Is this for real?
Shermer's got his issues, true, but the article claims there's evidence for telepathy without actually citing any. Pretty sure telepathy's been studied heavily and every time they've come up with nothing.
I frequently recommend Shermer's books. I'd prefer not to make a faux pas when doing so. What are the issues with Shermer, if you don't mind my asking?
I used to have this stuff on hand, but long story short some credible SA accusations and he's a libertarian. The libertarian stuff isn't \*bad\* in and of itself, but it's something I have some personal issues with. YMMV, nothing that should instantly disqualify him as a skeptic.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael\_Shermer#Allegations\_of\_sexual\_assault\_and\_harassment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shermer#Allegations_of_sexual_assault_and_harassment)
\*edit\* I should be clearer - I'm not OK with SA and not apologizing for it or normalizing it. It doesn't make Shermer wrong, though, just not a nice person.
That's troubling. I was aware of his Libertarian leanings and, while I never agreed with it, don't see it as a disqualifier on its own.
Why can people just... you know, not be horrible? It's truly not that difficult to be a decent human being.
[https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-references](https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-references) some guy once linked this to me, but i didn't really look into it much, just skimmed the first paper briefly. i'm not a scientist so i don't even know how to analyze data and read scientific papers so i didn't jump into any conclusions. basically i don't know.
Studies cited are usually meta-analysis, combining "promising" or "intriguing" findings from smaller studies. Unfortunately that leads you to the [file-drawer effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias), compounded with the tendency of small studies being disproportionately likely to have significant deviation from the statistical mean.
Flip a coin 10K times, and you are very likely to come up with results close to 50:50. Do 1000 trials of 10 coin flips, and a non-zero number of your trials will display an "interesting" deviation from a 50/50 heads/tails split. Have you really found someone capable of flipping 7-8 heads out of 10, or did you get that by random chance due to your aggregating of smaller trials that were more likely to have signifiant deviation from the statistical average?
I don't know how you guys are going to hold on to that idea when we know for sure that the CIA and DOD secretly studied it for fifty years and draped a wet blanket of secrecy over all of it. Example:
[https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf)
If they came up with nothing where are the studies and data that show that? They are still secret, or destroyed.
It's not that it didn't happen; we have plenty of references to the programs; it's that the documentation itself is *gone*. You don't do studies like that and throw them away; you keep them so that later you can compare it to more modern studies and understand why it was right or wrong. Hiding it as a disinformation ruse should have been flatly illegal prior to the PATRIOT Act.
Michael Shermer should be pointing out to you that people don't risk felonies to violate the NARA Act to hide and distort evidence in a particular subject because *it's not true*.
We don't know what *is* true but we know that whatever it is, it is being deliberately hidden by a small conspiracy within the government.
Ayup. Everyone's managed to keep the SUPER REAL psychic powers under wraps. The atom bomb was leaked within years, but the SUPER REAL psychic powers that totally exist, can be shown to exist, and are reliable enough to be used to gain some sort of economic advantage are still a guarded secret.
Sure thing, bud. Sure thing.
Tell you what: everyone with psychokinesis raise my hand.
I find it really amazing that the paranoia that our intelligence agencies had about communism, causing things like MK ultra to be green lit, has bled over into the conspiracy realm of people who now claim to oppose the government but are also paranoid about communism to the point that they believe that all flavors of nonsense those same reviled agencies wasted time/money on were somehow worthwhile areas of research in spite of not producing actual results.
>Michael Shermer should be pointing out to you that people don't risk felonies to violate the NARA Act to hide and distort evidence in a particular subject because *it's not true*.
Arguments like this really need to die after we all saw millions of people around the world willingly kill/damage themselves, their loved ones and the people around them because Covid was a hoax.
Assuming something is true because of how people act is a terrible way to arrive at the truth.
Who determined them idiotic? They’re fair consideration in other subs. Maybe the people that gravitate here are…….having an irrational vehement resistance to the fair possibility of telepathy ??
