I enjoy chatting with the multi-talented and insightful Reed Esau on a number of topics and it was a thrill to see him again at Dragon*Con this year (I now have two, TWO shirts with SkeptiCamp on them! I is happy Australian!).
Today on Twitter, he raised a concern about a quote which was being used on Wikipedia to supposedly authenticate remote viewing. Was it perhaps a misquote? So, I decided to zip over an email to see what was going on -- and kindly, Dr Wiseman responded!
Dear Dr Wiseman,
After perusing the following article in the Daily Mail, “Could there be proof to the theory that we’re ALL psychic?”, and recalling your discussions about Ganzfeld experiments that I listened to when I was a student of Dr Watt’s Introduction to Parapsychology course (which I did online via University of Edinburgh), I was wondering if you might have any further comments about the following proposed experiments by Dr Chris Roe?
In particular, I recall your summation of several Ganzfeld experiments and the need for stringent criteria when conducting such an experiment.
“…Back at the University of Northampton, Dr Chris Roe hopes he can provide such proof one way or the other.Next month, he will embark on a series of experiments that will be more rigorous than any so far attempted.
They will rule out fluke positive results and any unconscious biases held by anyone involved with the experiments.
And if that wasn’t enough, he then plans to embark on research into an even more outlandish field: whether it is possible to remote view through time.
In other words, he will investigate whether it is possible for remote viewers not only to observe distant locations, but also to see what will happen at that place at a predetermined time in the future.
“Time does not seem to be a barrier to remote viewing,” says Dr Roe, matter of factly.”
I noticed that you were already interviewed in the article (“Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing.”) but I was wondering what was meant by “I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven“. Is it a misquote?
The response?
“It is a slight misquote, because I was using the term in the more general sense of ESP -- that is, I was not talking about remote viewing per se, but rather Ganzfeld, etc as well. I think that they do meet the usual standards for a normal claim, but are not convincing enough for an extraordinary claim.”
Thanks very much to Dr Wiseman and thanks very much to Reed for prompting me to find out more! Oh, don’t forget to check out this interview with Dr Wiseman, thanks to the ‘Pulse Project’,
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