Poltergeist

[Tiberius]

Surely I cited Kathy Dalton? I described her sample and results. The paragraph before I described her method. The other experiments are pretty similar with just a few minor alterations (e.g. larger sample, different demography, longer test period etc.). What more do you want? A diagram?

The keyword in my sentence was "evidence". I have only your word that she did this experiment, that she used this method, that there were other experiments, etc. Link me to her study so I can read it. I'm not going to place my entire opinion of the existence of ghosts/poltergeists in the hands of someone who has provided no evidence for them. It's like me trying to convince someone that Hitler existed by repeatedly saying "Hitler invaded France and Poland using tanks and infantry" to them. The Wikipedia page you gave does not mention her at all; only some studies by Hyman.

Yes I did. I said 'it varies from experiment to experiment'. In other words both methods were used.

I'm sorry, but "it varies from experiment to experiment" was neither an answer to the question "what randomisation methods were involved", nor a confirmation (as you just did) that my two guesses at randomness methods were the ones that varied. Saying "it varies from experiment to experiment" tells me nothing unless you say which methods vary.

Correction, it is evidence of something, just perhaps not psychic energy.

Agreed. I mistyped, meant to put "this is not evidence of psychic energy".

However, the working hypothesis is that this 'something' is psychic or brain energy.

It's hardly a working hypothesis. It's been talked about for years and nobody has ever come up with a scientific experiment that can confirm it, or even show what psychic energy is. It's a guess, nothing more. A hypothesis should make some experiments to help it reach the level of theory, and your failure to provide any just shows how it is far from a "working" hypothesis.

Your critique of why it might not be psychic energy is good, but you have failed to provide an alternative. Perhaps you feel that you do not have to, but I would be interested to learn what you think the something in the Ganzfeld experiments is?

I have no idea. This is the difference between a believer and a skeptic. I don't leap onto the nearest idea just because it sounds good. I certainly don't pretend to know a thing about how the brain works, or how most of physics works, so I admit that I cannot produce anything that would explain it. That doesn't mean I am going to believe in the most popular idea even though it has no evidence, it means I am going to wait for someone to come up with an idea and test it to get the evidence. Only then will I state my support for an explanation.

This is the peak of open-mindedness, not just blindly accepting ideas because other people with degrees have said they might be the answer. The evidence should speak for itself, and if it doesn't, you don't have a very good answer.

Anyway, can we move onto Poltergeists? I want to see some case studies and video clips All this talk about Psychic energy is all very well and good, but you seemed to suggest that there was actual evidence for poltergeists in video / photo form, which I am very interested in.