Mia Dolan and the Million Dollar Challenge

Hilary Sinclair

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Hi guys, i'm rather new on here but i would appreciate your help with a querie i have.

This is it. I recently sent an email to Mia Dolan (a poipular British Medium) asking her the following question: ' Mia, what is your reason for not taking James Randi's £1 million dollar change?' I received this reply.

Hi Hilary,

I have not taken the challenge as when we looked into doing it we were told they would not allow an independent body to judge it, we had asked if a University in the states could do it
They said all test's were judged by James Randi and only him so I don't believe its a real test
Sorry if this is not a good enough answer for you, but I will not get involved in things that are not what they seem to give publicity to an organisation that is not what it seems
Yours sincerely
Mia Dolan

Is this true? Has she been in contact with James over taking his paranormal challenge? I suspect she's looking for reasons not to take it. Anyone got any answers.

Big thanks, Hilary.
 
Hilary Sinclair said:
Is this true? Has she been in contact with James over taking his paranormal challenge? I suspect she's looking for reasons not to take it. Anyone got any answers.

Big thanks, Hilary.
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I have had a quick look in the million dollar challenge applicants log, and I can't see her name anywhere.

Additionally, it is my understanding that JREF specifically point people at places like local universities to get claims reviewed initially before the person moves to "applicant" status.

Based on what you have written, and the response you have received, I simply don't believe she has made a proper application. I suspect she probably hasn't been in contact with JREF - but that is just my cynicism...
 
Her objection seems to be James Randi would not allow an independant body to conduct the test. I don't see a problem here. Why not bring in other people, why not just call her bluff? Allow a third party to conduct the test.
 
Read the challenge rules.
James Randi doesn't judge the challenges because no protocol will be accepted which requires any judgement. The results must be self evident.
 
Cavemonster is right - there is no judging. It would be interesting to write her back with that information and ask who it was that so misinformed her.
 
I do not see any point in telling her about the challenge. She knows she cannot win it as she must do something that she cannot actually do. So she will find pathetic excuses not to do the challenge.
 
Hilary Sinclair said:
Her objection seems to be James Randi would not allow an independant body to conduct the test. I don't see a problem here. Why not bring in other people, why not just call her bluff? Allow a third party to conduct the test.
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Her alleged misunderstandings of the MDC process should tell you enough: There is a million dollars waiting for something that she claims to be able to do, yet she refuse to snag up the cash en passant.

Does. Not. Compute.
 
Here are a couple possible explanations for her mistake.
1) She received her information from sources other than the JREF (Uri Geller's site?)
2) Her intern/manager miscommunicated the message to her.
3) She misunderstood the information conveyed to her.
4) She is lying about having actively "looked into it".
5) Someone at the JREF misinformed her.

I find #5 pretty unlikely, but if it is the case, or if 1-3 are the case, you should correct her perception. If she still refuses to pursue the challenge, I can only assume #4 is the case.
 
If there was a million dollars going for something I could do I would seriously look into it, from first hand sources not just take the word of somebody. Since she has not looked seriously into it then you can draw your own conclusions.
 
rjh01 said:
If there was a million dollars going for something I could do I would seriously look into it, from first hand sources not just take the word of somebody. Since she has not looked seriously into it then you can draw your own conclusions.
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Well, to give her the benefit of the doubt, I get emails every day offering me millions of dollars for actions within my power. They're from Nigeria. I don't look into it because I know that the source is not to be trusted. Perhaps she feels the same way.
 
Cavemonster said:
Well, to give her the benefit of the doubt, I get emails every day offering me millions of dollars for actions within my power. They're from Nigeria. I don't look into it because I know that the source is not to be trusted. Perhaps she feels the same way.
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But first time you received such an offer you would have done your research, and proved to yourself, beyond reasonable doubt, that they are a con trick and not a real offer. After that it is all one offer repeated.
 
Hilary Sinclair said:
Yours sincerely
Mia Dolan

Anyone got any answers.

Big thanks, Hilary.
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You may wish to email her back with the great news that the challenge results aren't judged at all! So, if that was her sincere reason for not previously taking the challenge, she is now completely free to do so, secure in the knowledge that her amazing talents will be showcased as being self-evident.

Her talents are self-evident, aren't they?

You could also invite her to participate in this forum. She claims sincerity in her closing signature.
 
