Another problem with those studies, which is very difficult to solve: Suppose that a major university, or the Department of Defense, or whoever is studying ESP. Eventually, they find that it doesn’t work. But meanwhile, what’s the headline? “Harvard researchers studying ESP”. A lot of people are going to look at a headline like that and conclude that there must be something to it, or else why would they be studying it?
We have lots of such “hidden” senses that aren’t strictly vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. So for example the semicircular canals that control balance are sense organs, but they aren’t part of any of the above senses. Or the carbon dioxide sensors that create the feeling of really needing to breathe. And “touch” is really a laundry list of different sensors that are only loosely related, such as warmth, cold, pressure, pain, touch, proprioception, and so on.
Mental powers (I’m going to use ESP for shorthand) have been a major part of science fiction since at least the 1930s. For example the Lensman series has heroes who alternate between creating high-tech rockets, blasters, and explosives and developing their mind for telepathy, telekinesis, and other mental abilities, and it’s not abnormal in that respect. There was a feeling like ‘the science of the mind’ was something we were about to tap into in a big way, just like nuclear power or warp travel, and there wasn’t the accumulated evidence against ESP.
As time went on and ESP moved further away from being real science, ESP was just sort of grandfathered in as having always been part of science fiction, sort of like FTL drives (but not as needed). It kept on through the 60s and 70s with Star Trek, but it’s not like it stopped; TNG and other ST spinoffs, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, and other relatively hard SF shows from the 90s to today kept it. I don’t think it can really be called a 60s “Age of Aquarius” thing because it started back in the pulp magazine days and continued up until today.
Yes, it was grandfathered in along with robots who cry because they don’t have emotions, sexy green-skinned alien space babes, and space ships that exactly replicate the sailing ships of the Napoleonic age. It’s such a part of the background of science fiction that it doesn’t raise eyebrows.
I’ll grant you the others, but Battlestar Galactica didn’t really have psionics. It had just plain magic.
Oh, and don’t forget Firefly.
Agreed. It’s a myth that there are only 5 senses. We have many more, and there is plenty of room for study of how those senses work with having to resort to “extra sensory” hypotheses.
How much of that is due to the influence of John W. Campbell?
See post #15.
[deleted] sorry mis-post
*Wash: [about River] Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science-fiction.
Zoë: We live in a spaceship, dear.
Wash: So?*Psionics are a trope of science fiction to be sure, but so are many other implausible things such as interspecies breeding, teleportation, vehicles which can change direction instantaneously, artificially produced gravity that continues to work even when the ship’s power and life systems are failiing, et cetera. In reality, if extrasensory perception, telekinesis, precognition, or purported psionic powers worked on some fundamental physical and heritable biological principles they would provide such an evolutionary and reproductive advantage we’d expect everyone to have them. Statistically, not a single properly conducted blind study has demonstrated psionic powers to any credible degree of confidence, and those that claim some minor degree of statistical significance (usually at the bse 50% confidence level) have almost always been later shown to have gross methodological errors. James Randi’s Project Alpha (Wikipedia actually has a [URL=Project Alpha - Wikipedia]good summary) thoroughly exposed methodolgoical errors in the study even by scientists who were attempting to follow objective protocols leading to false positives from obvious trickery.
There is physically no mechanism for almost all forms of so-called extrasensory perception to actually work, and no way at all for telekinesis, pyrokinesis, et cetera to be applied. Until someone can unambiguously demonstrate a clear capability to read minds or float bowling balls by the effort of will, I think the default assumption has to be that ESP and psionic powers are in the same category as cantrips and unicorns.
Stranger
Except they use their ordinary sense to do those things, not some unknown 6th sense.
Well, another common issue is that, in the 60s-70s, but occasionally more recently, there were a lot of scientists who understood from physics/etc how to set up a study that was statistically valid, but did not have an appreciation for how complex human beings are compared to, say, electrons. Electrons don’t come up with surprisingly creative ways to cheat on tests, or (possibly unconsciously) pick up on subtle cues from people administering tests. Plus there’s always the 1 in 20 studies that finds a illusionary but statistically valid association just by chance. So there were a few bunches of studies that really did show statistically! valid! evidence! for ESP.
The researchers with more intellectual honesty and fortitude to question themselves would then eventually put things in place to eliminate various ways of potential cheating, and their subsequent studies showed no evidence. But the first, flawed, ones were the ones that true believers trumpeted
Why people want to believe in ESP is another matter, and maybe the question that really explains the hype.
A guy named Dean Radin is one of the legitimate and well credentialed scientists who hasn’t given up on the idea. Anyone interested in the subject can find list of peer-reviewed studies he maintans on his website.
That’s nice.
What’s the best evidence he’s found?
I don’t know. Why don’t you read the studies and find out?
I’m not taking a position supporting or denying what he has to say, just offering the information in the interest of fighting ignorance to anyone who is actually interested in the subject and would like to know what a legitimate scientist is doing in the area instead of relying on woo doctors on one side, and nay-saying amateurs on the other.
No, I am NOT going to “read all the studies and find out”, since you are the one that brought them up in the first place as some sort of counter-example of this being anything but woo. Dean Radin could have a pile of promising studies a mile wide and ten miles high, but they aren’t worth a bucket of slug spit if not a one of them fulfill on those promises.
Well I explained why I provided the information in this thread. With your permission I will go ahead and leave it here for anyone who is actually interested in the subject, and they can consider your input for what is worth as well.
Too late to edit: If you are talking about this Dean Radin, I wouldn’t trust his ability to gather information about the subject, let alone pass judgment on it.
We already know that there are an uncountable number of studies out there. The question is: Are there any in the ones that you just added to the pile that point to positive, verifiable evidence for the existence of ESP?