Point 1. (and probably most important) Psychic powers DON’T ACTUALLY EXIST!
– sorry to inform those of you who thought they did, but along with magic, unicorns, and dragons, psychic powers are just a made up thing. They are mostly used to extract money and attention from people who aren’t aware of this point.

Point 2. In light of 1., the MDC results will probably make a lot more sense, given that it is simply confirming what the rest of us already knew. The so-called “psychics” are in fact either a: lying to you, or b: insane!

Point 3. Arguing on the internets about it is not getting you anywhere, partly because the people you are arguing with were already aware of point 1, and partly because that’s just the nature of arguing on the internets.

Point 4. Has anyone heard “Blue Garden” the first album by “Masters of Reality” lately? I just dusted off my copy and had a listen, and dang! I gotta tell ya, it’s really stood the test of time. Highly recommended if you haven’t heard it before.

Remember: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, still exists”

Can you tell me where I can find more information on this? Everyone I have talked to said there was an arbitrary 1000-1 benchmark for the preliminary, and million to 1 for the final challenge (although it was slightly negotiable, depending on the protocol). This seems to have been confirmed in Randi’s JREF newsletter reply to my original article, in which he discussed the odds with his resident statistician. The statistician replied:…

That is not what I mean when I say performance. When you say, for instance, that you are normally right 90% of the time, but in a test you are right 45% of the time, you are operating at half your normal performance level.

In comment #86 you claimed the MDC could disprove someone’s ability to assess their own performance. In #87 I objected and said it could only do on that particular day, a feat that has no scientific meaning whatsoever. In #88, instead of simply agreeing with or objecting to that statement, you totally leave that point aside and try to make a new one – that someone’s ability to assess their performance somehow makes a statement about whether the performance is possible or not at all.

I am not exactly sure how you came to that conclusion about post 88. To repeat what I said in that post, if someone is unable to assess their performance on a given day, then their assessments on other days cannot be trusted. I said nothing whatsoever about whether they can perform or not.

In #89 I use a simple metaphor (Putt thought she was doing well, it was objectively shown she wasn’t – Usain thought he was doing well, it was objectively shown he wasn’t – though he in fact could do so, same might be true for Putt) to show the fallacy of your new point. Again then, in #93, you start a whole new set of points, instead of replying directly to what was said.

I did reply directly to what you said. The first thing I do in post 93 is explain why your metaphor is not valid. It doesn’t matter how clear or simple your metaphor is, if it doesn’t resemble the subject being discussed in the important details then it is not relevant.

Your first point…that’s not even what the metaphor was about, and it should be obvious.

But this is a critical distinction. A runner’s record is not based on their subjective estimate. Even if they were wrong about their best time, the objective measure of their best time still stands. If all we had from a runner is subjective measures of his or her times, and we know that subjective measure is way off from the objective measure, that means we cannot trust any of their subjective times. They may have been right at some point, but since we know they are not reliable none of that can be trusted. To use the cliche, you are comparing apples to oranges, and then you complain when I try to point out that they are different.

Second point…why all these words to explain something completely irrelevant to our discussion ? Not a single word there explains why you would claim that the MDC disproves someone’s ability to assess their performance (or any ability), or why your point made in #88 is not fallacious.

Why not? If someone thinks their assessment may be bad on certain days, they can test their assessment to make sure it is working that day. Built into the testing system is a way to address your concern, to make sure they are not having a bad day in their assessments.

Third point, same problem as with your first point…the world record mentioned in the metaphor is completely irrelevant to the metaphor, and you go on and make lots of words about “peak performance” etc., when that doesn’t have anything to do with our discussion AT ALL.

No, it is critical to the metaphor. People are not asked to operate at their peak performance for JREF, they are asked to operate at a performance level they are sure they will be able to perform at, at a level they consider to be a definitive test of their ability to perform at all. If the subject has any sense this would be set at or below their minimum performance level. Yet they are not even able to tell they are performing below what they think is their minimum performance. There is a huge difference between being able to tell whether you beat your world record and being able to tell whether you performed at all.

So to summarize the problems with your metaphor

1. Your metaphor assumes that we already know that the subject is able to do the task at all, something we do not know for JREF. It also assumes we have some objective standard for the subject to compare against, which we don’t for JREF.
2. Subjects are able to test their assessment of their abilities, so they have no grounds for saying their assessment was not working that day.
3. There is a big difference between being able to tell whether you performed your best ever and being able to tell whether you performed at all (based on your own definition of what is considered “performing”).

I’ll admit that point 1 on its own is not useful, but the points are not meant to be taken individually. I guess it was mistake for assuming you would see how they all fit together. Let me spell it out for you: The subject is not able to correctly assess their ability to do the task at all today (3). The subject is not having a bad day or does not have bad days (2). The only reason we have any reason to believe the subject can do the task is the subject’s assessment of their ability (1). The logical conclusion that we should not believe the subject’s claim that they can do the task.

And your last paragraph describes the situation in a way I never did, so your conclusion that I’m grasping at straws to explain someone’s failure is technically nothing but a cute little strawman argument.

