Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

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Postby justdrew » Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:58 pm

I think it's possible he wrote a decent book on mkultra and is also not a good-guy. he was totally against the FMSF at one point, and now he's a member of it?
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Postby American Dream » Sun Jul 26, 2009 5:11 pm

And/or maybe he has a problem with hubris?
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Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:08 pm

justdrew wrote:I think it's possible he wrote a decent book on mkultra and is also not a good-guy. he was totally against the FMSF at one point, and now he's a member of it?

I got the impression from something Ross wrote that he gets the FMSF literature out of professional interest, not supporting them.

He has written clear criticism of their erroneous stance and parsed out the complexities they gloss over due to their agenda.

This Randi thing smells like coerced self-discrediting to me.
Along the lines of "we don't want you to have a squeaky clean profile because you are over informative. Just do something internet visible that's whack and your family members will be just fine."
CIA runs mainstream media since WWII:
news rooms, movies/TV, publishing
...
Disney is CIA for kidz!
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby jingofever » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:33 pm

Another press release from the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma:

Psychiatrist's Research Finds You Really Can Feel a Person's Stare:

Noted psychiatrist and author Colin A. Ross, M.D., has published experimental data that supports his scientific hypothesis that the eyes emit energy that can be captured and measured. Dr. Ross' paper, "The Electrophysiological Basis of Evil Eye Belief," is published in the current issue of Anthropology of Consciousness, a journal of the American Anthropological Association. The full paper is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi- ... /HTMLSTART.

Although nearly everyone has experienced the sense of being stared at only to find that a person or animal really was looking, Western science has long rejected that the human eye can emit any form of energy. Dr. Ross says his findings move "human ocular extramission," which he also refers to as an "eyebeam," from the realm of superstition to science.

"We used our patent pending Electromagnetic Beam Detection System, which includes modified EEG neurofeedback equipment, to prove that the human eye emits an electromagnetic signal that can be measured scientifically," said Dr. Ross. "I hope that future experiments will determine why energy emitted from the eye is so strong and whether it can be harnessed through focused attention."

A series of videos in which Dr. Ross discusses the paper can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... 82619EEF4D.

Dr. Ross has been researching a new science and medicine focused on the human body's electromagnetic field, which he detailed in his 2009 book, Human Energy Fields (ISBN-13: 978-0-9821851-0-0).

Dr. Ross previously made headlines by applying to the $1 Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge administered by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) (http://www.randi.org). Although Dr. Ross can prove that his eyebeam can make a tone sound out of a computer, JREF insists that no energy can be emitted from the eyes and mocked Dr. Ross with its Pigasus Award. JREF has not responded to Dr. Ross' test protocol.

Dr. Ross is the author of 140 papers in professional journals and 23 books. He has lectured widely in North America, Europe, China, New Zealand and Australia, has reviewed for many different psychiatry journals, and received a number of research grants. His writing also includes short stories, poems, aphorisms, plays and essays on a wide range of topics. For more information about Dr. Ross and the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma, visit http://www.rossinst.com.
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Cosmic Cowbell » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:52 pm

Image

"We used our patent pending Electromagnetic Beam Detection System, which includes modified EEG neurofeedback equipment, to prove that the human eye emits an electromagnetic signal that can be measured scientifically," said Dr. Evil (Eye).
"There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." ~ A.N. Whitehead
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Project Willow » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:25 pm

I am giving my computer the evil eye this very moment and it is not responding!

Next Ross must use his eye beam detector in conjunction with an FMRI study so he can pinpoint receptor activity.

Wait, wait, is that a peer-reviewed journal?
Does the term "evil eye" actually preexist as a descriptor in the cultural anthropology literature or does Ross just have a great sense of humor?
Seriously, there must be a cultural anthro 'xpert somewhere here on this board...

Wish I could peek behind the curtain of this show to see who's at the ready with the big hook or several, but then most of the audience seems armed with tomatoes.
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby chiggerbit » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:52 pm

...but then most of the audience seems armed with tomatoes.


Image

Yep. But I will add that I think there IS something mystical about eye contact. Not that the eye sends out beams, but that the brain recognizes instinctively when there has been eye contact, even though it's only subconsciously received.
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby stefano » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:54 pm

jingofever wrote:Although Dr. Ross can prove that his eyebeam can make a tone sound out of a computer, JREF insists that no energy can be emitted from the eyes and mocked Dr. Ross with its Pigasus Award. JREF has not responded to Dr. Ross' test protocol.

