New Appliacant - James Blunt

Ashles

Pith Artist
Ashles
Joined
Apr 28, 2003
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The '80s
I am a little confused by the e-mail Kramer has received from SDARI:
Hello Randi,

Some time back I was contacted by a fellow from your office named Kramer. I'm not sure if it was his first or his last name. In any case, Kramer asked that The San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry (SDARI) do a preliminary screening of James Blunt. Mr. Blunt claimed to be able to discern low radio frequency emanations from various types of metals, and to determine where the metals were.

After a couple postponements we had the screening yesterday. It was conducted by SDARI president, Richard Uhrich, Bertha Taylor (my wife), and me. Robert Shaeffer, who helped James Randi on another experiment years ago, video taped the whole thing.

The agreed protocol was for Bertha and I to randomly place a penny, a nickel, a five-dollar gold piece, a silver dollar and a hunk of aluminum, one each, in five bags. Then Mr. Blunt used a home made sensing device to determine which was which. He had three tries to conduct this experiment.

I must say the results were astounding and it looks like you're out a million bucks.

Mr. Blunt was right on the money two of fifteen times.

Keith Taylor
Click to expand...

How did he have three tries? Did he get three guesses on each of the fifteen trials? I am confused as to how the test was carried out.

I will be interested to see the protocol involved.
 
5*4*3*2*1 = 120 ways to order the bags
So 1 in 120 chance of being spot on each test.

So 2 out of fifteen would be pretty good going.

If he has 3 guesses each go it would reduce down to a 1 in 40 chance in each of the fifteen experiments to guess right.

Guessing 2 out of fifteen times would be fairly good going. Not great but good.

But we need to know more aboud the methodology - was it double blind?
Could the claimant see the bags held up (He'd have a fair chance at being able to tell a penny in a bag from a five-dollar gold piece)?
What was he actually doing throughout the test? Eg. if he tried to detect them one at a time he might say "Gold, gold" and keep an eye on where the investigators were looking or how they reacted when he approached certain bags.

I'd like to se the video of this test.

There, those are just a few random thoughts for the moment on this one.

Still it's nice to see someone actually going ahead with a clear and testable claim.
 
However, a home made electronic device is not paranormal. I mean... would a metal detector win the Prize? Even if it was "home made"?
 
I can't help but think The San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry wouldn't allow him to be using an (even if home made) electronic device of any sort.

That would seem kind of silly.
 
Ashles said:
I am a little confused by the e-mail Kramer has received from SDARI:


How did he have three tries? Did he get three guesses on each of the fifteen trials? I am confused as to how the test was carried out.

I will be interested to see the protocol involved.
Click to expand...

I have the feeling that the mail by Keith was written in a sarcastic vein.

It seems like they performed the test three times, with the five items randomly placed in five bags each time. By mere random guessing, Blunt would get one of the five correct in each test. Hence, in three tests, there would be a total of three correct guesses out of the total of fifteen guesses (5 bags x 3 tests). Blunt, by getting only two correct, actually performed WORSE than what would be expected by chance.

Hence, Keith states tongue-in-cheek: "I must say the results were astounding and it looks like you're out a million bucks."
 
Having re-read it I think you're right. I think I was over analysing the results.

Maybe he can re-apply with his clever accuracy-avoiding device.

Just like Uri Geller could apply with his sports team damaging abilities.

The SDARI don't go in for particularly elaborate tests do they?
 
SDARI works hard to maintain the simplest possible protocol.

I like the way they work.
 
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