Looking Forward: The Challenges Facing Research Parapsychology

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!