Should psychic research receive funding?

I voted no.
I would love it if there actually was ESP, but so far the accumulated body of results have been utterly unimpressive. I have a strong feeling that if research went on for another 100 years, the psi folk would still be singing the meager praises of experiments like the Ganzfields.
They've done their best over the years to make something out of nothing, and I just don't see any reason to continue research in this area.

Now, of course, the pro-psi crowd can chime in now and tell me how many experiments have proven the existence of psi, and more work needs to be done, blah, blah, blah.

It's time to let it go, in my opinion.
 
it should receive all of the private funding that anyone wishes to waste their money on.

it should not receive any money that comes from taxpayers.
 
Of course not, money should be channeled into other areas where there is actually evidence of effectiveness, like homeopathy.


















































Well, if you ask funny questions you'll get funny answers :D
 
I voted "not sure" because I could imagine a program of research that would be like a Manhattan Project of the mind... that would utterly eliminate all alternate explanations, and could perhaps once and for all find evidence of latent or expressed psychic abilities, under unbelievably strict protocols, with huge "n" and such. That would be a great effort, and my suspicion is that it would be more nothing. But we of course never know.

That sort of thing earns $0 when it comes out of my pocket, I'd rather send a buck to Indonesia. And I'd be sad to see it mounted by a government. Yes, bring on the evidence, but I think it should be the private sector that gets this all settled. Wouldn't a cool million from a dedicated profiteer from the idea make it better? If I had some ability, even better than chance, of any of these claimed things (PK, remote viewing, clairvoyance) I would be hard pressed to sleep until I knew how predictable it was, how many others could do it, etc. I'd put my $ into a research account, and get it all going.

Sadly, I'm not in a position to do that.
 
It should be funded, but the source of the funds should be the profits of the people who make money out of their claimed paranormal powers.

Just as the pharmaceutical companies pay for the clinical trials of drugs they develop, so should e.g. homeopaths pay for clinical trials of their products. Likewise Uri Gellar and co should pay a % of their profits for powers of telekinesis to be independently investigated, Sylvia Browne and co should pay for psychics to be tested etc etc.
 
Hey, there is a real problem with this thread.

The poll title is "Should PSI research receive funding, for scientific research with proper controls" to which I answered "yes" only because it contained the qualifying phrase, "with proper controls."

That phrase, in my opinion, basically eliminates PSI research because the proponents never agree to "proper controls."

But then your "Subject" line is "Should psychic research receive funding?" which is an ENTIRELY different question. I would answer "no" to it.

So make up your mind as to which question you want answered and go from there.
 
I voted "yes". Even if I'm an hardcore skeptic, medium is a really interresting topic for research. I would love to do ressearchs on that subject ;)

There is many ways to do researchs on that subject. Are medium more fantasy-prone than other peoples? For medium who really believe they are true medium, it would be really interresting to do interview about there childhoods and see if they are some patterns in there.

Someone like Richard Wiseman do researchs on medium. I mean, this guy really need funding too... :p

We need to fund this area if we want skeptics to be able to do replications of parapsychology experiments and show that, when they do it they don't have any statistical significant results. Parapsy will thell it's the experimenter effects, but, hey, who cares?

I don't think it's a good idea to not fund this type of area of researchs, because then you can be sure it would be the woo-woo who'll publish about it on New Age bookshop. Vade Retro!
 
I have this feeling that if we fund proper ESP research today and the results are (naturally) zero, then after 10 years the lovely ESP proponents will still be crtiticizing these studies and supporting ESP and asking for more funding :rolleyes:
 
El Greco said:
I have this feeling that if we fund proper ESP research today and the results are (naturally) zero, then after 10 years the lovely ESP proponents will still be crtiticizing these studies and supporting ESP and asking for more funding :rolleyes:
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I do agree with you on that... But, well, you know: I'm a believer in the academic world :p

I really think that if a debate is inside the academic world, and not outside, it would be better for everyone...
 
I voted "no", but I did not like the caption "No, it’s a waste of money, we already know the answers". In my opinion, this has already been researched ad nauseam with no results. Now, if somebody came up with something new, I would be willing to support it.
 
No.

Each time a proper experiment is carried out, the effect vanishes, despite earlier claims of big, easily detecable effects.

The "unwillingness" of most psychics etc. is testament to their deceit.

Let the money go to debunk frauds and charlatans instead.
 
SezMe said:

But then your "Subject" line is "Should psychic research receive funding?" which is an ENTIRELY different question. I would answer "no" to it.

So make up your mind as to which question you want answered and go from there.
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Please use the latter with proper controls question ....... to explain I had a much longer question for the poll, I suspected it would be too long for a topic title (which must be shorter in some other forum software) .... I then found out when creating the poll question (that must be done after topic creation) that my poll question was far too long for the poll ........ oh well, I'll get these the same next time :)
 
SezMe said:

That phrase, in my opinion, basically eliminates PSI research because the proponents never agree to "proper controls."
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"never"

:rolleyes:
 
CFLarsen said:

Each time a proper experiment is carried out, the effect vanishes, despite earlier claims of big, easily detecable effects.
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Vanishes? Like disappears completely? Please clarify..
 
CFLarsen said:
No.

Each time a proper experiment is carried out, the effect vanishes, despite earlier claims of big, easily detecable effects.
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We've seen you tout this claim before Claus. Last time, I asked you 3 times for peer reviewed papers that back up your claim before giving up. Have you got them this time?
 
Public funding? No.

By now it is amply clear that that the chances of any significant discoveries being made is vanishingly small.

Private funding? Sure, whatever tickles your pickle. A fool and his money...
 
jzs said:
Vanishes? Like disappears completely? Please clarify..
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Vanish. Disappears. Vaporizes. Gone with the wind. POOF!

If you, OTOH, can point to a properly conducted experiment that shows evidence of any paranormal phenomenon, be my guest.
 
davidsmith73 said:
We've seen you tout this claim before Claus. Last time, I asked you 3 times for peer reviewed papers that back up your claim before giving up. Have you got them this time?
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Try Wiseman: Whenever he tries to find anything, he fails.
 
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