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Tests Prove Mediums Really Can Contact Dead

I've spoke to Patricia before about this.

She told me that the article in question was around about 50% correct. She was certainly not happy with it.

I also asked her why she made the seemingly knee-jerk comment "If anyone claims it is fixed or rigged, we would sue."

She didn't answer that particular question.
 
Just from the description of how the tests were done I can safely say they prove nothing. The whole test relied on the sitter saying whether felt that what the medium was saying "applied to them". Besides the fact that that is a hopelessly vague criteria for any sort of scientific test, there is the fact that this opens it up to all manner of sitter bias. It's no different than when some people have, in attempts to show how astrology does not work, told people that they were going to give them their horoscope and instead gave them a horoscope that was not their own. When asked how accurate the horoscope was, they tended to say it was very accurate. People look for the parts that "Apply to them" and The same psychology is likely at work here.

There is also the suspicious lack of a control group. No where do I see it mentioned that they did any sort of control, such as a non-medium giving "readings" and people scoring those. This is especialy troubling since anyone who has even taken a high school science class knows about control groups and why they are important. If they omitted it, it smacks of deliberate deception, not a simple mistake.

Lastly I would like to know where they got this 30% figure. Unless they explain it I can only assumed that it was pulled from thin air.

In short, this was a poorly designed, poorly executed "test" that proves nothing at all.
 
Posted by nyarlathotep

The whole test relied on the sitter saying whether felt that what the medium was saying "applied to them". Besides the fact that that is a hopelessly vague criteria for any sort of scientific test, there is the fact that this opens it up to all manner of sitter bias.
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Well, I'm wondering how you feel about that aspect of Randi's "Sylvia Challenge"?

The scoring is completely based on 10 sitters (9 of them knowing they were never read) telling whether they feel the reading "applied to them".

Would Randi's scoring, iyo, be an accurate way to evaluate Sylvia?
 
Clancie said:

Well, I'm wondering how you feel about that aspect of Randi's "Sylvia Challenge"?

The scoring is completely based on 10 sitters (9 of them knowing they were never read) telling whether they feel the reading "applied to them".

Would Randi's scoring, iyo, be an accurate way to evaluate Sylvia?
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My first thought is to say no, it isn't accurate, but I would have to read more details of the whole protocol before I could give a definitive yea or nay. Though I think it is a lot more likely to err in Sylvia's favor than Randi's so if I were her, I wouldn't complain.
 
I'm sure they would gladly reproduce the tests and results for the JREF if asked. Right?
 
(9 of them knowing they were never read)
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That bit's definitely not true. If they knew they were never read Randi would be allowing them to skew the results in favour of Sylvia.

It was something like, Sylvia does the reading of one random sittee and the same reading is distributed to all 10 sitters. The true sittee should score the reading higher than the others.

I'm doing this from memory - it actually sounds like a very dodgy protocol (and has a 1/10 probability of winning by chance). What should be done is Sylvia makes a reading for all of them, and all 10 are given to the sitters. They pick the reading they feel most closely matches them. If, say, 7 out of 10 pick their own reading, she passes. Mind you, we know it'll never happen, so it's all academic.

We used this exact protocol in a test of guy called Steve here on the JREF boards. The original threads are probably gone, which is a shame because it was a good exercise. He didn't pass, but he wasn't really expecting to.

David
 
There is only one definitive proof....... the day a Medium knocks on your door out of the blue and says " I have a message " after all your dear departed know where you live.
 
davidhorman said:
We used this exact protocol in a test of guy called Steve here on the JREF boards. The original threads are probably gone....
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Not necessarily. Can you give me some search words? :)
 
tramper said:
There is only one definitive proof....... the day a Medium knocks on your door out of the blue and says " I have a message " after all your dear departed know where you live.
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As do a lot of other people who might have an interest in making you believe they have super powers.
In the UK it is possible to find out someone's address relatively easily, given the inclination and an investment of some time and money.

If someone came to my door and tried that, I'd close it straight away.
 
Posted by david horman

That bit [that 9 of them know they were never read by Sylvia] is definitely not true. If they knew they were never read Randi would be allowing them to skew the results in favour of Sylvia.
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Well, perhaps you should actually read Randi's protocol as he outlined it to Sylvia.

Here's how Randi describes it, including the part I mentioned above about the other 9 people:
When the (phone) reading (with one of the ten people selected at Randi's end "at random") is finished, you would so indicate, and the subject would then be asked to give a score to the reading, from zero to ten points.

Following that, we would contact, again in random order, each of the other nine persons for whom the reading was not done, and present them with either a transcript of the reading, or an audio tape of it, for them to also score from zero to ten.

Now, we should expect that the person for whom the reading was done would obtain a score, say, from six through ten, and — unless my "guessing game" scenario is correct — the other nine for whom the reading was not done, would have scores of zero to five.

But, to simplify all this, in order to beat 50-to-1 odds — which is much better than the thousand-to-one odds we usually require for such a test! — eight of those scores would have to be less than the score given by the person for whom the reading was actually done.
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That's his proposal...really bad, imo, in every respect.
 
Posted by tramper

There is only one definitive proof....... the day a Medium knocks on your door out of the blue and says " I have a message " after all your dear departed know where you live."
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Tramper,

Anecdotal!

