E-mail Exchange Round 5
Previous Round E-mail List Next Round
Robert de Boer responded:
Subject: Re: Psychic Challenge
Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 11:19:46 +1200
From: "Robert de Boer" <[email protected]>
To: "John Blanton" <[email protected]>John,
To beat the odds of a one in 250 chance result I would have wanted at least half that number of guesses to have a even bet. When you go to Las Vegas and go on the roulette table and put your money on the red or the black that is nearly even chance except that there are one or two numbers that belong to the house to make it in the casino's favour. Now I think what I was offering was something like the bank having 32 of the numbers and me just 4. Now ask yourself is that a game of chance that you would play?
No it is not a game of chance, but there is a lot of luck involved. I have to have the dream with an understandable message that can be converted to a unlikely world newsworthy event. Now that is luck if that happens, for it is not me but something else I believe that enables me to do this. How else can I explain it? For I trip over an fall just like everyone else! Now that is the paranormal you wanted evidence for or against was it not?Robert de Boer
We responded [Robert's previous text is in italics]:
Subject: Re: Psychic Challenge
Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 00:22:50 -0500
From: John Blanton <[email protected]>
Organization: The North Texas Skeptics
To: Robert de Boer <[email protected]>Robert de Boer wrote:
John,To beat the odds of a one in 250 chance result I would have wanted at least half that number of guesses to have a even bet. When you go to Las Vegas and go on the roulette table and put your money on the red or the black that is nearly even chance except that there are one or two numbers that belong to the house to make it in the casino's favour. Now I think what I was offering was something like the bank having 32 of the numbers and me just 4. Now ask yourself is that a game of chance that you would play?No it is not a game of chance, but there is a lot of luck involved. I have to have the dream with an understandable message that can be converted to a unlikely world newsworthy event. Now that is luck if that happens, for it is not me but something else I believe that enables me to do this. How else can I explain it? For I trip over an fall just like everyone else! Now that is the paranormal you wanted evidence for or against was it not?Without directly answering your question, here is an example:Suppose you claim to be able to predict a coin toss 51% of the time. We could test that. For our challenge we would conduct a test with a very large number of flips. I can't calculate the number of flips right now, but it would be enough so that the odds of winning by luck (getting 51% or more right by pure chance) would be 1/1,000,000,000.
So, how much you claim will affect how long it will take to do the test. How well can you do? Let's find out. Send us some predictions. We will start keeping score.
John Blanton
The North Texas Skeptics
http://www.ntskeptics.orgPrevious Round E-mail List Next Round