Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site seismo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!flinn From: flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: ESP Message-ID: <595@seismo.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 14:53:38 EST Article-I.D.: seismo.595 Posted: Mon Feb 6 14:53:38 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 08:54:49 EST Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA Lines: 32 This weekend I read for the first time Martin Gardner's and James Randi's books on ESP. I hadn't realized just what a preposterous state the 'science' of parapsychology is in. It must be frustrating to the honest and serious scientists (I suppose there must be some) investigating paranormal phenomena to have the field so pervaded by fraud, incompetence, and experimental bias. Fraud? Exposed again and again. Incompetence? A mild word for people like Targ and Puthoff who are so desperately eager to find positive results that the experiments they design are just ridiculous - riddled with opportunities for conscious or unconscious bias that vitiate their results. Moreover, T&P and those like them have never answered the legitimate objections of their critics, and show no interest in enlisting the help of people like Gardner and Randi to design experiments in whose results one can place some confidence. There is an extremely simple answer to the question of why supposed paranormal effects can be seen only under circumstances that arouse the suspicions (or worse) of professional stage magicians. Any experiment which is designed in such a way - or carried out under circumstances - that allow the possibility of bias or cheating, has been designed by incompetent or dishonest people. Bias? It seems clear that the reason T&P et al. keep coming up with flawed experiments is that rigidly controlled experiments produce no positive results. I have yet to hear of *any* experimental results in parapsychology which have produced reliable evidence that paranormal phenomena actually exist.