[Grayven]

and their claims what they really reflect
are conflicts of psychological nature within themselves

Could you clarify this a bit?

Exactly, many of them are totally incompetent to criticize but do so anyway,

That would be an ad hominum

they think it's just not possible because it's not possible

Nope. You're completely misconstuing skeptical views. For instance, Psi. It's possible. There could be some unknown property in nature that makes psi phenomena possible. As soon as I see compelling evidence, I'll start believing. I'm still waiting.

Please note, I'm not saying "Its not possible because its not possible". Im saying "Its possible, but seems unlikely."

[jacob]

That would be an ad hominum

First, it's ad hominem. But, there are serious skeptics, who quote studies. There are even better skeptics, who perform studies themselves, often replicating studies made by parapsychologists. Like Richard Wiseman, for example. These are serious people and I hold great respect to them and their work.
But there is that crows, like in the comments to a post on my blog: Spoon bending instructions and pictures . Who are just saying that Randi showed that it can be done with regular magicians trick, so it's all bullshit. They are also often very aggressive in their comments (I've removed all the comments with foul words, so you won't see any of them there but the regular aggressive are there).

And I assume, that like in any field, the followers, who just quote Randi and the like make the majority.