Quantifying ESP

The mainstream scientific community is in an uproar with the pending publication of a paper that describes "strong evidence for extrasensory perception."

The paper is excepted to be published this year by The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, much to the despair of many scientists who are scorning the research of Daryl J. Bem of Cornell, sticking to the belief that it is not possible to quantify an ability to sense future events.

Dr. Bem used nine different lab experiments performed over the past decade generating over more than 1,000 subjects, and tested the ability of college students to accurately sense random events. One of the tests involved subjects choosing which of the two curtains on a computer screen hid a photograph, while the other hid nothing but a blank screen. When the photograph was a an erotic nature the participants chose correctly 53% of the time. This could be in effect due to the sexual malaise that effects our culture, creating a higher energetic field of tension opposed to the negative or neutral photos that did not have the same result of beating chance. Dr. Bem believes that if people more talented, like those who have honed their psychic facilities, participated in the study, then they would be able to find any of the photos.

Though Doctor Bem's paper did nothing to quantify pure psychic phenomenon that would dazzle the press, and grant the shamans, mystics, and psychics an "I told you so" moment, the door has been unlocked.  By accepting paper into the scientific circle, and making it open to criticism and debate, it will allow for the discussion to continue and for new research methods to evolve off of each other, thereby increasing our collective knowledge of these unseen phenomenon.

Image: "Sign: Psychic Reader…" by pinehurst19475 on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.