Writer's Block

Rather conscious of not blogging much in the past few weeks, which is partly due to holidaying, but also because of edits I'm doing on my book Randi's Prize. A publisher suggested I cut it down a bit, and he's right. Even though I struggled to keep it under 100,000 words it ballooned to over 120,000, and at the time I thought, what the hell - if that's what it takes to explain the issues. But readers aren't necessarily going to stick with it that long. So the trick is just to keep what's needed to make the points, and move on.

I think it's the same experience Chris Carter had when he published his book Parapsychology and the Skeptics - having to cut down the original, with the total projected to appear as three separate volumes. The problem we have is that this is just such a large subject - or rather several related subjects, and it's hard to know how to divvy it up without losing coherence.

But it goes a bit further than that. To illuminate sceptical approaches and arguments, I want to cover a range of different psychic phenomena. But in each case - mediums, psi experiments, out-of-body experiences, etc - I need first to introduce the subject, create a feel for what people experience and then describe what investigators say about it. That can take a while, as the issues are a bit complex. Only then can I start making comparisons that show how little the sceptics really understand. By that time, I've run out of space, and I need to move onto another subject, otherwise I won't keep readers' attention. But I still haven't started to put it into context and explain what it all means. Does psychism equate with survival of death? What are the issues?

The most recent draft had a longish chapter on this. But although I got quite into it - evolution, consciousness, mystical experience, hallucinogens, artificial intelligence, all that good stuff - it still wasn't enough.  I could have written a whole other book. So now I've cut it out and just referred to the debate in a very general way in the last chapter.

That's where I'm a bit stuck - what final conclusions to draw. Not that I haven't got plenty to say, I'm just not sure what direction to go in. If I've managed to persuade readers that the whole enterprise of explaining away has failed, what then? Where do we go from there? Because deep down, the ideas that the Randis and Hymans and Blackmores articulate correspond to what an awful lot of intelligent people actually feel. If you tell them, sorry, they don't stand up, they can of course disagree, and chuck the book across the room, or not bother to buy it in the first place. But if you've carried them along with you, and they think you might just have a point, what sort of adjustments are they going to make?

This is something I think about a lot, and I don't think it's really been discussed that much. With most controversies, we don't necessarily have much of a personal stake. Does globalisation create prosperity or destroy communities? Is string theory true or false? Is climate change really happening? I don't mean that these things don't affect us on some level, but if we're having to investigate something it means we aren't really that involved - you wouldn't be asking the question about globalization if overseas competition had lost you your business, for instance. But this is a controversy where the outcome really could make a big difference to individuals. If you've gone for much of your life blithely believing the claims of leading scientists, that the paranormal is bunk, and you're confident that when you die that will be the end of it, and then you find there's just a smidgeon of a possibility that mediums are talking to real spirits after all - how are you going to react? Does it mean you've suddenly got to become religious or go all New Agey?

You could argue that there's no need to react, and it will just sink in naturally. But I'm not so sure - if a person has really grasped the point, a vaccuum has opened up. This is before we start to even imagine what a society could be like in which psychism is fully acknowledged, making survival of death that much more likely.   How does it effect the relationship between the state and religion, and a raft of issues like abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, which we get so steamed up about?

Of course I'm making assumptions about my persuasive skills that may turn out to be totally unmerited. In any case, a book like this will be read by people who already feel that its claims are probably true, and for whom the conclusions are self-evident. They won't need to make adjustments, because they are already there. But it would be a pity not to reach out beyond that audience. I like to feel that I could chip away a bit at the certainties of those people who do actually think that James Randi is the great expert on the subject - because he so obviously isn't. And if I succeed at all, I can't really duck the questions that follow.

There, got that off my chest. Now I have to go back and try to figure this thing out!

Comments

[The Major]

Believe me, Robert, I'm sure you're more than skilled in the art of persuasion. This blog is fantastically well written.

As an idea, why not end with the next set of questions? What I mean is, imagine we've moved from the Randi level of questioning, and accepted that such things are possible. What questions do we have to deal with next?

