I want to see a psychic or a palm-reader....

[florduh]

SB, you are on thin ice. Just a friendly reminder. 

[Wertbag]

8 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

Florduh said, "Believers are gonna believe." Let me add a followup to that:  Deniers are gonna deny.

 

Do you apply the same skeptical eye to physical sciences that you apply to psychic studies? Have you combed through the details of studies on physical phenomena (that you accept) with the same skeptical eye as you apply to psi studies (that you dont accept)? Or do you just accept the word of a physical scientist without actually reading their report? I mean, the nitty gritty like you demand from the psi studies. Should the phone numbers of every participant of a study be available just in case a skeptic thinks something is a little fishy?

 

http://www.who.int/influenza_vaccines_plan/resources/Session4_VEfficacy_VEffectiveness.PDF

 

Have flu vaccines saved every person who has used them? According to this study by the World Health Organization, only 48% of the people inoculated were kept alive by vaccines. People died more often  than not. Now, what about the failures (like the psi misses)? Why does nobody talk about the 'failure' of vaccines?  If vaccines are only 48% effective why use em at all? Where's the details about all the participants? I want to know their social security numbers or it didnt happen. Because I don't have access to all the minutiae of the study (that I already disagree with) I will conclude that vaccines are worthless, right? /s

 

The effect size of psi studies is generally small,  imo, but it's still there. I think that psi researchers are pretty cognizant of this fact as they do their research.

 

(I'm pro-vaccine, btw)

 

Psi researchers are all hucksters and dying to find a positive result, right? While all physical science researchers are hard-nosed fact finders with zero emotional stake in their work? (Trying to phrase as a question, and not a straw man).

 

Anyway, this was fun. Here a list of links to some other scientific psi studies you can deny as well.  http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

 

edit: this color. also replaced the word "antibiotics" with "vaccines". My coffee is not doing its job this morning.

I know you say you don't want to strawman the discussion, but there's certainly some assumptions which point that way.

"the nitty gritty like you demand from the psi studies" - I've asked for no details, demanded no information about the people or studies.

"Psi researchers are all hucksters and dying to find a positive result, right?" - I've said nothing about the researchers and have not attempted to generalise large numbers of people.

I'm happy to discuss the ideas and trails but lets stick to what has been said and not jump to other conclusions.

 

I really only had one point, that is there are a lot of studies done which have come to the exact opposite result of the studies referred to.  If I tell you "there were 6 studies and all agree that psychic abilities are true" that sounds like a really strong case.  However if you say "there were 100 studies done and 6 had a positive result while 94 had a negative" then your conclusion should be tempered with this knowledge.  If the majority of tests cannot replicate the results, then while it doesn't disprove the positive studies it certainly should make you pause and consider alternative possibilities.  Is it more likely 6 studies were wrong or 94 studies?

 

As for the comparison with vaccines, this is a poor one to my mind.  What the numbers are saying is that 48% of people who would have died didn't, while the psi study had a random chance level of 25% but came out 8% higher.  48% is statistically significant, while 8% is quite a small variation from the expected.  If the vaccine failed 92% of the time then we would absolutely be saying its a terrible product and should be reworked to have a half way decent success rate, or in reverse if the psi study had a 73% success rate we would be blown away by how impressive the results are.  I'm not saying this disproves anything, just that the results aren't staggeringly high.

As for not seeing the vaccine failures, there are tons of those.  They are constantly tested, refined and numerous products that had hoped to be a great success have failed testing and been binned.  The researchers are constantly looking at what goes wrong in order to adapt and improve.

 

This article clarifies why there is so much doubt: https://www.livescience.com/23852-esp-psychic-powers.html

[SerenelyBlue]

9 hours ago, florduh said:

SB, you are on thin ice. Just a friendly reminder. 

I am sorry.  Did not realize I was doing something wrong by giving advice.  Thank you for the reminder.  Please give me the benefit of the doubt.

[florduh]

6 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

I am sorry.  Did not realize I was doing something wrong by giving advice.  Thank you for the reminder.  Please give me the benefit of the doubt.

Benefit of doubt is why you're still here. We're waiting for you to swing back to your normal state. Hang in there.

[SerenelyBlue]

21 minutes ago, florduh said:

Benefit of doubt is why you're still here. We're waiting for you to swing back to your normal state. Hang in there.

This is my normal state.  I am a Christian.  Sorry to dissapoint you.

[florduh]

2 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

This is my normal state.  I am a Christian.  Sorry to dissapoint you.

Again, I beg you to read all of your previous posts on this site. Read from the beginning and be reminded of your ever changing definition of normal. I would not be disappointed that you or anyone else chose Christianity as their belief system, but it needs to be a free choice made by a clear mind.

[midniterider]

15 hours ago, Wertbag said:

<Good post you wrote, but I snipped it for brevity>

This article clarifies why there is so much doubt: https://www.livescience.com/23852-esp-psychic-powers.html

 

Replication is an important part of science, I agree. You have indicated there isn't much replication of psi effect. I've read the opposite.

 

Your article from a skeptic says psi is inconclusive while my article from pro-psi people say psi is an established effect. I think, in the end, it's a battle of opinions.

 

My fools errand here in this thread was to challenge the repeated claim that I time and again see on this site that there is "no evidence of psychic powers", even though multiple studies are on the internet that show otherwise (my signature link has quite a few). 

 

I'm not even trying to say that psi is 'useful.' Just that it is a thing. Many things exist that people deem useless. Professional football or man nipples, for example.

 

Anyway, I give up. If you need me I'll be divining entrails somewhere. (haha)

 

 

[mwc]

     This thread is just a small taste of how the spirituality forum became it's own little walled garden.

 

          mwc

 

[TrailBlazer]

They don’t tell you anything you weren’t already thinking about/open to hearing in the first place. Maybe you’ve felt like should take up a musical instrument but lack confidence, then a medium tells you you have a sensitive artist’s water hand and there you go, that little bit of confidence needed to play an instrument! You walk away feeling validated and the medium walks away with a little cash.

 

Ive passively studied how to read palms/handwriting/aura/tarot... I wouldn’t say I could make a buck off doing it, but I understand the basics of it.

If you have the extra funds, why not stop in and support your local boardwalk medium? It’s fun and you might realize something about yourself you haven’t stopped to consciously acknowledge before.