Woo at Stanford

The San Francisco Chronicle has an uncritical article today about a supposed test of “energy healing” at Stanford University:

Anne Broderick believes she can use her hands to alter the energy fields of others to help them heal, taking away fatigue, stress and nausea.

A clinical trial at Stanford University aims to prove it.

And there, perhaps unknowingly, the writer demonstrates the problem with this test. A clinical trial should be designed to determine if something is true or not. A test that is designed to prove something true, will probably do so regardless of whether it is true or not. This is an un-blinded test, and so is uncontrolled for placebo. The allocation to treatment or placebo groups is non-randomized. Regardless of the result, this “clinical trial” will prove nothing except that Stanford supports quackery.

Let’s recap. Ten years ago a study published in JAMA demonstrated that Therapeutic Touch (TT) practitioners couldn’t even detect the energy field they claim they can manipulate, when they don’t know if a person is there or not. This was a true blind test – the (TT) practitioners didn’t know if the experimenter’s hand was there or not (see drawing). If they can’t even detect the energy field, how can they manipulate it to make people well? Or as the JAMA study concluded:

Twenty-one experienced TT practitioners were unable to detect the investigator's "energy field." Their failure to substantiate TT's most fundamental claim is unrefuted evidence that the claims of TT are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified.

Unjustified. But they keep doing it anyway.

This does not make it a blind study!

Comments

[mike]

For those that don't know, the TT experiment used in the JAMA article was famously designed by 9-year old Emily Rosa for a science fair project. You can see a nice video about it here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dG_bm0vthg4 (seek forward to 3:10)

[Dan]

That's going to be my new line:

"Your woo's so weak, a nine-year-old girl could kick its ass."

[Techskeptic]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and expose myself to a battery of abuse. I'm going to defend this study.

Its not that I believe this stuff works (I dont). And Its not that I think a double blind study wouldn't put and end to this particular use of woo (it should, but probably won't as goal posts are moved).

I'm just gonna say that when I am developing a technology (I tend to work for startups) we generally have a shitload of "phenomenon" (just poking at akusai a little bit) to look at to wean out what works and what doesnt.

For us it is not efficient in time or money to perform full Design of Experiments for each and every little thing. Its not efficient to perform statistically significant samplings on each change. Time and money prevents us from doing this (the tedium doesnt help either).

I would look at this study as a filter. If it doesnt work here, then 2 million dollars have not been spent on a full randomized double blind study (I dont know what the average price of a real study is, I know they are expensive), but instead a small amount of money has been spent on women who are undergoing real treatment anyway:

That success prompted its director, Kathy Turner, a registered nurse, to prove its effectiveness in a randomized, controlled clinical trial that started last year. As all undergo chemotherapy, one group of breast cancer patients receives Healing Touch for 20 minutes, a second group listens to a relaxation tape, and a third gets nothing. Researchers haven't yet analyzed the initial data.

- from that same article.

so as far as I can see, they are not forgoing the real treatment. They are just having someone there paying attention to them in a non-clinical fashion. I don't think we can say placebo does nothing. I think in fact these nonsense 'therapies' do help as long as real treatment is still administered.

So anyway, if this cheaper, non blinded, non randomized study provides nothing, or provides nothing more than placebo, then there really is no reason to perform the full randomized double blind study, is there? It will just be another in a very long line of placebo treatments that we fully understand exist (just not the exact placebo mechanism itself of course).

ok...flame away!

[Zeno]

I saw the San Francisco Chronicle article this morning, too, and shook my head. Of course, it's not unusual for the Chronicle to run "soft" news like this. I looked around a bit and discovered that the "certified" Healing Touch practitioner featured in the article claims to have been a skeptic who regarded therapeutic touch as "woo woo" until she experienced its powerful healing effects. Why does every wacky New Ager claim to have been a tough-minded skeptic before falling for some pseudoscientific nonsense?

More here.

[stavros]

Techskeptic,

while I agree with you in the sense that this will be helpful for the women, I think there is another point here. A clinical trial is indeed supposed to determine the efficacy of a technique. Resources will be put into the trial. Therefore it should be a correctly designed trial for two reasons: not to waste resources, and to actually reach a conclusion! Otherwise, woo-woo will continue to spread as will their claims! We have seen it so many times!

No one ever said that placebo is not useful. It is *really* useful when used correctly. And traditional health approaches would really benefit by, say, the homeopaths approach to patients.

