Telephone telepathy 'proved'

[punkbass2000]

Police call centers? Predict the high priority calls...

Well, I don't think it would be completely useless, but it's not something that would really give one a personal advantage.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Well, I don't think it would be completely useless, but it's not something that would really give one a personal advantage.

A million dollars would be a personal advantage, right?

 

[punkbass2000]

Well, for one thing, I don't see how a 45% success rate predicting which of four friends will call translates into being able to predict emergency calls at a police call centre. Secondly, IINM, these were average people, so there's no reason to think that they would have any more success than anyone else. Thirdly, this study, I believe, is only demonstrating a very basic and slight form of telepathy.

 

[Xenocrates]

You read one of the search results.

Apparently the staring test is supposed to show that we emit some kind of sight-rays when looking at people, and these rays are detectable.

I haven't much respect for James Randi, the professional 'skeptic' and self publicist. I think he's no skeptic and comes at cases with a predetermined view, which he attempts to support. He was the second link and he's offered a poisoned chalice to Sheldrake, which wasn't accepted.

The idea of morphic fields is more of the 'communal mind' variety and not connected with the 'evil eye' or anything Platonic. He says that everything in the Universe 'knows' where it is in relation to everything else. This explains one of the biggest mysteries of biology: cell determination. How else do foetal cells 'know' what to turn into? An important characteristic of proteins is the shape into which they are folded. Why do all (most) proteins with the same formula fold into the same shape? Apparently it's not the configuration of least energy. His is a general theory, that he has chosen to study through parapsychology; it's not a parapsychology theory.

Personally I think he's on to something.......

 

[carlosMM]

Xenocrates, as I said earlier, the tests useed are a huge problem. As long as, e.g., the person 'staring' decides WHEN ot stare, the timing will not be truely random. So the experience and normal human interaction training (which we all received from birth on, by life) will make a result above 50% likely - simply for the reason that we have learned to anticipate other people's actions.

 

[Narz]

I take offense whenever someone says that my beliefs are garbage, especialy if its a jab to my faith

.

So then you can understand that other people don't like you dismissing their beliefs as garbage either (even if you personally think they are silly or unfounded).

True, but the evidence here wont hold out very well with the skeptical scientific community.

Have you examined the evidence?

And what point would that be?

My off-topic point about showing respect regardless of your own beliefs about a belief.

Xenocrates: why don't WE do a test? The two of us? You give me your phone number and then predict when I will call you.....

Too small a sample.

If you want telepathy to be accepted by the population, you need an explanation; a plausible story. People like stories. If you can explain, in steps that are consistent with known scientific facts, how it might work, then we can start investigating it. Until there's a theory to refine, science can't refine anything.

You have a point there. People do need explinations, much more so than truth (which is why religion has stood the test of time despite complete lack of evidence).

Actually, they can, as long as they follow scientific method, are confirmed by independent reaserchers and double-blind methodology.

Regards .

But why would researchers be interested in confirming this? The whole economy is driven by people's lack of self-sufficiency and self-trust. If people could all understand and heal themselves the whole medical and psychiatric industry (save for surgeons fixing broken arms and stuff) would be out of a job. In other words, where's the monetary value in this research?

Who needs a study to know telephone telepathy is real? Anyone who's had a phone for more than a week has experienced it. Excuze me, Ive got to go read a science book to find out what I believe

Make sure it conforms with your self-image and online persona too.

I'm used to it.

haha, me too.

If anyone had telepathy and could see things others couldn't, why haven't any of them used it to their own personal advantage?

I'm sure many have. Have you ever been in the car not paying attention and then looked up just at the right moment to aviod an accident? Not exactally something most people would be proud of or talk about but I'm sure it happens all the time.

 

[FredLC]

But why would researchers be interested in confirming this? The whole economy is driven by people's lack of self-sufficiency and self-trust. If people could all understand and heal themselves the whole medical and psychiatric industry (save for surgeons fixing broken arms and stuff) would be out of a job. In other words, where's the monetary value in this research?

Do I smell a "conspiracy theory" excuse?

