Some experimental results.

[Beth]

Hi,

Since Kramer accused me of vanishing, despite the fact that I've been hanging out on the JREF forum regularly, I thought I would post my latest experimental results. They are not impressive. For those who are new, or don't recall, I am attempting to mentally influence the direction of a candle flame. My current protocol is given in an earlier thread. It is not currently acceptable to JREF for the challenge, nor have any of their suggested protocols been acceptable to me.

I have not yet been able to implement very many of the improvements to protocol suggested here a few months ago. I'm still using the basic wax ring design. Temperature probes are currently out of my budget for this hobby. I have had little luck in getting people to actually sit down with me and observe my experiments. In fact, I've had little time to spend on this at all in the past few months, averaging less than two experiments a month.

I have, however, learned that observers do make a difference in my mindset which definitely affects my subjective success rating. (I subjectively rate each experiment as a success or failure based not on the outcome, but my impression of how well I have 'connected' with the flame. )

Anyway, I'm posting these results so Kramer will know I haven't vanished, or given up just yet. I've simply not had any experimental results that I have considered worthy of reporting. Nor have I managed to acquire the resources to improve my protocol to something that both JREF and I might find acceptable.

Here is my journal entry for this mornings experiment. You may make of it what you will.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Okay, it’s 10 am and I got up this morning, did my yoga (and a little laundry – there’s always laundry to do!) and set up an experiment. My daughter was up, but didn’t want to be an observer. I didn’t think it was necessary as the waiting for the drop to fall technique has much less room for unconscious bias to creep in than my previous method of marking where the first large drop of wax forms.

Anyway the results were quite interesting and quite useless. They are useless because of the 8 rings, the identifying letters didn’t stick to 2 of them, so I only have 6 confirmed results.

However, from a subjective point of view it was a successful experiment. In fact, I’m somewhat tempted to attempt to categorize the unmarked rings on the basis of my subjective recall, but my scientific conscious won’t allow it.

Because I was alone, I felt a little more comfortable with talking aloud to the flame. I also spent some time admiring it inside the glass (the glass really is a hindrance between it obstructs my vision of the flame). I did one precontrol (unmarked) and then the sequence (selected randomly) was CTTCTCCT. The first and last rings of the sequence were the ones that lost their identifiers and then the precontrol was unmarked as well.

After I did the first two rings (precontrol and first control) I looked at the flame, spoke with it and tried to see it in detail. I think I succeeded, because the first two control rings fell more than 90 degrees off target (Quadrant II), but the first test ring formed and started to fall in quadrant I. However, anticipating the drop, I dropped my concentration from the candle and picked up the seam ripper I use to mark where the drop falls and lift the ring with as little disturbance to the glass/candle set up as possible.

When I did this, the drop slipped over to quadrant II and fell there. The next one was a test, and it fell in quadrant I. Ring 4 was a control, Quadrant II. Ring 5 was a control, it fell close to 90 degree from target, but on examination, it was in Quadrant I. Ring 6, another test, Quadrant I again. Ring 7, a control, Quadrant II. Ring 8, a test, Quadrant I. I really felt I was making a difference at this point, was quite excited about recording the results and dismayed to immediately discover that two of the identifiers had fallen off.

Hmm. Maybe I can at least do a really crude analysis. The controls were 3 in II and 1 in I, while my test results were opposite, with 3 in I and 1 in II. I’ll have to think about how to test that, but my gut feeling is that statistically it’s not significant. Still, just as I subjectively rated last week’s experiment a failure even with a positive difference of 10 degrees, I think I’ll subjectively rate this one a success. At least the missing rings are balanced, so I could consider an analysis of the 6 remaining. I haven’t measured the degrees yet. The test rings will definitely average closer to target than the controls, but the variance is large and with only 3 measurements for each group, I don’t think it would be a statistically significant difference.

 

[Francois Tremblay]

Because I was alone, I felt a little more comfortable with talking aloud to the flame.

With all due respect, have you considered taking a vacation ?

 

[Ashles]

Beth, is this really of any real use? Without anyone else there to check any aspect of your experiment it doesn't seem to have any relevence to anything.

When you have markers falling off and concentration being affected by your making mid-experiment changes to the apparatus how can you really expect these results to be indicative of anything? Even the results of which quadrant th drops have falln into are totally subjective to your opinion.

Can you not get anyone to help you with this? A trusted sudent perhaps or another lecturer? Because doing this entirely by yourself is not providing any useful or even indicative results.