Is this something that can be tested 'scientifically'? Or even should it be? How would we deal with the number of impostors that would spring up along with the genuine cases?

[Filip Van Droogenbroeck]

If you're out of space you could always point to a site where you elaborate on certain ways on certain subjects.
The age of the internet. :)
I'm surprised actually that not so much writers do this.
Looking forward to the book also.

[pec]

I have thought about this all my life, and have been involved in arguments with skeptics. I think that most of the time believers talk to believers and non-believers talk to non-believers. You might be underestimating the sheer intensity of the emotional resistance.

I have some theories about the reasons for the resistance. One is that intelligent Western-educated people all "know" that beliefs in magic, ghosts and spirits are all primitive, pre-scientific, superstition. Modern science supposedly defeated those demons forever, and it would be terribly embarrassing to have them rise up again.

Some of the prominent parapsychologists, such as Gary Schwartz, think acceptance of psi would usher in a beautiful new harmonious civilization, and I strongly disagree. The spiritual worlds are not all loveliness and light. As our ancient and primitive ancestors knew, the spirit worlds are more powerful and terrifying than anything in our everyday physical world. Acceptance of psi would bring as much fear into our lives as love.

So, according to my theory, two basic reasons for psi-denial are:

1. The need for the most highly educated Westerners to feel superior to "superstitious" primitives, and to the less educated masses.

2. Deep subconscious terror of the spirit worlds.

What if black magic can be effective? What if there is a risk of eternal damnation? What if demonic possession can cause madness?

Anyone who accepts the reality of psi, who believes that mind creates matter, must logically concede that "goodness" entails "badness," that light without dark is inconceivable.

I have noticed that new-agers generally manage to ignore the logic of this. They think that when they rejected traditional religion they escaped their fears of hell.

Atheists see themselves as realists who have grown beyond the childish need for parental god figures. But they are escapists also, with nothing to fear but death, and death, they believe, is nothing.

I have argued with scientific atheists with all my strength. Just when I think my logic has them check-mated they explode in fury. Their sense of superiority is at stake, and their security is threatened.

There is tremendous resistance, so you will be lucky if even one scientific atheist reads through your entire book. And there is the additional problem that psi is not at all easy to prove. Right now I'm reading Gary Schwartz's energy healing experiments book -- he seems to have the golden touch when it comes to paranormal research, with at least a decade of successful experiments. But I would not be surprised if not everyone could replicate them. There is no way to remove the effects of mind from paranormal research, so you cannot really control for experimenters' expectations.

Scientific atheists will not accept research that can't be reliably replicated. The experiment has to work every time, no matter who the researcher is. So it is possible they will never ever accept psi, unless someone figures out a way to screen out the effects of mind, which seems utterly impossible.

[pec]

There is another thing I forgot to mention, that the question of "mind creates matter" or "matter creates mind" has important implications for science. If psi is real, then nature is part of an infinitely intelligent universe. And that means scientists can never hope to fully understand and control nature. Scientific atheists feel confident that there are no limits to what science can discover and explain. They feel they have already explained evolution, and that they will soon explain the origin of life. If nature is mindless and stupid (rather than an expression of an infinitely creative mind), then there is no reason humans can't get nature completely under control.

Believers in psi are more likely to acknowledge that nature is part of an infinite mystery. As much we learn about nature, our ignorance will always remain infinite.

[Mark]

Well, you probably won't do this, but if it was me, I would probably write a book about one area of psi, and focus on it. In any event, don't worry so much about keeping the reader's interest. If you are a good writer, (and I'm sure you are) you should be able to keep their interest with good writing skills.

Oh, by the way, pec, no offense, but I think you make way too many assumptions.

[pec]

"I think you make way too many assumptions."

I am trying to summarize thousands of observations which I made over my whole life. And blogs have made it easier to figure out what the average non-believers believe. I can actually predict almost everything they will say.

Yes I am generalizing and every individual is unique, but not that unique.

If you think some of my assumptions are wrong, you could explain your reasons.

[MickeyD]

Robert, have you chosen a title for your book yet? If not maybe you could run a reader's competition. My entry would be "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" from, of course, The Wizard of Oz.