Ok guys thanks for that. So you're saying Mia never actually aplied for the test in the first place, or at least there is no record of her doing so. I shall email her back and ask for further details. Personality, if i had a sixth sense i'd take the test. I'll let you know how she replies.
 
rjh01 said:
But first time you received such an offer you would have done your research, and proved to yourself, beyond reasonable doubt, that they are a con trick and not a real offer. After that it is all one offer repeated.
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But did you personally need to look up information about the specific offer in your spam folder, or did you already know all about it from secondary sources.

Around the internet, I'm constantly finding different offers that guarantee me vast wealth, some of them are phishing schemes, some are pyramid schemes, some are Ponzi schemes, others are other sorts of scams completely. Neither you nor I need to research each of these claims completely because we know what category they fall under, but they are many different types of scam from many sources.
 
Hilary Sinclair said:
Ok guys thanks for that. So you're saying Mia never actually aplied for the test in the first place, or at least there is no record of her doing so. I shall email her back and ask for further details. Personality, if i had a sixth sense i'd take the test. I'll let you know how she replies.
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While I do not want to discourage your personal endeavors - quite the opposite - I would like to say this:

Mia Dolan has the chance to win USD 1,000,000 for doing two controlled tests of her claimed ability.

How high do you consider the chance of you getting an honest answer from someone who has nothing to gain from it?

She will not even behave honestly - I am referring to her alleged misunderstandings of the MDC - when having the chance of winning a million dollars.

Read the rules and encourage her to take the Challenge - if you want to experience a waste of time and read another batch of misunderstandings, weaseling and outright lies.
 
Cavemonster said:
But did you personally need to look up information about the specific offer in your spam folder, or did you already know all about it from secondary sources.

Around the internet, I'm constantly finding different offers that guarantee me vast wealth, some of them are phishing schemes, some are pyramid schemes, some are Ponzi schemes, others are other sorts of scams completely. Neither you nor I need to research each of these claims completely because we know what category they fall under, but they are many different types of scam from many sources.
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Some time ago I started a thread (named "The Bike Riding Million Dollar Challenge") about Randi's MDC trustworthiness (not sure that's a correct word but you get the idea). In that thread I mentioned the "Nigerian scam vs. Randi's challenge" comparison with the following result:
ben m said:
Let me just address this one point. A Nigerian "419" scam is something I get via email. It comes from a person who I've never heard of, whose existence I can't verify, and who (as far as I can tell) doesn't have so much as an Ebay Seller Feedback vouching for him. Indeed, I get hundreds of such emails making basically-indistinguishable offers. A few minutes on Google will confirm that Nigerian 419 emails are well known to be scams, and that potential victims are actively warned off by the State Department, the FBI, Nigerian embassy, and so on. If I got involved but got cheated, I would have no idea who to sue for damages---all I have is a Hotmail address.

On the other hand, James Randi is a well-known public figure. He's been on TV talking about the paranormal for close to 40 years. His prize is publicly advertised, his terms are on the Web for anyone to see, his finances are a matter of public record per normal nonprofit rules. It's one of a very small class of such prizes, all offered with comparable levels of transparency. If something goes wrong, your lawsuit names a real person and a registered nonprofit organization in the State of Florida. Finally, if you want to see other people's experiences, you're not going to go to a FBI web page telling you not to be a sucker----you're going to go to the Challenge email archives and see the actual contracts agreed to by Achau Nguyen, Mike Whatsisname the dowser, and so on.

In other words, in order for James Randi to be a scammer, he'd have to have put his entire career on the line every time he signed a contract. He'd have to know he was losing challenges on the merits, but to count on a team of expensive lawyers to weasel him out of an endless string of lawsuits. The Challenge has been going on for decades and that hasn't happened. (Public record.) Unless you want to invoke a conspiracy theory---"omg randi has been sued a million times but its proberly all covered up by the cia omg plus real psychics are too poor to afford lawyers"---you can't possibly stand by this Randi/419 analogy.
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As that very same topic has arised here, I thought the previous comments could be useful.

BTW: after reading that answer again, I wonder why I conceded that point. Right now it doesn't sound convincing.
BTW2: after reading the whole thread again, I remember why I conceded it. :)
 
But on that note, there are plenty of public figures actually more well known than Randi who offer products that are scams in their own way. Look at Tony Robbins for example.

