One of the things that makes
scientists less receptive to supposed evidence of paranormal phenomena is the
statistical form of the evidence. Suppose we lived in a world where sometimes
things fell up and sometimes down. Imagine trying to prove a theory of gravity
by saying things should have a 50% chance of falling up and a 50% chance of
falling down, but some experiments seem to say things fall down 60% of the
time. There's nothing wrong with trying to understand why the experiments
don't seem to show things falling down 50% of the time. But it's hard to draw
real conclusions, especially when some experiments say things fall down 40%,
some say 55%, some say 70%... All the more so if there had been a long history
of con artists using sleight of hand to convince people things fall down rather
than up.
Statistics certainly have their
uses. In a case like the one above, their main use is to tell us we don't know
enough and there is some factor(s) (either in the outside world or in our
testing procedures) that is unclear. If we could identify some factor so that
experiments showed that [for instance] when the temperature was over 70 degrees
or when it's daylight that things fall down 99% of the time - then we'd have a
theory. If after 100 years of investigation we didn't find any factor that
would give us such high consistency, it would be time to stop and wait until
somebody had a whole new idea of something to look for.
What can we make of this kind of
statistical results? If I had a theory that green leaves get energy from light
and my study of the subject showed that 80% of plants with green leaves are in
places where they can get light, it would be an interesting statistic. But if
20% of plants with green leaves were in caves and other lightless places, it
might be reasonable to be skeptical about my theory.
Partly, I wonder what is the
point of mind reading, remote viewing and other such things if they only work
for some people some of the time. One would wonder about a species whose eyes
or ears only worked 70% of the time. You'd wonder even more about a species if
80% of its individuals had eyes that more or less never saw, 15% of its members
had eyes that saw limited amounts 30% of the time, and 5% of the species'
members saw fairly well 80% of the time. This kind of situation might be
understandable if we were talking about a species hundreds of millions of years
ago when eyes were first evolving. And it might make sense if a species had
moved to an unlighted environment and its eyes were devolving. But humans don't
seem to be in a comparable situation. Also, if one
believes having more or less paranormal ability today gives an individual a
natural selection advantage (more surviving children), then let us see studies
supporting that. Otherwise, this doesn't seem to make sense.
Many of the experiments that
supposedly indicate a statistical leaning towards paranormal effects are based
on trying to identify one of a small number of choices and using interpretation
to decide whether or not the right choice was selected. I'd suggest something
more like the following:
Make a larger number of choices,
with well defined differences between them. This will decrease the number of
times the right choice is picked by random means. By making the different
alternatives distinctive, we reduce the chances a wrong answer is caused by
ambiguity - a person with paranormal ability has no excuse not to get it right.
We might use photos of
individual humans. Identifying one person from another is a common and
important skill. We should be sure our test subjects have at least normal
skill levels in doing this using non-paranormal means. If paranormal abilities
exist, this should be a fairly easy task to perform paranormally. To make sure
the individuals won't be confused, we'll use photos of people who are obviously
classifiable into unique groups. Their ages will be either 5, 15, 30 or 70.
Their races will be Scandinavian, dark African, clearly Middle Eastern or quintessentially
Chinese. Their gender will be clear based on physical features, grooming and
clothing.
If there are four age groups,
four racial groups and two genders, we can have 32 distinctive pictures of
varied people none of whom share the same combination of age, race and gender.
We should not have to show all 32 pictures to the test subject afterward and
have him choose. He should be able to describe the race, gender and age to
us. I'm not asking them to distinguish two teenage Caucasian girls - even
though that would not be such a difficult task using non-paranormal means. If
paranormal means can't help us do such a common and simple task of correctly
identifying age, race and gender 2/3 of the time what is the point of this
supposed ability? What useful information can be passed paranormally if this
cannot?
Suppose I tell you I'm selling
telephones that wouldn't let you tell the person on the other end any clear,
specific details of things you were talking about. If the other person got any
impression at all of what you were talking about, it would only be indistinct
dream-like impressions. Afterward, the other person would have to be shown a
few pictures and try to figure out which one represented what you were trying
to describe. The other person is unable to pick the right picture as much as
90% of the time, but they do pick the right picture a bit more often than you'd
expect by random chance. Can I sell you one of these phones? Well, maybe
that's why it's hard to sell scientists on the idea of paranormal phenomena.
Suppose a person had the ability
to get these vague impressions. In the real world, nobody is going to show him
five pictures and tell him that one of them shows what his vague impressions
were about. All he's going to have is vague impressions. What is he going to
do with that?
Let us assume we have a test
subject with the intellectual skills so that if he did get vague impressions
paranormally he could draw correct and useful conclusions from those vague
impressions. Those same intellectual skills might also allow that test subject
to draw conclusions from subtle details in the testing environment that would
let him guess the right choice more often than by pure chance. If the subject
does not have such intellectual skills, the kind of nonspecific impressions
that most supposed paranormal experiences involve would not be of much use to
him in the outside world.