Putting the psi into science

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Putting the psi into science

ESP experiments may be unusual, but the method is rigorous even if the results are varied, says Oli Usher

Thursday September 1, 2005
The Guardian

The lights dim. The relaxing sounds of waves crashing on a beach give way to silence. Then the soft porn appears on the screen in front of me. This is not a re-enactment of the fantasies of a teenage boy. Rather, it is a demonstration of serious research into the telepathic transmission of emotions going on at what may well be Britain’s oddest lab: the Koestler Parapsychology Unit (KPU) at the University of Edinburgh.
Parapsychology is about as far off mainstream science as it is possible to get in a reputable university. It is the study of paranormal phenomena, and the subjects of the Koestler lab’s recent experiments range from extrasensory perception through psychokinesis and clairvoyance to hauntings and out-of-body experiences. It is easy to see why the scientific community might give them a wide berth. Yet parapsychologists use the rational language and rigorous methods of science. They have no time for charlatans and fantasists.

Striving for academic reputability, the researchers at the KPU are incredibly careful about their methodology and their language. In many respects they are a model of scientific good practice. “Parapsychologists make extraordinary claims,” explains Caroline Watt, acting head of the unit, “so they must take extraordinary care in their experiments.” She insists that their results are accurate. They need to be though: even the most ardent believers in “psi” (the Greek letter is used as a blanket term to cover psychic phenomena) accept that evidence in favour of it is made up of small anomalies that are often difficult to identify with any certainty.

One of the main weapons in the parapsychologist’s arsenal is the Ganzfeld experiment, which tests telepathic communication. In this experiment, one volunteer (the “sender”) is placed in front of a monitor showing a video. A second (the “receiver”) is placed in a reclining chair in a different room, with their eyes covered and “white noise” playing into their ears (all this is to eliminate sensory stimulation). At the end of the experiment, the receiver is shown four videos, the one shown to the sender and three decoys, and is asked identify which one the sender was shown. The law of averages suggests that the receiver should pick the correct video about one time in every four. But, say the parapsychologists, the largest studies show a small bias (of up to 5%) towards them choosing correctly. Impressive, if it’s true.

But this is where parapsychology’s real problems start. Even assuming psi exists, how does it work? “It’s impossible to say,” says Paul Stevens, a researcher at the unit, “we still don’t know”. Most of the work so far has looked for evidence for the existence of psi, rather than for a mechanism that could explain how it works. But this may be changing. Stevens is one of a small number of physicists involved in the area, and he looks within the laws of physics for a rational explanation of psychic phenomena. “There must be a physical basis,” he says. “If there isn’t, then we’re moving into the realm of the supernatural.” But he admits the search has so far been fruitless.

Parapsychology’s failure, so far, to find a widely accepted underlying theory is problematic – and is, along with disputes over its experimental data, the key reason for the discipline’s pariah status. Parapsychologists spend almost all their time doing experiments, but, to date, have not found any hard-and-fast laws that can predict their results, and have not managed to agree on theories to explain them.

This lack of understanding of exactly what is going on means that unexpected results can occur.

Research by Peter Ramakers, a doctoral student at the KPU, demonstrates the pitfalls inherent in a science without an overarching theory. His area of study is the possible telepathic transmission of emotional responses. In his experiment, the sender is shown pictures that trigger strong positive responses (erotica, cuddly animals or extreme sports), strong negative responses (such as mutilated bodies) and neutral responses (such as household items), the receiver is shown nothing.

During the experiment, the researcher measures the sweatiness of the participants’ hands, a good indicator of emotional arousal. As expected, the sender has a powerful response to the positive and negative pictures, and a weaker one to the neutral images. But in the case of the receiver, the results were intriguing. Ramakers expected to see a peak of emotion in the receiver whenever the sender saw a positive or negative picture. Instead, he found small increases in the receiver’s emotional arousal associated with the negative and neutral images. There was no reaction to the positive ones.

Emerging from the KPU back into the university’s campus, though, I wonder how many scientists outside the unit would agree with that. There is little interaction between mainstream psychology and parapsychology. “Psychologists tend to be open minded,” says Richard Wiseman, professor of public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, “but unless you have something directly relevant to their work, they just won’t be interested”. Even if the evidence for psi was overwhelming, it would stay about as far removed from the mainstream as it is possible to find.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559744,00.html

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[Anonymous]

Putting the psi into science

ESP experiments may be unusual, but the method is rigorous even if the results are varied, says Oli Usher

Thursday September 1, 2005
The Guardian

The lights dim. The relaxing sounds of waves crashing on a beach give way to silence. Then the soft porn appears on the screen in front of me. This is not a re-enactment of the fantasies of a teenage boy. Rather, it is a demonstration of serious research into the telepathic transmission of emotions going on at what may well be Britain’s oddest lab: the Koestler Parapsychology Unit (KPU) at the University of Edinburgh.
Parapsychology is about as far off mainstream science as it is possible to get in a reputable university. It is the study of paranormal phenomena, and the subjects of the Koestler lab’s recent experiments range from extrasensory perception through psychokinesis and clairvoyance to hauntings and out-of-body experiences. It is easy to see why the scientific community might give them a wide berth. Yet parapsychologists use the rational language and rigorous methods of science. They have no time for charlatans and fantasists.

Striving for academic reputability, the researchers at the KPU are incredibly careful about their methodology and their language. In many respects they are a model of scientific good practice. “Parapsychologists make extraordinary claims,” explains Caroline Watt, acting head of the unit, “so they must take extraordinary care in their experiments.” She insists that their results are accurate. They need to be though: even the most ardent believers in “psi” (the Greek letter is used as a blanket term to cover psychic phenomena) accept that evidence in favour of it is made up of small anomalies that are often difficult to identify with any certainty.

One of the main weapons in the parapsychologist’s arsenal is the Ganzfeld experiment, which tests telepathic communication. In this experiment, one volunteer (the “sender”) is placed in front of a monitor showing a video. A second (the “receiver”) is placed in a reclining chair in a different room, with their eyes covered and “white noise” playing into their ears (all this is to eliminate sensory stimulation). At the end of the experiment, the receiver is shown four videos, the one shown to the sender and three decoys, and is asked identify which one the sender was shown. The law of averages suggests that the receiver should pick the correct video about one time in every four. But, say the parapsychologists, the largest studies show a small bias (of up to 5%) towards them choosing correctly. Impressive, if it’s true.

But this is where parapsychology’s real problems start. Even assuming psi exists, how does it work? “It’s impossible to say,” says Paul Stevens, a researcher at the unit, “we still don’t know”. Most of the work so far has looked for evidence for the existence of psi, rather than for a mechanism that could explain how it works. But this may be changing. Stevens is one of a small number of physicists involved in the area, and he looks within the laws of physics for a rational explanation of psychic phenomena. “There must be a physical basis,” he says. “If there isn’t, then we’re moving into the realm of the supernatural.” But he admits the search has so far been fruitless.

Parapsychology’s failure, so far, to find a widely accepted underlying theory is problematic – and is, along with disputes over its experimental data, the key reason for the discipline’s pariah status. Parapsychologists spend almost all their time doing experiments, but, to date, have not found any hard-and-fast laws that can predict their results, and have not managed to agree on theories to explain them.

This lack of understanding of exactly what is going on means that unexpected results can occur.

Research by Peter Ramakers, a doctoral student at the KPU, demonstrates the pitfalls inherent in a science without an overarching theory. His area of study is the possible telepathic transmission of emotional responses. In his experiment, the sender is shown pictures that trigger strong positive responses (erotica, cuddly animals or extreme sports), strong negative responses (such as mutilated bodies) and neutral responses (such as household items), the receiver is shown nothing.

During the experiment, the researcher measures the sweatiness of the participants’ hands, a good indicator of emotional arousal. As expected, the sender has a powerful response to the positive and negative pictures, and a weaker one to the neutral images. But in the case of the receiver, the results were intriguing. Ramakers expected to see a peak of emotion in the receiver whenever the sender saw a positive or negative picture. Instead, he found small increases in the receiver’s emotional arousal associated with the negative and neutral images. There was no reaction to the positive ones.

Emerging from the KPU back into the university’s campus, though, I wonder how many scientists outside the unit would agree with that. There is little interaction between mainstream psychology and parapsychology. “Psychologists tend to be open minded,” says Richard Wiseman, professor of public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, “but unless you have something directly relevant to their work, they just won’t be interested”. Even if the evidence for psi was overwhelming, it would stay about as far removed from the mainstream as it is possible to find.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559744,00.html

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