The search the the Chimera Lecture by James Randi, Tufts University

[Ian David]

Tufts University
Medford, MA
March 23rd 7PM
Admission $7 for general public
$3 for students
Barnum 008 Lecture Hall

Contact [email protected]

Search for the Chimera
An Overview of How Science Has Pursued Magic and Miracles in the 20th Century and Into the 21st Century

James Randi exposes popularly-accepted fakery by discussing with his audience everything from UFOs to the Bermuda Triangle, from the Von D�niken "Chariots of the Gods" fraud to the notion of a lost continent named Atlantis. Randi reveals what really took place in the last three decades in the labs of various prestigious "think tanks" that verified a series of simple magicians tricks as genuine miracles, thus launching a world-wide plague of misinformation, the repercussions of which can still be felt today.

This unique and provocative lecture is not only educational but also highly entertaining. It attracts persons of all educational and social backgrounds and provides a rational perspective on the seemingly paranormal and otherwise unexplained happenings in our day-to-day life.

Mr. Randi illustrates how a "politically-correct" attitude has blinded scientists � who should know better � to the fact that they are not proficient at detecting fraud, often managing to fool themselves, when the prize is sufficiently attractive. And he puts up a million-dollar award as bait!

[Celebration]

1. oh that Randi!!

Let me guess!! Bet he doesn't like the global consciousness project at Princeton--

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

Such magic!!

[Ian David]

2. I'm sure he'd be fascinated with it if it's done rigorously

[Ian David]

3. Global Consciousness Project reveals human foolishness

February 14, 2005
Global Consciousness Project reveals human foolishness

It's hard to know which category to place this one in -- it's a little bit ESP, a little bit fortune telling, and a whole lot of pseudoscience.

The Global Consciousness Project apparently is trying to use random number generators to detect changes in the the "global consciousness" of the population of the planet. They claim that, when a big event happens, such as the funeral of Princess Diana, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or the December 26 tsunami, that they observe changes in the pattern of randomly generated zeros and ones.

In the original Star Wars, Obi Wan Kenobi felt a great disturbance in the Force -- these guys claim to be doing so in real life. Better yet, they claim to be doing so before the event happens. For example, they claim that the pattern of numbers generated changed before the first of the 9/11 attacks, as well as before the tsunami hit.

Anyone else suspect they know what's going on here? Various scientists claim to be baffled, so maybe I can help them out. Here's what's probably happening -- humans are being human. You see a spike in the numbers, you scan the news headlines to look for some big event. If you find something, then you can say that the spike you saw detected it. If you don't see anything, wait a bit and check again. Then when you find something, you can say that the spike you saw predicted it. From the other direction, if something big happens in the news, go back and look at your numbers. If you see a spike, bravo! If you don't, look farther back in time. Found one? It was a prediction! (Oh, and if you don't find a spike in the numbers, but instead find a trough, that's okay -- that counts, too.) Didn't find anything at the time of the event or before the event? Don't give up yet! Try looking after the event -- it probably had some sort of psychic impact on the population of the planet for some time after the fact.

Finally, if you weren't able to find a correlation before, during, or after the event, just chalk it up as "one of those things" -- no need to consider it as evidence against the truth of your theory.

More:
http://www.skepticnews.com/pseudopsychology/


See also:
RedNova News - Can This Black Box See Into the Future?.
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649#121

[Celebration]

4. I knew it!!

That doesn't sound like a very vigorous debunking to me-- silly little essay. Surely the skeptics can do better than this conjecture?? Then there is the pretty cool new study on dowsing. Since I am not taken in by the debunkers, I haven't looked to see what they say about this-- just not interested. Ho hum.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1281661.html

[Ian David]

5. I knew THAT, too. eom

An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open
that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or may be found a little draughty.
-- Samuel Butler

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
-- G.K. Chesterton

You cannot build an informed democracy out of people who will believe in little green men from Venus. Credulity — willingness to accept unsupported statements without demanding proof — is the greatest ally of the dictator and the demagogue.
-- Arthur C. Clarke, Voices from the Sky: A Preview of the Coming Space Age (1974) "The Lunatic Fringe"

[Desertrose]

6. from Carl Sagan....

Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 12, Fall 1987


"I want to say a little more about the burden of skepticism. You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as dearly as you do. This is a potential social danger present in an organization like CSICOR. We have to guard carefully against it.

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you're in deep trouble.


If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress."

[Ian David]

7. The media has no right to scorn those ignorant of science.

It is the media that has deliberately mis-informed the public and made them ignorant of science by feeding them a steady diet of "Unsolved Mysteries" and "Crossing Over" and "Pet Psychics" and "Beyond Belief."
-- Me

[Celebration]

9. adding to the battle of the quotations

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are that good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." Howard Aiken

The truth of today was the heresy of yesterday. Therefore, dare." Immanuel Velikovsky.

