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Looking Forward: The Challenges Facing Research Parapsychology

Looking Forward: The Challenges Facing Research Parapsychology. by Zolt án Vassy Laboratories for Fundamental Research Budapest, Hungary and Edwin C. May Laboratories for Fundamental Research Palo Alto, California US October 2008. Optimism vs. Pessimism. Glass: ½ Full/Empty 100% Full

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Looking Forward: The Challenges Facing Research Parapsychology

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  1. Looking Forward:The Challenges FacingResearch Parapsychology by Zoltán VassyLaboratories for Fundamental Research Budapest, Hungary and Edwin C. MayLaboratories for Fundamental ResearchPalo Alto, California USOctober 2008

  2. Optimism vs. Pessimism • Glass: ½ Full/Empty • 100% Full • No Empty Glass • Optimist: Definition • Pessimist with more information • YET •••

  3. Future Does Not Look Bright • Our Challenges Fall Into Three Related Categories • Beyond our control • Self generated • Technical • Pessimism Part • I don’t see any obvious near-term solutions

  4. Challenges Beyond Our Control─I • Two Primary Challenges • Money • There isn’t any • Important for Ψ Research • Important for Ψ Careers in Industry • Respectability • Very little in mainstream academia • Important for Ψ Careers at University

  5. Challenges Beyond Our Control─II • Lack of Money • A Counter Example: Ed May enjoyed 20-year Career • Industrial Wages • Full Health Benefits • Generous Retirement Fund • This is very rare; perhaps unique • Lack of Respectability • Tenure Track University Positions for Parapsychologists are quite rare • Little Grant Money for University Research • Many foundations do not pay university overhead costs. • What young talented researcher would chose parapsychology as an industrial or academic career? • Thus, we suffer with a talent filter of not our own making. • Currently, we may not have the brightest possible established or new people. • Therefore we may not be cable of resolving our technical challenges

  6. Challenges Beyond Our Control─III • Apparent Bias of the Mainstream • Difficult for • Obtaining grants • Getting published in the mainstream literature • One Example • May & Spottiswoode • 5-σ Prestimulus Response Effect with Acoustic Stimuli • Report (i.e., 2,500 word limit) for Science

  7. Report: A Science Saga • May Wrote Donald Kennedy a Letter • Illustrate my bonafides • Push the Type II Error Concept: Just Because he ••• • Had no academic standing • Did not work for a “recognizable” institution • Investigated a controversial field • Does NOT mean by definition that his claims were wrong! • Offered a solution: Give a talk at Stanford • Kennedy Offered a Pre-Review • 4 S-Mail Exchanges with some encouragement • Final word nine months later

  8. Kennedy’s 1st Response President emeritusBing Professor of Environmental Science, emeritusEditor-in-Chief, Science Thank you very much for your letter of June 5. Your background is obviously deserving of respect, and I'd like to be helpful. But the idea of marshalling a critical audience to hear you present your experiments seems a difficult and time-consuming way of dealing with what amounts to a pre-submission request. So I think that's asking too much, but I'll certainly look at something if you want to send it to me as an e-mail attachment or in some other way. Perhaps I should add that my personal history - dating back to the Rhine experiments in the 50s.- I'm pretty skeptical in this area.

  9. AAAS Rejection Letter Editor-in -Chief Dear Dr. May,During your absence, I've had a chance to circulate your proposal around. I'm afraid that the view here is that we will not send it out for in-depth review. I was glad to be of some assistance to you in getting it evaluated, and grateful for your interest in Science. Sincerely yours,

  10. The GOOD News! • There is Incontrovertible Evidence for a Statistically-based Information-Transfer Anomaly we Currently do not Understand. • 100% True?

