₦airaland Forum

This is my first on this thread, even though I was merely previously observing. Perhaps the terms we try to explicate around 'supernatural' may at best be understood contextually before drawing any hard conclusions. Let me borrow from Mad_Max's perpsective to highlight this:

[quote author=Mad_Max link=topic=280962.msg4005707#msg4005707 date=1244630791]There isn't really a supernatural; there are merely poorly understood relationships.

>snip<

But just because we don't understand how parts of the brain work doesn't mean those brain parts aren't working, can't be stimulated by drugs or 'something else', or that we aren't using them, unaware . . . . [   ]

>snip<

Nothing 'supernatural' about the spiritual. It's just poorly understood.[/quote]That's just one view; but methinks the 'supernatural' is not all about what is 'spiritual' or about relationships narrowed down to brain activity and power. No, I'm not saying that Mad_Max had narrowed it down to that extreme; rather, while appreciate that perspective as an example for seeking to understand what's 'supernatural', there are other aspects that may have to be considered in broad terms as to accomodate the basis for our discussions. Among other things, here's a scribble (unarranged) which I sourced from some various sources - especially what 'naturalists' tend to deem as tending to 'supernatural':

[list]

1. NATURAL

For many, the term 'natural' describes that which may be considered both in substance and process as occuring within known set laws of the physical world.

[/list]

[list]

2. SUPERNATURAL

For others, the term 'supernatural' describes what occurs outside the norms of what is considered a 'natural' process. This would include such suggested definitions as -

      ● forces and events and beings collectively

      ● not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws

      ● do not have a natural or scientific explanation

      ● not conforming to known natural forces or laws

      ● beyond what is natural or normal

      ● exceeding or departing from the normal course of nature

      ● impossible to explain by natural causes

      ● of, coming from, or relating to forces or beings that exist outside the natural world

      ●  phenomena that may be associated with -

               preternatural

               unnatural

               extramundane

               extrasensory

               metaphysical

               miraculous

               superhuman

               superphysical

               supersensible

               transcendental

               unearthly

               magical

               mystical

               of or pertaining to God

[/list]

Please observe: these are scribbles taken down from various quarters when sourcing atheists' views on what they would consider 'supernatural' - and I agree with some of them. It does not mean that this lists should serve as the all-embracing meanings that explicate both terms 'natural' and 'supernatural'. I only posted it to see if it could help in fostering and adding to what have already been shared in this thread.

Cheers.

Pastor AIO:
If however a glass of water on my table were to disappear and instantaneously reappear on a shelf without seeming to travel across space then that would flout the laws of Nature. It would be non natural.

I'm enjoying your perspective in trying to delineate and distinguish between 'natural' and 'supernatural'.

[quote author=Tùdor link=topic=279631.msg4005725#msg4005725 date=1244631016]I looked at the Z.M case and can't help but wonder about this ''ectoplasm'' issue.
If everyone had spirits, the we should all emit ectoplasm yet he says just 4 or 5 people in the whole world can do it.
It's entirely possible this ectoplasm might be as a result of some kind of genetic mutation or special ability not necessarily supernatural for example, contortionists can move their joints in akward angles, few dogs who climb trees or humans who have amazingly sharp eyesight. . .[/quote]Hi Tùdor,

It's great that you gave a hard look at Zammit's claim of having investigated David Thompson's materialization. However, perhaps the reasons for your concerns may issue from mixing things up. Ectoplasm is not something everyone is supposed to 'emit' - for Thompson does not claim he "has" ectoplasm; rather, that he is a medium, and as such demonstrates the reality of the claim he makes.

On the other hand, while I'm not in a position to deny your suppositions about ectoplasm, my observation is that it is uninformed. To suggest that it may be 'as a result of some kind of genetic mutation' requires that you had first studied it for yourself to be able to make an informed statement about its nature. Yes, it has been thus suggested - but that is all there is to it: a suggestion. It does not deny the reality of such phenomena, but rather that it cannot make a conclusive statement about its nature.

Pastor AIO:
ps, I believe the world is made up of 4 elements.

That's interesting. What do you have in mind?

@wirinet,

wirinet:
Pilgrim.1, who have you been able to demonstrate to, the so called fallacious logic of the typical atheist excuses? can you name any atheist that sees your logic? or is it a member of your religious sect that you have been able to demonstrate your logic to? I think you have been able to demonstrate your logic to your self.You are engaging in intellectual maturation, and espousing of self stimulating logic make you feel euphoric.

I didn't enter this discussion to win euphoria but to engage atheist thought - from definition to essence. That point has been well proven, and it's up to folks like you to show that is not the case. There's no need to get upset if you have nothing to set forth worth considering.

wirinet:
I have decided not to even go into your so called logic, because to me it defies the very definition of logic. The ancient Greeks who believed that the universe is made up of four elements - water, earth, wind and fire, had better logic.

The above would simply mean you have no idea of what you're talking about.

wirinet:
Pilgrim.1 keeps throwing all kinds of stories from around the world to support her belief in the supernatural - ghosts demons, devils and goblins. How do you expect anyone especially atheists to believe these stories? Let me tell to the process of believing in anything. First you get a piece of information, either directly ( first hand account) or indirectly, you compare the information with your own store of information (what you accept to be possible) and personal experience (belief system). If the said information agrees largely with your own belief system, you take the story as true, but if the information given is either insufficient or contradicts with your own store of experience and stored information, you reject the whole story. Now if we are to believe everything that we are told or read, then we would become a candidate for Yaba Psychiatric Hospital.

Lol, I sincerely hope for your sake you're not a candidate for Yaba Psych; but what you've just argued above simply rubbishes the basis of your worldview. Just listen to yourself:

     (a) 'If the said information agrees largely with your own belief system,
           you take the story as true'

     (b) 'but if the information given is either insufficient or contradicts with
           your own store of experience and stored information, you reject
           the whole story'

First, empirical verification and falsifiability have nothing to do with anyone's worldviews or "belief system" - such an idea is the very crass that informed enquiry does away with. That being so, what is left of your fallacious logic?

wirinet:
I have been told lots of bulshit stories by people i know, A friend told me he had an encounter with a mammy water in his village once, but when i asked further whether the mammy water breaths with fins or lungs or both, or if the mammy water is a physical or spiritual being, i could not get a satisfactory answer, so i discarded the story. I have heard people say a woman turned to goat, snake or even bird. I disregard all the stories. A lot of other people might believe due to different belief system.

I wasn't arguing "belief system(s)" such as the one that you're mistaking for thoughtful analysis.

wirinet:
When i was younger, i believed a lot of what i will term rubbish today, I was a ardent follower of Lobsang Rampa before i discovered he was just an Irish Plumber who had red the book "7 years in Tibet", I believed in UFOs and all of Arthur C Clacks stories, the Lockness Monster, Yeti.  I did a lot of research on the so called supernatural and found all the stories inconclusive. If someone can provide hard evidence (verified  photos, videos and audio) of their existence these things, then It might begin to dent my long established belief system.

What is the likelihood that such things (verified photos, videos, and audio) are not available? And what is the likelihood that anyone could not manipulate what you're asking for and present them in a convincing manner to you? You don't seem to be objective but merely seeking to worsen your grounds for your "belief system" and become a candidate of inconsequence. There's still hope to betake yourself to real research rather than armchair sentiments - then you'll know the difference between a "belief system" and objective appraisals.

Ciao.

@huxley2,

I've waited to see how you faired this morning in addressing these issues; but let me help you sort out once again why atheistic fallacious logic is the very undoing of the type of atheism you seem to espouse in your naturalistic worldview.

huxley2:
Funny, you ask this question. Let me turn it round to you. How do you know for certain that the claims of Z&T are true and that the things they report really happened.

You're welcome to turn it around to me, and I shall deal accordingly in a credible manner.

1. I've said plainly several times that these examples are proffered as attested by credible sources, and there's no way I could have first-hand certainty of what was reported in the research. Reminder:
'I have no independent way of verifying the event for myself and
only posted it second-hand for others to draw their own inferences.'


2. Credibility is not a matter of personality bias, but of examining a report of a research from conditioned and controlled criteria. To this end, I'd first consulted several sources and borrowed from their criteria to evaluate the examples for my discussion. Having examined Z&T and weighted them on the 11 criteria proffered by the 'Committee for Skeptical Inquiry' [here], I thought Z&T scaled them and so could be accounted credibly.


3. One of such controlled criteria to guard against fraud is what has been repeatedly stated: "adequate precuations against fraud and sensory leakage" - and Z&T adhered to such criterion. I've repeatedly posted such measures to point this out:
Zammit: '. . .With extreme care, I (and others) checked the security for fraud myself
and guarantee, with absolute certainty, that it was physically impossible for accomplices
to have participated in the materialization experiment.'
It so happens that every charge of fraud by skeptics has been roundly addressed and a challenge given out by Z&T for such skeptics to apply themselves to the a repeatability of the process ANYWHERE they so choose. So far, none of these skeptics has taken on such a challenge.

4. The willingness of Z&T to provide the same process for repeatability is another point. They offered the challenge that anyone is welcome to call for such a test for repeatability ANYWHERE OF THE ENQUIRER'S CHOICE -
Zammit: 'We would be confident to take the medium to anyplace – of your choice -
where trapdoors – floors, walls and ceilings do not exist. That the room, floor, walls and
ceilings are solid concrete with no windows and only one door which would be secured,
sealed and guarded all the time by any independent party.'


5. Queries and objections have been duely addressed by Zammit, especially all the sort that you've repeatedly brought up. You were the very same person who reposted his answers from his own website; and I wonder if you even took the time to read it before repeating the same objections.


6. It so happens that those who assume a role to be 'paranormal-debunkers' have not been brave enough to take on the challenge by Z&T. These 'debunkers' have not given any credible reason why they cannot investigate the findings in Z&T's research in order to make informed statements or conclusions.


7. The report is well-sourced, published in the appropriate media recognized for such investigations, and made available to the public.


These and more would be my reasons for selecting theirs as an example for my discussions. After repeatedly answering your objections, I also asked you pointedly to answer two basic questions:

A. how do you know for certain that IN ACTUALITY people were being
let into the room from an adjacent room?

B. what is the likelihood of a fraud and sensory leakage?

I don't see you making any calm resolve to proffer answers to those questions other than shifting responsibility. Do you care now to deal with A and B above? Thank you.

huxley2:
If you believe them, you should I not believe the others?

