Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

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Postby chiggerbit » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:15 pm

Ross has done a great deal to connect dots between some very ]interesting people. Some of his connecting is a bit weak, needs more sourcing, in my opinion. But it is beyond me why he would do something like this OP challenge, or even to participate with either Loftus or the Scientologists in their projects.

Here's an example of Ross' dot-connecting:



http://www.pehi.eu/dutroux/FMSF_freaks.htm
Last edited by chiggerbit on Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Wombaticus Rex » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:18 pm

^^Because of the same cognitive biases we all suffer from, too? That's my guess. He seems like a typical human being to me, brilliant in some aspects, blind as fuck in others.
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Postby chiggerbit » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:38 pm

Really, reading this from the link I gave above, you have to wonder if there is another somewhat covert challenge going on inside the overt challenge:

Randi, James "the Amazing" Scientific Advisory Board Most famous skeptic ever. Luminary of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), together with Paul Kurz, Ray Hyman (FMSF), Joe Nickell, Philip Klass, and Carl Sagan. CSICOP's magazine is the Skeptical Inquirer. Has been accused of continually manipulating the rules of his $1,000,000 reward for someone who can "prove" to him paranormal abilities exists. In other cases he has been accused of plainly refusing to investigate a case or simply not to accept what he saw as "paranormal", only as "unexplained". Has always been debunking his eternal enemy Uri Geller. February 11, 1996, Toronto Star: "What I had hesitated to mention is that the colorful Randi has been involved in a number of lawsuits. Part of the evidence brought against Randi was a tape of his telephone conversations, of explicit sexual content, with teenage boys. Randi has at different times claimed that the tape was a hoax made by his enemies to blackmail him, that he made the tape himself, and that the police asked him to make it. Whichever version is true, it's amazing indeed that such a person could be taken seriously as a scientific adviser in an organization dedicated to denying claims of child sexual abuse." This tape was played during a trial in which Randi was accused by Eldon Byrd, a good friend of Uri and a former Naval Surface Weapons Center researcher, of defamation by claiming he was known pedophile. True or not, during the trial Byrd and his team played a tape on which Randi was speaking to a small boy about sex and how much it would cost. Randi claimed it was all a setup by Byrd and the boys on the tape were prank callers. The judge wasn't so sure about that, especially because Randi voluntarily called back one of the boys after the latter told him his money was running out. It's a confusing story, but you wonder what he's doing at the FMSF.

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Postby Jeff » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:50 pm

chiggerbit wrote:Really, reading this from the link I gave above, you have to wonder if there is another somewhat covert challenge going on inside the overt challenge:

It's a confusing story, but you wonder what he's doing at the FMSF.


Good quote. But then I'm left wondering about Ross's own relationship to the FMSF.

FWIW, the ritual abuse survivor group SMART has this caution about Ross:

"...S.M.A.R.T. believes it is necessary to let our readers know more about Dr. Colin Ross' beliefs. Dr. Ross has done a lot of excellent research work showing connections between various agencies and groups. However, Dr. Ross is a member of FMSF (False Memory Syndrome Foundation). The following are quotes from his interview (on CKLN Radio): "...The more serious criticism is that Multiple Personality is often unwittingly created by bad therapists. Now, that I agree with, and have testified about that in court." (he mentions he has testified for a patient suing a therapist, he does believe MPD is real). "...I have had a bit of experience with the FMSF. I belong to the FMSF. I get their newsletter. I've been talked about, and have written in their newsletter." (He mentions he has set up workshops with Pamela Freud, FMSF Executive Director, Elizabeth Loftus, a leading member of the FMSF advisory board, etc.) "...I agree with probably over half of what the majority of the people on the FMSF Advisory Board say....All these guidelines about false memories and memory not being reliable...the FMSF spearheaded that, so a lot of the work they have done has been incredibly helpful and I agree with it." (he does mention that the false memory debate has affected therapy resources available for survivors negatively (because therapists have become paranoid)."

http://members.aol.com/SMARTNEWS/Sample-Issue-22.htm
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Postby chiggerbit » Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:15 pm

Wombat said:

Because of the same cognitive biases we all suffer from, too? That's my guess. He seems like a typical human being to me, brilliant in some aspects, blind as fuck in others.