[Mark]

Well, pec, this is the one that bothered me the most:

"If psi is real, then nature is part of an infinitely intelligent universe."

Uhh, no, not necessarily. I mean, that's one possibility, but it is not necessarily the case. Psi could still be real even if the universe is not intelligent at all.

[pec]

Mark,

I was summarizing, not going into detail. If you look carefully at all the logic, the existence of mind independent of physical brains suggests that intelligence is everywhere, even that intelligence is everything.

The basic philosophical question right now is whether mind creates matter or matter creates mind. Based on everything I know so far, the former is obviously correct.

People either believe one or the other of these two philosophies (whether they think about in consciously or not). Extremists on both sides ignore each other and there is no real communication going on between them.

Of course no human being knows the whole truth, and we are only capable of grasping a tiny fraction. But we can decide the question of whether mind creates matter or matter creates mind, through paranormal research. I think the question has been decided already. The existence of psi seems compatible with theoretical physics, and it agrees with the kind of belief systems humans have had since forever. Modern scientific materialists are the only exception, although they are a powerful force these days. And materialists have no evidence whatsoever for their insistence that matter creates mind.

[Robert McLuhan]

Thanks, guys – some useful comments.

‘why not end with the next set of questions?’

Yes, that’s a large part of it. As to how it can be tested, I think that the problem is not so much in the testing itself, as in the assumptions we make when we do it, eg, that a campaigning entertainer is the best person to adjudicate; that the conclusions we draw are utterly objective, and unaffected by any unacknowledged feelings; and so on. One could argue that there’s no point going on doing more work, until we have debated the existing material, closely scrutinised our ideas and preconceptions, and understood how completely psi can mess with our heads.

‘…point to a site where you elaborate on certain ways on certain subjects.’ That’s absolutely fundamental. I’ve been working on a companion site which will provide a good deal of material, in precis form and hopefully also in the original. Pointers to some of the discussions here and on Michael Prescott’s Blog and elsewhere could help too.

‘You might be underestimating the sheer intensity of the emotional resistance.’

If you spend a lot of time reading debunkers’ books, as I have, that’s hard to do. I’ve no expectation of any of them reading mine, except to find points that they can easily refute. But it’s important to point out to other people – who may be sceptical, but less militantly so - that psi-resistance naturally exists, and that it may colour their beliefs and attitudes without them being aware of it.

‘Some of the prominent parapsychologists, such as Gary Schwartz, think acceptance of psi would usher in a beautiful new harmonious civilization, and I strongly disagree.’

Me too. In fact that’s one of the points I want to make – psi has some pretty awkward implications for the future development of society and human relations. We might well decide it’s a hornets nest, and better to let it be, even if it means ignoring the incoherence of the proposed ‘normal’ explanations.

‘…have you chosen a title for your book yet?’

Randi’s Prize is the current working title – not definite yet.

‘…if it was me, I would probably write a book about one area of psi, and focus on it.’

I wish. Perhaps one day. The job right now is to persuade the thinking public that psi is real and merits our attention. It’s an absurd situation to be in – imagine if we were having to persuade people that it was worth studying why humans have certain thoughts and behave in certain ways, and that ‘psychologists’ are not loons and eccentrics but just might have something important to say. How they'll laugh a hundred years from now...

[Larry Boy]

I look forward to this book. Is it mainly about psi and psi research in general or does it focus on Randi and his prize, as the title implies?

If you have read George P. Hansen's "The Trickster and the Paranormal", maybe you want to include some commentary on his thesis in the conclusions? I've been looking for a rebuttal of it for a long time without success. If you're not familiar with his thesis, it's basically like this (well this is my interpretation of it, anyway):
The elusive characterics of psi can best be explained as an inherent property of the phenomenon itself, and psi will thus only appear in what we may call "marginalized contexts," which will always be in a kind of gray area in regard to rational human knowledge. We can therefore never prove psi scientifically, or at least the scientific community will never take this proof seriously.