[Techskeptic]

"Otherwise, woo-woo will continue to spread as will their claims! "

I wish we had a say in that matter. As this blog certainly points out, I'm not sure we do.

I think its part of our biology. I dont think the majority of us can help it. If they reject religion, they find The Secret. If they Reject the Secret, then its the big bad pharma.

I'm personally trying to come to terms with this. Its very hard.

[neil2007]

Consumers should always check the efficacy data of these treatments. For e.g. at: http://www.rvita.com/remedy-list.html

[neil2007]

Consumers should always check the efficacy data of these treatments. For e.g. at: http://www.rvita.com/remedy-list.html

[techskeptic]

Wow, that is hilarious! If I were to write a blog entry entitled "My list of nonsense woo" I would simply refer to that site. Maybe that is a little strong, physical therapy and psychotherapy may provide benefits. I have not examined those fields. I know that Richard Feyman certainly discounted psychology as a science.

To their credit, they don't seem to outright say "This works". The three entries I looked at (homeopathy, prayer, and healing touch) all say something to the effect of:

Scientific Evidence: As regards to efficacy of homeopathic treatment, the jury is still out. (homeopathy)

Scientific Evidence:Uses These uses have been tested in humans or animals. Safety and effectiveness have not always been proven. (Healing Touch)

Scientific Evidence:Uses These uses have been tested in humans or animals. Safety and effectiveness have not always been proven (prayer)

But alas, this is not right at all. The correct sentence for all of these "treatments" is:

There is no strong scientific evidence that this treatment works, and in fact, there is lots of evidence that is contrary to the claim of the treatment. Further, there is no known mechanism by which these treatments could provide any effectiveness

The problem is, the thing I am lamenting about, is that in the eyes if the soft minded self described Galileos is that it doesnt matter how much these things are studied, it will never be proven to them that the treatment is nonsense.

[Martin]

Re Tech:
By "part of our biology", do you mean that having the ability to believe in stuff that gives us a soothing feeling is something that has evolved as a favorable trait in humans?

Re the study:
It doesn't take too big a stretch of the imagination to think that these chemotherapy patients would benefit from some non-toxic complementary treatment to deal with the fatigue and nausea etc. But from there to accepting Healing Touch as an effective alternative probably require a lot of imagination, perhaps so much so that calling it Healing Thoughts (or "placebo effect" if you want to be a bitch about it) would be more accurate?

In the end, whatever form of medicine you take, it is the body itself that has to heal right? I mean, it's not the medicine that does the work, it's the human body's reaction to the medicine that is what we experience as healing. We all have different preferences/biases/experiences/etc that will play a part in how we react to external stimuli, and i wouldn't be surprised if fancy hand waving could trigger some kind of healing process (at least to some extent) in some people. Having said that, I wouldn't bet on that Ted Haggard doing "Healing Touch" on Richard Dawkins (all of them) would trigger any healing process in a million years though, and the method probably fails badly in any kind of objective test, where the effects of interpersonal relationships etc are filtered out. This whole thing (I almost said phenomenon) looks like a slippery, untestable Green Lump of Jelly to me, but if the patients like it, i'm not sure it bothers me.

Btw, would it be unethical to administer placebo treatments to the chemotherapy patients in this case? By that i mean continue with the Waving Hands therapy, even though it failed a DBCT, but the patients own experiences where positive and it made them feel better etc.

[Techskeptic]

By "part of our biology", do you mean that having the ability to believe in stuff that gives us a soothing feeling is something that has evolved as a favorable trait in humans?

Not quite. By part of our biology, i mean not the ability, but the tendency to see patterns where none exist, or as you say "believe in stuff that gives us a soothing feeling". :)

[Lurker since April]

I was an EMT and attended the 1977 Technical Conference of the American Association of Emergency Physicians. One track was on Therapeutic Touch. I had never heard of it before and I attended the session. The course was taught by staff members of a Nursing school in Oregon who had detected improvements in various vital signs of coma patients. They recognized that there was no proof of effectiveness but little chance of harm.

After the demonstration we broke up into groups to practice. There are three phases to TT. First you 'center' yourself, then you 'scan' the patient, then you 'treat.'

I ran the best controls I could in my group. I made sure to scan first, making mental note of anything I thought I detected. Then I asked the others what they had detected - without revealing what I had found. There was significant correspondence. That is not proof and is not even solid evidence at this point. But it was the best I could do at the time and place.

After getting back home, I tried it out a little more. Centering is merely focusing yourself on the task at hand. When I am centered I can feel the tendons and muscles in my hand when I wiggle my fingers. It is merely increased awareness (for me).

While others reported different sensations during a scan, for me it was a sensation of heat. This is perfectly reasonable for a hand placed an inch or so above a living body (but still not proof) and it is also reasonable that an ill or injured body part will be warmer than others - it’s called fever or inflammation.

The treatment phase consists of 'waving away' the detected hot spot (irony and/or humor intended by quotes) until the area feels normal. Now, I can see how gentle hand waving might make an exposed skin patch cool off, but it’s hard to infer a mechanism that might 'treat' an illness or injury in this way.

I have taken a very few opportunities to use this detection and treatment on people and animals over the last 30 years. It seems clear to me that I can detect body heat and some variations of it. I cannot prove any correlation to actual symptoms and I admit that knowing the dog had a tumor was an influence on me. There is nothing to show any healing effects beyond those of a caring human presence (the dog died as predicted by the vet).

I have not had myself tested, either blind or double blind, but I still have a reasonable expectation that I could pass a detection test. I would also embrace negative results, if any. What I have read about the 9-year-olds test may have invalidated the techniques of all the practitioners that she tested, but does not automatically mean that I would fail. The TT practitioners were fully-vested in their woo and I have no idea how they experienced whatever they experience during treatment. My own experience (with detection) seems consistent with known physiological signs and symptoms.

I don't see any hope of this as a therapy for anything. Its greatest hope seems to be via caring human interaction and I would expect actual touch to do better than nearly touching.

Its been a long ramble, for my first blog comment ever. Despite (or maybe because of) earlier comments, I put my skepticism up against any of yours for both strength and duration. I also think that the conclusions of the 9-year-olds test are unjustifiably broad. As another example, the famous cold-fusion case did not prove that cold fusion did not exist; it only proved that those researchers did not find it. Only those who may choose to continue looking into it can justify the time and expense of the research. Well-designed studies following scientific standards should lead to justifiable conclusions, not wild claims of total debunking or disproof.

Let the second round of evisceration begin!

[Techskeptic]

Let the second round of evisceration begin!

Bleh there was barely a first round!

Its greatest hope seems to be via caring human interaction and I would expect actual touch to do better than nearly touching.

Yeah, like acupuncture or chiropractic? actual touching, still nonsense.

I have not had myself tested, either blind or double blind, but I still have a reasonable expectation that I could pass a detection test.

water dowsers honestly believe that they can detect water under the ground with a stick. Fundamentalists honestly beleive that they talk with a great daddy in the sky. Tarot Card readers Honestly beleive that the card are telling a story and they are interpreting them properly. I'm sure in all these fields there are a portion of folk who know its all a scam, but there is also a great portion of people who honestly beleive in the crap they are selling. Dawkins shows the incredible shock that some water downsers had when they realized that they couldn't do what they thought they could (there is almost always water anywhere, it just matter how deep you drill, once you find water, why would you check in a nother place?)

You will not pass a personal blinded test. Get a friend to perform the test the little girl did. See if you can detect when he puts his hands near you, when you cant see him. You will be right about 50% of the time. Its honestly just your imagination. There is a specific word for this that I am forgetting (the word is not 'placebo'). James Rand discussed it in one of his lectures I saw.

He gave a piece of metal to a someone in his office and showed him there was a magnet under a piece of cardboard and this person held the metal some distance away and could feel the magnet. Being a magician, Randi had actually removed the magnet, it was not there at all. It feels real, but it is not. Like when you think something is hot, and you touch it only to realize it is cold.

I ran the best controls I could in my group. I made sure to scan first, making mental note of anything I thought I detected. Then I asked the others what they had detected - without revealing what I had found. There was significant correspondence. That is not proof and is not even solid evidence at this point. But it was the best I could do at the time and place.

You are right its not proof, its not even close. Everyone in your group had just been taught what to do and what to expect. Why wouldn't they say something similar? you didnt run any controls in this. Did you perform the test with no-one there without you knowing it? That would have been a control.

Get a friend to run a an honest test where you don't know if the persons body part is near your hands or not. If you are not deluded, you will see that you have a 50% rate of being correct.

[Lurker since April]

Techskeptic-

You're right, there wasn't much response to your 'out on a limb' post. I expected more would come in while I was typing.

No, not like acupuncture or chiropractic- I expect that holding hands with a patient has as much (or more) benefit as TT. I don't give that the status of a claim and don't plan to defend it. I just want to distance myself from any other woo that you may suspect I believe in.

I may not have been clear enough in my first post, but here is my claim:

"It is possible for a human hand to detect a heat-source from a distance"

For a test, I would stipulate a range of 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit for room temperature and a range of 95-105 degrees for the heat source (low normal to high fever). I would stipulate a distance of between 1 inch and 2 inches.

I would have the test operator devise the blinding and further methodology and apparatus.

I make no claims to be able to detect a living source from an inanimate one.

I make no claims of diagnostic value of such detection.

I make no claims of any theraputic value.

I make no claims that I have any special ability beyond normal.

Is that really so easily dismissed? Is that really beyond our expectations of how the world works? Of how our 5 senses work?

I practice (but rarely perform) a few standard magic tricks. Some of them have the magician detecting the coin that the audience chose by detecting the difference in temperature between the coin they handled and the ones they have not. (I'm tempted to go back and add a minimum mass to my test stipulations...) The trick involves touching the coins and that is a key difference, but it does show that subtle changes in temperature can be detected by human hands and that differences most people don't notice can be detected through focus and practice.

I recognize that I have the burden of proof, since I am making the claim. I don't know if I will actually test it or not, but I am interested in critical analysis of the test parameters. Any of you could help stipulate the setup that I left to the "tester".

[Martin]

Lurker said

I may not have been clear enough in my first post, but here is my claim:

"It is possible for a human hand to detect a heat-source from a distance"

For a test, I would stipulate a range of 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit for room temperature and a range of 95-105 degrees for the heat source (low normal to high fever). I would stipulate a distance of between 1 inch and 2 inches.

It's obvious that everyone has the capability to detect heat-sources from a distance or else the world would feel like a cold place indeed. Unfortunately our bodies have a sense of temperature that is not very accurate, it's non-linear and also relative with respect to our previous experience. It's pretty cool that you can pick up the electromagnetic radiation from another human being with your hand, but if you're serious about diagnosing fevers from a distance, I would opt for a radiance infrared camera. With a sensitivity of about 0.025C, they're hard to beat. :)

Having said all that stupid crap, I do find it interesting whether techniques exists to improve ones sensitivty to subtle changes in temperature and other stimuli (internal or external) that we perhaps often just take for granted or otherwise don't pay much attention to. I'm guessing this increased awareness is part of what you refer to as "centering", "focus", and "practice". Until someone answers your question about test-setups and all that, it would be interesting if you could go into a little more detail regarding what you put into those words. Thanks!

[Lurker since April]

I hope that this thread is not dead, yet.

I'll respond to more of techskeptic's criticism: There is no known mechanism for detecting water at a distance. There is no evidence for a sky-daddy, let alone a method of communication. There is no known mechanism for cards to tell the future. There is a known mechanism for detecting heat at a distance. So, I hope that what we're talking about is whether it can be done reliably at the temperature ranges and distances that I claim and you doubt. An additional parameter should be that the test object should have similar radiant-heat properties to a live human. The radiant properties of metal and space shuttle tiles would skew the results.

Randi's magnet test may have done more to show the effects of suggestion than demonstrate the ability to detect magnetic pull. Those effects can be measured in terms of force of attraction. I haven't done it and don't intend to, but we could establish the actual forces involved and compare that to known human sensitivity (to 'pull forces' not magnetism).

I will be greatly surprised if any of you dispute the ability to detect radiant heat at a distance. I think this is pretty well established scientifically. The question is one of scale. Based on my earlier parameters, I feel reasonably confident in being able to detect a 20 to 40 degree difference between an object and the ambient temperature at a range of one to two inches. That is not that subtle.

The friend that I would ask to help test this went to school with PZ Myers, who will be in the Seattle area next week. I've arranged for them to have lunch or dinner together and I will meet him (PZ) for the first time. Maybe I'll have him design the test - or even run it if he can find the time.

[Lurker since April]

Martin-

We must have been typing at the same time.

I have been careful not to make or support any claims of diagnosis or treatment. I have no evidence of diagnostic benefit and no hope of effective treatment.

I was trying to fit so much in that first post that some fo it got short-changed. "Centering" was very woo as presented to me. "Think of yourself at your favorite calm, peacefull place and let the real world fade away..." But I took from it was this: try to make yourself comfortable, remove distractions and pay close attention to sensations from your hands. as I said before, when I do this, I can feel things that normally do not make it over the threshold; I can feel air currents from my breath as they swirl around my hands, for an example I haven't used before.

I cannot speak for any other person, but what I experience are very mundane sensations - just at a level I would normally not notice.

[Lurker since April]

Martin-

PS- You're absolutely right about the thermal camera. It would be much more sensitive, precise and accurate. It would be an excellent way to do a second-stage test. If I can establish the ability to detect anything at all, can I detect meaningful variances that co-relate with the camera's measurements.

in terms of sensitivity training, doctors, nurses and EMT's still carry stethoscopes evn though ther are more sensitive and reliable instruments. It is not practical to carry tons equipment with you all the time. With practice, a person can detect heart murmurs and many other diagnostic symptoms with a stethoscope. (They're called murmurs because of how they sound in a stethoscope). I almost put in an anecdote here, but instead I will say that I still have some cassette tapes that are used to train your ears on specific diagnostic sounds. One doctor told me that you start bu listening to the pattern, then you listen to each beat, then you listen to the silences between the beats.

[Techskeptic]

I'll respond to more of techskeptic's criticism

uh... no need.

I may not have been clear enough in my first post, but here is my claim:

"It is possible for a human hand to detect a heat-source from a distance"

I'm not refuting that. I read into your first post more than you meant obviously.

threads die when everyone is on the same page.

[Sonic Design]

Boring!

[Big Al]

Sorry, Lurker, but I'd have to take issue with regard to your statement [i]"There is no known mechanism for detecting water at a distance"[/i] There are in fact many ways of detecting water at even very great distances, such as spectroscopy.

Also, steam as in a sauna has a definite smell, so that seems to imply that some humans (not me, since Hong Kong flu H1 A2) may be able to smell water. But at least in this case we're talking about a known sense sensing a known substance.

On the other hand, I agree 100% on the sky-daddy and the cards.

[Big Al]

There is a specific word for this that I am forgetting (the word is not 'placebo').

I think you're talking about confirmation bias, Tech.

[Techskeptic]

Nope that was not it.

I want to say that its something like Psychomotive force. Its the same thing that moves a ouija pointer. Its also the same thing that makes to feel that something is hot when it isn't or when t s cold only becuase you expected it to be hot.

Randi hand his friend hold a piece of iron in his hand and had him wave it a few inches over a big magnet. The friend could feel the magnet acting on the rod.

Then he covered the magnet with cardboard and had his friend do the same thing. His friend could still feel the magnet acting on the rod. however while covering the magnet with the cardboard he also took the magnet away. The friend was feeling a force that was literally not there.

Yeesh, I just read my comments again, I already said all this... LOL.

[Bronze Dog]

Ideomotor effect is what you're looking for for the Ouija board/dowsing rod movement thing.

[oderb]

I write only to describe my personal experience with an energy healer. I understand the skepticism folks here have about personal experience but here goes. I also know that my experience doesn't 'prove' anything.

I went to a healer with great reluctance but upon the recommendation of a friend because of various maladies that conventional medicine was unable to help me with.

I discovered that my healer is able consistently and with virtually 100% accuracy to diagnose virtually any ailment I have, whether at a distance over the phone, or in person.

I couldn't believe it at first, and I still have no idea how it works. I just know that he has been right over 25 times over the past couple of years - predicting the outcome of every medical test before I took it ( both positive and negative tests), telling me when I was developing a cold or flu before I could feel any symptoms etc. Recently I called him from 2000 miles away to tell him I had a cut on my foot and asked whether it was serious enough to get medical attention.

He told me which toe it was on and how big it was and what the prognosis would be (no need to see a doctor). I could describe a dozen more similar experiences.

I am not a crank but a highly educated professional with a scientific and public policy background.

I know this post will be ignored or dismissed and I can understand why. I just wish there were some way of verifying to the skeptics out there - and I don't use the word skeptic pejoratively - that the odds of my experiences with his healer being coincidental, placebo, trickery, etc. are beyond minute.

Interestingly and unfortunately his success rate actually healing my maladies is much lower, and so I use him primarily as an extraordinary diagnostician.

By the way he has been tested at a university parapsychology lab where his powers were confirmed under highly controlled circumstances.

And so I hope that someday soon a properly controlled trial of healing can occur, and that if the results were positive folks would be open minded enough to consider the possibility of such powers, even if a plausible mechanism of action has yet to be discovered.

[Bronze Dog]

Since we don't have a recording, I can't be certain your memories of those calls are accurate. Cold reading, for example, relies on people having memories susceptible to certain tricks.

Of course, this person would qualify for any Randi-esque challenge. Accurate prediction of injuries over the phone would be easy to test. Just have to control the flow of information. The results would be unambiguous.

As for parapsychology labs: They're very sloppy most of the time, and likely don't even know what double-blinding really is. It's not surprising that skeptics can slip people into testing by just teaching some magician tricks. Haven't heard of a single incident where any of them successfully caught a magician or mentalist masquerading as a psychic.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Oderb:

Ask him to diagnose what is wrong with me.

If he can do it without knowing anything about me, without communicating with me, then he may have something worth investigating. If he has to sit on the phone and speak to me, asking leading and guiding questions, he is almost certainly using cold (and maybe even warm and hot) reading techniques.

Next time you speak to him try recording the conversation. Then before listening to the tape write down what you think was said and done. Then listen to the tape. I guarantee you'll be surprised.

[Martin]

Re: Ask him to diagnose what is wrong with me.

Don't be so hard on yourself, Jimmy. Nobody is perfect. :)

[oderb]

Jimmy,

I did what you suggested and had someone else listen to the conversation. He did not ask any questions after my brief description of the issue. He proved to be right again.

[yakaru]

oderb,
You wrote that you did what Jimmy suggested. Want to share a few more details? -Did you (as Jimmy suggested): "record the conversation. Then before listening to the tape write down what you think was said and done. Then listen to the tape."...And compare?

...And would you like to tell us (without being indiscreet) what his diagnosis of Jimmy was - or at least allude to it in a way that Jimmy would be able to confirm?

In an earlier post you wrote: "By the way he has been tested at a university parapsychology lab where his powers were confirmed under highly controlled circumstances."

Was anything published? How about the details of the experiment? I have heard very very very many such claims, but so far, every single time, without exception, on closer questioning, the information has turned out to be false. Usually the trial "was going to be made" and from there the story got twisted; or it's second- or fiftieth-hand information and untraceable.

So, after taking us this far, can you offer us something a bit more concrete? If you can give us the information from the informal experiment you say you carried out, that will already be something.

If you can provide details or references to the university trial, that would be extraordinary. And if the trial was in fact properly controlled (given that it was done by a parapsychology department) that would be a miracle in itself; and if the results are indeed positive, then it's a world first, and they certainly would have proudly published it becuase it would be the thing they have been searching for all these years. I can't believe they would sit on it.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Oderb:

He did not ask any questions after my brief description of the issue.

So you told him what was wrong and when he guessed what was wrong, he was right? And you think this is miraculous?

I re-iterate, as Yakaru did, perform the test in the way I described - both you and your friend can be fooled by your own bias.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Let me add a little more, sorry about the double post.

What did you say in your brief description?

What did he respond with?

Was his diagnosis confirmed accurately and via current conventional medical procedures?

If not, how do you know he was right? If it was, why do you need to use an energy healer?

Sounds to me like he was almost certainly using cold and hot reading techniques and that you and your friend either do not recognise them or do not want to.

Try a different approach, give us the same brief description you gave him and see what we can 'guess'.

If he senses energy, why does he even need a brief description, why can't he just tell you? Try not telling him what is wrong with you, ask him to tell you.

[yakaru]

Looks like "Oderb" has evaporated. Fairly standard exchange. Claims scientific proof. Can't back it up. Is offered simple way to test it, pretends to do it, but doesn't and quickly changes the subject. Disappears.

It isn't narrow minded or "dogmatically following the conservative dominant paradigm" to suggest an easy experiment. Jimmy's suggestion of recording the conversation, writing down what he thinks happened & comparing it with the actual dialog is an excellent way of understanding what's going on - and if it was a "real" psychic, the proof (which is so often claimed) would plainly be there for all to see.

Why do these guys insist they have proof, and then complain or disappear when someone politely asks for more information? Or worse, hang around insulting people.