Erm, surely skepticism, or the spirit of genuine scientific enquiry, would require someone checking to see whether there's something in it? That's not how these claims get shot down, though. From randi.org:
we now understand that light emitted or reflected by external objects enters the eye, and that's how we see. But Dr. Ross claims to have reversed this process, and not only can he send EM beams from his eyes, but he has rigged up a system to detect it.
What does 'how we see' have to do with it? It doesn't take an enormous amount of lateral thinking to posit the thesis that the sense of being stared at could result from an intention entering the shared unconscious through being strong, completely independent of light or vision. Clearly one step too far for Randi.

It's this absolute dogged determination not to explore the boundaries of human knowledge that gets on my tits. My favourite story in this regard is the one of how, in the 18th century, French scientists had determined that rocks could not fall from the sky, and therefore that there could be no such thing as a meteorite. Museums all across Europe threw out their collections. Or the time scientists established by means of chemical analysis that there could be no benefit to breastfeeding, since mother's milk had the same chemical composition as formula. Both theses turned out to be wrong.

To my mind the true scientist is the one who identifies the threshold of knowledge and works with the aim of pushing it outward, while the one who latches desperately on to the prevailing dogma and seeks to defend it at any cost works to the detriment of the advancement of the sum of our knowledge.

Rupert Sheldrake on The sense of being stared at (pdfs)

Shello wrote:In questionnaire surveys about the details of these experiences I carried in Britain, Sweden and the United States, more women (81%) thanmen (74%) said they had felt they were being stared at. This experience occurred most commonly with strangers in public places, such as streets and bars. Also, significantly more women (88%) than men (71%) said they had found they could stare at others and make them turn around.
[...]
If the sense of being stared at really exists, then it must have been subject to evolution by natural selection. How might it have evolved? The most obvious possibility is that it evolved in the context of predator–prey relations. Prey animals that could detect when predators were looking at them would probably stand a better chance of surviving than those that could not.
[...]
Altogether, there have been tens of thousands of direct-looking trials. The results are remarkably consistent. Typically, about 55% of the guesses are right, as opposed to 50% expected by chance. Repeated over tens of thousands of trials this result becomes astronomically significant statistically.
[...]
The data in Table 1 include the results from all 21 experiments of my own, in 20 of which the outcome was positive. They also include the results from 37 independent investigations in schools and colleges. Thirty-six of these investigations showed a positive effect, but one did not.

Etc. Check out the papers for yourself.

To conclude, a quote by Craig Murray that I really like: "If we shy away from recording events we cannot explain for fear of ridicule, we will not help to advance the cause of human understanding."
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Simulist » Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:06 pm

Thanks for the Sheldrake info. I don't know how "the sense that you're being stared at" works, but I do know it does.

I used to do this in church whenever I was bored (so it's pretty safe to say I used to do this a lot), and people I knew would inevitably respond by turning around.
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
    — Alan Watts
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Project Willow » Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:19 pm

stefano wrote:
To conclude, a quote by Craig Murray that I really like: "If we shy away from recording events we cannot explain for fear of ridicule, we will not help to advance the cause of human understanding."


I do not have an issue with Ross's area of inquiry at all. In fact, I understand it, as well as its more than likely impetus, the memories of MC program survivor patients, if I am to trust Ross.

However, what I do take issue with is his method of going about publicity, I mean come on, let Randi find you after you've been published in the peer-reviewed press. Plus, the language he uses, he seems to be intentionally yanking on people's incredulity. It's either a brilliant strategy or absolutely doomed to fail, hence my comments about the hooks.
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Avalon » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:46 pm

Altogether, there have been tens of thousands of direct-looking trials. The results are remarkably consistent. Typically, about 55% of the guesses are right, as opposed to 50% expected by chance. Repeated over tens of thousands of trials this result becomes astronomically significant statistically

I don't know much about statistics, but doesn't that mean that as a feat it's still only achieving 5% over chance? Which I'd say is adequate, but not "astronomically significant." And as far as psi goes, I'd consider that a not terribly exciting form of anomalous cognition.
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Hammer of Los » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:53 pm

The guy could make out like frickin' Cyclops and Randy would still deny it constituted proof.
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:10 am

Anyone ever seen this?

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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Searcher08 » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:28 am

Hammer of Los wrote:The guy could make out like frickin' Cyclops and Randy would still deny it constituted proof.

:mrgreen:



The Big Ghey Randy organisation has received your video but feels that it violates article 1.2.1.2 (1)-a.1.1.2 of the Big Ghey Randy Challenge
"No submissions which constitute possible evidence that might result in Big Ghey Randy losing money now or in the future are acceptable"
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Re: Colin Ross to take the Randi Challenge

Postby Burnt Hill » Wed Apr 21, 2010 8:59 am

Joe Hillshoist:
Anyone ever seen this?

The question is- has anybody else tried this?
I'll be giving it a go when my wife gets home with the nice car.
If it works, I'll be cleaning up at the local pub tonight.
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