Yes, true, but there is usually some sort of congruence in the biases. Congruence seems to be missing with Ross--or maybe I'm just not finding it.
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Postby chiggerbit » Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:17 pm

Thanks, Jeff, I could have sworn that I'd seen somewhere that Ross was a member of FMSF, but couldn't find it on my quick search.
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Postby Jeff » Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:54 pm

Okay, I received confirmation of the story from Colin Ross, and he sent me the following documents from his application (edited to remove personal contact information):

Image

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And since I can believe what Hugh might call the wooiest woo, I have to hope he can. But I shudder at the Randi carnival.
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Postby barracuda » Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:05 pm

Special goggles, eh? That somehow sounds like the lynchpin of the whole deal.

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Postby jingofever » Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:43 pm

barracuda wrote:Special goggles, eh? That somehow sounds like the lynchpin of the whole deal.


I assume this proposal will not make it past the protocol negotiation stage unless Randi and his crew can convince Ross to submit to a direct test of his eyes rather than testing some goggles.
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Postby Searcher08 » Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:32 pm

Wombaticus Rex wrote:Hey Hugh, I asked you in another thread and you never addressed it, so I'll pose it again: what reasons do you have for distrusting Dean Radin?

Does he have a nefarious past or suspicious connections? Can you point out where he's been decietful? Because it seems to me he's an honest and rigorous scientist whose interests overlap with some of your pet keywords. Is there an actual reason?

Also -- do you dismiss psi phenomena as altogether false?


Hey, that was MY meme!! :lol: I have been chasing Hugh all over the board to get him to tell me where in particular Dean Radin's paper on Intentional Chocolate is wrong. I think it looks a very well designed experiment . I have looked for flaws (with Google) and found nothing other than "the guy is obviously a nut" "he should be fired and his books banned" etcetc
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Postby orz » Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:52 pm

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Postby biaothanatoi » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:09 pm

Weird, weird, weird, WEIRD.

Ross seems to have a case of multiple personalities himself - evidence-based mental health practitioner, opportunistic and amoral FMSF adviser, conspiracy theorist, and now ESP enthusiast.
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Postby American Dream » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:30 pm

Wombaticus Rex wrote:
Hey Hugh, I asked you in another thread and you never addressed it, so I'll pose it again: what reasons do you have for distrusting Dean Radin?

Does he have a nefarious past or suspicious connections? Can you point out where he's been decietful?

I'm not Hugh, and I can't claim to know so much about Dean Radin, but here is some info from Doc Hambone (links embedded in the original):


Dean Radin

Image

Currently director of the Consciousness Research Division, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Click here for their home page.

"AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio. I did research and development on human-computer interfaces in national and global telecommunications systems, medical information systems, network control centers, and also some parapsychological research."

"Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. I was Director of a multidisciplinary group interested in aspects of human information processing. I was also a scientist within the Psychology Department, where I did research on parapsychological phenomena."

Radin also worked with GTE, the Koestler Unit of Parapsychology, and with the program at SRI.
(Dean Radin Home Page)

"I took a leave of absence from Bell Labs in 1985, and spent that entire year at SRI International, working with Hal Puthoff and Ed May. Since then I spent about half my time in academia (Princeton, Edinburgh, UNLV) and half in industry (Contel Technology Center, GTE Labs). My academic research was exclusively on psi phenomena, and my industrial research included about 20% on psi."

