Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

sanctus

#1Feb 12th, 2007

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) - The extrasensory perception lab at Princeton University will be shuttered at the end of the month.
The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory will close after 28 years of studying ESP and telekinesis, research that embarrassed university officials and outraged the scientific community.
PEAR's founder, Robert Jahn, said the lab, with its aging equipment and dwindling finances, has done what it needed to do.
"If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will," Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton's engineering school and an emeritus professor, told the New York Times newspaper for Saturday editions.
Princeton made no official comment on the lab's closure.
One of the world's top experts on jet propulsion, Jahn was able to buck a research system based on university and government money that uses strenuous peer review. Instead, Jahn estimates he was able to raise more than US$10 million in private donations over the years.
A standard experiment at PEAR would have a participant sitting in front of an electric box flashing numbers just above or below 100. Staff would tell the person to either "think high" or "think low" as they watched the display.
PEAR researchers concluded people could alter the results in such machines about two or three times out of 100,000. Jahn claimed if the human mind could slightly alter a machine, it might be able to be used in other areas of human life, such as healing disease.

Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press

marygaspe

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Well, they did prove the gullibility of others for twenty eight years.That has to count for something!

csanopal

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Latest scientific report: Universities easy marks for bogus departments, provided they are named cleverly.

eh1eh

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

They should have seen that comming. LOL

csanopal

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by eh1eh

They should have seen that comming. LOL

I wonder how many millions of dollars they managed to screw Princeton out of over those 28 years?

tamarin

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

ESP obviously exists but how to prove it? Most of it's anecdotal but even such accumulation should count for something. I think we've all had such moments. They seem minor but they exist. We've all had moments at home where we suddenly think: the phone's going to ring. And it does. Or we think of some person we've not connected with for six months, a year or five and then later that day there's an email in your box from him or a letter in the mail. And we've all had many, many moments when out and about or driving in the car and the loved one next to us begins to say something totally unrelated to anything that's just gone before and yet we know exactly what it will be before it's said.
ESP, whatever tiny nation it inhabits in our head, is a real country.

csanopal

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by tamarin

ESP obviously exists but how to prove it? Most of it's anecdotal but even such accumulation should count for something. I think we've all had such moments. They seem minor but they exist. We've all had moments at home where we suddenly think: the phone's going to ring. And it does. Or we think of some person we've not connected with for six months, a year or five and then later that day there's an email in your box from him or a letter in the mail. And we've all had many, many moments when out and about or driving in the car and the loved one next to us begins to say something totally unrelated to anything that's just gone before and yet we know exactly what it will be before it's said.
ESP, whatever tiny nation it inhabits in our head, is a real country.

Yeah, sure it does

28 years and they didn't prove it successfully, now did they!

dude1981

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

ESP, Reincarnation, the bible, all places people try to insert logic into normal situations. We have ESP powers about as much as ants can talk.(IMO)

canadarocks

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by dude1981

ESP, Reincarnation, the bible, all places people try to insert logic into normal situations. We have ESP powers about as much as ants can talk.(IMO)

Subjecting a phenomenon to 28 years of scientific study without fully understanding it is not unusual, but studying a NON-phenomenon for that long is ridiculous. How did they get any funding at all when they had no evidence whatsoever that ESP even EXISTS?

missile

#10

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

I used to think that women could read our minds, then I realized it was just our transperancy

tamarin

#11

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Ah, skeptics, I love 'em. Doubting Thomases. Yes, we are all entitled to our own opinions on such things. Personally, it's enough for me to have witnessed ESP lite at work in my life to know it exists. But maybe I'm more evolved. Hmmm....maybe we are evolving physically and psychically at the same time. You two are just younger souls. I like that. Lets you off the hook.

canadarocks

#12

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by missile

I used to think that women could read our minds, then I realized it was just our transperancy

You got that right, that and the fact that you men are totally unsophisticated when it comes to keeping secrets and hiding things from us!

canadarocks

#13

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by tamarin

Ah, skeptics, I love 'em. Doubting Thomases. Yes, we are all entitled to our own opinions on such things. Personally, it's enough for me to have witnessed ESP lite at work in my life to know it exists. But maybe I'm more evolved. Hmmm....maybe we are evolving physically and psychically at the same time. You two are just younger souls. I like that. Lets you off the hook.

This is a big crazy Universe that we all live in
and there is much that we do not know but if
these morons can't come up with anything tangible
in 28+ years then maybe we need to throw money at
some better "Scientists" Eh?

Just a thought.

Zzarchov

#14

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Tangible like what?

400 years later and we still don't know how gravity works. We have several differing theories that all COULD be true.. It could be a pull force, it could be a system of repelling forces conflicting with each other, it could be "intelligent falling" ..

canadarocks

#15

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by Zzarchov

Tangible like what?

400 years later and we still don't know how gravity works. We have several differing theories that all COULD be true.. It could be a pull force, it could be a system of repelling forces conflicting with each other, it could be "intelligent falling" ..

