DrF said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvB2aLQihzE.&nbsp

 The link isn't working.

The Incredible Moving Lamp Cord

I was just reading the posting http://www.skepticalviewer.com/the-incredible-moving-lamp-cord/  here on the forums and it struck me…look at the first screen shot, noteably the table cloth.  Then look at the color shots during the "debunking."  Does it appear to be a different table cloth?  The one in the night shot is smooth linen.  The color shots are patterned "doiley" type.  The first would promote sliding across a relatively smooth surface.  The pattered table cloth would not.

Dr. F

It would not be fair not to question any claim of a phenomena. The anomalous phenomena TAPS investigates,   in its present state of knowledge science is unable to explain. Assumptions or Judgments concerning the unknown are made to support a reasonable explanation using logic and common sense.   

The lamp moves and we clearly see it move. There is nothing in the video to suggest a spirit moved the lamp. Is it possible Grant moved the lamp? Or is it more plausible it was moved by a spirit.  Since no evidence exists of ghosts, using common sense and knowing that human involvement is always possible we may be able to conclude that this form of thinking based on a strict construction of the term, would be consistent what people in common would agree on

We may not be able to prove the cover pull, but to say it is improvable you are omitting all possible alternative explanations. Visual information is not necessary we only need to suggest it can be done using similar methods under the same conditions.

You’re making a statement on what you think you know. Grant not being in camera frame does not mean he left the room, nor does it suggest he was in the room, but he was in the room prior to the picture moving. Can a magician leave the room and move an object. Yes he can, Grant as far as we know has no magic skills, and as long as it can be duplicated then we can question how it moved.

 Anecdote is never evidence it’s a brief story about one incident a real life experience, you either believe or disbelieve the person, or it can be imaginary And that is the reason it was not mentioned as evidence.

The reason the chair moved or how it moved is not important, it’s not up to a skeptic to disprove the claim, but it is important that a skeptic provide a reason to show why certain claims are not conclusive. You said it could be paranormal but gave no reason why you think it may be paranormal. You said it could be natural or maybe string but you did not justify your reason why we should not rule out paranormal.

 This type of thinking is an inherent weakness among the debunkers who automatically assume if they can reproduce the phenomena that it must not, then, by definition, be paranormal.  The reality is that it doesn't argue either way, for or against paranormal phenomena.  It simply means you can move a chair with a thread.  It does mean Grant did…or didn't.

This type of thinking is called critical thinking It’s an attempt to minimize the chance a person will incorrectly accept a claim that involves accepted superstition, and questionable beliefs.  Weakness is to believe everything someone tells us or to believe everything we see and hear on TV. 

The Hanger incident- I did see a computer mockup of the room on line.  Personally, I don't think there is enough information visually to place Grant's hand on the hanger.

I don’t think you have enough information to give a Personal opinion, if you can’t visually see Grant then how can you say it wasn’t Grant. 

The "You don't belong here"- to be honest, I don't think there are many of us who are constantly aware of every word that trips from our lips.  Could this simply be an honest mistake where Grant recorded himself saying those words and playing them back at some point  

It didn’t sound like Grant; Jason didn’t say it sounded like Grant. As a matter a fact I don't believe it  sounded like Grant to Grant. 
 .

Paul Anthony said:

Dr. F

Now back to the Grant list.  I think it fair to assume that one cannot make assumptions that Grant is automatically guilty of creating phenomena.  This simply wouldn't be fair.  Each case must be determined according to its own merits and flaws.

It would not be fair not to question any claim of a phenomena. The anomalous phenomena TAPS investigates,   in its present state of knowledge science is unable to explain. Assumptions or Judgments concerning the unknown are made to support a reasonable explanation using logic and common sense.   

The Plantation lamp- I saw some debunking video of this and I could not for the life of me see what the claimant was trying to prove.  He noted that Grant sat by the lamp and pulled it.  That is not in the video.

The lamp moves and we clearly see it move. There is nothing in the video to suggest a spirit moved the lamp. Is it possible Grant moved the lamp? Or is it more plausible it was moved by a spirit.  Since no evidence exists of ghosts, using common sense and knowing that human involvement is always possible we may be able to conclude that this form of thinking based on a strict construction of the term, would be consistent what people in common would agree on

The bedcover pull- this one is inherently improvable as fraud or genuine because a) Grant was the only one in the room and b) There isn't enough visual information available.  We have to rely on what Grant says.  He seems to be startled by it.

We may not be able to prove the cover pull, but to say it is improvable you are omitting all possible alternative explanations. Visual information is not necessary we only need to suggest it can be done using similar methods under the same conditions.

The picture- Grant was not in the room… or at least on camera.

