# The Straight Dope On ESP. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173 "2016-04-26T08:17:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/121 "2016-04-28T16:18:36Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Somehow I just _knew_ that **Crazyhorse** wouldn’t be willing to cut his losses and move on. hey, just because he keeps bringing up Radin as a legitimate researcher(and ignores all the negative press about him) and throws tons on research at us over and over again(without mentioning that the research has come up with nothing worth writing home about and/or is filled with fraud and/or mistakes) doesn’t mean he’s _promoting_ either one, right? He just wants to “Give The Other Side.” ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/122 "2016-04-28T16:21:01Z")
Yeah, if we take one study that shows some level of statistical significance, and then take a thousand studies that show the same level, the thousand studies are actually a lot more persuasive, even if the effect is smaller. But the problem is that we’re not criticizing the raw math. The problem isn’t the math, the problem is the studies. A paper that shows a weakly significant effect, but has unreported methodological flaws is easy to dismiss. A thousand papers that show the same effect become highly significant because of the number of trials. But if all thousand papers suffer from the same sorts of systematic methodological flaws then the raw data they report doesn’t get stronger the more times you report it. You have to throw it all out. And the field of parapsychology is riddled through and through with methodological problems. Outright fraud by scammers is only the most obvious. Of course this sort of thing happens all the time in mainstream science. Your study of some drug turns out not to have been properly double blinded. The guy studying the drug has a profit motive in finding it effective. The findings are statistically significant in the first trial, but irreproducable in future trials, 1 in 20 studies at the 95% confidence level will be wrong just by chance. Look at the huge kerfuffle happening right now about the irreproducability of regular old psychology experiments. All those pop-sci blurbs you see very often turn out to be idiosyncratic, no one can reproduce the experimental results. Thing is, science going back to the 1700s has spent a lot of time investigating strange effects that followed unknown physical principles. A rock that could fog photographic film, despite emitting no light. Rocks that fall from the sky. Magnets, electricity, all sorts of funny effects that made no sense at the time, but are now mainstream. And as I said above, human beings and other animals really do have all sorts of hidden senses. You can sense the buildup of carbon dioxide in your body, which leads to an agonizing need to breathe. But put the person in a room with just nitrogen and no oxygen and they will pass out without noticing anything. All sorts of aquatic creatures have the ability to sense electric fields, bats and dolphins navigate by sonar, fish can sense pressure waves via the lateral line, there are all sorts of ways that animals can sense their environment. But all these senses have some sort of physical basis, even if the basis is not yet understood. A goldfish swimming along in the dark will stop before it rams into the side of the tank. How? ESP? No, SP. Sensory perception, just a sense that human beings don’t have. Do human beings have subtle unrecognized senses? Yes, and we’ve discovered lots of them. Will we discover more? Probably. But that’s not what we’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/123 "2016-04-28T17:05:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > hey, just because he keeps bringing up Radin as a legitimate researcher(and ignores all the negative press about him) and throws tons on research at us over and over again(without mentioning that the research has come up with nothing worth writing home about and/or is filled with fraud and/or mistakes) doesn’t mean he’s _promoting_ either one, right? He just wants to “Give The Other Side.” > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Somehow I just _knew_ that **Crazyhorse** wouldn’t be willing to cut his losses and move on. This is an amazing thread. I posted a link to a bunch of psi research requested by the OP and expressed no opinion at all about the merits of the research itself. I commented that the guy who curates the list seems to actually employ correct scientific method to his own work in that field, at least in the few of the studies of his I read, and certainly in comparison to much of the other work the OP might find on the subject. I pointed the OP to a big collection of data without any comment about what if anything it indicates or whether or not it has been refuted by subsequent research. This simple act somehow so threatened our gallery of resident skeptics that you feel the need to assign motives to my posts that I never had or indicated, misinterpreting my replies to unrelated tangents in the thread and making them out to be all part of some agenda related to the OP. This is like trying to talk to a wounded wildcat. You are so coiled in bitter defense of some entrenched position you hold you are lashing out at shadows that don’t even pose a threat to your beliefs if you actually read and understood them. What I don’t understand is that a bunch of really good and scientifically correct studies can also be found just as easily that conclude there is currently no evidence to suggest any aspect of psi, but instead of linking the OP to those you are simply wasting my time and theirs with misplaced arguments and displays of what can only be described as either horrid reading comprehension or agenda-driven mischaracterizations of my posts intended to prevent any useful or interesting discussion on the subject at all. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/124 "2016-04-28T17:14:08Z")
