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1:34 pm
June 27, 2010
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darkeyes
| | Arlington, TX | |
| Investigator | posts 91 |
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With all the paranormal reality shows out right now, it’s interesting how this has never been claimed yet.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
Here’s some background info from the website:
1. Challenge History
1.1 How long has this Challenge been open?
The Challenge was first introduced in 1964 when James Randi offered $1,000 of his own money to the first person who could offer proof of the paranormal. When the word got out, donors began stepping forward to help, and soon the prize had grown to One Million Dollars.
1.2 Where did Randi get this great idea for a Challenge?
During a live radio panel discussion, James Randi was challenged by a parapsychologist to "put [his] money where [his] mouth is", and Randi responded by offering to pay $1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal powers in a controlled test.
1.3 How many people have applied for the Challenge?
Between 1964 and 1982, Randi declared that over 650 people had applied. Between 1997 and February 15, 2005, there had been a total of 360 official, notarized applications. Applications continue to pour in!
1.4 Has anyone ever gotten past the preliminary test?
No. Some people use this fact as a reason not to apply – and yet the protocol is never altered once the applicant agrees to it. In fact, we ask the applicant to design the test.
1.5 Has anyone taken the formal test?
No. Applicants must pass the preliminary test in order to move on to a formal test. So far, no one has ever performed the paranormal ability they claimed to have.
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2:19 pm
June 27, 2010
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Stephen
| | San Jose, CA | |
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I'm a big fan of the Million-Dollar Challenge (MDC). Whenever someone claims that they can't sell a home because it's horribly haunted, I think, "you know, there's a bunch of people in Florida who would pay you a million dollars for proof of paranormal activity, and you could keep the house!"
On the other hand, the challenge is designed for people like Uri Geller who claim to be able to do something well-defined (e.g. bend a spoon without exerting force). Paranormal investigators are always pushing the idea that haunted houses don't perform on command, and no one even has a decent definition of what a ghost is or how to detect one. So figuring out how to test such a claim might be a bit tricky. How convenient.
Also, the JREF (for good reason) is unwilling to travel to perform these tests. Unless you could bring a haunted artifact to an agreed-upon testing location and get it to perform acts of telekinesis, I'm not sure how to win the prize with a ghost.
So I'm not sure the MDC is going to help. To fill the gap, I'm willing to offer the $100 Stephen Prize (comes with handwritten certificate suitable for framing) to any paranormal organization which provides solid, verifiable evidence of ghostly activity.
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Stephen the Friendly Skeptic
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2:30 pm
June 27, 2010
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Nosfer
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Stephen said:
So I'm not sure the MDC is going to help. To fill the gap, I'm willing to offer the $100 Stephen Prize (comes with handwritten certificate suitable for framing) to any paranormal organization which provides solid, verifiable evidence of ghostly activity.
I think I asked this question once before but I'm too lazy to go surfing through all these threads to find it :) What would we consider solid, verifiable evidence? I think in the original thread I made the statement that these groups are somewhat at a disadvantage…they can bring in something and the person it was presented to would say,
"Ah, but you didn't do X"
"Okay", group goes back, manages to capture the entity again, including the X and comes back.
"Ah, but you didn't make sure of Y"
"Sigh, okay…." says the group and goes back. Manages to catch some more evidence while doing X and Y.
"Ah, but I see no evidence that you made sure to Z"
"%@&#$ you" says the group and sells their tape to the Enquirer.
What would we accept? A mist-like form moving across the scene? Ah, but you could have blown smoke into the room and filmed that. A dark form moving across the scene, blocking what is behind it? Ah, but you could have thrown a sheet over a person and made sure to hide the sneakers :)
And on and on.
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4:03 pm
June 27, 2010
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The Doctor
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Find the ghost that walls through the wall to stir the pot on every second St. Swithen's day, set up the bleachers and win the prize.
If residual ghosts exist it should be possible to nail down one of them.
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4:09 pm
June 27, 2010
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Nosfer
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But what would be acceptable evidence of a residual haunt. A video? GA has provided a few videos, GH has provided a few videos, none of them have been accepted, though. What would it take for the video to be acceptable as prize-winning-worthiness?
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4:44 pm
June 27, 2010
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Stephen
| | San Jose, CA | |
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The MDC works by specifying a contract of conditions to be fulfilled on both sides. (Which is redundant– that's what a contract is.) Rather than specify a laundry list of criteria for "compelling evidence", I'd do it case-by-case.
CLAIMANT: "House X is haunted."
ME: "What does that mean?"
CLAIMANT: (probably after substantial back-and-forth) "Furniture moves around by itself, about once a month."
ME: (After consulting with a bunch of people) "OK, let's set up the following equipment, under the supervision of the following people, and run things for two months."
The tricky part is getting the claimant to define the claim in testable terms. For example, let's say that there was a residual haunt in a house– people were seeing a ghost walk down the stairs when someone whistled "Dixie". I'd probably have to work with the claimant to make sure that they defined their claim in purely physical terms: "X% of the time, when any experimenter whistles the following notes, the following anomaly appears on a video camera. This does not occur at any other time." The important thing is to define in advance the succesful result of the experiment, and to describe it in terms that do not leave wiggle room for interpretation.
We would agree to the terms and conditions in writing. If the site in question weren't near me, I would try to get the cooperation of a local skeptical organization.
It would be hard to avoid any possibility of hoaxing whatsoever, but that's why it's a $100 prize, not a $1000 one.
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Stephen the Friendly Skeptic
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5:00 pm
June 27, 2010
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The Doctor
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Nosfer said:
But what would be acceptable evidence of a residual haunt. A video? GA has provided a few videos, GH has provided a few videos, none of them have been accepted, though. What would it take for the video to be acceptable as prize-winning-worthiness?
setup the bleachers and sell tickets .
100's of camera angles and a video of Casper walking right through Stephen
A residual that can't be scared off and repeats like a tape recorder should be the easiest of all to find.
I've never been to the Taj Mahal, but I'm pretty confident it exists.
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5:05 pm
June 27, 2010
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Nosfer
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Local Skeptical Organization? :) That's a new one! Odds are the place will not be within easy reach of you. If that were the case, would you simply be satisfied with a video on which you could hear a few bars of Dixie, and then see an anomaly on the steps?
What if the form appeared and Dixie had not been whistled? Would that negate the claim? What if the claim were just that a figure appeared on the steps (no Dixie)? The camera is setup for two months and sometime during that time a figure alledgedly appears on the steps at some time when no one is around (or is added in in post processing since there is no verification) Would that earn $100? My point being that the situation is too uncontrolled (among other things).
I'm not so much interested in the claims but what FORM and MANNER of evidence would be acceptable as proof-positive?
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5:08 pm
June 27, 2010
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Nosfer
| | Rotaredom | |
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The Doctor said:
setup the bleachers and sell tickets .
100's of camera angles and a video of Casper walking right through Stephen
A residual that can't be scared off and repeats like a tape recorder
should be the easiest of all to find.
I've never been to the Taj Mahal, but I'm pretty confident it exists.
All that will do is prove to those who are sitting in the bleachers. Well, and hopefully Stephen after he's been walked through :) So the volume of camera footage is what would make it verifiable evidence such that Revenant, who wasn't there, would accept it as undeniable proof?
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6:14 pm
June 27, 2010
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Stephen
| | San Jose, CA | |
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Local skeptical organizations are hardly a "new one". There's one in my area that's been active since 1986.
First, let me reiterate what the process would be. The claimant must come to me with a claim (thus the name). We have to agree on a way of testing it. Once we've agreed, no back-and-forth– at the end of it, either he (or she) has fulfilled the claim or hasn't.
Let's say that a local ghost hunting group in St. Augustine kept getting videos of the mysterious leaning-over figure at the top of the lighthouse. That's a pretty neat video, and one that intrigues me. I'd see if a Florida skeptical group would be interested in helping me out. We would follow chain-of-evidence rules to make it harder for anyone to alter any video tapes with post-production action, and if possible would seal video cameras with marked tape to prevent tampering. Put some extra cameras and motion detectors up top. If ghosts appear on cameras, and that one appears in its habitual spot, boom! $100. Get yourselves dinner at a nice restaurant.
Would winning the Stephen Award be the same as convincing me that ghosts exist? Not necessarily. It would certainly be worth $100 to me, though.
You might doubt that I could, practically, get anyone to agree to a long and arduous investigation for the price of a used accordion (I checked on eBay), or the incredible prestige of having scored such off a random skeptic in a funny jacket. Fair enough. The point is, the evidence can be gathered, and with enough evidence, it would be harder to disbelieve in the ghost hypothesis (whatever it is) than it would be to believe in it. I don't know what would be absolute proof, because as a skeptic, I have infinite faith in my own possible fallibility. At least we can make the evidence far stronger than it is today.
You can continue to push for specifics on exactly what I would require for proof, and I can continue to lob things back. That's because I don't know what a ghost is, and I can't make a definition because I don't know if ghosts are anything at all. I'm not the one making the claim. If someone comes to me with a testable claim, then the HDC (Hundred Dollar Challenge) is theirs for the taking.