  11. Self-Generated Challenges Yup, son,We have metthe enemy andthey are us! Boo Hoo!Why aren’t we accepted?

  12. Some Challenges:Self-generated & Money Based─I • Replication • Honorton’s Presidential Address (1975) illustrated how much better we were than experimental psychologists! • However, now mathematically and/or technically complex studies are rarely replicated. A few examples • Central Nervous System Studies • Fuzzy Set, Entropy, or other sophisticated models • DMILS • Conceptual Replications that aren't • Process oriented studies are often lumped with evidential ones • Hardly any overlap with the original intent in some replications of ganzfeld , RV or DMILS studies e.g. Moulton & Kosslyn (2008). Using Neuroimaging to Resolve the Psi Debate. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20:1, 182-192

  13. Some Challenges:Self-generated & Money Based─II • Amateur Hour—Downside of Interdisciplinary Research • Physicists pontificating on psychological issues • Psychologists extolling the virtues of quantum physics • “Quantum, of course, is a word that many interpret as permission to make stuff up.” –Ben Goldacre, The Guardian (9-Aug-08) p. 11. • Non-physiologists doing just that. • Money makes the difference─an SRI International Example • They conducted and published a remote viewing experiment with subliminal feedback. -May, Lantz, and Piantineda (1996). Feedback Considerations in Anomalous Cognition Experiments. Journal of Parapsychology, 60, pp. 211-226.(www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/library/Feedback.pdf) • Argument by highly-selected “experts” • Experimenter Expectancy Effects • Research is too often conducted to prove a world-view rather than to develop one • As humans we all do this to some degree; however, when ideology begins to trump alternative hypotheses, we are in trouble.

  14. Some Challenges:Self-generated & Money Based─III • Scientists are Notoriously Terrible Presenters • We are no exception to this general rule • An unforgivable error: Rigor and Detail = Clarity • Far too much stuff on a single slide • Questionable Sales Techniques • “Hello Ms. mainstream physicist. I am sad to report that the way you think the world works is totally wrong!” • Many of us do not publically offer enough counter hypotheses to the cherished one • Often interpret criticism as a display of the critic’s unconscious fear of some kind • Quoting in-the-tail scientists as representing mainstream thought • Failing to acknowledging substantial research that suggests why these scientists are in those tails

  15. Some Challenges:Self-generated & Money Based─IV • Collapsing Disciplines / Skill Set • Bob Morris rightly should be praised for his obvious legacy here in the UK and elsewhere • However, the relatively explosive growth of academic PSI investigators has a serious problem • They are nearly totally from psychology! • We have an interdisciplinary problem that requires interdisciplinary science to solve • As an Organization, we seemingly cannot reach a consensus as to what is: • Mostly likely genuine • Maybe genuine but we are not sure • Likely not genuine, but need more investigation • Most likely not genuine

  16. Technical Challenges─I • When, Where, & How Long does PSI Happen? • Unless and until we answer these questions, process-oriented experiments are difficult or impossible to interpret • May stopped (gave the grant money back) a fMRI / skin conductance study with Morris and similar complex EEG experiment • Collapse the Problem Space • Experiments of the form • If you think that last experiment was weird, look at this new one! • We MUST stop this • Look for organizing concepts • Decision Augmentation Theory is just one candidate • Is precognition the only form of PSI? • Vassy’s Theory XXXXXX

  17. Technical Challenges─II • We Need Never to Conduct an Evidentiary Experiment Again • Anomalous Cognition (e.g. RV, Ganzefeld, ESP) • Random Number Generator • DMILS(?) • Currently, Few if Any of us are Technologically Skilled Enough to Address, let alone, to Conduct the Necessary Experiments that will be Required in the Future • CNS functional explorations • Physiological correlates • Deep psychology that may imply PSI ability • Physics of backward causation

  18. Conclusion • Questions • Should we let the field lie fallow for a decade? • Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” • Should we focus on applications? • What else should we do? • Let us now have a lengthy discussion about this!

  19. Questions/Comments? Laboratories for Fundamental ResearchPalo Alto, California +1 (650) 276-0522 Voice +1 (650) 283-3892 Cell WWW.LFR.ORGmay@LFR.ORG Thank you!

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