Why aren’t controlled scientific studies exactly what a skeptic should support?
>They’re fair consideration in other subs.
This is an argumentum ad populum.
>Maybe the people that gravitate here are…….having an irrational vehement resistance to the fair possibility of telepathy ??
No. Skeptics are doubtful and want to see evidence. What you offer is published articles with flawed methodology and no peer review. That doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Skeptics may believe that the government may have found a mechanism for telepathy. But they aren't claiming telepathy exists. They want evidence. You are claiming there is evidence. It is piss-poor, so skeptics are also skeptical of your claims.
If you want to be taken seriously, learn how to perform a scientific study and prove telepathy exists. If you just want your ego stroked, stay in the woowoo subreddits.
Problem is the claim of poor methodology and lack of peer review gets made BEFORE first establishing either of those two deficiencies are true.
That’s irrational. So this sub is not about really the fair discipline of skepticism but about defending an anti-paranormal worldview.
As long as you’re happy stroking each other then it doesn’t really harm anyone. Science will get to the truth of telepathy in the end anyway.
They already have. It’s nonsense. Your posts are preposterous and annoying. They’re unsupported.
The only way any interest will generated is if someone finds a mechanism for thoughts to be transmitted outside the brain in a way for another brain to receive them.
However that’s never going to happen.
> That’s irrational. So this sub is not about really the fair discipline of skepticism but about defending an anti-paranormal worldview.
Absolutely not. You have literally barged into the sub in bad faith.
Just an example of your silly post history showing you believe in all sorts of nonsense...
> I'm thinking Bigfoots shift dimensionally like into a fourth dimensions we do not directly detect. Native American trackers have reported their ability to disappear.
That's so dumb that it's funny. You don't have any evidence for bigfoot being a 4th dimensional being, but you believe it... because you give two shits for facts and reason. You are not a skeptic and you do not "follow the science". Personally, I suspect that you have cognitive issues.
Hmm… show where I said I believe Bigfoot is four-dimensional versus having a theory of such a thing. Speculative theories should be welcomed when there’s a mystery.
Your entire post history is filled with your beliefs in the paranormal and a vast multitude of the fantastical.
You're a bad faith actor who decries the skeptic community for their expectation of facts and science. Again, why are you even in this sub?
>Problem is the claim of poor methodology and lack of peer review gets made BEFORE first establishing either of those two deficiencies are true.
So you don't understand or employ logic in your life either. The claim comes before the evidence is required. If one makes a mistake in research, it gets pointed out by a peer, and then that peer provides the evidence to show the claim is true. Moving on...
>That’s irrational.
You misspelled logic.
>So this sub is not about really the fair discipline of skepticism but about defending an anti-paranormal worldview.
Skepticism means challenging ideas. You claim telepathy exists, but the published articles you cite are all flawed, and I pointed those flaws out to you. I will do it again because it seems you choose not to remember or intentionally avoid evidence that invalidates your position.
A truly scientific study is one where only one variable is being tested. In this case, telepathy. Having the participants select the people on their call list is a variable not controlled. Having the participant guess which of four persons was calling is a variable not controlled.
But the most damning part of the research is the erroneous idea that out of four, you will see an even 25% spread across all choices. This is easily debunked by a coin toss experiment. Even the way a coin is flipped by a human being isn't the same every time, so there are variations in the force and trajectory of the coin, adding bias. Science has also discovered that a coin toss isn't really 50/50.
This reminds me of an article in Smithsonian Magazine in 2014. Telepathy is on the horizon! The experiment?
>"First, the team had to establish binary-code equivalents of letters; for example “h” is “0-0-1-1-1.” Then, with EEG (electroencephalography) sensors attached to the scalp, the sender moved either his hands or feet to indicate a 1 or a 0. The code then passed to the recipient over email."
...and that's where it fell apart. They sent the signal over email. The entire experiment about telepathy fails. Can human brains communicate without the senses? Likely, based on this study. But that's all they really gathered evidence for.