You’re making a statement on what you think you know. Grant not being in camera frame does not mean he left the room, nor does it suggest he was in the room, but he was in the room prior to the picture moving. Can a magician leave the room and move an object. Yes he can, Grant as far as we know has no magic skills, and as long as it can be duplicated then we can question how it moved.

The faces- on several shows Grant claimed to see a face.  But this was not on camera.  Grant DID NOT put them forth as evidence (to my knowledge) but simply an experience.

 Anecdote is never evidence it’s a brief story about one incident a real life experience, you either believe or disbelieve the person, or it can be imaginary And that is the reason it was not mentioned as evidence.

The Lighthouse chair- Grant WAS in the chair previously.  Some debunkers claim someone used a thread to pull the chair.  But again, there is no cause and effect logically here.  The fact that a chair may be moved by a thread (it can) does not necessarily mean that the chair did not move by some paranormal means (or other normal means for that matter).

The reason the chair moved or how it moved is not important, it’s not up to a skeptic to disprove the claim, but it is important that a skeptic provide a reason to show why certain claims are not conclusive. You said it could be paranormal but gave no reason why you think it may be paranormal. You said it could be natural or maybe string but you did not justify your reason why we should not rule out paranormal.

 This type of thinking is an inherent weakness among the debunkers who automatically assume if they can reproduce the phenomena that it must not, then, by definition, be paranormal.  The reality is that it doesn't argue either way, for or against paranormal phenomena.  It simply means you can move a chair with a thread.  It does mean Grant did…or didn't.

This type of thinking is called critical thinking It’s an attempt to minimize the chance a person will incorrectly accept a claim that involves accepted superstition, and questionable beliefs.  Weakness is to believe everything someone tells us or to believe everything we see and hear on TV. 

The Hanger incident- I did see a computer mockup of the room on line.  Personally, I don't think there is enough information visually to place Grant's hand on the hanger.

I don’t think you have enough information to give a Personal opinion, if you can’t visually see Grant then how can you say it wasn’t Grant. 

The "You don't belong here"- to be honest, I don't think there are many of us who are constantly aware of every word that trips from our lips.  Could this simply be an honest mistake where Grant recorded himself saying those words and playing them back at some point  

It didn’t sound like Grant; Jason didn’t say it sounded like Grant. As a matter a fact I don't believe it  sounded like Grant to Grant. 
 .

I don't know how to set this up to respond to each "response" above, so I'll number them.

1.  Elsewhere on this site I've noted that there is a conflict between using modernist techniques and assumptions with postmodernist presuppositions.  I do not think that logic is the end-all of investigative techniques.  For example, Paul states that one uses logic and common sense.  To draw from Stanton Friedman's lectures, he notes that advances in technology come about by doing different things in different (or new) ways.  The "grandmothers" of spiritualism in the United States, the Fox sisters, began their career as little girls (see The Reluctant Spiritualist) making spirit noises by bouncing an apple across the floor.  They then perfected a "toe-knuckle" rapping technique.  It was the "logic and common sense" approach that a) little girls would not have the moral capacity to fool scientists and b) That sounds could not be created by standing 3 feet from a wall.  But they did it.  I'm NOT saying let's toss out common sense and logic.  I'm saying that we must a) be aware of our presuppositions before we apply logic and common sense and b) that common sense and logic often get in the way of new and different techniques that someone might use.  Later Paul notes that Grant isn't a magician.  That is not a requirement in employing techniques to fool somebody. 

For example, in the 90's there was a young woman who apparently was able to read cards without touching them.  One might say, there are marked cards that people use to read the backs of cards.  BUT, and this is a big objection, this doesn't say that the girl was using marked cards.  It simply argues that one CAN reproduce the phenomena with marked cards.  The investigator simply has to look at the cards and ask, are HER cards marked?  (Of course this assumes that an investigator would know where to look and what to look for in a marked card.  If he made the mistake of thinking that it is something on the pattern of the back or the front, he likely would miss the other methods of marking- punched cards, nail-nicked cards, scratches places on the edges of cards, etc).  If those cards are discovered to be marked then we can draw a straight line between "people sometimes mark cards" and "she has marked cards."

Another example- James Randi knew a hidden item (within) in a film cannister could be located by a mark on the cannister to distinguish it from other cannisters visually.  But he had not tested Uri Geller on this.  The question then became, was Geller  altering film cannisters in a similar fashion?  Let me pause here and ask, can you see the flaw in the assumption of the question?  The assumption (of the protocol) was that Geller was working alone.  Randi discovered that this was not the case- and this is why he told the staff of Johnny Carson not to allow Geller or his assistant (I think his name was Shippi) to get near the cannisters backstage.  When Geller came on, he was absolutely frustrated in his attempts to find the hidden object in the cannisters.  My point- it was not until the protocol was tested that one could draw a straight line logically from theory to testing.

