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Welcome to RationalWiki, David1234!
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Greetings, David1234, and thank you for joining the wiki all about fucked-up flaps. I hope you enjoy your time here. 
Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 22:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
A question[edit]
Is English your first language?--ZooGuard (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
No, German is but I have a good automatic English spell-checker. David1234 (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
Next time you have a vandal on your hands...[edit]
...use these. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
23:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
One of the studies you cited is an argument against the point you're trying to make, so if you want to persist in spite of that, it only reduces your credibility: http://thisquantumworld.com/PDF/Mohrhoff_JCS.pdf198.189.184.243 (talk) 23:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes thanks for pointing that out to me it was indeed an error. If you left me a polite message I would of fixed it but instead you keep vandalizing the article. You were banned on Wikipedia for inserting pseudoscience;
198.189.184.243 on Wikipedia banned [1] David1234 (talk) 00:06, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Dualism contradicts the laws of physics, see Lycan, William. (1996). Philosophy of Mind in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy. Nicholas Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. I will add that source. David1234 (talk) 00:15, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Others have challenged that type of argumentation, examples have been given. Even Basil Hiley, a 2012 Majorana Prizes Laureate (http://www.majoranaprize.com/ - scroll down), who could certainly not be said to be ignorant of physics, has proposed a variant of a dualistic argument that nullifies those criticisms: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/mm/2005/00000003/00000002/art00002
Regarding my ban - I was banned for trying to get an accurate reflection of the content of two reviews in an article, these were articles in mainstream journals, which suggested reevaluation of intravenous vitmain c for cancer therapy (evidence shows that it is adjunctive, and as I can recall, Linus Pauling, in "How To Live Longer and Feel Better", at the very last page of the chapter on cancer, specifically advocated it as complementary, not alternative medicine - and in "Vitamin C and Cancer", he specifically stated that it was not a cure for cancer (see p. 130)): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring&diff=prev&oldid=574271325#User:198.189.184.243_reported_by_User:UseTheCommandLine_.28Result:_Topic_ban_under_WP:ARBPS.29, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive139#Arbitration_enforcement_action_appeal_by_198.189.184.243
I was forced to carry on my argument here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MastCell#controversy_about_vitamin_c
One other argument made against me is that my editing on the Seralini talk page was "fringe", though it was not a fringe article - before my contributions, Seralini's rebuttal to attacks was not even in the article. I exposed how the EFSA was in conflict of interest by their own standards, and that EFSA protocols, in spite of their selective attack, actually vindicate Seralini: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AS%C3%A9ralini_affair&diff=578040735&oldid=576208276#Seralini_validated_by_new_EFSA_guidelines_on_long-term_GMO_experiments
for citations of articles with information countering the study that disputes Seralini, see: http://www.gmwatch.org/component/content/article/13576
cited from the article is the following: "According to Marc Lavielle, a statistician at the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Technology (INRIA) and member of the Scientific Council of the High Council for Biotechnology (HCB), this study is "biased" and "extremely slanted."
"What is terribly troubling is that it concludes that there was no difference [between animals that have consumed GMOs and those that have not] on the basis of a methodology that does not meet the guidelines published both by the National Agency for Food Safety [ANSES] or by the European Food Safety Authority [EFSA]," he said."
So the Seralini study, with the information that has been presented, as it fits the guidelines (in spite of denials), is thereby much more accurate.
also, glyphosate is genotoxic at 450-fold dilution: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22331240
And reviews have challenged the idea that irradiation is safe: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271531799000718
And other, not often mentioned, meta-analyses have revealed significant nutritional differences between organic and non-organic food: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21929333, http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/107555301750164244
This is especially true when you consider the nutritional differences between GMO and non-GMO corn that Dr. Mae Wan-Ho calls "stunning": http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Stunning_differences_of_GM_from_non_GM_corn.php
And the key issue is that in spite of denials, horizontal gene transfer with GMOs has been demonstrated: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/why-gmo-and-organic-can-not-co-exist.html
This vindicates the other concerns of Mae Wan-Ho, who has likewise been attacked.
The entire array of pro-GMO apologia is refuted by documentation on Mae Wan-Ho's site: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php
But anyway, I then arose the ire of others for trying to give an actual portrayal of the full spectrum of issues with Rupert Sheldrake in light of the controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=578041997&oldid=578031147 - this led to an AE: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WP:AE&oldid=578079755#198.189.184.243
Many of Sheldrake's critics have engaged in fabrication in their attempts to criticize him, which is why there is genuine injustice in this issue - a notable example is Michael Shermer - see the part beginning with "I have never claimed that “skeptics damped the morphic field”.": http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/shermer.html
This is not the first of Shermer's fabrications: http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/Research/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm
One item people like to use to attack Sheldrake is this article making an erroneous criticism of Sheldrake’s experimental methodology particularly with regards to phantom limbs: http://books.google.com/books?id=JyfbUvuJbbYC&pg=PA231#v=onepage&q&f=false
This article, which is a copy of the article “Brugger P, Taylor KI. ESP: Extrasensory perception or effect of subjective probability? Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 10, Numbers 6-7, 2003 , pp. 221-246″: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2003/00000010/f0020006/art00012
is so untrue and defamatory that JCS published an official retraction in the next issue of the journal. From p.2 of JCS Volume 10, no 11 (2003), we find that “The article ‘ESP’ by P. Brugger and K.I. Taylor, published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 10, Number 6-7, pp. 221-246, erroneously states that an experiment with a flawed design (using ‘made up’ random numbers instead of a true random sequence) was performed by Rupert Sheldrake (p. 231) In actuality, Sheldrake was reporting the results of an experiment done by amateurs which had been sent to him. He himself identified the above flaw in the text of his descriptions, and it is his criticism of this work that is quoted by Brugger & Taylor (p. 231). We apologize to Dr. Sheldrake for this error.”198.189.184.243 (talk) 00:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Bruce Greyson[edit]
The question is, are you interested in truth, or in making a point conforming to your preexisting beliefs, and obfuscating information that refutes your arguments?
