Maybe DavidM is in fact “leading” people to the answer through a series of multiple guesses.
Maybe? Maybe you need to reread that email conversation you posted.
One of the very first posts on the thread was her talking about her dream and saying “I think this has something to do with Notpron, but I don’t know what”. DavidM had to immediately remove the post so as not to give away the answer.
Every answer after that is contaminated.
However, on the other hand, DavidM really strongly believes in the conspiracy theory new age stuff and vigorously promotes it, so it seems unlikely that he would sabotage his own ideology like that.
It’s not DavidM you should be worried about. Actually, I should rephrase that: given the long history of fraud in this area, it is DavidM you should be worried about, believing in it has nothing at all to do with whether you are willing to lie about it and is an excellent reason to lie about getting positive results (how many people lie to produce evidence against cherished beliefs? and is there any way you could ever produce a smoking gun which could backfire like you claim he might be worried about?), and it’s also everyone else lying about it that you need to worry about (again, contamination).
(By the way, did you know ‘boat’ is a rather common object? eg 149m hits in Google, comparable with ‘Obama’ at 141m hits. In Ngram, ‘boat’ even beats’ apple’ but not ‘table’, funnily enough.)
So, given the above and this recent article from Slate Star Codex, I feel like I am forced to raise my credence level for remote viewing being real to somewhere between 50 and 60 percent.
The SSC article is most intriguing, but David’s evidence is worthless.
Maybe? Maybe you need to reread that email conversation you posted.
See my response to ShardPhoenix. It would be nice if you could elaborate on this. Obviously if I saw that my conversation with him was leading, I would not have posted this in the first place.
Every answer after that is contaminated.
Fair point.
It’s not DavidM you should be worried about. Actually, I should rephrase that: given the long history of fraud in this area, it is DavidM you should be worried about, believing in it has nothing at all to do with whether you are willing to lie about it and is an excellent reason to lie about getting positive results (how many people lie to produce evidence against cherished beliefs? and is there any way you could ever produce a smoking gun which could backfire like you claim he might be worried about?), and it’s also everyone else lying about it that you need to worry about (again, contamination).
It seems unlikely to me that he is explicitly lying in some way. I fully expect him to run a biased experiment, but not a rigged one. Most of the fraudsters have something to gain from their lies—either money, or fame. DavidM doesn’t make any money off of this (he worked on a movie about “the 5 natural laws of health”, but that is a completely different piece of woo than remote viewing and he also to my knowledge has never advertised the movie in association with Nu), and he is addressing an already captive audience. Secondly, if he truly believes remote viewing to be real, why would he run a faked experiment in support of it? Thirdly, for what it’s worth, my impression from playing Notpron for a few years is that he basically seems like an honest person.
If you think that he is lying, then in what way? How did he convince 31 minus one people to go along with this lie? Most of the people who solved Nu were active members of the community before DavidM ever became a conspiracy nut.
(By the way, did you know ‘boat’ is a rather common object? eg 149m hits in Google, comparable with ‘Obama’ at 141m hits. In Ngram, ‘boat’ even beats’ apple’ but not ‘table’, funnily enough.)
“Boat” is definitely a common object. I would say that it is one of the 100 most common objects to come to someone’s mind. So there should be a 1⁄100 chance that someone would guess it right on their first try.
Obviously if I saw that my conversation with him was leading, I would not have posted this in the first place.
His conversation was completely and obviously leading. I was reading that and thought ‘this is incredibly leading, I wonder if that will be part of the punchline where he explains why these results are complete bullshit?’ I was very disappointed to then read you say it was not leading.
It seems unlikely to me that he is explicitly lying in some way. I fully expect him to run a biased experiment, but not a rigged one. Most of the fraudsters have something to gain from their lies—either money, or fame. DavidM doesn’t make any money off of this (he worked on a movie about “the 5 natural laws of health”, but that is a completely different piece of woo than remote viewing and he also to my knowledge has never advertised the movie in association with Nu), and he is addressing an already captive audience. Secondly, if he truly believes remote viewing to be real, why would he run a faked experiment in support of it? Thirdly, for what it’s worth, my impression from playing Notpron for a few years is that he basically seems like an honest person.
Again, you’re ignoring the long history of fraud by believers. People will lie all the time to defend things they believe in. They will lie for the admiration and entertainment and reinforcement of their in-group. They will fudge to get the ‘right’ answer. Did you read the references in the SSC post? There was one all about experimenter fraud, featuring examples like a guy who completely made up data showing psi, then began doing elaborate experiments investigating potential hypotheses suggested by his fake data; whatever was going on in his head, it was not what you naively think was going on in everyone’s head. Or consider the long and prolific career of Diederik Stapel. Or...
(Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where people operated the way you think they do, where you could just listen to the most extreme fanatics and accept everything they say? ‘What’s that, you say there’s an omnipotent god who will punish me for eternity if I don’t believe in him? Well, as a believer, I don’t see why you would be mistaken, biased, or lying, and you give me the impression of a basically honest person, and some other people on your forums agree with you and claim to have had divine contact a few times and you say there’s even more such people—so duck me in some water and call me a Christian!’)
So there should be a 1⁄100 chance that someone would guess it right on their first try.
1% is a good starting point to amplify with biases, fabrication, leading dialogue, contamination, trolls, social pressure, ingratiation...
