FFS Archie Roy
Just exactly how is a fekkin believer astronomer qualified to test psychics?
What was my incentive to turn away from 'woo'?Originally Posted by bindeweede
I wasn't in it for the money, but I liked feeling 'special'. But faced with the undeniable truth that it was a load of b*ll*cks, I couldn't carry on believing. As I didn't believe anymore, I could not deceive. I think Gary believes what he says and is a fantasist rather than an out right liar. The lines between reality and fantasy have been blurred for him. If he faces up to the truth, that he has been caught out in so many innacuracies and 'lies', I hope he is principled enough to turn his back on 'woo'. He can feel just as special fighting against 'woo'.
I'm probably feeling overly optimistic, but who knows. I'd love it if Gary became a voice for the psychically exploited.
Wonder what he'll say.
My eldest - and we wonder about our youngest - has dyslexia. I understand how difficult school can be with a learning difficulty. Heck, I had a 'learning difference' - I was unusually clever. As a result I was put up a year - the worst year of my life. As a result of that educational experiment I was emotionally troubled for a very long time. It took me till 32 years of age to get 'happy'. I always hope those younger than me can find peace much sooner.
Prism isn't/wasn't a charity??
I think there is little doubt as to whether Gary believes any of this stuff, he is just too cynical and evasive when questioned to show any real belief.
He's a young guy who probably enjoys the attention he is getting and his hold over some people. And the cash of course, it's easy money ripping off the sick and desperate.
You keep saying you help people Gary (in you opinion), so why not do some proper testing?
I wonder which other "scientific sources" Tricia Robertson is referring to?
So much for Gary's interest in being PROPERLY tested by Chris French. However, since the sudden disappearance of the diagnostic abilities which would have been the subject of the tests I suppose Gary feels safer among professed believers in the supernatural. Both he and Nina Knowland have mentioned providing testimonials for PRISM, which speaks volumes about the value of their "tests".
As for Gary's poor spelling and grammar, I believe he has stated that he isn't dyslexic - although he'd look pretty silly admitting to being dyslexic himself at the same time as offering advice on the treatment of dyslexic children! Anyone who knows that their spelling is poor can easily use a spell checker, a handy device to which Gary seems to be a stranger.
Bruce Greyson of the Division of Perceptual studies at the University of Virginia, visited Glasgow a week or so ago and was very enthusiastic about the Roy & Robertson enterprises during his presentation to the SPR study day this Saturday.
What's happening with the £50,000 challenge?
Did Gary Mannion meet up with Randi, Chris French etc., and has a test protocol been decided upon?
What's the latest?
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I belive Chirs French and Gary are due to meet later this month. As I understand it from Gary the test is to do with Gary's ability to see inside bodies so I'd expecta protocol similar to this one.
Whether Randi is to be involved at this stage I don't know but with his recent annoucement about a possible Channel 4 series testing UK claimants it could be a distinct possibility.
Oh right.
I thought the meeting was going to occur when Randi was over.
Yes, as Gary doesn't claim to diagnose but that he can 'see' illness/disease then a straightforward dichotomous test (deciding whether a person is ill or not) would probably be the most appropriate test but a matching problem, like the Demkina test, could also be done.
.
This was posted on Julia's Gary Mannion site on March 20th.
I don't know if Gary will change his mind.Gary has informed Professor Chris French that although he is still willing to take part in controlled tests - if a protocol acceptable to all parties can be worked out - he is not interested in the £50,000 and does not want the tests to be filmed for TV.
This has been troubling me quite a bit recently.
I have a friend who is suffering from a serious and currently incurable auto-immune disease. She is, she says, willing to try "almost anything" even though she knows that most of the things she will try are little better than sCAMs. However, she is hoping that the placebo effect will at some point kick in and she'll get a few years of remission.
We've had some quite heated arguments in the past, but I've lately learned to be more respectful of her views; if I was in her position I doubt I'd be doing the same things, but on the other hand if it gives her some hope in an otherwise hopeless situation then I have to be careful about dashing those hopes. Even though I don't personally believe there is any benefit in 99.9% of so-called "complementary" medicine, and even though I fully acknowledge the harm much of this crap does, in the case of my friend she is doing this in tandem and under the observation of her GP.
According to this, Gary Nina, and Andy are already being evaluated.
[quote]
Psychical Researcher's
The three founder member's of this organisation are currently undergoing evaluation by respected psychical researcher's Professor Archie E Roy, BSc PhD FRAS FRSE FBIS and Tricia Robertson who in turn have made their report to a recognised charity named PRISM.
PRISM was set up to evaluate claims of mediumship, in its many forms.
Professor Archie E Roy Founded the Scottish Society for Psychical Research in 1987.
To date three papers on this matter have been published in the peer reviewed Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which is based in London.
This study of claims of Psychic Surgery will span many years, but so far the results are very encouraging.
Although PRISM (providing the initial funding) will disband due to reduced numbers later this year. The funding for this project will be available from other scientific sources.
Tricia J Robertson
http://www.ukpsychicsurgeons.org.uk/...ation_Research
Last edited by bindeweede; 1st May 2008 at 08:22 PM.
Is/Was Prism a charity?
I'm not sure I would take a single word of that at face value. It's been written in a very lazy way and no doubt to sound more impressive than it really is.
