The Scientific Evidence for Parapsychology

[Bunyip]

So Legion, what is your take on the subject video of the OP. Radin is saying the ganzfeld experiments have given positive results that can't be dismissed as experimental error. He claims these experiments have been replicated in many labs in three continents and his meta-analysis (methods validated by top statisticians) show mindboggling odds against chance.

Sure George, he has a statistical anomaly that is (he believes) unlikely to be a chance error - so what? Sure, he has an anomaly to research - we have all acknowledged that. It is still merely an experimental result worth looking at further - that's it.

I see you as the SUPER AGNOSTIC repeatedly showing how little us 'believers' and 'non-believers' actually know in mind-numbing detail. (I think you would be comfortable with my characterization of you here).

 

[George-ananda]

Sure George, he has a statistical anomaly that is (he believes) unlikely to be a chance error - so what? Sure, he has an anomaly to research - we have all acknowledged that. It is still merely an experimental result worth looking at further - that's it.

To me this sounds like an emotional dislike of anything that smacks of something outside of materialism.

 

[Bunyip]

To me this sounds like an emotional dislike of anything that smacks of something outside of materialism.

George, i'm afraid to say that you are far too willing to insult when you make a mistake.
What is there to dislike George, Radin has not established what the anomaly represents - how can I be denying, or disliking evidence that they have not produced yet?

Besides which George, and please read what I am about to say very carefully - George, the Ganzfeild experiment is trying to demonstrate telepathy AS A MATERIAL PHENOMENON. The Ganzfield experiments if sucessful would prove telepathy to be a NATURAL, MATERIALISTIC phenomenon. You are being insulting for no reason whatsoever - I do not have an emotional dislike or anything that smacks of something outside of materialism, that is a false and unworthy accusation. Not only is it false, if the Ganzfield exp is ever successful - IT WILL DEMONSTRATE THAT TELEPATHY IS A MATERIAL PHENOMENON.

 

[George-ananda]

Because when the experimental design and/or analyses are flawed,

I'm not buying that these guys like Radin are just incompetent.

 

[Bunyip]

I'm not buying that these guys like Radin are just incompetent.

Radin is not even claiming to have proof of telepathy - that was your misapprehension.

 

[George-ananda]

George, i'm afraid to say that you are far too willing to insult when you make a mistake.
What is there to dislike George, Radin has not established what the anomaly represents - how can I be denying, or disliking evidence that they have not produced yet?

Besides which George, and please read what I am about to say very carefully - George, the Ganzfeild experiment is trying to demonstrate telepathy AS A MATERIAL PHENOMENON. The Ganzfield experiments if sucessful would prove telepathy to be a NATURAL, MATERIALISTIC phenomenon. You are being insulting for no reason whatsoever - I do not have an emotional dislike or anything that smacks of something outside of materialism, that is a false and unworthy accusation. Not only is it false, if the Ganzfield exp is ever successful - IT WILL DEMONSTRATE THAT TELEPATHY IS A MATERIAL PHENOMENON.

I believe that any evidence in favor of ESP or God or the paranormal is emotionally disturbing to many and they will vehemently try to explain it away. They don't like a universe so not yet understandable that 'believers' claims can not be dismissed.

 

[Bunyip]

I believe that any evidence in favor of ESP or God or the paranormal is emotionally disturbing to many and they will vehemently try to explain it away. They don't like a universe so not yet understandable that 'believers' claims can not be dismissed.

Yes George, you have said that several times. The point here is that RADIN HAS NO EVIDENCE of telepathy. You made the mistake of thinking otherwise, but were wrong. There is no evidence in favour of telepathy from the Ganzfield experiment - JUST A STATISTICAL ANOMALY.

So far the Ganzfield experiments have yielded no evidence of the paranormal for anyone to deny - and yet you keep raising the same accusation. Clearly George there is still a misconception you are hanging on to. Repeatedly falling back on the same false accusation, no matter how many times it is explained to you that Radin has only identified an anomaly worth looking into speaks far more of your biases and denialism than mine I'm afraid.

 

[George-ananda]

Radin is not even claiming to have proof of telepathy - that was your misapprehension.

