Talk:Electronic voice phenomenon/Archive 7

message: I re-added the mention of apophenia as a possible cause, with two differences. Firstly, the definition is different: it no longer implies that it is caused by psychosis, which was not neutral in that it attached a stigma to observers of EVP. Secondly, the source is not the Skeptic's Dictionary but CSICOP, which is hopefully less contentious.  SheffieldSteel 16:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding was that pareidolia and apophenia were related but different. Admittedly the difference is a subtle one. Perhaps mention of it should be moved out of the intro (for brevity's sake, if nothing else) and into the "Proposed Explanations / Normal" list in the main article...? SheffieldSteel 18:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apophenia again 

message: Scienceapologist. To say "Its very existence is disputed" means the same as "its existence is disputed" but is just an more emotive and unencyclopedic was saying it, and is used here to try to emphasise a point and push a POV. Let it be, we are already saying that it's existence is not accepted, there is no need to over egg the pudding.Davkal 17:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No it isn't. "It's very existence" is meant to illustrate that it is the ontology of the existence itself that is disputed rather than the phenomenonology. Would you prefer it to be written in this fashion? --ScienceApologist 17:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, I replaced very with a statement on ontology. When one refers to something's "very existence" they normally refer to its ontological state. That's the general usage of the term. You can read about it in Oxford's English Dictionary if you like. --ScienceApologist 18:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would mean that wiki entries only document things that exist. However, this is plainly not true in an ontological sense since wiki entries document lies, for example. The point is that electronic signals that are actually voices in reality. -ScienceApologist 03:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: i think you are misreading an ontological argument.  you are correct in stating that wiki entries document only things that exist - it is clearly impossible to have an article about something that does not exist. does a unicorn exist? ontologically it does, because you clearly would know one if you saw one.  even easier, they exist in literature.  that is the nature of the ontological argument.  EVP exists.  are they actually voices?  i have not a clue.  i just think it's cool.  as far as the word 'very', it's a bit emphatic. The undertow 03:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A unicorn exists ontologically because it can be distinguished from non-unicorns. EVP does not exist ontologically because it cannot be distinguished from non-EVP. See the difference? --71.57.90.96 13:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Keep the comments above the board regarding content, not the capacities of the individual. Go ahead and read the entries in the OED for "very" and get back to us. Cheerio. --71.57.90.96 13:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Its very existence

message: Scienceapologist. You're edit summary about why you need to add more words to the explanations paragraph is nonsense. The paragraph starts by stating that there are differeing explanations of X. It the lists one type of explanation of X, and then another type of explanation of X. To keep adding X is simply superfluous and is another example of you simply trying to add ther words "alleged" or "claimed" or "supposed" at every available (and not avaiulable) juncture. I think people get the picture, EVP has not been shown to exist. The article states this cleary almost immediately and so the constant hedging of everything wverywhere just makes for difficult reading. Even Skepdic has the line "the simplest explanation for EVP is that it is the product of our own wonderfully complex brain", without feeling the need to add "alleged cases of suggested possible examples of what might be percieved as..." before the word EVP.Davkal 17:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since there is no consensus in the real world as to whether the phenomenon exists, pretending that it exists in the article is unacceptable POV-pushing. You can't just say that we get the dispute out of the way and then can go on pretending as if it doesn't exist in the rest of the article. If you don't like the word "claim", "alleged", or "suppoed", then make a general or a specific attribution. As it is, however, we need to qualify these points because there is no neutral way of talking plainly about things whose very existence is disputed. --ScienceApologist 17:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Trying to avoid the hedge is admirable, but it should not be done by pretending that the shrubbery doesn't exist. In other words, just because we don't hedge doesn't mean that the prose is better than another set of prose that does hedge. The ideal is prose which makes everyone happy -- not just you. --ScienceApologist 18:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Not exactly a polite response. When people offer to work with you, it is a seeming violation of civility to throw it back in their faces, I'd say. --71.57.90.96 13:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Explanations

message: The problem with saying "EVP has not been considered or accepted by the mainstream scientific community and its existence remains disputed", is that this makes it look like mainstream science is disputing it. But maintream science can't dispute something it hasn't considered. That is why I think "unproven" is a better word. Or we could write, "EVP has not been considered by the mainstream scientific community and its existence has not been accepted."Davkal 17:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Science doesn't prove anything either. The dispute is with skeptics so maybe will attribute it to skeptics. --ScienceApologist 17:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Everything in science is "unproven", so the statement you proposed is meaningless. However, the existence itself is dealt with in an ontological sense by skeptics. We attribute it thusly.--ScienceApologist 18:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

