h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's a thread for people to discuss parapsychology research, both historical and current. Good topics for discussion include:

* the results studies
* what's been studied and what hasn't
* common flaws in parapsychology studies and how to fix them
* ideas for future studies in parapsychology

etc. etc. etc.


Mikey

The most (in)famous para-psychological study that I've come across (as a sceptical observer) might well be the experiments conducted on Uri Geller at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) way back in 1972.
Two members of the institute, Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, put Uri through a series of experiments intended to establish whether or not he possessed any extra-sensory abilities which could be demonstrated in a scientific environment.
The resulting paper, 'Information Transmission Under Conditions of Sensory Shielding' was subsequently published in Nature in 1974, amid some controversy from the referees of the paper, who disagreed amongst themselves as to whether the results were worthy of publication.
Uri was tested to see if he could reproduce pictures drawn by the researchers when in a location remote from them, reproduce pictures stored in a computer and from within a set of sealed envelopes whose contents were unknown to both the researchers and Uri.
Uri was tested first with thirteen drawings known to Puthoff and Targ, gaining 7 responses classed as 'hits' by SRI and passing on three drawings. However, the experimental conditions in place at the time of testing appear to have been lax at best, with several friends of Geller present during the experiments who may well have had the opportunity to feed him with information.
Geller appears to have failed completely with the set of sealed drawings (there were 100 in total), although on the final day of experimentation he did manage six matches. However, this was only after the experimental conditions had been relaxed and there was wide suspicion that he had managed to see the pictures before making his 'predictions'.

James Randi has written up the details of the SRI experiments in his book, "The Truth about Uri Geller" and makes the point that in order to conduct any form of para-psychological studies it is essential to have a professional magician in attendance, both when the experiments are designed and during the testing process, in order to reduce the chance of cheating. Indeed, Randi has had an open challange for anyone who claims to have paranormal powers to demonstrate them before him, with one million dollars waiting for the sucessful applicant. So far, only a few of the so-called psychics out there have taken him up on his offer and, unsuprisingly, none have been successful.

I think this should also be the place to put info about the Rhine experiments of way before Uri Geller. They proved a lot statistically, but I cannot remember the details. Whether or not there should have been tricks involved, it still is fascinating material for this project.

Absolutely. Rhine's results have been pretty widely discredited, but he's probably still the father of modern ESP testing.

Some of the work of the PEAR Lab at Princeton (which is chiefly looking at whether random systems can be influenced by psychic means) derives from Rhine's original experiments.

Read this paper on the existence of psi;
http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy1.html

Alji