AZ Shooting: Another Failure Of Psychics and Prophecy

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Extremely vague and cryptic nonsense designed to serve as a mold for a variety of tragic events.

Really?

Please explain to us what is so cryptic about this :

THE LEADER IS ASSASSINATED
IS IT A BULLET IN THE HEAD OR DOES HIS PLANE FALL FROM THE SKY

link

Was a leader assassinated?

Yes, a Pakistani governor was assassinated. A few days later there was the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords.

Was there a bullet in the head?

They both got a bullet in the head. First time for a US politician since RFK.

Did a plane fall from the sky?

Yes, killing at least 77 people. It happened the day after the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords and it happened in Iran, the only country mentioned in the prophecy. Both events made newspaper headlines on the same day.

Traditionaldrummer, you've failed in every possible way with this dumb thread of yours.

Originally posted by TheTimeMachine


Really?

Please explain to us what is so cryptic about this :

THE LEADER IS ASSASSINATED
IS IT A BULLET IN THE HEAD OR DOES HIS PLANE FALL FROM THE SKY

The complete lack of specificity involved. For one, a representative is not a "leader". Secondly, assassinations of "leaders" is unfortunately common and a safe "prediction". Furthermore, guns are commonly used in assassinations and planes do crash.

No dates, no times, no details whatsoever listed in a cryptic and safe bet "prediction". Keep in mind that the other stuff in that link is MORE cryptic nonsense, like throwing noodles against the wall to see if any stick, and only one of them could be deemed to have any significance whatsoever. You remembered what you think is a "hit" and forgot all the "misses".

Was a leader assassinated?

Yes, a Pakistani governor was assassinated. A few days later there was the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords.

Was there a bullet in the head?

They both got a bullet in the head. First time for a US politician since RFK.

Did a plane fall from the sky?

Yes, killing at least 77 people. It happened the day after the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords and it happened in Iran, the only country mentioned in the prophecy. Both events made newspaper headlines on the same day.

Traditionaldrummer, you've failed in every possible way with this dumb thread of yours.

Not at all. It seems so because you've shoehorned some tragic events into one of many cryptic and non-specific "predictions", even though the events hardly match the depictions. When Sollog says "Giffords shot in the head by Loughner" or "Plane crash in Pakistan will kill 77 the day after", only then will you have something worth investigating. Until then, I'm unimpressed with Sollog's massive failures and your shoehorning.

Originally posted by Balboa
So, what does it mean? It means Bem has shown good evidence that people have a (very weak) psi ability, that operates on a subconscious level.

Or it simply shows that given enough trials, some people may occasionally have success at calling a coin toss at rates slightly higher than chance. Random number generators produce strings of numbers that would also appear at rates higher than predictable by chance. Bem's trick is to distract you from the failure rate which is consistent with random chance.

List of hits we've seen so far for this prophecy:

a. the bullet in the head for the US Congress woman (first US politician to get a bullet in the head since RFK)
b. bullet in the head for Pakistani governor
c. birds FALLING FROM SKY (thousands dying around the world and he mentioned FLIES falling from the sky in a plane analogy)
d. two rare back to back 7.0+ quakes hit 1/1 and 1/2
e. terrorism in a church in egypt on 1/1
f. PLANE FALL FROM SKY killing at least 77 in Iran (the only country mentioned in the prophecy)

Skeptics have PROVED their stupidity by claiming no hits for this prophecy. I predict they will continue making fools of themselves.

Originally posted by TheTimeMachine
d. two rare back to back 7.0+ quakes hit 1/1 and 1/2

Really? Is this what you're trying to make fit into this prophecy:

BEHOLD
THE GREAT XMAS DAY QUAKES
THOUSANDS SHALL DIE

Nope, that didn't happen. He must have meant this one:

BEHOLD
THE GREAT NEW YEARS DAY QUAKES
THOUSANDS SHALL DIE

Though thousands did not die from earthquakes and as we can see HERE, earthquakes happen daily. Earthquake predictions are a safe bet. "Thousands will die" was not so safe and he blew it right there.

