Extrasensory perception

Called extrasensory perception or sixth sense, it includes the supposed perception of information not obtained through the recognized physical senses, but with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to designate different psychic abilities such as telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, and their transtemporal functioning as precognition or retrocognition. All these phenomena are treated as pseudoscience.

VisionEvelyn de Morgan (1914)

Visions are a form of extrasensory perception by which a person perceives information about future events before they happen (precognition), or about things or events in remote places (remote viewing). There is no scientific evidence that this phenomenon exists and associated reports are only known from anecdotal evidence.

History of extrasensory perception

The term extrasensory perception (ESP) was coined by Joseph Banks Rhine, but the notion of extrasensory perception has existed since ancient times. The ancient shamans or oracles based their work on the supposed use of supernatural powers to obtain knowledge, such as precognition or clairvoyance. In ancient times, the use of these powers has always been related to some deity or diabolic power, and it was not until the 20th century when, in addition, an attempt was made to go deeper and give it a scientific or more esoteric explanation.

Joseph Banks Rhine

Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895-February 20, 1980), a pioneer in the field of parapsychology, represents a before and after in the study of these extrasensory abilities.

In the 1930s, he and his wife at Duke University (North Carolina) carried out a series of experiments using Zener cards, invented to test these possible extrasensory abilities such as telepathy.

Experiments

The experiments consisted of shuffling a deck of these cards and drawing them out by a supervisor, who selected one without the study subject seeing it, having to guess it later.

In the conclusions of this experiment, according to Rhine, the probability of having some extrasensory power and not due to chance was 1 in 1,000,000, and the success cannot be due to something casual.

Subsequent studies of other groups carried out at different times during the subsequent 50 years decreased the probability of a chance hit to 1 option in 14 million.

However, part of the scientific community does not accept the results as they cannot be reproduced and are suspected of being manipulated, as is the case of Joseph Banks Rhine himself, in which the veracity of his experiments is questioned by his own wife (a partner in the experiments) in the book written by her in which she declares to be a witness to the manipulation of the data to falsify the results.

Image of Zener Cards

Debate on the existence of extrasensory perception

Supporters of the existence of ESP point to the numerous scientific studies that seem to offer results in sociological rather than scientific barriers to research, and in denial of funding for further study and theoretical development.^{[citation required]}

Difficulty of the test

The absence of positive and reproducible results is one reason why scientists and materialists conclude that the existence of these phenomena cannot be scientifically established by anything other than statistically strong evidence from properly controlled laboratory studies.

The main current discussion about ESP revolves around whether such statistically convincing laboratory tests have already been achieved. Some dispute the positive interpretation of the results obtained in scientific studies on extrasensory perception, since the most convincing and reproducible results are all statistically small or moderate.^{[citation needed]} The critics of extrasensory perception argue that those about extrasensory perception, despite which its existence is considered well founded.^{[citation needed]}

General criticisms

Claims about the existence of extrasensory perception have been subject to repeated criticism that the subject did not possess such an ability: after several experiments, the subject showed no extrasensory ability.^{[citation needed]}

Social psychologist David Myers states that "no reproducible extrasensory phenomenon has ever been discovered, nor has anyone produced one that is capable of demonstrating psychic ability." This position is also held by various psychologists and researchers including illusionist James Randi.