Just like with the self help financial gurus of late night infomercials, a challenge like Randi's could easily be unbalanced and unfair without actually being illegal, so like them he wouldn't be putting his career on the line.

I can tell you honestly that I don't go and look at the detailed terms of every late night informmercial pitch who promises thousands of dollars a day for virtually no work. Logically it isn't impossible for one of their systems to be legitimate, but I can make a higher level decision about the likelyhood that the source is legitimate without slogging through the particulars. You do this too. In fact, If you're like me and most people, the instant you hear the promise of great rewards with little effort, you feel fairly certain that it isn't worth while to explore further.

There are many categories of scam, some of them are outright theft like the Nigerian emails, but just as many are about the fine print and are perfectly legal. One of them even had the dad from Happy Days as a spokesman, and I assure you he's more well known than Randi.

There are perfectly good reasons for supposed psychics not to enter the challenge.
 
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I recall soem years ago she had her own forum. myself and some other JREF members joined and took part(as best skeptics ever can hope to on a believer forum) it was then she spouted about being tested. Randi himself joined up made a post denying her claims. I think she wanted to try a get some TV fame in USA using MDC.
Do a search on her, it was discussed here.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27237&highlight=dolan
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27761&highlight=dolan

Test topic: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22071&highlight=dolan
 
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Hilary Sinclair said:
Ok guys thanks for that. So you're saying Mia never actually aplied for the test in the first place, or at least there is no record of her doing so. I shall email her back and ask for further details. Personality, if i had a sixth sense i'd take the test. I'll let you know how she replies.
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I don't think anyone's actually saying that she never applied for the test. What we're saying, though, is based on what you've said she said, it's unlikely. Also, there's no record of her having actually applied on the Forum, but the only people who could answer the question of whether she's actually applied would be the good folks at challenge@randi.org.

From what you've said, tho, my guess is that she never actually went through the application process, which involves submitting a notarized application form, because of her misconceptions about how the Challenge works.

I'll chime in and encourage you to encourage her, though: the actual demonstration has to be self-evident, so no one, at any point, can come in and say "well, in my opinion, nothing happened at all!" Plus, the actual steps of the demonstration -- and what constitutes failure and success -- have to be agreed to by both her and the JREF. So she cannot, by any means, be forced to participate in a demonstration she feels she can't succeed. If she can do what she claims to do (and if she's like any famous "psychic", what she claims to be able to do regularly), then this should all be totally cut-and-dry for her.
 
Cavemonster said:
I can tell you honestly that I don't go and look at the detailed terms of every late night informmercial pitch who promises thousands of dollars a day for virtually no work. Logically it isn't impossible for one of their systems to be legitimate, but I can make a higher level decision about the likelyhood that the source is legitimate without slogging through the particulars. You do this too. In fact, If you're like me and most people, the instant you hear the promise of great rewards with little effort, you feel fairly certain that it isn't worth while to explore further.

There are many categories of scam, some of them are outright theft like the Nigerian emails, but just as many are about the fine print and are perfectly legal. One of them even had the dad from Happy Days as a spokesman, and I assure you he's more well known than Randi.

There are perfectly good reasons for supposed psychics not to enter the challenge.
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Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises. Yes, one can have perfectly good reasons to assume that the offer of instant get-rich-quick schemes is bound to be false (why wouldn't everyone do it if it were easy). But Randi's offer isn't like that at all. He offers a million dollars only to people who do something unimaginably difficult. There's nothing prima facie unbelievable about that. People offer millions of dollars to people who can throw a baseball accurately at over 90mph, for example, or to people who can hit a little ball around a golf course with great accuracy. <i>Nobody</i> has ever been able to publicly and unquestionably display a paranormal ability. Why wouldn't someone offer a million dollars to the first person who managed to do so?

Now, if you happen to be the first person in the world who will be able to do this unprecedented thing, don't you think it's worth your while checking out the single most famous public offer of a large cash reward for the public and verified performance of this ability?

Of course, with most of these supposed abilities, the people wouldn't need to claim the million because they'd be able to clean up at the casino, or at lotto or whatever--but if you happen to have a skill that is definitely paranormal but which doesn't otherwise seem remunerative, what on earth could make you dismiss this offer out of hand?
 
If she wins I hope she'll slightly rearrange her name to Mian Dola.
Even better if she's Asian.
 