Hansen's book is extremely scholarly; its references list over fifty pages. I do feel that it lacks a broader perspective, though. Hansen seldom, if ever, seriously considers alternative interpretations of the facts which he so ably documents. Personally I think the (seemingly?) elusive characteristics of psi can probably be explained in terms of societal paradigms and human psychological traits. In fact - and this is where I feel Hansen's book is seriously lacking - if you consider other controversial topics you can find a lot of examples where the same kind of "elusiveness" reigns and where certain knowledge is impossible (well in fact it is in everything except logics and mathematics). You will also find many examples of skeptical rage and academic suppression, in regard to topics that are banal in comparison to psi (for instance whether heavier-than-air flight is possible).

I find lacking in the great majority of books on psi (in fact I think I haven't found one book that deals with these issues to any greater extent) these kinds of comparisons to other fields of inquiry. You could do dozens of interesting analyses. For instance, what do historians regard as plausible evidence for past events? What does forensic psychology tell us about eye-witness testimony? What do controversies look like in mainstream fields of science? What does sociology of science tell us about cheating etc.? To which extent, in regular fields of science, can mistakes in experimental design cause false positives, and in what contexts? Are fraud/mass hallucination etc. reasonable explanations to *non*-paranormal happenings? Are there established cases of *non*-paranormal nature where huge amounts of eye witnesses have said more or less the same things, and where there are no apparent motives to lie and no connections between the witnesses, and where no large inconsistensies have been found out?

Etc etc. Of course it would take a book or two to deal with all these issues in a satisfying way, but maybe at least some thoughts on the above could be of help in your discussions? I have found myself that once you start looking at more mainstream subjects and comparing them to psi research, you're able to put many of the issues into perspective, and you're really able to see how absurd at least some of the skeptics' arguments are. I for one would like to explore these matters more deeply.

[Larry Boy]

Some further suggestions (maybe you have already covered these in your draft, but anyway):

In conclusion perhaps you could mention something about Frederic Myers "filter theory" of the brain and consciousness, possibly in connection to the recent tome "Irreducible Mind," where the authors try to build upon Myers's original framework. Also perhaps David Chalmer's discussion of the hard problem of consciousness.

Maybe something about the psychology of disbelief. Richard Milton has some excellent passages on this in his "Alternative Science". To me, it was really important to understand how, if the paranormal were true, so many researchers of the paranormal could be skeptical. Before I had a theoretical framework for this

[Larry Boy]

(Sorry, forgot to complete my last post. Continued:)

Before I had a theoretical framework for this I didn't really know how to resolve the matter. One thing I would like to stress, therefore, is the importance of these kinds of theoretical frameworks for understanding *why* the situation looks the way it does. It isn't enough, I believe, to counter the arguments of the skeptics, you also need to explain how it can be that so many prominent researchers, some of them having spent decades investigating these things with an open mind (Eric Dingwall for instance), can end up being skeptical or uncertain about the reality of the paranormal.

[Larry Boy]

(Sorry, had to add some further remarks...)

Once again, a good resource for such theoretical frameworks helping to understand where the skeptics are coming from is Richard Milton's "Alternative Science." If you haven't read it, I really recommend it. It's great. (Although I don't agree with some of what he writes, and although his documentation is spotty at places.)

Another thing I would recommend is that you bring up the issue of the mind-body problem (I already mentioned this in connection to David Chalmers, but I would like to elaborate a little). To me, accepting psi phenomena was a lot easier when I started believing that maybe idealistic monism (the belief that consciousness is the basis of reality) is the answer to the mind-body problem. To me, it solved not only the difficulties relating to psi (they're not strange at all in a mental reality), it also resolved the mind-body problem. As parapsychologist Douglas Stokes notes in his "Consciousness and the Physical World" (which is availabe for free on his home page at: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/papers/docs/stokes/), there are severe problems with the materialistic view of the world. He writes, among other things:

"[I]f each of us does have a self that endures from moment to moment, from day to day, and year to year (however much it may be extinguished at death), then that self cannot be identical with any specified collection of material particles. The material particles that make up our bodies are constantly changing. [...] Yet you perceive that you are the same self you were then. If this perception is correct, then you cannot be identical to any particular collection of material particles, including your present physical body."

This is of course only one of several problems, and the case can in my opinion be made that even if psi doesn't exist, there is still good reason to believe that mind doesn't equal brain. As Stokes puts it:

"If the critics are correct and psi phenomena do not exist, the principal conclusions in this book regarding the nature of the conscious self will not be invalidated."

Of course there are problems with idealistic monism. It doesn't explain, at least not in any of its current incarnations, just *where* this awareness of things, qualia, comes from, any more than does materialism. Still, I believe on the whole it is able to account for a far wider range of facts than any competing model, and maybe the riddle of consciousness simply is outside the scope of what's possible to investigate scientifically.

To sum up, I think that rather than exploring as wide a range of topics as you can, there are four essential points that need to be made in order to make a strong case for the paranormal:

1. There is good independent evidence for it, that withstands the criticisms of skeptics.

2. Psi research can be compared to other fields of inquiry with interesting results (there seem to be many similarities, for instance, between mainstream psychology and parapsychology in the way experimental results are hard to replicate).

3. There are reasons as to why the situation is the way it is. For example, it is not strange considering what we know about human psychology that some will reject the evidence even after experiencing it firsthand (as some critics in fact seem to have done). It is also not surprising that psi research is stifled considering what we know about other controversial fields and the sociology of science. Each new discovery tends to be rejected, even if there is ample evidence for it, such as was the case with heavier-than-air flight or continental drift. The argument that these other discoveries at least got accepted, whereas parapsychology has had more than hundred years and has accomplished nothing, also fails for two reasons: (1) Most paradigms seem to be reversed only when we have a theory to explain the observations or when some technological use is made of it (or, as Max Planck cynically stated, when their opponents die), and we clearly cannot make a theory of psi as yet, or a technological use (considering its unreliability); (2) There seem to be other examples of controversies that have lasted for a comparable amount of time (the issue of subliminal perception wasn't resolved, I think, before the 70's or something even though the debate had been going on since the 19th century).

4. The mind-body problem indicates that the paranormal is possible.

My belief is that if these four claims can be reasonably established (and I believe they can), then most open-minded agnostics will give the paranormal a fair hearing. But of course that's only my opinion. Anyway, I hope something of this has been of help. I think the most important thing is that you try and narrow the focus somewhat, and not get carried away into too many areas. At first such an approach may seem impressive, but my experience is that books that are too wide in scope on a second look tend to seem superficial, leaving out too many crucial aspects regarding the evidentiality of the matters in question. A good example is David Fontana's "Is There An Afterlife?" The first time I read it I was very impressed by it, but having researched each subject more deeply, I came to learn that many important objections were left out, which makes the book somewhat useless in the end as it seems to establish much but actually establishes nothing, or at least very little. I think it's better to focus on a few representative cases, *in detail*, and then give brief sketches of other areas of research. Also I think it's important to put everything in context, for instance by discussing the four points I summarized above.

Ok, that will have to do for now. I apologize for what must have been a very confusing post. Anyway, I wish you all the best in trying to overcome your writer's block, and once again, I hope I have been of some help, however small.

[Larry Boy]

Let me just restate point number four in my suggestion for what constitutes a good case for the paranormal: "The mind-body problem indicates that the paranormal is possible, that it is probable, *and* that the competing hypotheses are implausible."

[pec]

A recent study on the effect of energy healing on bone cells was published in the Journal of Orthopaedics, and I posted a link to the abstract at Steve Novella's blog. The abstract said the results were unambiguously positive, that energy healing accelerated growth of bone cells. Novella read the article and stated on his blog that negative effects cancelled out the positive, and overall the experiment showed no effect. Since I do not have access to the article I asked him to post the section of the result section where that was indicated. Of course he didn't. I said that an abstract would never state that a positive effect was found, when the article says otherwise. His response was to ban me from his blog for 30 days.

I am reading Gary Schwartz's energy healing book, and he describes one experiment after another in support of biofields, life energy and energy healing. Harriet Hall, one of the "skeptics," reviewed his book -- she said nothing about his many positive experiments, but went into detail about one famous negative experiment, performed by a 9-year-old child.