You linked to bad studies gathered by a disgraced researcher with a very spotty reputation, then tried your best to spin straw into gold…and failed. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/125 "2016-04-28T17:16:44Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You linked to bad studies gathered by a disgraced researcher with a very spotty reputation, then tried your best to spin straw into gold…and failed. The OP asked what scientific work has been done in the field. For better or worse that is what I gave him. If you can find better research post it instead of attacking my motives. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/126 "2016-04-28T17:18:50Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > The OP asked what scientific work has been done in the field. For better or worse that is what I gave him. If you can find better research post it instead of attacking my motives. You just didn’t link to it-you _promoted_ it and Radin in several posts. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/127 "2016-04-28T17:27:11Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But all these senses have some sort of physical basis, even if the basis is not yet understood. A goldfish swimming along in the dark will stop before it rams into the side of the tank. How? ESP? No, SP. Sensory perception, just a sense that human beings don’t have. Do human beings have subtle unrecognized senses? Yes, and we’ve discovered lots of them. Will we discover more? Probably. But that’s not what we’re talking about. This is a well reasoned post. It almost got lost in the torrent of nonsensical objections to talking about what research exists so far. You are making some assumptions and stating them as being facts but it is still well reasoned. The portion of your post quoted above is an example of why in many cases “more research is warranted” is the correct conclusion for studies in psi. And the conclusions that many skeptical and highly qualified scientists outside of psi research have drawn about them as well. It may not be a psi theory that proves to be the cause for many of the phenomenon under investigation by people doing research in psi. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/128 "2016-04-28T17:33:18Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > That story is still hilarious. And still not the point. I’m just saying. And it remains very relevant, the quality of a work (in this case the ESP research) is \*\*very \*\*relevant to this. > [@Crazyhorse](#): > > I’m saying Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel in response to someone saying that it dwarfs anything Michelangelo ever did. Not that it was good painting. I’m not trying to spread Christianity. I am not even thinking about the visual image of the paintings at all and yet I can still correct an ironically incorrect statement about them and who painted them. The point I made then is missed, it is not only the experts that are dismissing a bad [del]painter[/del] researcher like Radin, but that also people that do look at fortean phenomena for a living also agree that Radin attempts to paint a picture of ESP that is at odds with what it is really going on; the failure of Radin to even acknowledge the admitted frauds that he used in his books and research is like horrible brush strokes in a fresco or canvas. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/129 "2016-04-28T17:42:18Z")
In other words, when we disparage Radin’s crap research over _here_, pointing out the tons of crap research he did over _there_ doesn’t really make your case, and it certainly doesn’t make him Michelangelo. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/130 "2016-04-28T17:50:42Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You just didn’t link to it-you _promoted_ it and Radin in several posts. No, I just linked to it. When that triggered a firestorm of opposition from your ilk I read more and noted that to me some of the results he claims to see and others claim to have replicated do merit further investigation. The same conclusion that a whole lot of people outside of psi research also have. The biggest critics of his work or any of the work linked on his website - people cited right in this thread in direct refutations of some of their data or test protocols - still conclude that more research is needed. Neither they, nor I, are promoting Radin in particular or anyone else by doing so. If you read Lemur866’s post and my reply to it, you may begin to understand why. Any good scientist with an open mind would. Any thinking person with an open mind would. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/131 "2016-04-28T17:54:07Z")
A good scientist recognizes and rejects fraud when it is encountered. What does this make Radin? ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/132 "2016-04-28T17:57:15Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > In other words, when we disparage Radin’s crap research over _here_, pointing out the tons of crap research he did over _there_ doesn’t really make your case, and it certainly doesn’t make him Michelangelo. “In other words” meaning ones I didn’t say? I don’t know. And as to the rest of this nonsensical babbling, I can’t even tell if you’re joking or actually misunderstand this entire conversation that badly. And in either case I know there is no point in continuing it. I would prefer to talk about psi research. > [@](#): > > ``` > A good scientist recognizes and rejects fraud when it is encountered. What does this make Radin? > > ``` I don’t know. What does it make the rest of the scientific community that agrees more research is warranted in many of the phenomena under investigation by psi researchers, Radin or otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/133 "2016-04-28T18:03:48Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > I don’t know. What does it make the rest of the scientific community that agrees more research is warranted in many of the phenomena under investigation by psi researchers, Radin or otherwise? It makes it a total non sequitur to the question I asked. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/134 "2016-04-28T18:05:42Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I’m just saying. And it remains very relevant, the quality of a work (in this case the ESP research) is \*\*very \*\*relevant to this. > > The point I made then is missed, it is not only the experts that are dismissing a bad [del]painter[/del] researcher like Radin, but that also people that do look at fortean phenomena for a living also agree that Radin attempts to paint a picture of ESP that is at odds with what it is really going on; the failure of Radin to even acknowledge the admitted frauds that he used in his books and research is like horrible brush strokes in a fresco or canvas. This all may be true but I think it would be more meaningful if you were telling it to someone who was arguing in favor of any one, single, specific claim Radin has ever made. I don’t think you’ll find any such arguments by me in this thread. I said it appeared to me that his approach to the subject is a lot more scientific than almost any other you will find in the area of psi, and later that after reading some of his studies, and more importantly the replications of those studies, that more research in the subject would be interesting. And most experts who are dismissing him (I don’t know who you’re referring to specifically) are also probably perfectly open to more research being done, after making whatever corrections to the protocol or analysis that they find fault with. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/135 "2016-04-28T18:07:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It makes it a total non sequitur to the question I asked. I’m sorry but I just can’t help you learn to read and comprehend the English language. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/136 "2016-04-28T18:08:00Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > If you read Lemur866’s post and my reply to it, you may begin to understand why. Any good scientist with an open mind would. Any thinking person with an open mind would. I read it too, it is clear that he is talking about the Radin’s studies also. > [@Lemur866](#): > > But the problem is that we’re not criticizing the raw math. The problem isn’t the math, the problem is the studies. A paper that shows a weakly significant effect, but has unreported methodological flaws is easy to dismiss. A thousand papers that show the same effect become highly significant because of the number of trials. But if all thousand papers suffer from the same sorts of systematic methodological flaws then the raw data they report doesn’t get stronger the more times you report it. You have to throw it all out. The take home lesson for the OP and others is that Radin could be pointed at, **but as an example of what not to do** , a complete answer to what the OP requested should include a note like that and that more research is needed indeed, and Radin shows **why** and \*\*what \*\*is needed to avoid his flaws as we need to find what senses are involved, if any. As pointed before, the evidence so far is very underwhelming, meaning that the more research that is needed is clearly one that \*\*avoids \*\*the mistaken path of Radin. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/137 "2016-04-28T18:08:38Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Did you read my link? The USA spent 17 years and $20 million (nearer $50 million on today’s money value) and found nothing of value. > I expect that dwarfs the research Radin has done. > [@Crazyhorse](#): > > I hesitate to even mention it at this point but since you clearly aren’t aware of it Radin was employed by SRI International during those years and participated in most of those tests. Ho ho! 😃 No I wasn’t aware that Radin was involved in **17 years of testing which found absolutely nothing** ; then decided to reopen the research and has still found nothing!:smack: Why on earth do you think Radin has anything to offer? ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/138 "2016-04-28T18:16:04Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Why on earth do you think Radin has anything to offer? I’m pretty sure he has a list of links to various psi research on his website to offer. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/139 "2016-04-28T18:16:47Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > This all may be true but I think it would be more meaningful if you were telling it to someone who was arguing in favor of any one, single, specific claim Radin has ever made. I don’t think you’ll find any such arguments by me in this thread. I said it appeared to me that his approach to the subject is a lot more scientific than almost any other you will find in the area of psi [Full stop] The problem is that you still continue to ignore that virtually all scientists and even skeptics that look at researchers like Radin agree that what Radin is doing is pseudo science, not science. BTW I did link early to this, but it is clear that you decided not to look at it. > **[Dean Radin](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dean_Radin)** > > Dean Radin is a parapsychologist and pseudoscience promoter. > [@](#): > > Radin published the book The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (1997). The book contained many errors. The British mathematician I. J. Good in the scientific journal Nature gave the book a negative review. Good discovered flaws in Radin’s method for evaluating the file-drawer effect.[1] According to Victor Stenger: > > > [@](#): > > > > Radin is aware of the file-drawer effect, in which only positive results tend to get reported and negative ones are left in the filing cabinet. This obviously can greatly bias any analysis of combined results and Radin cannot ignore this as blithely as he ignores other possible, non-paranormal explanations of the data. Even the most fervent parapsychologists recognize this problem. Meta-analysis incorporates a procedure for taking the file-drawer effect into account. Radin says it shows that more than 3,300 unpublished, unsuccessful reports would be needed for each published report in order to “nullify” the statistical significance of psi. In his review of Radin’s book for the journal Nature, statistics professor I.J. Good disputes this calculation, calling it “a gross overestimate.” He estimates that the number of unpublished, unsuccessful reports needed to account for the results by the file drawer effect should be reduced to fifteen or less. How could two meta-analyses result in such a wide discrepancy? Somebody is doing something wrong, and in this case it is clearly Radin. He has not performed the file-drawer analysis correctly.[2] So there are many experts that looked at the research already made by Radin, like John Stenger, who was an American particle physicist, philosopher, author, and religious skeptic. So, again, avoid Radin. There should be more research done but clearly not by the likes of him. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173/140 "2016-04-28T18:18:22Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The take home lesson for the OP and others is that Radin could be pointed at, **but as an example of what not to do** ,… Also as an example of someone who has a big list of links to psi research on his website. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-esp/753173.md?page=8)