Mod+ 257. DR. DIANE POWELL FINDS TELEPATHY AMONG AUTISTIC SAVANT CHILDREN

thx for this analogy... gets at the reality of how this kind of science is done and perceived.

It's absurd (i.e. deifies common sense, rational thinking) to suggest that cueing and leakage could account for these off-the-chart results. the only reason this kind of silliness gets any traction at all is because science-as-we-know-it folks are so determined to find a way to jam everything back into their crazy mind=brain model that they'll grasp at anything that gets them there (classic Apologetics). I mean, come on, do any of you really believe that cueing explains this???

Finally, stack up the natural history of telepathy versus the natural history of this kind of unintentional cueing.
I think I am saying the effect is probably real, but it can't reasonably be said to have been experimentally demonstrated. We don't know all the constrains that Dr Powell may have been under, but you can't really say that the demonstration was convincing - I mean, I imagine that an autistic child might develop a very deep bond with her carers, and who knows what information may flow between them by who knows what means.

I am inclined to think this is real telepathy because there are various related reports of such things with autistic people, and some of the feats of autistic savants seem to require ψ of one sort or another, but that is not the same as thinking that this experiment demonstrates ψ. Don't forget that this is not potential cueing between random individuals, but between two individuals that are very close, and have been dealing with similar problems (arithmetic etc) together for months or years.

My biggest concern is that the child seems to touch more than one number before the stencil is suddenly snatched away. As I understand it, the person who is snatching it away can see what is going on, and knows the number in question!

Dr Powell seemed to say she was going back to do improved tests, and maybe this will resolve the problem.

Since the girl has two carers, I don't see why one can act as the sender, while the other would help the child with the stencil. This would be a perfectly acceptable ψ experiment.

If that doesn't work, I would try a precognition experiment in which child and carer would be a team, trying to guess a number or word that would be displayed to both of them a few seconds later.

Even if the statistics were inferior, a successful experiment of one of these sorts would be more persuasive IMHO.

If you are in touch with Dr Powell, I would hope you could use your influence to get her to try some experiments of this sort.

David
 
or consider Beischel's 5-way blinded medium study. the point is that contrary to what mainstream science suggests these kinds of huge effects in field trial results by competent scientists don't disappear when controls are tightened. this myth gets repeated a lot but the data (e.g. Radin, Nelson, Rhine, PEAR, many othes) suggests otherwise.
Well yes, but we surely want this experiment to stand on its own!

Then if Wiseman wants to suggest some bizarre theory, such as that a talking parrot might have heard the sender receive the number, and then flown to the receiver and tweeted the result, well we can comfortably ignore him :)

I mean, it stands to reason that autism can give rise to some very strange abilities, and it has to be relevant to the riddle of consciousness. It is such a shame if the evidence isn't reasonable waterproof.

David
 
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I'm all for tighter controls...
would we be having a different discussion if this idiotic paradigm was not hanging over everyone's head?

These two statements are somewhat contradictory. If you're for tighter controls, then the discussion we're having here makes sense. Has any of the feedback here shifted your opinion on the study in any way? Or do still think it's silly to even "go there"?
 
Since the girl has two carers, I don't see why one can act as the sender, while the other would help the child with the stencil. This would be a perfectly acceptable ψ experiment.

This is exactly what Powell is planning to do, to eliminate the slightest possibility of cueing.
 
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I've noticed some well thought out skeptical commentary from Max B regarding cueing has been deleted from Dr Powell's blog. This worries me a bit.
 
Considering he started off by suggesting that she was a fraud in this forum, it's no wonder his comments got deleted on Dr Powell's blog.

I try to stay as neutral as possible whenever I research anything and in this particular case, I think that much of what Max is saying is accurate. I was EXTREMELY excited about these claims BEFORE the video was made public. I feel very much let down now and somewhat feeling taken for a ride.

Of course, those of you who are 'believers' will call me an ideologue, or pseudoskeptic or what have you but trust me when I say pseudo skeptics anger me. I am completely middle of the road.
 
