Well, I'm wondering if anyone else watched this? I'd like to discuss a few things with it. Do you beleive the final thoughts were accurate?

On the show, they did around 4-5 tests, all showing POSSIBLE evidence that it dos exist. One test was even REPEATED and the results stayed the same for every test. They tested a mother and daughter, put them in seperate rooms. And they visualy stimulated the mother's brain. In just a few hundred miliseconds the daugher's brain had been stimulated just as her mother's was. Now, they even admitted that this could be evidence, but you know what the final thought was? COICIDENCE.

How can you use coicidence as a debunking tool? It can't even be proven!....

That was what first made me scoff at the scientists.

Then, they tested one man who said he could astral project. They had a girl choose 9 locations, and take a picture of each one. They then made her choose only ONE of the locations. This location would be the place she'd stand and act as a "beacon" for the man who claimed he could astral project. Note that no one exept the girl had seen the photos. So, the girl is standing at the location, acting as a beacon. The man sat in an office with another guy[not sure if he was a scientists or not] and timed himself. He'd attempt to astral project and find the women within 30 minutes. As he did this, he drew pictures, and explained what he ment. He said he saw something dark, like a tunnel. Then it turns into an area where there is a curve on the right sand. And also something like concrete on the ground, it was smoothe. Then, he saw some sort of work of art, something that seemed to be in concrete. And he also pictured something large and "hanging" quote "Like a bridge or something".



After this was all done. They did not tell him where the women was, but instead took him to the location. As he was going there, he IMMEDIATLY knew what he was seeing. Before he even got to the exact location, he said "So this is what I was seeing! That is exactly what I saw" [note he didn't even know he was close yet as far as I know]. He was going under a bridge, into a tunnel [that marks 2 of his descriptions right]. Then, when they turned right, they indeed got to an area with a concrete slab [smoothe looking concrete] wich was curved on the right side[like he said]. And, there were 3 pictures stuck in the concrete via poles [like they have at zoos with pictures of the animals and a description].

Meanwhile, the guy who was with the astral projector took out all 9 photos and looked at them. They told him to choose wich one, in his opinion fits best with the astral projector's descriptions. After going through each one, he indeed placed the correct location as most possible.


You know what scientists said? "Retro-Fitting"........ And also, about all the other experiments done on the show, scientists said "coicidence".


How can you be so closed off to possabilities? I just don't understand it. Believe me, I've tried. I can understand skepticism to an extent. But when it gets really deep I just don't understand it. How does "coicidence" count as a good explaination?

Coincidence doesn't depend on how many successes there were. It depends on how many successes there were compared to how many failures there were. If 4-5 tests showed a link, but 50-60 tests didn't, then you can be justified in thinking it was a coincidence. I didn't see this show, but generally, I have found that these shows only present the successess, not the full range of data, and only present views that support their conclusions.

Actualy these shows are more skeptic than anything. Especially "Is it real?" and "Naked Science". The test when it came to the mother and daughter came out the same every time they tried it. They said they repeated the test serveral times, and the results stayed the same. One guy at the end said "I was very skeptical at first. Every time we did the test, I'd find a reason to say we've done something wrong. But now I've run out of things to come up with." or something similar. But then at the end of the show, they completley ignore this, and say that what was on the show was more than likley just coicidence. There was also a study with twins. They placed one up stairs to the left side of the house, and the other down stairs towards the right end of the house. They watched one of the boy's brain activity while the other boy was subject to different stimulations. They did 3 tests. They blind folded the second boy and then dropped a plate behind him. The kid was startled. And then, few seconds later, the first boy's brain had unsual activity[as if startled] and his rate increased quickly. Then... they had the boy, still blind folded, stick his hand inside of a "tube" looking container and told him to touch the bottom. He slowly made his way to the bottom of the tube, wich was actualy filled with freezing water. When the boy touched the water, his brother in the other room reacted about 1-2 seconds later. The final test was the pop of a baloon [I found this one funny XD! Poor Kid].... They placed a baloon by his ear, and popped it. SAME RESULTS again. His brother responded to it in about 1-2 seconds......


But, the problem with this one is. Skeptics said it's not a scientific environment, the house was "old" and the boy could have felt vibrations or heard noises. What they forgot was, the kid had headphones on [so he couldn't hear]. And they were pretty far apart, I very seriously doubt you can feel the vibration of a baloon popped from upstairs, or feel the vibration of his fingers hitting the water. Those were the only explainations the skeptics had.


The conclusion of the show was that there is no evidence for telepathy.

I'll pretty much sticvk with what I said. These shows, skeptic or otherwise, are for the purposes of entertainment. If a full range of tests were done, they wouldn't be show (too boring). If a full range wasn't done, then calling 4-5 tests inconclusive would be expected.

You can either believe that these tests were through, complete, and total, and the results were just not completely shown (in which case calling the skeptics closed off would be unfair, as you do not know what data they made their choice on), or you can believe these tests were completly composed of what they showed on TV, in which case the skeptics have every right to claim what they did, due to a lack of data.

Ultimately, the lesson is not to make judgements based on TV shows.

If you're from America, tune in to National Geographic. They have very interesting shows. It'll make it easier for you to discuss this topic.

I'm familiar with all three shows you have mentioned. The same holds true for National Geographic, both the show and the magazine (of which I am a subscriber). Popular media, while entertaining and usually correct in spirit, should always be regarded in context, and taken with a bit of salt. You can find several articles in National Geographic pertaining to mystical powers in hidden tribes, but you should never forget that they are being spoken about in an anthropological context, not a scientific one.

One of the issues that were brought up in the Shamanism thread is that the scientific method has certain inadequacies when it comes to testing for the paranormal. One of the more prevalent matters is that you can isolate two people in respect to developing data but the data can be different based upon whether or not familiarity exists between the two individuals.

Here is an example....

http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/quantum-brain.html

To be clear you get two people who are married and love each other very much, separate them as the experiment suggests and you get a positive response. If you use two people who do not know each other and there are no apparent reasons for negative feelings to exist between them the results are not as positive and finally, if you pair of two people who do not like each other more than likely the response is negative.

To be clear love or for that matter friendship is not something that mainstream scientist like quantifying as an objective variable within a scientific test, so they offer alternative explanations (such as it's coincidence). Truth is though it is a variable and despite the tendency of some to deny that fact is a bias, that with time needs to be overcome.

For obvious reasons....

It is interesting to note zeroshadow that the link included is the same experiment as you described in your first example and that the above data was not discussed in the show in question.

Any thoughts?

That's very odd. Did you see the show?


EDIT: Actualy, it's not the same exact test. This is just similar. I searched for the word "Twin" and "Boys", but neither show up. [instead of reading the entire thing].

have not seen that one yet

I'm glad there are people that don't believe in the paranormal. If there weren't, life would not be very fun now would it. I know guys got my back on this.

Not to mention no one would ever discover these things. If it wasn't for the believers, science wouldn't even be studying things like this [most likeley]. People who use to believe in ball ligthning were scoffed at by scientists, but now science acknowledges it's existance.