Interesting concept here from Rupert Sheldrake (apologies if someone else has already posted it) I know Sheldrake has received some criticism in the past for "desk drawer" research and this protocol all seems open and above board...
http://www.sheldrake.org/Onlineexp/p...gtexttest.html
I might be wrong on this, however the big gaping flaw in the approach seems to be that there is NOTHING stopping senders and recipients tipping each other off (by normal physical means) that they're about to send a text and thus getting really high "psychic" scores. OK, participants are REQUESTED not to, but does that really count as a water-tight methodology?
I see quite a few parapsychy people have participated, more than once, and it is quite touching that their generally random-chance-and-worse scores show that they have probably been totally honest in taking the test (they breed them innocent in Northampton, bless)...
but still...
Yes, any test that relies on trust and has no controls is pretty much useless. Of course, this is all that is really expected of Sheldrake.Originally Posted by dalriada
http://precog.mobifi.com/reports/subjects.asp?ALLROWS=A
I actually HADN'T expected that Sheldrake himself would feature so heavily as a subject in his own research (see link above) and apparently participants were not informed that their details would be made public on the internet.
I am surprised at some of the people who decided that it was a piece of research worth participating in.
Well, of course it's bound to work.....Der!
He's using predictive text
Yes it really is that bad
Dear all forumites,
Median has been banned.
Love,
tkingdoll
I think he is working with some skeptical researchers now..........let's see how that goes......
Pre cognitive texts??? I have always been interested in how to send anonymous texts ie Sending a text to someone (from your own phone) and the recepient not knowing who the sender is.
Is that possible???
There are online proxy services for sending mobile phone texts, I think orange mobile has one on its site.
Hello,
This is my first post to this forum. I've noticed the above and, having been a participant in the study you cite above, I'm a little curious as to where you are getting your information from. As the website you link to states:
"The system then sends you a text asking who is about to send you a message. You reply with your guess. The system then selects one of these three contacts at random and sends him/her a text message asking him/her to write you a text message, which is sent back to the system, which forwards it to you."
This is exactly the methodology followed last year when I participated in the test. I received a text asking me to intuit who was about to send me a text message and it was only after I had made my guess that one of my contacts was asked to send me a text. (And yes, before anyone askes, I had the opportunity to check this with my sister-in-law, whom I had listed as a contact.)
Since the experiment did not work in the way you relate and thus there is no reason to request people don't cheat I'm curious to know why you would make out of whole cloth - in all caps - that participants were requested not to 'tip each other off'?
Atavis
I am missing something here. What is the participant supposed to be doing if the result is better than chance? If the sender does not know before the guess is made then what is the person supposed to be guessing? not telepathy clearly; just a dissociated ability to predict the future? Or is there something more? What about a guess that some 4th or 5th person texts next and that guess is correct? how is that built in ?
Secondly I do not understand the purpose of such a small number of tests? it seems that only 6 guesses are included? how can you measure the reliability and confidence levels of such a test? if it is an analysis of all the results of all participants then assuming most are not psychic how likely is it that any effect would show? How distinguish it from chance?
Statisticians...help please
I think accurate description would be precognition or precognitive telepathy.
The purpose of this test is not to study individual psychics. You, as a participant, get three contacts and six tests in total are run. At the end of the study when the total number of trials has been reached (say 600 or whatever, I'd imagine) the numbers are crunched. Chance alone suggests that participants should only be able to accurately predict who is going to contact them 33% of the time.Secondly I do not understand the purpose of such a small number of tests? it seems that only 6 guesses are included? how can you measure the reliability and confidence levels of such a test? if it is an analysis of all the results of all participants then assuming most are not psychic how likely is it that any effect would show? How distinguish it from chance?
I can't recall if, in this study, Sheldrake has people declare in advance whether they (and/or their three nominated friends) believe in psi or not. (Which would be a slightly different - though interesting - experiment, perhaps for some point in the future.)
Ultimately, the point of this experiment is to see whether or not people (in general) can predict accurately at a rate above chance who is going to contact them. (And of course, the question is how are they doing this under these controls? Is it psi or not?)
Atavis
Don't see how it can be telepathy if the other end of the communication does not know at the time of the guess.
And I do not know how the numbers can be crunched. Even if you take all the results, unless a very high number of people perform better than chance it seems to me that any effect would be buried in the margin of error? Heads can come a surprisingly large number of times. What sample size do you need to reach say 95% confidence the result is not due to chance? And does he have that sample size?
Last edited by Fiona; 28th December 2007 at 03:21 PM.
I think that Sheldrakes working theory is that everyone has a small degree of psi ability - whether they realise it or not. I envisage that it would be useful to retest those with the best scores, but remember this is open to the public and contacting all the people again - and having them contact each of their three contacts again....
Well, basically, I'd say that's a wholly different experiment.
What makes Sheldrakes experiments intriguing is his training in biology and his ability to think up experiments that just might draw out psi ability as an evolutionary advantage. Consider the staring experiment whereby the subjects, Sheldrake claims, can tell at a rate above chance when someone is staring at them but not so when they're not not being stared at. If it's some kind of unconscious signalling (and not psi) how do we explain this discrepancy?
You'll have to wait until the results are published as I certainly cannot answer that question. What I do know is that Sheldrake is usually very thorough in presenting all his data for scrutiny.Heads can come a surprisingly large number of times. What sample size do you need to reach say 95% confidence the result is not due to chance? And does he have that sample size?
