What are the best experiments in Parapsychology?

Question

What are the best experiments in Parapsychology?

Answer 1

The best experiments are the ones that are simple enough to yield data that is easy to quantify.  These experiments should be conducted in a blinded scenario to keep participant and experimenter bias out of the results.  There should be a large number of trials conducted to get a large body of data.  You know, the same stuff that makes any experiment good.

Answer 2

The ganzfeld and auto-ganzfeld experiments are often cited by paranorma enthusiasts as the best evidence for psychic abilities. Unfortunately, these experiments have never been duplicated and the analysis of the original results were fraught with errors.

Answer 3

The best experiments happen each moment around us.

It is just that most of those who perform such experiments in labs or whatever try only to debunk such phenomena, not to really document them.

Here's the description of Dr. Tart and Miss Z.'s experiment on astral projection (I don't say it's 'the best', just one of them):

http://www.psywww.com/asc/obe/missz.html

Answer 4

It would be hard to choose between the AutoGanzfeld experiments and the remote viewing experiments sponsored by the government.

While debunkers hold dearly to what appears to be a purposeful misinformation tactic against parapsychological research please allow me to share with you the original sources.

Ray Hyman an acknowledged skeptic (incompletely quoted once again) said:

"Hyman, in 1991 [20] commenting upon a presentation of these results by the statistician, Utts [12], concluded that ``Honorton's experiments have produced intriguing results. If, as Utts suggests, independent laboratories can produce similar results with the same relationships and with the same attention to rigorous methodology, then parapsychology may indeed have finally captured its elusive quarry.'' (p. 392)."

(link to full article below)

Later in 1995 Hyman is reduced to arguing that ESP is not demonstrated because of theory:

"Obviously, I do not believe that the contemporary findings of parapsychology, [...] justify concluding that anomalous mental phenomena have been proven. [...] [A]cceptable evidence for the presence of anomalous cognition must be based on a positive theory that tells us when psi should and should not be present. Until we have such a theory, the claim that anomalous cognition has been demonstrated is empty.[...] I want to state that I believe that the SAIC experiments as well as the contemporary ganzfeld experiments display methodological and statistical sophistication well above previous parapsychological research. Despite better controls and careful use of statistical inference, the investigators seem to be getting significant results that do not appear to derive from the more obvious flaws of previous research.[18]"

(link below)

In other words something is happening that I can't explain (experimental evidence) and I won't accept it until it can be predicted and explained (theory).

Other links on the Ganzfeld are listed below.

The evaluation on Remote Viewing that concludes:

"Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud."

is the last link below.

Answer 5

I'll think of something, you guess what it is.