Madjay2

anyone watch this, i think its great! although im not too sure of that guy Derek Accorra, he's every really damn good or really damn fake

OllyK

He's a fake, plain and simple

StickyMicky

prove it ?

OllyK

Oh good grief, not all this again.

He's the one making the claims, the burden of proof lies with him and others like him that make such claims, as yet they have failed to put forward any credible, scientifically supportable evidence. They have put forward lots of hocus, heresay and speculation, which is not proof.

If they can provide such evidence then am happy to admit I am wrong, and I am sure Derren Brown, James Randi and countless others would do the same. The repercussions around the world would be incredible if they could actual prove any of this stuff. As yet they haven't, I doubt they ever will, but people will continue to belive this stuff for various reasons.

penfold118

He stayed in the hotel i worked in, when he checked in he shook my hand and told me he cud feel my energy ( whatever the f**k that means ) a bit strange but hey he felt my energy...!!

OllyK

Guess he must have seen your Lucozade tablets behind the counter!!!

penfold118

LOL not sure what he saw..! just glad when he checked out...!

OllyK

The stuff these fruit loops come out with amazes me, the made up words, pseudoscience and para-babble defies belief.

penfold118

its on T.V so it must be true...! amazin how many people will just belive anything they see on T.V or read in the papers

OllyK

Sad but true, think the issue is slightly bigger than that though. Many people belive because they want to belive or need to belive in something.

I admit there are many things that science does not have the answer for, and I personally have the answers to even less. However I am not overly bothered by that, I am quite happy to accept that many things are currently un-explainable based on what we currently know, they may become scientifically explainable in my life time, they may not. Other people are not happy to accept that and must have an answer for it, even it it means speculating, and coming up with some wierd and wonderful paranormal explnation that defies the known laws of physics (as well as other sciences on many occasions as well).

Sith

I am undecided on Derek. Two of his possesions seem real. One where he picked up a lamp from a table and threw it across the room. Remember that the room was in darkness and he just missed one of the crew members. Being friends with them he wouldn't want to hurt them.
Another he was involved in a scuffle with them. Was stopped short of hitting a member of the crew.

You can either say staged or real. But throwing a lamp in total darkness is risking it abit.

As I say, I am undecided.

I have seen an item move by itself for no earthly reason. I think this was covered in the last thread about MH which myself and Ollyk had a discussion.

OllyK

Sith - yup, kinda done this subject to death on previous occasions, I think my views are well known, and I am still waiting for scientific evidence to back up any paranormal claim. Until that evidence shows up I am afraid that I have to go with what science does already know. The fact that these paranormal events have yet to be re-created sucessfully in scientifically controlled conditions (that have not subsequently been shown to be flawed), suggests to me that the chances of them being genuine are next to negligable, I'm still not saying that the paranormal does not exisit, just that the body of evidence to date suggests it is highly unlikely.

Those who belive, will continue to belive for whatever reason they happen to have to belive in it, and are unlikely to change thier opinion no matter how many logical and real world explanations are given for their belief, the rest of us await convincing.

Sith

You gotta choose a better phrase than that when referring to the Spirit world / Paranormal.

OllyK

I think it's kinda appropriate really!! lol

RoadrunnerV2

Saw it last night, the barrel moving on its own was impressive especially as it started to go back up

OllyK

Making things "move on their own" is not a new trick, magicians have been doing it for donkey's years, they just don't try to pass it off as some kind of paranormal event. It's the blatent dishonesty of these people that gets my goat, these programs should have a fiction warning at the beginning of them. The media have a lot to answer for peddling this garbage as fact.

mad_dr

My bank balance seems to move a lot, of it's own accord...

I always thought my girlfriend had something to do with it.

OllyK

Here's a prediction for you - I bet that in general in moves down rather than up. Possibly once a month there is a spike where the balance increases and then it decreases again over the month??? How did I do?

