Extrasensory Perception

[ra01062]

I'm a college student at Georgia Southern University. For the fall semester, we were to choose a pseudoscience, in my case ESP, and as our last project, publish our findings in real life. This is what I've found:

 

Robert Anderson

Georgia Southern University

Make Your Own Decision

Extrasensory Perception is a very touchy subject among intellectuals, mainly because there isn’t very much evidence for it. However, I believe the problem comes from reluctance in intellectuals to test it. Rupert Sheldrake has tested ESP with positive results, but is usually not accredited with it because his information is somewhat sketchy. However, I’m not writing to back or disprove Sheldrake. I am hoping to stir up interest in the topic,with hopes that others might become interested in finding information. In order to do this, I’m going to present a few experiments Sheldrake took part in. I will simply present his findings, and I challenge anyone interested in this topic to try to recreate his experiments, so that there might be some more sound evidence, whether pro or con ESP.

PHONE CALL ANTICIPATION

In a survey by David Jay Brown and Rupert Sheldrake, 200 randomlyselected peoplein Santa Cruz County, CA, investigated frequency and nature of anticipation ofphone calls.

 

À 78% responded to have phoned a person who said they were just thinking of them.

 

À 47%responded as knowing who was calling them without a cue.

 

À 68% said that when thinking of a personthey haven’t seen for a while, that person called them the same day.

 

For more information on this experiment go to:

Phone Call Anticipation

 

 

THE SENSE OF BEING STARED AT

 

In another of Sheldrake's articles, he researched experiments in the USA and Germany about the sense of being stared at:

 

“Lookers and subjects worked in pairs, with the lookers sitting behind the subjects. In a series of trials the lookers either looked or did not look at the subjects in a random sequence determined by tossing a coin. In each trial, the subjects guessed whether or not they were being looked at. The results show an overall positive effect…”

À 56.9% correct guesses as opposed to 50% expected by chance.

À 97 of the subjects were right more often than theywere wrong.

À 42 were wrong more often than they were right

For more information on this subject visit Being Stared At

 

For any other experiments from Sheldrake, visitRupert Sheldrake

Edited November 30, 2010 by ra01062

[Incendia]

Coin tossing isn't random...

[John Cuthber]

What percentage of the subjects didn't understand statistics?

[ra01062]

I'm just publishing what I found. Probability is defined as "a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur; a number expressing the ratio of favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible; "the probability that an unbiased coin will fall with the head up is 0.5" Therefore, experiments involving "chance" can be put against the probability that an outcome between two choices should be roughly 50%

And all I have done is post information that has been tested. If anyone has a problem with it that's they're opinion. But an opinion without scientific backing is bias, so if anyone wants to charge any claim, they should present some sort of backing to anything they say. As I've said, I have no opinion in the matter. I just think people should actually take the time to do their own experiments, rather than debase something they simply do not agree with.