Beth I believe you are sincere in your belief in your ability, but you are creating testing scanrios that, if you read about someone else performing, you would reject totally. You must have someone else there to judge this.

It seems almost that, in your desire for this to work, you are creating the only scenrios in which this will work - i.e. when you are alone and can do all the testing and judging yourself. What is the point in doing this testing alone? You have already convinced yourself there is some ability there (whether there really is or not). Other than that I can see no purpose to your experiments alone.

 

[Beth]

Beth, is this really of any real use? Without anyone else there to check any aspect of your experiment it doesn't seem to have any relevence to anything.

Ashley,

I don't kid myself about the potential usefulness of these experiments. They are of no real use to anyone but myself. But I do find them useful and since I am doing them for myself, not for anyone else, that is reason enough for me to continue.

I would not have posted these results at all except for Kramers complaint about vanishing. His comment, given that I've been posting here regularly made me feel invisible. Since that's not one of my claimed superpowers , I posted these results simply to let people know that I haven't vanished or given up. I haven't had any success worth reporting. This is, I imagine, no surprise to anyone here.

When you have markers falling off and concentration being affected by your making mid-experiment changes to the apparatus how can you really expect these results to be indicative of anything? Even the results of which quadrant th drops have falln into are totally subjective to your opinion.

What quadrant the drops fall in is not totally subjective, since I have, at least on the marked discs, objective evidence regarding which quadrant it is and my observations are quite consistent with reality in that regard. My unmarked discs had one fall in quadrant I and two in quadrant II, so they are also consistent with my subjective observations.

Beth I believe you are sincere in your belief in your ability, but you are creating testing scanrios that, if you read about someone else performing, you would reject totally. You must have someone else there to judge this.

I totally agree regarding needing observers and other problems with the testing I'm doing. I got some good feedback from this forum and have managed a few minor improvements to the set-up. Most require resources I don't have available for something I consider a relatively low priority in my life.

The main reason I submitted an application to JREF was not because I expected to win the challenge, but because I hoped they would provide me with an observer. That hasn't worked out. I wish I had better equipment and people willing to assist me. I don't. So I continue my experiments to the best of my ability with the resources I have available. That is all I am doing and I will continue to do so until I have either convinced myself one way or the other, or until I lose interest.

Beth

 

[Tricky]

Beth, is this really of any real use? Without anyone else there to check any aspect of your experiment it doesn't seem to have any relevence to anything.

Actually, it does. Randi and Kramer continually advise applicants (and potential applicants) to test themselves. Admitedly, most applicants are not objective enought to accept anything other than positive results, but I would have to say Beth is the exception. If she wants to try it alone, I can certainly understand her reasons for doing so. If she wants to talk to the flame, I have no objections (so long as she takes precautions that the wind from her breath does not influence the flame). As long as she is honest about recording the results, and it appears she is trying to be, then I am all in favor of her activities. Would that more of the applicants could take the time to critically examine their "skills".

 

[drkitten]

Beth, is this really of any real use? Without anyone else there to check any aspect of your experiment it doesn't seem to have any relevence to anything.

I must disagree. Part of the JREF's standards for a properly designed protocol is that the results are self-evident and that "no judging is required." If it's self-evident that Beth has no abilities (or no abilities beyond chance, and her statistics are demonstrably good enough to evaluate this), then she's learned something, avoided wasting the JREF's time, and possibly saved herself some public embarassment and ridicule.

Conversely, if she can self-evidently show abilities, then she can with a high(er) degree of confidence approach the JREF and use her self-designed protocol as a basis for protocol negotiations. I wouldn't necessarily expect her self-designed protocol to be acceptable to the JREF as is, but it should make the negotiations go more smoothly and quickly.

 

[jmercer]

I agree with Dr. k and Tricky, Ashles... and I commend Beth for taking a step that most applicants never do. In fact, it looks like there may be a rash of that going around, what with Wellfed setting up to do his own private testing.

It's refreshing, to say the least.

(Beth, Kramer may not realize you've still been around because - as I recall - you originally were posting with your full name. He may simply not realize that you're the same "Beth" from the application.)

