Theos-Talk Archives (November 2003 Message tt00111)

Do Paranormal Phenomena Exist?

November 11, 2003
By KENNETH CHANG


Mention mind reading, ghosts, premonitions, the bending of
spoons through thought or other supposed mysteries of the
paranormal, and most scientists will say there are no such
things.

Polls show that about half of Americans believe in
paranormal phenomena. "For some reason, a lot of people
want it to be so," said Dr. Robert L. Park, a professor of
physics at the University of Maryland and the author of
"Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud." "If
you can do things with your mind, then the universe is
paying attention to you, and that's important to a lot of
people."

What then to make of researchers at an institute set up by
the Iowa-based Maharishi meditation movement who claim
meditation reduces violence in Israel and murders in
Washington - and publish scientific papers in peer-reviewed
journals?

Or published peer-reviewed studies indicating that prayer
lengthens lives, even when patients don't know that someone
is praying for them?

The few scientists working on paranormal research, often on
their own dime, feel they are following the rules of
science yet being excluded from the playing field.

"There's really strong pressure not to allow these things
to be talked about in a positive way," said Dr. Brian D.
Josephson, a professor of physics at Cambridge University
who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for a
fundamental discovery in superconductivity, and now heads
the Mind-Matter Unification Project at Cambridge.

One experiment Dr. Josephson finds intriguing is the Global
Consciousness Project, which records the output from
devices that generate random numbers based on electrical
noise. Dr. Roger D. Nelson, the project's director, said
that for unknown reasons the distribution of random numbers
changes noticeably during crises, with a noticeable shift
on Sept. 11, 2001.

The skeptics, however, say the data do not sway them. Dr.
Terence M. Hines, a professor of psychology at Pace
University in Pleasantville, N.Y., said, for example, that
the prayer studies he had seen were poorly designed - a
criticism that is often made of mainstream research as
well. (A new, larger study reported last month that prayer
by strangers provided no benefits to patients undergoing
heart surgery.)

More generally, Dr. Hines said, the data claiming to
demonstrate paranormal events "always stay at the very edge
of perceptibility." As scientists learn more about a
phenomenon, they can often refine their experiments to
highlight the new effects. Despite years of work, that has
not occurred with the paranormal research, Dr. Hines said.

Perhaps the biggest reason most scientists dismiss
paranormal research is that no one has a good suggestion
for how the mind could interact with the physical world.

And even Dr. Josephson concedes: "It would have to be
something we haven't identified in physical experiments. I
think if we can get some sort of model, then people may
start to look at it."


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/science/11PARA.html?ex=1069533717&ei=1&en=a5
816c585a85dc8d

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company 


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