Yoink said:
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises. Yes, one can have perfectly good reasons to assume that the offer of instant get-rich-quick schemes is bound to be false (why wouldn't everyone do it if it were easy). But Randi's offer isn't like that at all. He offers a million dollars only to people who do something unimaginably difficult. There's nothing prima facie unbelievable about that. People offer millions of dollars to people who can throw a baseball accurately at over 90mph, for example, or to people who can hit a little ball around a golf course with great accuracy. <i>Nobody</i> has ever been able to publicly and unquestionably display a paranormal ability. Why wouldn't someone offer a million dollars to the first person who managed to do so?

Now, if you happen to be the first person in the world who will be able to do this unprecedented thing, don't you think it's worth your while checking out the single most famous public offer of a large cash reward for the public and verified performance of this ability?

Of course, with most of these supposed abilities, the people wouldn't need to claim the million because they'd be able to clean up at the casino, or at lotto or whatever--but if you happen to have a skill that is definitely paranormal but which doesn't otherwise seem remunerative, what on earth could make you dismiss this offer out of hand?
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People who claim these abilities fall into two categories.

Some of them are liars, and there's no reason to discuss their reasons for not engaging in the challenge, as it's self evident.

But the rest are believers. I've never met a believer who thought that all other psychics and dowsers and ghosts are fake, the vast majority of true believers may think their ability is very rare, but they also tend to think that there are tons of other psychics and ghost channelers out there.

So from this perspective, they can say "Why has no other psychic won the challenge in all these years?" there are three possible answers.

1) There are no psychic powers. (believers can dismiss this option)
2) None of the real psychics have applied (Why wouldn't they if the challenge was legit, after all these years, that seems unlikely)
3) The challenge is a fraud. (The only possibility left)

I'll agree that if a psychic thought they were the only one in the world, the challenge might make sense, but that's not the perspective of most psychics. The majority tap into existing mythologies of ghosts, angels, spirits etc and seem to think that our world is full of strange powers. Given that, option #3 does logically follow. #1 is a contradiction of their premise, and #2, while not technically impossible, seems unlikely and isn't mutually exclusive with #3.
 
Cavemonster said:
People who claim these abilities fall into two categories.

Some of them are liars, and there's no reason to discuss their reasons for not engaging in the challenge, as it's self evident.

But the rest are believers. I've never met a believer who thought that all other psychics and dowsers and ghosts are fake, the vast majority of true believers may think their ability is very rare, but they also tend to think that there are tons of other psychics and ghost channelers out there.

So from this perspective, they can say "Why has no other psychic won the challenge in all these years?" there are three possible answers.

1) There are no psychic powers. (believers can dismiss this option)
2) None of the real psychics have applied (Why wouldn't they if the challenge was legit, after all these years, that seems unlikely)
3) The challenge is a fraud. (The only possibility left)

I'll agree that if a psychic thought they were the only one in the world, the challenge might make sense, but that's not the perspective of most psychics. The majority tap into existing mythologies of ghosts, angels, spirits etc and seem to think that our world is full of strange powers. Given that, option #3 does logically follow. #1 is a contradiction of their premise, and #2, while not technically impossible, seems unlikely and isn't mutually exclusive with #3.
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Another possibility is that of the "altruistic psychic" -- psychics who use their powers only for good and in secret; they know who they are! Such psychics are not the least bit interested in mundane things, certainly not money. And since they're not trying to prove anything, the notion of an MDC becomes moot.


M.
 
Moochie said:
Another possibility is that of the "altruistic psychic" -- psychics who use their powers only for good and in secret; they know who they are! Such psychics are not the least bit interested in mundane things, certainly not money. And since they're not trying to prove anything, the notion of an MDC becomes moot.
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If they're genuinely trying to do good they must surely want the most influential people in society - those who can act on the information they obtain by psychic means - to believe them. Think of the lives that could be saved, from evacuation of areas about to be hit by a natural disaster to the tracking down of terrorists and murderers. Currently the vast majority of people in a position to make use of such information dismiss psychics as either fools or con artists.

So a truly altruistic psychic would want the MDC to be won, thus proving the validity of psychic powers and ensuring that his/her psychically obtained information would be acted on. Such a person would certainly take the MDC (I'm sure JREF would be amenable to arranging for an applicant to take the challenge without being publically identified if requested) and give the $1m to charity.
 
