Philosophy 322
Sacramento City College
Critical Thinking About the Paranormal
Fall 2007 9:00 to 10:20 am TuTh
UC and CSU transferable - 3 Units
Prerequisite: ENGWR 300 with a C or better
Satisfies
IGETC Area 1B: Critical Thinking - English Composition
Satisfies CSU General Education Area A3: Critical
Thinking
Satisfies
AA General Education II (b): Language and Rationality: Communication and
Analytical Thinking
Instructor: Dr. Robert T. Carroll
Required Texts
The Skeptics Dictionary by Robert Todd
Carroll (John Wiley & Sons 2003) [Q172.5.P77 C37];
The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of
Psychic Phenomena by Dean Radin (HarperEdge 1997) [BF1031 .R18], and
The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough
Scientific Evidence of Life After Death by Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D.
with William L. Simon (Atria Books 2002) [BF1275.S3 S34].
Student Success Guide: Writing Skills by Robert T. Carroll
(download for free). For more resources to help with your writing, you
might try the SCC online writing
lab (OWL) or the Purdue
University OWL.
These books are available at the College Store, but used copies may
be substantially cheaper from online bookstores such as
Amazon.com. Check
CheapestTextbooks.com for the best deals.
Course Description
The student will learn the fundamentals of critical
thinking while evaluating the scientific evidence for the paranormal.
Focus is on hindrances to critical thinking and on the unique challenges
presented when evaluating experience, testimony, and scientific
experiments in ESP, PK (psychokinesis), healing prayer, and survival of
consciousness.
Course
Requirements
There will be four research papers.*
Course Grade
Your grade will be based on your four papers. Each paper will count
for 25% of your grade. Borderline grades will be determined by
participation in and contribution to the class discussions.
Course Objectives
As a result of taking this course, a student should be able to
examine controversial ideas with an open mind and a healthy
skepticism;
distinguish between cogent and unsound arguments;
recognize common hindrances to critical thinking such as
selective thinking, confirmation bias, communal reinforcement, and
self-deception;
understand cognitive and perceptual illusions
and biases such as apophenia,
confirmation bias, ideomotor action, magical thinking, and
pareidolia;
understand the techniques of cold reading and
the process of subjective validation;
identify fallacies in reasoning such as begging the
question, false dilemma, and the argument to ignorance;
identify proper and improper protocols in setting up
controlled experiments;
understand the nature and importance of
blinded, randomized experiments;
understand what a meta-analysis is and how to
evaluate meta-analyses;
recognize the importance of clear criteria for identifying
transfer of information in psi experiments;
understand the concepts of randomness, statistical
anomalies, and statistical significance;
understand basic concepts in parapsychology such as psi,
ESP, psychokinesis, remote viewing, clairvoyance, and precognition;
critically evaluate several scientific studies that claim to
have found strong evidence for ESP, psychokinesis, the healing effects of
prayer, and life after death;
demonstrate mastery of the above objectives in
several research papers.
Course Outline
Unit
One:
Basic
concepts in parapsychology; perceptual & cognitive biases; experience &
experiment
Concepts
Paranormal
anomalous cognition, anomalous perturbation, clairaudience, clairvoyance,
Clever Hans phenomenon,
confabulation, ESP, near-death experiences, out-of-body
experiences, parapsychology, precognition, psi, psychokinesis, psychometry,
remote viewing, and telepathy.
Logic, Perception, and Critical Thinking
apophenia, communal reinforcement, confirmation bias, ideomotor
effect,
inattentional blindness, law of
truly large numbers (coincidences),
magical thinking, memory, pareidolia, selective
thinking, self-deception, sympathetic magic, testimonials,
unconscious mind, wishful
thinking, and worldviews.
Themes
What are the problems with perception, memory, and cognition that lead parapsychologists
to claim that scientific tests of psi are
necessary even though there is very substantial anecdotal evidence for the
existence of ESP and psychokinesis?
