No proof for the Paranormal?

by skyking 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  skyking

  Most scientist feel that the paranormal can not be taken seriously. However, when the persons making extreme claims are Professor Brian Josephson at Camberidge and Jessica Utts who is a professor of statistics at the University of California at Davis. Both have impressive credentials and marshals the evidence for their case using repeatable tests that proves mathematically that the paranormal is real. Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning is well established. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. [Psychic functioning] is reliable enough to be replicated in properly conducted experiments, with sufficient trials to achieve the long-run statistical results needed for replication. Many scientist are not willing to change their perceived thinking and demise any and all valid tests as flawed, Here is Josephson’s home page found at www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/ - 18k also Utts at http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/azpsi.html

  To stress this one more time for people like Abaddon you can not get the numbers they are getting without the paranormal. So don’t believe posters when they say there is no proof? Bla, bla, bla, I just provided you with plenty of proof go to the web sites and do some reading. The proof that has stood up to most stringent scientific scrutiny. By the way this evidence is pissing a lot of people off because some people like being dogmatic. They like to post comments like this one that Aboddon posted yesterday.

  Skyking "It is also really nice you feel there is a theory which supports the paranormal... pity there is no proof of the paranormal, eh?"

  They are much like religious fanatics. Some people do not like having their belief system challenged and ignore anything you show them because they are comfortable being in the dark.

  I hope you all are having a great Sunday as I am here in the great north west. My wife is about to drag my @$$ to the big city to go shoppong a fate almost as bad as setting through a meeting.
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  skyking

  I am leaving right now I want this to have at least a fair chance for the poster I want to see it gets to. But I bet he will post something that makes all this sound stupid. Something that Richard Hawkins did not do but instead said their reseach is provideing hard evidence for a yet unkown force in the universe in a recent TV doncumentary. But hell this poster I am talking about must be smarted the Hawkins just ask him
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  BlackSwan of Memphis

  ok well this should turn out to be an interesting thread.

  I take it the intended reader is Abaddon?

  Have fun shopping. While you're out, I could really use a few things..........
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  tetrapod.sapien

  skyking,

  there are many many paranormal claims that, indeed, have no evidence to back them up. i am not saynig that this is the case with the data that you posted, but i will have to reserve my opinion on them until i review them. but just for the record, there is much paranormal with no evidence backing it up.

  if a certain paranormal hypothesis (lets call it that instead of "claim") produces some data/evidence that seems to work, then: a) we should send it off for peer review, and b) we would do well to avoid the claim that all paranormal hypotheses are now in the same standing. which is not the case.

  there is another caveat that i thought i would share as well.

  there are still competing hypotheses. for example, there is a phenomenon. hypothesis X says that it is psychic phenomenon. hypothesis Y says that it is psychosomatic and coincidental. and hypothesis Z says that it is both X and Y a certain percentage of the time.

  i am not saying this to imply that your hypothesis (or in this case the results you posted) is wrong in some way. i just wanted to clarify that there are always different ways of lookikng at the same data.

  and that said, if a so-called paranormal hypothesis was ever verified, through the maze above, then it would cease to be "paranormal", and would become "normal", wouldn't it? no longer "supernatural", but natural. are you okay with those labels?

  indeed, science is incapable of measuring some phenomena. while i think science is the best tool we have come up with for objective varification, there is much that blows right over it's head. but i am encouraged lately with some of the studies that have been going on into the "paranormal", and that scientists are not being burnt at the stake as much for it.

  oh, and while abaddon is perfectly capable of defending himself, i will just say that abaddon is not close minded as you suggest. quite the contrary. skeptics like abaddon have helped many people on this board to avoid being taken by hogwash. you see, there are lots of lame magical ideas floating around the world still. when someone leaves the WTS, they still may not always know how to think critically. skeptics help those individuals to broaden their views, simply by giving them an additional skill set. let's be clear about this. we ALL already know how to think magically about phenomena, or we wouldn't be here on an exwit board posting.

  as sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. do not call people close minded because they insist on standards. that makes you look close minded and insecure, not them.

  okay, thanks for the stuff. i'll check it out too. have fun shopping, lol.

  peace,

  tetra
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  tetrapod.sapien

  Richard Hawkins

  you told me in a pm you sent me yesterday, that you did not like richard dawkins for certain reasons.

  Dawkins.

  Hawking is the really brilliant guy in the wheelchair who wrote a brief history of time.

  tetra
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  RAF

  Ok ...

  I don't know who are Josephson and Utts, but truly It wouldn't change what I think about it by now. I have my own experiences on paranormal things even not alone (familly all together - about sorcery) so it's not as if I would be the only one to tell. There are still no proof for those who was not there or never had the same experiences ... That's what paranormal is all about (no real/tangible proof about the how and the what ) ...

  That being said ... There is paranormal and paranormal ... our spirit which have a lot of imagination and intution is abble to lead us to some paranormal experiences for many reasons also a sickness like being skiso ... it's good to still really wonder about what is what that doesn't mean that it have to be really paranormal (there might be a tangible explanation) nor that it is not paranormal ... but the experience is paranormal. I mean the one who is telling that he had a paranormal experience do not lie, it's just his/her paranormal experience (he/she might be never be able to proove or explane it).

