So an experimenter needs to prove claims (economy of phrasing with “proof” of course) by getting good data. The hallmark of good data is a good experiment. One of the hallmarks of a good experiment is reproducability. We won’t attempt to reproduce it until you get good data.
Some of you may be interested to read Mike Schermer’s little essay in this month’s Scientific American.
Schermer says this:
He then goes to point out that recent meta-studies which may provide some evidence for psychic powers are in effect pointless unless someone can overcome two major hurdles: the data must be incontestable–or at least less suspect than it currently is, and a theory must be supplied which explains the phenomena.
It’s pointless for me to prove that a door automatically opens when I approach it and then say, “see, there are unknown forces at work on this door!” It doesn’t explain jack, it doesn’t completely reveal how the door works, it just proves that the damned door opens–somehow.
Maybe the door is the entrance to a supermarket. Maybe I’m blocking an air current in my summer home. Maybe I’m Leonard Nimoy on the set of Star Trek–and we all know how those doors worked.
That’s why I don’t trust studies which show “something’s going on,” and won’t until someone can come up with a theory and evidence to back it up.
Agreed. As I’ve said before, there is a big difference between:
There is no evidence for P; therefore not P
and,
There is no evidence for P.
Skepticism today has taken on a crusade-like quality with all its associated irrational fervor. Take the recent show “Myth Busters.” While the show is meant to be light-hearted, it nevertheless betrays the prevailing attitude among some that everything is a wive’s tale. In one scene, the investigators attempted to replicate the conditions surrounding the story of a lawyer who allegedly jumped through a plate glass window and fell to his death. They initially came to the conclusion that it was impossible - another myth busted! But it actually DID happen. They only revised their conclusion when they decided to break the window just for kicks. I’m not providing this example to show that skeptics employ bad science (though they did in this case) but rather to show a suspiciously fervent desire to debunk.
Debunking myths is so intellectually satisfying that it seduces otherwise intelligent people into debunking what isn’t myth.
IMO, militant skepticism is equally as psychologically expedient as religion. The latter takes solace in the idea that their is something else “out there” while the former takes solace in the WYSIWYG-ness of the world.
If this were true new fields of study could never get off the ground. Unless that’s the point.
Thanks, KC. But I think I’d have to work harder than that to make a statement like “I for one wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it was possible to influence electrons but not photons” sound intelligent by comparison!
Oh boy. If you willing to make the conceptual leap that telekinesis is possible at all, then the leap to believe that an object needs mass in order to be affected isn’t that much more of a leap. Do consider submitting your resume to the "Holy Roman Skeptics Society.
I probably misunderstood what you said but, the authenticity of the results of an experiment are not governed by our ability to explain them. Theory might help to shape future experiments but isn’t necessary to validate current ones.
Right, and then if say it doesn’t work for protons, I guess maybe we would want to conclude that the less mass the better (after all, there is less momentum involved to change). Or, that it only works for negatively charged particles. Or, maybe the second experiment was done in Denver and we can hypothesize that there is a strong dependence on elevation!
It’s fun to conjecture in a land with no constraints!
jshore, you’ve managed to miss the entire point of the exercise. You took my statement about photons/electrons as evidence that I believe in telekinesis. My only point was that the two experiments were materially different and that the second one didn’t necessarily provide evidence against the credibility of the results of the first. Keep talking though because your proving to be an excellent example of the type of person I’m attempting to describe in this thread as being damaging to the credibility of skeptics.
KC: And you’re missing my whole point which is that it is impossible to disprove a “shot-in-the-dark” hypothesis by failing to replicate it if one can always claim that the circumstances of the 2nd experiment differ from those of the 1st in some way which just may happen to be material now that we think about it! I think that Randi et al. can probably find better things to do with their time; they are already doing a great service to the cause of science as it is.
As someone else here said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” To say that these claims are extraordinary and that the evidence is far from extraordinary are both understatements. I’m not claiming that telekinesis has been proven not to exist (it never really can be) but rather that the evidence provided for it so far simply does not require us to waste our time taking it seriously. If you call that close-minded, so be it!
In times like these, I like to quote a saying that goes something like, “Be open-minded but not so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
Well, this is where I begin to slightly disagree with you, KidCharlemagne. Authenticity is governed by the quality of the data collected. So first things first the data collection has to be done in a way which is credible. Many, if not most, of the experiments conducted in the field of parapsychology have been shown to have flaws in the way the data was collected. The meta-study (which is in itself a risky way to conduct science if you ask me) cited in the article I linked also had some possible analytical flaws. That’s a big problem right there.
But the larger problem is this: say you run a psi experiment and the credible data shows some sort of anomaly. It still doesn’t prove anything. Your theory that someone is receiving a signal from someone via an unmeasurable medium may be just as credible as my theory that some parapsychologists’ assistant will lose his damned job if they don’t come up with something interesting before the funding runs out. However, a little bit of shaving with Occam’s razor should put an entirely different complexion on the face of the matter–until the results are reproduced.
I agree that erislover has a point about extreme skepticism, but to that I say that after millenia, it’s time that the field of parapsychology needs to get itself off the ground. Demonstrate credible evidence that something is happening using reliable data. Reproduce the results. Rinse and repeat, because this field of study hasn’t come out of the compost pile since it was invented back when we were still banging rocks together.
If you can get that far people will start to stand up and take notice. But even then, my money is still on the research assistant and his own ass. That’s why you need to also produce a theory and evidence in favor of it.
But you can’t say at the same time that the field does not lend itself to credible data and verifiable experiments and then fault it for not producing same.
The important point here is that absence of proof is not proof of absence but it is evidence to the extent that you would expect proof to be there (the dog that didn’t bark). So if someone suggests that a mouse is living in your house you might consider the possiblity without evidence, but you would be much more skeptical about a similar claim involving an elephant.
So if no one has been able to come up with verifiable evidence, but there’s reason to believe that verifiable evidence would be hard to come by even if the phenomena do exist, we’re back to square one - we simply don’t know.
Sure you can.
You judge something by what it does. There is no other way. Parapsychology has consistently produced shoddy research and irreproducible data. Thus, it’s perfectly sensible to judge the field as not lending itself to creditable data and verifiable experiments until it finally does produce such things. It’s up to the parapsychs to make themselves credible.
**
Look, there’s not much to this. Say I claim that I can turn desks into mounds of strawberry cream cheese with the powers of my mind. Until you see me do it, you’ll (probably) doubt me, since that violates the known laws of nature. If I replied to your doubt by saying, “Just because I’m not doing it now doesn’t mean I can’t do it,” that shouldn’t convince you of anything. Because I still haven’t proven a damn thing.
Now…you do have a point that the skeptics who make up SCICOP tend to be obnoxious naysayers. I find them tedious and irritating, and they can be insufferably smug.
Then again, I’m not convinced by niceness; I’m convinced by evidence. Skeptics have evidence that I can check out myself. Parapsychs don’t. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it exists. Either prove your point or accept my doubt. Don’t expect me to take you on faith. You ain’t Jesus.
(If you are Jesus, please e-mail me. Thanks.)
Actually it’s not up to anyone to do anything. What you believe about paranormal phenomena should have nothing to do with whether or not someone else has failed to live up to their obligation. It should be based on what is likely true. There is no “innocent until proven guilty” equivalent here.
Again, if you happen to believe that these phenomena do not exist that’s fine. But you can’t draw support from the fact that it hasn’t been verified if you agree that verification would be difficult in any event.
But the important thing here is that my doubting would NOT be based on the fact that you haven’t proved it - it would be based on the fact that I am predisposed to disbelieve it.
Agreed on all points.
Well you can’t start with a premise that the data is credible then conclude that it was manipulated by a devious assistant. Either the data is credible or not.
I’m just surprised that people put time and energy into debating the results of the study instead of just doing it again under the supervision of a panel of professional skeptics. The original investigators are generally well respected within the science community and many skeptics admit to be intrigued by the methods and results. I really doubt Jahn would backpedal on the conclusions as jshore suggests - the man is a legit scientist. It just seems like a worthwhile endeavor. Who knows, maybe we can shut the parapsychologists up for good. Well…
In certain fields, skeptics have been asked for help and they have recieved it. Sometimes, however, the help given is ignored (as in the case with Gary Schwartz).
Randi, AFAIK, has visited PEAR and they both pretty much know they cannot help each other. Its too much minutia in what PEAR is looking for for Randi to help.
PEAR is working with miniscule factors, some so small they must use a tool called meta-analysis to find any anamolies. Trounle is, MA is a tool that can be used to find what you’re looking for, even when it is not there. It is also very hard to check.
I haven’t been very impressed with PEAR. They are overcelebrated by people since they play by the rules. (for which they should be commended) at the same time, they are not immune to mistakes, and the positive results they have gotten or miniscule and elusive.
IzzyR: CSICOP has biases, this is not a crime. Any advocacy organization will have biases. However, CSICOP’s aims are in line with proper scientific method.
In addition, Truzzi’s break with CSICOP does not impress me. Truzzi was extremely soft on pseudo-science that needed a much harder approach. The failure of his Zetetic speaks volumes to me. His “scholarly approach” may sound nice and noble, but it was useless in getting down to explanations and the like.
Randi does not share this POV, BTW. IIRC, claimants will often be eager to tell Randi why they have their incredible powers. Randi’s response is basically, “Never mind. Just show me the phenomenon that needs explaining”.
I don’t think I agree with this. You have to have the evidence before you can have a theory to explain the evidence. With some phenomenon like radioactivity, it was clearly shown that there was something going on before people starting coming up with models in which atoms weren’t indestructible and could shoot out little bits of themselves and so forth.
The problem with parapsychological phenomena is that so far no one has demonstrated that there’s anything there for a grand new theory to explain.
There’s something to this, but I think it’s a natural consequence of being involved in skepticism that eventually develops, rather than a original motivating bias.
Over time, professional skeptics and those who keep up with them (such as myself, who read Skeptical Inquirer, Free Inquiry, and stop by Randi’s site regularly) eventually start to see certain types of assertion and recognize them as similiar to other assertions that have been revealed as shams before. Eventually, all these claims start to look like part of the same batch of irrationalities. The temptation at that point is to simply dismiss new claims of a similiar nature offhand, because if all the prior claims were BS then why would this one have any truth to it?
This is where the professional skeptics who do the research and publish in the periodicals have to maintain vigilance and not slide into the trap. It’s their job to investigate these claims, or at least not affirmatively dismiss them unless they’ve done so (not even CSICOP has the time to look into every kook’s claims.) For the rest of us who are just interested amateurs, there’s not much harm in making the assumption from time to time that a new claim is as phony as an older similiar claim, because we have jobs and lives and don’t have the time or obligation to look into every single variant of some common paranormal claim (ESP, ghosts, etc.)
And we all end up making assumptions about the nature of the world around us from repeated similiar incidents. After years and years of seeing pretty much any paranormal or non-materialist claim end up to be a load of garbage, it’s natural to see the world as being wholly constituted of explainable material phenomena. Of course, this is not to dismiss anything contradicting that worldview, but it would be necessary to shove it under our faces in boldface, italicized, to get a serious reexamination. Still, I hold the pros to a higher standard, they have to remain a little more observant, a little more thorough, and more vigorous.
Not all the time. For example, aether had been thought to exist, until A. A. Michaelson decided to actually look for it.