Psi: How Open Minded are You Really?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Here is one of the best lectures ever summarizing the most recent findings in parapsychology. While you watch, please pay attention to your own reaction.

[Cyberman]

I'd be interested to hear your reaction when you watched it.

[vorlon13]

{I'm in a rural backwater, with my slow internet it would take about 3 1/2 days for me to watch that)

Having said that, imagine the impact from a Darwinian perspective for a prey animal to be able to reliably sense a nearby predator animals thoughts.

I'd posit if any kind of psychic ability were possible, the survival advantage would be overwhelming, and we would already have absolute proof of it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just shy of empty minded, just further than close minded. Whats your personal favorite portion of the uploaded clip, and what does it have to do with any given persons open-mindedness? If I don't have an "open mind" will I laugh and call massive bs?

[Pizza]

How can we tell psi from not psi? Does the video cover that issue? Honestly I don't feel like watching an hour long lecture on psi that doesn't cover that important issue.

[Anomalocaris]

For wooters, "open mind" means that precise degree of gullibility which would enable a fool to take wooters with some minimum degree of seriousness.

[JuliaL]

t l : d view

However I did go out and get a few samples of what others think of his "research."

http://skepdic.com/essays/radin.html

The evidence Radin presents, however, is little more than a hodgepodge of occult statistics. Unable to find a single person who can correctly guess a three-letter word or move a pencil an inch without trickery, the psi researchers have resorted to doing complex statistical analyses of data. In well-designed studies they assume that whenever they have data that, by some statistical formula, is not likely due to chance, they attribute the outcome to psi.

https://spiritualityisnoexcuse.wordpress...ean-radin/

The lecture is titled Science and the Taboo of Psi.

Despite what any reasonable person would expect of a lecture with a title like that, Radin in fact does not attempt to argue that there is a taboo against psi in science.

Instead he simply asserts there is a taboo, and then interprets everything as if that assertion were true. He also dismisses all criticism of psi research as being merely the result of the taboo.

Just to make it clear, Radin also does not present a shred of evidence for psi in this lecture either, (though he talks about the subject a lot).

More importantly, Radin’s documentation sucks. His refusal to properly reference his sources (name, title, journal, date) causes problems for his argument which only become clear when you check the sources yourself. When you do this, it becomes clear that Radin is being less than accurate and less than honest with the information he provides his audience.

Further reading in the above URL review yields comments that Radin does not cite his sources well enough to independently investigate them.

Most of the Google hits not obviously associated with this guy (e.g. coming from http://www.deanradin.com) were neutral(book review) to highly critical.

I don't think he's worth my time to listen to. If psi were real, it would be used in business.

[Pizza]

True JuliaL, the private sector and the government would be all over that.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I don't think he's worth my time to listen to.

I'll put that down as a no.

[Pizza]

Are you open minded enough to deal with criticisms of your pet beliefs? I guess not, Chad.