Why do most Pyschics or Mediums Seem to be Liberal?

Oh, and by the way, I noticed you wrote this about Edgar Cayce:

"He made 9 specific predictions about the famous "Lindbergh baby kidnapping" while the child was still missing -- all wrong."

Police later realized the kidnappers were holding Lindbergh's baby on the small street Cayce told them at the moment. They didn't go, because they didn't believe in psychics. My family was friends with the Lindberghs.

181 posted on 04/20/2006 6:37:49 PM PDT by Flightdeck (Longhorns+January=Rose Bowl Repeat)

To: TBP; jalisco555; Flightdeck; JenB

[James Randi's million dollar prize for the first genuine, documented paranormal event has never been claimed. I stand by my comment.]
According to Randi's own website:

Randi's people conduct the preliminary test, and Randi (who has been quoted as saying that anything paranormal is impossible)

I have read all of Randi's books and a lot of his shorter works, and I haven't seen him say anything like this. In fact, he has specifically and repeatedly has said things explicitly to the contrary of what you accuse him of, such as in this passage from his book, "Flim-Flam!":

We were determined to do something about the unfounded claims of miracles and magic powers that were being supported by a few scientists and were alleged to be real scientific discoveries. The result of this meeting was The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and its journal, The Skeptical Inquirer. Briefly stated, the purposes of CSICOP are:
To establish a network of people interested in examining claims of the paranormal.
To prepare bibliographies of published materials that carefully examine such claims.
To encourage and commission research by objective and impartial inquiries in areas where it is needed.
To convene conferences and meetings.
To publish articles, monographs, and books that examine claims of the paranormal.
To not reject on a priori grounds, antecedent to inquiry, any or all such claims, but rather to examine them openly, completely, objective, and carefully.
This last objective implies an important principle, which I have had to hammer home repeatedly to lecture audiences and to critics: The CSICOP does not deny that such things may exist, nor do I, personally. However, in light of my considerable experience in such matters, I will say that my assigned probability for the reality of paranormal powers approaches zero very closely. I cannot prove that these powers do not exist; I can only show that the evidence for them does not hold up under examination.

Perhaps you might want to retract your false claim...

is the sole arbite of whether it's been passed.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the actual testing procedure. It is set up BY MUTUAL AGREEMENT between the testers and the person to to tested, in such a way that whether or not the person has passed the test will be clear and unambiguous to all parties, including the person tested. For example, they either will or will not be able to locate a prespecified hidden object, hidden in a previously agreed-upon manner, in X out of N attempts.

Is it any wonder that no one has passed the preliminary test?

The reason that no one has passed the preliminary test is quite simply because no one has been able to actually successfully exhibit any paranormal ability IN A TRIAL THEY AGREED AHEAD OF TIME WAS A FAIR TEST OF THEIR ALLEGED ABILITY. Period. The "preliminary test" is nothing more and nothing less than a trial run of the SAME TESTING PROCEDURE which would have been used during the final "official" testing, and again the procedure WAS FORMULATED THROUGH DISCUSSION AND MUTUAL AGREEMENT with the person being tested, and one that THE TEST SUBJECT AGREED WAS A FAIR TEST OF THEIR ABILITY, AND ONE THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO SUCCEED AT.

For example, here's one of the preliminary tests which was administered and failed by the applicant, who claimed he could detect gold with a dowsing rod -- note how every effort was taken to be fair and accomodating to the applicant, while objectively testing whether he could or could not actually perform the detection:

[From: http://www.randi.org/jr/032902.html]
At the JREF last week, we tested a dowser, Mike G., as part of his application for the million-dollar prize. Mr. G. had sent in the properly filled-in form, and we had discussed by e-mail — at length! — the procedure he would follow for the preliminary test. Since he lives not far away from Fort Lauderdale, we decided that it would not be necessary for us to appoint another person to conduct the preliminary test. He showed up at the JREF with some dozen different forked sticks, and prepared to deliver a speech on his theories and tales of past victories in dowsing, which we closed off quickly so that we could get right to the testing procedure. When involved in tests, we are not interested in such discussions, but wish only to see results.
Mike was to be tested for finding gold, his specialty. The target material he had chosen, and brought along with him, consisted of five quartz stones, nine "Sacagawea" dollar coins, a gold ring, a gold nugget, and a small vial containing water and a few panned flakes. He said he had always been successful in detecting each and all of these seventeen items, when his forked stick was specifically "tuned" to pick up gold — by having a small scrap of gold fastened to its tip. That's a common claim made by dowsers, that their stick/rod/pendulum is sensitive to the substance attached to it. We decided to use the entire package of seventeen items, sealed in a plastic bag, to give Mike the maximum chance of finding his target, and he affixed his gold "guider" sample to the stick to "tune" it. The total weight of his composite target was 230 grams (8.2 ounces).
Now, we knew that those dollar coins have no gold in them. They're clad in a layer of manganese brass, which is gold in color only. And, when we asked Mike if the quartz stones were supposed to contain gold — since gold most frequently occurs in association with quartz — he told us, no, but that he'd discovered that when two of the rocks were struck together in the dark, they emitted sparks — which he said was stored-up energy "which never runs out." The mineral, he told us, had a "charge" his stick would react to. (This effect is what's known as the piezoelectric effect, which makes quartz emit sparks when struck.) We didn't question his beliefs, because by the rules we should do nothing to discourage him. We just let him go on with the test.
We numbered ten JREF coffee-mugs from 1 to 10 on the outside bottoms. For the baseline part of the test (20 "open" trials in which all those present would know in which cup the target had been placed) Mike was first asked to choose one of ten face-down shuffled cards bearing numerals from 1 to 10, and that choice would designate where the target would be placed, each time. I had asked him to carefully "scan" the floor area of our library in advance to make sure there were no distracting elements present, and he himself carefully chose the positions of each of the ten cups on the floor. He was encouraged by me to adjust the placement of the cups as many times as he needed to, during this phase. He'd told us, first, that at least five feet of separation was required between each cup, but that he could work with just three feet between them. I immediately insisted that he must use at least five feet, since I did not want to allow an excuse later on that the spacing had been inadequate. As it turned out, he chose to have some cups within a foot of one another. But we could not interfere with his choice, since he assured us that all was sufficient for his needs.
Mike also asked that several metallic objects (trophy cups, plaques, steel devices) be removed from the bookshelves nearby. At his request, a teaspoon was taken to the next room because he said that the silver could also attract his stick; that spoon was made of aluminum. But, again, we did not correct his statements.
For the "open" phase of the preliminary test procedure, the target package was placed in the designated cup, which was then openly placed in the spot Mike had chosen for it, mouth-down. He then scanned all ten cups, and declared — both by pointing and verbally — where he believed that his stick had detected the target. Another number was then selected, and the procedure was repeated, twenty times in all. His score was 100% in these "open" tests.
Pause. Let me explain here the purpose of the baseline test of twenty "open" detections, in which the location of the target is known in advance. It served five distinct purposes, which is why we always use such a procedure:
(1) The performer has the opportunity to try out the setup, and make any necessary changes, adjustments, or re-locations that he thinks are needed. Mr. G. changed the location of the ten cups on the floor many times before the "open" detection trials were completed, and finally declared his total satisfaction with the placements, and with the conditions.
(2) The process of randomizing numbers, etc., which is sometimes unfamiliar or unknown to the performer, becomes clear. For Mike, we prepared ten cards bearing numbers from one to ten, shuffled them face-down, and asked him to choose one for each test.
(3) The performer becomes familiar with the sequences and rules of the test. With Mike, we changed only one factor: we began with plastic cups, but because of the bulk of the target package, we switched to using the JREF coffee mugs.
(4) The performer has the opportunity of deciding for himself — in the "open" tests — whether it's his powers, or just his foreknowledge of the answer, that is actually at work. Mike was convinced of the former.
(5) After the "blind"test is done, following the "open" series, the performer cannot offer the excuse that his powers were not working at this time. Mike obtained 100% results during the "open" test, quickly and positively, showing that he was quite able to use his powers.
Following the "open" sequence, for each of the "blind" tests, Mr. G. and I stepped out of the library area, and two other persons randomly (by choosing a face-down card, as before) placed the target package in position, then they left the area and informed us that the target was in place. Mike and I re-entered, alone, and he made his determination while I watched carefully to be sure that he did not nudge any cups, or otherwise attempt to use any means but the movements of his forked stick, to make his guess; at no time was any such procedure observed. After Mike made his guess on each trial, the other two persons were invited back in, and we recorded the results. That procedure was repeated ten times.
On the "open" tests, Mr. G. took an average of 2 1/2 minutes for each determination; on the "blind" tests, he spent an average of 8 1/2 minutes on each one. During the dowsing process, he kept up a running commentary to me on such matters as a rare "Indian root" with which he was familiar and which was a sure cure for the 'flu, a special crystal he carried on his person to ensure his good health, and a few "free energy" machines that he thought I should know about. Not wishing to become involved in any distracting activity, I resisted discussing these matters with him at that time.
The results were that when Mike G. knew the location of the concealed target (the "open" tests), he obtained 100% results. When the test procedure was double-blinded, he obtained exactly what chance alone would call for: one out of ten correct.
By the rules, Mr. G. can re-apply in twelve months to be tested.
Now, following the tests, Mike said that he'd found, all through the trials, that his stick was being "distracted" by the "gold" lettering on a double set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the shelves located near cups #1 and #2. Remember, he'd "tuned" his forked stick specifically to react to gold. We told him later that there was no gold in that location, either, since the book lettering is done with a bronze-powder ink.
As I've said before many times, I have found that dowsers are generally very honest folks, and their firm convictions about the reality of their dowsing powers are examples of genuine self-delusion. On only two occasions, with the literally hundreds of dowsing claims I've examined over the last 56 years all around the world, have I found dowsers attempting to cheat — and both were caught out immediately, easily, and definitively.
Mike G., I'm sure, will be back next year. And I think I already know the results.