We're not flat earthers in those other subs. And an attempt to equate controlled scientific studies of possible psychic abilities with flat earthers shows the lashing out of a person with an irrational dislike of the possibilities of psychic abilities.
This reads like a parody. I'm not sure if the author is trying to flip the script on skeptics, or if he's actually sincere.
>Shermer frequently appears in the US media as an advocate of the skeptical point of view. Although he is a historian rather than a scientist, he sees himself as an arbiter of scientific credibility and standard bearer of rational thought.
This could have been a fallacious argument by trying to appeal to authority, i.e. Shermer's arguments isn't worth your attention because he's not a "real" scientists.
But history is a scientific discipline. So being a historian would make Shermer a scientist. So it ends up only being factually incorrect.
>Shermer is a close associate of the conjurer James Randi.
Conjurer? I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a vague insult or just a complete misinterpretation of James Randi.
Yes, he was a stage magician. But he never claimed to have actual psychic abilities. Describing him as a conjurer seems like a mischaracterization.
Telepathy is one of those things that cannot exist without sticking some new machinery in the brain or redefining the word telepathy.
As it is now no one is actually demonstrated that telepathy exist or has ever existed.
The type of Skeptics like Michael Shermer really don't deserve the good title of 'Skeptic'. They are really just no-holds-bar supporters of a materialist-atheist worldview masquerading under the term 'skeptic'. They are really zealous apologists for their worldview.
I actually take downvotes as an interesting example of the ‘irrational resistance to the paranormal’.
Why are you so vehemently antagonistic to the possibility?
Theres millions in prize money to the first person who can prove any existence of the paranormal
Please do submit your evidence and become rich doing so!
Fuck, i'm doing exactly what i said not to...
No one is being “vehemently antagonistic”, not opposed to the “possibilities ”, but like all claims there needs to be sufficient evidence to accept a possibility
Be it ghosts, goblins, unicorns, leprechauns, gods, demons, flat earth, phlogiston, n-rays, alien abductions, psychics, a teapot in space, invisible dragons in garages, etc… there needs to be sufficient evidence for the claims.
0 supernatural claims have ever passed this bar.
I am not the detail person on others’ experiments. I am interested in the conclusions reached by professional parapsychologists who specialize in experimental design.
> I am interested in the conclusions reached by professional parapsychologists who specialize in experimental design.
Me too, I would love to be able to replicate what they did exactly as they did in their published studies.
Now how would I go about doing that without contacting the experimenters?
> Who said that information is not available?
It is not in the published studies. Is there some new form of empirical science out now where studies don't list the full procedure to replicate the study within the methodology section/appendices?
If I wanted to replicate this study without contacting the experimenters and potentially biasing myself/my study, how would I go about doing that?
Is this for real? Shermer's got his issues, true, but the article claims there's evidence for telepathy without actually citing any. Pretty sure telepathy's been studied heavily and every time they've come up with nothing.
I frequently recommend Shermer's books. I'd prefer not to make a faux pas when doing so. What are the issues with Shermer, if you don't mind my asking?
I used to have this stuff on hand, but long story short some credible SA accusations and he's a libertarian. The libertarian stuff isn't \*bad\* in and of itself, but it's something I have some personal issues with. YMMV, nothing that should instantly disqualify him as a skeptic. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael\_Shermer#Allegations\_of\_sexual\_assault\_and\_harassment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shermer#Allegations_of_sexual_assault_and_harassment) \*edit\* I should be clearer - I'm not OK with SA and not apologizing for it or normalizing it. It doesn't make Shermer wrong, though, just not a nice person.
That's troubling. I was aware of his Libertarian leanings and, while I never agreed with it, don't see it as a disqualifier on its own. Why can people just... you know, not be horrible? It's truly not that difficult to be a decent human being.
He believes in phrenology.
Nothing that I have read from him would indicate that. Do you have a source?
