Hi
On Sun, 10 Sep 2000, Chuck Huff wrote:
> But I like more Myer's comment below that: "The scientific attitude
> blends curious skepticism with openminded humility. It demands that
> extraordinary claims be supported by clear and reliable evidence."
>
> Humility seems an excellent scientific virtue.
Having just reviewed Shirley MacLaine's "The Camino" for a local
newspaper, I'm afraid that the nonsense being promoted and
accepted by laypeople suggests to me that this is no time and no
matter to be "humble" about. There are numerous reasons to
discount the false hopes in ESP and the like:
1. If demonstrated under controlled conditions, it would violate
much of natural scientific thinking. Note that physicists
generally discount the idea of a natural explanation in terms of
quantum theory or any of the far-fetched ideas that have been
suggested.
2. Just by chance some positive effects are expected.
3. We truly do not know what important flaws might be in the
studies without complete access to everything that was done. One
of my students studies implicit serial learning, a task in which
subjects demonstrate considerable sensitivity (but not
necessarily awareness) to transitions between successive
events. If, for example, sloppy randomization or simply chance
resulted in transitions in the Ganzfeld being predictable, then
the chance would no longer be 25%.
4. The area is full of cheating.
5. The psychological mechanisms to allow remote viewing, ESP,
and the like are so implausible as to be fantastic. Emanations
from some object (or mind) somehow transmit information about its
shape (or the view of some shape) in such a way that remote
viewers can detect that pattern out of all the other objects (and
minds) that are present. The population of objects (and minds)
approaches the infinite if, as is sometimes suggested, the
"forces" are not limited by distance.
Personally, I will never understand how someone of Bem's stature
could participate in such a venture, nor how the editors of Psych
Bull could permit such a fiasco. Imagine the boost given to
promoters of this stuff by being able to cite one of the most
prestigious journals in psychology.
The problem with humility in cases like this is that it wrongly
gives the impression that science cannot put some matter to rest.
Imagine if biologists were "humble" about evolutionary theory and
still granted that creationism offers a possible alternative? I
believe that ESP survives because it provides a faint ray of hope
to some people that mystical and spiritual forces still have a
place despite the apparent success of the naturalistic
worldview. And this hope in turn helps to undermine acceptance
and promotion of the scientific approach to understanding human
behaviour and experience.
Let us demonstrate humility about things that we truly do not
know about, nor understand. But ESP and parapsychology is not
one of those things and does not merit a so-called "open" mind,
unless by "open" one means naive and credulous.
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L05D
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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