How We Know What Isn't So (28 page)

The Search for Replicability
. The history of parapsychological research contains numerous examples in which the degree of deliberate fraud or methodological flaw is greater than that described in the cases above. On the other hand, there have also been other research efforts for which the methodological questions that have been raised are more subtle, and for which the question of dishonesty has yet to be raised explicitly. But regardless of what the rest of the field has to offer, the historical examples discussed above are important because they serve to remind us of what we should know all along—that no single experiment, or no set of experiments carried out in one laboratory, can ever stand as definitive evidence. Science requires that a phenomenon be reliably produced in different laboratories for it to be accepted as genuine. Whoever claims to have discovered a phenomenon must describe in sufficient detail how it was produced so that other investigators, following similar steps, can reproduce it themselves. This requirement of replicability applies to all fields of science. However, if it is possible to say that it should apply to some areas more than others, then surely it applies most to a field like parapsychology that has been plagued by an uncommon amount of fraud and deception.

Ultimately, it is the inability to produce a replicable experimental demonstration of psi that is most damaging to the contention that it exists. Psychic phenomena appear in one laboratory only to disappear in another. Occasionally, findings are announced that can seemingly be replicated by sympathetic believers, but not by skeptics or neutral scientists. Such is the case for the two research paradigms currently considered by parapsychologists to offer the best evidence for the existence of psi—the “ganzfeld” experiments of Charles Honorton and the studies of psychokinesis by Helmut Schmidt in Houston and Robert Jahn at Princeton.
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Most parapsychologists themselves acknowledge this critical problem of a lack of replicability. Consider the following confessions of various members of the field:
²⁰

From D. J. West:

A review of the evidence for ESP, then, provides little justification for the belief in psi. This does not “prove” that psi does not exist, only that 130 years of concerted effort has failed to document it. An examination of the evidence does make clear, however, that psi is currently a very dubious phenomenon, and it raises the important question—the one that is the central concern of this chapter—of why so many people nevertheless believe in its existence.

One thing that can be said about ESP is that it compels our attention regardless of whether or not it exists. If, despite current evidence to the contrary, we should someday discover the reality of psi, then both science and everyday life would change more dramatically than even the most creative science-fiction writers have imagined. On the other hand, if ESP really is nothing but the illusion that it currently appears to be, we are left with the fascinating question of why so many people are convinced of its existence. And the belief in ESP is truly widespread.

Many surveys of people’s beliefs in paranormal phenomena have been conducted and, inevitably, the percentage of believers varies from sample to sample. In all samples, however, credulity is high. The most favorable attitudes toward ESP were found in a survey of Canadian college students, of whom 80% reported a belief in psi.
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National surveys of the U.S. population have found that roughly 50% of the population are believers, including 67% of those who are college educated.
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Perhaps most intriguing of all is the finding that two-thirds of a national sample of U.S. adults report having experienced ESP themselves.
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Clearly, ESP is more credible to the average person than an even-handed appraisal of the objective evidence would warrant. Why?

Returning to the idea with which this chapter began, it seems that the most powerful determinant of the belief in ESP is all the apparent evidence of its existence, however unreliable such evidence may be, that one sees or hears about in everyday life. Psychics help the police solve a murder case. Apollo astronauts conduct a successful test of telepathy from outer space. The Pentagon spends millions to close the psi-gap with the Soviets.
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Can we really expect a healthy skepticism to flourish in this kind of soil? Even if each of these claims of the paranormal were disseminated with an accompanying skeptical response, we could still expect many individuals to commit the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” fallacy and conclude that “there’s probably something there.” But such an even-handed treatment of these claims is simply not to be found. Rather, apparent demonstrations of ESP or any other paranormal phenomenon are considered newsworthy items to which substantial coverage is devoted. The critical appraisal of these claims, in contrast, is just not “news.”

The magician James Randi cites the appalling news coverage of a “prediction” made by Duke University student Lee Fried.
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Mr. Fried had deposited an envelope at the office of the president of Duke that supposedly contained a prophecy of an upcoming important event. When opened one week later, it contained a description of an incident that had in fact happened during the intervening week—the awful collision of two 747 jets that claimed the lives of 583 people. During interviews after his prediction was announced, Mr. Fried made it clear that he was a magician and that his apparent act of precognition was the result of a conjuring trick rather than psi. Nevertheless, of the seventeen newspapers Randi could find that covered this event, only one bothered to mention Mr. Fried’s disclaimer!