You're free to believe anyone of your choice. I've given reasons why the example I used seems credible enough, and I gave reasons as well answered your objections - repeatedly referring you to answers already provided within the same article you reposted from Zammit. It's amazing that you only have been trying hard to find loopholes in the research and yet have not been able to show how their research could be faulted apart from your personal bias.

huxley2:
Lady, your thinking is so screwed and lopsided it is just not worth continuing? You are obsessed with personalities, your methodology is wrong and there is really no point continuing until you sort out your methodology.

I'm not obsessed with personalities as it's obvious my focus is on the research itself. On the contrary, if you're not a personality slave, what were you thinking in inferring that you'd submit yourself to Randi? It's really amusing watching you chase your tail around and arrive nowhere, but I'd be looking to see where you can come back to the gist of this thread.

huxley2:
Pilgrim, I don't know if your problem is with honesty or comprehension or both. Please, how could you ask question 2 above? Did my comment suggest that we knew that there was nonstuff? Look at it again;

What does this statement say?


PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, Pastor, could you adjudicate on this? What do you understand by this statement and do you think Pilgrim's statement is a fair one. I am relying on your time-honoured sense of fairness here?

Hey, I asked questions. If you didn't understand, you're welcome to ask for clarifications - it operates both ways. There's none of your questions that I haven't sought to answer - NONE. You keep turning around and making uninformed conclusions, and that's why I asked for clarifications. If question 2 is not to your understanding, fair enough. At least, that would leave the option open for question 1.

I'm going to answer your initial reply; but there's a need to clear up these few bits from yours:

huxley2:
So far,, this is what WE know is nature, and using our senses we have consistently manipulated, interacted, harness, poked, this stuff of nature.

1. What exactly do you mean by "our senses"?

huxley2:
Now,, using the same sense, we have not being able to consistently and reliable to demonstrate that there is nonstuff outside this know field of stuff.

2. How do you know that there is nonstuff outside your own known field of stuff?

Pastor AIO:
You see Huxley, it seems that you are quite confused. Pretty much everything that you've mentioned above it stuff. When you talk about naturalism or supernaturalism are you talking about stuff or are you talking about PROCESSES.

You must have read my mind!

Pastor AIO:
It is quite possible that they are put off by the excessive lengths of some of the posts.

That could be partly their own blame, for they cannot excuse the fact theirs are needlessly repetitious and lenghty.

I'll answer this one quickly.

huxley2:
Absolutely NOT.  It shows what night-vison equipment can reveal.  These people were being fooled into believing that ghost were appearing in the room, when in actuality people were being let into the room from an adjacent room. 

Does this speak well for this particular medium?

Who's now operating on fallacious logicum?   I thought as much that sooner than later you'd be talking fantasy like Stanley Krippner!!

Huxley2, how do you know for certain that IN ACTUALITY people were being let into the room from an adjacent room? How do you know that for certain? This is the kind of logic that cheapens typical atheist skepticism - you ignore what has been stated, go round and round in circles . . . until you finally demonstrate the very same 10 points about typical atheist arguments, even after I'd simplified matters for you!

This is what you should have read about Zammit's adequate precuations against fraud and sensory leakage:

[list]

The critical importance of ectoplasm: ectoplasm, a whitish gaseous substance, can only function in total darkness and sometimes in low red light. When police raided the British materialization medium Helen Duncan 1956 in Nottingham, England (see chapter 11) and put the light on during a materialization experiment, the ectoplasm was quickly drawn back into the medium with great force, eventually killing her.

[/list]
[list]

3. Do you know that many magicians take great care to secure themselves to a chair (or in a locked trunk or something) specifically for the purpose of misdirection because their tricks do not depend on them being free?

Victor: Be that as it may, you are obviously implying that the medium has accomplices. I stated and will re-state, that it physically impossible for the genuine materialization mediums such as David Thompson to have had accomplices. With extreme care, I (and others) checked the security for fraud myself and guarantee, with absolute certainty, that it was physically impossible for accomplices to have participated in the materialization experiment.

[/list]

I wonder if you had taken the time to carefully examine these criteria before drawing vacant conclusions. Reading the above, what is the likelihood of a fraud and sensory leakage?

huxley2:
Two things

1)  I still await the terms of the Randi tests.  Are we gonna ever get this,  my personality-obsessed debater?

I'll tease you: since you're shifting responsibility after claiming to be familiar with him, please do us the favour and provide the test. I claim ignorance for the time being - you glory over me for now and cut the distractions. I'm eagerly waiting to set you and this Randi pride straight once for all.

huxley2:
2)  What claims and evidence did you video show?  Can you summerise their methods and results, please.

Did you watch it? Huxley2, if you keep wasting breathe with this antics, I seriously wonder about the atheism you pride yourself about. Did I note make any pointers right under the video? Haba!! What kind of childish antics are these? Here again:


         [flash=320,265]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1RZRh8wbEI&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]

[size=14pt]
         Dr. Charles Tart, Prof. of Consciouness Studies,
         University of Nevada.
         Is there a consciousness that may survive
the death of a person?[/size]

         [size=16pt]Would his 'metholodogy' be credible?[/size]


         Would the criticism of skeptics like Dr. Stanley Krippner [at 3:19min]
         be intelligent and credible? Was it not rather far-fetched?         _______________________________________________

Are you ignoring these and desperately rushing to post reactive replies?    Lol, I still have the wonder that you seem to be running round in circles.    I'm still at awe that you'd draw this bias as above that "in actuality people were being let into the room from an adjacent room" - no research, no empirical cogency, nothing: just breezily asserted! Na wah O! Maybe I should add an 11th observation to my list:

     #11.  The 'Krippner' phantasma seems to be the atheist's last resort!

Ciao for now.

I'll leave you to sort out the tangles in your concerns for now - hope to see some more substance in yours tomorrow. Do have a wunnaful evening.

huxley2:
Have a look at what these mediums so:

In July 1960, the spiritualist world was rocked by an explosion that sent shock waves through every seance room in the country and shivers up every medium's spine.
It has become known as the Great Camp Chesterfield Expose. What happened was so crazy, so zany, that apart from a Peter Sellers movie it could only happen in the weird and wacky world of the psychic.
The sympathetic researchers, Tom O'Neill and Dr. Andrija Puharich, had tried to get the first motion pictures ever of the materialization of a spirit. O'Neill was a believer spiritualist, editor of the monthly newspaper Psychic Observer, and ordained minister of the Indiana Association of Spiritualists (the legal entity which owns and runs Chesterfield), and a close friend of Marble Riffle and other stalwarts at the camp. Puharich was a physician and psychical researcher whom O'Neil had recruited to give the project scientific credibility.
With the enthusiastic support of the Camp Chesterfield authorities, O'Neill and Puharich went into a dark seance room equipped with infrared lights and film (and a snooperscope, a device developed by the United States Army for making night vision possible on the battlefield) and shot the materialization of a ghost.


The researchers were not underhanded in the least (after all, they believed in psychic phenomena, especially O'Neill, and both Edith Stillwell and Mable Riffle were told exactly what the infrared film would do -- make any figures in the totally dark room stand out as clearly as in the light of day -- and were allowed to take a peek for themselves through the snooperscope. The should have alerted them, but unaccountably they went ahead with the project.)
The experiment was a disaster for the spiritualists. Peering through the snooperscope in the dark, Puharich saw that what were supposed to be spirit forms of shimmering ectoplasm materializing out of thin air, were actually figures wrapped in chiffon entering the seance room through a hidden door from and adjacent apartment.
The infrared motion picture confirmed Puharich's observations. There, etched unmistakably on the film, were the familiar faces of camp mediums, dressed up in gauze, impersonating departed spirits. Tom O'Neill, the devout spiritualist, was devasted by the revelations.

The Psychic Mafia, pages 39 and 40.

And your point is. . .? How does that discredit the open challenge that Zammit gave? I just posted you an incredible fantansy of the typical atheist/skeptic (Dr. Stanley Krippner) who went to great lengths to dream up just about anything just to preserve his naturalism. "She had a small torch, . . . blah-blah-blah" - and he called that a more plausible explanation - vacantly asserted like the typical armchair atheist. Dr. Charles Tart who at least followed some conventional simple testing methods was disfavoured - and yet none of the atheists or skeptics could fault his findings.

The logic behind posting excerpts from the Psychic Mafia is at best another attempt to dance away from the gist of the discussion here. When the New York lawyer brought up such kind of an objection, this was precisely what Zammit noted:

[list]

2. Are you aware that many magicians and their accomplices have confessed to putting on convincing performances like the one you described using nothing but trickery? http://www.prairieghosts.com/seance2.html

Victor: That website would be irrelevant and inadmissible because it states itself ‘TRICKS OF FRAUDULENT MEDIUMS.’ I am not involved with ‘tricks of fraudulent mediums’. There was never an empirically conducted materialization experiment where the mediums used tricks or fraud or deceit. The website given is a narrative, hearsay account of some of the séances and is inadmissible. The narrative, third party writer there does not identify just one specific materialization experiment, let alone just one séance conducted by a scientist.

The article [size=14pt]also concedes that whereas there have been many fraudulent séances, there must have been genuine séances as well[/size]. Relating to fraud, the writer of the same article concedes, “… [size=16pt]this was not the case with every medium[/size] …’ meaning that cheating and fraud did not happen with genuine mediums. My research is strictly empirical. I would be more interested if you cited an example where empiricists, who were able to perceive the paranormal with empirical equanimity, were in control and where they had a gifted materialization medium - and to see what the results were. That you conveniently chose not to report. (See end of article for relevant links on empirical materializations).

[/list]

What the Psychic Mafia does for you is beggar the discussion, not objectively appraise the research of every investigator.

Let me give you another example for the moment about other studies in this regard. They are not precisely the same things; but I want you to compare the sort of rubrics one encounters in typical atheist deductions (ala  Dr. Stanley Krippner) for what they won't objectively investigate, and the simplicity in method of an objective enquirer (ala Dr. Charles Tart).

These are basic enquiries that many people are seeking answers to:


        [flash=320,265]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1RZRh8wbEI&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]

        Dr. Charles Tart, Prof. of Consciouness Studies,
        University of Nevada.
        Is there a consciousness that may survive the death of a person?
        Would his 'metholodogy' be credible?
        Would the criticism of skeptics like Dr. Stanley Krippner [at 3:19min]
        be intelligent and credible? Was it not rather far-fetched?

        _______________________________________________


        [flash=320,265]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFv5UcxQ7Xs&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]

        Documentary about scientific and phenomenological evidence
        of the Afterlife, and that the personality does not die. (Part 1)
        Some have tried to explain these phenomena through some
        permutations of Quantum Mechanics - not to disprove or deny
        their existence of reality; but to find a way of putting these things
        in scientific language.



