Showing posts with label ESP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ESP. Show all posts

August 4 - Five Holidays for the First Sunday!!

Posted on August 4, 2019
(First Sunday of August)

Yesterday was National Grab Some
Nuts Day. Not sure how this
chipmunk knew!!?!
In the U.S., there's a "National Day" for this and a "National Day" for that - and of course most of these so-called national holidays are not official in any way. In the world, same thing: there are "World Day of ____" and "International Day of the ____" - with many of these dates having no official status anywhere. 

Naturally, schools and banks and governmental offices are not closed on unofficial national, world, or international days.

Some of these "holidays" fall on a particular date - the same date every year - and some fall on "the first Monday of March" or some such movable date. I noticed that SIX different things are supposed to be celebrated on the first Sunday of August. One of them I've already written about; see "National Doll Day" under "Also on this date" below.

Here are the other five:

(1) American Family Day
(2) Friendship Day
(3) National Kids' Day
(4) National Psychic Day
(5) Sisters' Day

Wow!

If you have a great relationship with a kid sister who happens to be a psychic - well, you've got it made! Shower that sister/friend/psychic with love and attention. Make her a card, pick some lovely flowers to present to her, and make her a special breakfast.

I'm pretty much kidding, but notice that there is definitely some overlap in the holidays listed above. Kids mostly grow up in families, and sisters are family members. Family and friends are both important - and sometimes family members are friends, of course! - and kids are the future. The one thing that stands out as being a bit different than the others is the psychic day.

A psychic is a person who is supposed to have unusual powers such as being able to tell the future, communicating with the dead, or knowing things that should be unknowable - like what someone else is thinking, or who did a crime with absolutely no witnesses.



The thing about a psychic is that her or his powers are supposed to be impossible to explain by the laws of nature. 

Some magicians don't call
themselves "magician,"
but instead use the label
"illusionist."
In other words, we aren't talking about a magician; she or he does illusions - tricking the eye into believing that something impossible happened - and magicians always mention that they really ARE illusions and tricks. (Magicians don't claim to do "real magic.") 

Also, we aren't talking about a really observant person, a sort of Sherlock Holmes, who can deduce all sorts of things from clues that most of us wouldn't notice.

Unfortunately, it seems that there is no such thing as psychic powers, no such thing as clairvoyance, telepathy, or other ESP powers. Apparently, fortune telling, prophecy, palm reading, crystal gazing, oracles, astrology, and tarot cards don't work to foretell the future. It seems that people cannot really communicate with the dead.

For years and decades and more than a century,
people claiming to communicate with the dead have held
spooky séances with poor lighting and dramatic performances
by a "seer." Many people, including well-educated people
and even scientists, reported seeing weird lights, ghosts, and
"ectoplasm." But magicians such as Harry Houdini caught
on to a variety of tricks and props that were used to fool people.


These flat statements are made not because all of these powers have been proven NOT to exist - you can't prove a negative! No, rather, I am saying that psychic powers don't exist because there is no evidence for any of them. There have been many tests of such powers, and the results have always been in one of two categories:

Either the person claiming to have psychic powers truly believes her/his claims, or she or he is a fraud.

Those who actually believe they have psychic powers sometimes subject themselves to tests. In most cases, they are not able to demonstrate their claimed powers to scientists and magicians. One or two of the failed psychics were disappointed with their own lack of performance, but most shrug it off with explanations that skepticism in the room ruined the test or something like. Some people proudly demonstrate their ability to know things they should not be able to know - but are then shown that, in reality, they used keen observation skills and picked up subtle cues from other people in order to figure out, say, where a person lives or what disease someone has. 

Some people have tried to win the million-dollar prize
and were disappointed when their claimed power failed
them.


Frauds don't subject themselves to tests, generally speaking, but there have been many skeptics, especially magicians, who have exposed their lies and trickery. 

So-called psychics sometimes work with entire
audiences and start with really general statements,
wait for someone to acknowledge a "hit" ... and
then continue to fish around for more hits by using
more general statements, common names and
causes of death, and so forth.

Notice that when a magician does a "magic trick," she or he admits it is a trick - she or he doesn't claim to actually saw people in half, to actually disappear into thin air, to actually pull rabbits and doves out of hats. But when a psychic claims to really, truly speak with the dead or to know someone's medical diagnosis from their aura - and that'll be $200, please - but that psychic is really just making stuff up or has a conspirator who found out the diagnosis the normal, everyday ways - well THOSE sorts of tricks are very different. Tricking people for fame and attention - tricking people for book sales or money - tricking people who are grieving and vulnerable - that's super bad behavior, isn't it?

Here are a few kid-friendly resources to learn more about this topic:

Junior Skeptic

Two Neuroscientists Walk Into a Psychic Fair


Watch the TV shows Psych or The Mentalist on Amazon Prime. NOTE: Both shows are murder/mystery/detective shows. The Mentalist can be graphic, upsetting, violent. Psych is much lighter and a comedy - but it still often pertains to murder!


TV shows such as Adam Ruins Everything, Bullsh*t, and Last Week Tonight have exposed the fraud committed by some psychics. Check them out on YouTube, broadcast TV, or streaming.







 Birthday of sharpshooter Lillian Frances Smith











(First Sunday of August)










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September 29 – Happy Birthday, Joseph Banks Rhine

Posted on September 29, 2016

“J.B. Rhine Is an Ass.”

That was the name of a newspaper article published by famous Sherlock Holmes author, Arthur Conan Doyle, about today's birthday boy, Joseph Banks Rhine.