I try to stay as neutral as possible whenever I research anything and in this particular case, I think that much of what Max is saying is accurate. I was EXTREMELY excited about these claims BEFORE the video was made public. I feel very much let down now and somewhat feeling taken for a ride.

Of course, those of you who are 'believers' will call me an ideologue, or pseudoskeptic or what have you but trust me when I say pseudo skeptics anger me. I am completely middle of the road.
I have no problem with methodological issues being raised. Dr Powell certainly admits the controls need to be improved. It's the name calling I find inappropriate. Max didn't raise his concerns in an appropriate manner, he started posting insults to her character instead. I can't fault anyone who doesn't allow trolls on her website.
 
I have no problem with methodological issues being raised. Dr Powell certainly admits the controls need to be improved. It's the name calling I find inappropriate. Max didn't raise his concerns in an appropriate manner, he started posting insults to her character instead. I can't fault anyone who doesn't allow trolls on her website.

I don't know Max well enough and I can't speak for him, but perhaps he was insulted and felt like he was getting bamboozled and taken for a fool. I can see that after watching the video.
 
I have no problem with methodological issues being raised. Dr Powell certainly admits the controls need to be improved. It's the name calling I find inappropriate. Max didn't raise his concerns in an appropriate manner, he started posting insults to her character instead. I can't fault anyone who doesn't allow trolls on her website.

It rather depends, I think. Obviously calling someone a fraud crosses the line. But if the criticisms were valid and presented fairly on the site I don't see why it's inappropriate. Powell could have answered the criticisms directly, though it's not clear what those criticisms were.
 
It rather depends, I think. Obviously calling someone a fraud crosses the line. But if the criticisms were valid and presented fairly on the site I don't see why it's inappropriate. Powell could have answered the criticisms directly, though it's not clear what those criticisms were.
She was kind enough to respond to various criticisms brought up by others directly on this forum. But after Max's name-calling episode, he came across as a troll. Not everyone is as thick-skinned as Radin when it comes to anonymous trolling of their blog. Dr Powell is new to dealing with that sort of thing.It can be a bit of a shock for anyone new to internet forums like this one. Alex should have warned her that he allows that kind of thing here.

You can always search the other thread for all of Max's posts if you want to read his critique.
 
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She was kind enough to respond to various criticisms brought up by others directly on this forum. But after Max's name-calling episode, he came across as a troll.

So do you think if someone else points out the difficulties and is very careful to be extremely polite, she'll leave the comments there?
 
The only thing I was initially concerned by was Powells insistant claims of 'no cueing' and '100% accurate'. When viewing the short video it very quickly became clear that Powells claims did not stand up to scrutiny. There was very obvious cueing, feedback, and the subject made an error.

Because of the different styles of choosing employed by the subject for the letter stencil trials, as compared with the number stencil trials. I later decided to investigate the talker used by the subject. It turned out there were major problems with the talker, such as predictive text, and ordering of suggested words by frequency of use.

These issues are detailed by me, and Trancestate in the other forum thread.

I pointed these out to Powell on her blog, but she has never responded directly to the specific issues I have raised. Instead she has continued to insist throughout that there was 'no cueing', despite releasing a second video which contains audio, and provides evidence of blatant verbal cueing by the therapist.

I don't suppose professionals like it when they get caught with their pants down by amateurs in public. I don't in my career. But I tend to find that a persons character is often exposed in the nature of their response.

Anyway, I think a possible scenario is that this whole thing will just fade away, due to lack of funding. Indeed, I sometimes wonder whether Diane unconsciously set up the campaign, with it's unrealistic target, to give herself such an escape route.
 
Anyway, I think a possible scenario is that this whole thing will just fade away, due to lack of funding. Indeed, I sometimes wonder whether Diane unconsciously set up the campaign, with it's unrealistic target, to give herself such an escape route.

If she wanted to escape, the simplest, no-fuss way would have been to just let the whole thing drop. Fact is, Max, it's possible that even though the protocol is open to valid criticism, telepathy actually is occurring. For myself, I don't know whether it is or it isn't. You appear to have taken a stance that impugns Dr. Powell's integrity; well, she might indeed be wrong, but in my view that stance is unwarranted. No need to resort to ad hominem.

A guest on Alex's show shouldn't necessarily be allowed to escape criticism, but there civilised ways of being critical, which I myself have tried to adhere to. You're coming across on this particular issue as being ideologically sceptical, and that isn't exactly helping your case or endearing you to those who default to the assumption of integrity even if there are faults in the experimental protocol, which IMO there surely are.
 
1. There's long, well established natural history of telepathy and psi phenomena... a lot of regular people throughout time across cultures have investigated this stuff and found that it's real. This kind of common sense natural history suggests that telepathy is almost certainly real.

2. There are a lot of peer-reviewed published research papers suggesting the reality of psi.

3. There a long, well-established history of pseudo-scientific debunking at the hands of dogmatic mainstream scientists and their friends in the "Skeptical community." These folks have brought a "by any means necessary" approach to debunking anything psi or paranormal. Many have taken to Randi-like tactics of "lying in order to expose the truth."

If you're posting here and don't accept these basic facts then you're coming at this thing from a different perspective... you're a Skeptic (with a capital "S"). As we've seen on this forum over the years, blind-eyed Skepticism of this kind doesn't mix well with psi research... "you can't get there from here."

But, this this the playing field that Powell enters. She's trying to demonstrate a phenomena that most people already accept as being real, and do it in a way that convinces those who have made it their life's mission to discredit exactly the kind of research she's doing. This is a lose game... but the only one in town... so, let's keep playing :)
 
Well, having viewed the other Powell thread and witnessed an excellent tour-de-force of an analysis by Trancestate, I'm feeling somewhat deflated from the whole affair. It is now quite obvious subtle cueing is happening and this is probably accounting for the effects seen. My new found concern towards this project is buttressed by the quality of the exchanges favouring more skeptical commentary. I think Dr Powell should perform a fairly quick one-off study addressing these cueing concerns in order to legitimize a further funding campaign. At the moment, it feels like we're being taken on a merry little dance...
 
If you're posting here and don't accept these basic facts then you're coming at this thing from a different perspective... you're a Skeptic (with a capital "S"). As we've seen on this forum over the years, blind-eyed Skepticism of this kind doesn't mix well with psi research... "you can't get there from here."

There's a difference between being sceptical about a particular experimental protocol in which there's obvious scope for cueing, and being a "blind-eyed Sceptic" who's determined not to believe in the paranormal regardless of the evidence.

Surely it's possible to be a proponent without discarding all one's critical faculties?
 
There's a difference between being sceptical about a particular experimental protocol in which there's obvious scope for cueing, and being a "blind-eyed Sceptic" who's determined not to believe in the paranormal regardless of the evidence.

Surely it's possible to be a proponent without discarding all one's critical faculties?
I'm not commenting on this experiment. However, on your last point, definitely yes. I've said this before: we can't trust the 'sceptics' to give a balanced assessment, therefore it falls to the so-called 'proponents' to play the role of sceptic too. It's a responsibility we should not shirk.
 
I've really got no problem with Sheldrakes Jaytee experiment. I'm also hugely interested in UBC's Ouija experiment which I think is rather damn clever, and might offer the best way of exploring this area, by tricking the subject into believing they are not in control. UBC only wanted a couple of thousand dollars to continue to the next stage of experiments, they couldn't raise it. NDE OBE sensory targets offer a further way to expose this effect.

Those three areas all show potential promise in my opinion, the UBC Quija idea in particular, is very cheap, you could pretty much do it at home with your friends, although it's only gonna last whilst for as long as they don't know about the trick.

Instead we spend weeks arguing about what Powell hasn't demonstrated. Whilst nobody talks about UBC, who actually have bloomin interesting results, that absolutely demand further investigation.
 
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