Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize Winner, joins SCEPCOP!

[Scepcop]

Hi all,
Great news! Brian Josephson, the 1973 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, has decided to join SCEPCOP! His bio will soon be on the home page! This is great because now the word "Scientific" in the SCEPCOP acronym will have credence, since Josephson is an esteemed and honorary scientist.

More about him here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_David_Josephson

Nobel Prize Curriculum Vitae
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/phys ... on-cv.html

His pioneering of the paranormal
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/ ... ofile.html

Home Page
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/

[NinjaPuppy]

Wonderful!

[quantumparanormal]

Well, look at that... a Nobel Prize winner who's also a psi apologist.

Who would've thought?

[quantumparanormal]

Here's more about him and this:

The Nobel-prize-winning physicist Brian Josephson has studied the brain and the paranormal for 30 years. He tells Edwin Cartlidge that most physicists have an irrational prejudice against unorthodox areas of research.

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/PWprofile.html

[ProfWag]

I hope he contributes much to this board. I joined to learn about the paranormal and see how/why "believers" believe, but so far, I haven't been convinced of much of anything. I look forward to his inputs!

[quantumparanormal]

I joined to learn about the paranormal and see how/why "believers" believe, but so far, I haven't been convinced of much of anything.

I doubt you ever will be convinced (despite the logically, empirically convincing evidence). Some people are simply stuck in their biases, worldview, preconceptions, and/or convictions, unfortunately. I accept that, though. That's just life.

What the real, empirical, scientific data & evidence that's been obtained suffers is that they've been "polluted" by just the opposite types (i.e., the unreal, non-empirical, unscientific data & evidence), and that makes such valid data & evidence look less credible and not worthy of consideration and peer review, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean empirically evidential data should be dismissed outright, before consideration and peer review. In other words, we don't just throw out the entire basket just because there are a few bad apples in the bunch. We still have some very good apples in the bunch, no matter how many rotten ones might be mixed in. Put the proper way, we shouldn't outright dismiss all paranormal related data/evidence/research because there exists some bad data/evidence/research in the field. Doing so shows obvious bias.

[Scepcop]

I've just put up Brian Josephson's bio here, along with the other bios:

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com#Josephson

Now we look like a great team eh?

[Scepcop]

I hope he contributes much to this board. I joined to learn about the paranormal and see how/why "believers" believe, but so far, I haven't been convinced of much of anything. I look forward to his inputs!

Illogical. It is completely obvious that you do not want to see evidence and that you reject it a priori with religious closed minded fervor. What you said it tantamount to bolting your house door shut and then telling someone that you hope he comes visit your home. But then again, pseudoskeptics make no sense and lack even basic ability to connect simple dots that even children can connect. I've seen it time and time again. One on my list will not even admit that cars who pull into parking lots with many available spaces but pick the shaded ones obviously pick them to keep their cars cool. That is common sense that even rednecks understand, but pseudoskeptics don't.

I doubt Josephson has time to post on this forum. He is retired and wise enough to know that debating pseudoskeptics is a fruitless endeavor, and probably has better things to do. Plus, when you get older, your time becomes more precious too. If you want to know his position on the paranormal and why he believes though, you can just read his writings on his home page and the "pioneer of the paranormal" article about him above in the first post.

You've been given plenty of scientific and anecdotal evidence already, what more can you ask for? Someone to read your mind and describe every object in your home?

[quantumparanormal]

You've been given plenty of scientific and anecdotal evidence already, what more can you ask for? Someone to read your mind and describe every object in your home?

That seems to be the requirement for most pseudo-skeptics. However, what they don't realize is that psi are very subtle, inconsistent, largely unpredictable, intermittent, rare and variable phenomena.

For example, I've been conducting research trials wherein subjects look at "scary" videos on a large TV screen, while several EMF meters are situated close to their bodies. The hypothesis is that certain emotional reactions to the videos result in physiological responses which emit large amounts of EM fields. These fields get registered via the nearby EMF meters. I asked this question because I noticed that "ghost hunters" would often register EMF spikes in places considered "haunted." My hunch has been confirmed, so far, via a few trials: those who are more easily scared by the videos in the trials will emit larger amounts of EM fields, versus those who aren't easily nor amply scared by those videos. So, those who go into "haunted" locations with their EMF meters who then get spikes might be causing those spikes themselves, especially if such a place scares them, but not due to any spiritual cause(s), but it depends on each individual, not the entire population sample as as a whole.