  Also if you believe in God you know that some things can be paranormal ... nobody would be able to proove that God does exist. It obvious for some people not for everyone (and most do not believe because God doesn't answer their needs/questions the way they do expect) ... but thinking that everything came out of evolution is paranormal somehow and only leads to believe something too big to stand into something very tiny (to get the capacity to create and evolve). that is somehow paranormal but at least they think it is explainable (just like numerologie - it is explainable) but the mystic part of it stays paranormal.
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  SixofNine

  Here is a slightly more readable version of that first paragraph (though still just as insulting to intelligence):

  Most of these purveyors of psychic myths should not be taken seriously. However, when one of the persons making extreme claims is Jessica Utts, who is a professor of statistics at the University of California at Davis, this is another matter. Utts has impressive credentials and she marshals the evidence for her case in an effective way. So it is important to look at the basis for what I believe are extreme claims, even for a parapsychologist. Here is what Utts writes in her report on the Stargate program: Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI [Stanford Research Institute] and SAIC [Science Applications International Corporation] have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud. . . . [Psychic functioning] is reliable enough to be replicated in properly conducted experiments, with sufficient trials to achieve the long-run statistical results needed for replicability. . . . Precognition, in which the answer is known to no one until a future time, appears to work quite well. . . . There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  skyking,

  i had a look at the two links you provided. and before i get into the things that i consider "pros" on the situation, let me just note something:

  the links did not contain any evidence. the links were op ed pieces on evidence, not the evidence themselves.

  which is fine! i am not saying that it doesn't exist. i'm just saying that as RAF pointed out, you did not post data. you posted opinions about data.

  THAT SAID, let me continue on:

  i am actually encouraged that some scientists are standing up for their data, and evidence and hypotheses regarding these phenomena. i believe that a true scientist will not reject things out off hand if they fall into a certain realm of probability just because of personal philosophical reasons.

  the data that the two links spoke of, seem to be reliable and well thought out in my opinion. i felt that Utts made a good case, and actually touched on some things that i consider very important for consideration (her being a statician). she takes most of the article to show that there *is* something going on here, without immediately diving into *what* it might be.

  closer to the end of the article, she gives some of her thoughts on *what* might be causing the results/success rates she earlier outlined. she finishes it by saying that it is highly speculative, but that we might do well to lose some of our abhorrence of such concepts, considering success rates. i still would like to understand the variables of the tests, since that would make or break my final opinion on the matter.

  i thought that generally joshephson's description of test results were well done as well.

  it seems that these two individuals have good motives, and are behaving fairly and professionally with this phenomenon. Utts even provides a link to skeptical treatment of the US govs test results. it seems that more than wanting to uphold some personal philosophy, both of them truly want to get to the bottom of what is going on. and i applaud this sort of attitude. it seems to be missing in some scientists and editors of certain journals.

  and personally, i agree that we are getting closer to some sort of physical/empirical understanding of some very strange phenomenon. and i think that the fact that they were only really achieving 27% success rate says that while it is statistically very very interesting, people who say they are psychic must understand this too. they are not *always* on the mark, nor do they fully understand their own "gifts".

  i find the investigations fascinating. i think that consciousness could indeed be "quantum" in nature, though there is much debate on this still. the skeptics are doing their job well, and basically giving the general lay public a second opinion. but i do also think that it would be unprofessional to reject findings out of hand. it seems that the scientists have indeed been rigorous, from what i have seen.

  thanks for the links.

  tetra
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  skyking

  It was Stephen Hawkins not Richard Hawkins. Sorry

  Many Nations have used Remote Viewers with much success even the US had the Star Gate project which had many successes but was later closed. Recently we have found out it was only closed by name, it reopened by a different name soon after. Some in the Bush administration have been quoted that this was one of the reasons Bush went to war with Iraq because of wrong information that the US remote viewers gave him. Which does not give much credence to remote viewing I will admit. But the US government and most other Governments have remote viewers.
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  lovelylil

  skyking,

  I defended you yesterday with tetra and Abaddon but now it is your turn to get a little tongue lashing from me. Starting this link with the express purpose of signaling out Abaddon is not very nice. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. And unless someone actually experiences something of the paranormal, they will remain a skeptic. That is their perogative.

  I think tetra raised a good point. Many people are duped today by some claiming to be legitimate phychics, or fortellers of dreams, healers, etc. and we do have to be careful who we believe. And of all the tens of thousands who claim to have this ability, probably 99% are false.

  However, I understand where you are coming from. I've had "paranormal" occurances in my life. Or at least what I would classify as paranormal. Which really could be anything we cannot explain at the time. My mother was the same way, and my daughter has had similiar experiences. I've also like your wife, had dreams that came true. And there are times my kids needed me, although far away, when I just felt a strong need to contact them. Finding out then that they were calling me. Some call this mother's instinct. Scientists may even call it an instinct and I have no problem with that. But the point is, I am more open to what you are saying because my life experiences tell me there are things we simply cannot explain. And that is because of my personal experiences.

  I think people like tetra and abaddon (I could be wrong) feel that one day science will be able to explain all things. Not sure If I believe the same though as life is not always black/white. But the point is they are both entitled to believe what they want. And really, if they don't beleive your wife has any abilities, what do you really care? You live with her and you know for sure. Just like I know for sure my experiences are true.

  Anyway, enough of playing peacemaker for me. I'm tired and going to bed soon. Peace to all of you. Now, get back in your corners and come out when the bell rings.........Lilly