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From: walton%deimos@cit-hamlet.arpa
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Parascience
Message-ID: <272@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 12-Jun-85 20:34:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.272
Posted: Wed Jun 12 20:34:47 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Jun-85 04:32:12 EDT
Lines: 41

We seem to have a real polemic war going on here.  We have all heard of 
friends' paranormal experiences--sensing someone was about to die or had 
just died seems to be the most common such experience.  I don't know 
enough of the facts about the Geller case to argue it one way or the 
other, but I have read some of the Skeptical Inquirer and the books which 
it publishes.  I would like to inject some philosophy into the debate.

One thing seems clear--if paranormal powers exist, they require new 
physics.  Of the three currently known fundamental forces, namely 
gravitation, the electro-weak force, and the strong nuclear force, the 
brain produces only an amount of electromagnetic force which is too small 
to affect the outside world (except for EEG machines, which have very 
sensitive detectors).  I submit that the only rational criterion for 
adding a new "psychic" force to these three is an experiment which 
indisputably shows the existence of paranormal powers which is regularly 
reproducible, no matter who does the experiment.  No such experiment 
exists.  Everyone who has tried to reproduce the results of the Targ and 
Puthoff remote viewing experiments, for example, has failed.  In his 
introduction to a book criticizing these experiments, Martin Gardner tells 
the story of a physicist who went to his deathbed believing that he had 
measured an ether drift, and had thus disproven special relativity.  As he 
was the only person in the world who could reproduce this result, it seems 
justifiable to reject them as the product of some unknown prejudice.

I'm sure that no one meant to call your intelligence into question.  I 
admit to being impressed by the number of magicians who saw Geller do what 
you claim to have seen him do.  However, I think that physicists are 
justified in a rational skepticism: namely, that until an experiment which 
consistently and reproducibly shows that paranormal powers do exist can be 
produced, these powers most likely do not exist.  We don't reject new 
phenomena out of hand: we all believe that ball lightning occurs, for 
example, because it is well verified observationally, even though it is 
both unexplained and not reproducible in the laboratory.

Stephen R. Walton
USmail:	Solar Astronomy 264-33
	Caltech
	Pasadena, CA 91106
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