Spectacular claims of paranormal powers are inherently splashy and arresting and thus can be counted on to sell more books, magazines, and advertising space than any critical analysis or rebuttal of these claims. Time-Life Books has for the past several years aggressively advertised its series “Mysteries of the Unknown” by inviting its audience to “discover the facts that have been uncovered and why, even after hundreds of years, the mysteries are still unexplained.” Most of the events described in the promotional campaign, however, such as the Bermuda triangle, the lost continent of Atlantis, or the Shroud of Turin, are not really mysteries at all, but have been perfectly well explained for some time. But mysteries unsolved are more alluring than mysteries discredited, and so the resolution of these purportedly strange events is downplayed or ignored. Because the average reader is unaware that there simply is no Bermuda triangle “problem” or “mystery” to be explained, he or she can be taken in by the implication of these ads and the prestige of Time-Life Books and end up concluding that there must be something to the frequent reports of paranormal powers.

Those responsible for deciding how to present the paranormal in the popular media can be quite explicit about their interest in downplaying the skeptical position. As one example, a number of publishing houses declined to publish the excellent skeptical book,
The Psychology of the Psychic
, that, among other things, forcefully debunked the remote viewing experiments discussed earlier and the claims made by “superpsychic” Uri Geller. The authors report that the most common reason given for rejecting their manuscript was that “a pro-ESP book was already on their lists or in the pipeline, and they didn’t think [our manuscript] and the ‘pro’ book would make very friendly neighbors.”
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The net effect of the media’s one-sided treatment is that the average person is many times more likely to encounter apparent support for the paranormal than any evidence that challenges its validity. A simple exercise supports this contention: The next time you are on vacation (and, for academics, no longer in a university town), take a trip to the local bookstore and examine the offerings in the general science section. In most cases, this section is almost comically small. Small in absolute terms; small compared to the science fiction section; small compared to the paranormal section; small compared to almost any reasonable category one might name. Published claims of the paranormal abound. With this as the data base confronting the average person, there is little wonder that belief in ESP is so widespread.

Some readers might question my claim that favorable media coverage is the preeminent cause of the belief in ESP, and accuse me of putting the cart before the horse. The media, after all, merely try to boost circulation, and doing so requires adhering to the beliefs and preferences of the audience. Paranormal claims would not sell, the argument goes, if they did not tap some pre-existing belief, or will to believe, in the general population. Is it not this will to believe that is ultimately responsible for the widespread acceptance of ESP?

There is truth to this claim. With respect to ESP, the media and the beliefs of the public clearly feed off one another. Belief, or the desire to believe, creates a market for the coverage of the paranormal, and this coverage in turn creates or reinforces belief. To many people, published claims about the existence of paranormal phenomena constitute sufficient grounds for belief because of the conviction that “they couldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.”

The source of this “will to believe” is not hard to fathom. For many people, the existence of ESP implies several comforting corollaries. Most important, it suggests a greater reality which we have yet to fully understand. This can be an extremely seductive “transcendental temptation”
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because it opens up several inviting possibilities, such as the potential for some part of us to survive death. One of the best known parapsychologists, Charles Tart, is quite forthcoming about such a basis of belief: “I happened upon a partial resolution of my personal (and my culture’s) conflict between science and religion. Parapsychology validated the existence of basic phenomena that could partially account for, and fit in with, some of the spiritual views of the universe.”
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It is a rare person who does not want a ticket to immortality, or a piece of the transcendental. Most of us are prepared to believe such a doctrine if only the evidence could make it seem plausible.

Another seductive aspect of ESP is the implication that we all possess powers we have yet to develop. Perhaps we can more accurately predict the future through precognition, more efficiently communicate with others through telepathy, and more effectively control our physical health through something akin to psychokinesis. Perhaps many of the things we accomplish already through hard work and the application of our intelligence can be achieved more effortlessly through these special powers. May “The Force” be with us. It is worth noting that those who want psychic phenomena and parapsychological research to be more widely accepted in the general public often play upon this desire by emphasizing that psi is an undeveloped potential in everyone. For example, Targ and Puthoff say of their remote viewing research that:

Although these appealing possibilities make many of us
want
to believe in ESP, the impact of such a desire may be less strong—or less direct—than is commonly thought. After all, nearly everyone is subject to the transcendental temptation, and yet only one-half to two-thirds of the population believes in ESP. More important, there are many things we would
like
to believe, but reality gets in the way. Personally, there are times—during a particularly difficult paragraph, let’s say—when I would like to believe that I could take a leave of absence, join the Boston Celtics, and provide them with some much-needed scoring off the bench during the playoffs (“Professor Expels Lakers!”). But I, like nearly everyone else, am responsive to data. As we saw in chapter 5, people do not willy-nilly believe what they want to believe. Instead, people’s preferences generally have their influence through the way they guide the evaluation of the pertinent evidence. The wish may be father to the belief, but like all fathers it requires a mate—some supporting evidence in this case.

Thus, if we are to fully understand the sources of people’s belief in ESP, we must look elsewhere to discover how this general will to believe is satisfied. We must look at how people interpret everyday experience, and how that experience seems to support the existence of ESP. People would not endorse ESP if it did not resonate with their experience in everyday life.