Parapsychology

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(actually, "quarks and leptons" covers even the weird stuff)
(Fundamental problems)
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The big problem with parapsychology as a field is that [[science]] is all of a piece. Thus, [[physics]] is consistent with [[chemistry]], [[biology]] and so on. So the question is not "what knowledge can we derive on the assumption that we know nothing?" but "what knowledge can we derive given what we know already?"
 
The big problem with parapsychology as a field is that [[science]] is all of a piece. Thus, [[physics]] is consistent with [[chemistry]], [[biology]] and so on. So the question is not "what knowledge can we derive on the assumption that we know nothing?" but "what knowledge can we derive given what we know already?"
  
Basic physics leaves it not looking good for parapsychology as a field in any way. Sean M. Carroll points out<ref>Carroll, Sean M. [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/02/18/telekinesis-and-quantum-field-theory/ "Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory."] ''Discover Blogs: Cosmic Variance'' 2008-02-18.</ref> that both human brains and the spoons they try to bend are made, like all matter, of quarks and leptons; everything else they do is emergent properties of the behaviour of quarks and leptons. And normal matter, made of quarks and electrons, interacts through the four forces: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational. Thus either it's one of the four known forces or it's a ''new'' force, and any new force with range over 1 millimetre must be at most a billionth the strength of gravity or it ''will'' have been captured in experiments already done.<ref>[http://preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/05/life-and-forces-of-nature.html Life and the forces of nature] (Sean M. Carroll, ''Preposterous Universe'', 2004-05-03)</ref> So either it's electromagnetism, gravity or something weaker than gravity.
+
Basic physics leaves it not looking good for parapsychology as a field in any way. Sean M. Carroll points out<ref>Carroll, Sean M. [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/02/18/telekinesis-and-quantum-field-theory/ "Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory."] ''Discover Blogs: Cosmic Variance'' 2008-02-18.</ref> that both human brains and the spoons they try to bend are made, like all matter, of quarks and leptons; everything else they do is emergent properties of the behaviour of quarks and leptons. And the quarks and leptons interact through the four forces: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational. Thus either it's one of the four known forces or it's a ''new'' force, and any new force with range over 1 millimetre must be at most a billionth the strength of gravity or it ''will'' have been captured in experiments already done.<ref>[http://preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com/2004/05/life-and-forces-of-nature.html Life and the forces of nature] (Sean M. Carroll, ''Preposterous Universe'', 2004-05-03)</ref> So either it's electromagnetism, gravity or something weaker than gravity.
  
 
This leaves no force that could possibly account for telekinesis, for example. Telepathy would require a new force much weaker than gravity and a detector in the brain evolved to use it for signaling. Precognition, the receipt of information transmitted back in time, would violate quantum field theory.<ref>[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html Physics FAQ] (Scott I. Chase)</ref>
 
This leaves no force that could possibly account for telekinesis, for example. Telepathy would require a new force much weaker than gravity and a detector in the brain evolved to use it for signaling. Precognition, the receipt of information transmitted back in time, would violate quantum field theory.<ref>[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html Physics FAQ] (Scott I. Chase)</ref>

Revision as of 19:31, 19 January 2011

The wonderful world of

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Parapsychology is the study of supposed paranormal phenomenon involving the human mind. This includes such things as psychokinesis, clairvoyance, and telepathy.

The goal is to apply the rigors of the scientific method and the advancements learned in studying the human mind learned in psychology to the world of the paranormal. In practice most of the experiments are of very poor quality design. They use poor controls (if any at all), usually have small sample sizes, ill defined terms and procedures, and rarely apply the concepts of double-blind studies.

Parapsychology is a pseudoscience due to its sloppy practice, its perennial lack of verifiable positive results[1], that parapsychologists who continue to get negative results get gently pushed out of the field[1], and that it contradicts extremely well-understood known science.

Contents

Fundamental problems

The big problem with parapsychology as a field is that science is all of a piece. Thus, physics is consistent with chemistry, biology and so on. So the question is not "what knowledge can we derive on the assumption that we know nothing?" but "what knowledge can we derive given what we know already?"

Basic physics leaves it not looking good for parapsychology as a field in any way. Sean M. Carroll points out[2] that both human brains and the spoons they try to bend are made, like all matter, of quarks and leptons; everything else they do is emergent properties of the behaviour of quarks and leptons. And the quarks and leptons interact through the four forces: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational. Thus either it's one of the four known forces or it's a new force, and any new force with range over 1 millimetre must be at most a billionth the strength of gravity or it will have been captured in experiments already done.[3] So either it's electromagnetism, gravity or something weaker than gravity.

This leaves no force that could possibly account for telekinesis, for example. Telepathy would require a new force much weaker than gravity and a detector in the brain evolved to use it for signaling. Precognition, the receipt of information transmitted back in time, would violate quantum field theory.[4]

What this means is that these ideas have pretty much no chance of being right even before we test them directly.

Specific programs

The most famous example of bona fide parapsychology is probably the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR). PEAR attempted to prove that human thought could manipulate the functioning of machines. They used devices designed to generate random phenomena, and then had subjects focus on disrupting that random pattern. They claimed to have shown that the experimental group of subjects focusing on disruption made the machine perform non-randomly in the direction the person was focusing. However, review of their procedures and data put that conclusion into serious doubt. All of the "effect" were witnessed by a single observer, who was a member of the lab. The PEAR group is no longer in operation.

Mention must also be made of Joseph B. Rhine, a professor at Duke University in the mid-20th century, who did extensive work on parapsychology and was responsible to a great degree for the field's sloppy protocol design. Rhine designed a special deck of cards containing five visually distinct shapes for use in telepathy and clairvoyance experiments, but also seemed blind to the consistent failure of experiments done under proper controls.

Uses of parapsychology

Parapsychology provides useful teachable examples of ideas that can't possibly be right and how such wishful thinking persists well past mere physical impossibility.

Allan Crossman (a biologist) suggests on LessWrong that parapsychology can serve as the control group for science itself:[5] a field using the methods of science but which cannot disprove the null hypothesis. If they come up with positive results (as they occasionally claim to), this shows where the methods of science need improving.

This does have the philosophical problem that it would require dismissing out of hand any positive results, rather than properly evaluating them as merely ridiculously unlikely. Fortunately, this is unlikely to be a practical problem while well-designed tests show no positive results, and the only tests showing any positive results tend to exhibit the experimental design skills of Daryl J. Bem.

Further reading

  • Gardner, Martin, Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus, 1981.

Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Susan Blackmore. "The Elusive Open Mind: Ten Years of Negative Research in Parapsychology." The Skeptical Inquirer 1987, 11, 244-255.
  2. Carroll, Sean M. "Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory." Discover Blogs: Cosmic Variance 2008-02-18.
  3. Life and the forces of nature (Sean M. Carroll, Preposterous Universe, 2004-05-03)
  4. Physics FAQ (Scott I. Chase)
  5. Allan Crossman. "Parapsychology: the control group for science." LessWrong 2009-12-05.
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