        Part 2 - 9 available online:

       
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkdrW-JQnjI&NR=1

@huxley2,

huxley2:
Just ask yourself the question - why would Z&T put restriction on the type of equipment that could be used? Science demands that all its process be fair, open and repeatable. Hiding some parts of the experiments to the scrutiny of observer does not smack of openness and objective. Compare this with the methods of Sheldrake whose experiments (at least the ones I have seen and read about) are open for all to see.

This again is beginning to tend to the fallacious logic I highlighted earlier. The point first and foremost is to investigate at the preliminary level whether such entities as 'spirits' exist. One way they have approached that is within preliminary control and adequate precuations against fraud and sensory leakage. You talk about 'smack' this and that and keep sounding like you desperately rushed off to Zammit's website without even reading what you reposted from there! Zimmat has take the time to answer these kinds of questions, and you just keep harping on about some 'openness and objectivity' that you are not willing to find in atheist attitude to enquiry. Are the findings from Zimmat et al not "open for all to read"? The findings were "published in the Proceedings of the SPR (Vol 54 Pt 220) in 1999" - does that sound like it was locked up in a rabbit hutch? This circular unyielding logic you're assuming is wasting and weakning your arguments.

huxley2:
What did you mean by the following statement.

I meant precisely what I said: the very same critical approbation you demand from Z&T should no less be required of Randi et al.

huxley2:
I asked you what these terms are and you are unable to show them. So how could we judge if the terms are fair or unfair?

Okay, I hear. YOU show them and let's critique them for you. For once put your money where your mouth is.

huxley2:
PLEASE, PLEASE show me the terms. How do you expect me to answer if you do not show me the terms.

Did you not boast you were familiar with Randi for over 20 years (correct me if I'm wrong). Such familiarity is what I'd like to see demonstrated.

huxley2:
You seem to be fixated on personalities rather than the method. To assume the terms are unfair just because they are from Randi is called Personality Fixation or Personality Bias. Let us look at the terms and let the terms speak for themselves. ( I suspect this is one of those things you are going to evade, as is your wont)

I'm not fixated on personalities - at least you should not be hung up on Randi and co to the point of almostt slaving to submit yourself to him without first objectively critiquing his antics. I'm not evading anything - you have a penchant for this fallacious logic and you're not getting off on the cheap bus. I said seevral times that the moemnt you seek diversionary tactics, you will surprise yourself. Dress well.

huxley2:
Well, from what I have seen of Z&T so far, am afraid, I am no longer interested as their methods are unscientiffic (ie putting restrictions on what tools could be used by investigators. That is simply not science). When they have opened up to unrestricted scrutiny, then we can talk.

I would say you're not being objective, because you expect that if certain criteria do not assume your ideas, then it is not "science". That's not being objective. The 'restrictions' were for control measures - the very thing that scientific enquiry allows. If such restrictions and controls are unfair, the atheist who places such restrictions to open enquiry is also not doing science.

huxley2:
As per you question about Randi, can you show me any elements of their conditions (and I mean material aspects to the test, not financial or contractual or personal) which you think are not objective, then I may be able to respond.

What conditions did you assume about Randi before you thought anyone should submit to him? Quoting you: "I would submit myself to Randi for absolutely nothing" - on what criteria?

huxley2:
Remember, I look for methodology and not personalities.

I haven't swivelled the discussion on personalities, but rather kept it on its own merits.

huxley2:
Why would that make you laugh? When something appears fair and unbiased, I say it. What I saw in the RS experiments appeared open and objective. Alas for him, it did not prove his point, but it was scientific. Check this out on RS site http://www.sheldrake.org/experiments/pigeons/

I'm aware of Dr. Sheldrake's experiments - and I would have used them if they were germane to my discussions so far. I wonder that this is deviating from the specific examples I offered to now about whether one particular experiment from Sheldrake fills the cloud. The example I proffered is from Zimmat - can we focus on that and cut the distractions?

huxley2:
Does openness entail putting restrictions on the types of equipements that may be allowed in the "test"?

Possibly. If otherwise, could you please answer why Randi et al are not open to consider any such evidence unless on their own terms? Why so? Is that objectivity in enquiry?

huxley2:
Yet again, I have respect for his approach.  If only Z&T could be as open as RS.

I simply want to burst out laughing, Is it that you are just wishing Zammit and Thompson are not open? I wonder what you make of this:

However, David Thompson would take him on but not on the unilateral conditions set by Randi.

We would be confident to take the medium to anyplace – of your choice - where trapdoors – floors, walls and ceilings do not exist. That the room, floor, walls and ceilings are solid concrete with no windows and only one door which would be secured, sealed and guarded all the time by any independent party.

Do these sound like people who are not open? I wonder also that Dr. Rupert Sheldrake would be identifying with people who are having something to hide - for such unconventional attitudes are not in his books.

huxley2:
You are getting me wrong again and we have discussed this before. I am not a disciple of anybody. I look at the material they produce and see if that matches some objective standards. So although I have tended to agree with the standard of Randi's test, if I find any evidence of inadequacy I would be the first to shout out.

I just cannot read the voluminous cut & paste job you are doing about Randi. If you could summarise tha salient points, all 13 of them and post links to the main text, then I shall take a look. Since you have read all of them, I would expect you to know the main points enough to post a concise summary of them all.

I think I've made the point:

[list]

On the contrary, Randi owes much to his fawning crowd - for that his is boasted credential: a 'paranormal-debunker'. He has tried to "replicate" some of the claimed paranormal occurences or operations of some 'paranormalists'; why then is he shying away from this particular challenge? I don't think making excuses for him will do a nice pat on his back. He thinks he has the birthright to set at nought the pain-staking research of people well-versed in their fields; and yet when called upon (even publicly challenged), he has dawdled forever on this case.

[/list]

Reason why I cut-and-pasted those two examples is simply to flesh-up the case that James Randi's challenge is inconsequential. That's all. My response was to this point in yours:

[list]

Well, strictly speaking, the onus is NOT on Randi to replicate the results of Zammit & Thompson. There is an infinite number of ways in which Z&T are able to produce the result there get. To expect a challenger to pick the right one out of a sample space of infinity is unreasonable.

[/list]

The reason why I don't waste my time on Randi is simply that he has the uncanny flare to assume that all claims to the paranormal and supernatural are frauds. To this end, he set up a $1million prize challenge, but he's not objective enough to follow throw. Those who are keen to present such evidence are summarily dismissed (at least we know that's what happened between Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and Richard Dawkins). It is not as if these researchers have not tried to dialogue and present their findings to the skeptic "scientists" - it turns out that the skeptics are simply not serious about their claim to be objective and open to such evidence. That is the whole point that has brought us to this page.

Would you like the other 11 public challenges to James Randi et al? Would he be pretending that he has never seen ANY ONE of these? What has been his response (as some of us are not aware he has at any time attempted to credibly apply himself to face up to those challenges)? What is James Randi really dawdling about for?

@huxley2,
If I were you, I would not even try to shlepp on about Randi. I promised you the guy's not worth the publicity credited to him from his theatricals. I hope these few would help you come round to some objective appraisal.

Perhaps, after you've satisfied your curiosity, I'd have the happy occasion to move on to more engaging examples that atheists rarely talk about. Cheers.

__________________________

addendum:

Some of the researchers whose names appear above have already been mentioned in my early posts in this thread. Note the following:

[list]

Senior scientists and investigators who participated in the Scole materialization experiments:

Professor David Fontana

Professor Arthur Ellison

Montague Keen

Dr Hans Schaer [a lawyer]

Dr Ernst Senkowski

Piers Eggett

Keith Mcquin Roberts

Dr Rupert Sheldrake

Professor Ivor Grattan-Guiness

[/list]


[list]

1. https://www.survivalafterdeath.org.uk/articles/keen/keen1.gif Montague Keen

Journalist, agricultural administrator, magazine editor and farmer. A member of the Council of the Society for Psychical Research for 55 years, chairman of its Image and Publicity Committee and secretary of its Survival Research Committee, he was principal investigator of the Scole Group of physical mediums, and author of the Scole Report, published in the Proceedings of the SPR (Vol 54 Pt 220) in 1999 with his co-investigators Professors Arthur Ellison and David Fontana.

[/list]

[list]

2. https://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/images/victor-sm.gif Victor Zammit
Retired Lawyer of the Supreme Court of New South Wales,
and the High Court of Australia

[/list]


[list]

3. [img]http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:JL-jp_tlRa040M:http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/images/ep-9-sheldrake.jpg[/img] Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 75 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells. At Clare College he was also Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology.

source: http://www.sheldrake.org/About/biography/

[/list]

[quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3996540#msg3996540 date=1244489160]Let me post you two examples of such public challenges in my next post (I know of about 13 of such public challenges).[/quote][list]

https://www.survivalafterdeath.org.uk/articles/keen/keen1.gif Montague Keen
Journalist, agricultural administrator, magazine editor and farmer. A member of the Council of the Society for Psychical Research for 55 years, chairman of its Image and Publicity Committee and secretary of its Survival Research Committee, he was principal investigator of the Scole Group of physical mediums, and author of the Scole Report, published in the Proceedings of the SPR (Vol 54 Pt 220) in 1999 with his co-investigators Professors Arthur Ellison and David Fontana.

[size=14pt]The Ultimate Psychic Challenge - A Challenge to James Randi[/size]


Unethical treatment

A PRELIMINARY comment on Mr. Randi's ethics - and those of Fulcrum TV's producers: When he practices as a stage illusionist, the audience know they are being entertained and deceived: they suspend their disbelief and enjoy the show. To pretend to be a genuine psychic, and to connive with the TV staff without the knowledge or consent of the victims to garner details about members of the audience, their friends and their sitting positions, with a view to misleading them - even though the ruse is later acknowledged - is to employ deception in what was claimed to be a serious programme about a very serious subject.


