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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Parapsychology
Message-ID: <805@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Oct-85 14:53:14 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.805
Posted: Thu Oct 31 14:53:14 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 05:39:13 EST
References: <1148@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 59

In article <1148@decwrl.UUCP> cooper@pbsvax.DEC (Topher Cooper) writes:
> Commenting on my citations of the experimental literature of parapsychology
> Mike Huybensz says:
> >The fact is, there is NO demonstrable, reproducible psychic phenominon
> >after who knows how many years of research.
> 
> The fact is, there IS demonstrable, reproducible
> psychic phenomena...

Wow, that sure sounds positive!  But then Topher starts to qualify the
statement with the traditional excuses...

> It is true that psychic phenomena cannot be produced on demand, but then
> neither can a local supernova or ball lightning.

A local supernova, while infrequent, is observed by much of the population
of the earth almost simultaneously.  (I have no significant opinion on
ball lightning.)  The "best" psychic phenomina (which compose your
literature, since you probably exclude Geller and his fraudulent ilk)
are privately performed by a few potential conspirators, out of the eyes
of skeptics.

> 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.  Not as reliable as we would
> like, but hardly completely unreliable.

Golly, if we can compare it to something medical, it must be SCIENCE!
Experiments depending on microsurgery can be performed with skeptics in
charge of every aspect except the microsurgery, or with sufficiently
skilled skeptics.  Microsurgical technique is something readily
learned and independant of the experiment.  Experimental success in
parapsychology does not come to skeptics.

> Progress in parapsychology has been slow but steady: we know more now than we
> did ten years ago.  That you are ignorant of the results does not mean they
> do not exist.  The field is an intrinsically very complex one, yet less
> effort has probably been put into it in the last fifty years than was put
> into, say, polywater research in the one or two year period between its
> "discovery" and its debunking.

What you know now that you didn't ten years ago are alot of cases of
fraud, and some techniques for combatting them.

Is the field complex?  Well, theology is complex to: like theology, I'd
say the complexity is a result of too little data to base theory upon.

Has too little effort been spent on parapsychology?  It depends on your
attitude.  Many Christians say "If there is no God and you spend some
time worshipping, you lose little, but if there is you stand to gain
everything."  This is the same stupid attitude that will indefinitely
fund parapsychology, diverting resources from sound science that is
producing real results.  We've seen decades of fruitless research,
and have nothing to show for it except numerous exposed frauds.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh