Beischel podcast...

Yes, it appears to be. In the table on page 137, there are 58 usable trials (experiments 1 & 2), which corresponds to the number quoted by Julie in the interview.

Nice catch, by the way. :)

Doug

It's the first medium study which I've really looked at, skimmed through it briefly twice this morning, and made some notes... I found it hellishly complicated to try and understand the exact details of the experiments, who got what information, and how it was moved on to the next person. I'll read it again tonight before I comment on it, as I'm not at all sure that I've understood it.
 
Well I did try again to dig in to the paper, but finally realised that there is not enough detail in the paper to allow me to decide in principle whether there may be a real anomalous effect, or not.

Some very rough notes below... in no particular order.

My suspicion is that there may be a problem in the experiment design which allows some information to pass between the 3 experimenters, such that the target reading is unconsciously signalled to the sitter. This would unconsciously bias the sitters scoring on statements that are more open to interpretation. Results from separate sitter scoring on the more factual statements about the deceased was not significant. Indicating that where interpretation by the sitter is reduced, the effect drops away, which would seem to support the idea of unconscious signalling to the sitter.

Without more practical information about how the readings were passed between the experimenters it wasn't possible for me to untangle the experiment.

I do get concerned when people work together for long periods of time with the same people, and claim they have found anomalous transfer of information. This does remind me a little of the recent Diane Powell claims.

In any case, the experiments design prevents us from checking whether the information provided by mediums about the deceased was accurate. The judge of accuracy is left to the sitters alone. This also suggests that the results obtained are due to something at the sitter end of the experiment, and probably have nothing to do with the mediums.

It seems to me that the sitters are merely being asked to make a yes/no choice about two bits of information which are wide open to interpretation. The results are then caused by some bias, due to an effect between the experimenter and sitter, and probably has little to do with the accuracy of the information.

Whether this effect is anomalous remains unclear, but it doesn't appear to be related to the medium at all. If it were anomalous it seems more related to the experimenter effect, the UBC Ouija board study, hypnotism, etc. That is an effect caused by one person on another.
 
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Well I did try again to dig in to the paper, but finally realised that there is not enough detail in the paper to allow me to decide in principle whether there may be a real anomalous effect, or not.

Some very rough notes below... in no particular order.

My suspicion is that there may be a problem in the experiment design which allows some information to pass between the 3 experimenters, such that the target reading is unconsciously signalled to the sitter. This would unconsciously bias the sitters scoring on statements that are more open to interpretation. Results from separate sitter scoring on the more factual statements about the deceased was not significant. Indicating that where interpretation by the sitter is reduced, the effect drops away, which would seem to support the idea of unconscious signalling to the sitter.

Without more practical information about how the readings were passed between the experimenters it wasn't possible for me to untangle the experiment.

I do get concerned when people work together for long periods of time with the same people, and claim they have found anomalous transfer of information. This does remind me a little of the recent Diane Powell claims.

In any case, the experiments design prevents us from checking whether the information provided by mediums about the deceased was accurate. The judge of accuracy is left to the sitters alone. This also suggests that the results obtained are due to something at the sitter end of the experiment, and probably have nothing to do with the mediums.

It seems to me that the sitters are merely being asked to make a yes/no choice about two bits of information which are wide open to interpretation. The results are then caused by some bias, due to an effect between the experimenter and sitter, and probably has little to do with the accuracy of the information.

Whether this effect is anomalous remains unclear, but it doesn't appear to be related to the medium at all. If it were anomalous it seems more related to the experimenter effect, the UBC Ouija board study, hypnotism, etc. That is an effect caused by one person on another.

So a greater than double blind study isn't controlled enough? Seriously, goal post moving at its best. I love how this experiment was designed with far better controls than nearly any scientific experiment ever performed, including clinical trials for medications that have serious potential to cause grievous harm, but it's still not good enough. This just shows how no evidence will ever be good enough. There will always be someone somewhere that will find some small idiotic reason to dismiss the evidence.

Moreover, when you're talking about something incredibly personal, such as a relationship between two people, who exactly, as a third party, can verify pertinent information? There are so many things that take place between two people in any given relationship that are impossible to be assessed for meaning by a third party. The sitter is literally the only person that can make that determination.

Let's say for example my husband passed away and I went to a medium and they told me he keeps saying "do better". This could be interpreted a million different ways by a million different people. But it would be highly significant to me because it's something very personal that we share. Most likely, it would be deemed too vague and devoid of meaning by a third party. But it would be full of meaning to me.
 
So a greater than double blind study isn't controlled enough? Seriously, goal post moving at its best. I love how this experiment was designed with far better controls than nearly any scientific experiment ever performed, including clinical trials for medications that have serious potential to cause grievous harm, but it's still not good enough. This just shows how no evidence will ever be good enough. There will always be someone somewhere that will find some small idiotic reason to dismiss the evidence.

Moreover, when you're talking about something incredibly personal, such as a relationship between two people, who exactly, as a third party, can verify pertinent information? There are so many things that take place between two people in any given relationship that are impossible to be assessed for meaning by a third party. The sitter is literally the only person that can make that determination.

Let's say for example my husband passed away and I went to a medium and they told me he keeps saying "do better". This could be interpreted a million different ways by a million different people. But it would be highly significant to me because it's something very personal that we share. Most likely, it would be deemed too vague and devoid of meaning by a third party. But it would be full of meaning to me.

Did you read the paper?
 
The "Diane Powell claims", where she was the first one to point out that the demostration was far from the controls that she intended and was clear that the next round would apply a different protocol... Yet you made a big stink out of it and acted like a brat to somebody that was posting in this forum and trying to engage. Way to toot your horn there, Max.
 
In fairness to Powell, we were able to see much more of the raw data than in this case.

I read Max's posts as 'there may well be something going on here, it's just difficult to know from the paper alone'.
 
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Yes, I did. It seems to me you are reaching for reasons not to believe the data. Most clinical trials aren't this robust.

I have no particular problem with the results, I'm assuming here that they are correct. Apparently the sitters make the correct binary choice more regularly than expected. I'm just looking at ways to explain why they do so? But it is a hellishly complicated experiment to fully understand... and the explanation of the procedures used are spread across more than one paper...
 
In fairness to Powell, we were able to see mch more of the raw data than in this case.

I read Max's postis as 'there may well be somethings going on here, it's just difficult to know from the paper alone'.

Yes. I agree with both your points.
 
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