Oh, come on,,"PEAR researchers concluded people could alter the results in such machines about two or three times out of 100,000. "
__________________

Holy crap 2 or 3 times out of 100,000?! Good God, they must be on to something, I can't believe Princeton is cutting their funding, after such a monumental breakthrough. There is no way such dramatic results could be a result of statistical error.(heavy,heavy sarcasm intended)

tamarin

#16

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Indeed. Or get better subjects. Like me. But truthfully I couldn't go into a lab and produce. I can see the guy now: "show us something funny!Show us something weird!"
ESP operates on its own schedule and it's not something constant. It just keeps on reappearing as an oddity in one's life. ESP lite.
For example: Just yesterday, I was on the computer. I'm a retired professional and I get a kick out of selliing on eBay now. We've been very successful, sticking to a small niche there. I'd just completed some filings and was thinking about a deal I had completed last summer. Nothing important but with an individual who was unusual. Hadn't thought about him at all since June or July. And yet ten seconds later I returned to my eBay site and there he'd just bid on the lead item. Coincidence? ESP lite? It happens too often for me to slough off.
But how do you reproduce such events in a lab?

eh1eh

#17

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

We don't know how space and time works, but everybody has a clock and a tape measure.

tamarin

#18

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Great figurative language! Well done!

#juan

#19

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

At the annual Psychokinesis convention the master of ceremonies said;

"I move that we call this meeting to order, all those in favour, raise my hand".

Curiosity

#20

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

I actually would like to believe there are phenoms such as ESP and Reincarnation

They appeal to me because they give some an extra dimension to the normals we now test and trust...

Perhaps the beauty of not being able to prove their existence is that they will remain
unsullied by humanity's natal desire to destroy everything simple and good.

tamarin

#21

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Curiosity, I second that!

Curiosity

#22

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Me Too Tam lol

hermanntrude

#23

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

As a scientist I ought to be skeptical. But i'm not. I've seen the anecdotal evidence in close family members. Now it's possible my mother lied to me.... but why would she? and how did she win all those raffles?

Tonington

#24

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

I know my mother has a long history of feeling crappy and apprehensive out of the blue, only to find out the next day that a Swiss airplane crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia. I can't remember the other things she told me about, I'll expand on what Hermann says, maybe it's only that she remembers them so vividly because she asigns meaning to them. I know she has felt apprehensive before in her life and nothing has happened.

hermanntrude

#25

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

well the story my mother tells me is as follows:

she used to go to a singles club which held regular raffles. They let you choose the number you wanted. She says she used to look through the book and see the ticket that had already won. then she'd buy it and win. she did this so many times (winning, amongst other things, a holiday in the algarve), that they changed the rules so u had to take the number that was given to you.

karrie

#26

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

I dreamt I was in a skyscraper, under attack, being bombed. People all around me were screaming and dying. I was running in terror. Someone shouted that the building next to us was on fire too, and that's when I woke up, drenched in a cold sweat. Four hours later, my mom called me to tell me to turn on the tv, that the twin towers had been bombed.

This year, I dreamt I was trying to talk to my cousin. He kept walking away. It felt imparative that I get him to pay attention, to turn around and talk to me. He refused, and just kept walking. I woke up angry with him for not paying attention. It was a feeling that stuck with me all through my morning. He had died at about 4AM, and I found out later that afternoon, just after my sense of frustration with him had started to fade.

So, needless to say.... when my daughter woke my husband up at 3AM Saturday morning to tell him she'd had a nightmare about the furnace catching fire, and the smoke detectors not working right, he promptly cleaned the furnace and replaced the smoke alarms in the house. : )

I think ESP and psychokinetic ability defy explanation, because they exist on a level we don't understand. They're on the periphery of our consciousness, and disappear when we try to look directly at them.

hermanntrude

#27

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by karrie

I dreamt I was in a skyscraper, under attack, being bombed. People all around me were screaming and dying. I was running in terror. Someone shouted that the building next to us was on fire too, and that's when I woke up, drenched in a cold sweat. Four hours later, my mom called me to tell me to turn on the tv, that the twin towers had been bombed.
This year, I dreamt I was trying to talk to my cousin. He kept walking away. It felt imparative that I get him to pay attention, to turn around and talk to me. He refused, and just kept walking. I woke up angry with him for not paying attention. It was a feeling that stuck with me all through my morning. He had died at about 4AM, and I found out later that afternoon, just after my sense of frustration with him had started to fade.
So, needless to say.... when my daughter woke my husband up at 3AM Saturday morning to tell him she'd had a nightmare about the furnace catching fire, and the smoke detectors not working right, he promptly cleaned the furnace and replaced the smoke alarms in the house. : )
I think ESP and psychokinetic ability defy explanation, because they exist on a level we don't understand. They're on the periphery of our consciousness, and disappear when we try to look directly at them.
Quote has been trimmed, See full post:

i dont think anything can defy scientific explanation for ever. We may not live long enough to see the explanation, nor may the human race, but it's still explainable

karrie

#28

Re: Princeton ESP lab shutting down after 28 years

Feb 12th, 2007

Quote: Originally Posted by hermanntrude

i dont think anything can defy scientific explanation for ever. We may not live long enough to see the explanation, nor may the human race, but it's still explainable

The only theory I've ever heard that made sense (and I'm nowhere near smart enough to repeat it as brilliantly as it was put forth to me) was that ESP and psychokinetic ability can only work through the relativity of space and time. And, since we still think and live in linear time, trying to understand something that exists outside of that, is simply beyond our current ability.

hermanntrude

#29