Is It Possible To Win The $1 million challenge?

[really?]

[Steve Zalewski]

May 10, 2013

You ask if it is possible to win the $1 million dollar challenge. I will be flat out honest with you, DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH.

Randi and his followers at CSI and JREF have no intention of paying ANY claim, under ANY circumstances. Pseudoskeptics, and debunkers, move the evidence goal posts around, and Randi has stated that he ALWAYS HAS a way out.

In addition, the people at CSI, and JREF talk about evidence, BUT no matter what evidence you have it is NEVER good enough, for CSI or JREF. Even peer reviewed papers from Ph.D level scholarly journals ARE NOT good enough for CSI and JREF.

Consider the source. As far as I'm concerned CSI and JREF ARE a joke, and the members of both CSI and JREF are narrow minded people who have developed a somewhat paranoid authoritarian philosophy of being the "scientific thought police," and that they know what is good for everyone else. Some CSI and JREF members have become arrogant know it alls, in my opinion.

Steve Zalewski
Syracuse, NY

[SydneyPSIder]

Randi feeds all the true psychics he uncovers to MK-Ultra for experiments... it's a honey trap.

[Arouet]

Good thing its not CSI that runs the challenge, huh?

[ProfWag]

[SydneyPSIder]

[ProfWag]

I often wonder why it's those people who could "easily" pass the test, don't take it.

[SydneyPSIder]

[Arouet]

Statistical significance can't possibly be the standard to win $1,000.000. Even with no effect whatsoever you'd get a winner every 20 tries or so. The MDC is not designed to test those kind of claims.

[SydneyPSIder]

[SydneyPSIder]

haha, there's an analysis on the web, funnily enough from randi's website -- but with a dead link.

the only other thing is a formula on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrstphre/6277432976/

The formula is a P in the A to calculate, as it has a few n! calcs in it, as in most probability calcs -- and not sure if it includes 'card counting' as a factor, which is not necessary or desirable in a blinded test.

Just put the formula as supplied into a spreadsheet. According to the formula, the chances (by chance, rounded) of getting exactly

1: 1 in 42
5: 1 in 5
8: 1 in 16
9: 1 in 34
10: 1 in 85
11: 1 in 249
12: 1 in 854
13: 1 in 3,416
14: 1 in 15,941
15: 1 in 86,949
20: 1 in 5,477,852,523
25: 1 in 3 E 17 or 300 quadrillion (as suggested above)

in any single trial of 25 cards and guesses, of 5x5 different types.

Although the most common result of guessing would be 5 correct, the probability of any one trial delivering exactly 5 matches is 1 in 5, as noted. The distribution behaves as you would expect, i.e. the chances of guessing less than 5 by chance are lower than guessing 5 correct. One might think repeatedly guessing 10 or more correctly might be taken as considerably more than chance.

Interestingly, there are a couple of Flash apps that deliver a Zener test, which strikes me as a bit useless, as it's a bit hard for someone with mind-reading ability trying to tune in on what someone is thinking when that someone is a computer server somewhere in the world -- some people may have evolved being able to read other humans' minds for simple thoughts or images -- reading an 'image' off silicon RAM is a slightly different kettle of fish, and fundamentally invalid I would think. maybe a psychic computer can read another computer's mind!!!?? And do androids dream of electric sheep?

[ProfWag]

As for the pre-test, all one has to do is go to their local community college's psychology department. If someone has "abilities" above chance, they could easily pass it there--yet no one does. Hence, my skepticism.
I'm sure that if there WERE people out there (such as Syd's friend) who do have the gift, I could see a small percentage of them not wanting the publicity, money, etc. However, I seriously doubt all of them would be so shy...
If I could routinely show psychic abilities, I know my local college would LOVE to be the one to get credit for being my tester. Forget the JREF Challenge, I would make enough money without them. "Vegas Baby!"

[SydneyPSIder]

[Arouet]

[ProfWag]