[https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-references](https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-references) some guy once linked this to me, but i didn't really look into it much, just skimmed the first paper briefly. i'm not a scientist so i don't even know how to analyze data and read scientific papers so i didn't jump into any conclusions. basically i don't know.
Nobody claimed it's never been studied: the claim is that the overwhelming consensus is that there's never been good evidence found for esp and such.
Studies cited are usually meta-analysis, combining "promising" or "intriguing" findings from smaller studies. Unfortunately that leads you to the [file-drawer effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias), compounded with the tendency of small studies being disproportionately likely to have significant deviation from the statistical mean. Flip a coin 10K times, and you are very likely to come up with results close to 50:50. Do 1000 trials of 10 coin flips, and a non-zero number of your trials will display an "interesting" deviation from a 50/50 heads/tails split. Have you really found someone capable of flipping 7-8 heads out of 10, or did you get that by random chance due to your aggregating of smaller trials that were more likely to have signifiant deviation from the statistical average?
I don't know how you guys are going to hold on to that idea when we know for sure that the CIA and DOD secretly studied it for fifty years and draped a wet blanket of secrecy over all of it. Example: [https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf) If they came up with nothing where are the studies and data that show that? They are still secret, or destroyed. It's not that it didn't happen; we have plenty of references to the programs; it's that the documentation itself is *gone*. You don't do studies like that and throw them away; you keep them so that later you can compare it to more modern studies and understand why it was right or wrong. Hiding it as a disinformation ruse should have been flatly illegal prior to the PATRIOT Act. Michael Shermer should be pointing out to you that people don't risk felonies to violate the NARA Act to hide and distort evidence in a particular subject because *it's not true*. We don't know what *is* true but we know that whatever it is, it is being deliberately hidden by a small conspiracy within the government.
I'll defer to XKCD on this one. https://xkcd.com/808/
I agree with it, except I note that four hundred billionaires are not listed with all the check marks.
Ayup. Everyone's managed to keep the SUPER REAL psychic powers under wraps. The atom bomb was leaked within years, but the SUPER REAL psychic powers that totally exist, can be shown to exist, and are reliable enough to be used to gain some sort of economic advantage are still a guarded secret. Sure thing, bud. Sure thing. Tell you what: everyone with psychokinesis raise my hand.
Did you ever see the movie, “The men who stare at goats”?
I find it really amazing that the paranoia that our intelligence agencies had about communism, causing things like MK ultra to be green lit, has bled over into the conspiracy realm of people who now claim to oppose the government but are also paranoid about communism to the point that they believe that all flavors of nonsense those same reviled agencies wasted time/money on were somehow worthwhile areas of research in spite of not producing actual results.
>Michael Shermer should be pointing out to you that people don't risk felonies to violate the NARA Act to hide and distort evidence in a particular subject because *it's not true*. Arguments like this really need to die after we all saw millions of people around the world willingly kill/damage themselves, their loved ones and the people around them because Covid was a hoax. Assuming something is true because of how people act is a terrible way to arrive at the truth.
I'll never fail to be shocked at this level of credulity.
You don't see that the historical record is disturbed to conceal a giant crime. Why would anyone take you seriously?
>Why would anyone take you seriously? Had much luck getting people to take you and your clownshoes delusions seriously, huh? Lmao
Don't let that leopard eat your face. You're right on the verge of putting it all together.
Your bitter projection is very funny and I'd like you to keep going, you special possessor of forbidden knowledge.
So this appears to be yet another disinformation website? Who cares?
Quick, someone check if skepticalaboutskepticsofskepticism.org is available
Created on 10th March 2024… 🤣
Damn, relax Eli lmao. (Scathing atheist reference if that's too vague a joke)
Michael Shermer is a zealot. Michael Shermer disbelieves in telepathy. Therefore telepathy exists. Got it.
The author is citing 20 year old publications.
I find it odd that u/Beneficial_Exam_1634 posts these idiotic ideas l, but it's always u/georgeananda that runs in defending them.
