A recent hit piece on Psi Research

As you are aware Parapsychologist Daryl Bem has been doing a lot of experiments on ESP. Columnist Daniel Engber did a recent hit job on Parapsychology. He viciously attacked his character as a scientist by saying that Daryl Bem always believe in Psi. Couldn't be further from the truth. Daryl Bem is open to the possibility that maybe just maybe it exists. Numerous positive replications have been done by Daryl Bem and his colleagues. There has been some failures as well. Psi researchers are well aware the the experimenter effect which has been well known since the 1960's by psychologists. Apparently Daryl Bem, Marilyn Schlitz and Delorme presented results from their ESP experiment as they performed a pre registered analysis according to Daniel Engber. It looks like their large-scale, multisite, pre-registered replication ended in a failure. Here is a little more information cited from that article.

"In their conference abstract, though, Bem and his co-authors found a way to wring some droplets of confirmation from the data. After adding in a set of new statistical tests, ex post facto, they concluded that the evidence for ESP was indeed “highly significant.” Since then they’ve pre-registered a pair of follow-up experiments to test this new approach. Both of those efforts are in progress; meanwhile, the original attempt has not yet been published in a journal."

- Interesting but not so much, a typical accusation launched at Parapsychologist's is that they engage in fishing for positive results.

Not surprisingly Dr. Steven Novella did a recent post on this very subject. He said that Psi is dead. That their is no need for any more research in this field. The thing is which Steven Novella hides from his post is the fact their has been many successful positive replications for Psi. You can't take one negative result and have it rule out 2 or more positive results. It doesn't work that way. The reality is there has been more successful positive replications for Psi then their has been negative replications. Psi Phenomenon deserve to been taken seriously by the scientific community.

Steven Novella said this. Which I find rather interesting.

Alas, Bem and his fellow psi researchers did not give up:

In their conference abstract, though, Bem and his co-authors found a way to wring some droplets of confirmation from the data. After adding in a set of new statistical tests, ex post facto, they concluded that the evidence for ESP was indeed “highly significant.”

So close. They did the rigorous protocol, they put their nickle down like good scientists, but then they flinched from the results. That is the moment that separates real scientists from pseudoscientists. That is the ultimate test – can you accept results which definitively disprove your pet hypothesis?

So one failed replication disproves a person's theory?. I don't think so. For a phenomenon to be accepted it should be replicated hundreds of times.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00146/full


Here is the Skeptical article on the Psi research done by Daryl Bem and others

https://redux.slate.com/cover-stories/2017/05/daryl-bem-proved-esp-is-real-showed-science-is-broken.html

Here is Dr. Steven Novella's post on Daryl Bem's Psi research


http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/follow-up-on-bems-psi-research/

To close out I would like to add this interesting video video, on the assessment of Psi research and how the evidence for Psi is very strong.

Rebuttal to Steven Novella's Body Snatchers, Phantom Limbs, and Alien Hands

Dr. Steven Novella says that we cannot trust are own experiences, well of course we can't unless of course their is strong collaboration by highly credential scientists, as well as evidence to support it. Steven Novella then goes us to say that brain activity is sufficient cause to explain consciousness how so?. Simply saying so, is not going to do. Many neuroscientists have also lump into this false assumption perhaps brain activity strongly correlates with consciousness but isn't the sole cause of consciousness.

Steven Novella Once Again on Skeptiko Discussing Why in his opinion Nde/Obe is Neurophysiology and Psychological

I like to respond to some of Novella's Remarks on NDE's

He seems to ignore the fact that at least 92 percent of people who have ndes report seeing deceased love ones, where only a small percentage see living people this set of evidence weighs against a view that ndes are hallucinatory [Psychological, Neurophysiology].

Also he mentions how newer studies on magnetic stimulation on the brain show that nde's, are just a part of the brain [temporal lobe] that creates the out of body experience etc]. I think he is referring to this study here.

Out of body experience recreated

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6960612.stm

This study doesn't explain how people with flat lined EEG's lying on an operating table with no pulse can have this same experience without video cameras or virtual reality goggles while at the same time seeing and hearing things that could only have been percieved from a different location. Even miles away!!!. Neither doesn't it explain the complex lucidity either.

Also doesn't explain how blind people at birth can see perfectly unconsciousness.

http://atwaterndenews.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-i...

Here is the link to the recent Skeptiko podcast where Dr. Steven Novella discussed why in his opinion nde/obe don't point to an afterlife.

http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-debate-with-steven-novella/

Here are the compelling empirical reasons why Nde/Obe get lots of support to the
Survival Hypothesis

1.) Over 90 percent of nde see deceased loved ones but only a small percentage see living people.

2.) A Very large database of ndes show that patients who have obe can see things and hear conversations inside and outside and even well outside the emergency room well having a flat EEG. This as well as interviewing patients immediately after being flat lined shows that these out of body experiences are probably having when the brain goes completely flat-lined. These experiences have also been verified that they actually occurred they are well documented.

3.] EEG expert and Neurologist Dr. John Greenfield points out clearly that human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. Their are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can’t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them”,

4.) All neurophysiological and psychological models fail to explain any of the evidence above. As much as it hurts materialist's like "Dr. Steven Novella" to admit it the evidence is very straightforward and precise to ignore and avoid the evidence above, for nde/obe is only avoiding the facts that are clearly there.

Dr. Steven Novella Got it Wrong!!!

Dr. Steven Novella says near death experiences and out of body experiences can be explained soley of what is going on in the brain. An excellent rebuttal to Dr. Steven Novella's comments on nde's and obe's can be found here.

http://www.skeptiko.com/critique-of-skeptics-guide-249/