Extrasensory perception (ESP) fails the test
Noah Gray
Monday, 14 January 2008 20:13 UTC
You probably didn’t need ESP to see this one coming: using state-of-the-art technology, neural evidence for the existence of telepathy, clairvoyance or precognition is lacking. Harvard researchers used fMRI in an attempt to detect any changes in BOLD signals when participants looked at different images, including ones that were being “sent” to them by a relative, friend, or partner in another room. The participant in the scanner should have recognized some of the images as “familiar”, if they had previously “received” the image from the participant in the other room. No changes in the fMRI response to any of the images meant no ESP.
Although interesting, there are plenty of problems with this study, the most glaring being that participants were randomly selected as opposed to using individuals with established paranormal talents. But independent of that, and despite the nice design of the experiment, the absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absence, as stated by Daryl Bem, a psychology professor at Cornell University in an article covering this study.
Discussion Points
1. Should scientists waste time and resources testing the claims of pseudoscience?
2. Is fMRI the best technique to determine the existence of ESP?
3. How does this evidence compare to the strength of evidence in favor of ESP?
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“Although interesting, there are plenty of problems with this study, the most glaring being that participants were randomly selected as opposed to using individuals with established paranormal talents.”
Absolutely. On the basis of this methodology, you could randomly select a group of people who were not pro baseball players and erroneously conclude that humans aren’t capable of hitting a home-run.
I tend to agree with Ray Hynman (and the article you link to) that attempting to test ostensibly “paranormal” phenomena empirically is conceptually problematic. And setting up flawed experiments to test such phenomena doesn’t do any justice to science.
I Want To Believe, but some things are best left to Mulder and Scully, IMHO.
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Certainly scientists are wasting their time testing the claims of pseudo-science.
However, there are two separate issues here.
The first of these is addressing empirical claims. “Observed behavior” that is not consistent with current models do need to be inspected and eliminated by scientists whose work is related in some way.
The second issue is the sociological scope of the claim. If the claim is widely supported by an irrational belief then we have a social responsibility to address the issue.
The real question is, should the public waste the time of scientists by supporting the claims of pseudo-science.
Since we have no really adequate comprehension of what sense is in the first place, it seems unwise to attempt to make any type of comparison. Sense is comprehensible currently only to the extent that a sense correlates to some consistent action on the part of the organism; I see the ball and catch it.
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While I doubt the existence of ESP, I see no reason to discourage anyone “wasting their time” investigating it. Things that were once considered magical or mythical are now commonplace due to the application of science and technology. Maybe someone will come up with a technology-based ESP as a result of their interest. My doubts do not make it a waste of time unless, doubtful or not, it is absolutely untestable. And I’m not convinced that we can say that. As to this particular study, the flaws you noted may have made it a waste of time…the study just doesn’t demonstrate anything very useful.
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3. I agree with the notion that absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absence. Their results indicate that ESP probably is not a universal human characteristic.
2. fMRI is the best technique until present, since we have no evidence of where the ESP is received and fMRI can detect small changes in the whole brain volume.
1. Considering the scientist, it is clearly his decision based upon his fundings. Trying to find ways to study this question will lead to the development of better techniques, and if there is a case of ESP existence, it will be possible to prove. In the other case, science in general should focus in more fundamental questions (fortunatelly it does).
My opposition with this kind of questions is always another question: Why people with established paranormal talents don’t come front and help this world by letting science study them and thus discover any ESP? Although scientists should be open minded, there are questions like “is there a god?” that by their nature can’t be proven…
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I think that Emmanouil raises an excellent point. To facilitate the understanding of such “gifts”, indeed, why is it that so few (are there any?) individuals possessing supernatural talents actually allow scientists to better understand their abilities? Athletes that accomplish extraordinary physical feats are not shy to allow science to determine the mechanisms underlying their means of completing the Ironman competition, etc… Is this because their talents/physical attributes are actually measurable by modern science (arguably unlike ESP)? Or is it because there is a fear by those claiming to have ESP of being “outed”?
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Dear Noah,
Regarding your remark that “participants were randomly selected as opposed to using individuals with established paranormal talents”, I’d be curious to know how such supernatural talents are ‘established’ in the first place? As far as I know, nobody has managed to do this, not even James Randi in his million-dollar challenge (www.randi.org). Anyone can claim to possess paranormal abilities, but when such people are tested in controlled circumstances they don’t perform above chance level. They always have plenty of excuses of course (interference by negative energy emitted by the skeptical scientist being one).
I agree that absence of evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of absense, but in the case of ESP (and all paranormal claims) it should be up to the claimant to prove that ESP exists. -
By established, I did mean people who claimed to have such special abilities.
Although, there is a slippery slope here, since using “gifted” individuals could increase the potential for experimental manipulation by nefarious advocates of ESP, leading to a study scientifically “proving” ESP when in fact, the subjects cheated. Having false positive data is almost more dangerous than having no data at all.
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I confess that I am a little worried by the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” argument – as rhetorically perfect as it is. This rationale simply supports any irrational belief.
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I don’t understand your concern, Steven. It is simply good science to state that one cannot dismiss something simply because one failed to find something.
The only way to be sure is to provide evidence of absence. Although challenging, people do it all the time (so-called negative data). All negative data is evidence of absence, in a sense. If science has yet to provide evidence of absence for any particular irrational belief, but has simultaneously failed to provide any evidence supporting its existence, it looks like there is more work to be done. Despite that literal viewpoint, my bigger question from the above post was whether scientists should be using limited research dollars and resources to work on problems such as the existence of the paranormal. If it is private funding, fine, but I don’t believe that public funding should be used to address such questions.
For the record, the above studies were supported by the Bial Foundation and the Richard Hodgson Memorial Fund. I assume that they are aware of how their money was spent.
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The problem is that your standard of evidence supports mere invention. True science starts with speculation but if you do not base such speculation on empirical standards then you open the flood gates for irrational thought.
For example, by your standard both God and the Tooth Fairy are worthy of scientific consideration.
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