They are currently undergoing evaluation - but a report has already been made to 'recognised charity' PRISM? The tense is contradictory.The three founder member's of this organisation are currently undergoing evaluation by respected psychical researcher's Professor Archie E Roy, BSc PhD FRAS FRSE FBIS and Tricia Robertson who in turn have made their report to a recognised charity named PRISM.
Does anyone know of these reports? Do they specifically study these 3 surgeons? Or are they referring to psychic surgery in general? It's really not clear. My understanding is that that Journal was only created because they couldn't get papers peer reviewed in the mainstream journals. I wonder why....
To date three papers on this matter have been published in the peer reviewed Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which is based in London.
What have they been studying? The testimonials that Gary has written himself?This study of claims of Psychic Surgery will span many years, but so far the results are very encouraging.
Psychic Surgery isn't mediumship.PRISM was set up to evaluate claims of mediumship, in its many forms.
Who has written this? Is it Tricia Robertson? Where will the funding come from? What controls are there on the study to maintain rigour over the long term?Although PRISM (providing the initial funding) will disband due to reduced numbers later this year. The funding for this project will be available from other scientific sources.
Tricia J Robertson
Last edited by FarSideOfTheMoon; 1st May 2008 at 10:00 PM.
The papers are available online at the SPR website, which has a brilliant online library with articles going back into ye mistes of time. You have to be a member to access it though and I'm not sure how the copyright would work if I were to post whole articles, but here are the abstracts:
Robertson, T.J. & Roy, Archie E. A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE ACCEPTANCE BY NON-RECIPIENTS OF MEDIUMS' STATEMENTS TO RECIPIENTS, Journal 65, 2001, pp. 91-106. Authors' abstract: A test was made of the sceptical hypothesis that the statements made by mediums to recipients are so general that they could as readily be accepted by non-recipients. A two year study involving 10 mediums, 44 recipients and 407 non-recipients ostensibly falsified that hypothesis. The average fraction of the set of statements accepted by the recipient was significantly larger than the average fraction of the same set of statements accepted by non-recipients, the probability of the results being due to chance being 5.37x10-11 . Details are given of the procedure of data collection and analysis and an objective method of weighting the statements is described. A number of non-paranormal factors are listed and assessed as possible reasons for the seeming falsification of the hypothesis
Roy, Archie E. & Robertson, T.J. A DOUBLE-BLIND PROCEDURE FOR ASSESSING THE RELEVANCE OF A MEDIUM'S STATEMENTS TO A RECIPIENT, Journal 65, 2001, pp. 161-74. Authors' abstract: In a previous study, it was shown that a significantly higher percentage of a set of statements given by a medium to a recipient was accepted by the recipient compared with the percentage of the same set accepted by non-recipients. A number of non-paranormal factors were identified that might diminish the large gap between the acceptability levels of recipients and non-recipients. In the present paper a hard protocol is described that may be used to assess the effect of each factor separately. The protocol's single, double and triple blind nature in testing each factor is discussed.
RESULTS OF THE APPLICATION OF THE ROBERTSON-ROY PROTOCOL TO A SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS WITH MEDIUMS AND PARTICIPANTS
by T. J. Robertson and A. E. Roy Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. 68.1, No. 874
This paper is the third in a series of papers by Robertson and Roy that together describe and test a method of assessing claims of mediumistic communication. In this paper we describe the results obtained by applying the Robertson-Roy Protocol (RRP) in a designed suite of experiments that enables in each experiment (a) the categories (such as a recipient who believes he or she is a non-recipient) of all participants present to be unambiguously determined, (b) the operation of a variety of normal factors (such as body language and verbal response to a medium) to be controlled. The RRP was tested over two and a half years in a study involving 13 sessions held in a number of locations in England and Scotland, with some 300 participants from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. Ten mediums delivered 73 sets of statements during these sessions. The study demonstrated that the RRP, although time-consuming both in application and reduction of acquired data, is a practical, repeatable and useful procedure in assessing the ability of mediums to transmit relevant information to recipients. The results of the study provided a reliable, and objective, quantitative measure of the significance to be placed in the higher fraction accepted by the recipients of the number of statements in the sets delivered to the recipients than those accepted by non-recipients in those sessions. Due to the design of the experiments the results cannot be due to normal factors such as body language and verbal response. The probability that the results are due to chance is one in a million. The evaluation by the Robertson-Roy weighting procedure of the statements delivered by the mediums is also shown to support the negation of a sceptical hypothesis.
Current Editor of JSPR is Dr Chris "fluffy earphones" Roe of Northampton University, articles are peer reviewed (that's reviewed not remote-viewed), although it's probably fair to say that quality is variable and most academic parapsychologists seem to have quite a remarkable gift making the most interesting topics in the world seem preternaturally dull.
Unfortunately, the statistical tests used in the final paper are entirely beyond my ken as they are quite spectacularly unlike anything I've ever seen in a social science journal, but hey million to one chance! Must be good.. right?
Info on joining the SPR here
Last edited by dalriada; 1st May 2008 at 11:29 PM.
Thanks! I'd like to say it makes interesting reading, but I'm not so sure
The implication on the piece on the Unity of Psychic Surgeons page was that the study related to them, but it obviously does nothing of the sort.
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