Another example: A test of a girl who claimed she should see while blindfolded. In this case, it turned out that the girl was faking, and not honestly mistaken about having "paranormal abilities" like Mike G the "dowser" was.

Another: A proposed testing protocol of a prominent "psychic". The test was fair and impartial, and the psychic agreed to it on national TV, but then has been dodging all attempts to get her to follow through on it since then.

Randi gets to control all publicity and use of any data generated from the challenge.

The horrors!!

And applicants must waive their right to sue Randi or JREF.

You "forgot" to mention that this applies only to incidental injuries or damages, and is NOT the same as waiving the right to sue over the prize money, etc. From the actual rules:

When entering into this challenge, the applicant surrenders any and all rights to legal action against Mr. Randi, against any persons peripherally involved, and against the James Randi Educational Foundation, as far as this may be done by established statutes. This applies to injury, accident, or any other damage of a physical or emotional nature, and/or financial or professional loss, or damage of any kind. However, this rule in no way affects the awarding of the prize.

In short, they're telling applicants not to try to sue if having their "paranormal abilities" disproven causes them to lose clients from their "psychic business", etc.

The so-called "million-dollar challenge" is set up to validate Ranid and in a way that makes sure no one can win it.

This is a lie. I suggest that you retract it, if you want to retain a shred of your credibility.

And most people who look into it know this.

No, "most people who look into it" see it for what it is -- a fair offer which should be easy to win if, indeed, the applicant actually has a paranormal ability.

Randi admitted to sponsoring a fake psychic. They did an extensive tour of Australia.

Yes, but you "forgot" to mention the reason. You appear to be trying to DISHONESTLY imply that the reason was to make money from the gullible (like most other psychics, *cough*), in an attempt to try to smear Mr. Randi.

Instead, the reason for the hoax was to demonstrate how gullible the media was, and to encourage them to be more careful in the future:

[From: http://skepdic.com/steveterbot.html]

Steve Terbot hoax

In 1984, Mark Plummer, former president of the Australian Skeptics and former executive director of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), and Dick Smith, a patron of the Australian Skeptics, invited magician/mentalist/author Bob Steiner to come to Australia to perform as a psychic. They hoped that once the media and the people saw how easy it is to fake being psychic, they would see the error of their ways and become more skeptical. Plummer and Smith were concerned that Australia had seen a large influx of foreign psychics who were welcomed and accepted with very little skepticism being shown either by the people or the media.
Steiner is an accountant by day, a former president of The Society of American Magicians, and the author of Don’t Get Taken, a book about how to avoid being conned. He’s also the author of the entry on “cold reading” in the Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience and the entry on “fortune telling” in the Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. In 1986, Steiner assisted James Randi in his futile exposure of the (expletive deleted) faith healer Peter Popoff (Randi 1989: ch. 9).
In his mentalist act, Steiner pretends he’s an astrologer, a tarot card reader, a palm reader, or a psychic. After his performance, he reveals that he is not really psychic but uses trickery and deceit to make it look as if he has paranormal powers.
Steiner accepted the invitation/challenge of the Australians and for two weeks he hoaxed Australia as Steve Terbot. He appeared on television programs, gave performances at cultural centers, and in a very short time, became a hit. He appeared on Tonight with Bert Newton three times (similar to the Tonight Show in the U.S.). In his first two appearances he played the role of the psychic but in his last appearance he revealed the hoax, explaining that he uses cold reading techniques and other tricks to deceive people into thinking he's psychic. The purpose of the hoax, he told them, was to “warn the people of Australia to beware of people claiming to be psychics" (Steiner 1989: 23).
So, when the hoax was revealed, did the warning do any good? Was there recognition that perhaps the belief in psychics is unwarranted? Did the public or the press learn to be more skeptical of the claims of alleged psychics?
According to Steiner, his hoax worked extremely well and effectively put an end to the influx of foreign psychics. Mark Plummer agreed. When asked whether he thought the hoax did any good, Plummer replied:

Yes. Before then Australia was regularly visited by 'internationally known' psychics. Since then we have only had a couple. Also the organisers are terrified that if they promote someone that person will turn out to be a skeptic. (Personal correspondence).

One of the more interesting aspects of the Steve Terbot hoax was how most of the mass media didn’t bother to check Steiner's credentials or the claims being made by Steve Terbot. The media took it for granted he was who he said he was and did what he said he did. One exception was Phillip Adams, a well known Australian journalist, writer, and media personality. Adams was unique in that he was writing scathing articles condemning the phony psychics plaguing the land during the time Bob Steiner was gathering his flock as Steve Terbot. When asked if he thought that either the Steve Terbot or the Carlos hoax was successful in increasing skepticism, Adams (through his assistant, Amanda Bilson) said that

he was not convinced [they were] entirely successful. Perhaps the media learned to be a little more sceptical – but they soon returned to their old standards of gullibility. And many people blame the messenger for the message, turning their anger on the Sceptics rather than the charlatans. [Adams] thought [they were] great fun but, given the attention span of public and media alike, of little long term significance. (Personal correspondence).

While on his Australian tour, Steiner exposed alleged psychic John Fitzsimons as a fraud, paving the way for a $64,000 judgment on behalf of one of Fitzsimons’ clients. Seventeen years later, however, I found Fitzsimons on the Internet. He runs a New Age group called Aspects headquartered in a small town (Clayton) outside of Melbourne. He leads discussions on such topics as past lives, karma, out-of-body experiences, spirit guides, prayer, healing, White Eagle (a being channeled by Grace Hook), multiple personality disorder, mediumship, cults, psychic protection, night terrors, spiritualism, psychic readings, exorcism, ouija, channeling, Seth, aliens, Atlantis, UFOs, and--it seems only fitting--chronic fatigue syndrome.
further reading

Bay Area Skeptic's Newsletter (September 1989)
Review of Three Powerful Books on Persuasion
The Spirit Moves Us Fraudulently (1988) by Phillip Adams
God's Frequency is 39.17 Mhz. - Peter Popoff Fake Healer and Fraud! (Real Audio)
Peter Popoff

Carroll, Robert (2004). "Pranks, Frauds, and Hoaxes from Around the World." Skeptical Inquirer. volume 28, No. 4. July/August, pp. 41-46.
Randi, James (1989). The Faith Healers. Prometheus Books.
Steiner, Robert A. (1989). Don't Get Taken! - Bunco and Bunkum Exposed - How to Protect Yourself Wide-Awake Books.

His description of the room where Uri Geller worked was simply wrong in major respects.

According to whom, exactly?

He saw a person doing what is called "psychic writing" and said he could easily do the same thing with "parlor tricks" but when challenged, refused to do so.

I'm sure he did -- Randi is an accomplished professional magician, and has already publicly exhibited countless performances of "psychic writing" and other similar stunts. He doesn't need to repeat it on demand in order to have proven his point.

Randi has been quoted (by a fellow skeptic) as saying "I always have an out."

You sort of "forgot" to provide that quote IN CONTEXT. What he actually said was, "Concerning the challenge, I always have an 'out': I'm right!", which is clearly a tongue-in-cheek comment about his confidence concerning the lack of qualified applicants (i.e., anyone with a real paranormal ability), not what you're disingenuously trying to imply it is.

And if you read Randi, he's a militant atheist

Atheist, yes. "Militant", no. But why do you bring this up, are you under the impression that an atheist is incapable of examining paranormal claims? One could even make the case that he would not be as credulous as a True Believer would be, and more apt to objectively examine the claim.

who hates religion,

False.

especially Christianity,

Wrong again.

as much as he despises the paranormal charlatans.

No, he only hates people who use religion as cover for their charlatanism, and who exploit the religious beliefs of their vicitims, like various bogus "faith healers" and such. For example, at the end of his book, "The Faith Healers", which examines many documented frauds, and the enormous damage they cause to their victims, he writes:

Fond as they are of quoting scripture, faith-healers should appreciate a certain appropriate selection from the Good Book in which they seem to have been anticipated. They appear to be pious and innocent, but have perpetrated a vicious, callous, and highly profitable scam on their flocks, bringing grief, economic loss, and severe health risks to their victims. I as them to turn to Matthew 7:15, where it is writte: "Beware of false prophets, men who come to you dressed up as sheep while underneat they are savage wolves. You will recognize them by the fruits they bear."

But while 99 percent of them are confirmable charlatans,not all are.

Uh huh. Sure.

182 posted on 04/20/2006 8:00:13 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

Demons...

*snicker*

183 posted on 04/20/2006 8:01:45 PM PDT by DocRock

["Translation: He debunked something you fervently believe in."]

Seriously, this isn't even a matter of denial.

Sure it is.

I will accept honest input on the matter, which excludes James Randi. His credibility lies somewhere between the Bill Clinton's and the Duke rape accuser.

I hear that a lot, but to date when I have investigated such claims they have invariably come from either a) Someone Randi has caught faking, who is attempting to slander Randi in order to try to damage his credibility and salvage their own, or b) someone who screeches like a little schoolgirl because Randi has debunked something/someone they fervently believe in, so "obviously" he's a filthy liar (as they go running off to parrot the slanders generated by the people in category "A")...

But hey, I'm open-minded -- feel free to document your over-the-top claim, if you think you can. Maybe you'll turn out to be the rare exception.

Personally, though, I have been following his works for many decades, and I have always found him to be an unusually honest and honorable individual. Conversely, to date this has not at all been my experience with his various critics. Note the many blatant misrepresentations TBP has made about him, for example.

184 posted on 04/20/2006 8:07:00 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

Tho I tend to disbelieve what most pyschics and mediums claim, still, I think most of us have experienced an episode or two, where we kind of knew something was going to happen before it did, or knew what someone was going to say, before they said it...I have had that happen to me, and I am sure many others have had that same thing happen to them...

So, I always try to leave my mind open, that what happens to me, once in a very great while, may actually happen to someone else with great regularity, and accuracy...

185 posted on 04/20/2006 8:11:27 PM PDT by andysandmikesmom

["He made 9 specific predictions about the famous "Lindbergh baby kidnapping" while the child was still missing -- all wrong."]

Police later realized the kidnappers were holding Lindbergh's baby on the small street Cayce told them at the moment.

Feel free to document this. We'll wait. Be sure to also explain who you mean by "kidnappers", plural, since Hauptmann is the only kidnapper ever tied to the case (he had the ransom money), and how police "later realized" where exactly the baby was "held", since Hauptmann never divulged that information, and the baby was eventually found dead in the woods two miles from the Lindbergh's house? This should be... interesting.

Meanwhile, the astute reader can amuse himself by counting how many blatant failures Cayce had in his "predictions" about the Lindbergh kidnapping, including predicting that the child's hair has been cut and dyed (wrong), and that he had been moved to Jersey City and "was not well" (yeah, like if he was in Jersey City Hauptmann would have dragged the kid back to near the Lindbergh's home to dispose of the body...)

They didn't go, because they didn't believe in psychics.

Smart cops.

186 posted on 04/20/2006 8:28:33 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

Rainman is just a movie.

In the movie Rainman, that was Blackjack they played. Not craps or Roulette. (actually, I do recall them trying a shot at the roulette wheel only to lose).

ITS NOT REAL.

Whatever makes you feel comfortable :-)

187 posted on 04/20/2006 8:28:56 PM PDT by lowbridge (I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming, like his passengers.)

To: andysandmikesmom

Tho I tend to disbelieve what most pyschics and mediums claim, still, I think most of us have experienced an episode or two, where we kind of knew something was going to happen before it did, or knew what someone was going to say, before they said it...I have had that happen to me, and I am sure many others have had that same thing happen to them... So, I always try to leave my mind open, that what happens to me, once in a very great while, may actually happen to someone else with great regularity, and

Well, the problem is that we also have "those feelings" many, many times when then they don't come true after all. It's all too easy to tally the "hits" as "genuine psychic moments" while writing off (and soon forgetting) all the "misses" as "just normal worrying".

It's also all to easy, long afterwards, to misremember the degree of "premonition". A fleeting thought of, "I hope my sister's okay" when the phone rings in the middle of the night can easily become, years later, "I *knew* before I picked up the phone that it was going to be the paramedics telling me she had been in a car accident..."

Try this: The next time you "get a feeling", write it down, *before* the events it "foresees" have a chance to happen or not. Keep a journal for this purpose, and keep score. And no, you may *NOT* go back and add any "after the fact" -- that biases the results, since you're far more likely to reotractively write down apparent "hits" than "misses".

Do this for a while, and you'll find that your hit/miss ratio is FAR lower than you would have currently estimated, and that furthermore most of the "hits" can easily be explained by ordinary expectations (it doesn't take psychic abilities to, for example, get a feeling that the vet might have bad news for you when you take your dog in because it hasn't been eating right), or ordinary probabilities (expect various things on a regular basis, and sooner or later some of them are bound to happen).

188 posted on 04/20/2006 8:43:14 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

To: lowbridge; HOTTIEBOY

I once read about one psychic who was able to predict the winning numbers of the roulette wheels and crap tables in casinos. According to the the author of the story, the psychic challenged him to pick any casino (cant recall if this was in Vegas or Atlantic City or Reno), and then pick out any table. Which the author did. The Psychic then told him which numbers to bet on. Which won everytime. According to the Author, the psychic did this in casinos around the world. But instead of breaking the bank at every casino, he merely would win enough money (around 6 figures), just up untill casino management would start taking notice of him. He would stop, cash in his winnings, get the hell out before they could kick him out, and move on to another casino where he would repeat the process.

...and how much of a percentage of the psychic's subsequent business was this author getting? i.e., does he have a monetary incentive to tell tall tales about this "psychic's" amazing abilities, either due to a business arrangement with him, or due to the author's desire to sell books reassuring his readers of the existence of "real" psychics? It certainly wouldn't be the first time such a motive was behind "amazing claims" of this sort.

