Science and Psychic Phenomena, a book by Chris Carter
# Quotes
The kind of skepticism Carter is writing about is not the normal healthy kind on which all science depends, but rather it arises from a belief that the existence of psychic phenomena is impossible; they contradict the established principles of science, and if they were to exist they would overthrow science as we know it, causing chaos and confusion. Therefore, anyone who produces positive evidence supporting their existence is guilty of error, wishful thinking, self-delusion, or fraud.
There are few meteorites prior to 1790 because they were destroyed
One immediate consequence of the Mars Effect scandal was the announcement that the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal would no longer conduct any more “scientific investigation,” and this remains the official policy to this day.12d
Journal of Parapsychology and the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research
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sarcasm, self-congratulation, and nastiness
- Reddit characteristics
criticisms of these experiments distracted attention from experiments whose results could not be explained by sensory cues, such as the Pearce-Pratt series
By 1940 nearly one million experimental trials had been reported under conditions which precluded sensory leakage
- On Rhine’s experiments
What is so unusual about Schmidt’s RNGs is that the precise rate of radioactive decay is theoretically unpredictable, and so his experiments are essentially tests to see if human intention can influence random events at the quantum level.
It is useful to remember that many of our modern “laws of nature” are statistical in nature, rather than absolutely true at all times.
in 1975 the Parapsychological Association adopted a policy opposing the withholding of nonsignificant data, a policy unique among the sciences.
Sheldrake made two claims based on his data: (1) the dog spends more time at the window when his owner is on the way home than when she is not, and (2) this difference is statistically significant again.27
Randi also insists on a “preliminary test” before the real test, and he has never let anyone past the preliminary stage
Statistics is widely used in science whenever there is difficulty separating signal from noise
An example of this would be the metaphysical theory of determinism implied by the Clockwork universe of Newtonian physics. If Newtonian physics is rejected as false, then determinism should be rejected as well.
effects by tampering with the transmission of neurotransmitters, which gives us important clues about the consciousness-sensitive areas of the brain.
Hume had taught that there could be no such thing as certain knowledge of universal laws, that all we knew was obtained by the observation of singular instances, so that all of our universal laws were uncertain
But critics have pointed out that many historical cases do not fit Kuhn’s model:
Clearly, then, Popper’s demarcation criterion between science and nonscience is the most coherent ever developed. Kuhn’s contribution to Popper’s viewpoint is primarily his sociological description of “normal science” and its often dogmatic nature.