Yes George, you have said that several times. The point here is that RADIN HAS NO EVIDENCE of telepathy. You made the mistake of thinking otherwise, but were wrong. There is no evidence in favour of telepathy from the Ganzfield experiment - JUST A STATISTICAL ANOMALY.

So far the Ganzfield experiments have yielded no evidence of the paranormal for anyone to deny - and yet you keep raising the same accusation. Clearly George there is still a misconception you are hanging on to.

It's curious how many times I have had to clarify that I understand what Radin is saying about a statistical anomaly (not proof of telepathy). But you intentionally repeat the falsehood of my misunderstanding because you need that as an arguing point.

 

[Bunyip]

It's curious how many times I have had to clarify that I understand what Radin is saying about a statistical anomaly (not proof of telepathy). But you intentionally repeat the falsehood of my misunderstanding because you need that as an arguing point.

Well the thing is George, that you are not clarifying - you keep returning to the misassumption that people are denying something here. We are not denying the statistical anomaly. Nobody is denying that an anomaly was detected. What is being denied is the misconception that this anomaly represents evidence of telepathy.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm not buying that these guys like Radin are just incompetent.

Ok. Go through the studies and the critiques and show why the critiques fail and the studies are sound. It's that simple.

 

[George-ananda]

Ok. Go through the studies and the critiques and show why the critiques fail and the studies are sound. It's that simple.

That was done by the most hard-core of skeptics, Ray Hyman, and he conceded that he has no explanation for the statistical anomalies.

 

[Bunyip]

That was done by the most hard-core of skeptics, Ray Hyman, and he conceded that he has no explanation for the statistical anomalies.

He doesn't need an explanation. Radin is the one who needs to come up with the explanation. Why should Hyman need to explain something Radin does not explain?

 

[George-ananda]

He doesn't need an explanation. Radin is the one who needs to come up with the explanation. Why should Hyman need to explain something Radin does not explain?

I think Legion is not accepting the anomaly.

 

[Bunyip]

I think Legion is not accepting the anomaly.

You are mistaken, Legion is just pointing out that it was not consistently replicated.

 

[George-ananda]

You are mistaken, Legion is just pointing out that it was not consistently replicated.

Read Legion again. He said it was replicated but the experiments were flawed.

 

[Bunyip]

Read Legion again. He said it was replicated but the experiments were flawed.

Yes that is correct. It remains correct also that the results have not been consistently replicated.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That was done by the most hard-core of skeptics, Ray Hyman, and he conceded that he has no explanation for the statistical anomalies.

You mean the same Ray Hyman that wrote:
Hyman, R. (2010). Meta-analysis that conceals more than it reveals: comment on Storm et al.(2010). Psychological bulletin, 136(4), 486.

In which we find:
"For parapsychologists who believe in psi, such inconsistencies must be discouraging, indeed. Their typical remedy is to propose that such inconsistencies are an inherent property of psi. This not only begs the question but makes it impossible to prove the existence of psi within the framework of science. Science cannot investigate a phenomenon that is inherently unpredictable and evasive...Meta-analysis can mask the underlying contradictions of the original experiments by providing a buffer between the original data and the investigators. Once the effect sizes are abstracted from the original data, the only information that is preserved is a dimensionless index of size. Such indices can display heterogeneity only as variations in effect sizes. When the appropriate statistics indicate that a collection of effect sizes is heterogeneous, the authors can make databases homogeneous by simply removing a sufficient number of the more extreme cases. They can further create consistency by combining databases from different sources whenever the combined effect sizes do not differ significantly. All these manipulations of the data, including finding significant effect sizes, can be done without any reference to the bothersome inconsistencies that abound within the actual studies." (emphases added)

Yeah. Big admission.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That was done by the most hard-core of skeptics, Ray Hyman, and he conceded that he has no explanation for the statistical anomalies.

Also, in addition to the above (by Hyman, which directly conflicts with what you've stated), here's an article by Hyman on how disingenuous the claims of parapsychology researchers can be, the disconnect between what they claim to be addressing and what they address, and how he showed up to a conference on "anomalous cognition" he thought would address the claims that it was explicitly (according to the organizers) supposed to address, when in actually he was alone in doing so: Anomalous Cognition? A Second Perspective

I'd be curious to know where Hyman "conceded that he has no explanation for the statistical anomalies" given how he has repeatedly stated there are none, the studies and meta-analyses supporting claims regarding parapsychology are flawed, inconsistent, and can't be replicated, yet nowhere gives any indication that there is some aspect of their results that can't be explained. We belong to at least two of the same groups/associations, so while I've never met him, I do have more ways to contact him directly than are available to most, but that doesn't mean he checks these regularly or, if he does, that he'd respond. However, there is the fact that he has published nothing but criticisms that never admit to anything being unexplained for 60 years:

Hyman, R. (1957). Review of Modern Experiments in Telepathy, Second Edition. American Statistical Association Journal, 52, 607–610.

Hyman, R. (1981). The psychic reading. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 364(1), 169-181.

Hyman, R. (1982). Does the ganzfeld experiment answer the critics' objections. Research in parapsychology, 21-23.

Hyman, R. (1984). Searching for patterns: Meta-analysis and parapsychology. RA White & J. Solfvin (Ms.), Research in Parapsychology, 114-115.

Hyman, R. (1985). The ganzfeld psi experiment: A critical appraisal. Journal of Parapsychology.

Hyman, R. (1986). Parapsychological research: A tutorial review and critical appraisal. Proceedings of the IEEE, 74(6), 823-849.

Hyman, R. (1988). Psi experiments: Do the best parapsychological experiments justify the claims for psi?. Experientia, 44(4), 315-322.

Hyman, R. (1987). Parapsychology: The science of ostensible anomalies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(04), 593-594.

Hyman, R. (1989). The elusive quarry: A scientific appraisal of psychical research. prometheus books.

Hyman, R. (1994). Anomaly or Artifact? Comments on Bern and Honorton. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 19-24.

Hyman, R. (2010). Parapsychology’s achilles heel: persistent inconsistency. Debating psychic experience: Human potential or human illusion, 43-52.

...and so forth.

 

[George-ananda]

I'd be curious to know where Hyman "conceded that he has no explanation for the statistical anomalies" given how he has repeatedly stated there are none, the studies and meta-analyses supporting claims regarding parapsychology are flawed, inconsistent, and can't be replicated, yet nowhere gives any indication that there is some aspect of their results that can't be explained. We belong to at least two of the same groups/associations, so while I've never met him, I do have more ways to contact him directly than are available to most, but that doesn't mean he checks these regularly or, if he does, that he'd respond. However, there is the fact that he has published nothing but criticisms that never admit to anything being unexplained for 60 years:
.

Your posts shows why I chose to bring up Ray Hyman's name. He has made a career of being a determined critic of psi. He has stated that the ganzfeld experiments have provided statistical results he has no ready explanation for. (I'm not as swift as you at finding quotes and journal articles but given enough time I can find the exact quote; you have the right not to believe me until I do.)

I was just reading about remote viewing and found something by another determined skeptic of psi that seems to concede the statistical analysis issue:

Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing.

He says: "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.

 

[George-ananda]

You mean the same Ray Hyman that wrote:
.

Ah, I'm getting quite good at searching and here's the quote of Ray Hyman.

Here is Ray Hyman'’s exact quote (note he is still totally anti-paranormal but pay close attention to the last sentence):

Obviously, I do not believe that the contemporary findings of parapsychology, [...] justify concluding that anomalous mental phenomena have been proven. [...] [A]cceptable evidence for the presence of anomalous cognition must be based on a positive theory that tells us when psi should and should not be present. Until we have such a theory, the claim that anomalous cognition has been demonstrated is empty.[...] I want to state that I believe that the SAIC experiments as well as the contemporary ganzfeld experiments display methodological and statistical sophistication well above previous parapsychological research. Despite better controls and careful use of statistical inference, the investigators seem to be getting significant results that do not appear to derive from the more obvious flaws of previous research.
—Ray Hyman, The Journal of Parapsychology, December 1995[22]