Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years: New York Times

[alkemical]

I wonder if they saw it coming:

Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years: New York Times (http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070210/K021010AU.html)


PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) - The extrasensory perception lab at Princeton University will be shuttered at the end of the month.

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory will close after 28 years of studying ESP and telekinesis, research that embarrassed university officials and outraged the scientific community.

PEAR's founder, Robert Jahn, said the lab, with its aging equipment and dwindling finances, has done what it needed to do.

"If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will," Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton's engineering school and an emeritus professor, told the New York Times newspaper for Saturday editions.

Princeton made no official comment on the lab's closure.

One of the world's top experts on jet propulsion, Jahn was able to buck a research system based on university and government money that uses strenuous peer review. Instead, Jahn estimates he was able to raise more than US$10 million in private donations over the years.

A standard experiment at PEAR would have a participant sitting in front of an electric box flashing numbers just above or below 100. Staff would tell the person to either "think high" or "think low" as they watched the display.

PEAR researchers concluded people could alter the results in such machines about two or three times out of 100,000. Jahn claimed if the human mind could slightly alter a machine, it might be able to be used in other areas of human life, such as healing disease.

[TailgateNut]

LOL , 2-3 out of 100000 saw it coming!

[orangenblue2]

28 years and they've proven exactly...nothing. What a colossal waste of time and money...

[alkemical]

28 years and they've proven exactly...nothing. What a colossal waste of time and money...

So you mean they neither proved or disproved it?

[TheDave]

So you mean they neither proved or disproved it?

2 or 3 out of 100,000 is proof enough for me :approve:

[orangenblue2]

So you mean they neither proved or disproved it?

They have found no proof of anything that they were hoping to find proof of...in fact I'd go so far as to say "overall results were now completely indistinguishable from chance."

[Bronco Bob]

They have found no proof of anything that they were hoping to find proof of...in fact I'd go so far as to say "overall results were now completely indistinguishable from chance."

Cargo Cult Science?

[cutthemdown]

lol at saw it coming!!!!!

[alkemical]

lol at saw it coming!!!!!

i'm here all week:~ohyah!:

[Bronco_Beerslug]

They have found no proof of anything that they were hoping to find proof of...in fact I'd go so far as to say "overall results were now completely indistinguishable from chance."

I love the "it exists or happens because you can't prove it doesn't" crowd! :~ohyah!:

[alkemical]

They have found no proof of anything that they were hoping to find proof of...in fact I'd go so far as to say "overall results were now completely indistinguishable from chance."

I was just asking for clarification.

I wouldn't know how to prove it exists. I mean everything from the army using psychics, to some tests showing people can guess or read people at a higher success rate than others etc - i have no clue how one would even try to prove it.

But he got private donor money - but the acadamia world is wierd bunch. It hasn't changed really - it appears you are often hung in some fasion when you work outside the norm.

[alkemical]

I love the "it exists or happens because you can't prove it doesn't" crowd! :~ohyah!:

Have you ever had a gut feeling or any intuitive sense that paid off? Or a sense of Deja vu?

Nobody knows what they are, or how they are manifested. So to discount that something does not exist - when there's no real scientific model that can measure this (since we can't quantify what consiousness is really) - i think i'd be rather foolish to just write it off. Just my thought on the matter.

[Rohirrim]

I sense a disturbance in the force.

[alkemical]

I sense a disturbance in the force.

Can you scientifically validate your feeling? ;)

[baja]

How do you explain this guy?

http://www.uri-geller.com/

[alkemical]

How do you explain this guy?

http://www.uri-geller.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller

[Bronco Bob]

How do you explain this guy?

http://www.uri-geller.com/

Didn't The Amazing Randi pretty much prove Uri Geller is a fraud?
Randi was able to duplicate every one of Geller's tricks, and to
show how they were done.

[alkemical]

Didn't The Amazing Randi pretty much prove Uri Geller is a fraud?
Randi was able to duplicate every one of Geller's tricks, and to
show how they were done.

Yeah even Coast2Coast sort of has Uri on a black list.

[orangenblue2]

How do you explain this guy?

http://www.uri-geller.com/

He's a joke? He's a fraud? He's made mucho money off of gullible people? I don't know what else to say...

[The Lone Bolt]

2-3 out of 100,000? WOW!! No way that could be chance!;)

Good work gentlemen!:thumbs:

[orangenblue2]

2-3 out of 100,000? WOW!! No way that could be chance!;)

Good work gentlemen!:thumbs:

I think the real figure was 2-3 out of 10,000 but it matters not...

[RaiderH8r]

This sounds like a movie I saw.....was a Dr. Venkman involved?

[alkemical]

lol

[alkemical]

Here's an honest question:

Have you ever had a gut feeling or any intuitive sense that paid off? Or a sense of Deja vu?

If we don't know or understand (classify) what consiousness is - how can we begin to test the "limits" of it? (Just as with no proof for either it's existence or non-existence - it would have to be an innert variable/true and false)

[Bronco Bob]

Here's an honest question:

Have you ever had a gut feeling or any intuitive sense that paid off? Or a sense of Deja vu?



Have you ever had a gut feeling about something and nothing came of it?

Which was more memorable, the one that did happen or the one nothing
came of it?

Basically we have selective memory. The ones that did happen stand
out, the ones that didn't we forget about. But the laws of chance
say eventually one we have a feeling about will happen once in a while.
The old "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while" joke.

[alkemical]

Have you ever had a gut feeling about something and nothing came of it?

Which was more memorable, the one that did happen or the one nothing
came of it?

Basically we have selective memory. The ones that did happen stand
out, the ones that didn't we forget about. But the laws of chance
say eventually one we have a feeling about will happen once in a while.
The old "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while" joke.


Hmm, for me - not really. Usually when i get a "feeling" on something it pans out. I do understand what you are saying - but i learned how to differentiate anxiety with "gut feelings". But you didn't cover deja vu - you only covered part of my questions. Of course you didn't touch this one either:

If we don't know or understand (classify) what consiousness is - how can we begin to test the "limits" of it? (Just as with no proof for either it's existence or non-existence - it would have to be an innert variable/true and false)