Coauthors of the Greyson book have written a rejoinder to criticisms: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.5406/amerjpsyc.124.1.0111?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102866149803
The assertion that he and coauthors have not addressed the conservation of energy argument is false, and libelous. They may not have addressed those particular citations making the argument, but they did address that argument: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC&q=this+totally+deflates+the+main+arguments%2C+summarized+above#v=snippet&q=this%20totally%20deflates%20the%20main%20arguments%2C%20summarized%20above&f=false
The assertion that the book does not have empirical evidence is false. The book has an extensive bibliography, which includes citations of articles debunking the favorite sources of the "skeptics", like C.E.M. Hansel: http://books.google.com/books?id=6gS_LcIjFMsC&pg=PA654&lpg=PA654&dq=%22An+Antagonist%27s+View+of+Parapsychology.+A+Review+of+Professor+Hansel%27s+ESP:+A+Scientific+Evaluation,%22&source=bl&ots=HlMxT57Q1z&sig=DlkYSC_fDtnu6udWV4rjH3dwPUw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uFVgUr6ZEYiEiwLd-4DoBQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22An%20Antagonist%27s%20View%20of%20Parapsychology.%20A%20Review%20of%20Professor%20Hansel%27s%20ESP%3A%20A%20Scientific%20Evaluation%2C%22&f=false
Ironically, support for their thesis comes from the Lancet study that Shermer misrepresented: http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/Research/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm
van Lommel's follow up commentary is also of relevance: http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/files/publicaties/Near-Death%20Experience_Consciousness%20and%20the%20Brain.pdf
Finally, Brian Josephson has undermined the narrative underlying your overall argument as reflected across articles, and the narrative of much of this site, in his presentation "Pathological Disbelief": http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/Examskeptics/Josephson_disbelief.pdf198.189.184.243 (talk) 01:16, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
198 I'm sorry but I don't want to discuss this as it is pointless. You are a psi believer and pseudoscience promoter so no matter what is said you will still believe in this woo nonsense. Bruce Greyon, Charles Tart and Dean Radin are all pseudoscientists. There's no evidence psi exists. Brian Josephson is a crank who claims fraudulent mediums like Helen Duncan and Daniel Dunglas Home communicated with spirits and cold fusion is real so his opinion is worthless. I don't take these woo-peddlers seriously. You have been duped into this nonsense. I recommend the book Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit by Jonathan C. Smith. You have been banned on Wikipedia so now you will just mess around with articles on here inserting pseudoscience. Sorry but I will just revert any edit you do if you try and do that, so you are wasting your time unless of course you want to do constructive edits. Rationalwiki doesn't support pseudoscience. Perhaps create your own wiki called psiwiki or something? David1234 (talk) 02:40, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
- For the record, I have never stated definitely that mediums have communicated with spirits. Please get your facts right (Brian Josephson, guest of irrationalprejudicewiki.org (this site)). — Unsigned, by: 86.132.108.101 / talk / contribs 18:43, 9 November 2013
- To put your mind at rest I changed the line to "Greyson argues for dualism but scientific studies have contradicted this view". David1234 (talk) 02:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
- Then why does the spiritualist crank Michael Roll (a close friend to Josephson) in an interview claim Josephson endorses ectoplasm and Helen Duncan? Search for the video on youtube. I have exchanged emails with Roll, he isn't not lieing. It's clear Josephson believes in fraudulent mediums. David1234 (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, but I have limited time. Rather than me debating Greyson, why not read the following articles that give the details of the arguments of some of the best proponents and one of the best critics of the hypothesis that the NDE implies that the mind is more than the brain? - I was referred to this by Greyson and will acquire it soon - such debate is the best way to ascertain the validity of the hypothesis. In the purpose of objectivity (and not propaganda), I hope that should you acquire and reference this, you accurately summarize both sides of the argument:
These are from the Journal of Near-Death Studies - as presented by Greyson in correspondence:
Vol. 25, No. 4 (Summer 2007) started with “Does Paranormal Perception Occur in NDEs?” by Keith Augustine, followed by four critiques written by Greyson, by Kimberly Clark Sharp, by Charles Tart, and by Mike Sabom, and a response by Augustine.
Vol. 26, No. 1 (Fall 2007) started with “NDEs with Hallucinatory Features” by Augustine, followed by three critiques written by Jan Holden, by Peter Fenwick, and by Bill Serdahely, and a response by Augustine. This issue also included letters to the editor from Greyson, from Ken Ring, from Raymond Moody, from Steve Cooper, and from Barbara Whitfield correcting some of the factual and conceptual errors in Augustine’s response in the previous issue.
Vol. 26, No. 2 (Winter 2007) started with “Psychophysiological and Cultural Correlates Undermining a Survivalist Interpretation of NDEs” by Augustine, followed by four critiques written by Greyson, by Allan Kellehear, by Mark Fox, and by Harvey Irwin, and a response by Augustine.
Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring 2008) included letters to the editor from P.M.H. Atwater, from Mike Sabom, and from Neal Grossman commenting on further errors by Augustine, followed by a response from him.
Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer 2008) included a letter to the editor from Rudolf Smit correcting additional errors by Augustine.198.189.184.243 (talk) 22:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Just a couple of other points and then I'm out - Refutation of your argument regarding psi first begins with the fact that Wiseman said of ESP experiments "I think that they do meet the usual standards for a normal claim, but are not convincing enough for an extraordinary claim.”: http://web.archive.org/web/20091001173638/http://podblack.com/2009/09/dr-richard-wiseman-on-remote-viewing-in-the-daily-mail-clarification/
Necessary evidence was provided in the article "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences", published in 2011 in the journal "Frontiers in Psychology": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/ - A table from that showed that Baysean analysis of Ganzfeld ESP experiments yielded a Bayes factor of 18,861,051: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/table/T1/ - A Bayes factor of greater than 100 is considered to be "decisive".
There is also an article "The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in the Brain: The Transferred Potential": http://physicsessays.org/doi/abs/10.4006/1.3029159 The abstract reads: "Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen (EPR) correlations between human brains are studied to verify if the brain has a macroscopic quantum component. Pairs of subjects were allowed to interact and were then separated inside semisilent Faraday chambers 14.5 m apart when their EEG activity was registered. Only one subject of each pair was stimulated by 100 flashes. When the stimulated subject showed distinct evoked potentials, the nonstimulated subject showed “transferred potentials” similar to those evoked in the stimulated subject. Control subjects showed no such transferred potentials. The transferred potentials demonstrate brain‐to‐brain nonlocal EPR correlation between brains, supporting the brain's quantum nature at the macro level." - see, for more, the following: http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2812%2900219-4/fulltext
These cannot be denied in light of Vedral's paper "living in a quantum world" which states "Although quantum effects may be harder to see in the macroworld, the reason has nothing to do with size per se but with the way that quantum systems interact with one another. Until the past decade, experimentalists had not confirmed that quantum behavior persists on a macroscopic scale. Today, however, they routinely do. These effects are more pervasive than anyone ever suspected. They may operate in the cells of our body.": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=living-in-a-quantum-world
Vedral wrote a nature paper "Progress Article Quantifying entanglement in macroscopic systems", the abstract of which states: "Traditionally, entanglement was considered to be a quirk of microscopic objects that defied a common-sense explanation. Now, however, entanglement is recognized to be ubiquitous and robust. With the realization that entanglement can occur in macroscopic systems — and with the development of experiments aimed at exploiting this fact — new tools are required to define and quantify entanglement beyond the original microscopic framework.": http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/full/nature07124.html
Regarding my other "pseudoscience" -
your article on Rupert Sheldrake is deeply misleading. Sheldrake's "science delusion" book is not a post modernist critique, but rather, an attempt to show that methodological naturalism does not require philosophical materialism.
Sheldrake is an organicist, he mentions Dreich but does not base his views on Driech - for the differences between organicism and vitalism, see "Cells as irreducible wholes: the failure of mechanism and the possibility of an organicist revival": http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-011-9285-z
See also the rebuttal to Shermer - "Shermer ridiculed the hypothesis of morphic resonance by claiming I proposed a “universal life force,” a concept I have never used.": http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/shermer.html
The idea that Sheldrake's hypothesis is unfalsifiable is based on Shermer's article, which is misleading - see the section beginning with "I have never claimed that “skeptics damped the morphic field”."
Refutation of most of the attack on Sheldrake occurs in the edit to the wiki article I made linked to above. The refutation of the Brugger journal of consciousness studies article, given above, and included in the Alcock book, is another item of note. Regarding the Blackmore statement:
"I was involved in the furore near the beginning and this is exactly what happened. New Scientist said that, if true, this theory would be extremely important, and in 1982 put out a competition for experiments to test it. Richard Gentle won with an idea using Turkish nursery rhymes and I came second with a proposal involving babies' behaviour. Sheldrake himself designed experiments in which large numbers of people looked at ambiguous drawings, and hypothesised that the hidden image within them would become easier to see. I was one of the experimenters who took these drawings to a large conference and showed them to hundreds of people, and then helped Sheldrake with the statistical analysis. This analysis was far from clear-cut and the results did not, in my opinion, support the theory.": http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/04/morphic-paranormal-science-sheldrake
This doesn't address the entirety of the issue. New Scientist did indeed run a competition. There was another competition for other tests run by an American Foundation, The Tarrytown Foundation, and a further contest for experiments by students run by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. All came up with very interesting and generally positive results. These are described in "The Presence of the Past", UK edition, (2011, Icon Books, London), beginning at p. 277.
In relation to the ambiguous image test, this involved showing an image on TV in one country and testing people in others, with a control image.
There were 3 experiments of this type, as described in the Appendix to A New Science of Life/Morphic Resonance. In experiments of this type, carried out on TV in Britain - on ITV first, and then on BBC "Tomorrow's world" the results were significantly positive, as described in the Appendix to the 3rd edition of "A New Science of Life" (Morphic Resonance in the US, pp. 283-293) - available online here: http://www.sheldrake.org/Research/morphic/AppxA%20Morphic%20New.PDF
The first experiment, done in Britain, gave a significant positive result and was described in New Scientist: - Sheldrake, Rupert. "Formative Causation: The Hypothesis Supported," New Scientist, 1983 - cited here [3]
In the second experiment, on BBC TV, the results were positive in Europe but not in America. In a third experiment, the pictures were shown on TV in Germany and people were tested in Britain. The result showed a significant decline. From the skeptical point of view, there should have been no change. According to Rupert, "nobody expected a decrease" (see p. 286 of the Appendix provided). Sheldrake did not claim the results of these experiments were clear cut and supported the theory. What he said in the Appendix is that the findings were puzzling.