These "skeptics" have extreme faith in the powers of self-deception. I do not think it's possible that intelligent scientists like Gary Schwartz, Dean Radin, Rupert Sheldrake, for example, are capable of fooling themselves for decades.

Yes most of us believe what we prefer to believe, in the absence of contradictory evidence. But if reality contradicts our beliefs often enough we revise them. There are not many educated adults who still think the earth is flat.

So why are scientific materialists still convinced that all parapsychologists over the past hundred years have been fooling themselves? I think it's mostly because they don't read the alternative science journals. But I don't know how Harriet Hall could have read Gary Schwartz's energy healing experiments book without even wondering if he might be telling the truth.

[Mark]

I know how - she went into it believing that she already had the truth, and only focused on the parts that she thought that she could prove are wrong. She also assumed that the good evidence must have been flawed somehow because it could not possibly have been the case that the good evidence was right because it contradicted what she already knew. All pretty standard for the skeptics, unfortunately.

[Robert McLuhan]

Thanks again !

‘Is it mainly about psi and psi research in general or does it focus on Randi and his prize, as the title implies?’

The former. I think the whole prize thing is a boring subject, actually. But I thought it was a cool way to draw attention to the fallacies of sceptical thinking – emblematic, if you like. Just by making people think what would really change if Randi suddenly got all excited and said, I was completely wrong folks, I’ve tested this young psychic and she’s completely one hundred percent the real deal. Nothing at all, except to trash his own reputation.

On Hansen, there’s a lot of good stuff in his book and I’ve found it very useful. But the whole trickster thing, it’s interesting in an academic sort of way, but doesn’t really cut through. It keeps the paranormal rather marginal and abstract, when the need is to make it absolutely central and relevant, focused on what it is, human experience.

Larry Boy, you’ve lots of ideas here, all good in their way. It’s good to be reminded about Richard Milton’s book, which I’ve never actually read – although I’m familiar with many of the examples. I ordered it today from Amazon. I don’t intend to spend more than a paragraph or two on that though.

‘The mind-body problem indicates that the paranormal is possible.’ Not too sure about that. Stokes is interesting, but I’m not going to close on that - can’t get too deep into the mind-body problem when trying to do a summing up.

In a way, you’ve confirmed the problem, which is that there are just so many reasons for the resistance, so many angles to psi, so much to discuss. That’s why I crashed and burned, from overload !

Pec – Novella banned you from his blog? That’s funny. I think we should get the original article. It can be a great way to expose sceptics’ dodgy tricks.

[pec]

Robert,

I was banned from neurologica, and also sciencebasedmedicine, for 30 days (from a week or two ago). They said I was dominating the conversations. I was posting a lot, because I was trying to make sure everyone could see the deception. Novella doesn't seem to know much about statistics, and it seemed to me he was obviously BS-ing. I have a PhD in experimental psychology so I could see through it, even without access to the article. An abstract would never claim an effect if there was none!

This is a story about the article:
http://www.uchc.edu/ocomm/newsarchive/news08/jul08/healing.html

It seems to be good quality, mainstream research showing that energy healing can increase the growth of bone cells. It was published in both the Journal of Orthopedics and JCAM. The "skeptics" were not at all impressed. They were absolutely sure there was something wrong with the experiment. Novella stated that the positive results had been cherry-picked, that there were both negative and positive effects, which cancelled each other out.

I said I was absolutely sure that was not the case, that if there were no overall effect, they would have admitted that honestly in the abstract. I asked Novella to post the relevant data, but he banned me instead.

It's amazing to me that these "skeptics" are not even curious, they don't even wonder why there is so much research supporting energy healing. They are devout materialists and everything that doesn't fit their preconceptions just has to be "woo."

Maybe I should buy that article. When I'm allowed back to neurologica I could explain exactly and precisely what the results were.

[Mark]

Yeah, I saw that on Novella's message boards (I refuse to call them "blogs" - that's nothing more than a "prestigious" word for what used to be called a message board before someone came up with the word "blog"). What bothered me the most was the fact that Novella would ban you after letting a whole bunch of people pretty much call you a fucking idiot. (and other abusive language) There was nothing you wrote that was nearly as bad as what those hateful people wrote.

