52. Skeptic Lynne Kelly on Cold Reading Techniques (Podcast)

[Im a Hedge]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Yes, but it is being run by the Skeptics Guides to the Universe along with Alex ... all sign legal statements making a criminal offence to deliberately help either medium or mentalist ... what is the problem?

The problem is that a legal agreement isn't scientific evidence. It's much better to actually control for the possibility in the experimental design.

Trust me there is no 'fraud proof' experiment if the experimenters are allowed to cheat, IMHO no way!

Agreed. That does not mean that you can't try your best to remove the possibility of fraud, especially when fraud has been proposed as a possible explanation by major critics of the research. A psi investigator should be absolutely meticulous about controlling for trickery and fraud, as this is a major alternate explanation for these phenomenon that is presented by critics.

Some magicians have witnessed paranormal phenomena.

I think that would be known as begging the question. Some people have witnessed things they believe to be paranormal. Whether they
are paranormal or not is what research such as this is investigating.

I am a Hedge

[alextsakiris]

Yea, I think it would be interesting to see what a "cold reader" could do. I hoping Lynne Kelly will have time to do this... but I think that should come down the road. We first have to replicate Dr. Beischel's results and make sure we have a repeatable phenomena. I also think the quality of the readings will tell us a lot. If there is a lot of accurate details we can be pretty sure we're on the right track.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

Yea, I think it would be interesting to see what a "cold reader" could do. I hoping Lynne Kelly will have time to do this... but I think that should come down the road. We first have to replicate Dr. Beischel's results and make sure we have a repeatable phenomena. I also think the quality of the readings will tell us a lot. If there is a lot of accurate details we can be pretty sure we're on the right track.

Sounds good to me.

[David Bailey]

Im a Hedge,

I often feel there is a fine line between genuinely suspecting fraud in Ψ experiments in general, and simply requesting tighter and tighter procedures so as to make experiments too expensive and inconvenient to run.

As someone who is presumably sitting on the fence/hedge, I hope you can see that

I tend to feel that extreme skeptics use the fraud argument as an ultimate explanation if they run out of better ways to fault an experiment. This is not fair. Any scientific experiment is potentially subject to fraud, and every now and again someone does cheat - and no doubt a few cheat without being exposed. Science still seems to advance, despite the occasional fraud, and it simply could not achieve anything if every result were considered potentially fraudulent.

What you need to consider, is how far do you take this - e.g. do you consider the experimenter, who will ultimately write up the paper, to be potentially fraudulent? The problem is that it is never possible to eliminate accusations of fraud, if these are simply used as a way of dismissing results that the accuser finds inconvenient!

David

[eyemsougly]

Originally Posted by scomsjw

The protocol seems watertight to me. But I have seen a lot of well-designed psychology experiments turn out misleading results that could not be replicated. I used to work in developing online learning tools and became frustrated with the amount of academic research into various learning styles. There were a huge number of experiments done to evaluate how effectively people could learn using different methods. When I did a literature review I found experimental results that contradicted each other. Yet the experimental protocols followed (designed by professional psychologists) seemed flawless. Its hard to see where things go wrong with well-designed experiments but it usually has something to do with the details of how the experiment was conducted. Something that you can't see from reading the research papers. You have to be in the room with the experimenters or have detailed transcripts of everything that happened. I have also seen this in the many attempts psychologists have made to evaluate the usability of interactive software systems. Watertight protocols but then the results can't be replicated.

this is why it is so important that skeptics and proponents work together on these types of experiments.

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I often feel there is a fine line between genuinely suspecting fraud in Ψ experiments in general, and simply requesting tighter and tighter procedures so as to make experiments too expensive and inconvenient to run.

You could say this about any experiment that is genuinely attempting to make a contribution to knowledge. Any chemist or physicist working for a PhD has to spend ages designing their experiments. Let's face it it is just really, really, really hard to prove anything new whatever field you are in.

[Im a Hedge]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Im a Hedge,

I often feel there is a fine line between genuinely suspecting fraud in Ψ experiments in general, and simply requesting tighter and tighter procedures so as to make experiments too expensive and inconvenient to run.

This would only make sense if someone believes that psi is real, but doesn't want it to be shown to be real. There re people who think it's real, and people who think it isn't real. I can envision motivation for fraud by a proponent of psi, but I don't understand why s skeptic would be motivated to illegitimately interfere in quality research.

This could be lack of imagination on my part. Maybe someone can explain the motivation for skeptics to try to discourage psi research.

I am a Hedge

[Mizzark]

I think that a lot of people forget that skeptics can get emotionally attached to their positions just as easily as believers can get emotionally attached to their positions. If James Randi was given undeniable proof that psi is real...well, he probably still wouldn't believe it. It would be a tremendous blow to everything for which he has worked his whole life. That can be a good reason to try to use trickery and deception to try to make certain experiments fail, rather than take the chance that they may succeed.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Im a Hedge

The problem is that a legal agreement isn't scientific evidence.

That is an interesting point. However, when you are dealing with people potentially misbehaving, the legal system is usually more effective than science.

Ordinary science operates by assuming that everyone is honest, because it has no alternative.

It is worth examining the question of fraud in science (which happens) from a broader perspective - not just as an explanation for Ψ phenomena!

David

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by Mizzark

If James Randi was given undeniable proof that psi is real...well, he probably still wouldn't believe it. It would be a tremendous blow to everything for which he has worked his whole life. That can be a good reason to try to use trickery and deception to try to make certain experiments fail, rather than take the chance that they may succeed.

But there are plenty of examples of good scientists who have changed their minds in the face of results obtained by other researchers. I would like to think that Randi faced with undeniable proof would accept it and go public. I cannot myself imagine him using trickery and deception to make an experiment fail. Has any skeptic ever been caught behaving like this?