[ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku

[Damien Broderick]

At 05:31 PM 3/4/2008 +0000, BillK wrote:

>I think Randi's challenge is not meant for the type of statistical
>anomalies that you are talking about. He wanted to combat the psychic
>charlatans that rip off the gullible and bereaved public. Same as
>Houdini used to debunk self-proclaimed psychics and mediums.  He
>wanted people like Uri Geller to come in and bend spoons while being
>watched by slow-motion cameras from all angles, using spoons supplied
>by the testers.

That's true, and most of his efforts seem directed to the palpably 
bogus--and in general I applaud such demolitions.

But the JREF does claim to be open to tests of real parapsychologists 
as well--see his references to Bierman and Ertel. As Dean Radin has 
argued, a Randi-dedicated full-scale ganzfeld program with a 99% 
chance of beating Randi's odds would take several years of full time 
work by several people and hundreds of volunteer subjects.

(Mere coincidence that Randi and Radin are anagrams? Evidence for 
creationist design?)##

>On a separate note if esp abilities existed, wouldn't they provide an
>evolutionary advantage and increase over time? Surely it would be
>handy for a prehistoric hunter to know where the food was in advance,
>or to know that a tiger was hiding round the corner?  If such
>abilities were beneficial the whole population should have inherited
>them after a few thousand years.

I discuss this at some length in OUTSIDE THE GATES OF SCIENCE and 
won't repeat it here. But note that your argument also proves that 
after a few thousand years tigers must have evolved human-level 
intelligence (a phenomenon we *agree* exists) to avoid the hunters. 
This explains why we see so few of them around these days--they're 
all cannily hiding around corners.

Damien Broderick
##for the humor-impaired, this was a joke, although a rather lame one.