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Princeton ESP Lab to Close

Posted by Zonk on from the don't-think-bad-thoughts dept.

Nico M writes " The New York Times reports on the imminent closure of one of the most controversial research units at an ivy league School. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory is due to close, but not because of pressure from the outside. Lab founder Robert G. Jahn has declared, in the article, that they've essentially collected all the data they're going to. The laboratory has conducted studies on extrasensory perception and telekinesis from its cramped quarters in the basement of the university's engineering building since 1979. Its equipment is aging, its finances dwindling. Jahn points the finger at detractors as well: 'If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will.'"

5 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Credibility by Steve+Furlong · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article: One editor famously told Dr. Jahn that he would consider a paper "if you can telepathically communicate it to me."

    Yah, that about covers it.

    Only saving grace is, they relied on donations, so they weren't wasting money extorted from others, whether by taxes or by tuition.

    1. Re:Credibility by poopdeville · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One editor famously told Dr. Jahn that he would consider a paper "if you can telepathically communicate it to me."

      That's not exactly ideal academic objectivity.

      I don't have any particular reason to believe these guys. At the same time, I have little reason to doubt their methodology. If their paper made a point, it should have at least seriously considered for publication, and not been rejected out of hand.

      I'm disappointed in science today.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
  2. Um.... we believe you... by Markmarkmark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After looking at all the data, we certainly believe in your results. Your data proves that there is no evidence for ESP (except in flawed non-reproducible experiments). So long and thanks for confirming the obvious.

  3. Belief vs reproducibility by OriginalArlen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Jahn points the finger at detractors as well: 'If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will.'" That's rather the point. In science it doesn't really matter what results you can produce, if no-one else can reproduce them...

    --

    Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
  4. Re:The problems with PEAR by flushingmemos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're wrong. It's not the analysis, the methodology is flawed. The more runs you do the less pronounced the effects of "streaks of luck" on the final data. But the more runs you do, the more whatever lingering bias in your methods will come out. So PEAR's huge sample sizes don't indicate manipulating data, they indicate collecting so much data you end up measuring the effects of the ventilation system causing a person's left eye to be shut a bit longer when they blink, skewing the results, or somesuch. That effect will come out when you have huge sample sizes, but random effects will disappear. That's the problem with PEAR: the things they purport to measure are so subtle as to be untestable. It's a methodology problem.

    Still, I'm sad to see them go. A little openmimndedness can make the world much more fun. I mean, they were named after a fruit!