A parapsychologist writes about leaving parapsychology

[davidsmith73]

Why do you need to get paid for it? Surely, you can find spare time to replicate just one of the experiments you find "promising"?

Well, if I was prepared to drop everything else that's happening in my life in order to do it properly, but I'm not prepared to do that so, no.

 

[davidsmith73]

David.

Good for you, that you're an atheist. But if we are all part of a vibrating membrane floating in 11 dimensions, there is still no god and the universe will still not have been made for us.

This was kind of my point. Which makes me wonder why you think parapsychology is a thinly veiled theistic pursuit. Do you mean that most parapsychologists have a theistic agenda, rather than parapsychology per se being a theistic pursuit ?

Perhaps I should wait until snippets of your PhD are ready?

 

[CFLarsen]

Well, if I was prepared to drop everything else that's happening in my life in order to do it properly, but I'm not prepared to do that so, no.

Why would you need to do all that, in order to do it properly?

 

[davidsmith73]

Why would you need to do all that, in order to do it properly?

because I don't have enough time

 

[CFLarsen]

because I don't have enough time

How long does it take?

 

[psp02ls]

What disturbs me is this. I was involved with 3 PH studies. Quite a lot for a new area. I also tested well over 700 people for my PhD. But David's not convinced I did it right. The fact that I found nothing, hints at more going on, does it? And so he wants to carry on and do his own experiments.

That is parapsychology all over. Ignore previous research findings and just do whatever fills your head. Parapsychology is a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, because it offers people supernatural outs. When is a whole lot of nothing evidence for something?

As I said before, as soon as any psychic passes James Randi's tests, I might be interested.

 

[davidsmith73]

What disturbs me is this. I was involved with 3 PH studies. Quite a lot for a new area.

One of which was quite successful IMO. If we consider the 3 unpublished negative studies that would be 5-3 in favour of negative studies (of course, there could be more unpublished negative studies we don't know about). That may be enough for you to discount the 3 successful experiments by whatever means you think appropriate, but I'm a little more optimistic. I'll post why I think this soon.

I also tested well over 700 people for my PhD. But David's not convinced I did it right.

I'm sorry Louie, I'm not saying that you are incompetent! I haven't even seen your PhD. There may be many factors why experiments don't work and yes, the non-existence of the effect is of course one of them.

The fact that I found nothing, hints at more going on, does it? And so he wants to carry on and do his own experiments.

Well, its more the fact that others have found something going on.

When is a whole lot of nothing evidence for something?

So I take it that your opinion on the positive results in the field is due to a combination of chance, bad experimentation and bad stats? That's fair enough. You probably have a better understanding of this than me. But you understand that I have to be a bit sceptical of your opinion until I check for myself.

Looking forward to reading parts of your PhD on your blog.

 

[CFLarsen]

I'm sorry Louie, I'm not saying that you are incompetent! I haven't even seen your PhD. There may be many factors why experiments don't work and yes, the non-existence of the effect is of course one of them.
...
Looking forward to reading parts of your PhD on your blog.

How can you dismiss his PhD if you haven't read it?

 

[psp02ls]

>But you understand that I have to be a bit sceptical of your opinion until I >check for myself.

Okay I personally don't get this.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I posit that parapsychology is nonsense. How can the onus of proof be on me to 'prove' that there is nothing going on? Again, that's hardly science.

What you mean is, you 'believe' other people that there is something paranormal going on? Let's get that right.

I served as the parapsychological association programme chair in 2005. I was sent many different papers by parapsychologists around the world. I suggest you try and work to get that position in the future. It's very revealing seeing some of the terrible research that people spend their life researching.

But we are going around in circles David. My lot in life is not to convince you. I already learnt from what I did.

Either listen to my informed opinion or ignore it. The choice, as they say, is yours.

 

[Ersby]

If we consider the 3 unpublished negative studies that would be 5-3 in favour of negative studies (of course, there could be more unpublished negative studies we don't know about).

Could you list these studies?

 

[psp02ls]

I'd also like to add that if you think my scepticism was quick in developing, you are wrong. I thought I told the story quite well in my article. But maybe it's not coming across very well.

I used to believe the evidence for precognition was compelling. There are some great spontaneous cases which are quite impressive. And people like Dean Radin argue a good case for the empirical work.

So I've done research in lots of different areas. Precognitive habituation. Ganzfeld. Dream ESP. Telephone telepathy. To name just a few. Often with multiple experiments and failed replications.

I've also been on ghost hunts. Met some of the 'best' psychics and mediums. And heard lots of different stories.

What did I conclude from all of that experience?

I learnt that Dean Radin and others misrepresent their results and the results of others. I have a fantastic example of this, which I'll post on my blog this week. But without spoiling the surprise, I found that the results you get can depend on the statistics you use.