What, specifically, is different from your claim?

Or you give some clear replies to our initial topic – that the MDC can’t “disprove” anything, and is thus scientifically meaningless.

Yes, it can disprove that the subject is able to assess their powers.

I’m still wondering though why you brought the issue of her being able to make correct statements from a subjective viewpoint about her gifts at all.

Because all we have to go on is the subject’s ability “make correct statements from a subjective viewpoint about her gifts”. That is the only evidence that these people have. If they can’t do that then there is no reason to think they have powers at all. That doesn’t disprove that they have powers, I never claimed it did. But it does mean there is no more reason to think the subject has powers then that my computer is really a shape-shifting gnome, or any other random claim. Occam’s razor comes into play.

@TheBlackCat: “It shows that Patricia Putt is incapable of telling whether she actually has powers or not. ”

Fair point.

Even that isn’t a fair point for the MDC I’m afraid. It’s like concluding Usain Bolt can’t tell whether he’s running or not, just because he overestimated the speed with which he was running.

Like TheBlackCat said “While the testing was going on she thought everything was going fine and her powers were working well.”

The “working well” part is crucial. That’s what she was wrong about. Whether she was wrong about the working part, we can’t tell. From that doesn’t logically follow, that if, hypothetically, her gifts exist, she can’t tell whether they’re working at all, i.e. whether she has powers.

Okay, probably I’m obsessing over this whole debate way too much and should just let it go – but I’m flawed like that, so what the hell.

@TheBlackCat

I’m still wondering though why you brought the issue of her being able to make correct statements from a subjective viewpoint about her gifts at all. I guess I’m seeing the point you’re trying to make, but I’m still at a loss as to what that point says about the MDC’s ability to come to scientifically valuable results – which is what was talked about here in the first place. Maybe I should’ve asked you that right from the start, and things would have run a less messy course.

Okay, I’m sorry…I’m trying to get my thoughts as clear and straight as possible (which, granted, might not always be successful since English is not even my first language), and I’m expecting the people I’m debating with to do the same. Of course we all have bad days, but – no offense – you’ve repeatedly made a mess out of this debate. I’m not in a place to say whether that’s intentional or not. Let me explain.

In comment #86 you claimed the MDC could disprove someone’s ability to assess their own performance. In #87 I objected and said it could only do on that particular day, a feat that has no scientific meaning whatsoever. In #88, instead of simply agreeing with or objecting to that statement, you totally leave that point aside and try to make a new one – that someone’s ability to assess their performance somehow makes a statement about whether the performance is possible or not at all. In #89 I use a simple metaphor (Putt thought she was doing well, it was objectively shown she wasn’t – Usain thought he was doing well, it was objectively shown he wasn’t – though he in fact could do so, same might be true for Putt) to show the fallacy of your new point. Again then, in #93, you start a whole new set of points, instead of replying directly to what was said. Your first point…that’s not even what the metaphor was about, and it should be obvious. Second point…why all these words to explain something completely irrelevant to our discussion ? Not a single word there explains why you would claim that the MDC disproves someone’s ability to assess their performance (or any ability), or why your point made in #88 is not fallacious. Third point, same problem as with your first point…the world record mentioned in the metaphor is completely irrelevant to the metaphor, and you go on and make lots of words about “peak performance” etc., when that doesn’t have anything to do with our discussion AT ALL. You miss or choose to ignore the most obvious meaning of the metaphor and reply to elements of it that one would have to go out and look for. And your last paragraph describes the situation in a way I never did, so your conclusion that I’m grasping at straws to explain someone’s failure is technically nothing but a cute little strawman argument.

So I don’t know, if you wanna keep messing this discussion up and spiralling out into areas that were never even the topic, by all means, keep doing so, but I’m done then. Or you give some clear replies to our initial topic – that the MDC can’t “disprove” anything, and is thus scientifically meaningless.

“Do have anything serious to add to this discussion, Leander?”

What I’m adding to the discussion can’t be as bad as you make it look, since we seem to agree on at least some things – I asked the yes-no-question you replied to after specifying “if, as was established here so far, the MDC doesn’t make any scientifically valuable statement”. Instead of objecting to this specification you chose to answer the question I derived from it, so I think it’s fair to assume that we agree on the specification.

Your answer seems to imply though that I’m oversimplifying the situation, and that you somehow think that it’s okay for people interested in educating the public about science and scientific thinking to use unscientific exercises like the MDC to back up their arguments. I personally still think that noone, whether they call themselves skeptics, psychics, ufologists or whatever should use anything devoid of scientifc value to back up their position, and worse, make things that don’t have that value look as if it does. It’s still that simple to me, but maybe I’m having a dull week. If YOU have something serious to add to this discussion, this would be a good time to enlighten me on the complexities of why skeptics should not oppose that kind of behaviour in skeptics, only in everybody else. I’d think ESPECIALLY people claiming an interest in spreading rational thought should be taken to task for stuff like that, and the double standard it involves. But I hope you’ll clear it all up for me.