"The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote." Albert. A. Michelson, speech at the dedication of Ryerson Physics Lab, U. of Chicago, 1894

"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

[SnowGoose]

11. I'm ignorant of the methodology, but

it seems like it would be fairly easy to come to an broad consensus on a 'controlled' experiment, where a group (say journalists as an example) could, without ever seeing the random numbers, look through the time period during which numbers have been generated, and pick their top 20 (or however many) world events.

After that, the statisticians could look at the numbers immediately preceding the selected events.

I examine slides under a microscope frequently in my job. If I'm going to publish the work, I always have someone else "blind" the slides (that is, I don't know what treatment the cells on the slide underwent until after all the counting/assessing is done). I have to do this, since anyone who's scored slides knows that you are influenced by what you think you know.

I can't imagine designing such an experiment without some form of blinding to prevent bias.

[Celebration]

12. Princeton

I believe that the consciousness related project at Princeton (if that is what you are talking about) is just at the data gathering stage. Anomalies are rather rare, but supposedly one of the biggest reactions was right before the OJ verdict!! There were others, however-- Sept. 11, tsunami, etc. I doubt if this would be ready for what you suggest for a rather long time. Anecdotal evidence almost always precedes a controlled experiment. But I wonder if there aren't rankings of news items now?

Here is the thing-- they don't want all that much attention on the project-- they barely want people to know about it, other than broad outlines. Why? Does that make sense? You have to realize that if this works it works on the quantum level, and at that level the experimenter may affect the results by his own consciousness and intent. In physics this is widely accepted. That's right. If all of us start thinking all the time about what in the heck the consciousness project will show, that in and of itself could affect the outcome. So, to keep it somewhat pure, they are trying to keep it low key. Maybe in the future there will be more pr about it, just to see if that alone affects the results. The whole thing amuses me-- trying to run a controlled experiment where the experimenter may actually affect the outcome is like a dog chasing its tail. I am smiling at the prospect.

[Squeegee]

13. Not quite

Quantum mechanics is independent of consciousness and intent. The reason you hear about the "observer" affecting the results is because any measurement of a quantum state causes the state of that system to change. As an observer, you cannot observe without interacting.

Imaging this. You are in a dark room with a quantum particle. Since there are no lights, you cannot see it and cannot infer its current state of being. Unfortunately, this quantum particle is afraid of the light, so when you pull out a flashlight and turn it on to see where it is and what its doing, it immediately puffs up, screams, and dances around a little before ducking under the nearest sofa. The problem is, as the observer, you depend entirely on the flashlight because without it you wouldn't be able to see anything. But by using the flashlight, you will only ever see crazy dancing behavior from quantum particles because they hate the light. Essentially, there is no way to observe without altering the behavior of what is observed.

[Celebration]

15. entanglement?

I am not sure that your explanation of the observor effect takes into account entanglement, where some have found actions affecting other actions across space AND time, otherwise known as "spooky action at a distance" or something like that.

All that aside, the Princeton consciousness project, in a nutshell, is trying to gather preliminary data (I agree that this is not a formal scientifically drawn blinded study) to determine if random number generators across the globe are affected by human consciousness. To that end, they are preliminarily trying to determine if the simultaneous gasp of millions of billions of people, all saying something to themselves "OH MY GOSH PRINCESS DIANA DIED" can affect what would otherwise be an even distribution of 0s and 1s. If, indeed, there IS an effect (and take this as a successful Princeton project), then it only makes sense that they want the PURE effect to be measured "OH MY GOSH PRINCESS DIANA DIED" rather than "OH MY GOSH PRINCESS DIANA DIED. I WONDER IF THIS AFFECTS THE PRINCETON "EGGS"".

Since they are in effect trying to figure out if global attention on an event affects the number generator, it is actually very counter productive to turn global attention on the number generator itself. This is a kind of Catch 22 for the researchers. So, for now they are trying to (as quietly as possible) gather anecdotal data.

[enki23]

16. entanglement is a pretty specific phenomenon

how one might reasonably explain "quantum entanglement" effects of human brain activity and random number generators is way, way, way beyond me. however, i know just enough to get a very distinct whiff of bullshit when i hear it thrown around lightly.

and in any case, are our brains significantly more "active" during big "events?" that assumption seems to be taken as a given. i doubt anyone has a good reason for that assumption, however. i would wager the majority of the world probably didn't know princess diana died, or, at very least, they were not significantly affected by it. i could have cared less. many people likely noticed it, but the vast VAST majority of the world could hardly be expected to have been truly affected by it. it was less important an "event," to me, than it would have been had my dog peed on the carpet that day. i really doubt i'm out of the ordinary in that respect. i'd love to see any studies which might prove me wrong.

this.. er... "study" is based on so many unstated (at least not obviously stated), almost certainly baseless assumptions, a person wouldn't know where to start.

[Celebration]

17. agree with you!!

Good grief, my cat peeing on the carpet would have affected MY mental state much more than Princess Diana passing away. So would a fender bender, so would a cross word from my boss, so would looking at the Grand Canyon. However, those events, over the expanse of humanity, would be expected to occur randomly. There are probably about as many people doing things like hiking in the Grand Canyon every day as there are whose pets peed on the carpet. Even taking into account the fact that many people probably paid little attention to the passing of Princess Diana (there is no way to directly measure this), it was at least noted by a great number of people, and all at about the same time, and there may have been a significant number of people who noted it in way more than a passing way, as you and I did.

You can see the problem of doing a controlled experiment in this. There is just no way to get everyone's pet to pee on the rug at the same time! Not only that, attention like this on the project, according to the researchers, could affect the results. And while you believe that the experiment is based on baseless assumptions, it nonetheless goes forward, quietly trying to gather data, waiting for tsunamis, OJ verdicts, Princess Diana deaths, and significant terrorist activities to occur.

[Imperialism Inc.]

20. You have a good nose.

Whenever you hear some using quantum mechanics and entanglement as a reason to throw every rule out the window your bullshit detector should start blinking rapidly.
Scientists had to create very specific conditions to get the entanglement to occur. You can't just jump from that to the actions of neurons(or whatever) effect a random number generator.
With regards to the specific project in question it is frankly a joke. The people running the experiment have admitted that they have disregarded many spikes that had no corresponding "world event". Then there is the time element. The spikes have occurred before the event in some cases (all cases?). So now we have a time travel component and not just "entanglement". They are looking at spkies and then finding events to match them. If they want to be scientific they need to identify the events first and then check to see if there are spikes. How many major events have occured with no spike? We have no way to know with the way they are doing it. Etc etc. Like I said its a joke.

[Squeegee]

19. All a matter of interpretation

The state of two entangled particles is unknown until one of the two is observed. Once the state of one particle is known, the state of the other particle will also be known. This does not necessarily mean that the act of observing one particle influences the other.

Here's an overly simplistic analogy: In a dark room, you grab a pair of quantum particles from a bucket full of positive/negative (+/-) entangled particles. You place them at opposite ends of the room, but since you cannot see them, you don't know which one is which. You finally decided to look at one of them, so you turn on your flashlight and point it at one of the particles. It jumps up and has a big "+" painted on it. Knowing this, you now know that the other particle on the other side of the room is negative, which you discover when you point the flashlight at it and it jumps up and has a "-" printed on it.

Now, according to the mathematics of quantum mechanics, while the flashlight was off, the two particles randomly fluctuated between "+" and "-". As soon the light was turned on, they both stopped fluctuating with one being "+" and the other "-". Does this actually happen? After all, the lights were out and you couldn't see what the two particles were really doing. All you saw once you turned on your flashlight was that one particle was "+" and the other "-". For all your knowledge, they were like that the whole time.

So, does quantum mechanics describe what's going on here? The short answer is: yeah, close enough. The long answer: not necessarily. If you have ever taken an electro-magnetics course in college, you'd know that the mathematics required to solve various electromagnetic wave equations lead to imaginary things, like negative frequencies, instant current, negative resistances, etc., which cannot exist in the real world, but are required to solve real world problems. The same goes for quantum mechanics; however, unlike with electro-magnetics, quantum mechanics is not part of our every day experience so, at the mathematical level, we don't have a basis from which we can separate what's real from what's purely imaginary.

Also, the idea that observation of one entangled particle influences another particle is merely one interpretation of mathematical results: Copenhagen interpretation. There are others that do not arrive at that conclusion, such as the Many-worlds interpretation or the Bohm interpretation. Then there is the Null interpretation that simply states "Shut up and calculate".

[Squeegee]

10. This isn't a 'scentific' experiment.

There is no control group and no independent confirmation.

[enki23]

14. wow, what a load of crap

a bunch of right brain/left brain bullshit, right on the front page, gets you in the mood for some serious foolishness. and it doesn't disappoint.

[Astarho]

8. Ironic

Mr. Randi illustrates how a "politically-correct" attitude has blinded scientists ? who should know better ?

Ironic a man with no scientific credentials himself is lecturing about science.

[papau]

18. :-) - But he defines his straw-man called "science" and has a great time

discussing his definition and where current practice fails.

Heck, I like entanglement being considered "proven" because there is indeed action at a distance.

But we knew that there was action at a distance for 75 or more years, and we discussed the need for multiple universes as one of the possible solutions back in 63.

The fact that entanglement does not require multiple universes is nice - but then it does not explain why we should reject any effect like action at a distance on consciousness. Indeed the Calvinist solution is still a valid option, if we are worried about the word "valid"!

Now I must go back to finding the lost 7 dimensions - they were no-longer curled in on themselves when last seen, but were now sort of just hanging out there duplicating the 3 we know about (plus time).

I think time is still one way, but I couldn't swear to that.

:-)