People only believe in a 'para'normal because there is evidence in the world which suggests that strange things occur. But that evidence is actually pretty poor. People just believe weird things.

But as a scientist I am only interested in what is real.

Do I really need to keep repeating this? What should I have done?

 

[JMA]

Finally, I had intended not to write up PhD, in the light of the fact that there seems no apparent audience. The parapsychologists will continue to ignore null findings (on the basis already discussed) and the sceptics will say ‘so what’. I was finally motivated to finish it, in the hope that I might dissuade others who are interested in the question of the paranormal, from pursuing it any further.

I'm really looking forward to read your thesis. It will be really interresting! So, you see, there is an audience for it!

(A sceptics who says ‘so what’ is not a real sceptics.)

 

[fls]

One of which was quite successful IMO. If we consider the 3 unpublished negative studies that would be 5-3 in favour of negative studies (of course, there could be more unpublished negative studies we don't know about). That may be enough for you to discount the 3 successful experiments by whatever means you think appropriate, but I'm a little more optimistic. I'll post why I think this soon.

That's a nice illustration of the kind of thinking that seems to drive parapsychology research among believers. Rather than attempting to prove themselves wrong (the basic idea behind the statistical methods/standards in general use), they are searching for a way to consistently demonstrate an effect that they think is real - looking for the signal amongst the noise.

So it's like the "sharp-shooter" that fires a shot at the side of a barn and then draws a target around the hole. A number of studies are performed, and those that happen to fall on the upper half of the normal distribution are labelled "promising". If you do 13 studies, you even have a 50/50 chance that one will be "statistically significant". Actually, since parapsychologists are fond of one-tailed testing, you'd only need to do 6 studies to have an even chance that one study will happen to fulfill the requirements of "statistically significant".

The overall distribution of results is consistent with what you'd expect to see due to chance (ignoring poorly designed and executed research), but the believer sees something different. They see successful (upper half of the normal curve) and unsuccessful (lower half of the normal curve) methods of demonstrating an effect. It they focus their efforts on those studies that were successful (repeating and refining the search), they hope that it will lead to a consistent demonstration of the effect.

As the "successful" studies are pursued by performing more studies, you will again get some results that fall above the average and some that fall below. And of course, those that fall above average are even more promising. And on it goes. It's the classic Stock-Market-Scam. And it explains why the pursuit of "promising" research in parapsychology never seems to go anywhere convincing. Eventually these leads peter out and then it's on to something new. There is an endless supply of above average results, after all.

Linda

 

[Ersby]

As the "successful" studies are pursued by performing more studies, you will again get some results that fall above the average and some that fall below. And of course, those that fall above average are even more promising. And on it goes. It's the classic Stock-Market-Scam. And it explains why the pursuit of "promising" research in parapsychology never seems to go anywhere convincing. Eventually these leads peter out and then it's on to something new. There is an endless supply of above average results, after all.

Linda

This even has a name in parapsychology - "the decline effect" and some people consider it to be an intrinsic aspect of psi: that it declines over time. That it is "capricious and actively evasive".

 

[CFLarsen]

This even has a name in parapsychology - "the decline effect" and some people consider it to be an intrinsic aspect of psi: that it declines over time. That it is "capricious and actively evasive".

It declines over time with improved controls, yes.

Left unchecked, the "effect" certainly continue to "exist".

Until you check for real.

 

[Jeff Corey]

This even has a name in parapsychology - "the decline effect" and some people consider it to be an intrinsic aspect of psi: that it declines over time. That it is "capricious and actively evasive".

It is most parsimoniously explained by statistical regression to the mean. The few people who get extremely high scores by chance are very likely to regress toward the mean of the distribution upon retesting.

 

[CFLarsen]

It is most parsimoniously explained by statistical regression to the mean. The few people who get extremely high scores by chance are very likely to regress toward the mean of the distribution upon retesting.

In the unlikely event that they submit themselves to retesting, yes.

Because they know, Jeff. They know that, if they are retested, with proper controls (strangely enough, the controls under which they performed so admirably are non-existent), they can't replicate their fantastic results.

They prefer to seduce the (often willingly) gullible with their one-hit wonder result. To pick one, John Edward, fooling an all-too-willing Gary Schwartz, boasts of his fantastic result in the Arizona Abominations.

They don't seek out the best researchers. They seek out those they know they can bamboozle. That's why skeptics have such a hard time getting them to be tested by skeptics: They know that there will be controls, so they can't cheat.

And then, they go on the circuit and brag that they have been "scientifically tested", and therefore, doesn't need to be tested again. And nobody can take their claim from them. Laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[Ersby]

They don't seek out the best researchers. They seek out those they know they can bamboozle. That's why skeptics have such a hard time getting them to be tested by skeptics: They know that there will be controls, so they can't cheat.

