43. From the desk of James Randi (Podcast)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

Skeptics are constantly insinuating that the failure of anyone to win the challenge gives a good prima facie reason to suppose that no paranormal phenomena exists.

I agree. It is a good prima facie reason. It's just not anything like proof.

Originally Posted by Larry

It claims to be "research" that is "utilizing 'the scientific method'."

I'd say "research" is a slight exaggeration, but it is not a scientific study.

That's not where the problem lies! The problem is that a lot of skeptics have the attitude that unless somebody wins the challenge, all scientific evidence of psi is useless! What kind of reasoning is that? Why should one publicity-seeking challenge be more important than over 60 years of scientific research by hundreds of scientists?

Well, that's a bad attitude. My attitude is more like the paranormal mongers should shut the hell up and take the challenge.

~~ Paul

[kimosabu]

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

Well the problem is that you can't solve a scientific problem by setting up a challenge that has a ridiculous benchmark in order to secure money that shouldn't be involved in scientific research in the first place. Now I know that skeptics will say that it's just a test, it's not a research, but see my above post for my response to that.

First of all I'm not sure I would agree the benchmark is ridiculous. Of course, scientific studies would be the optimal way to research paranormal claims, but isnt there a long history of scientific studies (similar to Sheldrake's and Radin's) being wrong as well? I recall a lot of credentialed researchers in the 70's vouching for the legitimacy of Uri Gellar's claims. Lets be realistic - there is a lot of incentive for someone to falsly claim they have abilities, and a lot of examples where people have been proven to have been intentionally deceptive.

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

Because we're talking about human performance! In no ordinary psychology experiment would you expect a near 100% hit rate. Nor would you expect a football (or soccer, in the US) player to score every time he shoots. As for the effects being small, they're even smaller in a lot of medical research, and those results are still seen as valid.

I'm not sure that is a good analogy. Many psychics claim to have pre-cognitive abilities. I'll claim to have post-cognitive abilities (memory). If I want to demonstrate that to someone I can have them read me a 3-digit number and I will recite it one minute later. I could do that with a 100% sucess rate. If we expand it to a 10-digit number my accuracy will go down dramitically, but still if i have the ability I am claiming I should be able to setup protocol that would give me a very high sucess rate.

As far a small effects in medical studies being valid, if the results are that small, but side effects are present I think most reasonable people would not opt for the treatement. I think that's analogous to being skeptical about a such small effect in a paranormal claim when the side effect is that it would contradict much of what's thought to be true about the physical universe.

I go back to the question... If the effect demonstrated really is that small wouldn't it be reasonable to think that some inconsistency in the controls is causing the result rather than paranormal abilities.

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by kimosabu

First of all I'm not sure I would agree the benchmark is ridiculous. Of course, scientific studies would be the optimal way to research paranormal claims, but isnt there a long history of scientific studies (similar to Sheldrake's and Radin's) being wrong as well? I recall a lot of credentialed researchers in the 70's vouching for the legitimacy of Uri Gellar's claims. Lets be realistic - there is a lot of incentive for someone to falsly claim they have abilities, and a lot of examples where people have been proven to have been intentionally deceptive.

Of course, and that's exactly why you need to conduct a lot of studies. One study isn't enough, however high you set the bar.

Originally Posted by kimosabu

I'm not sure that is a good analogy. Many psychics claim to have pre-cognitive abilities. I'll claim to have post-cognitive abilities (memory). If I want to demonstrate that to someone I can have them read me a 3-digit number and I will recite it one minute later. I could do that with a 100% sucess rate. If we expand it to a 10-digit number my accuracy will go down dramitically, but still if i have the ability I am claiming I should be able to setup protocol that would give me a very high sucess rate.

Demonstrating an effect isn't necessarily as easy as you make it out to be. I recall reading somewhere that about half of all psychology studies fail to replicate an effect even where the exact same methods are used.

Originally Posted by kimosabu

As far a small effects in medical studies being valid, if the results are that small, but side effects are present I think most reasonable people would not opt for the treatement.

Aspirin has been proved to prevent heart-attacks, and the effect size was much, much smaller than in parapsychology studies. You suggest people should stop taking aspirin?

Originally Posted by kimosabu

I think that's analogous to being skeptical about a such small effect in a paranormal claim when the side effect is that it would contradict much of what's thought to be true about the physical universe.

1. What's small effect size got to do with what we think about the universe?
2. We don't know if psi contradicts laws of nature. Many world-renowned physicists, including Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephsson, thinks psi doesn't contradict anything in modern physics.

Originally Posted by kimosabu

I go back to the question... If the effect demonstrated really is that small wouldn't it be reasonable to think that some inconsistency in the controls is causing the result rather than paranormal abilities.

There is no reason you should expect a near 100% hit rate, because it isn't analogous to anything we see in ordinary psychology, except perhaps for some really basic phenomena.
Psi is more analogous to subliminal awareness, and the debate about that has been a lot more like the one over psychic phenomena. The results were not strikingly clear at all, and the phenomenon took I think at least some 80 years before it was accepted by the mainstream.

