The alternative claims
community presents an image of "We are the ones who are open minded - but
the main stream won't give our claims a chance". Science and the prevailing
paradigm are portrayed as being closed minded or sabotaging ideas that
challenge their intellectual hegemony. I have found the exact opposite,
I had a friend call up the most close minded scientist I know and say,
"I believe I can levitate in the air, would you be willing to take a look?"
- the answer was yes. However, the vast majority of paranormal claimants
I have contacted do not seem interested in entertaining a serious investigation.
With a large number of claimants, I have offered to possibly provide them
with the credibility they whine about not having. I try to open up a dialog
of "lets talk about what it would take to properly verify your claim".
Some people go pretty far with the talk - but most just disappear.
I offer
the following summary of prominent pro-paranormal people who have backed
away from a chance to get to the bottom of claims they make on a regular
basis:
Joseph Newman - for 20+ years he has brought
in a lot of investor money with the claim of machines that make energy
out of the air. His people have offered to take my money for information
or kits - but they say they no longer let skeptics come down to make direct
measurements. More info on him at:
http://www.phact.org/e/skeptic/newman.htm
Dennis Lee tells his followers that I'm
unwilling to come take a look at his machines, but then does not respond
to my offer to come down and make a hands on looks. Has said he will sue
me even though I offered him $50,000 for open proof. He now claims
that because of my negativeness, he will never demonstrate it to me.
see http://www.phact.org/e/dennis.html
for more info.
Local homeopathist, ???forget the name?? fill in ??? makes a lot of
money offering people homeopathic analysis and solutions put keeps promising
to get back to me in the future.
Local TT instructor, Susan Saterly, wife
of a friend of mine, has no interest in discussing anything with me at
all. Local TT instructor, Linda Degnan has
made much money teaching classes on TT at one point said she was too busy
to take part in a test. She later told me she would think about getting
tested but then stopped returning any calls of mine.
German Free energy claimant Stefan Marinov
emailed me that he thought he would have something to be tested, but later
committed suicide. Free energy claimant Bruce DePalma
(who was in self imposed exile in New Zealand) responded with much obscenity
when I asked him about independent testing. He later died a few weeks later.
Eugene Mallove, editor of
Infinite Energy magazine used obscenity to rebuff my offer to
write an article in his publication.
Nexus Magazine made no response to my request to write an article
or get a link to my web page. Dr DeMeo , a
William Reich follower and publisher of Orgonomy, refused to deal with
me after I expressed interest in trying to replicate a study which would
prove Orgonomy. About 10 different people with internet ads for psychic
services either didn't respond or passed up my request to participate in
a study of remote reading. Only a few amateurs participated in a study
I ran and came up with chance results. About 15 different therapeutic touch
practitioners have talked with me about getting tested, asked for information
but been unwilling to be tested themselves.
Jon Seskevich, a pro alternative health practitioner and promoter with Duke University had agreed to have a large test of Therapeutic Touch (he has a data base of 5000 practitioners) Nov. 22 1997. I bought plane tickets, but Jon then decided he was too busy to go through with it. Jon and I traded around 50 different email messages. To his credit, I admit that Jon has done studies on TT on his own and been open exchanging information with me. I believe he has since done some good testing on TT.
Wade Frazier, a long time assistant of Dennis
Lee had been an apologist for Dennis in spite of having gone bankrupt at
least once investing in Lee's schemes. We had long discussions back and
forth. A week after promising to finally review all my writings on Lee,
Wade totally dropped out of contact from Lee's followers and me.
Also, his followers, Mike Hall and Marc Schmultz[sic?] say I spread misinformation
about Dennis but have turned down my offer to host their rebuttals on my
pages.
Astrology practioner _______ was willing to discuss annecdotes but
not partake in a study.
Marsha Simms an editor of JSE had a short
dialog with me but seemed uninterested in helping to facilitate open testing
of the claims that regularly appear on their publication. She of course
still wanted to be kept informed of any paranormal research we manage to
do. She has not responded to my request to provide web links to my page
on dowsing which refutes information they provided. Last I knew, they still
provided links to a pro-dowsing study will not allowing links to a follow
up showing it to be badly flawed.
I had a long beneficial email conversation with an enigmatic leader
of an "anti skeptics society" in the other hemisphere on many paranormal
topics. He has recently decided to no longer converse with me for undisclosed
reasons. ------------------ That sums up all the people that seem to have
spurned my efforts. I must credit the following people with at least still
being in the dialog process with me:
an unnamed high mileage carburetor inventor has offered to allow
me to test his claim of a 1980's Dodge duster getting about 40+ miles a
gallon. I think this would be kind of neat but just not outside the realm
of established physics and engineering. I've told him I was more interested
in claims I've read of around 100 - 300 mpg. As of 11/97 we left things
that he would call me if he can get an old large vehicle repeatedly getting
over 50 mpg.
PSI investigator David Ware has allowed my daughter to test his ability
to do TT (Dave correctly suspected he would only achieve around chance
) Dave has found a few people to not be able to spot auras above chance,
but has someone who seems to be able to see an aura under special conditions.
As of 11/97 Dave is trying to tighten his controls and schedule more conclusive
tests.
The local group, Center for Human Integration teaches regular classes on TT but responds to my requests for evidence with "take the class and then you can prove it to myself", when I respond with, "would I get a refund if I can't do it?", I get just "no" followed by no farther answers to questions.
The makers of a device call The Puck - I
offered to help them do a double blinded test that could potentially
offer independent proof that their device worked. They only responded
back that I should see if it works on me - they ignored my request
that a proper test would need to involve them and a number of subjects.
this page available at: http://www.phact.org/e/skeptic/spurn.htm