Amazing claims require amazing evidence, and I'm afraid that "some book makes the claim" doesn't rise to that level of proof, especially when there are so many other possible explanations.

189 posted on 04/20/2006 8:51:16 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

To: Flightdeck; jalisco555

Here's an old article about the CIA/FBI project using remote viewers, headed up at Stanford Research Institute. The project lasted 17 years and accummulated a wealth of intelligence on the Soviet Union before the cold war ended. There are several books written on the project.

...by folks interested in selling books, so the more fantastic the claims, the better the book sales...

Meanwhile...

What was involved was SRI, the Stanford Research Institute. This organization was at one time affiliated with Stanford University, but according to their website "formally separated from the University in 1970", well before they conducted the government sponsored "ESP experiments".

And today, SRI is clearly trying to distance themselves from this loony episode in their past. From their website:

SRI International is not currently involved in parapsychological research and has had no involvement in such research since 1990 when the last of staff working on the project retired or joined other organizations.
Because all the staff involved have left, and all research records have been returned to the government, the only knowledge we have of the research results are those published in the referneces cited below.
Please note that the use of SRI's name in conjunction with this research and any claims made by participants in the research, other than those published in the journals cited below, is not approved by SRI and is not authorized by SRI.

While it's true (as many ESP fans like to crow) that former CIA director Robert Gates discussed the matter on Nightline (November 28, 1995), he hardly gave it a glowing endorsement. He stated that the CIA only undertook the research at the urging of Congress after they learned that the Soviets were looking into using "psychics" in their military, and that the results of the 20 year study were inconclusive at best, produced no usable intelligence results, and that he would not be comfortable using information from a "psychic"

The government's own overview of the long-running project (code-named "Stargate"), published on September 29, 1995, concluded:

A statistically significant laboratory effect has been demonstrated in the sense that hits occur more often than chance.
It is unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to the paranormal ability of the remote viewers as opposed to characteristics of the judges or of the target or some other characteristic of the methods used. Use of the same remote viewers, the same judge, and the same target photographs makes it impossible to identify their independent effects.
Evidence has not been provided that clearly demonstrates that the causes of hits are due to the operation of paranormal phenomena; the laboratory experiments have not identified the origins or nature of the remote viewing phenomenon, if indeed, it exists at all.
[...] The information provided was inconsistent, inaccurate with regard to specifics, and required substantial subjective interpretation.

In short, while they did see some statistical results that differed slightly from chance, the sloppy experimental design and procedures may have allowed a perfectly mundane explanation to be the cause of the observed results. And the last paragraph admits that many of the results depended on "subjective interpretation", i.e. judgement calls by the experimenters as to whether a given result was a real "match" or not. This makes it easy for wishful thinking on the part of the researchers to unintentionally interpret the results as better than they actually warrant.

About the only result of the project that remains "significant" but unexplained was the ability of one test subject to achieve results of about 28% when trying to "see" which of four random colored lights a machine produced each trial (pure guessing would have resulted in a 25% success rate). But this could have been due to such non-paranormal explanations as a flaw in the machine which caused it to produce results that were not entirely random. As one of the project heads wrote, "This information [the 3% deviation from chance] was given in written and oral form to the ORD Project Officers, who maintained there must be yet another flaw in the experiment or analysis, but it was not worth finding. Because of more pressing demands, the issue could not be pursued to a more definite conclusion."

In other words, they didn't take the time to try to rule out ordinary explanations for the observed results. This makes any attempt to cite this project as an example of "success" of paranormal phenomenon shaky at best.

It's also an excellent case study of why I often point out that there has yet to be a demonstation of ESP *under properly controlled conditions*. The reason is that it's easy to get "results" if your testing procedures are so sloppy that ordinary mistakes (or intentional chicanery by test subjects, which is common in "paranormal" testing) can produce the appearance of what you're hoping to see.

Another view:

[From: ]

Did the U.S. government fund psychic research?