Cavemonster said:
The results must be self evident.
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Yes, but "self-evident" to whom exactly? What is self-evident to me (eg Sheffield United are the world's greatest football team) will clearly not be self-evident to someone else. To say there is "no judgement" is just plain silly, surely? If, for eaxample, I claim to be able to read minds and I believe that my gift is self-evident, yet another person claims that my gift is not self-evident, who's opinion counts? There must be someone who judges what is self-evident and what isn't self-evident... surely?
 
themagicwand said:
Yes, but "self-evident" to whom exactly?
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To everybody.

Take astrology, for example. People may judge their horoscope to be an accurate description of them, but that judgement is not reliable because of the Forer Effect. So to test the accuracy of an astrologer's horoscopes you get him to produce, say five for five different subjects, give copies of all five to all five subjects, and ask them to pick out the one that's the best description of them. If the Forer Effect is all that's going on then all 5 will seem accurate, and the one that's the best description will be the right one no more often than would be expected by chance (i.e. only one of the five subjects will pick it out). But if there's any truth to astrology at all then each subject's horoscope will be a much more accurate description of them than those of four strangers, and they will be able to pick it out every time.

So a success result significantly better than chance, say three out of five, is set in advance. On the day of the test the subjects look at the five horoscopes and either at least three pick out theirs or they don't. No judgment of the result is required, it's self-evident whether or not the astrologer has met the agreed success criteria.

Likewise something like dowsing would be tested by burying barrels in a field, half of which contain water and half sand, and seeing if the dowser can tell them apart. Again the success criteria is set in advance, and on the day either the dowser meets that criteria or he doesn't. The result is again self evident to everyone present - when the adjudicator removes the lid of the barrels it's clear to everyone whether they contain water or sand, and therefore whether the dowser has correctly identified enough barrels.

Do you get the idea? Can you come up with a similar protocol for your reading minds example?
 
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themagicwand said:
Yes, but "self-evident" to whom exactly? What is self-evident to me (eg Sheffield United are the world's greatest football team) will clearly not be self-evident to someone else. To say there is "no judgement" is just plain silly, surely? If, for eaxample, I claim to be able to read minds and I believe that my gift is self-evident, yet another person claims that my gift is not self-evident, who's opinion counts? There must be someone who judges what is self-evident and what isn't self-evident... surely?
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That's agreed on between the applicant and the JREF before the application is accepted. There is a standard for success established that shows an effect significantly greater than random chance would allow.

For instance. "I had a dream last night about catterpillars turning into butterflies and today the economy got better" requires a judgement that the dream somehow maps onto the real world events, and that it was a meaningfully accurate prediction.

"I will draw an x on the one envelope out of a thousand that has a picture of Bea Arthur in it" (The rest have pictures of antelopes). We open the envelope, and it either has a picture of Bea Arthur or an antelope. No interpretation needed.
 
themagicwand said:
Yes, but "self-evident" to whom exactly? What is self-evident to me (eg Sheffield United are the world's greatest football team) will clearly not be self-evident to someone else. To say there is "no judgement" is just plain silly, surely? If, for eaxample, I claim to be able to read minds and I believe that my gift is self-evident, yet another person claims that my gift is not self-evident, who's opinion counts? There must be someone who judges what is self-evident and what isn't self-evident... surely?
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As others have said, to everybody. One of the simplest examples is dowsing - 10 identical cups are placed upside-down, with a lump of gold under one of them. Either the dowser finds the gold or he doesn't. No judging, no opinions, no question. Self-evident.

All the examples you give of self-evident things are, to put it bluntly, wrong. Claiming that a particular team is the best is entirely a matter of judgement and opinion and is in no way self-evident. The fact that you can write a sentence including the claim along with the words self-evident does not make it so.
 
themagicwand said:
Yes, but "self-evident" to whom exactly? What is self-evident to me (eg Sheffield United are the world's greatest football team) will clearly not be self-evident to someone else. To say there is "no judgement" is just plain silly, surely? If, for eaxample, I claim to be able to read minds and I believe that my gift is self-evident, yet another person claims that my gift is not self-evident, who's opinion counts? There must be someone who judges what is self-evident and what isn't self-evident... surely?
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That's why all the questions are asked up front.

Whose mind can you read? Anyone's, or just a specific person?
What kinds of things can your read from those minds? Words, images, places, what?
With what degree of accuracy can you perform? 100%? 50%? 10%?
What factors limit or interfere with your ability? Can you only do it in the morning? Under the influence of drugs? When your friend/receiver is under the influence of drugs? When you already know what word/image/place your friend is going to think of?