[Filip Van Droogenbroeck]

Hey Pec,

If you want I can pass on the article.
Just need some contact deails;
greets,
Filip

[pec]

"There was nothing you wrote that was nearly as bad as what those hateful people wrote."

I finally insulted one of them after ignoring her for months. I was only trying to correct Novella's lies about the experiment.

I had told them I could find lots of successful life energy research, and someone said bet you can't even find one. So I posted that one (I had found others before that, but they weren't published in mainstream journals so according to "skeptics" don't count). They immediately tried to come up with reasons why that one didn't count, and Novella lied about the results.

Not one of them said yes, you have provided a successful experiment.

[pec]

Flip,

This is my email realpc920@yahoo.com.
Thanks.

[pec]

And by the way I didn't mind being called an idiot at the atheist/materialist blogs -- that's exactly what I expect from them, having debated atheist/materialists for years. But one of them was unbelievably nasty -- she never had a logical argument, only increasingly personal insults. Of course they didn't ban her, since she agrees 100% with everything they say.

The atheist/materialist movement is political, ideological and emotional. Since they do not have facts to support their ideology eventually they will fail. Reason always wins eventually, I believe. That's why I take the abuse. I think most spiritual people are too sensitive and can't take it, so they give up debating. I can't imagine someone like Sheldrake, for example, slugging it out with these narrow minded bullies. But I can do it and I will get through to them eventually.

[Robert McLuhan]

Pec - full marks for taking them on. Can you give the link to the Novella exchange?

[pec]

This is the one where he said I was banned.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=360#comments

[pec]

There were also some other exchanges, where he tried to claim that the energy healing experiment really had no effect. He said they cherry picked, and that negative results cancelled out the positives, but he was either lying or confused. The predicted effects were above 95%, but there was some extra-conservative cut-off for multiple comparisons, which required p<.02 or something, that it did not meet. It seemed to be just a formality mentioned as an aside, and Novella latched on to it, probably because he has a poor grasp of statistics. But of course his adoring fans believed him and refused to even acknowledge the experiment.

[Roger Knights]

In Dean Radin's February 2007 article, at this link:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=16158865&postID=1641511831148425396
he replied to poster "realpc" thus:

“realpc said...
“‘I don't understand why no one has won the Randi prize.’

“Valid scientific prizes have highly specific goals, such as the prize for the first commercial rocket-plane to reach space, or the first human-powered flight over the English Channel. These are clearly understood goals that are either achieved or not. By contrast, the so-called prizes offer by skeptics are open-ended. They amount to "show me a miracle," but without specifying in advance what would constitute the miracle. This means the prize can always be revised to make it impossible to win. Such open-ended prizes are simply moving goal-posts and publicity stunts. They are not genuine prizes for scientific achievement."

I (Roger) responded thus:

It would provide an indication of how stringent Randi's test conditions are if he were to post the level of success he would require for certain "standard" psi tests.

These levels would become less stringent as the number of trials in each test increased. That is, in a coin-toss test, it might be reasonable to require 90% success in a test with just ten tosses, but only 60% success in a test with 1000 tosses. Therefore, for each test, Randi might post several "hit %" requirements, each associated with a differing number of trials.

Here are a few standard tests that occur to me off the top of my head. I urge others to make additional suggestions:

Zenor cards.
Coin toss.
Ganzfield.
Telephone telepathy.
Presentiment.
Ping-pong ball matching.
Remote viewing.

****

Perhaps also, for each test, Randi should provide a score for which he’d award $1000, $10,000, and $100,000. If we take a $1,000,000 award as corresponding to a home run, then these lesser awards would correspond to singles, doubles, and triples. Or “intriguing,” “suggestive,” and “compelling.”

BTW, Shermer has put his cards on the table in the manner I suggest, by giving the level of success he’d accept as conclusive for a certain standard test. (I forget which one.) But that was only for a one-shot test with a small number of trials, so the hit rate he wanted was very high.

