Sheldrake tests telephone telepathy

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Three volunteers so far. Come on folks, we need three or four more.

~~ Paul

 

[Jeff Corey]

Even I am aware (despite my comparative lack of interest in this subject) that parapsychogist experimental protocols are tighter than in any other area of science. Why are you under the delussion in thinking otherwise?

Au contraire, mon ami.
Parapsychological protocols are looser than the proverbial goose.
Viz, Schwartz and Sheldrake, who are indeed parapsychologists, if any exist. They publish in parapsychology journals, after all.
And no reputable university in the US awards a Ph. D. in parapsychology.
At least not since Duke got a Rhine-oplasty.

 

[CFLarsen]

Even I am aware (despite my comparative lack of interest in this subject) that parapsychogist experimental protocols are tighter than in any other area of science. Why are you under the delussion in thinking otherwise?

Excuse me?? I have not seen one single paranormal experiment you couldn't lead a herd of obese elephants through.

Of course Sheldrake is not a parapsychologist, nor is Schwartz.

How does one qualify to be one?

The difficulty here is that we're not dealing in a hard science and can't expect humans to behave in such a regularly predictive way as one would expect electrons to behave.

I think this should be nominated for the "Most Ignorant Of Science" post of the year. Electrons are not little balls orbiting the nucleus. We cannot predict where the electrons are, we can only determine where they would be most of the time (the "orbitals").

You really should move away from the Rutherford Atomic Model. Most other people did that in 1913. And then, of course, moved on to more correct models....

Also, because of the naturalistic presumption that skeptics hold, such phenomena is a priori considered to be extremely unlikely, meaning that effectively no standard of evidence would ever satisfy him or her.

Not a presumption, but based on observation. We don't see UFOs flying through the air at regular intervals, we don't see things going through time warps all the time, and we don't see that many ghosts in our daily lives.

 

[JamesM]

My concern with email telepathy is delay in transmission of email messages. Does anyone think that will be a problem?

Good point. Also, there's less compelling anecdotal reason to believe people know when someone is emailing them. But it might be easier to get volunteers for an email experiment than the phone experiment. I'd like to volunteer for the phone, but as I share a house with 3 other people, it'd be harder to arrange, unless I used my mobile, which can display the number of the person calling...

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

James, you're one of the three volunteers I had so far! I think we just have to agree to ignore caller ID. I don't own a phone without it.

~~ Paul

 

[davidsmith73]

James, you're one of the three volunteers I had so far! I think we just have to agree to ignore caller ID. I don't own a phone without it.

~~ Paul

Doesn't this vastly increase the chances of fraud ?

 

[JamesM]

James, you're one of the three volunteers I had so far!

Oh, am I? Ok, well, I'm still in!

I think we just have to agree to ignore caller ID.

That seems fair enough, but the one thing we may want to bear in mind is what we would say if we read a paper that mentioned that caller ID was possible on the phones used and there was no way of knowing if the participants used them or not.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Even I am aware (despite my comparative lack of interest in this subject) that parapsychogist experimental protocols are tighter than in any other area of science. Why are you under the delussion in thinking otherwise?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Excuse me?? I have not seen one single paranormal experiment you couldn't lead a herd of obese elephants through.

Care to provide a list and explain in each case the errors?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Of course Sheldrake is not a parapsychologist, nor is Schwartz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



How does one qualify to be one?

How on earth should I know? Thinking of becoming one are you?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Interesting Ian
The difficulty here is that we're not dealing in a hard science and can't expect humans to behave in such a regularly predictive way as one would expect electrons to behave.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I think this should be nominated for the "Most Ignorant Of Science" post of the year. Electrons are not little balls orbiting the nucleus. We cannot predict where the electrons are, we can only determine where they would be most of the time (the "orbitals").

Doesn't matter what they actually are. Not relevant.

You really should move away from the Rutherford Atomic Model. Most other people did that in 1913. And then, of course, moved on to more correct models....

More correct relative to what reality really is? LOL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Also, because of the naturalistic presumption that skeptics hold, such phenomena is a priori considered to be extremely unlikely, meaning that effectively no standard of evidence would ever satisfy him or her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Not a presumption, but based on observation.

Ends up being viciously circular. ie Naturalism is inferred from our observations. We observe apparently paranormal phenomena, but can't really be paranormal because incompatible with naturalism.

 

[davidsmith73]

That seems fair enough, but the one thing we may want to bear in mind is what we would say if we read a paper that mentioned that caller ID was possible on the phones used and there was no way of knowing if the participants used them or not.

Exactly my point. Fraud would be a likely explanation if you got positive results. Actually I would be more inclined to suspect fraud if you got chance results since you are all sceptics. (I'm sure you are all honest people, but I'm just applying critical thinking you understand !)

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Well then, I think telephone telepathy is out. Who doesn't have caller ID these days?

And email telepathy is out for the same reason, unless we require the callee to email their guess many minutes before they are supposed to receive the email message.