OllyK

10.00 - Birth Stories

Is this a Virgin Birth debate??? I've signed up and I'll keep my eyes posted, got a funny feeling I can guess what most of the people on this forum will think about the paranormal

OllyK

Ahhhh - I see, may have to subscribe again - used my home e-mail account and so won't be able to activate till I get home!! Looks like I was right with my guess about the average bod on that BBS then!! lol Maybe I am psychic after all

OllyK

Sounds good to me!

akshay67

Gosh, as Carl Saagan once said, some of you need to open your minds a bit more to accomodate a larger brain. How can you believe there is no spiritual world out there? Are you saying we are only material-constructions? If so, then how comes stones are not alive? Because they have no 'soul'. Nothing can live without a soul. When our bodies die the souls live on in the spiritual world. That's why people who are in touch with the spiritual world can speak to the souls, just like Sylvia Brown.

OK, I think I'd better renew my JREF membership!

OllyK

You had me worried for a minute there akshay67!!

akshay67

No worries mate - I've followed Randi for years...since my days as a physicist...now I'm just an Impreza-driving mere mortal (read 'boy')

I still want to go to 'The Amazing Meeting' at some stage in my life...

OllyK

The Amazing Meet would be worth going to

OllyK

I'm trying - still waiting on the account activation e-mail from living TV, tried sigining up 3 times so far and not had a single one

OllyK

Just tried signing up again and still no confirmation e-mail to allow me to activate my logon.

Guess there are either some s'netters on there as well then or maybe my reputation precedes me

Abdabz

Ollyk - As this stuff actually happens - it is down to the scientists to disprove it - which they cant (yet). They have tried bless 'em with "electro magnetic force" babble, "low frequency noise" etc, but failed.
The paranormal exists - thousands ney millions of people have experienced it. There's actually a spirit in my house who likes to move things round my kitchen at night. This morning he knocked over an empty milk bottle - cheeky git doesnt even pay rent!!

Think of it like gravity - its always been around - long before Newton saw an apple fall from a tree - which led him to go on to do clever gravity based shinnanigans. If you had the priveledge of experiencing something first hand you would relish science being able to comprehend it.

Just wait till I tell Casper and his friends grrrrrrr ;D

OllyK

Oh dear, you have no idea of how scientific proof works don't you??? The burden of proof lies upon the claimant.

Science is not making the claim that the paranormal exists, people who belive it exists are. It is up to the belivers to proove (beyond reasonable doubt) that it does exist. This is where the science can start to come in.

You have a claim: "I can move objects without touching them"
You propose a theory: "I can move objects with the power of my mind".

Next we need to develop a test to see if the theory holds up. That test needs to take in to account the known ways that objects can be made to move; blowing on them, magnets, wires etc etc, and be designed in such a way that none of the methods known to science could possibly be used to move the test object.

We now set that test up and the person who made the claim can try and move the object with the power of their mind. There are 2 possible outcomes:
1) They move the object
2) They fail to move the object

If it is case 1 then we can acertain that they have been able to move the object by a means that we did cater for, that means MAY be the power of thier mind. We would then review the test, ask others to review it and conduct similar tests to estanlish if it is repeatable.

If after a number of tests the claimant is still moving that object every time we can then start to say with a degree of certainty that they can move the given object by a means un-known to us (we still don't know that is the power of their mind, and they probably don't either, but it seems to make sense to suggest that).

We now go on to develop further tests to try and confirm if it is their mind that is doing it or some other as yet undiscovered power!

If it is case 2, we could just discount their claim, but under normal circumstances the test would be repeated a number of times to confirm or results.

Now this is often where paranormal testing deviates from the rest of scientific testing. Most scientists would accept that their proposed theory is incorrect and would seek to find a new theory to explain the event or claim. People involved with the paranormal, however, now start to come up with excuses:
1) I was under pressure
2) I can't be made to perform on cue
3) The object was made of X and I can only do it with things made of Y
4) The object was the wrong shape
5) The object was too heavy
and so on and so on.

This is why the JREF when testing insist that the claim is detailed and the tests agreed by both parties beforehand so that there can be none of this after the test have been carried out.

So now we have given you a little starter course in basic scientific investigation - lets look back at your text again:

Really?? Where is you proof to back this up, as discussed, you are making the claims, it is up to you to proove them.

