Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!caip!topaz!harvard!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.astro,net.bio,net.singles,net.social,net.women,net.med,net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: PSI:  Yes I see it / No you don't
Message-ID: <657@bu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-May-86 10:54:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.657
Posted: Fri May 23 10:54:56 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 17:38:50 EDT
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 30
Xref: watmath net.astro:1756 net.bio:521 net.singles:12748 net.social:1090 net.women:10548 net.med:4022 net.philosophy:5468 net.religion:10233


From: king@kestrel.UUCP
>Evolution theory predicts that if it exists and is useful it would be
>the norm as those with the ability would outbreed those without....

Not clear:

a) It would have to be inheritable from generation to generation,
not just a freak of an individual.

b) It could (especially based on (a)) be rare enough and random enough
that selection is not significant.

c) It could be an ability that generally requires training or some
conscious, socially supportive setting to 'blossom'. This is a little
vague I admit. As an extreme case, if there is indeed an ability to
"bend spoons" one has to have invented spoons to discover it (ok, that's
silly, what I mean is it may not be of any use in hunting, eg, per se, etc.)

I doubt very much one could "prove" that PSI does not exist any more than
one can "prove" that UFOs do not exist (unless of course we could provide
a full working model of the human mind and the requirements of PSI and
show the two to be incompatible although that still probably would not
satisfy the true believers.)

Fortunately I think the burden for proof goes the other way. As a friend
of mine once said "I don't believe in ghosts but I happen to know for a
fact that they exist...".

	-Barry Shein, Boston University