問題詳情
II. Discourse Structure Test: (15%) Since the 1970s, parapsychologists at leading universities and research institutes aroundthe world have risked the derision of skeptical colleagues by putting the various claims fortelepathy to the test in dozens of rigorous scientific studies. The results and theirimplications are dividing even the researchers who uncovered them. Some researchers say the results constitute compelling evidence that telepathy isgenuine. Other parapsychologists believe the field is on the brink of collapse, having tried toproduce definitive scientific proof and failed. _________1____________ Reports oftelepathic experiences had by people during meditation led parapsychologists to suspect thattelepathy might involve 'signals' passing between people that were so faint that they wereusually swamped by normal brain activity. In this case, such signals might be more easily detected by those experiencing meditation-like tranquility in a relaxing 'whole field' of light,sound and warmth. The ganzfeld experiment tries to recreate these conditions with participants sitting insoft reclining chairs in a sealed room, listening to relaxing sounds while their eyes arecovered with special filters letting in only soft pink light. In early ganzfeld experiments, thetelepathy test involved identification of a picture chosen from a random selection of fourtaken from a large image bank. _________2____________ Once the session was over, this person was asked to identify which of the four imageshad been used. Random guessing would give a hit-rate of 25 percent; if telepathy is real,however, the hit-rate would be higher. In 1982, the results from the first ganzfeld studieswere analyzed by one of its pioneers, the American parapsychologist Charles Honorton.They pointed to typical hit-rates of better than 30 percent - a small effect, but one whichstatistical tests suggested could not be put down to chance. The implication was that the ganzfeld method had revealed real evidence for telepathy.But there was a crucial flaw in this argument - one routinely overlooked in moreconventional areas of science. Just because chance had been ruled out as an explanation didnot prove telepathy must exist; there were many other ways of getting positive results.__________3___________ In response, the researchers issued a review of all the ganzfeldstudies done up to 1985 to show that 80 percent had found statistically significant evidence.However, they also agreed that there were still too many problems in the experiments whichcould lead to positive results, and they drew up a list demanding new standards for futureresearch. After this, many researchers switched to autoganzfeld tests - an automated variant ofthe technique which used computers to perform many of the key tasks such as the randomselection of images. By minimizing human involvement, the idea was to minimize the riskof flawed results. In 1987, results from hundreds of autoganzfeld tests were studied byHonorton in a 'meta-analysis', a statistical technique for finding the overall results from a setof studies. Though less compelling than before, the outcome was still impressive. Yet some parapsychologists remain disturbed by the lack of consistency betweenindividual ganzfeld studies. __________4___________ If, as current results suggest,telepathy produces hit-rates only marginally above the 25 percent expected by chance, it'sunlikely to be detected by a typical ganzfeld study involving around 40 people: the group isjust not big enough. Only when many studies are combined in a meta-analysis will the faint signal of telepathy really become apparent. And that is what researchers do seem to befinding. What they are certainly not finding, however, is any change in attitude of mainstreamscientists: most still totally reject the very idea of telepathy. The problem stems at least inpart from the lack of any plausible mechanism for telepathy. Various theories have been putforward, many focusing on esoteric ideas from theoretical physics. They include 'quantumentanglement', in which events affecting one group of atoms instantly affect another group,no matter how far apart they may be. While physicists have demonstrated entanglementwith specially prepared atoms, no-one knows if it also exists between atoms making uphuman minds. Answering such questions would transform parapsychology._________5____________ Some work has begun already, with researchers trying toidentify people who are particularly successful in autoganzfeld trials. Early results show thatcreative and artistic people do much better than average: in one study at the University ofEdinburgh, musicians achieved a hit-rate of 56 percent. Perhaps more tests like these willeventually give the researchers the evidence they are seeking and strengthen the case for theexistence of telepathy.(AB) This has prompted some researchers to argue that the future lies not in collectingmore evidence for telepathy, but in probing possible mechanisms. (AC). The idea was that a person acting as a 'sender' would attempt to beam the imageover to the 'receiver' relaxing in the sealed room. (AD) The limitations of the studies have undermined the reliability of their findings, and,thus, invite more doubt. (AE) Skeptics and advocates alike do concur on one issue, however, that the mostimpressive evidence so far has come from the so-called 'ganzfeld' experiments, aGerman term for 'whole field'. (BC) These ranged from 'sensory leakage' - where clues about the pictures accidentallyreach the receiver - to outright fraud. (BD)Defenders of telepathy point out that demanding impressive evidence from everystudy ignores one basic statistical fact: it takes large samples to detect small effects.[!--empirenews.page--]
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