alle@ihuxb.UUCP (01/19/84)
NOVA presented the evidence for ESP (also called PSI) on the
show broadcast by PBS on Tuesday January 17. If you haven't seen
the show and you have interest in PSI (belief or skepticism), you
would do well to try and catch a repeat of the show. I will
try to summarize some of the main points presented.
The Case For ESP
ESP phenomenon have been grouped into 4 distinct abilities.
These 4 abilities are:
- Telepathy (mind to mind communication) ---|
- Clairvoyance (Remote Viewing) | ESP ---|
- Precognition (Sensing the future) --------| | PSI
|
- Psychokinesis (physically moving/affecting - PK ---|
objects)
Many studies have been done on this subject and the conclusion
presented by NOVA is that there are no conclusive results.
One basic problem is that some researchers get negative results
and others get positive results. Some skeptics dismiss *ANY*
strongly positive results as being the result of fraud or
experimenter bias. No one denies that in the past there have
been many cases of fraud and many situations where the bias
of experimenters have contributed to positive results.
Here is a description of some of the experiments done to test
for the particular PSI abilities and some of the results.
Precognition
Many of these experiments use the deck of 25 cards composed
of 5 cards of 5 symbols. The goal of the experiment is to measure
the participants ability to predict the order of the 25 cards.
By statistics, getting 5 cards correct out of the 25 would be
the average. The results of these experiments have shown that
over the long run, the participants perform very closely to
the statistical average. An interesting result from CCNY is
that believers in PSI abilities do slightly better than the
statistical average and non-believers do slightly worse. The
variation from the norm is small, but it is statistically
significant.
Psychokinesis
One of the more interesting experiments used a circle of
lights. One light was lighted and then using a random number
generator, either the next light in the clockwise direction
was lighted or the next light in the counter-clockwise direction.
The participant was to try to cause the lights to light in a
clockwise direction. Again, the participants did little different
than the statistical norm, but the participants tended to fall
into two categories. Those with "high aim" were able to cause
the lights to move in a clockwise direction (statistically)
and those with "low aim" had the surprising result of causing
the lights to move in the counter-clockwise direction (statistically).
The deviation was approx. 2% from the statistical norm, but this
is statistically significant. Some people cause the lights to
move clockwise, others cause the lights to move counter-clockwise
consistently.
These results have been verified by 19 other researchers.
Telepathy
The experiments here had one person in a room isolated
from a person in another room. The object was to describe
a set of slides that the person in the other room was viewing.
Some positive results have been obtained by some researchers,
but many critics charge that experimenter bias played a role.
Clairvoyance
These experiments were done by researchers Putoff (sp?)
and Tareg (sp?) with a well known psychic named Price. Price
was isolated in a Faraday cage (to shield from Electro-magnetic
fields) with one of the researchers. The other researcher
was in a car. He used a computer to generate a random number
which chose a location that he would drive to. The object was
for Price to describe the location. The surprising results
were that Price was very accurate and was able to correctly
describe the location 7 times out of 9. Another interesting
point was that he often saw a markedly different perspective
than the researcher at the scene. Some of Price's descriptions
fit an aerial view of the scene. Since these results are
so strikingly positive, they are disputed by many critics.
Summary
There are two companies now that provide the services
of psychic for a price. One company, called Delphi, attempts
to predict trends in the stock market. The other, called Mobius,
offers the services of a team of psychics to companies, police
investigators and anyone willing to pay the fee.
The results of the various experiments are inconclusive,
but seem to indicate that more research is needed to answer
the many questions about PSI.
One explanation of the variance of the results is that
some people (so called psychics) are good at utilizing PSI
abilities and others are not good at this.
I will admit to being extremely skeptical about this topic
prior to viewing the show, but I think my opinion now is that
open-mindedness is important in this area. I support more
research.
Allen England at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL
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