text: That's a terrible suggestion. "EVP has not been considered by the mainstream scientific community" is a sentence that is not only ambiguous but meaningless since negation of the verb "to consider" is a pretense for ignorance which is clearly a POV-insistence regarding the scientific community. I have modified the statement to clarify what is verifiably true about the subject "not being considered". --ScienceApologist 18:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Davkal is right.  They don't know about EVP and they haven't studied it, and that is what we must say. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We can say that they don't study it, but to say that they don't "consider" it is a different matter. I can consider something without studying it. --ScienceApologist 02:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, that's probably the first edit I've ever seen you make to which I don't object (: Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 02:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Davkal, he said "skeptics," not scientists.  It was accurate, I believe.  Why not compromise on it?  Why not read it over?  You are right that a scientist cannot consider something without researching it.  But, SA said, basically, "scientists have not studied it and skeptics don't believe in it."  And that's fine, no? Myriam Tobias 03:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Davkal, you really really didn't read the last change SA made to the article.  The one I just put back in.  It is fine.  Why not compromise on it?  I'm with you on keeping the article accurate and NPOV.  Try and read it again. It doesn't have anything to do with the quote at the start of the talk section. Here:
"EVP is not researched by the mainstream scientific community and skeptics do not believe that it exists as an observable phenomenon."  See?  That's fine. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 04:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: "What the Raudive voices teach us is that intelligent people – for Raudive was no doubt an intelligent man - can come to believe fervently in phenomena which in all likelihood do not exist." . QED. --71.57.90.96 13:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: So it is verifiably true that according to skeptics, EVP is not an observable phenomenon, which is why this conversation started in the first place. --71.57.90.96 13:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This kind of rhetorical argument does not belong here and it's a bit dishonest to be parading it around like this. The point stands that skeptics have dismissed it as a phenomenon and that said skeptics have defined phenomena as that which is observable. Ergo... you get the drift. --216.125.49.252 15:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed

message: David Slone is being quoted as a source, but who is he?
He doesn't cite his experience or qualifications on the page and his article biography shows that he deals with lots of different subject areas? Is he a parapsychologist, or a freelance writer?
People are disputing Macrae and Bauss as WP:RS and they at least have verified scientific credentials.
perfectblue 08:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: MacRae has "verified scientific credentials"?  I've asked about them before, and all we seem to know is that he worked on speech tech for nasa, got one experiment published in a parapsychology journal, and has been self-publishing books since then.  Baruss doesn't seem to be respected or even recognized in the field either.  --Milo H Minderbinder 14:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd kind of hoped for more. "I'm a website designer with a degree in journalism", "I'm a website designer with a PHD in parapsychology". Does he have any qualifications to write on this subject, or as a researcher?
perfectblue 14:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  David Slone 

message: I'm getting rather concerned about the standards of this page. It isn't so much to do with the content of the page, but rather the way in which it is written.
For example, there are several citations that are web addresses only. They should have titles, authors and dates where available. Equally, the introduction is being split. It starts off in one direction and then goes in another, then goes back again.
Regardless of what the page actually says, if it looks unprofessional people won't take it seriously.
perfectblue 08:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) are said by proponents to be voices of a paranormal origin which appear on recording media or through other electronic audio devices. They are typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase, although longer segments have also been recorded. The term itself was coined by publishing company Colin Smythe Ltd in the early 1970s. Previously the phenomena had been known as “Raudive Voices” after early EVP pioneer Konstantin Raudive, whose 1970 book Breakthrough brought the subject into the public domain. yada yada yada.
Now you are not only including the history of the term as part of its definition, but you are also including historical names in the definition too. It's much neater.
perfectblue 14:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maintaining standards 

message: Re the Baruss experiment. Baruss didn't reprot finding voice-like sounds, he reported finding voices. I also can't see where he said that the failure to replicate those voices meant that the ones he did find fell outside the scope of the experiment. What he says is this: "while we have replicated EVP in the weak sense of finding voices on audiotapes, none of the phenomena found in our study was clearly anomalous, let alone attributable to discarnate baings. We have therefore failed to replicate EVP in the strong sense." I don't see why we can't simply paraphrase that finding as is, and thn add the conclusion about the possiblity of being misled.Davkal 13:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: while we have replicated EVP in the weak sense of finding voices on audiotapes, none of the phenomena found in our study was clearly anomalous, let alone attributable to discarnate baings. We have therefore failed to replicate EVP in the strong sense." 
The point being that they found unexpected voices and they don't know where they come from but nothing marked them out as neessarily paranormal.Davkal 17:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: You're paraphrasing again.  They found voices.  But they don't say they could not be explained, nor do they describe them as "unexpected".  In fact, they give possible explanations for the sounds, which is the reason they didn't find it "in the strong sense".  --Milo H Minderbinder 17:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Milo. Voices can be unexpected, yet not be anomalous. Having the article state that Baruss found "unexplained voices" is POV and misleading. --- LuckyLouie 18:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Well let us simply say this, "while we have replicated EVP in the weak sense of finding voices on audiotapes, none of the phenomena found in our study was clearly anomalous, let alone attributable to discarnate beings. We have therefore failed to replicate EVP in the strong sense." followed by the conclusion about the possiblity of being misled.Davkal 13:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Baruss