Three Randiesque escapes

I should first note that Mr. Randi may consider himself fortunate on at least three counts: (1) The edited version omitted his first futile but extended attempts at cold reading which was so unsuccessful that the embarrassed floor manager had to announce a technical fault and stop the show. (2) The editing omitted what was probably the single most impressive piece of evidence, told to me beforehand in the Green Room and later to the audience, of an anonymous and untraceable booking made by a grieving father for a private reading with Keith Charles, the medium, who described to him the detailed contents and design of a sealed letter that had been placed, unbeknown to the father, in the coffin of his daughter by her sister. When Mr Randi asserted what he has since reiterated on his website, that all such messages could be attributable to cold reading as evidenced in Ian Rowland's instruction book, it was lucky for him that no-one had an opportunity to challenge this insult to our credulity. Even with hot reading prior research at his disposal, a stage illusionist could not have struck oil this rich. Charles himself, exceptionally restrained, was shut up, doubtless because of the severe time overrun. Finally, (3), it was lucky for Mr. Randi that Charles was given no opportunity to say why the $1m challenge was both misleading and worthless, an omission I hope to remedy below.

I need hardly say that the excision of the very brief comment I was allowed to make, explaining that serious scientists had long been fully aware of the cold and hot reading techniques, and had safeguarded against them by single or double-blind or proxy sittings, constituted a serious breach of trust by the producers, as well as letting Mr. Randi off the hook. Some idea of the sort of evidence Mr. Randi escaped answering is contained in a letter [click here] to the Glasgow Herald from one of the principal experimenters in a major investigation into the authenticity of mediumship.



A fraudulent insult

The "very obese" and "unattractive" Mrs Veronica Keen. Photograph taken one day after the show.
(As an aside, and to illustrate Mr. Randi's dedication to objectivity, I must also provide a more accurate account of the incident to which he devotes so much spleen on his website: his encounter in the exit corridor with a "very obese, unattractive woman" and his reaction to her "direct affront, a rude insult and an uncalled-for accusation" who "stabbed her finger at me, her face red and contorted with hatred" who called him a fake and a fraud, to which he calmly retorted in his best Churchillian manner, "Madam, you are ugly, but I can reform."

I am sure this is how Mr. Randi would like to remember the episode, but since I was alongside the lady at the time, and observed what went on, as did Dr. Parker and Dr. Puhle who were immediately in front of me, I should say that she takes (USA) size 10 clothes at Macy's, which is way down the obesity scale, is regarded as attractive for her age, smiled at Mr. Randi and said quite politely but firmly, with no finger stabbing, and to his obvious astonishment, "Mr. Randi you're a fraud", whereupon he staggered back and stammered, "And you, you, you, you're ugly," to which the lady responded as he disappeared backwards through the double doors, "But at least I'm honest". There was no Churchillian suffix. The classic Churchillian riposte, by the way, occurred when Mrs Bessie Braddock, a Labour MP of vast dimensions, accused him of being drunk; to which Churchill responded, "Yes, Madam, and you're ugly, but I shall be sober in the morning." This sets the standard for Mr. Randi's dedication to factual reality.)


That $1million offer

Now for the more serious bit: first, the $1million prize. Loyd Auerbach, a leading USA psychologist and President of the Psychic Entertainers Association (some 80% of the members of his Association believe in the paranormal, according to Dr. Adrian Parker, who was on the programme, but given no opportunity to reveal this) exposed some of the deficiencies in this challenge in an article in Fate magazine.

Under Article 3, the applicant allows all his test data to be used by the Foundation in any way Mr. Randi may choose. That means that Mr. Randi can pick and chose the data at will and decide what to do with it and what verdict to pronounce on it. Under Article 7, the applicant surrenders all rights to legal action against the Foundation, or Mr. Randi, no matter what emotional, professional or financial injury he may consider he has sustained. Thus even if Mr. Randi comes to a conclusion different from that reached by his judges and publicly denounces the test, the applicant would have no redress. The Foundation and Mr. Randi own all the data. Mr. Randi can claim that the judges were fooled. The implicit accusation of fraud would leave the challenger devoid of remedy.

These rules, be it noted, are in stark contrast to Mr. Randi's frequent public assertions that he wanted demonstrable proof of psychic powers. First, his rules are confined to a single, live applicant. No matter how potent the published evidence, how incontestable the facts or rigorous the precautions against fraud, the number, qualifications or expertise of the witnesses and investigators, the duration, thoroughness and frequency of their tests or (where statistical evaluation is possible) the astronomical odds against a chance explanation: all must be ignored. Mr. Randi thrusts every case into the bin labelled 'anecdotal' (which means not written down), and thereby believes he may safely avoid any invitation to account for them.

Likewise, the production of a spanner bent by a force considerably in excess of the capacity of the strongest man, created at the request and in the presence of a group of mechanics gathered round a racing car at a pit stop by Mr. Randi's long-time enemy, Uri Geller, would run foul of the small print, which requires a certificate of a successful preliminary demonstration before troubling Mr. Randi himself. A pity, because scientists at Imperial College have tested the spanner, which its current possessor, the researcher and author Guy Lyon Playfair, not unnaturally regards as a permanent paranormal object, and there is a standing challenge to skeptics to explain its appearance.


The Randi/Schwartz episode

That these doubts about the genuineness of Mr. Randi's dedication to objective research are far from theoretical may be concluded from the efforts made by Professor Gary Schwartz of Arizona University in designing his multi-centre, double-blind procedure for testing mediums. Schwartz was not interested in the prize money: he merely sought to obtain Mr. Randi's approval for his protocol for testing mediums - and he duly modified it to met Mr. Randi's suggestions. Having falsely declared that the eminent parapsychologist Professor Stanley Krippner had agreed to serve on his referee panel, Mr. Randi ensured that the other judges would be his skeptical friends Drs Minsky, Sherman and Hyman, all well-known and dedicated opponents of anything allegedly paranormal.

As the ensuing Randi/Schwartz correspondence (which Mr. Randi declined to print on his website) makes clear, when the outcome of the experiment proved an overwhelming success, Mr. Randi subsequently confused a binary (yes/no) analysis with the statistical method required to score for accuracy each statement made by a medium, and falsely accused Dr Gary Schwartz and his colleagues of selecting only half the data for analysis. He then derided the publication of Professor Schwartz's findings in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the world's oldest scientific peer-reviewed publication devoted to the paranormal, and in which Mr. Randi himself has published contributions. He criticised the fact that the Schwartz findings appeared in neither Nature nor Science, although he must have been aware of the long-standing refusal of these two leading scientific journals to publish anything touching on the paranormal. He then reported that one of the gifted mediums, John Edward, could have seen the sitter through a 2" curtain gap, regardless of the facts that the crack was about quarter of an inch, was subsequently sealed from ceiling to floor, and that readings were later done long distance. Mr. Randi declined an invitation to see all the raw footage for himself, while protesting that he would never [be allowed to] see it. Yet all the media representatives who visited the Arizona laboratory saw the raw footage, as did magicians and visiting scientists. Mr Randi specifically declined an invitation to be videoed viewing the data and commenting on it.

Equally, despite his confident assertions that cold reading can produce results as impressive as any from a platform medium, he declined an offer to prove it by comparing his performance with that of a genuine medium, surely a crucial test. Similarly, Mr. Randi accused the experimenters of "blatant data searching", i.e. remembering the hits and forgetting the misses. This was false, and could readily have been shown to be so. He thereafter publicly declined to read any of Professor Schwartz's emails, having confined himself to deriding the Professor for believing in the tooth fairy, making wild claims and being a "doctor who embraces bump-in-the-night theories without a trace of shame". Further, that he had been a colleague at Harvard of Dr John Mack, "the man who has never met anyone who hasn't been abducted by aliens", and similar abuse. This is the language and conduct of the gutter, not of an honest difference of opinion expressed in civilized and restrained terms about scientific issues.

Mr. Randi notoriously failed to fulfil his boast to be able to replicate Ted Serios' "thoughtography" tests (as described by his investigator, Dr Jule Eisenbud in The World of Ted Serios, Jonathan Cape, 1968) and has consistently ignored efforts by Mr. Maurice Grosse, the principal investigator of Britain's most famous recent poltergeist event, the Enfield Case[1], to examine the recorded visual and aural evidence to support a claim of paranormality and apparent veridical messages from a discarnate entity.

[1] See Guy Lyon Playfair's book This House is Haunted, Souvenir Press, 1980.

Worse still are the multiple errors of fact, admixed with derision, abuse and misrepresentation, which Mr. Randi makes in his book Flim-Flam (1980) about a number of distinguished scientists, notably Russell Targ, Harold Puthoff and Charles Tart and their roles in the remote viewing experiments with Ingo Swann and the clairvoyant claims of Uri Geller. That Randi's denunciations turned out to be mainly a tissue of lies is apparent from the penetrating account given by parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo in Psychic Breakthroughs Today[2], and devastatingly amplified in a recent website publication by Michael Prescott (http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm)

[2] Aquarian Press, 1987, pp.216-226.



[size=14pt]The challenge to Mr. Randi and friends[/size]

I am not applying for Mr. Randi's $1 million but only for some evidence that his challenge is genuine. I give underneath my comments on the television programme a list of some of the classical cases of paranormality with most or all of which Mr. Randi will be familiar. I know he will be because he has been studying the subject for half a century, he tells us. And just as I would not pretend to authority and expertise in conjuring unless I could perform some party tricks to bedazzle a troop of intelligent ten year olds, or apply for an assistant professorship in physics while admitting I had never heard of Boyle's Law or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, nor seek admission to the bar without first having some familiarity with the leading cases, so I would not imply that Mr. Randi is ignorant of these cases, many of which have long awaited the advent of a critic who could discover flaws in the paranormality claims. For me to suggest this would imply the grossest hypocrisy on Mr. Randi's part. But to refresh his memory, and help him along, and despite the refusal of some of his colleagues like Professor Kurtz, Professor Hyman and Dr. Susan Blackmore to meet the challenge, I list the requisite references. They are based on (although not identical to) a list of twenty cases suggestive of survival prepared by Professor Archie Roy and published some years ago in the SPR's magazine, The Paranormal Review as an invitation or challenge to skeptics to demonstrate how any of these cases could be explained by "normal" i.e. non-paranormal, means. Thus far there have been no takers. It is now Mr. Randi's chance to vindicate his claims.

___________________________________


[size=14pt]And here are the cases from which Mr. Randi may wish to select a handful to answer:[/size]

1. The Watseka Wonder, 1887. Stevens, E.W. 1887. The Watseka Wonder, Chicago; Religio-philosophical Publishing House, and Hodgson R., Religio-Philosophical Journal Dec. 20th, 1890, investigated by Dr. Hodgson.

2. Uttara Huddar and Sharada. Stevenson I. and Pasricha S, 1980. 'A preliminary report on an unusual case of the reincarnation type with Xenoglossy'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 74, 331-348; and Akolkar V.V. 'Search for Sharada: Report of a case and its investigation'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 86, 209-247.