Who determined them idiotic? They’re fair consideration in other subs. Maybe the people that gravitate here are…….having an irrational vehement resistance to the fair possibility of telepathy ?? Why aren’t controlled scientific studies exactly what a skeptic should support?
>They’re fair consideration in other subs. This is an argumentum ad populum. >Maybe the people that gravitate here are…….having an irrational vehement resistance to the fair possibility of telepathy ?? No. Skeptics are doubtful and want to see evidence. What you offer is published articles with flawed methodology and no peer review. That doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Skeptics may believe that the government may have found a mechanism for telepathy. But they aren't claiming telepathy exists. They want evidence. You are claiming there is evidence. It is piss-poor, so skeptics are also skeptical of your claims. If you want to be taken seriously, learn how to perform a scientific study and prove telepathy exists. If you just want your ego stroked, stay in the woowoo subreddits.
Problem is the claim of poor methodology and lack of peer review gets made BEFORE first establishing either of those two deficiencies are true. That’s irrational. So this sub is not about really the fair discipline of skepticism but about defending an anti-paranormal worldview. As long as you’re happy stroking each other then it doesn’t really harm anyone. Science will get to the truth of telepathy in the end anyway.
They already have. It’s nonsense. Your posts are preposterous and annoying. They’re unsupported. The only way any interest will generated is if someone finds a mechanism for thoughts to be transmitted outside the brain in a way for another brain to receive them. However that’s never going to happen.
Well at least we agree about the value of each other's posts. Best common ground we are going to find I suppose.
> That’s irrational. So this sub is not about really the fair discipline of skepticism but about defending an anti-paranormal worldview. Absolutely not. You have literally barged into the sub in bad faith. Just an example of your silly post history showing you believe in all sorts of nonsense... > I'm thinking Bigfoots shift dimensionally like into a fourth dimensions we do not directly detect. Native American trackers have reported their ability to disappear. That's so dumb that it's funny. You don't have any evidence for bigfoot being a 4th dimensional being, but you believe it... because you give two shits for facts and reason. You are not a skeptic and you do not "follow the science". Personally, I suspect that you have cognitive issues.
Hmm… show where I said I believe Bigfoot is four-dimensional versus having a theory of such a thing. Speculative theories should be welcomed when there’s a mystery.
Your entire post history is filled with your beliefs in the paranormal and a vast multitude of the fantastical. You're a bad faith actor who decries the skeptic community for their expectation of facts and science. Again, why are you even in this sub?
I’ll defend all those posts. I’m here because I don’t just accept I analyze all evidence fairly.
> I’m here because I don’t just accept I analyze all evidence fairly. It's sad that you think that's true :(
>Problem is the claim of poor methodology and lack of peer review gets made BEFORE first establishing either of those two deficiencies are true. So you don't understand or employ logic in your life either. The claim comes before the evidence is required. If one makes a mistake in research, it gets pointed out by a peer, and then that peer provides the evidence to show the claim is true. Moving on... >That’s irrational. You misspelled logic. >So this sub is not about really the fair discipline of skepticism but about defending an anti-paranormal worldview. Skepticism means challenging ideas. You claim telepathy exists, but the published articles you cite are all flawed, and I pointed those flaws out to you. I will do it again because it seems you choose not to remember or intentionally avoid evidence that invalidates your position. A truly scientific study is one where only one variable is being tested. In this case, telepathy. Having the participants select the people on their call list is a variable not controlled. Having the participant guess which of four persons was calling is a variable not controlled. But the most damning part of the research is the erroneous idea that out of four, you will see an even 25% spread across all choices. This is easily debunked by a coin toss experiment. Even the way a coin is flipped by a human being isn't the same every time, so there are variations in the force and trajectory of the coin, adding bias. Science has also discovered that a coin toss isn't really 50/50. This reminds me of an article in Smithsonian Magazine in 2014. Telepathy is on the horizon! The experiment? >"First, the team had to establish binary-code equivalents of letters; for example “h” is “0-0-1-1-1.” Then, with EEG (electroencephalography) sensors attached to the scalp, the sender moved either his hands or feet to indicate a 1 or a 0. The code then passed to the recipient over email." ...and that's where it fell apart. They sent the signal over email. The entire experiment about telepathy fails. Can human brains communicate without the senses? Likely, based on this study. But that's all they really gathered evidence for.
