Extrasensory Deception

 By-Avijit Roy.

Email: avijitroy@hotmail.com

 

ESP (extrasensory perception) or ESD (Extra-Sensory Deception)?

Extrasensory perception, commonly called ESP, is perception occurring independently of sight, hearing or other sensory processes. ESP is divided up into telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. The existence of ESP and other paranormal powers such as telekinesis, are disputed, though systematic experimental research on these subjects, known collectively as psi, has been ongoing for over a century in parapsychology.

Most of the evidence for ESP is anecdotal and is dismissed by skeptics as based on trickery by mentalists, selective thinking, retrospective falsification, wishful thinking, poor grasp of probabilities and of the law of truly large numbers, gullibility, ignorance of cold reading, subjective validation, or fraud. The following case is typical of those cited as proof of ESP. It is unusual only in that it involves belief in a psychic dog, rather than a psychic human. The dog in question is a terrier who has achieved fame as having ESP as exhibited by his ability to know when her owner, Pam Smart, is deciding to come home while she is away on a shopping trip or some such business. The dog's name is Jaytee and has been featured on several television programs in England, where the dog lives, and elsewhere, including the United States. It was claimed by some of those showing the psychic dog running to a window facing the street that the dog was doing so at precisely the moment his owner was deciding to come home from some miles away. Had not two scientists, Dr Richard Wiseman and Matthew Smith of the University of Hertfordshire, tested the dog under controlled conditions, this story might have passed on unchallenged into the annals of ESP lore. The scientists synchronized their watches and set video cameras on both the dog and its owner. Alas, several experimental tries later, they had to conclude that the dog wasn't doing what had been alleged. He went to the window, alright, and did so quite frequently, but only once did he do so near the exact time his master was preparing to come home and that case was dismissed because the dog was clearly going to the window after hearing a
car pull up outside his domicile. Another supportive case was dismissed, even though the dog went outside at the time her owner was deciding to return home, but it was decided that the dog went outside to vomit, not to greet her mistress.

Much of the belief in ESP is based upon apparently unusual events that seem inexplicable. However, we should not assume that every event in the universe can be explained. Nor should we assume that what is inexplicable requires a paranormal (or supernatural) explanation. Maybe an event can't be explained because there is nothing to explain. For example, I had a dream that I came into a room where my best friend was seated with his back towards me. He had died of a cerebral hemorrhage five weeks earlier. Does this dream need to be explained? Why? If I had had the dream five weeks before he died, would it have needed explanation then? Does my dream need to be explained? If it does, I think several explanations are plausible which do not require any reference to ESP.

Most ESP claims do not get tested, but parapsychologists have attempted to verify the existence of ESP under controlled conditions. Some of them, like Charles Tart, claim success, but have been charged with confirmation bias, among other things. Others, such as Susan J. Blackmore, claim that years of trying to find experimental proof of ESP have failed to turn up any proof of indisputable, repeatable psychic powers. Psychologists like Ray Hyman, who have thoroughly investigated parapsychologal studies, have concluded that there is little there besides fraud, error, incompetence, and statistical legerdemain. Others claim that the gansfeld experiments, the CIA's remote viewing experiments and attempts to influence randomizers at Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research have produced evidence of ESP.

James Randi, PrabirGhosh, Dr. Abraham Kovoor are among those pioneers in this world who demystified thousands of vague Paranormal/psychic claims.

Was it psychic powers? ESP? Don't even say such a thing to James "The Amazing" Randi, magician, author, skeptic and tireless debunker of supernatural and mystical claims. After the demonstration of this feat, part of Randi's lecture at the Fieldhouse Auditorium, Randi said to audience :

"What I've shown you is a magic trick," said Randi. "I do these things in order to show that we magicians do better tricks than all the so-called psychics."

 

Readers can read the following books for their reference: 

 

 

 

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Published in Mukto-mona : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/380

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