Skeptic agrees Remote Viewing is proven
In 1995, the US Congress asked two independent scientists to assess whether the $20 million that the government had spent on psychic research had produced anything of value. And the conclusions proved to be somewhat unexpected.
Professor Jessica Utts, a statistician from the University of California, discovered that remote viewers were correct 34 per cent of the time, a figure way beyond what chance guessing would allow.
She says: “Using the standards applied to any other area of science, you have to conclude that certain psychic phenomena, such as remote viewing, have been well established.
“The results are not due to chance or flaws in the experiments.” Of course, this doesn’t wash with sceptical scientists.
Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing.
Thus, a prominent skeptic agrees that (1) the study of remote viewing is an area of science, which should thoroughly obviate the skeptical epithet of “pseudoscience” once and for all. And (2) that when judged against prevailing scientific standards for evaluating evidence, he agrees that remote viewing is proven. The follow-on argument that this phenomenon is so unusual that it requires more evidence refers not to evidence per se, or even to scientific methods or practice, but to assumptions about the fabric of reality.
enfants marshmallow test
I bet this is what dinner is like at Prof. Richard Wiseman’s house.
Thanks Sarah
Nigeria Demands Apology For Sony Ad Implying They’re A Source Of Scams
Nigeria is mad at Sony for its latest ads that suggesting a lot of SCAMS come from the country. Heaven forfend! In the ad, a corporate rumor-squasher (read: PR spokesbot) responds to a rumor-mongrel’s (read: pudgy gadget blogger) request for comment about a tip he got about a PS3 price-drop. “You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Otherwise I’d be a Nigerian millionaire by now.”
In response to this false, defamatory and confidential claim, Nigeria demanded an immediate recant. “Nigeria also demands an unconditional apology from Sony Corporation for this deliberate negative campaign against the country’s image and reputation,” said a spokesman for the Nigerian government.
Research Finds that Atheists are Most Hated and Distrusted Minority
Intolerance is a bitter beast. There are many groups in America that are subject to discrimination and prejudice, but none are more hated than atheists. Research conducted a couple years ago at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that atheists are more distrusted than muslims or homosexuals in the US.
Austin Cline from about.com writes, “EVery single study that has ever looked at the issUe has revealed massive amounts of bigotry and prejudice against atheists in America. The most recent data shows that atheists are more distrUsted and despised than any other minority and that an atheist is the least likely person that Americans would Vote for in a presidential election. It’s not just that atheists are hated, though, but also that atheists seem to represent everything about modernity which Americans dislike or fear.
Dead fish gets emotional over photos of humans
This is a poster presented by Bennett and colleagues at this year’s Human Brain Mapping conference. It’s about fMRI scanning on a dead fish, specifically a salmon. They put the salmon in an MRI scanner and “the salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations. The salmon wasasked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.”
I’d say that this research was justified on comedic grounds alone, but they were also making an important scientific point. The (fish-)bone of contention here is multiple comparisons correction. The “multiple comparisons problem” is simply the fact that if you do a lot of different statistical tests, some of them will, just by chance, give interesting results.
In fMRI, the problem is particularly severe. An MRI scan divides the brain up into cubic units called voxels. There are over 40,000 in a typical scan. Most fMRI analysis treats every voxel independently, and tests to see if each voxel is “activated” by a certain stimulus or task. So that’s at least 40,000 separate comparisons going on – potentially many more, depending upon the details of the experiment.
Were you stuck post – comments closed.
We closed the comments at 1000 on the original ‘were you stuck to your chair?’ post for the sake of the database. We did not moderate them in any way other than to remove the really heinous language (the show obviously did have an effect on you to get THAT angry about it). You failed miserably to crash the blog despite 100k of you visiting that day.
You’ll see the comments posted warts and all. We had millions watching and a good chunk seemed to be affected in some way. Many were stuck, some felt dragged down and our very own Flapjack soiled himself something rotten. But have a look through them and get your own idea of how many people it affected – obviously a lot of people posting here are fans which may boost results but in general it’s a good idea.
Comments are still open on Derren’s post ‘Did you Stick?’
Thanks for all your comments.
DB Crew
How to be a Psychic Spy
In the 1960s, in response to a leaked KGB video, the CIA spent millions of dollars (the equiv of $75m in modern money) on research into psychic abilities and in particular the principle of remote viewing – the ability to see and describe an object that is hidden from view.
For the show’s main Event, Derren will perform a unique, national psychic experiment with viewers able to take part via the phone or on channel4.com. In it, he’ll get them to attempt match a covered drawing hung in the Science Museum. At the end of The Event, it will be revealed if the drawing matches the images the nation have drawn, Friday 25th September at 9pm.
Take part in Derren’s national remote viewing psychic experiment. Simply concentrate on the photos of the covered picture in the Science museum and use the pen and notepad to draw what comes into your mind. Save and submit your picture and then check back after Friday’s show to see if you can remote view! Take part in the experiment here.
Visit the gallery
We put up a gallery for you as we’re always getting requests for images. We’ll fill it out over the next few weeks, but for the meant time enjoy – and try not to dribble.
Click here (or find it in the menu options above)
You tube videos
Some people who stuck right and proper on Friday night have started posting videos of their immobile selves. Here’s my favourite: a great video of one Vicky Green, who had the foresight, along with many others, to film herself. Thank you, VIcky, for posting this, and I hope you don’t mind me posting it again here.
Please let us know if you’re going to post vids of yourselves stuck: I would love to keep them for posterity.
Hope you’re all up and about now. Slightly disappointed there have been no angry calls to the Daily Mail from the paralysed middle classes: a bit of scandal never goes amiss. We shall wait until Monday to see for sure.
X
Did you stick?
Well, there we go. Just got back.
I couldn’t say before the film that it wouldn’t work on all of you, as expectation really helps it work. Apologies if the film didn’t work on you, and congrats if it did. We had about 50, 000 calls come in on the night. Even though clearly some of those 50k wouldn’t have stuck and were just phoning to mention their genitals, those clever people who understand how to calculate viewing figures (that’s done, amazingly, from a group of only 1000 people with special buttons on their TVs) and the like reckon that we are probably looking at about 10 times that number in terms of people actually affected. So perhaps 1/2 a mil of you were affected – hopefully we’ll get a better sense of how many in the days to come. I say round it up to a BILLION though – it has a nice ring to it. But ask around, you should all know someone who it worked on (if it didn’t work on you).
2 people stuck in the TV gallery too, which was a cheap laugh for all of us.
Thank you so much for watching, I hope you enjoyed the show. Next week, pen and paper ready please.
x
