2.8: What is the ganzfeld? (scientific skepticism)
Description
This article is from the Scientific Skepticism FAQ, by Paul Johnson Paul@treetop.demon.co.uk with numerous contributions by others.
2.8: What is the ganzfeld? (scientific skepticism)
A state of sensory deprivation which may enhance psychic abilities.
The subject lies on a soft bed, with a "white noise" hissing sound
played through headphones and half of a ping-pong ball placed over
each eye to give an empty field of view. The subject then talks to a
tape recorder, describing any ideas which enter his or her mind.
To test whether psychic communication is occurring, a "sender"
concentrates on some image while the "receiver" is in the ganzfeld.
Then the image is shown to the receiver along with three other images.
The receiver must pick the image that was seen by the sender.
Dean Radin <dradin@festival.ed.ac.uk> has been conducting some careful
ganzfeld experiments, which he describes as follows:
> ... our unit has recently conducted pilot replications of the
> ganzfeld telepathy studies reported by Bem & Honorton. In 76
> sessions we obtained 25 direct hits, which is quite close to the 33%
> meta-analytic hit rate previously reported by Honorton et al..
> Our methodology was based on Honorton's auto-ganzfeld setup, which
> automated most aspects of the experiment, except we were even more
> obsessive: Our system uses a computer to randomly select the target,
> to automatically present the target clip to the sender, to
> automatically present the judging clips in a random order to the
> receiver, and to store the data. The receiver and sender rooms are
> 25 meters apart, behind 4 doors, and sound-shielded to 100 dB.
> We only use volunteer subjects claiming no special abilities,
> typically for one or two sessions. The methodology and preliminary
> study results will be reported in detail in August at the annual
> Parapsychological Association convention. Some of our other plans
> are reported in the 15 May 93 New Scientist cover article on
> telepathy.
3.1 What are UFOs? (scientific skepticism)
UFOs are, simply, Unidentified Flying Objects, no more, no less. The
word "object" is used in a very broad way, not to imply a physical
"object" but more an experienced phenomenon, e.g. something seen,
heard, "sensed" etc. This means that if you are out one night and see
a light moving in the sky and cannot immediately identify it as a
certain star, planet or other object, then it is by definition a UFO.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE SEEN AN ALIEN SPACESHIP.
A better question would be:
3.1.1 Are UFOs alien spacecraft?
Probably not. The vast majority of UFO reports, when investigated by
competent researchers (and that is a problem all by itself), can be
easily explained as natural or manmade objects misidentified for one
reason or another. The actual percentage is around 95%. A very few
reports are provable hoaxes. The remaining few percent (some skeptics
argue that there are no remaining reports) are not explained at this
time. Again, this does not mean that they are observations of alien
spaceships. All we can say is that, given the information presently
available, some cases don't appear to be stars, balloons, airplanes,
aurorae. etc. Given a great deal more time and effort, many more
could likely be identified. It's possible that the witness(es) were
in error, or are very good liars. And the remaining few cases? Well,
the best we can say, as true skeptics, is that we don't know what they
were, but there is NO proof that they were alien spacecraft.
3.1.2 Are UFOs natural phenomena?
Possibly. A number of theories have been proposed, suggesting that
some UFOs are "plasmas" or variations of ball lightning or earthquake
lights. Unfortunately, the theories seem to change to fit observed
data, rather than predict the observations. Also, studies designed to
support the theories have used newspaper articles and raw, unsifted UFO
case lists for data, and therefore the studies do not appear to be
completely unbiased. Perhaps time will tell. Until then it is safe to
say that SOME UFOs are probably ball lightning or other rare natural
phenomena.
3.1.3 But isn't it possible that aliens are visiting Earth?
Yes. But it is also possible that there is an invisible snorg reading
this over your shoulder right now.
Basically, some astronomers (e.g. Carl Sagan) are convinced that there
are other habitable planets in our galaxy, and that there may be some
form of life on them. Assuming that parallel evolution occurred on
these other planets, there MIGHT be intelligent life forms there. It
is possible that some of these life forms could have an advanced
civilization, and perhaps have achieved space travel. BUT - there is
no proof that this is so. SETI programs such as the High Resolution
Microwave Search now being conducted by NASA under the direction of
Jill Tartar are "listening" to other stars in the hope of detecting
radio signals that might indicate intelligent life - kind of
listening for the equivalent of "Watson, come here, I need you!", or
"I love Lucy" in the infancy of our early communications. Such
searches have been fruitless, so far.
If there are aliens on distant planets, then it is possible that they
might have found a way to travel between stars in their lifetimes.
According to our present understanding of physics, this is not likely,
given the vast distances between stars. Even travelling at the speed
of light (which cannot be done), a round trip to the nearest star would
take about ten years. This does not rule out interstellar ships, but
it does make it seem unlikely that we are being visited.
If *even one* civilization has found a way to travel between stars in
the entire history of the Milky Way Galaxy (about ten billion years),
it ought to fill the entire Galaxy in only a hundred million years or
so. The question, then, is why don't we observe evidence of alien
civilization everywhere? This question is known as the Fermi Paradox,
and there is no really satisfactory answer. If, however, we postulate
alien visits to Earth, we must also accept a Galaxy-wide civilization
and ask why we see no evidence of it.
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