3. Sumitra and Shiva-Tripathy. Stevenson I. and Pasricha S, and McLean-Rice, N 1989. 'A Case of the Possession Type in India with evidence of Paranormal Knowledge'. Journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration 3, 81-101.

4. Jasbir Lal Jat. Stevenson, I, 1974. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (2nd edition) Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

5. The Thompson/Gifford case. Hyslop, J.H. 1909. A Case of Veridical Hallucinations, Proceedings American Society for Psychical Research 3, 1-469.

6. Past-life regression. Tarazi, L. 1990. 'An Unusual Case of Hypnotic Regression with some Unexplained Contents'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 84, 309-344.

7. Cross-correspondence communications. Balfour J. (Countess of) 1958-60. 'The Palm Sunday Case: New Light On an Old Love Story'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 52, 79-267.

8. Book and Newspaper Tests. Thomas, C.D. 1935. 'A Proxy Case extending over Eleven Sittings with Mrs Osborne Leonard'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 43, 439-519.

9. "Bim's" book-test. Lady Glenconnor. 1921. The Earthen Vessel, London, John Lane.

10. The Harry Stockbridge communicator. Gauld, A. 1966-72. 'A Series of Drop-in Communicators'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 55, 273-340.

11. The Bobby Newlove case. Thomas, C. D. 1935. 'A proxy case extending over Eleven Sittings with Mrs. Osborne Leonard'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 43, 439-519.

12. The Runki missing leg case. Haraldsson E. and Stevenson, I, 1975. 'A Communicator of the Drop-in Type in Iceland: the case of Runolfur Runolfsson'. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69. 33-59.

13. The Beidermann drop-in case. Gauld, A. 1966-72. 'A Series of Drop-in Communicators'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 55, 273-340.

14. The death of Gudmundur Magnusson. Haraldsson E. and Stevenson, I, 1975. 'A Communicator of the Drop-in Type in Iceland: the case of Gudni Magnusson', Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 69, 245-261.

15. Identification of deceased officer. Lodge, O. 1916. Raymond, or Life and Death. London. Methuen & Co. Ltd.

16. Mediumistic evidence of the Vandy death. Gay, K. 1957. 'The Case of Edgar Vandy', Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 39, 1-64; Mackenzie, A. 1971. 'An Edgar Vandy Proxy Sitting'. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 46, 166-173; Keen, M. 2002. 'The case of Edgar Vandy: Defending the Evidence', Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 64.3 247-259; 'Letters', 2003, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 67.3. 221-224.

17. Mrs Leonore Piper and the George "Pelham" communicator. Hodgson, R. 1897-8. 'A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 13, 284-582.

18. Messages from "Mrs. Willett" to her sons. Cummins, G. 1965. Swan on a Black Sea. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

19. Ghostly aeroplane phenomena. Fuller, J.G. 1981 The Airmen Who Would Not Die, Souvenir Press, London.

20. Intelligent responses via two mediums: the Lethe case. Piddington, J. G. 1910. 'Three incidents from the Sittings'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 24, 86-143; Lodge, O. 1911. 'Evidence of Classical Scholarship and of Cross-Correspondence in some New Automatic Writing'. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 25, 129-142.



source: http://www.survivalafterdeath.org.uk/articles/keen/randi.htm
[/list]

[quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3996540#msg3996540 date=1244489160]Let me post you two examples of such public challenges in my next post (I know of about 13 of such public challenges).[/quote][list]
https://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/images/victor-sm.gif [size=14pt]A LAWYER ON THE SKEPTICS[/size]
by Victor Zammit
Retired Lawyer of the Supreme Court of New South Wales,
and the High Court of Australia


WHY NOBODY CAN WIN THE SKEPTIC'S REWARD - A LAWYER'S PERSPECTIVE

It is my professional view that the existing offer by J. Randi (hereinafter called the offeror) is impossible to win. Underneath the facade of a legitimate offer no gifted psychic has a chance of being successful.

Also, I had complaints that applicants were given the run around when they tried to apply to meet the offeror's challenge. A reasonable conclusion is that the offeror has no intention of allowing legitimate applicants to meet the challenge - has no intention of parting with any monies he is allegedly offering.


A fraudulent offer?

If the complainants are genuine - and as far as I know they are willing to substantiate their complaint by way of an affidavit - then it is not unreasonable to say the skeptic's offer is a technically fraudulent offer.


Who Is Conning the American People?

Considering the offer has allegedly been made since 1987 it is most suspicious that the offerer boasts that nobody has passed the initial test. Evidence from many parts of the world shows that the evidence for the afterlife is abundant, proven, definitive and conclusive. Complaints about the skeptic's offer show that any requests for the challenge are met with reticence, hostility and refusal to co-operate by the offeror.

Conduct shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the offeror's offer - can the offer be construed to be an attempt to fool the American people? Judge for yourself.

The offerer has unilaterally manipulated the proposed procedure to suit his own particular set of circumstances. It is only fair, equitable and reasonable that in any demonstration conditions be conducive for a psychic to perform without unnecessary encumbrances.

The reward has had a lot of propaganda value for skepticism and the offerer but it is not only difficult, it is utterly impossible to fulfil his prescribed most fundamental condition - successful demonstration of psychic phenomena.

From the psychic's perspective, the offerer physically exudes too much negativity which interferes with the psychic's powers. The offerer will cause the experimenter effect. He should not be physically present during the psychic demonstration. He of course could watch and conduct the proceedings through closed circuit television.


Minimal changes needed

For a realistic and practical challenge the following minimal conditions have to be observed:

the challenge be absolutely and unqualifiedly subject to the jurisdiction of the courts (some acceptable redrafting of the skeptic's offer would be essential).

the offerer's initial test (before the main psychic demonstration) be dispensed with in the case of accredited psychics.

that on successful completion of a psychic demonstration the monies be handed over to the psychic demonstrator forthwith ie, immediately after the applicant has fulfilled the fundamental condition of the challenge.

that the offerer not be anywhere where the psychic phenomenon is being demonstrated. This is because the offeror is technically an intruding negative extraneous variable and will inevitably make nugatory otherwise successful psychic tests - he exudes too much negativity for sensitives to operate properly. The offerer to appoint his agent acceptable to the applicant. He of course could watch and conduct the proceedings through closed circuit television.

that at the time of meeting the challenge the conduct of the agent be neutral - specifically, no gratuitous aggression, no hostility or any other socially unacceptable conduct that would be construed to be an intrusion to the testing. Aggression precipitates negative vibrations which interferes with optimum psychic activity.

that the challenger allows agents of the applicants to negotiate on behalf of the applicant at all times.

that any envisaged changes to any of the agreed procedures or conditions be given in advance with 21 days notice in writing.

that any experimentation be jointly controlled and agreement reached that there will be absolutely no interference whosoever during the performance of the psychic.

that written agreement as to what will constitute a successful demonstration of psychic phenomenon be made at least three weeks prior to any demonstration.
-- Victor Zammit (May 2001)


source: http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/reward.html

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huxley2:
When you say these scientists "participated" in these seances, do you know what role they play? Or were they just sitters. I suspect they were just sitters and had no way of influencing or controlling the conduct of the seance. I have just read a report of one of these seances here . The scientist present are not reported as influencing or control the event. On the contrary, if sounded as though some of their request were turned down.

It was a source of considerable anxiety and regret that we were unable to get them to accept the introduction of infrared video cameras at this stage. Page 169

Please refer - Zammit addressed that same complaint in your repost from his website.

huxley2:
If I was a scientist who was prevented from using my tools to investigate an event, I personally would not give it any endorsements

I anticipated you and have already replied to this idea. This was summarised earlier under three simple outcomes:

● I don't see something - therefore that is "evidence" it does not exist

● Something does not turn out my way - therefore that is "evidence" it's not possible

● I reject the arguments of some people - therefore that is "evidence" for my disbelief

You're obviously making the same fallacious logicum type of argument, huxley2.

huxley2:
BTW, I have been familiar with Randi for about 20 years and I had one of his books (Faith Healers), the one in which he investigates Christian Faith Healers. I have sent it to my brother in Cameroon. So, I am familiar with his work and I also subscribe to his channel on YouTube.

Lol, good point - does it disprove Zammit? I take that probably as a side-kick to the 'diversionary' thingy. Sadly, won't work for James Randi - the guy's not a serious undertaker, I can guaranttee you that. Doesn't matter how long he's been on his 'trade', when publicly challenged he always dawdles - "always", without exception!

huxley2:
Now, what do you make about his claims that Uri Geller's suppose gifts were simply magic tricks? Randi has been saying this for nearly 30 years, only for Geller himself to only recently admit it. Did you ever think Geller had supernatural powers?

The Uri Geller vs James Randi issue is controversial. I already perused them at length, and some sources have it that Uri was led to make such retractions because he was into huge debts for lawsuits against Randi's false assertions against him. Yes, it was said in some of those lawsuits that "Randi's claim was technically false" [here].

I don't know either way; however, I had tried to scale Uri's claims under the 'Committee for Skeptical Inquiry' criteria. Since I had a lower score from my own perspective for him, I didn't think it wise to refer you or NL atheists to his research as a viable example in my discussions. However, from the same controversy report above, here's an entry on the Randi-Uri saga:

Randi once commented that Uri Geller's tricks are of the same quality as those Randi
read on the backs of cereal packets as a child. Geller sued both Randi and CSICOP.
CSICOP disavowed Randi, pleading that the organization was not responsible for Randi's
statements. The court agreed that including CSICOP was frivolous, and they were dropped
from the action. Geller was ordered to pay substantial damages to CSICOP. The order
specifically excluded Randi from receiving any of the damages. At this time, Randi and Geller
had both run up huge legal bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. In a
private meeting they achieved an out-of-court settlement , the details of which have been kept
private. This case was largely responsible for the mutual decision of Randi and CSICOP to part
company. [see here].

However, this Uri-Randi saga by no means should be transferred to affect Zammit's public challenge to James Randi. The latter doesn't not seem to have the plunk to throw words carelessly around at Victor Zammit (not only because he's a retired professional lawyer, but probably also for the fact that Randi knows he cannot face up to any credibility in such a challenge). Why do I think so? Let me post you two examples of such public challenges in my next post (I know of about 13 of such public challenges).

As promised:

[quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3996313#msg3996313 date=1244485450]. . I'll oblige and then seek to contextualize this for you us so that we can move on beyond this stage[/quote]As regards contextualizing such discussions - here's something from the 'Committee for Skeptical Inquiry' on testing the research of Gary E. Schwartz (Ph.D) in these phenomena. Please observe: I do not necessarily agree with most of the article, but as one who's not affected by conclusive bias one way or the other, I'd agree with some of the criteria for testing the claims to the supernatural and paranormal:

[list]
How Not to Test Mediums
Critiquing the Afterlife Experiments

. . .

First, I will list here the major types of flaws in the experiments described
in his first four reports (I will deal with the fifth report separately below):

1. Inappropriate control comparisons
2. Inadequate precautions against fraud and sensory leakage
3. Reliance on non-standardized, untested dependent variables
4. Failure to use double-blind procedures
5. Inadequate "blinding" even in what he calls "single blind" experiments
6. Failure to independently check on facts the sitters endorsed as true
7. Use of plausibility arguments to substitute for actual controls

The preceding list refers to defects in the conduct of the experiments and in the gathering of the data. Other very serious problems appear in the way Schwartz interprets and presents the results of his research. These include:

8. The confusion of exploratory with confirmatory findings
9. The calculation of conditional probabilities that are inappropriate and grossly misleading
10. Creating non-falsifiable outcomes by reinterpreting failures as successes
11. Inflating significance levels by failing to adjust for multiple testing and by
treating unplanned comparisons as if they were planned.

Source: http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-01/medium.html
[/list]

I already perused these criteria when selecting Zammit's research. What lent credence to his own case was that he seemed to have scaled or passed them easily, as well provided articulate answers to objections. His boldness to publicly challenge celebrated 'paranormal-debunkers' such as James Randi is also a plus. The calibre of "scientists" who attended the sessions is also noted. Control precuations were not absent or neglected; and avoiding sentionalism in his substance of his report.


I've tried to be genial enough once again to look at things from the perspective of the skeptic rather than from the theist. The advantage in such an approach is to engage the minds and hearts of the atheist in a reasonable manner that would help sustain his interest. Ultimately, I have at the back of my mind that such an honest atheist would be better able to appreciate the fact that there is a reality beyond his naturalism, for which an answer is proffered for the statement: Why I Am Not An Atheist. As a Christian, I've tried to do my homework well enough to engage the atheist at his level; that is why I'm confident to meet the atheist at his own front door and explore his quest for "evidence that shows something beyond his worldview".

@huxley2,

Lol, you seem to be making things even more difficult for yourself. But I'll oblige and then seek to contextualize this for you us so that we can move on beyond this stage - I'm receiving indications that the Zammit case is being dragged on longer than necessary.

huxley2:
Well, strictly speaking, the onus is NOT on Randi to replicate the results of Zammit & Thompson. There is an infinite number of ways in which Z&T are able to produce the result there get. To expect a challenger to pick the right one out of a sample space of infinity is unreasonable.

On the contrary, Randi owes much to his fawning crowd - for that his is boasted credential: a 'paranormal-debunker'. He has tried to "replicate" some of the claimed paranormal occurences or operations of some 'paranormalists'; why then is he shying away from this particular challenge? I don't think making excuses for him will do a nice pat on his back. He thinks he has the birthright to set at nought the pain-staking research of people well-versed in their fields; and yet when called upon (even publicly challenged), he has dawdled forever on this case.

huxley2:
Take for instance, the scientists that first discover a new phenomenon or process or entity. Does he/she challenge all other scientist to replicate or reproduce his/her result? NO. On the other hand, they present their methods in professional journal/media for the scientific world to review. That is how objectivity is gained. Any scientist who claims a result but does not expose his method to this level of scrutiny is treated as a crank.

What do you think Zammit is hiding from the public after publishing his findings in a book for the public to read? What do you think other scientists were doing when they rose to the challenge of participating in the séance sessions to see things for themselves? What names were included in Zammit's list? Here again -

Senior scientists and investigators who participated in the Scole materialization experiments:

Professor David Fontana

Professor Arthur Ellison

Montague Keen

Dr Hans Schaer [a lawyer]

Dr Ernst Senkowski

Piers Eggett

Keith Mcquin Roberts

Dr Rupert Sheldrake

Professor Ivor Grattan-Guiness

- all with scientific or other relevant background and a host of other highly credible
witnesses who have had years of experience in dealing with the paranormal. In the
United States sessions were also attended by a number of scientists. There were a
number of senior scientists from the space agency NASA and others from the Institute
of Noetic Sciences . .[ ] near San Francisco as well as representatives from
Stanford University.

If people like James Randi are serious, would he claim that anyone prevented him from also attending the séance sessions as these respected names above? Is Randi a science institution all by himself that researchers owe anything to him for verification? The guy is cheap, drop him. It was specifically people like him I had in mind in references to 'dunce' (my apologies, as I don't mean this personally against you). Randi hasn't discharged himself credibly in Zammit's challenge - so who owes Randi any submissions?

huxley2:
So to follow standard procedure, Z&T ought to submit their methods to scientific scrutineers.

And who might that be, precisely - James Randi? Puhleease! I'm not aware of any of the listed names above discrediting Zammit; and if they actually attended the sessions to see things for thmeselves, could other enquirers not do the same?

huxley2:
The money thing offer by Randi is just an inducement.

I'm sorry to say, but that is a huge minus on his part. He ought not to be deceiving the public as if he meant what he was stating in that challenge. This is even more reason why no one owes him anything and should roundly ignore him.

huxley2:
If I was truly capable of "supernatural" powers, I would submit myself to Randi for absolutely nothing. After all, wouldn't such knowledge be useful to mankind.

Don't kid yourself, huxley2. I'll take it for granted that you don't know James Randi. Could I remind you again of what I highlighted? here:
[list]

I had complaints from psychics and investigators – Michael Roll, Chris Robinson and others, who had great problems communicating with Randi, notwithstanding they acted according to the instructions on his offer. He just does not respond to their correspondence.

[/list]
Submit however one may, and comply with or act according to the instructions on his offer, he would still not respond credibly. Is that the sort of "scientist" who discharges himself as seeking to establish 'truth' free from bias?

huxley2:
If I knew of a reliable way of contacting my father who is in the "spirit world" for advice useful to me in this world, I would be all too happy to share that knowledge with the rest of the world FOR FREE.

Yes, people are doing that in one way or another - some for a fee that does not reap them net profits. However, let me quickly say here that such is not the raison d'être of my Christian worldview. We have a legitimate claim of the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts, spirits, etc - and it is not just about this world that such knowledge could be useful. The bigger question is this: what is the implication for a naturalist who only discovers such a reality when it's too late? If we left this enquiry to the likes of James Randi et al, are we not flirting with a dangerous gamble?

Please consider these matters carefully, and much regards.

huxley2:
Why do you think Zammit would invite these scientist to participate in these seances but when asked to perform under the scrutiny of Randi refuses?

What exactly are you suggesting about those scientists? Has anyone denied Randi himself participating in such séance to verify things for himself?

The one that amazes me is this:

[list]

I had complaints from psychics and investigators – Michael Roll, Chris Robinson and others, who had great problems communicating with Randi, notwithstanding they acted according to the instructions on his offer. He just does not respond to their correspondence.

[/list]
[list]

However, David Thompson would take him on but not on the unilateral conditions set by Randi. Among other things, the $1million would have to be deposited with a truly independent stakeholder and on proving the paranormal has taken place, the $1m would have to be handed over to the medium forthwith – no subsequent if’s, but’s, or maybe’s or “let me think about it”.

[size=14pt]Randi fails to beat my own challenge[/size]

For the record, Randi has not applied to beat my own $1million challenge. He implied he would when my offer first came out on the internet – some eight years ago. I am still waiting for him and any of those highly qualified empiricists closed minded skeptics on the East Coast to take me on.

[/list]

For several years now after Zammit threw out the challenge to Randi et al, why have they not take him on that challenge and cleared all doubts? What is Randi scared of that he has not responded to the correspondence of Michael Roll, Chris Robinson and others? If Randi is credible, why has he been dawdling on this matter and yet not braved Zammit's challenge?

@noetic2,

noetic2:
[quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3994373#msg3994373 date=1244463267]But wait a moment. . . why is it that it's only very few atheists that are in this thread, hmmmm? Apart from Tùdor, huxley2, William_C. . where are the 'typical atheists' on NL?


Just an observation though.

where do u think they are?

All they are waiting for is for huxley to successfully divert the topic to their "comfort zone". . .  u will then see them like cockroaches trooping in.

My prophecy is that they will soon resort to insults. . . . .[/quote]Lol, I dey wait for them. I trust huxley2 is being objective so far - but any distractions or diversionary accrobatics will be summarily thrown out. That's how the discussions have proceeded thus far, and that's how it's gonna be.

noetic2:
@Huxley

How very convenient to divert the issue on ground. 5 pages and u are yet to produce ur scientific and intellectual evidences.

how long should I wait?

Hehe. . you dey wait? E go tay before you find answers o!!

. . . continued.

3. Do you know that many magicians take great care to secure themselves to a chair (or in a locked trunk or something) specifically for the purpose of misdirection because their tricks do not depend on them being free?

Victor: Be that as it may, you are obviously implying that the medium has accomplices. I stated and will re-state, that it physically impossible for the genuine materialization mediums such as David Thompson to have had accomplices. With extreme care, I (and others) checked the security for fraud myself and guarantee, with absolute certainty, that it was physically impossible for accomplices to have participated in the materialization experiment.

We would be confident to take the medium to anyplace – [size=14pt]of your choice[/size] - where trapdoors – floors, walls and ceilings do not exist. That the room, floor, walls and ceilings are solid concrete with no windows and only one door which would be secured, sealed and guarded all the time by any independent party. But then, a magician of your choice would have to duplicate the experiment under identical conditions – and when that magician fails, he’s got to hand over half a million dollars to the medium David Thompson (see below).

'Randi'-club, what are you doodling about and wasting time in that challenge?    Is $1 million dollars too much money to hand over to Mr. Thompson? What an audacious challenge that must be from Zammit - and many of us have waited to see Randi take on Zammit and shut his trap! Where's Randi and his super-zealous team?

8. Did you bar all entrances to keep out any accomplices unknown to you?

Victor: (**** see answer to your question 5, above.) Yes, absolutely. As I stated, it is physically impossible for accomplices to enter the room because there are obstacles to open the door. There was only one entrance/exit door. All windows were locked from the inside. There were no trap doors in the ceiling, walls or floor.

Was that "objective" enough?

11.Would you like $1 million US dollars? If you can repeat the events that you described, James Rand will pay you one million dollars. Go to www.randi.org for more information.

Victor: Let me say this first, I have been advising leading psychics in the U.S. and elsewhere not to fall for Randi’s trap. My research into the offer is that it is propaganda, not a genuine offer. I do not consider the $1million dollar challenge to be genuine. First, he is on record for stating to one of the founders of CSICOP, “I will always have a way out (of paying the $1million)”. That speaks volumes; that reveals intention and that is not denied by Randi. That expressly stated intention shows that he is not genuine and will find someway of not paying the $1m. We are on notice Randi is going to do that.

I had complaints from psychics and investigators – Michael Roll, Chris Robinson and others, who had great problems communicating with Randi, notwithstanding they acted according to the instructions on his offer. He just does not respond to their correspondence.

[size=16pt]However, David Thompson would take him on but not on the unilateral conditions set by Randi. Among other things, the $1million would have to be deposited with a truly independent stakeholder and on proving the paranormal has taken place, the $1m would have to be handed over to the medium forthwith – no subsequent if’s, but’s, or maybe’s or “let me think about it”.[/size]

[size=14pt]Randi fails to beat my own challenge[/size]

For the record, Randi has not applied to beat my own $1million challenge. He implied he would when my offer first came out on the internet – [size=14pt]some eight years ago[/size]. I am still waiting for him and any of those highly qualified empiricists closed minded skeptics on the East Coast to take me on.

Quite audacious! Now, there. .there. . I hope when atheists begin to sing tunes about Randi they can bear this in mind. Zammit did not throw out that challenge 8 minutes ago - it's been more than 8 YEARS, and Randi's been doodling and crooning to his fawning crowd. Randi's talk is cheap - he should be man enough to take Zammit on!

For the record, I guarantee that paranormal activity is taking place in these below- mentioned materialization experiments. I also state that I shook hands with an entity claiming to be a materialized Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and state that his hand was solid, and that his voice was inches away from where I was. His answers to my questions were taped. At this stage, we are empirically studying the materialized voices to see if there can be an correlation between the voices of those who materialized and their voices when they were alive on earth. At this stage we only have a prima facie case made out that these materialized etherians are who they claim to be. We will be announcing all empirical results on my website in the future.

The above information is very likely to upset the conservatives because it is questioning entrenched traditional cherished beliefs and values. It is challenging scientific orthodoxy and materialism. It is evidence that consciousness survives physical death.

Follow the above with the credibility below:

EXTERNAL CREDIBILITY OF MATERIALIZATION

The SCOLE EXPERIMENT http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter05.html which is well documented confirms everything David Thompson is doing. The investigators are highly credible scientists, psychologists, lawyer, and other professionals. See below.

[list]

[color=#000099]Senior scientists and investigators who participated in the Scole materialization experiments included Professors David Fontana, Professor Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. Of course, over the four years and five hundred sittings there were many others who attended as senior scientists and guests in the actual experiments: Dr Hans Schaer a lawyer, Dr Ernst Senkowski, Piers Eggett, Keith Mcquin Roberts, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, Professor Ivor Grattan-Guiness - all with scientific or other relevant background and a host of other highly credible witnesses who have had years of experience in dealing with the paranormal. In the United States sessions were also attended by a number of scientists. There were a number of senior scientists from the space agency NASA and others from the Institute of Noetic Sciences[/color] http://www.noetic.org/ near San Francisco as well as representatives from Stanford University.

[/list]

Would you agree with me that these are quite serious claims, huxley2? At least, there's just one way to shut this Zammit up - the honest atheist could easily try to contact such "senior scientists" to corroborate Zammit's claim. I don't know if they already did that - and what are the results?


You see, why I used Zammit's research as an example is not as though there are no other more engaging phenomena that researchers have highlighted or reported. It's rather that Zammit's case is interesting, in that he answers questions seriously and throws out a challenge at the skeptic grandfathers - particularly RANDI. . . and the latter has been doodling for . .  how long? EIGHT YEARS? Does that not tell you anything, huxley2?

Let's go beyond this armchair atheistic . .em. . . em (goodness, there I go again) - let's go beyond this armchair atheistic fallacious logicum and take this discussion to the front door of the typical atheist! I did my home work well enough to tackle the typical objections before drawing just 10 observations about typical atheist arguments. The audacious challenges of these non-religious researchers is yet unapproached by people like Randi et al.

What is happening to the 'typical' Nairaland atheists arguments? I'm still keen on taking this dialogue to your front door and meeting you one-to-one!

@huxley2,

As promised:

[list][quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3995581#msg3995581 date=1244476651]He listed such independent corroborators in the research. In my subsequent reply I'll post relevant sections for these.[/quote][quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3995581#msg3995581 date=1244476651]The thing is that you haven't shown objectivity in your faulting Zammit - if only you take a second look at what you reposted from his website. I'll highlight some of these in just a moment following this reply.[/quote][quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=279631.msg3995581#msg3995581 date=1244476651]He did more than you requested - and I deliberately chose him as a viable and credible example for precisely that criteria and even more. Some of these are what I shall highlight subsequently.[/quote][/list]

After all the typical reactions (actually 'distractions') of those most skeptics, I'd like to ask you to consider the following from what you posted. It is not as if Zammit's research and report are smooth and tight, for I don't know who's "objective" enough to say that is the case?

1. Are you aware that magicians have been replicating the performance you described for over a hundred years?

Victor: Not only am I aware that a couple of magicians have been putting on shows claiming they are replicating the paranormal – but without scientific scrutiny - I am also aware there have been, and there are, genuine empirically based materializations experiments taking place. I am also aware that there are quacks, charlatans and other tricksters of every kind in every profession, in science, in medicine and in the paranormal.

To my knowledge, there has never ever been a magician who was able to duplicate the performance of a gifted materialization medium producing phenomena under strict empirical scrutiny. Never. It just could not be done. There has never been an instant where strict empirical methodology was applied and where a magician was able to produce materializations, produce materialized phenomena and produced materialized voices. Never. And to the claim that a trained actor can come up with seven different voices, with a gag firmly around his mouth, I guarantee it can never be done.

Certainly, I have problems with such assertions. Although I do not have (or rather, I'm not aware of) any record of any magician producing the effects that Mr Zammit asserts, the tone of finality ("Never. It just could not be done" is a bit brash. The better thing that perhaps could be said is that he has not seen, heard or experience such phenomena in any magician (for it would be preposterious to assume that Zammit knows every single magician in the world - a great feat, I might say). The idea that "I guarantee it can never be done" is an overblown confidence and quite reactive on his part. That does not mean therefore that all his work crashes on these complaints; but one has to be careful with attitudes as well.

2. Are you aware that many magicians and their accomplices have confessed to putting on convincing performances like the one you described using nothing but trickery? http://www.prairieghosts.com/seance2.html

Victor: That website would be irrelevant and inadmissible because it states itself ‘TRICKS OF FRAUDULENT MEDIUMS.’ I am not involved with ‘tricks of fraudulent mediums’. There was never an empirically conducted materialization experiment where the mediums used tricks or fraud or deceit. The website given is a narrative, hearsay account of some of the séances and is inadmissible. The narrative, third party writer there does not identify just one specific materialization experiment, let alone just one séance conducted by a scientist.

Fair enough.

The article also concedes that whereas there have been many fraudulent séances, there must have been genuine séances as well. Relating to fraud, the writer of the same article concedes, “… this was not the case with every medium …’ meaning that cheating and fraud did not happen with genuine mediums. My research is strictly empirical. I would be more interested if you cited an example where empiricists, who were able to perceive the paranormal with empirical equanimity, were in control and where they had a gifted materialization medium - and to see what the results were. That you conveniently chose not to report. (See end of article for relevant links on empirical materializations).

Okay.

A repeated fundamental objection by the hard core skeptics is that there is no ectoplasm – that in fact the medium uses ‘cheesecloth.’ Two things I say to that: first, Professor Donald West (Society for Psychical Research U.K.) is on record for seriously suggesting that materialization medium Helen Duncan hid the ‘cheesecloth’ in her anus to fool the sitters. This he stated when he was severely criticizing Helen Duncan’s materialization mediumship chapter 11 of my book www.victorzammit.com (see http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter11.html . “It’s possible” Professor West boasted defiantly, for that to be done. So I challenged this good Professor to demonstrate himself that to me. [size=14pt]I would accordingly challenge Randi or any hard core skeptic who claims that - to show how they can stick long piece of white cheesecloth - the size of a long scarf – then make it appear in form of a human being[/size] – e.g. like Louis Armstrong, then to make it sing “Hello Dolly” in the raspish, deep, resonant voice of Louis Armstrong.

Where's Randi? He likes to throw out $1 million dollars, eh? There's a challenge - free of charge!

@huxley2,

huxley2:
From what you know of the Zammit experience, supposing the same write-up were submitted as a thesis in a university for say a Masters or PhD, would you recommend a pass, fail, referral for more work? Let me tell you where I stand. I would recommend referral.

There certainly are serious grounds for why I would take your exact same recommendation - referral. Man, you impressed me there, I must admit - if I'd proffered that question and you chose anything else, it would make me rethink.

huxley2:
Why? Because I would like to see

1) samples of ectoplasm and the results of a DNA analysis

What if it were recommended that you attend one of those sessions in situ? Put another way, assuming a scientist told you about the existence of "dark matter" (a substance that scientists think exists out in space, but for which they have no direct proof), would you be acting the same way and asking for sampling? Would such a suggestion be thrown out simply because you cannot obtain your required "samples"? In the same way, are there no other means or ways of direct observation to verify the claims in the ectoplasm research as in Zammit's?

huxley2:
2) The use of motion detector or talcum power

He mentioned talcum powder, at least. More research (according to him) would be conducted to augment current findings.

huxley2:
3) Night-vision equipement

He explained this as well.

huxley2:
4) Sample from the "spirit"

Refer above to my observations about in situ direct observations.

huxley2:
5) Some justification that spirit and ectoplasm are sensitive to "scientific equipments"

he gave some pointers in this regard.

huxley2:
6) I would get another independent outside body (just like external PhD examiners) to review the process and outcome.

He listed such independent corroborators in the research. In my subsequent reply I'll post relevant sections for these.

Strange that I asked the above questions and more as you did, before selecting Zammit's research as a credible example for this discussion. I'm inclined to a consistency in my approach, which is why I've been referring to researches or examples from non-religious sources. It does not mean that I've abandoned my own convictions in my Christian worldview; but I thought that citing non-religious sources may help foster a good dialogue with Nairaland atheists. There are many more of such examples; but Zammit's passed my evaluation test to be included in this discussion.

huxley2:
I do not deny that Mr Zammit has not investigated Mr Thompson, but he falls short of an unbiased objective investigator. I realised that you would make the same accusation about science, but this position of tentative skeptism is what makes science such a powerful tool.