Atavis
Hi Atavis, welcome to the skeptics, welcome to the forum. My information came from the Sheldrake website and from one of your fellow research participants. You’re quite right the website link does say
“The system then sends you a text asking who is about to send you a message. You reply with your guess. The system then selects one of these three contacts at random and sends him/her a text message asking him/her to write you a text message, which is sent back to the system, which forwards it to you."
Those four lines, smack in the middle of the screen are so stunningly obvious I’m surprised I missed them and even more surprised that other responding posters missed them too- especially I specifically asked if I was wrong in spotting a flaw in the methodology. Is it possible that this online protocol has been changed between October and your post of December 27th? You said in your Boxing Day 2007 first post that you took part in the project “last year” do you mean 2006? The particular experiment under discussion here seems only to have gone online in February 2007 with Sheldrake himself (and presumably his immediate acquaintances) taking part in the first test experiments over the next 1-2 months, were you involved this or in a different experiment? As its now the festive season possibly you may have had some confusion over the dates.
On the basis of evidence. Messages sent by the automated service read as follows:
"This is the Precognitive Test. Please send an SMS reply which will be forwarded to < name>. Do not attempt to contact <name > directly. Thank you. "
No fabrication needed but bold italics entirely my own…
I’m curious as to why, if you had been clearly informed that if was only after you had made your guess that one of your contacts was asked to send you a text, you still checked up on the timing of guesses and texts with one of your listed contacts? Possibly just a natural (and healthy) skepticism.
I’m also curious to know if you recall being informed that your participation in the experiment would be made public, with your name- and those of your contacts- being published on the website database? (The link is in my second post on this thread-go to excel database). The fellow participant whom I mentioned earlier, certainly wasn’t told and on discovering this at the start of October, they emailed Rupert Sheldrake asking that their personal details be removed from public view. Three months later, this has still not been done.
At best, this is a very discourteous way to treat a research participant, and at worst, it is downright unethical behaviour. A researcher working within the confines of UK university research governance procedures would be expected to conform to the commonly accepted standards of good practice, and while Sheldrake’s status as an independent researcher may let him escape from university bureaucracy, I would have though some degree of self-regulation would have been expected, especially given that his research methods have been thoroughly criticised in the past.
There is international agreement that research should be undertaken in accordance with generally agreed standards of good practice such as are laid down in the Helsinki Accords, these may broadly be categorised as:
1)Beneficence - 'do positive good'
2) Non-Malfeasance - 'do no harm'
3)Informed Consent
4) Confidentiality/ Anonymity
In this particular “precognitive-texting” experiment, conformance with points 1 and 2 are debatable, for example, a person may well feel that having details of their participation in an ESP experiment made available on the web might well cause them mental distress or damage their social standing, thus causing them harm) and points 3) and 4) do not appear to have been actually met. In particular, despite the declaration on the online registration form that “We can assure you that this information will not be passed on to any other organisation” those personal details are nevertheless available freely to all and sundry on the website excel database (and these details do show up on google searches).
The Sheldrake experiment portal also appears to be actively encouraging the participation of young people with a special note to group leaders and teachers encouraging them to set the experiment as a homework exercise (!) This is concerning, as in the case of minors (or others who legally cannot give informed consent) research participation consent should really be obtained from a legal guardian, however there does not appear to be any recognition of this issue on the Sheldrake website. Have I missed it? As young participant names, and those of their ‘text-buddies’ would be available online, this would appear to be occasioning risk at an unacceptable level.
Given the above points I don’t think that this piece of research has been carried out in accordance with basic standards expected of a professional researcher working within UK academia. In particular, the use of human subjects without fully informed consent should make publication of the data in any reputable journal very difficult indeed.
The work being carried out with Chris French at Goldsmiths should be a lot more credible.
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru/tel...-telepathy.php
Doubtless you will also the aware of the extent to which this has been criticised (as per the folllowing references) Far from an exhaustive list, and I know its not formatted correctly, but goddamnit its late... and we're talking about a man who believes in psychic parrots here...
Blackmore, S. (1999) If the truth is out there, we've not found it yet. Times Higher Education Supplement, 27 August, 18.
Carrol,R. (2007) http://skepdic.com/refuge/replytosheldrake.html
Maddox, J. (1981), ‘A book for burning?’, Nature, Editorial for 24th September.
de Pracontal (2001) L'Imposture Scientifique en Dix Lecons, "Pseudoscience in Ten Lessons Editions La Decouverte, Paris, 2001. ISBN 2-7071-3293-4.
(see http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...7/ai_108114819 )
Savva, L. (2006) http://www.everythingispointless.com...-vs-savva.html
Schmidt,s (2006) http://www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/iuk...g_JCS_2005.pdf
Shermer, M. (2005) "Rupert's Resonance". Scientific American 19.http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=...0083414B7FFE9F
Watt, C. & Wiseman, R. (1999). Rupert Sheldrake and the Objectivity of Science, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 13, 538. (Letter to Editor)
Wiseman, R., Smith, M. & Milton, J. (1998 ) Can animals detect when their owners are returning home? An experimental test of the 'psychic pet' phenomenon. British Journal of Psychology 89, 453-462 http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/p...icdogreply.pdf
Wiseman, R. & Watt, C. (1999). Rupert Sheldrake and the Objectivity of Science, Skeptical Inquirer, 23 (5), 61-62. (Follow-Up
Wiseman, R., Smith, M. & Milton, J. (2000) The 'psychic pet' phenomenon: A reply to Rupert Sheldrake. JSPR 64, 46-49.
Last edited by dalriada; 29th December 2007 at 12:49 AM.
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