07-Jan-2000

Dear Straight Dope:
Some years ago I recall hearing that our federal government was spending money researching "Remote Viewing" for military or intelligence purposes. This work was being performed in Palo Alto, at the infamous SRI laboratories. Supposedly, this research went on for years and was being actively used by the NSA and CIA. What's the real story on this psychic stuff? --Kelly Hall hall@iname.com
SDSTAFF David replies:
Kelly, you've hit upon one of the reasons many people consider "military intelligence" to be an oxymoron. It's true--your tax dollars (and mine) went to fund studies of psychic power. Needless to say, the cold war didn't end because some guy could bend a key.
This story was reported by a number of media outlets in 1995. I have articles from the Associated Press (11/29), Newsweek (12/11), Science News (12/9), and Nature (12/7), and saw other mentions on various TV news programs. Each contains essentially the same information. Also, columnist Jack Anderson dealt with the subject (none too skeptically, I might add) in several of his columns around that time.
Over a period of more than 20 years, the CIA and Pentagon spent approximately $20 million to study and employ numerous "psychics." They were supposed to help track down terrorists, find hostages, help anti-drug activities, etc. Experiments were conducted on precognition, clairvoyance, and remote viewing.
You are correct that the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was involved. Apparently, this project began with help from Russell Targ and Harold Putthoff, who had previously "tested" Uri Geller--that should tell you something right off the bat. Anyway, our tax dollars supported this nonsense while they came up with stories much like ones we are used to hearing from proponents of "psychics"--tales which could not easily be verified or falsified, and which underwent changes in the telling over time.
The CIA asked two reviewers to evaluate the studies. One was Ray Hyman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon and a well-known skeptic. The other was Jessica Utts, a statistics professor at the University of California at Davis and an advocate of parapsychology. Indeed, the Nature article noted that Utts had participated in some of the studies--which in my mind raises the question of why she was selected to review those same studies.
As we would expect, Hyman and Utts disagreed on how the studies rated. While both agreed that the first "era of research was problematic," Utts said there was "a statistically robust effect," while Hyman noted that "there's no evidence these people have done anything helpful for the government."
So where does this leave us? Let's look more closely at the studies. Utts said the "psychics" were accurate about 15% of the time when they were helping the CIA. Fifteeen percent? Is this supposed to convince us to pay them to help the United States government? Utts says she thinks "they would be effective if used in conjunction with other intelligence." My intelligence tells me that 15% accuracy isn't much help no matter what it's used in conjunction with--that's an 85% failure rate! So 85% of the time, spies would be wasting their time and resources on incorrect information. We're supposed to be happy with that? And that's presuming she's right about the 15%.
In one particular study on remote viewing, the "psychics" scored above the result expected from chance by getting the right answer approximately 33% of the time when there were four choices, which Science News characterized as "a moderate increase over chance." But the judgment of success was determined by the project's director, who rated the similarity of each response to the target display and to other randomly chosen pictures. Hyman argued that these studies offer no insight as to why the scoring is above chance--it's just assumed that it must be psychic ability. He also noted that the accuracy ratings should have been done by independent judges--not the project director--and that none of the studies have yet undergone peer review. In other words, there were severe methodological flaws in those studies that did seem to show a hint of something. Indeed, a former CIA technical director who monitored these programs said on Nightline that he wasn't aware of any significant results from the "psychics."
An interesting note in this regard is that "psychics" interviewed by CIA evaluators said the program worked well as long as it was run by those "who accepted the phenomenon." Sorry, guys, but objective scientific results shouldn't depend on who's running a study!
Both the (Springfield, IL) State Journal-Register and Newsweek reported anecdotal stories that were used in support of this program (it is interesting to note that neither scientific publication did--only the ones from the popular press). One of these stories is that a "psychic" predicted that an American official would be kidnapped on a certain day in 1981, and Gen. James Dozier was taken that night. As Hyman noted, though, "these are nice tall stories that can't be evaluated." As with all "psychic" reports of this type, there is too much missing information. What, specifically, was the prediction? When was it made? When was it recorded? Had this psychic made other such predictions that did not come to pass? There are simply too many unanswered questions. The stories told in the State Journal-Register mostly came from one of the "psychic spies" himself, but I would never suggest that a "psychic" would tell tall tales in order to promote himself.
Newsweek also reported that, as if the early years of the program weren't bad enough, it became even worse in the mid-1980's. A senior general would call subordinates together for spoon-bending sessions. One "psychic" wrote a long paper predicting a huge air attack on Washington during a Reagan State of the Union speech. The program offered several suggestions about capturing Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm, and all of them proved utterly useless. And one of the "remote viewers" left the army because he was convinced there was a Martian colony beneath the New Mexico desert.
Why does it seem so difficult to have an objective, scientific experiment to look at claims of psychic power? Why do we always hear anecdotal tales about the great successes of "psychics," which, all too often, turn out to be exaggerated, misleading, or even completely untrue? Again in this case, we saw the problems that so often raise their ugly heads with studies of psychic power--poor control, methodological flaws, and too much subjectivity.
--SDSTAFF David
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

And a really good write-up by one of the folks hired to analyze the results: The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality

Sample excerpts:

The recent media frenzy over the Stargate report violated the truth. Sober scientific assessment has little hope of winning in the public forum when pitted against unsubstantiated and unchallenged claims of "psychics" and psychic researchers -- especially when the claimants shamelessly indulge in hyperbole. While this situation may be depressing, it is not unexpected. The proponents of the paranormal have seized an opportunity to achieve by propaganda what they have failed to achieved through science.
[...]
In situations where we do have some control comparisons, we find the same degree of hitting for wrong targets (when the judge does not realize it is the wrong target) as for the correct targets. A sobering example of this with respect to remote viewing can be found in David Marks and Richard Kammann's book The Psychology of the Psychic (Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 1980). Psychologists, such as myself, who study subjective validation find nothing striking or surprising in the reported matching of reports against targets in the Stargate data. The overwhelming amount of data generated by the viewers is vague, general, and way off target. The few apparent hits are just what we would expect if nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation are operating.
[...] When we examine the basis of Utts's strong claim for the existence of psi, we find that it relies on a handful of experiments that have been shown to have serious weaknesses after undergoing careful scrutiny, and another handful of experiments that have yet to undergo scrutiny or be successfully replicated. What seems clear is that the scientific community is not going to abandon its fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles on the basis of a handful of experiments whose findings have yet to be shown to be replicable and lawful.

190 posted on 04/20/2006 9:04:48 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

Right, people tend not to remember the things they get wrong... occasionally, listening to a randomized playlist on my computer, I get the feeling that I know what song is coming next, and if I look back on it I'd say "that feeling was right more often than not". But it only happens on playlists where I know every song on the list, and where I've been listening to the list for some time (ie, there were twenty songs originally, all of which I knew, now there are 12 left, of course my chance of being 'right' is pretty good).

It's like how cold readers work - they make vague predictions and the victims fill in the details they can and ignore the totally wrong remarks.

191 posted on 04/20/2006 9:05:49 PM PDT by JenB (I'm heinous!)

To: Ichneumon; Flightdeck; jalisco555

Oops, the link to that "Straight Dope" page in my previous post didn't work, sorry about that. Here it is: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpsychicfed.html.

192 posted on 04/20/2006 9:06:51 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)

Read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed the Bible and Why. Excellent book, whihc examines the Bible froma textual analysis viewpoint. He shows that a lot of errors crept in accidentally (the scribe was transcribing what was being dictated to him and one word sounded like anotehr, for example, or he was working from a written text where either a word in the text looked like another word, which got transcribed instead, or they used continuous writing, as was sometimes done in the early days. For an example of how this could be interpreted a number of ways, he gives the example: What if in an English-language document we saw the phrase godisnowhere. To believers in God like you and me, that is obviously "God is now here." But to the atheist, it's equally obviously "God is nowhere." So the scribe tended to choose whichever way the continous writing seemed to make sense to him (which was inevitably covered by his worldview.)

Ehrman also covers deliberate alterations, and some of the things that you cite seem, based on the best principles of textual analysis, to be deliberate changes in the text. I think you'd find the book very interesting.

193 posted on 04/20/2006 9:43:24 PM PDT by TBP

Well, since I believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant word of God I'd probably find the book to be an interesting but ultimately completely unbelievable discussion. Sure I suppose errors can creep in (mosty during translation) but I have faith that God prevented any major errors or rewrites like the Jesus Seminar people seem to think.

And that "Godisnowhere" example doesn't make much sense because the phrase "God is now here" isn't very good English. I mean, "God I snow here" would make almost as much sense.

194 posted on 04/20/2006 9:54:07 PM PDT by JenB (I'm heinous!)

To: Ichneumon; Flightdeck; TBP; All

Lots to read here. Thanks to all who responded to my posts.

195 posted on 04/21/2006 3:38:31 AM PDT by jalisco555 ("Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us and pigs treat us as equals" Winston Churchill)

As to biblical "scholars"...

"Professing to be wise, they become fools"

196 posted on 04/21/2006 5:23:54 AM PDT by Jay Thomas (A DUmmie I ain't)

"godisnowhere"

That's funny, I'm Christian, and how I read it was "God is nowhere". I'm no atheist.

197 posted on 04/21/2006 6:37:16 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue.)

""God is now here" isn't very good English"

What's bad-English about that? ???

198 posted on 04/21/2006 6:38:57 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue.)

I'm at work now, but I will most certainly get back to you on both the Lindbergh child and James Randi's dishonesty. A quick thought though: you are quick to dismiss any claim that is attached to a person who has monetary incentive for the claim to be true. You should apply the same principle to Randi, whose entire living is made from debunking. In fact, his financial situation is a bit more precarious than say, Uri Geller's, so he has a lot more to lose. I'm sure you're aware of the lawsuits he has lost, as well.

199 posted on 04/21/2006 7:57:18 AM PDT by Flightdeck (Longhorns+January=Rose Bowl Repeat)

To: Corin Stormhands; TBP; ohioWfan; Pippin; xzins; P-Marlowe; blue-duncan; Revelation 911; jude24

Don't you love the way some people, living 2000 years later, think they have a better idea of what Yeshua said and did than those who knew Him personally?

200 posted on 04/21/2006 9:14:34 AM PDT by Buggman (L'chaim b'Yeshua HaMashiach!)

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