Extra Sensory Telephone Perceptions

[Walter Wayne]

From yorkshiretoday website (http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=1745147).

A British scientist has just completed an experiment to determine whether people do have extra sensory powers or a "sixth sense".
The results, claimed to be "highly significant" were revealed to the British Association for the Advancement of Science's annual conference in Norwich.

...

In one series of trials, participants were told they would receive a telephone call at a pre-arranged time from one of four named relatives or friends. Callers were picked at random by the experimenter and just before the phone rang, participants were asked to guess who was about to call.

Claimed success rate of 40-45 percent in 842 trials.


Of course it come from that most trusted of sources.
Dr Sheldrake, a Cambridge University biologist and author who has been studying telepathy in people and animals for 20 years, said the evidence was stacking up from trials around the world that telepathy exists.

Enjoy.

Walt

[greyleonard]

From yorkshiretoday website.


Cool. It's great to see they gave one whole entire full sentence to the skeptic side from Prof Lord Robert Winston.

This experiment in media gullibility is also covered in this week's Swift, btw:

Lord Robert Winston, a former British Association president, said: "I know of no serious properly done studies which make me feel that this is anything other than nonsense." Oxford Professor Peter Atkins said: "Work in this field is a complete waste of time. Although it is politically incorrect to dismiss ideas out of hand, in this case there is absolutely no reason to suppose that telepathy is anything more than a charlatan's fantasy. It is extraordinary that the BA should consider [these subjects] worth a platform." Which “charlatans” Atkins referred to, he did not specify. As expected, our friend Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from Hertfordshire University, said: "It is the principle that is important. If the issue were race and intelligence, and you had three people saying one race are less intelligent than another, that would be outrageous. If there is not a consensus within science, then any panel like this should be balanced. It would be interesting to see what happens if Sheldrake tries to re-run the experiment in collaboration with a more skeptical researcher." Perhaps Richard was applying for the job. I can imagine no better volunteer.