I have access to everyone’s birth date, and
we have prepared a personalized
horoscope for every person in the class.
Please take the one with your name on it.
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL INSTRUCTED TO!
Science and the Paranormal
Douglas Duncan and Nahum Arav
What is the scientific* evidence for
paranormal phenomena?
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•
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Astrology
Psychokinesis
ESP
Clairvoyance
Crystals
Numerology
ET visits
Channeling
*testable; repeatable
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Crop circles
Tarot reading
Pyramidology
Palmistry
Big Foot
Alien abductions
Divination
Things on the fringe of
science…
Lots of
TV, movies,
about
ghosts,
UFOs…
As with my own
experience
explaining
ghosts, popular
media rarely
publish when
paranormal
claims are
false.
• If any of these phenomena has factual
validity it will have a profound impact on the
way we understand the world. Remember
that only 4 forces have ever been
discovered (maybe 5 with dark energy).
Many paranormal claims demand new ones
Extraordinary claims demand
Extraordinary proof.
Paranormal belief
• Is widespread – many people want to
believe
• Anthropologists have yet to isolate a single
human society without a well established
system of Paranormal belief.
• People dislike being told, “We don’t know.”
Anthropologists have yet to isolate a single human
society without a well established system of
Paranormal belief.
People dislike being told, “We don’t know.”
Since the human mind – conscious and
subconscious – is so powerful, we need to be very
careful in how we test these questions.
Remember the gorilla!
We have a powerful and precious
way of not getting fooled:
Scientific progress
• The cumulative growth of a system of
knowledge over time in which useful
discoveries are retained and non useful
features are abandoned, based on
the rejection or confirmation of repeatable,
testable knowledge.
What is the alternative?
• Do we want to test our paranormal beliefs?
• How would we guard ourselves from
self-deception, blatant fraud, being led
astray by dogmatic people, wasting our
time and money on useless things?
• “Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.”
Richard Feynman
Let’s test astrology
We have prepared a personalized
horoscope for every person in the class.
You may open yours now.
How well does your astrological
description match your life situation
NOW?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Excellent
Very good
Good
Fair
Poor – it doesn’t apply to me at all
Trade your horoscope with someone sitting
near you. How well does the astrological
description match your life situation now?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Excellent
Very good
Good
Fair
Poor – it doesn’t apply to me at all
Everyone was given the same horoscope!
The first half of the month focus on work. Your Tenth House
is brimming with planetary activity that can’t be ignored.
Peak days for this to manifest itself are the 1st and from
the 7th through the 17th, so the worst will be behind you
before long. The next week abounds with romantic
energy for you. Be honest about demands on your time,
both to yourself and others. With all the demands placed
upon it now, pay particular attention to your body. To help
with that disjointed feeling, try meditation or a good
physical workout to help realign your energies. Taking an
hour or two to commune with that special someone will
help immensely too!
most rated it very good, before knowing everyone got the same reading
An alternative is to watch a professional do
the same thing!
Good horoscope readings?
Astrological Time Twins
A study involving 2,101 persons born in London during
3–9 March 1958. They were born on average 4.8 minutes
apart, so they were precisely those for which astrologers
had predicted ‘really exceptional similarities of life and
temperament’.
Measurements at ages 11, 16 and 23 provided
scores for IQ, reading and arithmetic;
teacher and parent ratings of behavior such as anxiety,
aggressiveness and sociability self-ratings of ability such as
art, music and sports; and various others such as
occupation, accident proneness and marital status;
No correlation was found!
The effect size due to astrology was 0.00 ± 0.03.
• It disconfirms the idea of sun signs (2,101
Pisceans evidently had few similarities!)
• The above result is consistent with empirical
studies of signs, aspects and so on, which
consistently failed to find effects commensurate
with astrological claims (Eysenck and Nias,
1982; Culver and Ianna, 1984; Dean, Mather
and Kelly, 1996; Martens and Trachet, 1998;
Dean et al., 2002).
The Australian astrology
experiment shows how astrology
“works”
The results from a genuine horoscope
and from a placebo horoscope are the
same!
(both favorable according to the
clients).
Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann.
The case of cold fusion
Not
published
in peerreviewed
journals.
Could not
be
replicated
by other
scientists…
UFOs
Play video
Figure 2. A Landstat image of the three oil platforms in the Campec
the area off the coast of Mexico (Akal-C with 4 flares, Akal-J with 4
flares and Nohoch-A with 2 flares). The white lines indicate the
narrow camera field during the video segment.
(A) Flares as they would appear at sea level.
(B) Additional flares as they would appear if located on 100 foot towers.
(C) Choosing the best match from the above two options
(D) A frame from the video image taken at 17:06:53 for comparison
Doug Duncan’s genuine UFO (unidentified floating object)
The role of the commercial media
• Little interest in serious (boring) study
of paranormal phenomena.
• Fanatic adherents and “unsolved
mysteries” are much better for ratings.
The integrity fig leaf: “you decide”
(but they provide only one-sided evidence)
You do better with public TV and NPR.
Is there a scientific* debate whether the
Big Bang happened?
No.
(less than 0.001)
Is there a scientific debate how the Big Bang
happened?
Yes, all the time.
*based on data, makes testable predictions
Is there a scientific* debate whether
evolution happened?
No.
(less than 0.001)
Is there a scientific debate how evolution
happens?
Yes, all the time.
*based on data, makes testable predictions
Is it more difficult for people to accept
biological evolution than astronomical
evolution?
A. Yes
B. No
Why?
Two comments: 1. Evolution is not random – but has random elements.
2. No one can PROVE to you the world wasn’t created yesterday… but that is
not a scientific theory. It’s not testable.
Is it dangerous when many people do not
accept biological evolution, or do accept
pseudoscience?
A. Yes
B. No, their beliefs don’t hurt anyone else
When evolution and the microbial basis of
disease were discovered in the 1800s,
what was life expectancy*?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
30 years
40 years
50 years
60 years
70 years
*by Darwin and Wallace, and by Pasteur.
When evolution and the microbial basis of
disease were discovered in the 1800s,
what was life expectancy*?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
30 years
40 years
50 years
60 years
70 years
*by Darwin and Wallace, and by Pasteur.
Some people still believe
that crop circles are not
made by humans….
Predictions and Prophecies
Where are the predictions for 9/11
or for the horrible Asian tsunami?
Remember that science is based on pre-diction,
not post-facto explanation.
[Beware of people who claim prediction after
something happens!]
So what paranormal phenomena have proven true when
tested scientifically?
The Data so far…
Ex-magician James Randi has become a foremost
spokesperson on behalf of critical thinking,
reason and a willingness to ask questions -especially when claims are made concerning the
paranormal or spiritual. He offers $1M for proof!
Standing against the establishment
does not guarantee correctness!
They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at
Galileo and they laugh at my claims.
"But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".
(From Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain)
For further reading on metaphysics, science
and psychology:
Michael Shermer
Victor Stenger
Demon Haunted
John Shumaker
I have some fun handouts about these topics for anyone who wants to take
them home (and get a book for the holidays?)
I hope this class has provided you with an
interesting perspective on the universe we
live in….
And I’d like to end with my favorite quote.
Carl Sagan author of “A Pale Blue
Dot;” “The Demon-Haunted
World”, “Contact”, “Cosmos…”
We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you
look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On
it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever
lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and
sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and
economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and
coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king
and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child,
every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every
teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar,
every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of
our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a
sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood
spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they
could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the
endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely
distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their
misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their
hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we
have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of
pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity - in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to
save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a
humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there
is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this
distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal
more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and
cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.