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Stephen the Friendly Skeptic
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6:17 pm
June 27, 2010
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darkeyes
| | Arlington, TX | |
| Investigator | posts 91 |
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I would think in order to prove any claims of whatever nature that person would have to outline an experiment that would support their premise. That exact experiment would then have to be repeated with the exact same result.
It would be difficult trying to prove anything spiritual in nature. Simply presenting photographs or film would not be sufficient. You would have to present some kind of experiment that could detect the energy of a ghost or something along those lines that could be repeated in different places. And since no one knows exactly what a ghost is made of, then you really can’t create a devise to detect them.
This would be a golden opportunity for one of the many psychics out there to prove themselves, though.
If it’s going to be undeniable proof, it will have to conform to the scientific method. And in that case I believe that million bucks is pretty safe right now.
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6:53 pm
June 27, 2010
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Nosfer
| | Rotaredom | |
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darkeyes said:
It would be difficult trying to prove anything spiritual in nature. Simply presenting photographs or film would not be sufficient. You would have to present some kind of experiment that could detect the energy of a ghost or something along those lines that could be repeated in different places. And since no one knows exactly what a ghost is made of, then you really can’t create a devise to detect them.
If it’s going to be undeniable proof, it will have to conform to the scientific method. And in that case I believe that million bucks is pretty safe right now.
Assuming there is an energy signature to detect. Conform to scientifc method…that's good, but HOW exactly? Just photographs or film are not sufficient…okay, but some sort of energy trace coupled with the photos or film would verifty the film's authenticity? What would verify the authenticity of the energy reading?
A psychic proving themself? By "sensing" something at the time the image is captured?
Yes, the million bucks is pretty safe…because I've yet to see what would constitute undeniable proof, especially since "no one knows exactly what a ghost is made of" A true statement, but one which presents some complications for proof, indeed.
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12:18 am
June 28, 2010
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Learjet
| | Australia | |
| Lead Investigator | posts 1119 |
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You know, I wrote up this big reply and then deleted the lot…. because I'm in two minds about the whole thing and I felt like I was having an argument with myself lol.
Anyhoo, with the scientific method, before theory becomes accepted, research results are usually confirmed by other researches and varying methods are used to also confirm the discovery.
Take exo-planets for example. These planets in other solar systems were theorised to exist. There was some data of star wobbles indicating possible planets, but this turned out to be instrument error. Eventually new methods were used and in 1992 a discovery was confirmed. It was confirmed by other research scientists. Other methods, including direct visual detection, radial velocity method, transit method, gravitational micro-lensing, astrometry, pulsar timing, eclipsing binaries and circumstellar disks have now been used to find over 463 extra solar planets.
These discoveries require cutting edge technology, which is why they were not found before.
Should ghosts ever be truly "discovered" I would think it also would be with a variety of methods and with agreeing research parties using the scientific approach.
Needless to say, a thougher understand of any equipment used would be ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!
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12:46 am
June 28, 2010
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Learjet
| | Australia | |
| Lead Investigator | posts 1119 |
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Part 2. So why don't Ghost Hunters qualify? Or even the casual weekend ghost hunter? They use a variety of equipment – BADLY! And as mentioned earlier, the equipment should give supportive results, which it doesn't.
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7:21 am
June 28, 2010
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Nosfer
| | Rotaredom | |
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Learjet said:
You know, I wrote up this big reply and then deleted the lot…. because I'm in two minds about the whole thing and I felt like I was having an argument with myself lol.
LOL Kinda funny because I found myself doing the same thing. And if you or I get into a back and forth within ourselves over it, the odds of agreement between a "skeptic" and a "ghost hunter" diminish pretty quickly. And even if it did get that far, as Stephen said, winning the challenge and "forever proving" the existence of ghosts could very well be two different things.
The fear I would have with "local skeptical organizations" is that if they are made up of people having the same type of "skepticism" that I've seen exhibited by some so-called "skeptics" (even on this forum in the past), then I would have as much hesitation about them as I would about many "local ghost hunting groups" (same coin, just obverse vs reverse) Although I suppose if you DID manage to get agreement between the two it would mean even more lol Indeed there are rational skeptics and rational ghost hunters…then there are the rest 
I believe the whole proof thing is a process rather than one specific thing. It comes down to trust and openness. Sharing of data. Proper procedures for the collection of data. Standards. A ball of wax.
Learjet said:
Part 2. So why don't Ghost Hunters qualify? Or even the casual weekend ghost hunter? They use a variety of equipment – BADLY! And as mentioned earlier, the equipment should give supportive results, which it doesn't.
It's not just the equipment in the case of GH. More to the point is that you have to consider their situation and the situations of the places they investigate. Full Disclosure is also important in the path to proof.