2.  The lamp pull- elsewhere on the forum I noted that there might be a difference in the table cloth in the "event" of the lamp moving and the tablecloth used to "debunk."  While I grant that there is nothing in the video to suggest the lamp is moved by a spirit, one has to then come up with a list of what it would look like if a spirit did move a lamp, if that is possible.  My point here is that that the lamp moved.  Grant was near it.  But I still don't think that is 100% proof that Grant moved it.  It only suggests that he did.  I think all the other doubts that are raised when he is around a phenomena speak louder than the single event does for deception.

3.  Critical thinking.  Again, see point number one.  This is a bit condescending in my opinion.  Elsewhere I have noted that to reproduce an event, using normal means, does not necessarily prove the event is not paranormal.  It doesn't argue for the paranormal.  it means the experiment is successful in simulating the event.  One has to weigh other factors in on whether or not it is reasonable to assume (?) that there is a straight line between the reproducing and the paranormal.  I believe there must be a context surrounding BOTH events in order to draw that line.  For example, a thread pulls a chair.  Then we see a film of a chair moving "on its own."  One has to ask whether there are other events in the series that resemble this type of thing.  If we answer in the affirmative, it gives greater weight to the idea that Grant used a thread- for example, in the collar pull incident it appears that a thread hookup is being used.  The evidence is a) Grant leaves with a camera in hand and returns without it- did he prepare something? b) throughout all the events (4 of them to my knowledge) Grant clearly is monkeying with something in his pocket.  c) During an "inspection" of Grant's collar, jason slaps him on the back and immediately the collar goes down.  We take all these events and we can paint a picture that takes us to the "reasonable" conclusion that these events were not paranormal.

4.  The hanger incident.    I would hope this forum allows for differing opinions- I offered an opinion that is circumscribed by what is visually present not by what I cannot assume in the room (visually).  My point here was that one could not visually see that it was or wasn't Grant doing it.  If we were to create a panel to investigate this incident we would simply have to ask the question, not did Grant throw it, but to ask, was Grant in a position to throw it, do the angles of arc support a trajectory from Grant or from the closet, etc.  What we DO know is that a hanger appears on camera to have been moved from point a to point b.

5.  On visual information- I was under the assumption that we consider the evidence from what is on the show vs. what is not; i.e., the bed pull, etc.  I am not of the mind that someone is automatically attempting to deceive.  Nor am I of the mind that someone is automatically creating or channeling supernatural phenomena.   Perhaps this is simply a matter of perception.

DrF

I appreciate reading all the debate, but what it seems to me to boil down to is the notion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence — and things that can be easily faked, taken in the context of the specific situation, are not extraordinary evidence — in which case we revert to Occam's Razor and have to figure out if, for example, a lamp is more likely to have been moved by a person or other natural causes or is it more likely that it moved through paranormal means.

LMC said:

Regarding the 2008 Halloween show, there was a scene early in the evening where Jay and Grant were sitting in a room and getting mysterious knocking replies to their own knocking prompts. Unfortunately I didn't record it and only saw it one time, but on one of these occurrences the camera was on Grant and I swear I saw him blatantly doing the ghostly knocking replies, as if he thought the camera wasn't on him at the time. I've never seen this mentioned on any of the debunking forums, so I've always wondered if I was mistaken. Has anybody got this footage to confirm?

Do you remember what room they were in?  You might want to check YouTube and see if it was uploaded by someone there.  I did find a series of videos of the Halloween Live show so maybe it's on there (I refused to waste all that space on my DVR).  Don't know if someone had put the whole show up but it's worth a search.  There are like two pages from someone named rfuze.  If you can recognize the room and about how far into the show it was, it would be interesting to go over it.

Don't know who was knocking but I doubt it was any spirits from Ft. Delaware.

Definately looks like Grant hits his wrist watch gently up against the molding at the same time that  the sound is heard!

Good catch LMC.

I have to disagree, not that Grant may have accidentally hit his watch on the molding, but that he did that intentionally.  It looked like to me he was going to knock again as part of the attempt to get something to respond and stopped short when he heard the knock.  Now, if it was his watch, I would have thought he would have felt it and said Whoops, that was me.  But he didn't.  But to me it does look like he stops his arm short of hitting the molding or wall. 

With all due respect, Jason turns around immediately and looks right at the window.  I have to agree with LMC; his watch hits the woodwork and makes a small tap.  Why would he want to hit it again so soon after the first few knocks?  He would have waited for a reply.  He raises his arm twice in rapid succession.  To me it is very, very suspect.