"I'm not in favor of developing or using psi for any military purposes, but unfortunately there are those in the world who would use psi as a weapon if they could. Thus, I reluctantly suppose that R& D on psi for intelligence and possibly military purposes can be justified for defensive reasons. It would be naive to think that someone, somewhere is not working on this right now"
(Interview with the RetroPsychoKinesis Project)

Radin is currently working with Joe McMoneagle, in a project involved with remote-viewing future technology.
(Compuserve On Line Conversation w/ Joe McMoneagle, 1/4/96)

Radin was once funded in part by Robert Bigelow's Bigelow Foundation, but according to Glenn Campbell, Bigelow stopped funding him after disputes over funding and academic freedom.(What's New at Area 51 and Ufomind: 9/96 Part I) (What's New at Area 51 and Ufomind: 9/96 Part II) On 9/17/95, Radin posted a want-ad on USENET:

"Private, well-funded institute seeks a director for an innovative, long-term program of scientific and scholarly research on UFOs and related phenomena..."

"This is a full time position located at the institute's new headquarters in Las Vegas, NV, near the University of Nevada (UNLV). The institute also supports a major research program on anomalies of human consciousness."

Applications were to be sent to the Bigelow Foundation.

UNLV professor explores the link between mind and matter

On the board of advisors for "Subtle Energies: An International Journal of Energetic and Informational".

Author of:

* Mental Influence on Machine-Generated Random Events: Six Experiments, Journal of Parapsychology, 1983
* 1993 Presidental Address to the Parapsychological Association
* "Searching for "signatures" in anomalous human-machine interaction research: A neural network approach", Journal of Scientific Exploration,1989, 3, 185-200
* Radin, D. I. & Nelson, R. D., "Evidence for consciousness-related anomalies in random physical systems", Foundations of Physics, 1989, 19, 1499-1514
* Radin, D.I., Taylor, R.K., & Braud, W.G., "Remote mental influence of human electrodermal activity: A preliminary replication", The Parapsychological Association 36th Annual Convention: Proceedings of Presented Papers,1993, 12-23
* "Beyond Belief: Exploring Interactions Among Mind, Body and Environment", Subtle Energies, vol 2, #3,1991
* "Environmental Modulation and Statistical Equilibrium in Mind-Matter Interaction", Subtle Energies, vol 4, #1, 1993
* Radin, Dean I. & Rebman, Jannine M., "Lunar Correlates of Normal, Abnormal and Anomalous Human Behavior", Subtle Energies, vol 5, #3, 1994
* "On complexity and pragmatism", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1994, 8 (4), 523-534

Dean Radin is the moving force behind one of the largest online remote viewing/ESP tests ever. This is what he has to say about it:

"As of April 25th, we have recorded a total of 2.1 million trials, contributed by over 14,000 participants from 92 countries. In these tests we were interested in searching for possible psi talent, for testing hypotheses about individual personality, belief and environmental factors vs. psi performance, and for examining some ideas about perception through time."

For sixteen years, Dean Radin has conducted experimental studies of psi phenomena in academia and industry, including appointments at Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, University of Nevada, and SRI International. At the latter he was a research scientist on a classified program of psi research. Prior to becoming President of the Boundary Institute, he was in charge of a psi research program at Interval Research Corporation in Palo Alto, California.

Dean Radin earned a BSEE magna cum laude in electrical engineering, with honors, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an MS in electrical engineering and PhD (1979) in educational psychology, both from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. For ten years, he was a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories and later a principal member of the technical staff at GTE Laboratories, where he was engaged in R&D on a wide variety of advanced telecommunications products and systems.

(also see Manning, Mary, The Scientific Edge broken link [check for article], Las Vegas Sun)

Mind Frontiers Tuesday, April 15, 1997 By Natalie Patton Las Vegas Review-Journal, 4/15/97)

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http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/people1.html
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Postby 8bitagent » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:10 pm

Image


I don't doubt at all that many people have strong psi abilities...the ability of tele-kenesis, solid ESP, remote viewing, walking on water, levitation, you name it.

I just don't think people who have such real abilities want to "expose" how they do it to gatekeepers like James Randi.

He probably thinks "twin psychic feeling" is a hoax too.

On a side issue...remember the Dutch "fakir" who was levitating in front of the White House and other places? Why is it, you never saw him without the staff under him?

Why does Ross need "special goggles"?
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Postby Truth4Youth » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:13 am

On tonight's first hour Coast to Coast AM
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