Why did Doyle think so poorly of Rhine?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was great at creating a complex fictional detective character who remains popular to this day. Doyle was really good at crafting detective stories that have kept generations of readers interested. But he wasn't really good at everything.

A 10-year-old and a 16-year-old were able
to fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with their
so-called photographs of fairies. He put
his reputation on the line by writing multiple
booklet attesting to the "fact" that the fairy
photos were real.

They weren't.
One of the big not-so-good things about Doyle was his uncritical attitude about spiritualism, communicating with the death, mediums and seances and all the rest of it. Doyle was very enthusiastic about all of that stuff. So enthusiastic that he became a True Believer, and he wasn't able to think clearly about the topic. If people said that a particular séance was full of trickery, Doyle pushed away the evidence. If someone said that a particular medium was a fraud, Doyle ignored the report.



This photo shows Crandon supposedly
exuding "ectoplasm" from her nose.

Later studies have shown that Rhine
was correct - Crandon was an
illusionist pretending that her illusions
were real. And that makes her
a fraud!
J.B. Rhine had attended a séance put on by medium Mina Crandon. He claimed that he observed Crandon kicking a megaphone to give the impression it was levitating (rising up through the power of an invisible spirit), using luminous objects to represent otherworldly spirits, and doing other tricks. Rhine wrote an article exposing Crandon's tricks, and Doyle attacked him in response.

The weird thing is that Rhine was a bit of a believer, too. At least he wanted to be. 

Rhine had studied to be a scientist – a plant scientist, or botanist, to be exact. While at the university where he was earning his Master's and PhD, Rhine heard a lecture given by none other than Arthur Conan Doyle. In the lecture, Doyle said that there was scientific proof that mediums really were communicating with the dead. (That's incorrect, by the way.) And the idea fascinated Rhine and his wife so much that Rhine soon left botany for a new “science,” parapsychology.

Rhine is pretty famous for his research on ESP, or extra-sensory perception. Could people know what is on a hidden card, or what another person is thinking, or what is going to happen soon – through some previously unknown ability?

With his scientific training, Rhine knew that he should set up a properly controlled experiment with which he could test these possible powers of the mind. And, from what I can tell by reading about Rhine and his work, I think he tried to set up a proper experiment. I think that he didn't want to fool himself like he probably realized Doyle was fooling himself about mediums and seances.

But he did fool himself, unfortunately.

Working at Duke University, NC, Rhine tested Duke undergraduate students for ESP using Zener cards. The experimenter picks up a card in a shuffled deck of 25 cards, observes which of the five symbols is on the card, and records the guess of the student being tested.



Most students guessed right about as many times as chance predicts – about 20% of the time. But some students did way better.

At times, at least.

Rhine thought that his amazing undergrads had ESP (and I do think that he was fooling himself, not trying to trick people), but here are some of the problems with this experiment:

  1. Some people are really good at making predictions because they have excellent memories about which cards have already been played. There are five cards with each symbol, and the experimenter just went straight through the shuffled deck; certainly later “guesses” had a much better chance of being correct for test-takers with good memories.
  2. Studies have shown that poor shuffling techniques make it much easier to predict cards, and Rhine's first experiments were done with experimenters shuffling cards by hand.
  3. Another way of making a correct prediction is to note slight stains and smudges and bends and other imperfections in the cards. Some of the undergrads used the cards multiple times for identical tests; it's possible that they got to know (consciously or unconsciously) the back-sides of the cards. In the earliest tests, it was actually possible to see through the cards in some lighting conditions!
  4. It's possible that the experimenter who observed the cards had a “tell” – some difference in how he held or looked at the cards, how he sounded, depending on the card. Much more likely is that test takers might have been able to see at least a bit of the cards reflected in the experimenters' glasses or even their corneas. Note that each of the symbols is a different color.
  5. Some of the “exceptional subjects” – the undergrads who seemed to guess the cards at a better-than-chance rate – were actually allowed to handle the cards, shuffle and cut the cards, themselves. We've all seen magicians who are able to manipulate decks of cards in what seem like remarkable ways – so any handling by those taking the tests throws the data from the tests into question.
  6. Chance evens out to 20% – but only after a LOT of random trials. Certainly there can be what seems to be remarkable runs of luck, of particular dice throws, say, or high-scoring poker hands – but if you keep throwing dice or dealing poker hands, you will eventually see the magical-seeming run flattening out.

    Rhine's “exceptional” under-grads sometimes seemed to guess better-than-chance, sometimes seemed to guess worse-than-chance, and of course sometimes seemed to guess at the chance rate of 20%. Unfortunately, investigation of Rhine's work showed that he tended to think that the positive results showed ESP, and that the negative or neutral results could be explained by the subject being tired or bored or even angry.

As others studied Rhine's results and complained about things like reflections, see-through cards, or other ways in which test takers could improve their guesses, Rhine kept trying to devise better experiments that wouldn't allow “sensory leakage” or cheating. But then he was unable to find any high-scoring subjects.

After the eventual lack of success using the Zener cards, parapsychologists no longer use card-guessing studies.

Like I said before, I think that Rhine meant well, and his work with medium Crandon demonstrates his lack of desire to willfully cheat in order to believe in amazing ideas. However, I think he let down his own scientific training in the way he reported his results. He didn't design his experiments well, nor did he describe his experimental methods with enough clarity, he used math in a fudgy way instead of as a tool to make the testing more rigorous, and worst of all, he was selective in his reporting with the result that he exaggerated his successes and explained away his failures.

Physicist Richard Feynman once warned:







Also on this date:






















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Check out my Pinterest boards for:
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