[Afterthought: I think he said he wanted a hit rate of 38 correct calls out of 50 coin tosses. This is unlikely to be achieved, but a similar level of confidence could be achieved with a lower hit rate over a longer number of trials. (I hope some statistician could translate what odds 38-out-of-50 amounts to.)]

Randi should also give the number of hits he’d require if the number of trials were greater (to eliminate flukes). Further, he should provide the hit rates he’d regard as intriguing, suggestive, and compelling, but less than conclusive.

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If Randi & other scoftics don't want to implicitly acknowledge partial successes by using terms like singles, etc., they should at least provide a "Not Proven" gray area in between Pass and Fail.

At present most scoftics seem to imply that anything that is not a home run—i.e., conclusive proof—is a Strikeout—i.e., a chance-level result. And yet many of those are really just failures to reach "significant" results—i.e., proof at the 95% (1-in-20) level. This excluded middle needs to be properly repositioned and made explicit.

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What I urge you [Radin] to do is to pick up the ball and run with it. I.e., re-work & reword my thoughts as you see fit—you needn’t even acknowledge them. But please DO issue a “A Challenge to Randi: Put Your Cards on the Table.” That is, challenge him to specify the success rate and number of trials he’d require on several standard PSI tests in order to cough up his $1M.

That traps him: He can either protect his $1M and require an unrealistically high hit rate, or protect the credibility of his MDC and put his $1M at risk. Or he can obfuscate and waffle, which should be easy to see.

Radin replied that he didn't want to engage in a debate with Randi. Therefore, I offer this technique to you [RM]. (It would help if you offered Randi $1000 to post the odds he'd require, and labeled your offer as a "Thousand dollar Challenge." It would also help if you could get the assistance of a statistician to translate "X hits out of Y cases" into the language of odds, confidence levels, and equivalent tests (in terms of confidence levels) that would require a lower hit rate (because of a greater number of trials).

[Roger Knights]

PS: I forgot to mention one of the simplest tests, and the one that gives the strongest PSI results: Staring.

[Roger Knights]

I have two suggestions on how to organize your book. First, set it up, at least in part, as a set of counter-punches to assertions by scoftics. Here's an example from a thread on your site (or MP's):

Skeptic:
"I must ask why do parapsychologists invent terms like psi-missing? Isn't it an excuse for a failed psi experiment?"

Reply by "The Major":
"... An example might be someone walking into a room in a horror film and saying ‘It's too quiet... something is up’. Now, if they heard loud screaming and violent noises, they'd know something is up. If they hear absolute silence, they again may feel something is 'wrong'. If they heard general ambient noises, they may feel the situation is normal."

People like to read these little nuggets--for one thing, they get a sense of closure after each one. And counter-punching enables you to seize the offensive, which adds bite and interest to your exposition.

In a sense it wouldn't provide an organized coverage of the topic, because only snippets would be dealt with at a time. But they could be arranged so that little was lost.

Second, I suggest that you "play for a draw," not a victory. IOW, don't aim to prove the proposition that psi is real, etc. Instead, aim only to show that the evidence is strong enough that the matter ought to be taken seriously and have resources devoted to investigating it.

The reason for this is that scoftics will insist on overwhelming proof before accepting such an extraordinary claim, in the absence of which they will declare victory. Since such strong evidence doesn't exist, don't set yourself up to be knocked down by asserting that it does. Instead, make a more modest claim, and let the scoftics make a spectacle of themselves by sputtering that “there's nothing to it.”

[Leo MacDonald]

I hope everything is alright, I haven't seen this blog updated just wondering if anything went wrong?

[Mark]

Robert is probably just working overtime on that book.

[Robert McLuhan]

Sorry guys, got a bit sidetracked there for a bit. Back very soon.

Roger: the nuggets idea is good, but probably better for online than a book, which needs to provide a narrative and draw people in. 'Playing for a draw' is spot-on - it's not about winning the argument, but encouraging people to look at the evidence and think about it.

[Roger Knights]

How about devoting a chapter to nuggets--i.e., a point/counterpoint treatment of various loose ends?

[Larry Boy]

When is the book planned to be published?