message: does anyone know how to request a sock-puppet check?Davkal 13:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:SOCK. --71.57.90.96 13:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: sock/meat puppet

message: I request that User:Davkal reinsert the reference he deleted in this edit: . It has orphaned other citations.
Thanks, --216.125.49.252 15:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you seen the list of sources on this article?  --Milo H Minderbinder 15:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit removed a reference used elsewhere in the article

message: I think it's time we did request protection and mediation for the article. It is currently going nowhere. The intro is constantly changing and slight/full consensus edits are being reverted and replaced without discussion. There is also the strong suspicion that sock/meat-puppets have now been brought in to bolster various arguments and edits. Comments?Davkal 15:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO this article needs a lot of work. It spends the lead section trying to decide if EVP is real or not based on the pedigree of journals used by Baruss vs. MacRae. Then that is followed by a "status" section trying to decide if EVP is real or not based on Baruss vs. MacRae. Then we have a "history" section  which ends with...you guessed it: trying to decide if EVP is real or not based on Baruss vs. MacRae. And then there the "Paranormal" vs. "Normal" section which, thank god doesn't mention Baruss and MacRae, but is trying to decide if EVP it real all over again. Nowhere in any reliable source have I ever seen an article which balances the legitimacy of EVP on the papers of Baruss vs, MacRae -- yet this WP article has synthesized that POV and published it.  Mediation, yes. Protection no. In it's present form, the article is not really much of an achievement. There's not much to protect. --- LuckyLouie 17:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't think anything there is trying to decide anything- it is just saying the exact status of the research, which is why I put the status section back in.  And if no one is going to write is as popular culture, it should be deleted. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 20:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "exact status of the research" is covered in the intro and history section.  I agree with Louis, we can probably merge it into the intro and the Baruss/MacRae sections (if there's anything that isn't covered there already).  --Milo H Minderbinder 21:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it could probably be merged.  We need to keep a full disclosure somewhere (as now exists in the status section), about exactly what the findings of the two studies were.  But these sections aren't trying to "decide if it is real or not", so far as I can see. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 22:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not clear what the section "Status of EVP" is intended to provide the reader. Is it the "official scientific status" of EVP? Is it the "current status of peer-reviewed research efforts"? Is it "the status of EVP in relation to mainstream science"? Honestly, I'm not being a wiseass here, I really don't get what the section is trying to tell the reader. And to me it comes dangerously close to spoon-feeding when it singles out two papers and focuses the entire "status" (whatever that means) on those two papers.  --- LuckyLouie 22:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't the sections on the two studies say what the findings of the two studies are?  --Milo H Minderbinder 22:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why yes, at present, they do just that. The MacRae section even has its findings highlighted in quotes broken out of the text for added emphasis. (OK, now I'm being sort of a wiseass). --- LuckyLouie 23:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Protection

message: If the research of Baruss/MacRae really is going to be entertained as scientific, we will need to subject this article to the standards of scientific notability. --216.125.49.252 19:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Claimed "scientific" research

message: I think we now need to go down the mediation route. It is clear the User 71.57.90.96 is simply going to appear everyday and insert (not necessarily only in the Macrae section) his own POV and absurdities, e.g., "the paranormal community" without the slightest source in support. I don't see that an edit war is the way forward, but I'm not prepared to sit back while someone (who has a login but won't use it for some reason) makes anonymous changes to reflect his paranoid (see above)POV.Davkal 19:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All my edits are well-founded and explained thoroughly on this talkpage. No one yet has shown one thing wrong with them. I doubt mediation will work with people who are as unable to explain themselves as those who believe in EVP nonsense. --71.57.90.96 02:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Choosing not to login to one's account is manifestly not sockpuppetry. Are you accusing me of engaging in such an activity? If so, can you present any evidence in the form of diffs in the proper location? --ScienceApologist 19:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation