Shinobi

The sceptics many layers of armour.

This is what I like about being a sceptic.

This guy in my college class believes in Chi. He brought it up in conversation with me and I challenged him on it. I asked what evidence he had for this and I got vague, wishy washy answers that didn’t really mean anything. He said he used to be able to move little bits a paper and hairs without touching them, and make a candle flame flicker. (Yeah, you breathe on them) Anyway, this made me think of the many layers of armour we skeptics have against bunk claims. The layers are as follows.

Say someone believes in Chi. He makes some silly claim about Chi being a real force and producing real events in our reality. We say “Got any evidence for Chi?”. 99% of the time we will hear a story about his chi master that moved a candle flame or small piece of paper without touching it.

1St layer: “Anecdote” We show that his use of an anecdote is invalid as evidence due to our inability to verify the story, as well as the lack of controls, the fact that a trick or deception took place ect. (I’m sure people on this board know why anecdote is invalid as evidence.)

2nd layer: “Prove it” We demand that the person prove his ability to move paper/flames without touching them under controlled conditions, a proper scientific experiment. If we notice that the paper/flame does move, and the structure of the experiment eliminates fraud/deception/cheating, then we can use our second defence, “how can we be sure that Chi is the causal factor and not Zeus, aliens, or pink unicorns?”

3rd layer: It is shown beyond all reasonable doubt that Chi exists, and can cause bits of paper to move and flames to flicker without touching them. We have the final defence, “So what?” So you can move a small scrap of paper without touching it? Big deal, why not just move it with your finger? What possible advantage is this power?

The cool thing is, 99% of paranormalists never get past stage one, and the other 1% never get past stage two. Therefore, we always win. That's what I like about being a skeptic.

P.S
I think you can smack any paranormalist in a debate by using the following 2 sentences.
“Prove it” followed by,
“That’s not proof”.

Is there a need for anything else?

orpheus last chant

moving bits of paper?

That reminds me of a little game I used to play. I put a triangular piece of paper on a pin or needle (try to balance it too) and then I would put my hand slowly on top of it (whitout touching)

the thingy would start to move, round and round. Thats because the heat of the hand made the air hot and go up.....i'm sure that's the same process...

Shinobi

I think I'll have to try that orpheus. Maybe I can convince people of my Chi power with it too.

BTW, I just ran my fingers over my arm hair and moved them slightly, (which is what this guy said he used to be able to do.)
It's just static electricity.

If your properly charged with static electricity, you can move a small bit of paper along a table without touching it.

Haha, I just remeberd this guy also said that some chi guys can knock a fly out of the air with a punch.

The story about what happend is this: I ask this guy if he does martial arts and he said he does tai chi, and that he can't get his chi energy working becuase he's in a relationship with a girl. (I don;t understand that concept any better than you. But maybe there should be a newspaper headline "GIRL STOLE MY CHI" - SAYS SYDNEY MAN"

There's some really good ridicule material for use with what this guy said, about moving hair ect. I could say "What a killing machine you must have been, I sure would't want to tangle with someone that can move my hair!"

I'm glad the martial art I study doen't care about chi, just staying alive/uninjured in a fight. There's so much dumb stuff in the martial arts these days, some very woo-woo cult-like stuff.
This other guy in my class talks about his "master" and I just find that term really amusing, we don't do any of that "Yes sensei/master" crap where I train. I think, if this guy is the Master, does that make him the bitch?

Ab_Normal

Bill Moyers did a series on medicine a few years ago and had some footage of a tai chi master doing some pretty cool looking stuff - throwing his students off with sheer force of will, etc. I'm more skeptical than my husband, and every time I scoff at chi, he says, "But what about that Bill Moyers show?" and I'm left without an answer...

Shinobi

What does he do on this show? Is there a bunch on people grabbing him and then they get thrown back by the force of his chi? This can be a learned response by the students.

Yes, there are some cool things that you can do with physics. When you don't understand what physics are at work, (and I don't claim to know them all) these things can look pretty impressive. It should also be noted that physical conditioning also plays a great part, so I'm not saying anyone can do some of the things high level martial artists do.

The head of the martial art that I study (Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu), wrote in his book "The essence of Ninjutsu" about how many tricks of the martial arts are done. I thought this was really cool that he didn't buy into the paranormal explaniation of these things. (It should be noted that he does believe in much buddist mystical mumbo jumbo but he does not think such things explain martial arts tricks.)

On a personal note, I think these tricks you see people do are like stage magician material. I also questuon why these feats are demonstrated as eveidence of superior martial art skills when combat techique should be the indicator. I'd be much more inpressed by seeing strong technique.

Fred

Hi Shinobi.
First of all allow me to state that I am in no way a "believer" and do not follow any faith. I am a martial artist of many many years experience. One of my instructors is one of the chief instructors in the art of chi in China. In fact he runs one of the largest and most important tai chi academies in the country. He is also a chi master and I have seen him do quite remarkable things. Chi is very different from what one may see in the movies. Chi is really about blood control. I cannot comment on the marvelous claims made by ignorant westerners or people who have only trained for a short time. Chi is essentially about maintaining good health.
IHTH.

Lobstrosity

As Shinobi says, such feats can simply represent a mastery of balance, use of inertia, and leverage coupled with a lot of practice and some subconsious cooperation on the part of the "victim." The students expect to be sent flying and as such they probably end up capitulating more easily than one would reasonably expect. I'm willing to bet anything that nothing this guy did defied any laws of physics, so why are people so eager to postulate the existence of some mystery substance/force to explain it? Another example is a person who learns to break blocks of wood or concrete with various parts of his body. To a layperson such feats seem simply astounding. You tell me that someone can break through eight blocks of concrete with his elbow and I'll say that's physically impossible. Yet in reality it's not...it only appears that way. In reality it turns out that one can learn techniques to exploit certain laws of physics to achieve what only seems impossible.

If your husband fails to buy into this explaination, you could always reply "well, what about David Copperfield?" In short, seeing something that amazes you isn't proof of "magic."

Fred

Breaking bricks and concrete is not difficult due to there being no flexibility in the substance. Wood blocks are more difficult to break. One needs to work on speed and also on calouses. I do not recomend breaking. I have arthritis in my knuckles on my right hand due to the conditioning that I went through. Most of the elders who were doing this years ago now have arthritis.
Power is developed through impact to the center of the target. The idea is to break, as opposed to push.

Shinobi

“First of all allow me to state that I am in no way a "believer" and do not follow any faith. I am a martial artist of many many years experience. One of my instructors is one of the chief instructors in the art of chi in China. In fact he runs one of the largest and most important tai chi academies in the country. He is also a chi master and I have seen him do quite remarkable things. Chi is very different from what one may see in the movies. Chi is really about blood control. I cannot comment on the marvelous claims made by ignorant westerners or people who have only trained for a short time. Chi is essentially about maintaining good health.”

I have seen magicians do amazing things as well. I’m not denying that these martial artist can do amazing things, I’m just saying that there’s an explanation for these things that isn’t paranormal. Now, if your going to use Chi as a metaphor for some real phenomena, that’s cool with me. If your going to use Chi as another word for maintaining good health then that’s cool as well. But if, like my classmate, someone claims that Chi is a real physical energy then that claim needs to be backed up by some hard evidence. Now, these amazing feats just don’t cut it as evidence for Chi. I refer you back to the skeptics layer of defence number 2.

“If we notice that the paper/flame does move, and the structure of the experiment eliminates fraud/deception/cheating, then we can use our second defence, “how can we be sure that Chi is the causal factor and not Zeus, aliens, or pink unicorns?”

Just because someone can throw people off his body without moving, or break a brick, or if the anecdote my classmate mentioned was true, knock a fly out of the air with a strike, that doesn’t prove Chi exists. Zeus could be up in heaven working his magic to make this happen, or an alien could be manipulating gravity with advanced technology.

Shinobi

I just did a web search for "evidence for chi" and came acrcoss this article from Skeptical Inquirer:
http://www.csicop.org/si/9509/chi.html

The Bill Moyers program is mentioned towards the end of the article.