Look, his experiment was broken in almost every possible way. (He didn’t even change images?! What on earth remote viewing experiment ever used a single fixed target?) It’s fine if it’s a game, but that’s the thing: you don’t revise your beliefs based on games! I see dragons all the time in games, but I don’t increase my belief in dragons to ‘between 50 and 60 percent’.
Traditional skepticism has problems, but one of the things it is good at is debunking things like this. The whole point of why Yvain’s post on psi was interesting was that the experiments in question seemed to have avoided all the problems that setups like this plunge into willy-nilly.
If you think that he is lying, then in what way? How did he convince 31 minus one people to go along with this lie? Most of the people who solved Nu were active members of the community before DavidM ever became a conspiracy nut.
You’ve met all thirty people that solved the puzzle? In person? DavidM could just say there’s thirty people, or could have multiple accounts and actually be those “people”.
You should ask DavidM how he set up the experiment, for an introduction to one of the solvers, and then repeat the experiment. Then if it works, read a book about experimental design and start improving the experiment.
I mean… you basically gave 60% expectation that this experiment will work. So you should expect significant returns on going after Randi’s million dollar challenge, right? If not, why not?
Maybe? Maybe you need to reread that email conversation you posted.
Every answer after that is contaminated.
It’s not DavidM you should be worried about. Actually, I should rephrase that: given the long history of fraud in this area, it is DavidM you should be worried about, believing in it has nothing at all to do with whether you are willing to lie about it and is an excellent reason to lie about getting positive results (how many people lie to produce evidence against cherished beliefs? and is there any way you could ever produce a smoking gun which could backfire like you claim he might be worried about?), and it’s also everyone else lying about it that you need to worry about (again, contamination).
(By the way, did you know ‘boat’ is a rather common object? eg 149m hits in Google, comparable with ‘Obama’ at 141m hits. In Ngram, ‘boat’ even beats’ apple’ but not ‘table’, funnily enough.)
The SSC article is most intriguing, but David’s evidence is worthless.
See my response to ShardPhoenix. It would be nice if you could elaborate on this. Obviously if I saw that my conversation with him was leading, I would not have posted this in the first place.
Fair point.
It seems unlikely to me that he is explicitly lying in some way. I fully expect him to run a biased experiment, but not a rigged one. Most of the fraudsters have something to gain from their lies—either money, or fame. DavidM doesn’t make any money off of this (he worked on a movie about “the 5 natural laws of health”, but that is a completely different piece of woo than remote viewing and he also to my knowledge has never advertised the movie in association with Nu), and he is addressing an already captive audience. Secondly, if he truly believes remote viewing to be real, why would he run a faked experiment in support of it? Thirdly, for what it’s worth, my impression from playing Notpron for a few years is that he basically seems like an honest person.
If you think that he is lying, then in what way? How did he convince 31 minus one people to go along with this lie? Most of the people who solved Nu were active members of the community before DavidM ever became a conspiracy nut.
“Boat” is definitely a common object. I would say that it is one of the 100 most common objects to come to someone’s mind. So there should be a 1⁄100 chance that someone would guess it right on their first try.
His conversation was completely and obviously leading. I was reading that and thought ‘this is incredibly leading, I wonder if that will be part of the punchline where he explains why these results are complete bullshit?’ I was very disappointed to then read you say it was not leading.
Again, you’re ignoring the long history of fraud by believers. People will lie all the time to defend things they believe in. They will lie for the admiration and entertainment and reinforcement of their in-group. They will fudge to get the ‘right’ answer. Did you read the references in the SSC post? There was one all about experimenter fraud, featuring examples like a guy who completely made up data showing psi, then began doing elaborate experiments investigating potential hypotheses suggested by his fake data; whatever was going on in his head, it was not what you naively think was going on in everyone’s head. Or consider the long and prolific career of Diederik Stapel. Or...
(Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where people operated the way you think they do, where you could just listen to the most extreme fanatics and accept everything they say? ‘What’s that, you say there’s an omnipotent god who will punish me for eternity if I don’t believe in him? Well, as a believer, I don’t see why you would be mistaken, biased, or lying, and you give me the impression of a basically honest person, and some other people on your forums agree with you and claim to have had divine contact a few times and you say there’s even more such people—so duck me in some water and call me a Christian!’)
1% is a good starting point to amplify with biases, fabrication, leading dialogue, contamination, trolls, social pressure, ingratiation...
Look, his experiment was broken in almost every possible way. (He didn’t even change images?! What on earth remote viewing experiment ever used a single fixed target?) It’s fine if it’s a game, but that’s the thing: you don’t revise your beliefs based on games! I see dragons all the time in games, but I don’t increase my belief in dragons to ‘between 50 and 60 percent’.
Traditional skepticism has problems, but one of the things it is good at is debunking things like this. The whole point of why Yvain’s post on psi was interesting was that the experiments in question seemed to have avoided all the problems that setups like this plunge into willy-nilly.
Some people just enjoy lying. Sometimes so much so that it’s considered a mental illness.
You’ve met all thirty people that solved the puzzle? In person? DavidM could just say there’s thirty people, or could have multiple accounts and actually be those “people”.
You should ask DavidM how he set up the experiment, for an introduction to one of the solvers, and then repeat the experiment. Then if it works, read a book about experimental design and start improving the experiment.
I mean… you basically gave 60% expectation that this experiment will work. So you should expect significant returns on going after Randi’s million dollar challenge, right? If not, why not?