Tests on ESP - Research Paper Example

Later in 1930 Duke University followed the footsteps of Stanford University and under William MacDougall’s supervision, formed its own testing facility for these experiments. MacDougall’s associates included Karl Zener and Joseph B. Rhine who conducted tests on volunteering undergraduate subjects. These tests were completely safe and usually included quantitative and statistical methods to validate parapsychological advancements. The equipment used included cards and dices. Duke University’s test incorporated standard laboratory procedures (Berger, Arthur, Berger, Joyce, 1991). J. B.

Rhine’s New Frontiers of the Mind (1937) brought these studies and tests to the main stream. General public became aware of such a branch of psychology. The popularity of the term ‘parapsychology’ is owed to Rhine’s book. Rhine took the research one step further and established the Journal of Parapsychology with MacDougall (Berger, Arthur, Berger, Joyce, 1991). The testing that went on inside the laboratory was very interesting. Rhine with the help of Karl Zener used statistical testing of ESP.

This usually involved a guessing game, where a total of 5 cards, with different symbols on them were used and the subjects were to guess the symbol on these 5 hidden cards. The rule worked something like this; if there was above 20 percent correctness level, it meant more than chance was in play, meaning that the subject was showing psychic ability. Rhine and his team conducted over 90,000 trials (experiments) and later wrote Extra Sensory Perception (1934). Criticism When the study of parapsychology became popular, many went cynical toward it.

Milbourne Christopher was the front runner and heavily criticized Rhine’s work. He claimed that experimental results published were not accurate as the subjects had cheated during the tests (Milbourne, 1970). On a similar note, Irving Langmuir claimed that the results showed selective reporting (Robert, 2000). He explained that Rhine had omitted the findings in which there were considerable doubt on the honesty of the subjects, thus the conclusions were flawed. To these heavy attacks on the authenticity of his work, Rhine wrote his Extra Sensory Perception after Sixty Years (1940) as an answer to their allegations (Rhine, 1966).

In this book he defended his experiments and established the credibility of parapsychology. Realizing that the onslaught of criticism was getting intense, Rhine along with Joseph Gaither Pratt wrote Parapsychology: Frontier Science of Mind (Berger, Arthur, Berger, Joyce, 1991). Scientists that critique the work of Rhine and parapsychology in general argue that the claims made by parapsychologists are extraordinary and to validate such claims, extraordinary conditions need to exist, which hardly occur in the realm of normality (Gracely, 1998).

Many contest the quality of evidence shown by study. Either the evidence is of poor quality or doesn’t measure up to be convincing enough. In general the results produced so far (even if they are accepted as they are presented) are still not conclusive enough. Moreover, many scientists claim that there is a dominant element of fraud involved in the studies and the claims. Flawed studies and cognitive bias govern the findings of parapsychology.