~~ Paul

 

[juninho]

Email telepathy? This is something we could be able to handle even more easily than telephone telepathy, right?

Anyone want to try and design a protocol? Do easily accessible-via-the-web anonymous email servers still exist?

Well I bet I'm going to receive an e-mail in the next 24 hours offering to extend the size of my penis. Not that I'm complaining as I've taken up all the offers I've received and subsequently I've now got a 42 metre long dick.

 

[JamesM]

Exactly my point. Fraud would be a likely explanation if you got positive results. Actually I would be more inclined to suspect fraud if you got chance results since you are all sceptics. (I'm sure you are all honest people, but I'm just applying critical thinking you understand !)

Yes, sorry David, you posted your comments while I was writing my post. I agree with you, if our main problem with the first, unvideotaped experiment is that there was no way of knowing if the participants were telling the truth, we ought to find a way to avoid replicating this part.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Well then, I think telephone telepathy is out. Who doesn't have caller ID these days?

I don't. Only vaguely heard of it. I can of course guess what it means. Certainly wouldn't pay extra money for that!

 

[Darat]

Exactly my point. Fraud would be a likely explanation if you got positive results. Actually I would be more inclined to suspect fraud if you got chance results since you are all sceptics. (I'm sure you are all honest people, but I'm just applying critical thinking you understand !)

Why would I, as a sceptic be more likely to fraud in this experiment then someone who doesn’t ask questions?

It would seem that you think asking questions makes someone more likely to commit fraud then someone who doesn't ask questions?

As a sceptic I have no vested interest in whether the results provide evidence that “telepathy” (whatever that means) exists or not.

(Thinking about my last statement I have to concede that it is probably slightly dishonest – I am certain from a purely egotistical standpoint I’d like to be associated with an experiment that provided evidence that there is yet another area of knowledge to explore…)

 

[Darat]

Well then, I think telephone telepathy is out. Who doesn't have caller ID these days?

And email telepathy is out for the same reason, unless we require the callee to email their guess many minutes before they are supposed to receive the email message.

~~ Paul

I don't have caller ID, and I know in the UK caler ID is disabled by the prefix of three digits before dialing.

 

[Darat]

Well then, I think telephone telepathy is out. Who doesn't have caller ID these days?

And email telepathy is out for the same reason, unless we require the callee to email their guess many minutes before they are supposed to receive the email message.

~~ Paul

I was wondering about this experiment - would it be possible to run it up at TAM2 - that would be even more fun, we would have a large group of people with quite a few that have "emotional closeness" to use?

 

[JamesM]

And email telepathy is out for the same reason, unless we require the callee to email their guess many minutes before they are supposed to receive the email message.

Well, we could set up a dummy webmail address, which all emailers had the password for.

All emailers would have to be logged in at a certain time, knowing that any one of them could be required to send an email over the time period specified.

The experimenter sends an email to that account with the chosen caller's name in the subject line.

That person then has 5 minutes to send an email to the participant, which would be cc'ed to a third party.

If there are delays in delivery for whatever reason, that trial has been invalidated.

You could later check the time dates on the various emails, which would be surely at least as secure as the time stamp on the video.

I've not thought about this very hard, but what about something along those lines?

 

[CFLarsen]

Care to provide a list and explain in each case the errors?

A few out of many:

Schwartz, Arizona Experiments: Basically no controls whatsoever, no independent verification of hits, he uses himself as a participant...

Scole: No serious controls, no infrared equipment allowed...

Global Consciousness Project: Very selective use of data, very shaky hypothesis, very generous "interpretation" of data...

Care to provide a list of experiments that had stronger controls than scientific experiments (and which yielded a positive result)?

How on earth should I know? Thinking of becoming one are you?

If you don't know if someone is a parapsychologist, how can you say that e.g. Schwartz isn't one?

Doesn't matter what they actually are. Not relevant.

I was merely pointing out that your comparison was both invalid and false.

More correct relative to what reality really is? LOL

Yes, that's right: Working towards a more accurate idea of what reality is.

Ends up being viciously circular. ie Naturalism is inferred from our observations. We observe apparently paranormal phenomena, but can't really be paranormal because incompatible with naturalism.

Stop obfuscating. Can you point to a paranormal phenomenon that is observed regularly?

 

[JamesM]

I don't have caller ID, and I know in the UK caler ID is disabled by the prefix of three digits before dialing.

I don't have caller ID on my landline, either. However, anyone who did have caller ID would be hard pushed to prove they hadn't used it. Also, we'd have to ensure that there was no way to do a 1471 (or equivalent) to find out who'd rung you. Also, we couldn't prove that we hadn't picked up the phone and spoken to each other, even though our feedback-free methodology prohibits this.

 

[JamesM]

As a sceptic I have no vested interest in whether the results provide evidence that “telepathy” (whatever that means) exists or not.

David has a point. What if we got results according to chance? People would say, "oh look, Sheldrake the psi-believer got positive results with plenty of opportunity for cheating, and the skeptics got negative results with plenty of opportunity for cheating - how convenient!"