Hans-Peter Dürr, who is knowledgeable about the subject, suggested a connection between Sheldrake's views and quantum physics, and that for him, "it is difficult to understand why modern biologists do not make more use of the revolutionary ideas of modern physics, seeing that the processes of life, as Sheldrake makes obvious, seem predestined to act as a bridge.": http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sheldrake%27s%20ideas%20from%20the%20perspective%20of%20modern%20physics.-a0182664602
Ben Goertzel has connected the recent arguments of the notable physicist Lee Smolin to Sheldrake here: http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2013/06/physicist-lee-smolin-rediscovers.html
Smolin wrote in the abstract to his article “Precedence and freedom in quantum physics”: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.3707
“We also propose that laws of quantum evolution arise from a principle of precedence, according to which the outcome of a measurement on a quantum system is selected randomly from the ensemble of outcomes of previous instances of the same measurement on the same quantum system. This implies that dynamical laws for quantum systems can evolve as the universe evolves, because new precedents are generated by the formation of new entangled states.”
If we combine Smolin and Vedral, we get something very much like what Sheldrake proposes.
We can see this in effect in the article “Adaptive state of mammalian cells and its nonseparability suggestive of a quantum system”, published in the journal “Scripta Medica”, the abstract of which states: “Established mammalian cells were assayed for their resistance to different selection conditions which had not been used against these cells before, including exposure to thioguanine, ethionine, high temperature and a protein-free, chemically defined culture medium. Single assays were negative, showing that the cell lines contained no spontaneous mutants, or that these were present in a number below detectable limits. To obtain such mutants, we designed experiments of mutant isolation by serial assays. The cells were kept growing without selection and, at each passage, cell samples were withdrawn and assayed for resistance in separate cultures. As a result, we found no mutants at the beginning, then a few and, finally, a great number. This was in conflict with the postulate of random occurrence of mutants and, furthermore, with their spontaneousness. On the contrary, the results provided evidence that mutants occurred as an appropriate response to selection pressure. The most amazing feature was that this response could be detected in cells growing without selection and never exposed to selection pressure before. If one tried to explain the adaptive response in terms of signals, the signals would have to travel from the exposed to the unexposed cultures. The results are instead discussed in terms of adaptive states and the nonseparability of cellular states due to quantum entanglement of cells, in particular daughter cells, distributed between the exposed and unexposed cultures. Whatever the mechanism, we concluded that the finding of resistant cells in growing unexposed cultures, as a response to selective pressure on cells in physically separated cultures, tends to render meaningless any theory based on the spontaneous origin of mutants.”: http://www.med.muni.cz/biomedjournal/pdf/2000/04/211-222.pdf
Back to psi -
skeptics like to cite Moulton & Kosslyn (2008) "Using neuroimaging to resolve the psi debate". In doing so, they ignore all the positive fMRI studies which have shown an effect - like "Evidence of correlated functional magnetic resonance imaging signals between distant human brains": http://deanradin.com/evidence/StandishfMRI2003.pdf, "Replicable functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence of correlated brain signals between physically and sensory isolated subjects.": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16398586, "Evidence for correlations between distant intentionality and brain function in recipients: a functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis.": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16398587, "Investigating paranormal phenomena: Functional brain imaging of telepathy": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144613/, (from the European Parapsychological Association Convention) "Presentiment in a fMRI experiment with meditators": http://www.uniamsterdam.nl/D.J.Bierman/PUBS/2007/europa2007_bierman.pdf - regarding that phenomena, see the following meta-analysis in the journal "Frontiers in Psychology" - "Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3478568/
See also the articles of Michael Persinger which, when taken in succession specifically refute claims alleging no psi-effect registered in the brain: (from the journal Brain Research): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21396353, (from the journal The Open Astronomy Journal): http://benthamscience.com/open/toaaj/articles/V006/10TOAAJ.pdf, (from the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12081299, the article (from the journal of Biophysical chemistry): http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=17181, (from the journal NeuroQuantology): http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/686
I emailed Persinger about this, he stated (Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 4:13 PM, PST): "Those who are competent in the area now realize that the phenomena of excess correlation (entanglement) have changed the entire perspective of the potential for these effects. In the final analyses the exchange of information between human beings is likely to involve mechanisms that we have not yet detected. Remember whatever we can imagine is possible. For millenia people imagined they could fly. We can now fly, but it requires machines."
This counters your Dean Radin article - Ray Hyman has been accused of omitting relevant evidence as has been noted here [4] and here [5] - for the second, search for "Robert Rosenthal".
