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.24 Scientists are no more capable of uncoveringtrickery than anyone else not specifically initiated into the mag-ical arts perhaps even less so since they are not used to the uni-verse lying to them.Crookes and Lodge proved to be particularlygullible, possibly because of personal tragedies in their lives.25The need for better controls in psychic experiments was recog-nized in the 1930s by botanist Joseph Banks Rhine of Duke Uni-versity.Rhine coined the term ESP and made an honest attempt tofind empirical evidence for the existence of psychic forces.Heannounced a number of claims that did not stand up to criticalscrutiny and, after numerous rejections by established scientificjournals, he started his own journal for which he could choosemore sympathetic reviewers.Despite his failure to convince main-stream scientists of the reality of psychic forces, Rhine pioneered afield of study that continues to the present day under the designa-tion of parapsychology.26 Even parapsychologists must admit thatthey operate on the borders of conventional science.As I have mentioned, there is no agreed-upon precise defini-tion of science.So I will not press the point as to whether or not SEARCHING FOR A WORLD BEYOND MATTER 91parapsychology is science.Parapsychologists continue to makeclaims that ESP has been observed in controlled experiments.Some of these reports are peer reviewed, but the peers are gener-ally other true believers who review manuscripts for special jour-nals like Rhine's that maintain different standards than main-stream scientific journals.The editors of these journals claim theyprovide a greater "openness" to new ideas.This is fine, but thepublishing of poorly executed experiments, as exemplified by theqi experiment described above, does not serve any useful purposeand drags down the credibility of everything else published bythat journal.As with the creationists described in chapter 2, proponents ofESP claim that their results are unfairly rejected because of con-ventional science's dogmatic attachment to old ideas.My reac-tion is the same as it was in the case of intelligent design: whatpossible reason would scientists have to object if convincing evi-dence for psychic phenomena was reported? As with intelligentdesign, the discovery of special powers of the mind would openup wonderful new avenues of research that would surely be gen-erously funded by taxpayers.Mainstream scientists have notaccepted the claims of parapsychology for exactly the samereason they have not accepted the claims of intelligent design.The data do not warrant it.From the first experiments in the mid-nineteenth century tothe present, the claim of evidence for ESP simply does not standup under the same scrutiny scientists apply when considering anyextraordinary claim.THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EXPERIMENTSLet me expand on the issue of statistical significance of experi-ments, which is the basis on which many reported extraordinaryclaims can be quickly discarded.Parapsychologists argue that 92 GOD: THE FAILED HYPOTHESISthey should be held to the same standard of statistical signifi-cance as medical science, where claimed positive effects of, say, anew drug, are published when the statistical significance ("Pvalue") is 5 percent (P = 0.05) or lower.That is, if the experimentwere repeated many times in exactly the same fashion, on averageone in twenty would produce the same effect, or a greater one, asan artifact of the normal statistical fluctuations that occur in anymeasurement dealing with finite data.But think of what that means.In every twenty claims that arereported in medical journals, on the average one such report isfalse a statistical artifact!Contrast this with the standard in the field of research where Ispent my career, elementary particle physics.There the standard ofP value for publication of an important new discovery is one-hundredth of one percent (P [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.24 Scientists are no more capable of uncoveringtrickery than anyone else not specifically initiated into the mag-ical arts perhaps even less so since they are not used to the uni-verse lying to them.Crookes and Lodge proved to be particularlygullible, possibly because of personal tragedies in their lives.25The need for better controls in psychic experiments was recog-nized in the 1930s by botanist Joseph Banks Rhine of Duke Uni-versity.Rhine coined the term ESP and made an honest attempt tofind empirical evidence for the existence of psychic forces.Heannounced a number of claims that did not stand up to criticalscrutiny and, after numerous rejections by established scientificjournals, he started his own journal for which he could choosemore sympathetic reviewers.Despite his failure to convince main-stream scientists of the reality of psychic forces, Rhine pioneered afield of study that continues to the present day under the designa-tion of parapsychology.26 Even parapsychologists must admit thatthey operate on the borders of conventional science.As I have mentioned, there is no agreed-upon precise defini-tion of science.So I will not press the point as to whether or not SEARCHING FOR A WORLD BEYOND MATTER 91parapsychology is science.Parapsychologists continue to makeclaims that ESP has been observed in controlled experiments.Some of these reports are peer reviewed, but the peers are gener-ally other true believers who review manuscripts for special jour-nals like Rhine's that maintain different standards than main-stream scientific journals.The editors of these journals claim theyprovide a greater "openness" to new ideas.This is fine, but thepublishing of poorly executed experiments, as exemplified by theqi experiment described above, does not serve any useful purposeand drags down the credibility of everything else published bythat journal.As with the creationists described in chapter 2, proponents ofESP claim that their results are unfairly rejected because of con-ventional science's dogmatic attachment to old ideas.My reac-tion is the same as it was in the case of intelligent design: whatpossible reason would scientists have to object if convincing evi-dence for psychic phenomena was reported? As with intelligentdesign, the discovery of special powers of the mind would openup wonderful new avenues of research that would surely be gen-erously funded by taxpayers.Mainstream scientists have notaccepted the claims of parapsychology for exactly the samereason they have not accepted the claims of intelligent design.The data do not warrant it.From the first experiments in the mid-nineteenth century tothe present, the claim of evidence for ESP simply does not standup under the same scrutiny scientists apply when considering anyextraordinary claim.THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EXPERIMENTSLet me expand on the issue of statistical significance of experi-ments, which is the basis on which many reported extraordinaryclaims can be quickly discarded.Parapsychologists argue that 92 GOD: THE FAILED HYPOTHESISthey should be held to the same standard of statistical signifi-cance as medical science, where claimed positive effects of, say, anew drug, are published when the statistical significance ("Pvalue") is 5 percent (P = 0.05) or lower.That is, if the experimentwere repeated many times in exactly the same fashion, on averageone in twenty would produce the same effect, or a greater one, asan artifact of the normal statistical fluctuations that occur in anymeasurement dealing with finite data.But think of what that means.In every twenty claims that arereported in medical journals, on the average one such report isfalse a statistical artifact!Contrast this with the standard in the field of research where Ispent my career, elementary particle physics.There the standard ofP value for publication of an important new discovery is one-hundredth of one percent (P [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]