If you can decribe your ability with enough detail, a test whose result will be self evident to all can be designed. This is where most applicants hit the first hurdle. They cannot even accurately and precisely describe their alleged ability, therefore they are unable to devise a suitable test.

Getting an applicant over that first hurdle seems to be a good 90% of the work involved in protocol negotiations.
 
Pixel42 said:
To everybody.

Take astrology, for example. People may judge their horoscope to be an accurate description of them, but that judgement is not reliable because of the Forer Effect. So to test the accuracy of an astrologer's horoscopes you get him to produce, say five for five different subjects, give copies of all five to all five subjects, and ask them to pick out the one that's the best description of them. If the Forer Effect is all that's going on then all 5 will seem accurate, and the one that's the best description will be the right one no more often than would be expected by chance (i.e. only one of the five subjects will pick it out). But if there's any truth to astrology at all then each subject's horoscope will be a much more accurate description of them than those of four strangers, and they will be able to pick it out every time.

So a success result significantly better than chance, say three out of five, is set in advance. On the day of the test the subjects look at the five horoscopes and either at least three pick out theirs or they don't. No judgment of the result is required, it's self-evident whether or not the astrologer has met the agreed success criteria.

Likewise something like dowsing would be tested by burying barrels in a field, half of which contain water and half sand, and seeing if the dowser can tell them apart. Again the success criteria is set in advance, and on the day either the dowser meets that criteria or he doesn't. The result is again self evident to everyone present - when the adjudicator removes the lid of the barrels it's clear to everyone whether they contain water or sand, and therefore whether the dowser has correctly identified enough barrels.

Do you get the idea? Can you come up with a similar protocol for your reading minds example?
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While the example would be adequate for JREF purposes- ie it's a test of what the claimant says he can do- I'd caution that it is not necessarily a reliable test of astrology per se. It's possible (ie let's imagine) there is an astrological effect on personality, but that it is very small. A huge test might be required with detailed statistical analysis to pick the effect out from random noise.

If a claimant stated only that he would be right about personality assessment 1% more than we might get by random birthdate selection, that would be very hard to test.

But then , such people seem to be as rare as actual psychics.
 
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Soapy Sam said:
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If a claimant stated only that he would be right about personality assessment 1% more than we might get by random birthdate selection, that would be very hard to test.

But then , such people seem to be as rare as actual psychics.
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And the question I would ask said claimant would be: "How did you arrive at that 1% number, i.e., which data let you conclude exactly that number?"

But then, as with astroman818's case, one hardly ever sees a clear definition of a claimed ability.
 
Cuddles said:
As others have said, to everybody. One of the simplest examples is dowsing - 10 identical cups are placed upside-down, with a lump of gold under one of them. Either the dowser finds the gold or he doesn't. No judging, no opinions, no question. Self-evident.
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I'm afraid this whole "self-evident" criteria is a flawed concept. The example given above could be pure dumb luck. However the dowser claims it shows their paranormal ability. Would JREF pay out on the above example? I think not, and rightly so. The claimamant could have quite easily relied on luck to be their freind on that particular day. Perhaps the test could be repeated over several days, and if the claimant continued to be succesful the chances of this being pure luck are hugely diminished. However it could, in theory, still be a "lucky streak". Who then judges the outome and decides when luck becomes evidence of a paranormal ability? Somebody from JREF I assume. And if so the whole idea of self-evidence is thrown out of the window, is it not?

Please don't think I'm trying to stand up for the claimants (who, in my judgement, are often very delusional people who need to seek medical help), but I'm uncomfortable with the notion of "self evident". It doesn't seem to hold water for me.