No it isn't, science is not making any claims.

No they can't disprove it, as I have discussed, it can't be done.

However, individual paranormal claims can be tested and every paranormal claim that has been independantly scientifically testeded has proved to inconclusive at best. This is more often than not down to the testers missing the "trick" used to create the effect and so when others figure it is a "trick" and re-design the test to rule that out as a possibility, suddenly the paranormal event fails to occur. No big surprise really.

Now I am sure you will gleefully point me to countless websites regailing "scientific" testing and the proof of paranormal events. Before you do that, also have a search for the peer reviews of the research. This is a key part of science where other scientists examin your work to make sure you have not missed anything. The cases you will find have not been through this peer review process and the tests will not have been recreated by other independant scientific groups. So if you want to quote such a site, please also quote the links to all the repeated tests and peer reviews, without these the proof is no proof at all. These are the basic standards that would be expected of any other scientifc claim (this is how cold fusion was found out to be a mis-designed experiment), I ask nothing more than the same.

Proof??? Oh sorry, I forgot, there isn't any!

Proove it! I would argue that "thousands ney millions of people have experienced" something they cannot explain. That is very different. The fact that you choose to try and explain it by means of some paranormal phenomenon does not mean it is the case. I have experienced things I cannot explain, but that's due to my lack of knowledge of the subject not down to ghosts or psychics.

Congratualtions! Now proove it - I'll give you that you can proove that he/she/it doesn't pay rent, the rest of it however I doubt. If you can pay www.jref.org a visit and claim yourself $1 million.

Why?? They are not remotely alike. Gravity is still not proven, however, it is considered scientific fact as the original theory has been shown to be true in every test performed to date. That does not however mean that a future experiment could not come along and actually show the theory to be false, in which case we would have to go back and rethink our understanding of gravity. Conversley, no paranormal test to date has been proven true. Again, one of them, one day may test true and we will have to re-think things, however, as things stand the body of evidence suggests that the paranormal is false, we await new evidence and keep an open mind.

I have experienced breathing first hand and I am quite happy with sciences explanation for how it works. Again, it may be shown to be incorrect in the future, but for now the theory stands.

Or were you suggesting I experience something un-explained?? Done that, happy to put it down to an "I don't understand" I don't for one moment belive I experienced something that breaks the known laws of science.

Or were you suggesting I experience something paranormal?? Now we get in to the paradox, for me to experience something paranormal requires there to be a paranormal and as there is still no proof of the paranormal that would be an impossibility!

You are a beliver - that's fine, I don't have a problem with that, but note it is just that, a belief, something you think to be true but have no evidence to back it up. As for me, I don't know if there is a paranormal or not for absolute certain, nobody does, but in light of all the experiments performed and the fact that there has yet to be a single paranormal event be proved to be so, the body of evidence suggests to me there is no paranormal - but as always, feel free to show me the evidence and will be happy to change my opinion.

Abdabz

Olly olly olly, what have we here?

So taking your theory forward something has to be proved to exist by science in order to exist. But then gravity has not (according to you and your patronising wisdom) yet been proved to exist...Ahhh I see, so when our long since deceased chum aka Newton saw the apple fall - Eureka's his wig off - and called it gravity - threw things up in the air - realised he couldnt float etc - that didnt prove it existed, because one day you or your equally stunted chum on this thread might actually come up with a "Olly Theorum" or "Olly Test" that proves it all wrong...

So therefore nothing exists, we just give it a name and wait for Olly man to come up with an "Olly Theorum" to disprove its existance.

Oh and what is science exactly - who owns and contributes to science - what does it take to be a scientist? A white coat perhaps, a condescending sarcastic patronising tone in scooby threads? A degree in Science? Who is science to determine what exists and what doesnt?

If Paranormal "scientists" cannot prove paranormal exists, and Olly scientists cannot prove paranormal DOESNT exist. Then the only piece of your monsterous thread that holds any water is the fact that I am entitled to believe and you are entitled to disbelieve. The science/paranormal arguement is completely futile.

Many Thanks for your time - now back to my car....