Week 1: Key concepts in paranormal studies:
psi, ESP (telepathy, clairvoyance,
precognition, and
remote viewing), and
PK (psychokinesis).
Readings: Radin: Introduction and
ch.1 What is
Psi?;
Carroll: entries for psi, ESP, telepathy, psychokinesis,
clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing, anomalous
cognition, anomalous perturbation, paranormal, and
parapsychology.
Podcast:
Interview with Dean
Radin (Skeptico, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the
play button.)
-
Belief in the paranormal: the 2001 Gallup poll and the
2005 Gallup poll.
-
Religious and other beliefs: the 2003 Harris poll.
Poll comparison (2001 and 2005).
Weeks 2 and 3: Personal experiences and
anecdotes:
the convincing nature of paranormal stories;
problems with anecdotal evidence; perceptual and cognitive illusions; how
memory works; alternative explanations for seemingly paranormal experiences.
"The true critical thinker accepts what few
people ever accept -- that one cannot routinely trust perceptions and
memories." --Alcock, "The Belief Engine"
"...human beings, in
trying to make sense of their world, must make mistakes. On the one hand,
they miss things that are there and, on the other, invent things that are
not." --Susan Blackmore "Psychic Experiences, Psychic Illusions"
...We prefer stories to
statistics....We sometimes misperceive the world around us....Our memories
are often inaccurate....We rarely appreciate the role of chance and
coincidence in shaping events.... --Thomas Kida. Don't Believe
Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking
Readings: week 2- Radin: ch. 2 Experience; week 3
- ch. 14
"Seeing Psi"
Week 2 Carroll: testimonials; memory.
Week 3 Carroll:
perceptual biases: apophenia, pareidolia, inattentional
blindness,
clever
Hans phenomenon
cognitive biases: confirmation bias, ideomotor effect, selective thinking, the law of truly large
numbers (coincidences), communal reinforcement,
magical thinking, self-deception,
unconscious mind, wishful thinking and worldviews.
Online articles
Alcock (1995)
The
Belief Engine, Skeptical Inquirer. 19(3): 255-263; Blackmore
(1992),
Psychic Experiences: Psychic Illusions; Blackmore (1992); Lester
(2000) Why Bad
Beliefs Don't Die, Skeptical Inquirer Nov/Dec; All in the mind. (The
taxi problem). Problems with
perception.
Coincidences:
Remarkable or Random? by Bruce Martin (1998).
The first paper will describe the popularity of paranormal beliefs
and explain why anecdotal evidence, though powerful and
persuasive, is not considered adequate for science. This paper will
review common perceptual and cognitive biases and illusions that make it
difficult to interpret experience accurately. The paper will review
alternative explanations to apparently paranormal events: psychological,
physical, coincidence, hoaxing, and fraud. Finally, the paper will
indicate how scientific testing can help us find the best explanation for
apparently paranormal events.
Unit
Two:
Science and controlled studies
Concepts
Parapsychology:
displacement, ectoplasm,
experimenter effect, optional starting and stopping, parapsychology,
the psi assumption,
psi-missing, Soal Goldney experiment, and Zener cards.
Science and scientific experiments
ad hoc hypothesis, anomaly, chance probability, control group studies, meta-analysis,
metaphysics, naturalism, Occams razor, pathological science,
randomization, replication, and statistical
significance.
Logical
fallacies
appeal to authority, argument to ignorance, begging the question,
clustering illusion, divine fallacy, file-drawer effect (positive outcome
bias), post hoc fallacy, pragmatic fallacy, and the regressive fallacy.
Themes
Should science be restricted to naturalistic explanations of
naturalistic phenomena or is the distinction between the natural world and
the paranormal/supernatural world an artificial one?
Why are controlled studies and meta-analyses considered so important by
scientists? The history of parapsychology demonstrates some of the
difficulties with setting up proper scientific studies.
Week 4. Science, scientific
experiments and replication. (Note: research
paper 1 due at the beginning of the first class during week 5.)
Readings: Radin ch. 3, Replication;
Carroll: ad hoc hypothesis, anomaly, control group study
(randomized, double-blind control group study; chance probability;
statistical significance), metaphysics, naturalism, Occams razor,
the
psi assumption,
science, and Zener cards.
Week 5. Meta-analysis.
Readings: Radin Ch. 4. Meta-analysis; Video: National
Geographic Channel: Naked Science - Telepathy. Video: "The Conscious
Universe." This video may be checked out at
the main desk on the 1st floor of the library. (BF1031.R18 1997).
Carroll:
meta-analysis,
file-drawer effect,
positive outcome bias,
and selection bias.
-
"The Shrinking Filedrawer," Skeptical Inquirer (May
2001) by Douglas M. Stokes.
- "The
Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality" by Ray Hyman
Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 1996 (interesting discussion of
meta-analysis, as well as of the ganzfeld experiments).
- "Meta-Analysis and the File-Drawer Effect" by Victor J. Stenger,
December 2002.
-
Publication Bias: The File-Drawer Problem in Scientific Inference by
Jeffrey D. Scargle. Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No.
1, pp. 91106, 2000.
- Review of The
Conscious Universe by I. J. Good, Nature October 23, 1997.
(This posting has links to responses by Radin and others to the review.)
-
Replication and
Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology, published in Statistical Science,
1991, Vol. 6., No. 4, 363-403.
-
Meta-Analysis at
25 by Gene V Glass, College of Education, Arizona State University.
-
An explanation of the statistics used in the Meta-analysis by Dr Frans
Gieles.
-
Effect size
-
Some
Food for Thought About Effect Size Howard S. Bloom MDRC Mark W. Lipsey
Vanderbilt University March 11, 2004.
Weeks 6 and 7. A short history of paranormal
research. From William Barrett to Robert Jahn, from Lady Wonder to Jaytee. Video:
Secrets of the Psychics
(This video may be checked out of the SCC Library at the main desk:
BF1042.S427 1993.) A preview may be seen by clicking
here.
Readings: Radin: chapters 5 and 6 - Telepathy and Perception at a
Distance;
Carroll:
displacement, ectoplasm,
experimenter effect, optional starting and stopping,
Project Alpha,
psi-missing,
the Soal Goldney experiment,
and A Short History
of Psi Research.
-
Metapsychics and the Incredulity of Psychologists: Psychical Research
Before 1927 by John E. Coover
- The
Project Alpha Experiment: Part one. The First Two Years by James
Randi (Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1983)
- R. A. McConnell: God.org:
Are You There? On the Deeper Meaning of ESP
-
"Human Electrodermal Response To Remote Human Monitoring: Classification
And Analysis Of Response Characteristics," by Paul Stevens, Journal
of Parapsychology, Dec, 2000
-
"Remote Mental Influence of Human Electrodermal Activity: A Pilot
Replication" by Dean I. Radin, Robin K. Taylor, and William G.
Braud
-
"Replicable Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence of Correlated
Brain Signals Between Physically and Sensory Isolated Subjects," by Todd
L. Richards et al.,.Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
Dec 2005, Vol. 11, No. 6: 955-963.
Week 8:
Fallacies and sophistries.
Readings: Carroll:
appeal to
authority (website), argument to ignorance, begging the question,
divine fallacy
(website), false analogy, post hoc fallacy, the pragmatic fallacy, and the
regressive fallacy.
The second paper will review some of the specific
problems scientific investigators have run into over the past 150 years
of scientific experimentation on the paranormal, such as
cheating, self-deception, sensory leakage, and the like. This paper will
review some of the methods introduced over the years by parapsychologists
to reduce or eliminate these problems.
Unit
Three: ganzfeld, psychokinesis, and healing prayer studies
Concepts
distant healing, ganzfeld experiments, intercessory prayer, Maharishi
effect, nocebo effect, placebo effect, random event generators, andTexas
sharpshooter fallacy.