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9:45 am
June 28, 2010
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The Doctor
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| Lead Investigator | posts 488 |
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Nosfer said:
All that will do is prove to those who are sitting in the bleachers. Well, and hopefully Stephen after he's been walked through :) So the volume of camera footage is what would make it verifiable evidence such that Revenant, who wasn't there, would accept it as undeniable proof?
… and the next group in the bleachers, and the next and the next 100's of camera angles on every occurance, and the array of readings from all sorts of different types of equipment that should finally give us some consistant and repeatable readings
In the 100's of years of people chasing Casper, we have learned absolutley nothing about the nature of these spirits – until we have one in a box ( or theatre ) we can run tests on, the questions will remain.
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1:59 pm
June 28, 2010
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Revenant
| | Hopelessly Locked In A "Fear Cage" | |
| Lead Investigator | posts 1393 |
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Learjet said: "You know, I wrote up this big reply and then deleted the lot…. because I'm in two minds about the whole thing and I felt like I was having an argument with myself lol"
Actually, I would have liked to have read that. I think you've earned the right to post a few "I'm just going to argue amongst myselves and maybe someone can figure out what I actually mean" kind of posts. Always good fun.
Stephen said: "On the other hand, the challenge is designed for people like Uri Geller who claim to be able to do something well-defined (e.g. bend a spoon without exerting force)."
That sentence really sums up my outlook on the MDC and ghost hunting. The challenge itself is really intended to test an individuals claim of some sort of paranormal ability. Pretty easy to design experiments to test the validity of the claims.
With ghost hunting, we start getting away from "on command" abilities and we move into "extremely random occurring (supposedly) events." It's the same as me claiming that I can always pull the aces out of a deck of cards using my psychic ability and then me claiming that a "rogue wave" will hit my ship eventually. In the first case, just give me a few decks of cards, I'lll fail, and everyone goes home. The rogue waves? What? Everyone piles into a boat and just sails around the world for the next 20 years just hoping to get hit by one?
(Just for the record, "rogue waves" are one of nature's coolest curve-balls to date. Active research is being done to figure out what's going on with them. Here is your standard Wiki link about it.)
Nosfer said: "I believe the whole proof thing is a process rather than one specific thing. It comes down to trust and openness. Sharing of data. Proper procedures for the collection of data. Standards. A ball of wax."
Hmmm…are you speaking of a "perfect world" scenario? I can see the "proper procedures for the collection of data" aspect. But…you and I both know that the odds on this being followed by ghost hunters in general is slim to none. We would be talking real science here. No "protection spells," no talking to rigged flashlights and no dowsing rods. Essentially…no fun for the ghost hunters. This is moving us into a different topic really (Can paranormal investigators actually change their ways and provide reliable data?). So, I can see what you're saying…I'm just thinking that it's just not happening.
So…because of all this, ghost-hunting in general provides a terrible entry for the MDC.
(25 Revenant points to anyone who can find the thread on the MDC that dealt with the funnier cases. For example, like the person who claimed to have the power to make people urinate on themselves. They actually showed that experiment live! A classic.)
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"Skepticism is not a position, it's a process." -Dr Michael Shermer
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2:39 pm
June 28, 2010
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old guy
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| Investigator in Training | posts 12 |
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"But what would be acceptable evidence of a residual haunt."
That would depend on who you're trying to convince:
The world? Incontrovertible, irreputable, repeatable evidence of proof – PER the scientific method.
The average television viewing public? Any old footage from <insert your favorite paranormal show's name here>.
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3:20 pm
June 28, 2010
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Nosfer
| | Rotaredom | |
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Revenant said:
Hmmm…are you speaking of a "perfect world" scenario? I can see the "proper procedures for the collection of data" aspect. But…you and I both know that the odds on this being followed by ghost hunters in general is slim to none. We would be talking real science here. No "protection spells," no talking to rigged flashlights and no dowsing rods. Essentially…no fun for the ghost hunters. This is moving us into a different topic really (Can paranormal investigators actually change their ways and provide reliable data?). So, I can see what you're saying…I'm just thinking that it's just not happening.
I'm thinking that may be the case for a large majority of groups, but I can't believe every single, solitary one out there is unwilling to consider different (sane, legitimate, scientific) methods of investigation.
In general, probably right, but I have hope that there are a few other people who understand the limitations and methods of using equipment. I suppose the risk is people losing interest when doing so because of the lack of finding anything. I've done in situ temperature monitoring and have had only two anomalies that I couldn't immediately explain. One is still unexplained and has not been seen again, the other repeated itself and eventually I was able to track it down. This after thousands and thousands and thousands (and thousands and thousands) of data points. How many groups out there would continue after results like that? How many would be able to run the experiment that long? The number drops off rather quickly I suspect! :)
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