Can I give an example? Physical things can be self-evident. It is self-evident that if a gun is fired at you it is likely you will be harmed. That is self-evident and no-one would argue with it. With matters that involve the interpritation of data on a purely personal level the waters get a lot more cloudy. It is NOT self-evident that Lionardo DiVinci was a great artist. Many people may believe this, but others may not. It is open to interpritation. Likewise with the succesful divining example given above, many people may believe that they have shown a paranormal ability, while others may interpret the data differently and say that the diviner was lucky/ cheated/ or used some other method not associated with the ability they are claiming. At that point somebody has to judge. Somebody has to make the call. Where does that leave "self evidence"?
 
themagicwand said:
I'm afraid this whole "self-evident" criteria is a flawed concept. The example given above could be pure dumb luck. However the dowser claims it shows their paranormal ability. Would JREF pay out on the above example? I think not, and rightly so. The claimamant could have quite easily relied on luck to be their freind on that particular day. Perhaps the test could be repeated over several days, and if the claimant continued to be succesful the chances of this being pure luck are hugely diminished. However it could, in theory, still be a "lucky streak". Who then judges the outome and decides when luck becomes evidence of a paranormal ability? Somebody from JREF I assume. And if so the whole idea of self-evidence is thrown out of the window, is it not?
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That's why probabilities of possible outcomes are calculated beforehand. And the tests are designed accordingly to avoid "dumb luck".

And in fact, the JREF Challenge is not constitued of a single "test", but many.

There is at least one preliminary test before THE test.

If you manage to do something, that has only 1 chance in a million to happen, repeatedly, it means you have a gift or at least a peculiar talent.

From what I understand, until now, no one has successfully passed the preliminary test.
 
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Seren_ said:
If you manage to do something, that has only 1 chance in a million to happen, repeatdly, it means you have a gift or at least a peculiar talent.
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So the test MUST be something that has a one in a million chance? Jeez. No wonder nobody passed the preliminary test. I don't think I could succesfully blow my nose that consitantly, never mind do something considered paranormal. :)

But again, one in a million could be pure luck. Somebody needs to judge this. Therefore not self evident but judged? Or am I really just missing something here? Seems to me (and I'm only a poor boy from the north of Engalnd so be patient with me) that "self evident" is a nice little phrase that had been latched onto but actually means nothing. A "test", by definition, has to be judged. No?
 
themagicwand said:
I'm afraid this whole "self-evident" criteria is a flawed concept. The example given above could be pure dumb luck.
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That's why there are two tests: the preliminary test, to demonstrate that the claimant can do what he/she claims to be able to do; the final test, to demonstrate that the result of the first test wasn't just dumb luck.

There is still a chance that the claimant will get lucky twice (though the success criteria are set so that chance is very small indeed), or that he/she will find a way of cheating that JREF hadn't anticipated and eliminated before agreeing the protocol. Doubtless if anyone ever does pass both tests there will be much debate and discussion along those lines. But after ten years and hundreds of claimants, none of whom have managed to pass even the preliminary test, I'd say the MDC has served its purpose.
 
Pixel42 said:
I believe the rule of thumb for the preliminary test is that odds of 1 in 1000 must be beaten. Repeat the test and succeed again and you have beaten odds of 1 in a million.
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Is that right? Isn't it just one in a thousand again on the second go? EG toss a coin ten times and get heads everytime, what are the odds on getting a heads again on the 11th attempt? 50/50. No?

And how does the whole odds thing equate to something like spoon bending?


No.
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But that's just silly. What other test in the whole wide world uses "self evidence" as the criteria for whether someone has passed a or not? Again, I may be missing the point (I usually do and I apologise).
 
themagicwand said:
But that's just silly. What other test in the whole wide world uses "self evidence" as the criteria for whether someone has passed a or not? Again, I may be missing the point (I usually do and I apologise).
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Pretty much any test that doesn't require interpretation on the part of the people testing or being tested.

Example - I make a claim that I can comply with the law of gravity. My experiment is that I will drop a ball, and it will fall under the influence of gravity.

I run the experiment 10 times, and each time, sure enough, the ball hits the floor.

This is a self evident test. There is no need to interpret the results, because any fair observer watching can see that what I have claimed to do has in fact occured.

Second example - I make a claim that I can commune with the dead, and my cat is the only person that can hear the responses. I make some mystical sounds, wave my arms in the air and my cat meows. I bend down and listen to the cat. I mysteriously report that the dead are pissed off with being dead.

This is NOT a self evident test - as there are just so many things that have to be interpreted - there is no way to actually and objectively demonstrate that what I have claimed is true. I may have made it all up.

I may not even have a cat...
 
BTMO said:
This is NOT a self evident test - as there are just so many things that have to be interpreted - there is no way to actually and objectively demonstrate that what I have claimed is true. I may have made it all up.
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So talking to the dead (for example) is not elligible to be tested for the $1 million challenge?
 
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