Seriously, now, Narz, do you fail to see the inherent value of confirmed precognition? If there really were that, any minimally sane installment would pursue it - erradicating the "x factor" from your relations would bring astonishing economy of resources gathering and allocation, as well as diminish waste sensibly.

This is not only supposition, too; there have been research of the kind in the past. It's the consistency of failure of any of these theories what has rendered their credibility to a nill.

Besides, as it is, there are many private parties pursuiting their own reasearchs - and they are as able as anyone to apply the rigorous dismissive critrerias of science. That they choose not too speaks loudly of the material they have in their hands, don't you think?

Regards .

 

[Xenocrates]

Reply to Carlos: In most of these experiments, a dice decides not a person.

Reply to Fred: Mainstream research gets over 99% of the available funding. Most research is done by time wasting mongrels repeating experiments to get qualifications. In short, funding bodies are too conservative to fund this stuff. Part of the problem is that we can all do an experiment to prove that something is going on, but we won't be able to say exactly what. Is it telepathy, a sixth sense or universal mind? The absense of a theory behind it is off-putting to the establishment. Sheldrake does have a theory, but it's rhetorical rather than mathematical and it doesn't look like physics, biology or chemistry. It just doesn't fit in with anything else (hence I like it! ).


Does that make any sense?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Okay, even if this is valid, it is going to take a whole lot more of this, under different conditions and with bigger sample sizes, to actually be able to say with confidence that it is. So Sheldrake should start getting more people etc.

 

[Perfection]

Actually, contrary to common sense, parapsychology stuff gets a LOT more peer review than anything else. Everyone's out to debunk these guys and, to date, no one's managed to debunk Sheldrake and he's been around for a long time now.

Cranks outnumber dedicated skeptics, by far.

In mainstream science, researchers try to ape the results of their illustrious forebears (it's true, I've been there), but in this field everyone's out to debunk you.

It's not really a field, just a bunch o cranks.

Sheldrake uses the biggest samples that he can and he appears to me to use scientifically accurate methods. In the online staring experiment, he used 6860 trials, giving a positive result 60.6% of the time (miles over the expected 50%). This can't be dismissed lightly!

Can you substantiate that figure

He was drawn to internet based experimentation because he could get a high sample size and do cheap experiments. He gives his methods and invites you to reproduce his work; 'low sample size' is an invalid criticism now. It's more a question of whether you dismiss something that has experimental evidence for it for unscientific reasons and whether you can find an alternative explanation for the phenomena.

Well, really what does this have to do with the phone thing? Can you please stay on topic?

Lastly The CIA spent at least $20,000,000 on 'remote viewing' programmes over two decades or more. Wouldn't they have shut down the operation early if it was drawing a blank?

From http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/air1995.pdf

The Indians have recently started their own remote viewing and have reported successes against Pakistani intelligence by using it. The article here is very interesting, but there are potential flaws and it could be a smokescreen (who knows?) http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/12-13-04.asp

Interesting stuff!

Interesting more as to why people continue with this not as evidence of its existance. And, really what does this have to do with the phone thing? Can you please stay on topic?

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

This experiment was not performed under controlled conditions.

A way to repeat this experiment in controlled conditions would be to take 2 volunteers and place them in isolated cubicles, then have the experimenter randomly select one to call, with the volunteers previously attempting to predict whether they would be the person called or the person not called. If the success rate is higher than 50%, then the hypothesis is supported.

The experiment as constructed by Sheldrake is fatally flawed. It relied on the volunteer being able to "predict" the identity of the caller from the knowledge that they were available and that they called at a specific time. Clearly it does not take telepathy to get a high success rate at this prediction.

I look forward to researchers repeating the experiment as described above. Until then, this is bunk.

 

[GenMarshall]

A way to repeat this experiment in controlled conditions would be to take 2 volunteers and place them in isolated cubicles, then have the experimenter randomly select one to call, with the volunteers previously attempting to predict whether they would be the person called or the person not called. If the success rate is higher than 50%, then the hypothesis is supported.

