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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Parapsychology
Message-ID: <755@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 20:21:57 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.755
Posted: Fri Nov  1 20:21:57 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 04:55:33 EST
References: <1148@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 22
Summary: Reasons for doubt


In article <1148@decwrl.UUCP> cooper@pbsvax.DEC (Topher Cooper) writes:
>It is true that psychic phenomena cannot be produced on demand, but then
>neither can a local supernova or ball lightning .  It is true that it takes
>certain skills and talents to be a successful experimenter but it also takes
>skills and talent to do experiments depending on microsurgery.  A skilled
>experimenter can elicit parapsychological phenomena somewhere between one
>experiment in three and one experiment in two.

This is not reproducibility in the ordinary (scientific) sense of the word.
The problem is not that the phenomena can only be elicited sometimes, but
the dependence on the experimenter.  What are these skills and talents
required to be a successful parapsychic researcher?  As far as I can tell,
the only available description of them is that one gets positive results
from parapsychology experiments.  As long as that is the case, one must
suspect the methodology or technique of those who get results.  In particular,
one must suspect that they are, intentionally or not, somehow giving the
subjects access to information which biases the results.  Unless you can
describe what these skills are, you really are coming up with a variant of
"the results only manifest in the proper environment," as originally charged.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108