Gary Schwartz Review

I first met Dr. Gary Schwartz at the Eugene Skeptic Toolbox in 2001. Actually I didn't meet him but was introduced to his “research” by Ray Hyman who runs the Toolbox every August. Hyman had been invited to spar with Schwartz at his lab at the University of Arizona1 where Schwartz is a tenured professor. Which means he can not easily be removed from the teaching staff. Schwartz and his wife, Dr. Linda Russek run the Human Energy Systems Laboratory (HESL) which is a fancy name for laboratory looking for mediums. A part of the Toolbox involves workshops that read and discuss themed assignments. That year the theme was Talking to the Dead & Other Transcendental Seductions, Hyman used the current published journal articles that Schwarts and Russek produced in 2001.

We spent many hours tearing though the papers and frankly were shocked at the naivety of the researchers. The mediums that were being tested were clearly in charge of the testing. Some lived with Schwartz, socializing with the sitters, and in full contact with the other mediums. The controls were anything but. It was a total embarrassment for the University of Arizona and for paranormal research.

Now fast forward to 2009 and I am introduced to more recent work by Schwartz and his assistant Dr. Beischel by a supporter called “MrEvidential” on Mark Edward's Skeptologist blog.2 I was really pleased to see Hyman's nemesis is still healthy and active, enough so that his supporters are pasting his journal articles on skeptic blogs. I wondered if I might take a stab at understanding all the interest?

So before I read anything negative or positive about the publication I thought lets see if I can discover the problems that are sure to be inherent.3


ANOMALOUS INFORMATION RECEPTION BY RESEARCH MEDIUMS DEMONSTRATED USING A NOVEL TRIPLE-BLIND PROTOCOL4


Really cool title don't you think? I especially love this word that was used ad nauseum throughout the article, “discarnate”. Which seems to mean “dead person”5 This idea of “other fit” or “fit with interpretation” that seems to be a general catch-all. Here are a few things that jumped out at me...

Skeptics and non-believers were not allowed to participate as sitters, not sure why that would have any relevance, but it was included in the document.

Then there is the bigger problem of how this was supposed to work…let me just quickly explain how this experiment was done. They call it being triple-blinded…

16 sitters are selected (believers or semi-believers all undergrad students) half have had a parent die, the other half had a close friend die. The dead (called discarnates)were grouped together by gender.

The “medium” was at home on the phone.

The place-holding sitter is selected to just sit in the lab.

Everyone has no idea who anyone is or anything about the dead person who is trying to be reached. The people in charge are also blinded.

The medium calls the lab, is given the first name only of two dead people (one is a parent of the sitter the other a friend of the sitter) Remember the sitter is at home doing whatever (they could be cleaning the house or asleep that is not clear) The medium is “talking” to a place-holding sitter at the lab (the place-holder knows nothing about the dead persons except the first names). The medium gives a reading about both dead people.

The reading is transcribed and importing telling info is gleaned out (info that would give away age, location ect.) then both readings are given to the sitter. The sitter selects either reading A or reading B as being closest to their dead person.

The conclusion the researched is that more sitters selected the correct dead person’s reading than by chance.

————-

Here’s what I’m really having problems with, maybe you can help me here…

The medium is “reading” a name given to them that is the true name of someone dead, Mary or Alice or something. The sitter to which the dead person is connected is not on the other end of the phone, they are off somewhere else possibly bathing their dog. So explain how the medium is doing a reading without a subject and without an object or anything to latch on to? How are they not just doing a cold-reading? I just don’t get it.

Again, this study means nothing unless it can be replicated by other experimenters. I would also like to see how the transcripts were gleaned for info. It almost sounds like the sitter had a 50% chance to select their reading? Arn’t those pretty good odds?

Oh yeah, I’m not sure these comments are fitting of PhD's doing real science, “Moreover, given the controversial nature of mediumship and the survival of consciousness hypothesis as well as the unexplored biases of most traditional scientists regarding concepts that do not adhere to conventional theories, it is understandable why such studies are rarely reported in conventional journals.”6

So now there are my comments, not exactly amazing. But then again I'm not a scientist (nor do I play one on TV). There are more scientific minds out there, so with a few keystrokes I found a critique on the Skeptic's Dictionary.7 Carroll calls his review, A Novel Way to Make an Ass of Yourself: Gary Schwartz Rides Again. Touching I think.

Apparently Carroll knows something I don't about this experiment I don't know, “Schwartz avoids one common criticism of his past experiments: the mediums do not come in contact with the sitters. But the mediums, he says, feel comfortable with somebody on the other end of the phone line when they do their readings, so he incorporated "proxy sitters," namely himself and his assistant. The proxies ask questions of the mediums during the phone readings. What part of experimenters should not participate in their own experiments because they might bias the process doesn't he understand? “8

So as I mentioned earlier, “Interesting concept: a student who has lost a parent is given a pair of readings to rate, one for his parent and one for a "peer" and the one for the peer is a "control." Each student reviewing the readings given to them (count two readings) has a 50% chance of getting the correct reading. Hum. Carroll also points out that 1,600 students were gleaned for the the chance to be a sitter, only believers or sorta believers were allowed. Were these people biased towards psychics? Sounds like bias to me.

In conclusion, I don't know what to think. Sounds like the experimenters still don't have a sound protocol despite having done a triple-blind study (whatever that is supposed to mean). Carroll clearly has knowledge beyond what I read in the article as I didn't get that the “stand-in sitters” were actually Schwartz and Beischel. I must have missed something about the odds, the real sitters were only given two choices to pick from which is a 50% chance of getting it right or wrong. I can't imagine the Keystone Cops being that inept, feel free to point out the error of my ways....

Susan












1From what I understood then the University of Arizona is extremely embarrassed to have Dr. Schwartz on their campus and use a disclaimer on their website that they do not support his findings. I'm too lazy to see if this disclaimer still exists.

2http://skepticblog.org/2009/08/25/everbodys-an-expert/#comment-11974

3Yes, yes I know. I'm supposed to be open-minded about paranormal research. But based on Schwartz's track record and the added fact that CNN had not announced that science as we know it has not been overturned I felt that there would be problems somewhere.

4http://www.windbridge.org/papers/BeischelEXPLORE2007vol3.pdf Beischel, J., & Schwartz, G. E. (2007). Anomalous information reception by research mediums demonstrated using a novel triple-blind protocol. Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing, 3, 23–27.

5Even this spell checker never heard of the word discarnate.

6How many studies would there have to be published to have rarely used?

7http://skepdic.com/essays/novelway.html