Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu-cs!halleys!ulowell!mod-psi From: mod-psi@ulowell.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.psi Subject: Re: levels of description Message-ID: <1176@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> Date: Thu, 2-Apr-87 23:51:29 EST Article-I.D.: ulowell.1176 Posted: Thu Apr 2 23:51:29 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 19:15:20 EST References: <33446a71.44e6@apollo.uucp> <2618@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <1135@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> Sender: rickheit@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu Reply-To: {allegra,decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!decwrl!pbsvax.dec.com!cooper Lines: 106 Approved: rickheit@ulowell.UUCP [] Bruce G. Barnett (barnett@ge-crd.arpa, barnett@steinmetz.uucp; ...!{chinet,rochester}!steinmetz!barnett) writes: > As far as I know, positive results in PSI experiments are >inversely proportional to the amount of controls placed on the >experiment. In blunt terms, scientists are not qualified to specify >the controls needed. And the easiest people to delude are the >scientists who want to show a positive results. (I do plan on addressing some of his other points -- but one thing at a time). This is undoubtedly true, but reflects more on your sources of information than on the status of parapsychological research. This is something commonly said by a certain class of critics, and picked up by others, such as yourself, who rely on them for information. The supposed justifications for the statement is based on a massive selective reading of the evidence and other distortions. I have twice started a detailed rebuttal and both times it became too long. There is just too much misinformation behind the statement. It is like trying to make a sensible response to creationist statements like "No new species has ever been observed to have evolved". Fortunately, for the first time in about forty years, a broadly based textbook of the field of parapsychology has been published. It surveys the whole field quite thoroughly and hardheadedly, discussing the strengths *and weaknesses* of the evidence for psi, the experimental methods, what is known and what needs to be learned. Although I don't agree at all times with the authors' choices of emphasis and opinions, I highly recommend the book. Whether or not your opinion about the existence of psi is changed you will come away from reading this book with a *very* different (and more realistic) view of the field of parapsychology. The book is: _Foundations of Parapsychology: Exploring the Boundaries of Human Capability_ by Hoyt L. Edge, Robert L. Morris, John Palmer, and Joseph H. Rush. Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul; Boston, London and Henley. 1986. ISBN 0-7102-0226-1 and (pbk.) 0-7102-0805-7. You should be able to order it through most general bookstores. I believe that the cost of the paperback is $22.50. To cover the significant points briefly (refer to the above book for details and justifications): 1) The field of parapsychology grew out of the field of psychical research when it was realized (by Rhine) that the investigation of spontaneous case material and the claims of self-proclaimed psychics would never provide reliable enough scientific evidence for the existence of paranormal phenomena. Such investigations are perhaps useful for providing suggestive evidence *about* the nature of psi, if it exists, but provide little or no evidence for its existence. 2) Parapsychologists routinely investigate many people claiming exceptional psychic abilities. The great majority of them are unable or unwilling to work under sufficiently controlled circumstances, or are found to be fraudulent. A few survive rigorous enough testing to warrant publication in one of the parapsychological journals. As said above, few parapsychologists take such publication as adding significantly to the evidence *for* psi. It is published so that the apparent characteristics and limitations of that subjects performance can be used as suggestions towards understanding how "strong" psi might operate if it exists, and to give other parapsychologists (and those few critics who actually pay any attention to the field) an opportunity to evaluate and criticize the testing procedures. When evidence later emerges (as has occurred in a handful of cases) that subject fraud occurred, this has no effect on the evidence for the existence of psi. It only means that the characteristics of the psychics "performance" cannot be taken as reflecting the characteristics of "real psi", if it exists. 3) Nevertheless, a number of psychics (D.D. Home, Eileen Garrett, and Keith Harary come to mind off the top of my head) have submitted to extensive and varied scientific tests with a wide varieties of tight controls, and have never been shown to be "cheating". They have not always succeeded, but their failures have not been shown to be particularly correlated with the degree or nature of the controls imposed. This does not, naturally enough, prove that they were not fraudulent, but it does contradict Bruce's assertion. 4) The evidence for the existence of one or more consistent anomalies, referred to as psi, rests on literally thousands of successful, well done experiments with more-or-less "general" subject populations. The controls for these experiments, for the most part, meet or exceed the quality of control found in a similar selection of experiments from any other field of experimental science. Despite years of trying, the critics have consistently failed to provide any meaningful evidence that more than a tiny fraction of the total observed effect in these experiments is due to poor experimental controls, or that varying degrees of control have much effect on the results of those experiments which meet the publication criteria of the field. Topher Cooper USENET: ...{allegra,decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!decwrl!pbsvax.dec.com!cooper INTERNET: cooper%pbsvax.DEC@decwrl.dec.com Disclaimer: This contains my own opinions, and I am solely responsible for them.