And Brian Josephson has refuted attacks against Radin (Josephson will be dealt with in just a second): http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/doubtsregood.html
And this is tangential to Hyman - there are discrepancies between the US remote viewing program as dismissed by the media and the statements of Jimmy Carter as presented here - this is a result of a preliminary search, I will track down the primary source cited at a later time, but I have no reason to doubt it as presented: http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=5187
James Randi is also either not intellectually honest or very careless, as shown by this email from Madeline Ennis showing how Randi did not follow the same protocol as the Ennis experiment: http://www.homeopathic.com/Articles/Media_reports/Email_from_Professor_Ennis_on_the_specific_d.html
Now, I am not a homeopathy proponent, since the most sympathetic metaanalysis I have come across (miscited in the wikipedia article on the subject) concludes "The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition. Further research on homeopathy is warranted provided it is rigorous and systematic.": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9310601
But the experiments of Ennis, who is also skeptical: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20129176 (that article by her notes that there has been replication of her work - see the excerpt from the abstract "several different laboratories") do have interesting implications in spite of homeopathy.
There are excerpts from Will Storr's book "The Heretics" provided by McLuhan, a "woo-meister" as you would call him - I will get the book myself, but if accurate, they show that the first theory is right - Randi is not intellectually honest: http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/2013/02/will-storrs-the-heretics.html
This is something else of interest - regarding Randi's absolute refusal to test something (http://www.sces.info/randixs-letter.html) that has been positively tested by Indian scientists: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dipas-concludes-observational-study-on-mataji/article425184.ece
Regarding Susan Blackmore - there is a statement on the internet that I will track down: "I am glad to be able to agree with his final conclusion--"that drawing any conclusion, positive or negative, about the reality of psi that are based on the Blackmore psi experiments must be considered unwarranted". Susan Blackmore's reply to Rick Berger's critical examination of her psi experiments. (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol.83 , April 1989, p. 152) I have no reason to doubt the validity of that statement, but the paper critiquing her is here: http://archived.parapsych.org/psiexplorer/blackmore_critique.htm
Yet she persists with her publicity campaign as if she found solid negative evidence.
Finally, regarding Brian Josephson and the mediums - these allegations of support come from secondary sources, not Josephson himself - they are not on Josephson's website. Also, I cannot come out and claim advocacy of Home as I have not studied all the skeptic arguments, but claims against him have been controverted: http://www.academia.edu/2976261/The_Enigma_of_Daniel_Home
regarding Josephson and cold fusion, it is important to look at items he gives to support his advocacy - particularly this article: http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/storms/review8.html
The abstract of it states: "Many people still believe that cold fusion is the result of bad science. In contrast, numerous laboratories in at least 10 countries have now claimed production of anomalous energy using a variety of methods, many of which are now reproducible. This energy is proposed to result from nuclear reactions initiated within a special periodic array of atoms at modest temperatures (energy). Evidence for nuclear reactions involving fusion of deuterium, transmutation involving both light and heavy hydrogen, and nuclear interaction between heavy nuclei has been published. The claims, if true, reveal a new method to release nuclear energy without harmful radiation and without the radioactivity associated with conventional methods. This paper examines published evidence describing this new phenomenon in order to test its reality and to extend an understanding of the process."
The following source quotes Huizenga, a skeptic who expresses the belief that when laboratories report they have demonstrated a phenomenon, they might all be wrong, and the only way to be sure a finding is correct is to show that it conforms to established theory: pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/293wikipedia.html
He could be called an apostle of the "skeptics" - those who put their theoretical conceptions (or misconceptions) before the data. He is rebutted in the above article with a quote from the Noble Laureate Julian Schwinger.
Anyway, that is all I will add, but it shows you are mistaken.198.189.184.243 (talk) 01:56, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
- 198 according to your Wikipedia IP address you are registered to California State University [6]. I had a look around, they don't teach parapsychology at your university so whatever you are studying it is obviously not this... you are wasting your time on all this pseudoscience when you could be doing proper university studies or work. You put a huge amount of time into defending pseudoscience. In short psychic powers may exist, but so may Santa clause! The burden of proof is on the claimant (you) to prove your extraordinary claim but like all psi believers you have failed to do this. You may enjoy the article on parapsychology, I recently updated it. "The entire history of parapsychology has been scientifically unsuccessful. No experiment showing the existence of paranormal phenomena has been consistently replicated by scientists in other laboratories with the same results. According to the parapsychologist Gardner Murphy the failure of parapsychology is to "produce any truly repeatable experiment." So psi has not been scientifically repeatable. There is no empirical evidence for psi, so proponents such as Brian Inglis and Dean Radin have to invoke conspiracy theories that the "scientific establishment" are deliberately ignoring or suppressing the evidence based on their "materialistic agenda". Funny stuff. We know from studies the alleged evidence for "psi" disappears as the tightness of experimental controls is increased. There is absolutely no scientific evidence for psi. If you want to believe in psi or Santa clause I have no problem at all but claiming they have scientific evidence when they do not is misleading. It is no different then what the fraudulent mediums or psychics do.
- "Parapsychologists have admitted it is impossible to eliminate the possibility of non-paranormal causes in their experiments. There is no independent method to indicate the presence or absence of psi." BTW there is also no agreement on the status of psi by parapsychologists. Many parapsychologists such as Dick Bierman, Walter Lucadou, J.E. Kennedy, and Robert Jahn, openly admit the evidence for psi is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards" this is in complete contradiction to Dean Radin and Charles Tart. David1234 (talk) 20:17, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
I am not Josephson, but I brought Josephson's attention to this allegation.
The Helen Duncan comment, as far as I am aware of it listening to the interview you gave, is based on a citation out of context of the following interview (Duncan is mentioned, and Josephson is mentioned later in a different context as a friend of Roll and person open minded about spiritualism. The statement that Josephson supports Duncan, however, does not appear anywhere in that six part interview - I challenge you to quote it otherwise, in which case I will redact my statement, I only listened to the interview once, and may have missed something, but I doubt it) - the many part interview starts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAt0zeiiAc8
There's six parts of the interview. This allegation against Josephson based on the fact that his friend likes Helen Duncan is a logical fallacy known as guilt by association.
The case for psi can be made by the article "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/ - the file drawer figures cited there are very impressive: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/table/T1/
Another Baysean analysis looking at psi effects data was offered as critique of the article "Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992–2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology": http://deanradin.com/evidence/Rouder2013Bayes.pdf, a rebuttal to the critique is offered here: http://deanradin.com/evidence/Storm2013reply.pdf
Finally, your entire argument revolves the allegations of Ray Hyman, that are refuted with the article "A Meta-Analysis With Nothing to Hide: Reply to Hyman (2010)": http://www.aiprinc.org/para-ac02_Storm_et_al_2010b_Meta_Analysis.pdf
Which is a response to his critique of the article "Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992–2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology" - in that critique he makes those very arguments.
Hyman earlier made quite a different assertion - the 1986 Joint Communque between Honorton and Hyman stated "We agree that there is an overall significant effect in this data base that cannot reasonably be explained by selective reporting or multiple analysis. We continue to differ over the degree to which the effect constitutes evidence for psi, but we agree that the final verdict awaits the outcome of future experiments conducted by a broader range of investigators and according to more stringent standards." [7]
Hyman has been criticized by parapsychologists for misleading his superiors by willfully and knowingly omitting the conclusions of the NRC commissioned work by Robert Rosenthal which were fundamentally inconsistent with and diametrically contradicted Hyman's statement that there was "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena", in his NRC report, during the time when he was appointed to the National Research Council committee on enhancing human performance for the U.S. Army, when he served as chair of the parapsychology subcommittee: http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/HymanReview.htm
As I have demonstrated above, your Rational Wiki articles are unreliable and misrepresentative. This includes the Radin article, derivative of the wikipedia article that was also misrepresentative and corrected here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dean_Radin&diff=prev&oldid=580877353
Among other things, the citation of "Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential or Human Illusion?" that is provided in the article that presently stands does not accurately convey what Radin was actually arguing in that case. Radin, in the passage Chris French referred to (p. 18), did not endorse the Fox sisters or Florence Cook, but rather, noted the role of the Fox sisters in the rise of spiritualism, and said that "many of these so-called mediums were unmasked as frauds", but that "a few remain genuine enigmas." an implication from the uncorrected article is that Radin endorsed the Fox sisters, this had been argued by someone, I thought I had to correct it.
Much of the rest of "Debating Psychic Experience", when taken as a whole, is a strong counter to all of your points - ESPECIALLY in light of what was given above. I am reading it now, and I will get the NDE debate in the journals given above later, but like those, it is the best way to obtain clarity on the issues, so that there is no obfuscation from either side.
This section of the talk page calls into question the intellectual honesty of all of Radin's other critics, as well as the rationale for him being treated in such a way on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dean_Radin&diff=580841915&oldid=580841708#WP:BLP
These corrections were removed by "Dan Skeptic", who also subsequently commented on the talk page comment that I archived here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dean_Radin&diff=580841915&oldid=580841708#WP:BLP
Items on the talk page call into question the intellectual honesty of all of Radin's critics - Victor Stenger among them - he is either very glib or intellectually dishonest when you consider the fact revealed in an issue that is seemingly unrelated, but has a definite connection when you consider non-locality - A connection described in the article "Unbroken Wholeness: The Emerging View of human Interconnection", which is corroborated with the items given in my larger post above (and Basil Hiley has not come out advocating parapsychology, but non-locality shown in his work allows for ESP effects - also, remember that Persinger stated that "Those who are competent in the area now realize that the phenomena of excess correlation (entanglement) have changed the entire perspective of the potential for these effects."): http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307(12)00219-4/fulltext
At the end of the article is noted one major factor for psi effects being stronger in some cases than in others.
