I just recently found this group and it looks as if it has not been that active lately. So, in an attmept to jump-start the conversation from a different perspective, and if you will pardon the re-posting from the Neuroscience group, I’d like to get a broader response to this article and topic.

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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?