I would agree with this statement and is a good example of a single-blind trial that should have been done in the first place. If its less than 50% (The success rate) then the hypothesis is not supported and should be considered an oogie-boogie myth. If the success is more than 50%, more experimentations would be needed to avoid any cases of cooincdences from occuring.

The experiment as constructed by Sheldrake is fatally flawed. It relied on the volunteer being able to "predict" the identity of the caller from the knowledge that they were available and that they called at a specific time. Clearly it does not take telepathy to get a high success rate at this prediction.

Somehow, that is the monkey wrench that got into the gears of the experiment. Sadly, this experiment has fallen under the experimenter's bias. The reason why I stated that this telephone telepathy is just garbage to me is because the experimentation of it is done improperly and should have been done as Pontiuth Pilate stated to avoid any experimenter's biases. Its not because I am hammering or bashing anyone who believes in telepathy, but I felt that the experiment should have been done using the scientific method along with a single-blind trial in which the caller has no knowlage of the person of whom he or she is going to call.

 

[Xenocrates]

I have few stories about the way science is done usually. At university I studied physics and we were asked to do experiments. Sometimes I got results that were right on the nail (ie. the agreed with previous results) and I got high markes for the work. Sometimes I got results that were way off the accepted results and I got low marks for those. In both cases I had followed the procedures carefully. So from an early age scientists are trained to discard 'bad' results. They don't discard them for any reason, they just close their minds and pretend that it didn't happen and do another experiment until they get it 'right'. They have even invented a word for it: 'unphysical'. This means that they can't think of a good reason to discard the result except that it disagrees with current thinking.

That's the way it is. To assume that Sheldrake et al is a crank is to forget that Einstein copied most of his work from Lorentz and Poincarre, that Newton was an alchemist and forget Plato's famous error. Plato said that women and slaves had fewer teeth than ordinary folks. For over a thousand years everyone agreed with him. Well get this: he was wrong, what was so hard about saying that he was wrong?

You remember those stories that the 'constants' aren't constant? That may be because later experimenters bias their results to match the work done previously; the published results slowly edge up or down over time, but not the real results. All science is like that. Check out Milikan's result for the charge on the electron to prove this.

Now where Sheldrake differs is that when he gets a result that doesn't match the modern view, he doesn't throw it out. To me he's a better scientist than the skeptics and a better skeptic than the sceptics.

To those that argue about the method: there were 4 potential callers. guessing the correct one had a 25% probability. His results were that 42% of the guesses were correct. What's wrong with that? Repeating the experiment with only two possibilities wouldn't be any better in my view.

 

[GenMarshall]

To those that argue about the method: there were 4 potential callers. guessing the correct one had a 25% probability. His results were that 42% of the guesses were correct. What's wrong with that? Repeating the experiment with only two possibilities wouldn't be any better in my view.

Its still below 50% and thus the Hypothoesis is not supported. Suppose we repeat the experiment again with a single-blind test (Dont give the caller the knowlage of who he or she is calling). More than likely the results would be less than 42%. How it got to 42% was due to cooincidence, educated guesses, and knowlage of the caller beforehand.

 

[Perfection]

I have few stories about the way science is done usually. At university I studied physics and we were asked to do experiments. Sometimes I got results that were right on the nail (ie. the agreed with previous results) and I got high markes for the work. Sometimes I got results that were way off the accepted results and I got low marks for those. In both cases I had followed the procedures carefully. So from an early age scientists are trained to discard 'bad' results. They don't discard them for any reason, they just close their minds and pretend that it didn't happen and do another experiment until they get it 'right'. They have even invented a word for it: 'unphysical'. This means that they can't think of a good reason to discard the result except that it disagrees with current thinking.

Real science is not an undergraduate lab experiment.

That's the way it is. To assume that Sheldrake et al is a crank is to forget that Einstein copied most of his work from Lorentz and Poincarre, that Newton was an alchemist and forget Plato's famous error. Plato said that women and slaves had fewer teeth than ordinary folks. For over a thousand years everyone agreed with him. Well get this: he was wrong, what was so hard about saying that he was wrong?

Nothing? Noone says Newton was right about alchemy. Sheldrake seems like a crank because the stuff advertised in the abstract is not what is seen in the experiment. It looks like bad science. BTW, Einstien did not "copy" works from Poincarre and Lorentz he added to them and expanded them and gave them different physical meaning. And he did a whole lot more then relativity.

You remember those stories that the 'constants' aren't constant? That may be because later experimenters bias their results to match the work done previously; the published results slowly edge up or down over time, but not the real results. All science is like that. Check out Milikan's result for the charge on the electron to prove this.

Ummm, isn't that's just an artifact of greater precision?

Now where Sheldrake differs is that when he gets a result that doesn't match the modern view, he doesn't throw it out. To me he's a better scientist than the skeptics and a better skeptic than the sceptics.

I have yet to see any result that gives any indication of telephone telepathy and until I do so, I'm going to dismiss him as a crank.

To those that argue about the method: there were 4 potential callers. guessing the correct one had a 25% probability. His results were that 42% of the guesses were correct. What's wrong with that? Repeating the experiment with only two possibilities wouldn't be any better in my view.

Well, where the hell is the experimental data? I want to see the paper before I accept it! As I see it I have two choices with no paper say, "he's right because he has a fancy title" or "he's a crank". I'm going with the later.

 

[GenMarshall]

Well, where the hell is the experimental data? I want to see the paper before I accept it! As I see it I have two choices with no paper say, "he's right because he has a fancy title" or "he's a crank". I'm going with the later.

Are pigs flying right now? Is hell freezing over? Cause I just aggreed with Perfection on this statement .

 

[Sephiroth]

I don't understand electricity (and I doubt most here do) but I do know it works (sometimes).

Only thing about "such things" is that we haven't made a science of them to the point where we can get them occur 99-100% of the time. Such is the nature of the subtle - harder to tame.

when the electrons of atoms become excited they move away from the rest of the atom. if you control this, say with a piece of wire, they move down the wire and presto! you have electricity!
I think fourtune telling is nonsense.... if these people are telepathic, why do they not win the lottery?

 

[Xenocrates]

Its still below 50% and thus the Hypothoesis is not supported. Suppose we repeat the experiment again with a single-blind test (Dont give the caller the knowlage of who he or she is calling). More than likely the results would be less than 42%. How it got to 42% was due to cooincidence, educated guesses, and knowlage of the caller beforehand.

He is experimenting on telepathy. If the caller doesn't know the person to whom they are calling maybe it won't work. Who knows.

The second point is that you assume

How it got to 42% was due to cooincidence, educated guesses, and knowlage of the caller beforehand

. How do you know that? He eliminated the foreknowledge possibility by giving little time for them to make contact.

 

[Xenocrates]

Real science is not an undergraduate lab experiment..

That's where you learn the trade and the bad habits start.

Nothing? Noone says Newton was right about alchemy. Sheldrake seems like a crank because the stuff advertised in the abstract is not what is seen in the experiment.

Can you elaborate? It looks like the abstract is fair to me.

BTW, Einstien did not "copy" works from Poincarre and Lorentz he added to them and expanded them and gave them different physical meaning. And he did a whole lot more then relativity.

The whole of relativity was lifted and Einstein provided zero references at the end of his paper. Well an undergraduate couldn't get away with that. Plagiarism of the highest degree. Poor followed the solar eclipse of 1919 and demonstrated that Einstein was right about the scale constant. How did he do it? Simple, he discarded the results that he didn't like! This is standard practice. Sheldrake doesn't gloss over stuff like this, he admits possible sources of error and discusses them.

Ummm, isn't that's just an artifact of greater precision?

Nope, the results would have deviated both sides of the 'real' figure. They didn't, they slowly crept up as if the scientists were ashamed to declare results too deviant from those of Milikan. This is the only sensible explanation.

Well, where the hell is the experimental data? I want to see the paper before I accept it! As I see it I have two choices with no paper say, "he's right because he has a fancy title" or "he's a crank". I'm going with the later.

The paper is here http://sheldrake.org/papers/Telepathy/Nolan.html. I trust it's to your liking!

 

[carlosMM]

Ah, Xenocrates, now you lift the veil: you believe in the bad science conspiracy!