As A Scientist, I Didn’t Believe In Psychic Powers. Then I Experienced Something That Changed My Life.

[Revoltingest]

But at what point should a body of astounding claims with all the accumulated claimed evidence cause a change of paradigm? That actually gets to the point of what the author of the OP article is saying. He saw enough to flip his paradigm and gave just one lead case that he experienced as an example.

Some people are more easily swayed (Mulders) than others (Scullys).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes, @Subduction Zone is trying to move the goal post from an article describing how a once materialist scientist become a believer in psychic abilities due to an extraordinary case he encountered to an article claiming 'here is the full evidence to conclusively prove one particular case'.

I read that article and assume the scientist likely did his due diligence being a skeptic at the time of encountering the case and this article was an overview of his philosophical development. A dogmatic skeptic will want to claim incompetence without knowing the details.

Wrong again. I do not even think that you understand what the phrase "moving the goalposts" means. I was pointing out how this man was hardly a scientist and that he totally failed at applying the scientific method to his work. And that is a shame. This is a case where there is enough data that one could do that.

And when one is trying to pretend to be scientific and does not test one's work properly that tells us that not even they really believe it. Instead of wanting to know they only are looking for excuses to believe.

The odds are huge that this is a bogus case. I won't say so 100% but there is no scientific evidence supporting the claims. There are only ad hoc explanations. And those are worthless to honest people.

 

[Subduction Zone]

One needn't be a "hard skeptic" (whatever that is)
to be skeptical of astoundingclaims with such
limited evidence.

I am quite often surprised when believers in woo woo have enough data to test properly, but they never do so. To me that indicates that they know that they are wrong.

For example there are people that make "recordings" of ghosts. To me it looks as if they rely far too heavily on suggestion. So I made the suggestion of doing a proper double blind study of the tapes. Have a bunch of "ghost" tapes. Mix them with other tapes of white noise, or whatever color of noise one would think would work best. Tapes of regular events where nothing happened etc. and present them to listeners who have no idea of the context of the various tapes. See if they hear anything. As they are listening they would have the ability to rewind and listen again. But no hints would be given of what sort of site was recorded.

That is flatly rejected. Why? Because the odds are huge that they would not notice anything.

As you pointed out the want to believe, they do not want to know.

 

[George-ananda]

Some people are more easily swayed (Mulders) than others (Scullys).

Yes it seems true. Apparently paradigm flips are a once or zero in a lifetime thing.

 

[sun rise]

claim of one loan, and a little bit loony looking interpreter.

??? Some typos renders that unintelligible

1) We need audio evidence of what the person was saying and verification from linguist that they are a meaningful set of sentences in a tribal language.
Does the associated paper give that?

I've not seen a reference to an associated paper on scholar.google.com. I hope there is one that provides that level of detail.

But seriously this to me is an interesting observation and the first I know of that looks at the area of the brain activated. I'd love to see a comparison of this person's brain, someone speaking in tongues, someone speaking a language learned as an adult and a native speaker.

 

[Subduction Zone]

??? Some typos renders that unintelligible

I've not seen a reference to an associated paper on scholar.google.com. I hope there is one that provides that level of detail.

But seriously this to me is an interesting observation and the first I know of that looks at the area of the brain activated. I'd love to see a comparison of this person's brain, someone speaking in tongues, someone speaking a language learned as an adult and a native speaker.

Sorry, "One lone and loony looking interpreter."

 

[Twilight Hue]

In effect the article did. That is one of the first things that a scientist would do. That there are no such records is a strong indication that the claims were never independently verified.


This person claims to be a scientist, but I do not see anything that indicates that he is. He is a psychologist and has some training in technology, but the way he handled this case was not very scientific at all.

There's not even a control group.

 

[sun rise]

There's not even a control group.

Again, this is not a scientific paper. This among other similar posts is like complaining that a mule is not a race horse.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again, this is not a scientific paper. This among other similar posts is like complaining that a mule is not a race horse.

True, but he presented his findings as if he did scientific work on it. He did not. There is a minimum standard to meet for something to be called "scientific" and he did not come close to that. That is why any scientist would read this account and laugh if someone took it seriously.

And what irritates me is that he could have done the little bit of extra work needed to verify this. The hard work had already been done for him. Why didn't he find at least one other interpreter? And the importance of doing this is so high that the complaint that "He never said that he didn't do that" if of no merit because it is the first thing that a scientist would do. Long before the thought of "Well let's hook her up to this machine and check if there is anything that we can see". That was a waste of time since all that tells you is sometimes she uses her brain in a different fashion. It does not tell you anything about what is happening when she does that.

 

[sun rise]

True, but he presented his findings as if he did scientific work on it. He did not. There is a minimum standard to meet for something to be called "scientific" and he did not come close to that. That is why any scientist would read this account and laugh if someone took it seriously.

And what irritates me is that he could have done the little bit of extra work needed to verify this. The hard work had already been done for him. Why didn't he find at least one other interpreter? And the importance of doing this is so high that the complaint that "He never said that he didn't do that" if of no merit because it is the first thing that a scientist would do. Long before the thought of "Well let's hook her up to this machine and check if there is anything that we can see". That was a waste of time since all that tells you is sometimes she uses her brain in a different fashion. It does not tell you anything about what is happening when she does that.

You should not judge from a popular media write-up and expect it to be more than what it is.

 

[Truthseeker]

That test requires "Failure to display a 100% success rate in the open test would cause their immediate disqualification." This research is not about such things but about speaking a language the person did not know and what happened in the brain when she did that. So your point is not relevant.

