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James Randi and The Randi Challenge

Magician James Randi demands that magicians as well as scientists be included as observers of psychic experiments, to help detect trickery. Professional magicians such as Randi have claimed that the feats performed by people who claim to be psychics can also be achieved by concealed and fraudulent physical manipulation; Randi, Penn and Teller, and other stage magicians often perform such tricks in public, and then explain how they are done.

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) offers a one million U.S. dollars prize to anyone who can demonstrate any psychic or paranormal phenomenon. For more information about this challenge, see the corresponding section of the James Randi article.

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Early Scientific American challenge

The offering of prizes for demonstrations is not new to the field. Circa 1924, Scientific American magazine offered a $5000 prize to anyone who could produce any "visible psychic manifestation". Medium Mina Crandon, known in the literature as "Margery", made a bid and was tested by a committee set up by the editorial staff. Her performance was such that the committee members were split in their opinions. The magazine published the mixed report in its November 1924 issue, no prize was awarded, and the competition was declared closed the following year. In the early 1900s, the then well-known stage magician and skeptic Howard Thurston was sufficiently impressed by the demonstrations of medium Eusapia Palladino that he advertised in the New York Times his offer of $1000 to charity in the name of any fellow conjuror who could duplicate the feats of Ms. Palladino under similar conditions. He had no takers.

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Other objections to parapsychology

There are a variety of other objections to parapsychology as well.

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  Psi Phenomena as a Violation of the Laws of Physics or Nature
  

Some critics claim that the existence of psi phenomena would violate "the known laws of physics", and some of these critics believe that this is reason enough that such phenomena should not be studied. Parapsychologists respond that "laws of nature" are simply summaries of existing scientific knowledge and do get revised from time to time during the course of scientific progress. If the existence of psi phenomenon were ever proved, explaining how they work might require revising or extending the known laws of physics. Precognition, for example, would challenge commonly held notions about causality and the unidirectional nature of time. However, these commonly held notions are often not physical laws, and are already being challenged by modern physical theories, quite apart from psi phenomena. Skeptics and parapsychologists alike generally agree that, as per Occam's Razor, simple explanations should be preferred for any resulting theories of psi.

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  Parapsychology as Taboo
  

Some believe that paranormal phenomena should not be studied, either because they are forbidden by their religious orientation, or because they believe that to do so opens the investigators to some sort of "spiritual attack".

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  Parapsychology as a Danger to Society
  

Some believe that parapsychology should not be pursued because it somehow represents a danger to society. As is stated in the Y2000 NSF report Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding: Belief in the Paranormal or Pseudoscience:

"Concerns have been raised, especially in the science community, about widespread belief in paranormal phenomena. Scientists (and others) have observed that people who believe in the existence of paranormal phenomena may have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. Their beliefs may indicate an absence of critical thinking skills necessary not only for informed decision making in the voting booth and in other civic venues (for example, jury duty), but also for making wise choices needed for day-to-day living."

Although under the heading 'paranormal phenomena' the report lists topics such as astrology, UFOs, and the Loch Ness Monster, it also lumps in belief in ESP and, by implication, most parapsychology.

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  Parapsychology as a Waste of Resources
  

Some believe that parapsychology should not be funded because it is a waste of resources that would be better spent on other activities. Some of these critics feel so strongly about this that they engage in activism to try to prevent or remove funding from psi research. Psychic detectives may waste valuable police resources.

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History and evaluation

See history of parapsychology.

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Trivia

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  German psychiatrist Hans Berger originally invented the electroencephalograph (EEG) in 1929 as a tool to study whether telepathy might be explained by brain waves.
  
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  The first and only Ph.D. in Parapsychology awarded by the University of California, Berkeley was to Dr Jeffrey Mishlove in 1980. Subsequently some activists unsuccessfully lobbied the Berkeley administration to revoke the degree. Reportedly, as many as 46 people in the UK have doctorates in parapsychology.
  
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  Patent #5830064, "Apparatus and method for distinguishing events which collectively exceed chance expectations and thereby controlling an output", was granted by the US Patent Office on Nov 3rd, 1998 to inventors including several researchers from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) center. The patent in no way relies on the existence of psi phenomena, but in the description the inventors do suggest that "One application of the present invention is the investigation of anomalous interaction between an operator and random physical systems, whether by serious scientists or curious members of the public who would like to conduct experiments on their own."
  

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