"Dan Skeptic"'s follow up comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dean_Radin&diff=next&oldid=580917726#WP:BLP
is misrepresentative (I was not trolling, but correcting the article and clarifying what Radin actually said in the contentious statement - also, lest the Josephson error be applied to me, I don't give advocacy of Home, but I was merely providing a source that controverts the skepticism of him, that I also provided above, and do not give an opinion on Home - also, items like the Rebuttal to Hyman are in mainstream journals - and the skeptical sources are themselves misrepresentative, as has been shown). His rationale is refuted when you consider the following surveys: http://en.wikademia.org/Surveys_of_academic_opinion_regarding_parapsychology
as well as some of the information repeated, but also corroborated with other surveys cited in the "Unbroken Wholeness" article: http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307(12)00219-4/fulltext#sec6
"Many physicians want to unburden themselves of this secret part of their lives and go public with their experiences and beliefs. Bobrow cites a 1980 survey published in the American Journal of Psychiatry that asked psychiatry professors, residents in training, other medical faculty, and deans of medical schools the question: “Should psychic studies be included in psychiatric education?” More than half said yes. The authors of the survey concluded, “Our results indicate a high incidence of conviction among deans of medical schools and psychiatric educators that many psychic phenomena may be a reality, psychic powers are present in most or all of us, nonmedical factors play an important part in the healing process, and, above all, studies of psychic phenomena should be included in psychiatric education. …”49 Many skeptics have done their best to deny and obfuscate these trends. One often hears from skeptics that only a tiny percentage of practicing physicians and medical educators believe in beyond-the-body happenings. These skeptics imply that physicians who believe these things are out of step with the scientific tradition and are trying to take medicine back to the Dark Ages. But as the aforementioned survey shows, belief in these matters is held not by a few renegades, but is extensive in both clinical and academic medicine. Another national survey in 2004 examined the beliefs of 1,100 U.S. physicians in various specialties. The surveyors found that 74% believe that so-called miracles occurred in the past and that 73% believe they can occur today. (I suspect that for most physicians “miracle” does not mean a violation, suspension, or breach of natural law but an event that is not well understood. Most physicians would likely agree with St Augustine that so-called miracles do not contradict nature, but they contradict what we know about nature. This is my view as well.) Fifty-nine percent of the physicians said they pray for their patients as individuals, and 51% said they pray for them as a group.50 In a review of these trends, author Stephan A. Schwartz concluded, “[T]here is a growing understanding that ineffable considerations, most subsumed under the concept of nonlocal mind, hold considerable sway in the thinking of both the general population and the medical community.”51 Scientists in general hold similar beliefs. A 1973 survey of readers of the British journal New Scientist asked them to state their feelings about extrasensory perception, or ESP. New Scientist defines its readers as being mainstream working scientists, or as science oriented. Of the 1,500 respondents, 67% considered ESP to be an established fact or at least a strong probability. Eighty-eight percent considered psychic research to be a legitimate area for scientific inquiry.52 In another survey of more than 1,100 college professors in the United States, 55% of natural scientists, 66% of social scientists (psychologists excluded), and 77% of academics in the arts, humanities, and education said they believed that ESP is either an established fact or a likely possibility.53 Therefore, the contention that belief in beyond-the-body phenomena is rare among paid-up physicians, scientists, and academics may be dismissed as nonsense. In general, this notion is perpetrated by skeptics who are woefully informed about the depth of research in this field, and oppose it for ideological reasons.54, 55, 56"
and it is ironic that the person people here have been attacking, Craig Weiler, gave some circumstantial evidence of the connection of that editor, "Dan Skeptic", to "Guerilla Skeptics": http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/wikipedia-the-dirty-tricks-machine/
Weiler makes a mix of strong and weak claims - and in his stronger claim provided in that article, he nailed the person who is policing the article who also had an interest in the Sheldrake article, and also showed quite clearly the use of dirty tricks by skeptics.
Now, regarding the other point brought up - conspiracy, or, more likely, ideological obfuscation, is made likely when you consider the discrepancies between the US remote viewing program as dismissed by the media and the statements of Jimmy Carter as presented here: http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=5187
And some of the obfuscatory actions of "skeptics" (low-grade debunkers really, since skeptics would take the step of consulting the best arguments pro and con like those presented in the NDE debates and in "Debating Psychic Experience", and not misrepresent and engage in obfuscation), cited above.
And discrepancies between official positions on psi and independent surveys.
And also, since editors here like to make use of the poisoning the well argument, here is some documentation of more depraved behavior by the leaders of that movement (in some cases, this, in addition to the above, also shows evidence of intellectual dishonesty): http://www.dailygrail.com/Skepticism/2013/8/Is-the-Week-Organized-Skepticism-Imploded
This ideological crusade - motivated by slavish adherence to a logical fallacy combination of appeal to authority and appeal to popularity, is false skepticism. "Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion", as Richard Feynman noted, but I see many "skeptics" engaging in the opposite of what Feynman advocates. We don't want to unfairly marginalize people just because they bring up points that conflict with our a priori hypotheses. Rather, we should be open to revising those hypotheses in light of new evidence. Finally, I think it is a deep error for us to narcotize ourselves with ideologies, whether they be atheism or mysticism or whatever, but instead allow the pure collection of data, with objectivity, to be logically processed with all fallacies in our reasoning removed, so as to be refined into more powerful rhetoric. A correspondent, whose ideas I do not fully endorse but who I appreciate in many ways, is advocating the trivium method of education, similar to what I have outlined above, so that people might be able to better engage information without recourse to appeal to authority and appeal to popularity (and other fallacies): http://www.triviumeducation.com/
Finally, narcotizing ourselves with ideologies rather than doing the above (as well as clinging to all these irrelevant fear based means of buttressing ourselves that constitute the delusional identities we create) is an immense breeder of destruction, and prevents the emergence of an undivided humanity. I do not "follow" Jiddu Krishnamurti, but I consider him very relevant for his insights in philosophical psychology, and he has brought this out rather lucidly and highlighted what I feel is the other solution to this problem: http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/the-first-and-last-freedom/1953-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-the-first-and-last-freedom-on-the-present-crisis98.210.147.182 (talk) 04:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