Let's look at more failures:

BEHOLD
TERRORISTS SHALL STIKE WITHIN 13 DAYS
MANY SHALL DIE

His "prophecy" was authored on 12/23/10 and no terrorist strike occurred within 13 days, though it was widely reported in the media that one was expected for the holiday season. He played the odds based on news reports and failed.

How about this one:

LOOK AT THE BALL IN THE SKY
IT DROPS ON 010111
SO MANY DIE

That one didn't happen either. Next....

010111 IS THE TRUTH
TO CELEBRATE THE TRUTH
THOUSANDS SHALL BE SACRIFICED

We did not sacrifice thousands to "celebrate the truth of 010111".

To sum up, what we have here is a bunch of cryptic nonsense, mixed in with some fail safe predictions (earthquakes), and a bunch of credulous believers who shoehorn current events into these inaccurate "prophecies", all the while ignoring the other hogwash that was entirely incorrect.

Could you at least provide a more accurate "psychic" or at least one that can detail specifics without having tons of failed predictions? How about one that can predict a lottery? Probably not since these so-called prophets are all frauds.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
Or it simply shows that given enough trials, some people may occasionally have success at calling a coin toss at rates slightly higher than chance. Random number generators produce strings of numbers that would also appear at rates higher than predictable by chance.

Having a proper random number generator is very important; in the paper Bem describes using three different random number generators for various trials. One was an analog 'true' random number generator, and the other two were pseudo-random computer algorithms. Now I bet that set some buttons off in your head when I said pseudo, but if you actually look into the topic (i.e.: read the paper, read about the algorithms) then you shouldn't be so worried. They can test the randomness of the algorithms, and the randomness of the resulting number sequence, and they do, and it checks out.

However, it hardly matters how the random number generators are doing, they just serve to eliminate any sort of arbitrary setup for the experiment by randomizing the stimulus. It's the results of their choices which show a deviation from randomness, which is significant enough given the size of the data set.

Bem's trick is to distract you from the failure rate which is consistent with random chance.

Bem mentions that a huge problem in psi research is reproducing results. I guess its because they start with people who are supposedly psychics, who are easy to debunk. However, in this case the hypothesis is that the average person uses a very weak psi ability at a subconscious level. So, there's a much better chance of people reproducing this.

Originally posted by Balboa
Bem mentions that a huge problem in psi research is reproducing results. I guess its because they start with people who are supposedly psychics, who are easy to debunk. However, in this case the hypothesis is that the average person uses a very weak psi ability at a subconscious level. So, there's a much better chance of people reproducing this.

Perhaps, though is a 3% above chance rate particularly significant? Or is a failure rate at 3% under chance significant? Is there any significance whatsoever to people being able to predict which side of the screen a porno image will appear?

Bem's paper is still a bit of a red herring in terms of the OP. There was a 0% rate of success of anyone - pro psychics to the average Joe - being able to predict this highly significant tragedy. If psi exists, why the extreme failure?

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
Perhaps, though is a 3% above chance rate particularly significant? Or is a failure rate at 3% under chance significant? Is there any significance whatsoever to people being able to predict which side of the screen a porno image will appear?

Yes, yes, and yes. Statistics are complicated... maybe you could quantify what constitutes significance for you? I looked into binomial distributions and was suprised how broad they are, but in the papers here there is correlation greater than expected by chance. And yes, your subconscious is predicting the future to bring you porn, why wouldn't it?

Bem's paper is still a bit of a red herring in terms of the OP. There was a 0% rate of success of anyone - pro psychics to the average Joe - being able to predict this highly significant tragedy. If psi exists, why the extreme failure?

I thought it was implied by my last post; it's too weak and subconscious to boot, so you can't predict more than seconds into your subconsious... not weeks or months into the conscious. So, we should expect for all psychic claims of predicting future events to be false, at least from what we know so far scientifically.