 

[Ashles]

Actually, it does. Randi and Kramer continually advise applicants (and potential applicants) to test themselves. Admitedly, most applicants are not objective enought to accept anything other than positive results, but I would have to say Beth is the exception. If she wants to try it alone, I can certainly understand her reasons for doing so. If she wants to talk to the flame, I have no objections (so long as she takes precautions that the wind from her breath does not influence the flame). As long as she is honest about recording the results, and it appears she is trying to be, then I am all in favor of her activities. Would that more of the applicants could take the time to critically examine their "skills".

I agree that Beth is to be certainly praised for actually doing some testing before the JREF test. She does seem to be almost unique in this (I remember one previous dowser, but apart from that...).

But I always took Kramer and Randi's advice to imply that testing should be done by the claimant, but that conditions should try to be as close to a proper test as possible. In this case I really think someone else needs to be there.

Dr K - again I agree, but if Beth has bits of the apparatus falling off or drops falling on the wrong things then another person would be very useful to prevent any breaking of concentration if possible. Also if the drops are on the border of a quadrant then some judging might be required (as seems to possibly have been the case in this experiment).

I think it is certainly excellent that Beth is doing this testing (I didn't mean to imply otherwise) I was only pointing out that the results might be of more useful significance to Beth herself if another person was there as a more impartial view.
If I were doing this experiment on my own I am sure there would be many ways I might consciously or unconsciously affect the results. I might think "Oh I wasn't really concentrating that time, the trial starts now" etc. This is harder to do with another person present.

Even as a pre-preliminary test I just think it would be more useful with another person present.
But good luck Beth - we really would all like to see this test actually happen.

 

[IXP]

Beth,

When you put the wax ring in place, do you already know if this is to be a control or trial? If so this is a serious flaw in the protocol.

IXP

 

[jmercer]

Beth,

When you put the wax ring in place, do you already know if this is to be a control or trial? If so this is a serious flaw in the protocol.

IXP

Well... if Beth's results are consistently random even under these conditions... would doing a fully qualified double blind be necessary?

I would think that it would only be worthwhile if she saw encouraging results from the "looser" approach she's taking right now. Or am I missing something here? (Seriously)

 

[drkitten]

Dr K - again I agree, but if Beth has bits of the apparatus falling off or drops falling on the wrong things then another person would be very useful to prevent any breaking of concentration if possible. Also if the drops are on the border of a quadrant then some judging might be required (as seems to possibly have been the case in this experiment).

Well, I will cheerfully admit to skepticism w.r.t. Beth's claims, which will colour the following paragraph. But my expectations are that a properly-done test, even one open to potential bias, will yield a null result, with a success rate indistinguishable from chance. At which point, we can all shake hands, congratulate Beth on her demonstrated mastery of the scientific method, commiserate her on her lack of super powers, and remain the closest of friends.

That's the way much real science works; if I'm looking for something and I can't find it, I'm not going to waste my colleagues time and effort helping me look for it. I will assume it's not there and move on. If Beth can't find an effect under the conditions that are ideally likely to produce one (even an imagined one due to bias conditions), then it's probably not there.

Conversely, if Beth can find an effect, then we need to start tightening controls until we can confirm that the effect is real and not something spurious and bias-induced. But at this stage of the procedure, she ought to be working to minimize the possibility of "false negative" errors.

 

[IXP]

Well... if Beth's results are consistently random even under these conditions... would doing a fully qualified double blind be necessary?

I would think that it would only be worthwhile if she saw encouraging results from the "looser" approach she's taking right now. Or am I missing something here? (Seriously)

Jmercer,

She does claim to see postive results. She claimed, for this test, to get only 1 of 4 controls falling in the target quadrant, but 3 of 4 tests in which she influenced the flame. This might not be a p value acceptable to JREF, but it is certainly positive.

She has also claimed postive results from a previous method that measures angles between the target and the the actual drop.

IXP

 

[drkitten]

She does claim to see postive results. She claimed, for this test, to get only 1 of 4 controls falling in the target quadrant, but 3 of 4 tests in which she influenced the flame. This might not be a p value acceptable to JREF, but it is certainly positive.

She also specifically presented these as preliminary results.

I'm going to wait until she's confident of her result herself before raking her over the coals and telling her to tighten controls.

 

[jmercer]

I’ll have to think about how to test that, but my gut feeling is that statistically it’s not significant. Still, just as I subjectively rated last week’s experiment a failure even with a positive difference of 10 degrees, I think I’ll subjectively rate this one a success. At least the missing rings are balanced, so I could consider an analysis of the 6 remaining. I haven’t measured the degrees yet. The test rings will definitely average closer to target than the controls, but the variance is large and with only 3 measurements for each group, I don’t think it would be a statistically significant difference.