And this is called "the Experimenter Effect".

You know, it almost as if these researchers have an explantion for any kind of result.

 

[CFLarsen]

And this is called "the Experimenter Effect".

You know, it almost as if these researchers have an explantion for any kind of result.

That's why they know.

 

[Kaylee]

Louie, while you were actively involved in parapsychology did you ever receive or hear about any information from Laurentian University in Canada about the effect of magnetic fields on the [alleged] remote viewing (RV) abilities of Ingo Swann? (Here's two links about Swann: wiki and skepdic (the 2nd link is mostly about RV, but includes some info about Swann)).

I found two abstracts in the www.pubmed.gov search engine. (For you non-Americans reading this, this search engine is financed by the USA National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health, both USA govt. agencies. ) The researchers appear to assert that their results showed that magnetic fields affected Swann's RV abilities. [ETA: set tje search engine to pubmed and use these search terms: "remote viewing ingo swann". Only two abstracts will come up.]

I don't have access to the journal (Perceptual and Motor Skills) these studies were published in. I also don't know how the journal or the university is regarded by most scientists, nor do I know how to find out.
So if you or anyone else reading this thread does, I would appreciate your sharing. Assuming no one knows, how could I go about finding out?

I'm also curious if there are any criteria that an experiment has to meet before it can get included in the PubMed database. Again, if anyone reading this thread knows, I would appreciate your sharing.
And again, assuming that no one knows, how could I go about finding out?

Here's the URL

Percept Mot Skills. 2002 Dec;95(3 Pt 1):989-98

Possible disruption of remote viewing by complex weak magnetic fields around the stimulus site and the possibility of accessing real phase space: a pilot study.

Koren SA, Persinger MA.

Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, Canada.

In 2002 Persinger, Roll, Tiller, Koren, and Cook considered whether there are physical processes by which recondite information exists within the space and time of objects or events. The stimuli that compose this information might be directly detected within the whole brain without being processed by the typical sensory modalities. We tested the artist Ingo Swann who can reliably draw and describe randomly selected photographs sealed in envelopes in another room. In the present experiment the photographs were immersed continuously in repeated presentations (5 times per sec.) of one of two types of computer-generated complex magnetic field patterns whose intensities were less than 20 nT over most of the area. WINDOWS-generated but not DOS-generated patterns were associated with a marked decrease in Mr. Swann's accuracy. Whereas the DOS software generated exactly the same pattern, WINDOWS software phase-modulated the actual wave form resulting in an infinite bandwidth and complexity. We suggest that information obtained by processes attributed to "paranormal" phenomena have physical correlates that can be masked by weak, infinitely variable magnetic fields.

PMID: 12509207 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Percept Mot Skills. 2002 Jun;94(3 Pt 1):927-49.

Remote viewing with the artist Ingo Swann: neuropsychological profile, electroencephalographic correlates, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and possible mechanisms.

Persinger MA, Roll WG, Tiller SG, Koren SA, Cook CM.

Department of Psychology, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

In the present study, the artist Ingo Swann, who helped develop the process of remote viewing (awareness of distant objects or places without employing normal senses), was exposed during a single setting of 30 min. to specific patterns of circumcerebral magnetic fields that significantly altered his subjective experiences. Several times during subsequent days, he was asked to sit in a quiet chamber and to sketch and to describe verbally distant stimuli (pictures or places) beyond his normal senses. The proportions of unusual 7-Hz spike and slow wave activity over the occipital lobes per trial were moderately correlated (rho=.50) with the ratings of accuracy between these distal, hidden stimuli and his responses. A neuropsychological assessment and Magnetic Resonance Imaging indicated a different structural and functional organization within the parieto-occipital region of the subject's right hemisphere from organizations typically noted. The results suggest that this type of paranormal phenomenon, often dismissed as methodological artifact or accepted as proofs of spiritual existence, is correlated with neurophysiological processes and physical events. Remote viewing may be enhanced by complex experimentally generated magnetic fields designed to interact with the neuromagnetic "binding factor" of consciousness.

PMID: 12081299 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

This is the information the PubMed database has on the journal these articles were printed in:

Title: Perceptual and motor skills
ISSN: 0031-5125 (Print)
Title Abbreviation: Percept Mot Skills
Publication Start Year: 1955
Publisher: Dr. C.H. And Dr. R.B. Ammons
Continuation Notes: Continues: Perceptual and motor skills research exchange, issued Mar.-Sept./Dec. 1952.
Language: English
Country: United States
Subject Term(s): Psychology
Psychophysiology
NLM ID: 0401131