[Loquebantur]

Ironically, scientism is also a manifestation of "magical thinking": Going through ritualistic motions of scientific appearances without actual understanding, getting positive feedback from the multitudes being just as incompetent.

Here, with the "Telepathy Tapes", the subject matter is immediately categorized as "magic": stuff deemed to be impossible because of it "obviously/implicitly contradicting scientific knowledge".

But that contradiction doesn't really exist? To give a decidedly clumsy, but entirely "physically possible", explanation of "telepathy": little green men from outer space might facilitate that effect using extremely advanced technology, hiding their presence and foiling attempts at getting easily understood evidence.

While such a scenario is highly inconvenient for current human academia to address, it's not "impossible" in any way? Isn't it really "magical thinking" to assume, such "outlandish" scenarios were excluded by natural law?

[foltik]

Ritualistic “magical thinking” stays the same regardless of outcomes or new information. Science does the exact opposite - predictive power determines what’s true. Nobody said your alien hypothesis is impossible; just that it’s highly implausible. No predictions, no evidence, no way to test it.

[Loquebantur]

Your assessment of "magical thinking" being impervious to criticism funnily applies just the same to the attitude exhibited here regarding "fringed" ideas like "telepathy". The "Telepathy Tapes" are "new information", people's attitudes stay the same regardless.

"Predictive power" isn't the source of truth in science, evidence for that attribute is. Given even only a hint of such evidence, scientists are supposed to work in order to acquire more, not to ignore the hint because that work would inconvenience them.

You claim that "alien hypothesis" was implausible, but that statement would require solid arguments in its favor. And those don't exist. You rather argue from ignorance, but absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Again, your pretense of "no predictions, no evidence, no way to test it" is simply counter-factual. You argue from ignorance. (To reiterate, evidence isn't the same as "proof")

[foltik]

The “Telepathy Tapes” aren’t new information. They repeat a setup already tested under controlled conditions: facilitators know the answers and guide participants through non-telepathic cues, usually without realizing it. When those cues are blocked, the “telepathy” disappears. Scientists did the rational thing, tried to replicate the effect, and it failed.

Absence of evidence isn’t proof of absence, but when every controlled test comes up empty, that’s the result. You might as well call a magician’s card trick new evidence for magic.

[Loquebantur]

You invoke magic when you pretend, those "tests" were somehow "proof" instead of merely evidence against the claim.

Argument from authority is no valid scientific approach, neither is you putting up a straw-man (your claim how the supposed effect came to be). Just because that's how you can imagine how the "trick" might work doesn't mean, it's what's actually happening. Just because the result (dis-)pleases you doesn't mean, the experiment was done (in-)correctly.

[foltik]

I am not invoking magic. When proper controls are added, the effect disappears. That is probabilistic evidence against the claim, not proof of anything. Just the outcome of repeated tests.

No one is appealing to authority. The experiments are public, the methods transparent, and the results reproducible. If there is a better design, describe it.

Facilitator cueing is not a guess or straw man. It has been directly measured in controlled studies, and when those cues are removed, performance drops to chance. That is what the data shows.

You say tests are not proof, which is true, but repeated failure still counts. You call cueing a straw man, though it has been measured directly. Is there any outcome that would convince you the effect isn’t there? If not then this isn’t a discussion about evidence anymore.

[Yizahi]

So, to explain one invisible and unprovable thing for which there is zero evidence, you have invented a completely different invisible and unprovable thing for which there is also zero evidence. Great job :)

[Loquebantur]

There are many "invisible" things that exist. "Telepathy" isn't "unprovable". The "Telepathy Tapes" are evidence in favor of telepathy (It appears, you confuse "evidence" with "proof"). The explanation I suggested is neither "invisible" nor "unprovable". There actually is evidence for it as well (again, your idea of evidence is wrong).

In other words, your assessment is entirely counter-factual and simply false.

Noting the absurd down-votes on my comment in conjunction with the lack of comments providing any rational argument is actually evidence in favor of the hypothesis presented there.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Telepathy in principle could be easily tested in well controlled experiments. However, so far every time that it has been tested with rigorous controls (e.g. James Randi type of scepticism as regular scientists can be easily fooled) it has disappeared. Now, that's not proof that it doesn't exist, but it is very strong evidence that it doesn't exist and it means that you cannot meaningfully say anything about the behaviour of telepathy except that there's no reason to think that it exists.

[munificent]

> The "Telepathy Tapes" are evidence in favor of telepathy (It appears, you confuse "evidence" with "proof").

To the degree that "E.T." is evidence in favor of alien life, yes.

[Yizahi]

You are deeply confused. TT is not an evidence of telepathy. It is an evidence of someone talking about telepathy. So yes, it is evidence per dictionary definition. But it is completely and utterly useless in regards to a question if telepathy is real. Spoiler alert: it is not.

[ctoth]

But don't you see? My two invisible things with no evidence support each other, giving each other evidence! Hey, what are you doing... put down that razor!

[almosthere]

The problem with science approaching telepathy tapes is that a parent will say:

My kid knows when another kid is sick.

Scientist: We have to apply scientific rigor, so let's ask him for tomorrow's lotto numbers.

Parents: Yeah, we said he can tell you when another kid is sick and it's 100% correct every time.

Scientist: That proves this is all bullshit.

[ndsipa_pomu]

The problem with claims of telepathy is that they disappear when actually tested with sufficient controls to disallow cheating. Have a look at James Randi's Paranormal Challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_...

Your "scientist" seems to be somewhat of an idiot - that particular telepathy claim could be fairly well tested with a supply of sick and well kids and sufficient barriers to prevent sound/sight/smell from providing clues to the kid being tested. It's the kind of double-blind test that has been used to test if dogs can diagnose disorders e.g. Parkinson's.

Interestingly, there's a woman who can detect Parkinson's through smell alone. When she was initially tested (double-blind sniffing of t-shirts that had been worn overnight) she identified all the diagnosed Parkinson's sufferers correctly, but also diagnosed one other person. However, a few months later, that participant was also diagnosed with Parkinson's which means that there should be chemical markers (that produce the scent) that could lead to early diagnosis.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/8202745...

[Yizahi]

We can do the test with sick kids, or broken machinery, or whatever parents would claim. Should be easy enough to set up in proper way, organizer would get his once in a lifetime Nature publication. Parents and a kid would get a million dollars award for performing real magic, and kid would become an instant celebrity for life. Like meeting with Presidents level celebrity. Everyone wins, right?

Except parents lie of course, and if pressed to participate it would become apparent that 100% is actually 50%, that their kid must meet a test subject kid in person in advance (so an attentive person can spot elevated temperature of a test subject kid, or sweat, or maybe odor (there are a few proven unicums who could do this) etc.). Basically reducing telepathy claim to either complete fabrication or cases of hyper attentiveness.