The following is from an article in the Telegraph – please let us know your thoughts on this:
A phenomenon known as remote viewing, which claims to use psychic powers to ‘see’ what is invisible to the naked eye, may have an intriguing role to play in healthcare.
Three months ago, Twitter hosted its first scientific experiment and invited users to help demonstrate the existence of psychic powers. Professor Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, recruited 7,000 volunteers via the social messaging service to investigate “remote viewing” (RV). A remote viewer is a gifted individual who claims to be able to “see” events in the past, present and future, and identifying distant locations.
The psychology professor, famed for his mass-participation experiments, which explore the curious science of everyday life, travelled to a mystery site in the UK, whereupon he sent a Tweet. Participants were asked to pinpoint his location by selecting it from a line-up of five photographs. As only 15 per cent of people correctly predicted Prof Wiseman’s location – despite a 20 per cent probability – he pronounced RV to be a hoax.
Telegraph (thanks, Fosca)
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Interesting indeedly!
I don’t believe Richard “pronounced RV to be a hoax”. Typical newspaper paraphrasing, doin’ it wrong.
should have done the test again with the 15% who got it right.
I,m not sure quite why you have published this now, unless you have shares in the upcoming film ” The Men Who Stare at Goats” or whatever fanciful title it has.
Most RV “evidence” has been comprehensively debunked. No trial of any description has ever shown any sort of significant result. No RVer or Dowser has come even close to qualifying for the Randi Million Dollar Challenge.
The Telegraph article you link to is bad journalism. Lazy and factually incorrect, credulous and uncritical. – So tell me again – why is this interesting?
What is the percentage of self-proclaimed remote viewers of the general population? Isn’t it a commonly held belief in the psychic community that it requires ‘sensitive’ individuals?
So if 7000 people participated and most of those just guessed surely that’ll bring the percentage down?
Believers might argue that remote viewing is a specialist skill.
I’m not a believer in remote viewing.
a psychiatrist would probably be better for them ,if you look for a psychic the chances are you will find a fake , fake psychic i believe are suppressed preachers. If you have a problem in your life, accept the facts and take direct action .
aww, I like the thought of RV…
Of course, logically thinking RV probably is not a real phenomena (much to the chargrin of the CIA and the millions they spent on it).
However one attempt via a social network isn’t exactly scientific disproof is it?
Surely there would need to be an extensive investigation with some sort of control mechanism.
Dr Wiseman would need to repeat his experiment over a number of sessions and take a few more things into consideration, such as state of mind of volunteers e.g. alcohol consumption, environmental distractions etc. before he can categorically state that it does not exist.
While most definitely a hoax, the professor should have followed up on the people who correctly identified his location to see if they could do it again. Just to… you know… kick em in the crotch.
The 15% that got it right should be tested again, to see if the percentage is still the same. I don’t feel a one off attempt of this really justifies it as a hoax. But, it also isn’t very credible is it? So a Hoax it is.
Yeah, probably more than one experiment with the 15% who got it right would be the way to go, I agree. That would be very interesting.
LC x
I agree that the same people should have been tested again – but why give people options to choose from in the first place? On a separate (ish) note – I would have liked to have seen DB on the events, blindfold the girl who was asked to look at a location to see if the ‘remote viewer’ would have seen nothing!!
I can quote honestly put my hand on my heart and say without any shadow of doubt that they are good for my health. Thus:
a) I know I am not delusional to believe anything they say
b) I know that I am not a fraudstar engaging in this practice living off those in point a)
Therefore knowing these two points makes me feel very relaxed and good about myself.
I find i strange that people here should think the 15% who got it right should be tested again. The 15% was well within what one would expect as a positive result by chance, so it is most unlikely to indicate people with an virtually impossible skill. Seems like a waste of time to me. This has been nailed.
I really would have needed to read more about this, and see them work it. From this article it does not really show remote viewing, but more facial viewing .. picking up systems in people’s outside. Something that comes with experience, not really a remote thing. I would not call this remote viewing.
Cells and structures .. although I do believe this is possible although not common and maybe not known for/to the human brain (never met one or read more details about it), I wonder that if someone can adapt to such brain structure … whether it will not affect his/her whole personality? Or were they already not standard? The school in Russia .
And single cells .. nope, can’t be done. It’s more structures/organs/locations and such they would pick up on. Energy levels that are not normal there, perhaps indeed in a different colour. But I also wonder whether people at times focus on the wrong system and make people sick whereas they were not sick as they used another system to live from. Double dna, different energy systems ..
It’s the person him/herself who at times can cure him/herself, with limits ofcoures. Knowing yourself .. and know how to use the capacties of body and brain. Think positive, but not out of reality (all the time).
The russian school, interesting, however .
Of course it’s kind of nice, but the stuff that really interests me is the results of double-blind scientific trials and this was no such trial.
Isn’t there some famous scientist offering a many-thousand dollar reward for proof of psychic powers and no so-called psychic claimed the prize yet? Surely that speaks for itself.
That 15% is just guessers. Out of 5 pictures some of these 7000 volunteers is bound to get it right. Giving a bunch of 20 chimps 5 pictures of food and getting them to guess which one I had for dinner, one of them is bound to get it right! I don’t believe in RV at all, especially when given options, such as in this experiment. Since the beginning of recorded thought we’ve had this need to cling on to the idea of the supernatural and the like. To those of you who don’t believe in ‘ghost whisperers’, don’t you think it’s sick that people pretend they are in touch with the other side to some poor, crying woman who has just lost their child?
remote viewing can only ever be as effective as empathy is.