As Xx-Rational-xX would say, "Debunked!"

:)
 
Clancie said:
That's his proposal...really bad, imo, in every respect.
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You are beating a dead horse. Sylvia does not want to take this test, be it ever so flawed.

We have discussed this test endlessly, and we are not going to get anywhere, until - or, in reality: if - Sylvia actually agrees to it.

But I understand your reasoning for beating this animal corpse.
 
Clancie said:

Well, perhaps you should actually read Randi's protocol as he outlined it to Sylvia.

Here's how Randi describes it, including the part I mentioned above about the other 9 people:


That's his proposal...really bad, imo, in every respect.
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Now that I have read it, I can tell you the major difference between Randi's protocol for Sylvia Brown and the protocol described in the article. The difference is the addition of a control group, in the form of the people for whom the reading was not done. Simply put, if the subject of the reading scores the relevancy at an 8 (for example) , and the control group also averages around an eight, it shows a greater likelyhood that the high score was due to the human tendency to see relvance in things, rather than due to any special ability on the Ms. Brown's part. The addition of the control group makes a world of difference.

I still think that anything that requires you to rate how applicable a reading is to a person is too subjective to be a good test, but Randi's protocol for Sylvia is a LOT better than the one mentioned in the article.
 
Posted by nyarlathotep

Now that I have read it, I can tell you the major difference between Randi's protocol for Sylvia Brown and the protocol described in the article. The difference is the addition of a control group, in the form of the people for whom the reading was not done.
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Nyarlathotep,

Well, we agree that the Sylvia Challenge is too subjective, but I don't see how this group of 9 works, iyo, as a control group.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't imagine anyone here thinking this Sylvia test would be a good test if it was proposed by Schwartz rather than Randi. It is riddled with subjectivity and doesn't measure what it is supposed to.

For example...the idea of putting so much emphasis on how 9 people (who know the reading wasn't for them anyway) are going to score it, "as if it is" for them. That's a terrible way to evaluate it it and makes no effort to rule out the chance of collusion. :confused:

Second, Randi claims there will be "no need for judging", that the results are "self evident". But this is hardly the case with this 0-10 scale, as it is highly subjective--plus the scorers already know what their rating will mean to the test results if they've read the protocol he's published.


Simply put, if the subject of the reading scores the relevancy at an 8 (for example) , and the control group also averages around an eight, it shows a greater likelyhood that the high score was due to the human tendency to see relvance in things, rather than due to any special ability on the Ms. Brown's part.
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Not at all. The scorers can simply throw the test results, one way or the other, due to bias, either intentionally or subconsciously. (And it shows nothing about mediumship).
The addition of the control group makes a world of difference.
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Again, the nine -don't- function as a control group.

Beyond that, the biggest flaws are (1) the scoring itself (which statistically makes no sense as representing "50:1 odds") and (2) the intent of the test itself--which obviously isn't testing the claim (mediumship) at all. Its testing Randi's theory that Sylvia is a cold reader. That is completely different.

Robertson and Roy were testing the claim of mediumship, with people selected randomly and who evaluated readings without knowing which reading was for them.

Overall, R&R's is a much better design and avoids some of the really serious design flaws with Randi's Sylvia protocol.
 
Why are you assuming that the nine other people know it's not their reading? That would be pointless!

The idea is that no one would know if it was their reading or not. They would be scoring it on the basis that it might very well be theirs.

I agree that the terms which Randi set for Sylvia to win the money are far too easy, and would not in themselves constitute proof of ability. Maybe he was just so keen to tempt her into taking part that he fancied the gamble. I'm not sure I would have done the same but hey! It's not my money. (And before you start, I know it's not Randi's either :D ).
 
Clancie said:
(2) the intent of the test itself--which obviously isn't testing the claim (mediumship) at all. Its testing Randi's theory that Sylvia is a cold reader. That is completely different.
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I don't understand the distinction you have made here. How does Randi's protocol not test for mediumship?
 
I could adress some of the points made by the rest of your post but that's a lot more writing than I feel up to today. Maybe tomorrow. In short, though, I will repeat that I agree that the test has flaws, but that I think it is a lot better than the test mentioned in the article.

Clancie said:

Beyond that, the biggest flaws are (1) the scoring itself (which statistically makes no sense as representing "50:1 odds") and (2) the intent of the test itself--which obviously isn't testing the claim (mediumship) at all. Its testing Randi's theory that Sylvia is a cold reader. That is completely different.
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This quote though, I think I do have to address. If Randi's hypothesis is that Sylvia is a cold reader then from a scientific standpoint, that is what he SHOULD be testing for. I don't think he is either intending or claiming to be testing for mediumship. Sylvia is claiming to be able to speak to the dead, Randi's hypothesis is that she is a cold reader, the test is designed to see who is right. If the test is only for cold reading and Ms. Brown is in fact not a cold reader (even if she isn't a medium either), then she ought to jump at it, since it would be an easy million for her

Robertson and Roy were testing the claim of mediumship, with people selected randomly and who evaluated readings without knowing which reading was for them.

Overall, R&R's is a much better design and avoids some of the really serious design flaws with Randi's Sylvia protocol.
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I have no idea who these people are so I can't say anything about them. If you provided more detail perhaps I could.
 
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