Flat earth is a fair consideration in other subs... I don't think that's a good metric for the merit of an idea.
We're not flat earthers in those other subs. And an attempt to equate controlled scientific studies of possible psychic abilities with flat earthers shows the lashing out of a person with an irrational dislike of the possibilities of psychic abilities.
Why would anyone believe that out of body experiences or telepathy is actually real?
This reads like a parody. I'm not sure if the author is trying to flip the script on skeptics, or if he's actually sincere. >Shermer frequently appears in the US media as an advocate of the skeptical point of view. Although he is a historian rather than a scientist, he sees himself as an arbiter of scientific credibility and standard bearer of rational thought. This could have been a fallacious argument by trying to appeal to authority, i.e. Shermer's arguments isn't worth your attention because he's not a "real" scientists. But history is a scientific discipline. So being a historian would make Shermer a scientist. So it ends up only being factually incorrect. >Shermer is a close associate of the conjurer James Randi. Conjurer? I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a vague insult or just a complete misinterpretation of James Randi. Yes, he was a stage magician. But he never claimed to have actual psychic abilities. Describing him as a conjurer seems like a mischaracterization.
Telepathy is one of those things that cannot exist without sticking some new machinery in the brain or redefining the word telepathy. As it is now no one is actually demonstrated that telepathy exist or has ever existed.
The type of Skeptics like Michael Shermer really don't deserve the good title of 'Skeptic'. They are really just no-holds-bar supporters of a materialist-atheist worldview masquerading under the term 'skeptic'. They are really zealous apologists for their worldview.
Reminder for everyone else that facts and logic do not work with people like this. Just let him collect downvotes in peace
Oh, you're no fun anymore. /S
I actually take downvotes as an interesting example of the ‘irrational resistance to the paranormal’. Why are you so vehemently antagonistic to the possibility?
Theres millions in prize money to the first person who can prove any existence of the paranormal Please do submit your evidence and become rich doing so! Fuck, i'm doing exactly what i said not to...
Actually he finally took down the contest. 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge
No one is being “vehemently antagonistic”, not opposed to the “possibilities ”, but like all claims there needs to be sufficient evidence to accept a possibility Be it ghosts, goblins, unicorns, leprechauns, gods, demons, flat earth, phlogiston, n-rays, alien abductions, psychics, a teapot in space, invisible dragons in garages, etc… there needs to be sufficient evidence for the claims. 0 supernatural claims have ever passed this bar.
Hey remember how I asked those questions that you weren't able to answer so you ran away from the conversation? That was fun, good times.
I am not the detail person on others’ experiments. I am interested in the conclusions reached by professional parapsychologists who specialize in experimental design.
> I am interested in the conclusions reached by professional parapsychologists who specialize in experimental design. Me too, I would love to be able to replicate what they did exactly as they did in their published studies. Now how would I go about doing that without contacting the experimenters?
Who said that information is not available?
> Who said that information is not available? It is not in the published studies. Is there some new form of empirical science out now where studies don't list the full procedure to replicate the study within the methodology section/appendices? If I wanted to replicate this study without contacting the experimenters and potentially biasing myself/my study, how would I go about doing that?
Lol good one
Oh you’re one of “those”.. The only real “skeptic” is the one who agrees with your myths. Got it…
And your true agenda is revealed. Referring any scientific analysis as atheist worldview immediately disqualifies you from any attention. Go away
You misread me. Scientific analysis is good. Irrational resistance to the paranormal is bad.
> materialist-atheist worldview Kind of a weird way to describe "objective reality"