My point is an analogous one in that not everyone has the same psychical abilities, nor can the people who do possess certain psychical abilities perform them on-demand, at will. Additionally, psi effects are highly variable, subtle and often unpredictable. For example, while some people might be able to influence REGs at the quantum level (i.e., making random events more non-random, beyond chance expectation), they probably won't be able to move a chair, nor perceive with any great detail a remote environment, nor read someone's thoughts, nor be able to do these things every single time, at will, etc, something that most pseudo-skeptics require in order to be convinced that psi are real phenomena (although they might not even be convinced then). Then there's the unpredictable nature of psi: a person might be able to perform a psi function well on day A, but not on day B. Certain psychological and/or environment factors might influence such unpredictability.

As an example of this unpredictability, take the various REG experiments that've been conducted. In each session, no one can make the REGs hit towards one direction or the other (i.e., "heads" or "tails") every single time, not even 60% of the time. But after thousands of trials, the total number of hits might still show non-randomness far above chance expectation. If we were to, say, get 2,000 trials wherein we were expecting "heads" to be hits and only got 52% heads in the end (e.g., 1,040 heads), a statistical binomial distribution calculation would reveal that the odds of getting 52% heads out of 2,000 random "flips" of "heads" and "tails" (i.e., 1s and 0s) is 278 to 1 against chance (p = 0.0036). This is statistically significant, albeit not mind-shattering in the psi world (although it would be in the sports world!). However, let's say we got 53% heads. That would yield odds against chance of 2,052 to 1 (p = 0.00048). And guess what? Psi research has yielded such odds, even far better than 53% in many experiments (e.g., some have yielded results of odds against chance in the quadrillions to one!; ask me for references).

However, despite the very subtle, inconsistent, largely unpredictable, intermittent, rare and variable nature of psi, research still demonstrates that psi are real phenomena worthy of further scientific investigation.

[ProfWag]

I hope he contributes much to this board. I joined to learn about the paranormal and see how/why "believers" believe, but so far, I haven't been convinced of much of anything. I look forward to his inputs!

Illogical. It is completely obvious that you do not want to see evidence and that you reject it a priori with religious closed minded fervor. What you said it tantamount to bolting your house door shut and then telling someone that you hope he comes visit your home. But then again, pseudoskeptics make no sense and lack even basic ability to connect simple dots that even children can connect. I've seen it time and time again. One on my list will not even admit that cars who pull into parking lots with many available spaces but pick the shaded ones obviously pick them to keep their cars cool. That is common sense that even rednecks understand, but pseudoskeptics don't.

I doubt Josephson has time to post on this forum. He is retired and wise enough to know that debating pseudoskeptics is a fruitless endeavor, and probably has better things to do. Plus, when you get older, your time becomes more precious too. If you want to know his position on the paranormal and why he believes though, you can just read his writings on his home page and the "pioneer of the paranormal" article about him above in the first post.

You've been given plenty of scientific and anecdotal evidence already, what more can you ask for? Someone to read your mind and describe every object in your home?

Scepcop, you continue to amaze me. I make an honest post and your first word back to me is "illogical." What is illogical about wanting a Nobel Prize winning scientist's participation? Your post says that he has joined. If he's not going to post, then what did he join? Quite confusing I must say. I would love to see what kind of evidence he claims. I've read that he says there is evidence but the mainstream scientists don't give it credance. Why is that? I would like to see what he has to say. If he doesn't participate in the discussions then having his support doesn't mean much of anything to me and doesn't help me to learn what's out there. You now have the support of Dr. Dean Radin and Dr. Josephson. You should be proud as they are heavyweights in their field. But if they don't contribute, then your "scientific" claim is still questionable.
Unfortunately, you are wrong about scientific evidence. I have seen nothing that hasn't been easily disputed. There has been no proof whatsoever presented. Nothing at all unfortunately. Do I want someone to read my mind and describe objects in my home? I sure do. That would go a long way towards supporting the paranormal. Having a .02 percent positive result in a random number machine doesn't show anything. What can be garnered from that knowledge? It actually shows me that people who claim to read minds, actually can't. So why all the talk? I don't know, but I wish someone would tell me.
Finally, I don't know what point you were trying to make with your parking lot story, but your use of the term "rednecks" says a lot about you and your prejudices. Not very scientific I'm afraid. If you want this site to be taken seriously, you should present your evidence scientifically and professionally and not point fingers and discredit someone's views just because they are different than yours.