I looked up that quote and that was the criteria of the James Randi test! No wonder that test was never passed. I wondered about that. Psychic abilities don't happen on command in real life, like it does on TV shows or movies. I've had a few convincing ones happen at random times. For some reason, I've not had any since late 1981, I think it was, and that one was a doozy.

In fairness to James Randi, he did weed out some frauds, like Houdini did with the mediums in the early 20th century. However, I do believe that a few are practically born with the ability of mediumship. I certainly don't the have ability at all in that regard.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I looked up that quote and that was the criteria of the James Randi test! No wonder that test was never passed. I wondered about that. Psychic abilities don't happen on command in real life, like it does on TV shows or movies. I've had a few convincing ones happen at random times. For some reason, I've not had any since late 1981, I think it was, and that one was a doozy.

In fairness to James Randi, he did weed out some frauds, like Houdini did with the mediums in the early 20th century. However, I do believe that a few are practically born with the ability of mediumship. I certainly don't the have ability at all in that regard.

That is inaccurate. Your quote appears to be out of context. Where did you get it from? Here it is with more context from the Wikipedia page on the topic:

"For example, the JREF had dowsers perform a control test, in which the dowser attempts to locate the target substance or object using their dowsing ability, even though the target's location has been revealed to the applicant. Failure to display a 100% success rate in the open test would cause their immediate disqualification. However, claimants were usually able to perform successfully during the open test, confirming that experimental conditions are adequate."

In other words that test applied only to dowsers. Who were shown the location of an object ahead of time. If they could not find the location of an object using dowsing where they already knew where it was that was an instant fail with dowsing. Does that still sound unfair?

One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ajay0]

This is a phenomenon called xenoglossy.

This can also happen through accidents.

He has a blow to the head and stands up speaking another language

Recently a student from Gwinnett County, Georgia (USA) survived a head injury on a soccer field and woke up speaking...

www.lifepersona.com

I personally don't consider it to be a psychic ability, just a past life memory which has somehow returned to present consciousness.

 

[Twilight Hue]

This is a phenomenon called xenoglossy.

This can also happen through accidents.

He has a blow to the head and stands up speaking another language

Recently a student from Gwinnett County, Georgia (USA) survived a head injury on a soccer field and woke up speaking...

www.lifepersona.com

I personally don't consider it to be a psychic ability, just a past life memory which has somehow returned to present consciousness.

You would need to prove its a past life memory first. Otherwise it's just an assertion.

 

[sun rise]

For those who have complained about the lack of scientific detail, I sent a note to Dr. Tarrant asking about a paper. He replied that it might be a case study but he's hopeful that some other related cases he's investigating might be better.

So bottom line: it's not intended to be a scientific paper but he's doing more work to have a better, more inclusive one.

 

[HonestJoe]

So bottom line: it's not intended to be a scientific paper but he's doing more work to have a better, more inclusive one.

That isn't really the problem though. The problem is that he observed some unexplained phenomena and apparently leapt to a singular definitive conclusion ("I was left with the conclusion that Janet was somehow channeling several people, beings, or entities.") without any casual, let alone scientific, logical basis. It is a leap of faith.

The general issue is clear from the headline. He didn't change his scientific conclusions, he changed his beliefs. The fact he is a professional scientist is largely irrelevant. I fear the causal factor is at the end of the article, where it mentions the book he is promoting.

 

[Subduction Zone]

For those who have complained about the lack of scientific detail, I sent a note to Dr. Tarrant asking about a paper. He replied that it might be a case study but he's hopeful that some other related cases he's investigating might be better.

So bottom line: it's not intended to be a scientific paper but he's doing more work to have a better, more inclusive one.

Please keep us informed if he ever does so. Did you by chance ask if he had any other translators confirm the claims of that one man?

 

[Truthseeker]

That is inaccurate. Your quote appears to be out of context. Where did you get it from? Here it is with more context from the Wikipedia page on the topic:

"For example, the JREF had dowsers perform a control test, in which the dowser attempts to locate the target substance or object using their dowsing ability, even though the target's location has been revealed to the applicant. Failure to display a 100% success rate in the open test would cause their immediate disqualification. However, claimants were usually able to perform successfully during the open test, confirming that experimental conditions are adequate."

In other words that test applied only to dowsers. Who were shown the location of an object ahead of time. If they could not find the location of an object using dowsing where they already knew where it was that was an instant fail with dowsing. Does that still sound unfair?

Whoops! I didn't notice the dowsing reference. That makes my criticism of the conditions of the million dollar Randi test invalid. Thank you for correcting my mistake.

 

[Truthseeker]

Exploring Psychic Powers ... Live was a two-hour television special aired live on June 7, 1989, wherein Randi examined several people claiming psychic powers. Hosted by actor Bill Bixby, the program offered $100,000 (Randi's $10,000 prize plus $90,000 put up by the show's syndicator, LBS Communications, Inc.[79]) to anyone who could demonstrate genuine psychic powers.

James Randi - Wikipedia

I watched this show. The participants on this show failed miserably. It doesn't mention in this article that Uri Geller was there, and conspicuously didn't take any tests on the show. It was natural for Bill Bixby to be there because he was the star of a show called The Magician. Poor Bill Bixby. He died about 4 years later at the age of 59.

 

[sun rise]

leapt to a singular definitive conclusion ("I was left with the conclusion that Janet was somehow channeling several people, beings, or entities.") without any casual, let alone scientific, logical basis. It is a leap of faith.

True. To me, it could more easily be interpreted as reincarnation so that is indeed what I would call and unwarranted conclusion.