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

Aspirin has been proved to prevent heart-attacks, and the effect size was much, much smaller than in parapsychology studies. You suggest people should stop taking aspirin?

This was not discovered by accident. Scientists had a good understanding of the pharmacological properties of aspirin and theorised that it could reduce the risks of heart attacks. They did trials with sufficient poer to demonstrate an effect.

The problem with small effect sizes with "psi" is that if the effect is close to that achievable by chance guessing then there is no possible way that somebody could have simply stumbled across it by trial and error. You don't have a sound scientific basis to guide the generation of hypotheses. There is no theory of "psi" let alone one that has been supported with experiments.

The question I always ask is how is it that you know what you think you know. You can either have something with a large effect size that you can find by trial and error or something with a small effect size and a sound scientific basis.

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

This was not discovered by accident. Scientists had a good understanding of the pharmacological properties of aspirin and theorised that it could reduce the risks of heart attacks. They did trials with sufficient poer to demonstrate an effect.

The problem with small effect sizes with "psi" is that if the effect is close to that achievable by chance guessing then there is no possible way that somebody could have simply stumbled across it by trial and error. You don't have a sound scientific basis to guide the generation of hypotheses. There is no theory of "psi" let alone one that has been supported with experiments.

The question I always ask is how is it that you know what you think you know. You can either have something with a large effect size that you can find by trial and error or something with a small effect size and a sound scientific basis.

Well, first of all, not having a scientific theory doesn't necessarily mean a phenomenon doesn't exist. We still have no sound scientific basis for a theory of consciousness, still we assume it exists (well most of us do). Second, parapsychologists do have some tentative hypotheses concerning psi, springing from the various reports that have been made of the phenomena during the centuries. Psi was not discovered by accident.

You can't expect a science in it's infancy, with minimal resources, to be as well-developed as a field such as physics or medicine. You also have to remember that if psi phenomena do exist, a natural explanation may lie far far away in the future, just as an explanation for continental drift came a long long time after the phenomenon was discovered.

To summarize, science isn't complete yet, and you can't expect it to be able to give answers to everything at this point.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

The problem with small effect sizes with "psi" is that if the effect is close to that achievable by chance guessing then there is no possible way that somebody could have simply stumbled across it by trial and error. You don't have a sound scientific basis to guide the generation of hypotheses. There is no theory of "psi" let alone one that has been supported with experiments.

There is. And it predates nearly all parapsychology lab trials, so it is not post hoc either. Nobel Laureate philosopher Henri Bergson's theory that the brain is a filter of consciousness, not the soruce of consciousness. Here telepathy is not evolving to become stronger, the brain evolved to filter it out.... it is viewed more like brain filter leakage. The effects are expected to be borderline.

The problem is that parapsychologists from Richet to Rhine to Radin have been keen to view psi as a brain function (it is more compatible with materialistic paradigm) however the logic for brain evolution to filter itself doesn't make much sense.... and never will IMHO. They need to return to testing hypotheses the brain/mind/ consciousness are not quite the same thing. To be fair to Radin he is open minded to the survival hypothesis just prefers the unfortunately named (super-) psi hypothesis, since psi is seldom ever 'super'.

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

There is. And it predates nearly all parapsychology lab trials, so it is not post hoc either. Nobel Laureate philosopher Henri Bergson's theory that the brain is a filter of consciousness, not the soruce of consciousness. Here telepathy is not evolving to become stronger, the brain evolved to filter it out.... it is viewed more like brain filter leakage. The effects are expected to be borderline.

To be fair, that's more a philosophical theory than a scientific one at this point. I do believe that it's likely to be true, though.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Larry

To be fair, that's more a philosophical theory than a scientific one at this point. I do believe that it's likely to be true, though.

So then what is the source of consciousness?

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

So then what is the source of consciousness?

~~ Paul

It is intrinsic to the nature of the universe like electric charge. Anything else seems to collapse to the materialist position and end up being simulated on a computer, etc. etc.

Maybe our minds are one big 'mindon' or are composed of many smaller 'mindons', but nothing else makes sense to me.

David

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

So then what is the source of consciousness?

~~ Paul

That's a good question, and one reason that I'm not yet entirely sure what to believe. You can, however, just as well ask: "What's the source of matter?"
Even though it may be easier to imagine small particles coming out of nowhere than consciousness doing it, the step from nothing to something is still there. Some say that it's a "matter of information" (pun intended) but to me that's just begging the question. Does this information just flow around in empty space all by itself? Where does it come from?
To me, idealism seems to be the most likely option because:
It beautifully solves the mind-body problem by encapsulating both body and mind in the mind (as in a dream). Materialism however has, in the end, to posit some kind of dualism in order to account for consciousness, as I see it (or denying it completely, which is even more absurd).