Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 5/3/83; site ukc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!ukc!ptb From: ptb@ukc.UUCP (P.T.Breuer) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.philosophy,net.physics Subject: Re: Comment about Uri Geller [Long and flame content] Message-ID: <5220@ukc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 21:46:36 EDT Article-I.D.: ukc.5220 Posted: Fri Jun 7 21:46:36 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 9-Jun-85 02:06:59 EDT References: <470@nmtvax.UUCP> <1289@amdcad.UUCP> <1899@ut-sally.UUCP> Reply-To: ptb@ukc.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Kent at Canterbury, UK Lines: 46 Xref: watmath net.religion:7072 net.philosophy:1883 net.physics:2563 In article <442@oakhill.UUCP> davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) writes: >In article <426@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) writes: (I'll spare you quotations from either article for reasons of space. Refer back to them when necessary.) DT's article 442 seems to have two main functions: (1) to supply evidence which he argues supports the existence of paranormal powers (in particular those of Uri Geller and - though the crucial information is being temporarily withheld for dramatic effect - DT himself). (2) to express annoyance at the style (and fact?) of TM's dismissal of his (DT's) original article on the subject. Regarding (2), I think TM's approach was justified given the information available to him from the original article. There are many people who will gullibly accept phenomena as paranormal when perfectly ordinary explanations are much more likely. If you claim you have examples of paranormal phenomena, the onus is very much on you to demonstrate that you're not such a person. Unless you take great care in presenting your evidence and arguing your case, you shouldn't be surprised if you're not taken seriously. Regarding (1), we certainly do get a fuller account in 442. The trouble with both the Uri stories is that they're (to us) second or third hand. We can't really analyse the possibilities. I can look for rational explanations for the reported events. But I'm bound to suspect that something important is being missed out from DT's portrayal; something which his friends didn't notice and which may not be easy to guess at from this distance. So I'm not convinced by them. I'd pay more attention to evidence which can properly be analysed: say a film of Uri bending forks. But, as far as I'm aware, when films do exist either nothing happens or magicians detect fraud. The same is true when decent scientific experiments are run. (Re nitinol: read the chapter on it in 'Science, Good, Bad and Bogus' by Martin Gardner, if you haven't already.) If Geller had paranormal powers, why isn't there one clear, non-anecdotal example of them in action? DT goes on to challenge TM to guess a number (and other things) which DT has previously guessed. This really is pointless. TM is very likely to be worse than DT at guessing this particular number, since DT has presumably chosen the particular incident to be one where his guess was very good. (In fact, the better TM's guess, the higher the probability that he has paranormal powers: so he really can't win this one.) Once DT tells us what actually happened, we can look at the probabilities. Predictable sceptics like me will demand that we try and estimate the number of cases where an astonishing coincidence didn't happen, either to DT or to other people. If anyone wants a test of their psychic power, they could try guessing at the sentence I just read. Or anything else they can pick up about me. The probabilities for this sort of thing are much more debatable than if I asked for a string of random numbers, but I suspect more people feel able to guess about words and people than numbers. I promise to report any surprising successes.