As new drkitten said, it's preliminary. And from the above, it's pretty clear that Beth's got significant doubts about the results. I suggest we all adopt a "wait and see" attitude about this like dr k has. If Beth solicits suggestions about tightening up the controls, I'm sure guidance will be forthcoming.

 

[Tricky]

I agree that Beth is to be certainly praised for actually doing some testing before the JREF test. She does seem to be almost unique in this (I remember one previous dowser, but apart from that...).

But I always took Kramer and Randi's advice to imply that testing should be done by the claimant, but that conditions should try to be as close to a proper test as possible. In this case I really think someone else needs to be there.

Dr K - again I agree, but if Beth has bits of the apparatus falling off or drops falling on the wrong things then another person would be very useful to prevent any breaking of concentration if possible. Also if the drops are on the border of a quadrant then some judging might be required (as seems to possibly have been the case in this experiment).

I think it is certainly excellent that Beth is doing this testing (I didn't mean to imply otherwise) I was only pointing out that the results might be of more useful significance to Beth herself if another person was there as a more impartial view.
If I were doing this experiment on my own I am sure there would be many ways I might consciously or unconsciously affect the results. I might think "Oh I wasn't really concentrating that time, the trial starts now" etc. This is harder to do with another person present.

Even as a pre-preliminary test I just think it would be more useful with another person present.
But good luck Beth - we really would all like to see this test actually happen.

My apologies, Ashles, I did not mean to go off on you. You do make some very valid points, especially about the need to test with another person present. Without incorporating that into the protocol, then Beth cannot hope to simulate the test conditions which she will have to do if she hopes to win the prize.

But I am glad that you join the others in applauding Beth's genuine attempts to prove it to herself first.

 

[drkitten]

For the benefit of those who don't read as compulsively and widely as I do, Beth (Clarkson) has just withdrawn her application for the JREF challenge and her file has been closed, apparently by mutual consent.

I would just like to take this opportunity to assure her (and I hope I speak for a substantial fraction of the readership of this thread as well) that I remain interested in the continued progress of her investigations of her abilities, and remain willing to advise and counsel as needed.

 

[Tricky]

For the benefit of those who don't read as compulsively and widely as I do, Beth (Clarkson) has just withdrawn her application for the JREF challenge and her file has been closed, apparently by mutual consent.

I would just like to take this opportunity to assure her (and I hope I speak for a substantial fraction of the readership of this thread as well) that I remain interested in the continued progress of her investigations of her abilities, and remain willing to advise and counsel as needed.

I am both gratified and disappointed to hear that. Gratified because it means that there are still those out there that are able to take an objective look at themselves and realize where they might have made mistakes. Beth, I bow to your honesty. Disappointed because I was hoping for a witnessed test of an honest claimant. Though I knew her chances of success were very slim, like many skeptics, I would love to find some real evidence of the paranormal. It would be totally cool.

Thanks, Beth, and come back to have some fun discussions. We talk about a lot more here than just the challenge. You would be welcome.

 

[jmercer]

Ditto.

 

[Ashles]

I just wish there had been a clearer way to test this. Or that we knew what, specifically was being tested (e.g. if it was actually the psychokinetic creation of a tiny 'force' then that could probably have been extremely sensitively measured).

I hope Beth finds a way to convince herself one way or the other whether she has these abilities, and, if she doesn't, that she isn't persuaded otherwise by her associates.

And I hope she sticks around on the forums anyway.

 

[Beth]

Sticking around

I'm touched that so many want me to stick around. Thanks. I kind of like it here. There are a lot of intelligent people with good arguments here. And I do like to argue!

IXP: You're right about the flaws in my current protocol. I'm not unaware of them. I'd just rather run flawed experiments than none. I do feel that I am learning from them, even if it doesn't qualify as "evidence" to anyone else but me.

jmercer: You're right about not needing stricter controls if my current protocol produces results that are not distinguishable from random chance. Eventually, even with the poor controls I have with these, I may be able to establish that fact to my own satisfaction. I'll never manage to establish the other direction (that an effect exists) with the current protocol. It simply isn't adequate.

And thanks to Tricky, Ashles and new drkitten for making me feel wanted.

Beth

P.S. I'm inundated with work just now, so you won't be hearing much from me for a bit.