On the contrary, I'm not that presumptive to accuse "science" of anything. The thing is that you haven't shown objectivity in your faulting Zammit - if only you take a second look at what you reposted from his website. I'll highlight some of these in just a moment following this reply.

huxley2:
Now, you sit here and comfortably enjoy the fruits of science and the scientific method and yet you have the gall to describe the hard-working scientist and lazy dunces.

I didn't describe hard-working scientist as such, but was referring to those who pretend to be doing "science" without objectivity. If someone would be hooting for 'scientific method' and is unwilling to be objective, I would take such a person with little consequence.

huxley2:
Can you name one useful fruit of supernaturalism?

That's what has brought us thus far: the understanding that there's a reality beyond atheistic naturalism. It's funny that all the examples I've presented have not received objective critique from you guys; nor have you demonstrated your own working hypothesis for the terms you discuss. On the other hand, I also asked a question: what would be the implications for the atheist naturalist when he discovers that there's indeed a supernatural reality?

huxley2:
Mr Zammit claims to be a thorough investigator, yet he did not put in place some of the most basic of things to ensure that his investigation was thorough and unbiased. Does that smack you as hard-working and dilligent?

He did more than you requested - and I deliberately chose him as a viable and credible example for precisely that criteria and even more. Some of these are what I shall highlight subsequently.

huxley2:
Just name one useful fruit of supernaturalism that is enjoyed the world over and recognised as having brought mankind wholesome benefits, and I shall rest my case.

I have - please refer above.

Before I continue, let me make one thing absoultely clear: I'm not Mr Zammit's amanuensis or standing to defend his work. It's obvious that he is well able to defend his work against any skeptic.

That said, let me review your latest concerns.

huxley2:
Well, this is not an indictment on you but on Mr Zammit.

I understand that.

huxley2:
He claims to be an empericist who has used objective means to investigate the claims of Mr Thompson. But when one begins to investigate his methods, one finds it falls short of what mainstream scientific investigators would use;

Mainstream scientific investigators of the sort that you may be referring to are intellectually lazy dunces. Lol, that is not an indictment at you; but I find this convenient clap-trap quite amusing and just too irrestible to throw out whenever it crops up.

Let's be objective: you seem to assume that there is "only one way and one way only" to emprical research; so that if it does not turn out in a certain way as you had anticipated, it could then be null and void! That is quite cultish and very revealing of a closed mindset to enquiry. Let's mirror this against what you've stated:

huxley2:
1) He never used any motion detectors

That is self-explanatory, as it is not on that basis that the whole research falls. Let's review his answers:

[list]

9. Did you place bubble wrap on the floor or employ motion detectors?

Victor: No we did not. As abovestated, we only had three brief sittings. There is still so much to consider. I am hoping that the experiments will go on for the next six months where other method will be used to assist in the empirical procedure. We will be employing different methods to continue to show what is really happening. In one experiment in England the experimenters among other things put talcum powder on the floor.

[/list]

If it was about detecting motion or movements that might otherwise reveal that there were movements within the room or enclosure (in the case of footsteps), re-read this one I posted earlier:

[list]

The room in which the séance took place was one that Thompson had never entered before. Since Thompson hails from the UK and has recently been living in Australia, it's not surprising that he would be unfamiliar with a building in the USA. The room was small and, when all the sitters were assembled, quite crowded. Between 22 and 24 people sat for the séance in closely arranged chairs that left little or no room for maneuvering. The sitters arranged large plywood boards over the carpeted floor so that any footsteps would be audible. Thompson was secured to a chair he had not supplied -- which, again, is not surprising, since he would hardly have transported a chair from overseas to the United States. The circle members were seated so closely together, in such cramped quarters, that had any of them left the circle, the person's defection would surely have been detected. The only door to the room was locked, and the windows were boarded shut. Thompson himself was placed in a makeshift "cabinet" -- essentially he was behind a curtain. Everyone was searched with the use of a metal detector when entering the room. Their pockets and shoes were examined, and many of their belongings (jewelry etc.) were removed.

[/list]

Were there no other ways to detect the sort of 'motion' that you were enquiring about?

huxley2:
2) The seances were conducted in darkness and he did not use any night vision devices

I think he's very well answered that objection.

huxley2:
3) He has no sample of the outcome of the seances

He answered that as well. I also asked you a simple question in that regard - what sayest thou?

huxley2:
4) He claimed he shoke hands with a spirit and called it "solid", but he has no sample of material from the "spirit". How could it have been "solid" to the extend that he shoke hand with him?

Is it possible that you're mixing issues up for yourself? He did not describe the spirit as essential composed of physical material for it to be "solid". That it manifested in such ways does not make a 'spirit' something you could collect in a crucible.

huxley2:
Simply put, his methodology is flawed and even a 16 year old fresherman/woman would see just would unscientific his methods are.

You have not shown how his methodology is flawed but only reacting from your mental bias. Thank goodness you were the one to rush to his website and reproduce his well-articulated answers to the sort of objections you raised. Just because his methodology may be "flawed" (without your showing how), what conclusions have you derived therefrom?

Lol, predictable. . . distractions with long-drawn out posts.

Let me help you:

huxley2:
Victor: Close ‘content analysis’ of your overall statements and questions reveal that you are operating with at least three unfair and unfounded ‘presumptions’:

i) the presumption that the paranormal does not exist and therefore whatever I report cannot be right,
ii) the presumption that fraud is taking place in these materializations,
iii) the presumption that you have a monopoly on truth and anything inconsistent with your truth just cannot be valid.

/\
   ||
Do you have a problem with those assumptions, huxley2?

huxley2:
Further content analysis of what you stated reveals:

iv) your own deeply entrenched negative partiality against materializations,
v) that you are a ‘hard line skeptic’.

A more impartial analyst would not have stated, “…I was very disappointed to read your rather positive review of a séance…” but would have demanded more information to confirm what exactly occurred during the materializations of David Thompson in June 06 in order to come to the right conclusions. You came to your negative conclusions without having the full information and your conclusions are not consistent with the evidence stated in my report (stated in my original first report about David’s materializations).

/\
   ||
And that also?

huxley2:
B) Essentially, you bound a man to a chair and sat in darkness while experiencing various phenomena. You then turned on the lights and a man was still bound in a chair.

Victor:That would be an oversimplistic description of what actually happened and tends to reduce the fundamental changes which took place during the materialization experiment. You left out many critical procedures. For example, we bound to a chair a special man - a ‘materialization medium’, not just a ‘man’.

This medium is a gifted materialization medium. He emitted ectoplasm. Ectoplasm mediums are extremely rare in this world. I only know of one in Australia. Two in the UK and none in the U.S. that I know of. This ectoplasm was the ‘medium’ which reduced the afterlife vibrations of the etherians to physical vibrations for materializations - for the etherians to become solid. Those with scientific background have scientifically explained materialization process in my chapter 6 of my book, Einstein’s ‘E=mc2 and materialization’ (A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife www.victorzammit.com ).

/\
   ||
And this, hmmm?

huxley2:
The critical importance of ectoplasm: ectoplasm, a whitish gaseous substance, can only function in total darkness and sometimes in low red light. When police raided the British materialization medium Helen Duncan 1956 in Nottingham, England (see chapter 11) and put the light on during a materialization experiment, the ectoplasm was quickly drawn back into the medium with great force, eventually killing her.

Ectoplasm was scientifically studied, Professor Richet, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Physiology and by Professor W D Crawford from Queen’s University, Belfast. Both admitted its existence and wrote scientific reports about ectoplasm. Baron Von Schrenck-Notzing, a Munich physician, showed that ectoplasm is composed of leucocytes – white or colorless blood cells – and epithelial cells – those from the various protective tissues of the body.

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So far so good? . . or you have an 'epistemology' that deviates from that?

huxley2:
C) Your inability to see during the performance would seem to make you a very questionable witness.

Victor: If by ‘questionable’ you mean unreliable, then I reject that completely. If by ‘questionable’ you mean needing further questions, yes, I accept that. It all goes to credit. It is not dissimilar to a situation when you close your eyes in a room sitting down and someone comes up to you very close – up to twelve inches away from you, talking to you in an intelligent way. You know that someone is holding a conversation with you; you know that the conversation is being taped, you know a voice is produced with its peculiar rhythm, pace, pitch, intonation; you know that someone actually shakes hands with you; you feel the materialized hand, it is solid as yours; that someone asks you intelligent questions. You ask the voice questions and obtain intelligent answers.

Now I submit that when this situation occurs it does not mean that it is impossible or impractical that someone is actually there in a materialized form, performing, doing the talking, the conversing and the answering of questions. Besides, there have been other prominent people with the highest credibility in this world who reported similar incidents to what I reported – including the abovementioned Nobel Laureate Professor Richet and Professor W D Crawford.

Oga huxley2, comprehend? What epistemology bores holes in Zammit's answers?

huxley2:
D) Your professed belief in the supernatural would also make you a biased observer - preferring to see confirmation of your beliefs than all of the ways you may have been deceived.

Victor: [size=14pt]I NEVER professed any belief in the supernatural[/size]. That is an assumption which I reject, totally. Unlike you with your skeptical beliefs, I do NOT have the luxury of ‘beliefs’. As a matter of fact since I started investigating the paranormal and the afterlife I have never stated at any time that I believe in anything. [size=14pt]I am on record for accepting the evidence for the afterlife[/size]. Objective evidence has nothing to do with beliefs. One is objective the other is subjective.

Notwithstanding that I am a university trained lawyer (now retired) I am also an empiricist. I am also formally qualified with a Major in Psychology with three years full time of Scientific Method. For the last sixteen years I have investigated the paranormal using empirical methodology. I have technical knowledge about what variables I have to control when conducting experiments. That technically and inevitably excludes subjectivity, personal beliefs and assumptions. The endeavor is always for strict empirical objectivity and accordingly, that would not and could not make me a biased observer. If I am biased, then I am biased towards objectivity. [size=14pt]I do not investigate to prove anything. I investigate and report what I find[/size].

Okay, pardon me - now I'm hardly containing myself and plead guilty of my shouting.   Forgive me. But the wonder of it all is that I already saw all this and deliberately did not go to Zammit's website to ferret anything. Thank goodness you did! I would now have to ask you to proffer some reasonable critical counters to his methodology. That would be simple and interesting to see.