98,
I believe you have got slightly carried away with the Chris French comment. He's not saying Radin is supporting the fox sisters, he's claiming he ignored mentioning their fraud, this is clearly true if you read both their chapters (Radin did deliberately ignore their confession, and the exposure of Cook) Radin ignores evidence of fraud, in his book The Conscious Universe he deliberately did not mention Samuel Soal. But I wouldn't make a big issue out of this. I will get you the quote about Duncan and Josephson. You should take a phd in parapsychology. You obviously spend many times looking into this material but you come across as a full believer. If there's fraud you should openly admit it. Are you in agreement Helen Duncan was a fraud? Josephson has embarrassed himself by supporting Duncan. Come back on here later I will reply to your other comments and get you the correct video. David1234 (talk) 04:47, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Blocking[edit]
Hi mate, blocking here works a little bit differently to some places. Read this to get an idea. Cheers. Tielec01 (talk) 05:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Ed Poor-like pattern of editing detected[edit]
You can use the "Show preview" button (right next to "Save changes") to see what your changes to a page look like without saving it. Proper use of the preview button prevents you from saving a series of small corrections.--ZooGuard (talk) 16:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice ZooGuard. I am not hanging around on this site for much longer I only have a handful more articles to finish. If you see my spelling errors, feel free to fix them. David1234 (talk) 20:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Rome Viharo[edit]
Hope you're OK with my re-edit. I do share the concern of the regulars here at RW about making the article accurate and relevant, rather than keeping a record of every lie you caught him in. Cheerio. Leuders (talk) 18:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- I have no problem you have made it into a decent article. I believe Tom Butler also needs an article on this site, he's a crank who was involved in the Sheldrake controversy, but he's also notable... he's published books on "etheric science" and "communications" with spirits. David1234 (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- My plan is to create articles for Tom Butler, Carla Wills-Brandon (a spiritualist), Greg Taylor (of the dailygrail website) and (maybe?) Annalisa Ventola. All should be done by the end of the week. Not creating anymore articles after these. David1234 (talk) 20:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- The EVP "field" is a rich vein. Check out Alexander MacRae sometime. Leuders (talk) 20:50, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- My plan is to create articles for Tom Butler, Carla Wills-Brandon (a spiritualist), Greg Taylor (of the dailygrail website) and (maybe?) Annalisa Ventola. All should be done by the end of the week. Not creating anymore articles after these. David1234 (talk) 20:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
David1234 is actually Jon Donnis with an ectoplasm suit on[edit]
I have been investigating spiritualism for over 40 years with my friend in real life Alex Tsakiris and we have debunked James Cunningham and Rhawn Joseph's atheism. We have proven that ectoplasm cheesecloths are scientific evidence for an afterlife. All mediums including Helen Duncan and the most notorious medium ever Helen Duncan were actually genuine. No medium has ever been caught in fraud. Fox sisters, Mina Crandon, Davenport brothers all 100% genuine. Anything paranormal and I will believe in it! Critical thinking is for pseudoskeptics. Science education is not needed as I have never had any, because science is a scam, it is funded by the CIA. All skeptics are employed by the CIA, anyone who disagrees with my spiritualist beliefs is automatically a pseudoskeptic who is wrong. I am Open Minded. I will believe like my friend Alex Taskiris in psi no matter what the evidence this is why I am known as Open Mind. Skepticism it is a major conspiracy theory of the CIA. Evolution never happened it was a hoax. I have debunked many skeptics including the lawyer Arouet. You have been caught with your pants down Mr. Jon Donnis "Forests" Eveshi "bad psychics" pseudoskeptic just because 99.9% of ectoplasm is cheesecloth does not mean all is, relax for psi exists. Me have no science educations. Open Mind OC68 Forests GreenUniverse Sandy B Craig Weiler MU Jon Donnis Eveshi with ectoplasm on top (talk) 23:47, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- James Cunningham "real" username Shen1986 on the skeptic forum Bruce Greysons ectoplasm cheesecloth debunked and has debunked cheesecloth ectoplasm lolz Parapsychologists admit 98% of paranormal phemomena does not exist 98% of parapsychologists admit parapsychology is fraud? 2% ectoplasm cheesecloth left to debunk. Mal Yankton (talk) 00:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- Nuther notch in your belt Leuders (talk) 00:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- Leuders I don't think this is Rome Viharo trolling this time. Someone else on a paranormal forum has been claiming I am someone else, it seems he only joined that forum to do this, he has 50 posts and they are all about me apparently (well not really 99% of his info is wrong) The only thing he's got right is that I do know James Cunningham from the UK. Well this user on this forum he's been stalking my rationalwiki edits and pasting innocent peoples IP addresses or usernames in from Wikipedia then claiming they are me? This borders on hilarious considering some of the pseudoscience some of these users support he pasted in, he's done the same thing to skeptical editors such as ScienceApologist, Dan Skeptic and Luckylouie. As for pseudoscience I would never support such nonsense... he is the worst Sherlock Holmes I have seen... he's pasting in random IPs from Wikipedia on idealism or Lamarckism and claiming I support these things... I have specifically debunked these things on this website... Rupert Sheldake's pseudoscience is influenced from Lamarckism, I am no Lamarckian and certainly not an idealist. He's so far from the truth. He's also pasting in peoples personal information and claiming they are me, I am not too bothered because they aren't me (I live in Germany and have never edited Wikipedia) Mainstream Wikipedia has blocked TOR, so I have no chance of getting on there. This guy says I am a co-admin of the Guerrila Skepticism Wikipedia group... (I have never spoken to Susan Gerbic). I am pretty sure that is illegal though what he has been doing, stalking people and posting lies and libel and contact information about people. These innocent people are gonna be pissed if they find out there information about them on a public forum lol... I was leaving this website anyway... but all this drama from random IPs and fake usernames is getting boring. I believe some of the above IPs may be Viharo, I am not too sure. Either way I am out. I will lock this page so no more abuse and perhaps archive it. David1234 (talk) 00:30, 11 November 2013 (UTC)