I am now just picking on some portions of responses I did not bother to blather on about, before:
This line, perhaps could use some clarification:
* My intention to try to overcome mental barriers of disbelievers by additional experimental evidence.
Which disbelievers are you trying to convince? It sounds like you are implying mainstream scientists.
But, wouldn't a brilliant, new hypothesis do a lot more to "overcome their mental barriers"?
Think about obtaining quality of evidence, instead of quantity.
* General problems of publishing such findings in journals whose primary goal is to keep track of topics that can safely be located within the current Gates of Science;
And, this sounds suspiciously conspiratorial. If scientists were so averse to changing the course of their own fields, then how come these were all rapidly accepted:
* plate-tectonics
* General and Special Relativity
* The Big Bang Theory
* The cladistic system of classifying species
Etc.
If mainstream scientists only acknowledged observations that already have pertinent explanations, by providing plausible mechanisms etc., then science would stagnate.
I just wanted to add that this is wrong. All the examples I just gave, above (plate-tectonics, etc.), were all based on observations that
already had pertinent explanations. But, someone else came along and provided
better ones.
Scientists testing parapsychological issues share this penchant. They dislike unreliable results. A certain proportion of scientific observations are unreliable, even though they are real. The only straightforward question is: Why may observations be unreliable? Why are weather predictions unreliable? Why are predictions of comet crashes on earth unreliable? Why are predictions of creative discoveries in science unreliable? Why are evolutionary changes unpredictable? All this unpredictable stuff occurs. Occurrences may be factual even though they have not been predicted and even though they are not predictable in principle despite maximum effort of the entire scientific community.
Sounds good to me! This is probably one of the most insightful things written, in this thread!
Have you started working on any of these "whys", in your studies?
If you know x conditions giving rise to a phenomenon P which requires x+y conditions to become fully explained, you will not be able to make accurate predictions of P if you are only aware of those x conditions and unaware of those y conditions. If your brain is involved (x condition), among others, when P occurs, you cannot force P to occur by mere brain activity.
Have you started working on any of these "y's", also?
I would test an unselected sample of 3000 people. The additional costs for experimenters and data analyzers might raise the required amount to $12,000. Only then would I continue my testing, if possible under skeptical supervision (even under JREF supervision), with 4-5 psi-gifted participants.
So, you would just do more of the same.
That does not sound like a promising way to find "why" or "y", to me. You might be much more productive, if you had some form of those to work with.
Thus, my overall result may be considered as merely marginally significant. I would not dare conclusions about form-generating psi effects in my own case. But I myself am a poor psi effect producer. Individual differences are large and reliable.
If someone wrote a book, in which the author describes your experiments as very promising to the future of psi, would you be prone to remind him of this?
The somewhat hidden meaning of these questions seems to
imply that parapsychologists are not interested in explanations. This is not
so.
Oh, I have no doubt parapsychologists are interested in explanations. My point is three-fold:
1. They do not have any, yet
2. They are not even trying very hard to obtain any
3. Mainstream science already has some, though they are very mundane
Archeologists are still faced with eight scripts which cannot yet be
deciphered. But they are extremely interested in grasping the written
information.
And, they are actively developing and testing hypothesis to do so!
There is no doubt the scripts are there. No one needs to propose a hypothesis that "there exists unexplained scripts". What they are proposing are ideas to help decipher them.
Archeologists are several steps ahead of parapsychologists, in that regard, even if they do not have all the answers, yet.
None of these tests showed alternative effect indications.
None of the tests were testing for any effect, in particular. That is the problem. That is why the results are so ambiguous. And, that is why all the other explanations I offered are still not ruled out.