Themes
Scientists have made great strides in designing studies to test
hypotheses that are not open to the traditional criticisms of skeptics
regarding poor controls, weak documentation, sensory leakage, faulty
randomization procedures, misuse of statistical methods, and fraud. How
well have the scientists met their goals and have they answered their
critics adequately?
How should we deal with studies that that take the approach of
examining 20-30 variables in search of a significant correlation?
How should we deal with studies that change their endpoint after the
data is in but do not mention this in their publications?
Have the scientists justified their belief that finding statistical
events that are not likely due to chance supports their various psi
hypotheses?
Weeks 9 and 10. Research paper 2. Controlled
studies in telepathy: the ganzfeld experiments. Video: Penn and
Teller: ESP.
Readings: Carroll:
ganzfeld experiments.
-
"Does
Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information
Transfer," by Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton, Psychological
Bulletin 1994, Vol. 115, No. 1, 4-18.
-
A History of
Psi in the ganzfeld by Andrew Endersby
-
Some results
from Ganzfeld ESP studies
- Hyman:
Evaluation of Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena;
-
Jessica Utt's
evaluation of the program on anomalous mental phenomena and her
response to Hyman.
-
"ESP
findings send controversial message," by S. Carpenter, Science News,
July 31, 1999.
-
Proper
Scientific Controls for ESP Experimentation
-
"Psi in
Psychology," by Susan Blackmore. Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 18,
No. 4, Summer 1994.
-
"What Can the
Paranormal Teach Us About Consciousness?" by Susan Blackmore,
Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2001.
-
The Need for Responsibility in Parapsychology: My Sixty Years in Psychical
Research by Eric Dingwall
-
"Should
Ganzfeld Research Continue To Be Crucial In The Search For A Replicable
Psi Effect? Part I. Discussion Paper And Introduction to An
Electronic-Mail Discussion," The Journal of Parapsychology,
Dec, 1999 by Julie Milton
-
Report on Work in
Progress on the Ganzfeld Project January1996-June1997 by Adrian Parker
Ph.D
-
"An attempted replication of the PRL ganzfeld research - Psychophysical
Research Laboratories - Autoganzfeld," The Journal of
Parapsychology, Sept, 1997 by Richard S. Broughton and Cheryl H.
Alexander.
-
Updating the
Ganzfeld Database: A Victim of Its Own Success? by Daryl J. Bem, John
Palmer, and Richard S. Broughton (2000?)
Week 11: Controlled studies in psychokinesis: the dice and RNG
(REG) experiments.
Readings: Radin Ch. 8. Mind-Matter Interaction.
Carroll: Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR)
experiments.
- Micro-pk (Mccrone paper)
- PEAR papers (two
decades of research and 15 papers from the PEAR people);
- "Mind/Machine
Interaction Consortium: PortREG Replication Experiments," Journal
of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 499555, 2000
(Describes the failure to replicate the PEAR experiments in Germany.)
"Whereas the prior PEAR experiments clearly displayed anomalous secular
trends in REG output distribution means in correlation with operator
intention, the three-laboratory replications, which employed
essentially similar equipment and protocols, failed by an order
of magnitude to replicate the primary correlations."
- Radin & Ferrari (1991)
"Effects of Consciousness on the Fall of Dice."
Week 12. Scientific evidence for healing
prayer.
Reading: Radin Ch. 9. "Mental Interaction with Living Organisms." Carroll: prayer,
Sicher-Targ distant
healing report,
suppressed
evidence,
placebo effect,
Maharishi effect, nocebo effect, and the
Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
The studies:
- 1988: The Byrd study.
Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care
Unit Population Randolph C. Byrd, MD, San Francisco.
Southern Medical Journal (volume 81, pages 826-829, 1988);
God in the CCU? A critique of the San Francisco hospital study on
intercessory prayer and healing by Gary P. Posner, M.D. Spring 1990
issue of Free Inquiry.
- 1998: The Sicher/Targ et al. study:
A Randomized Double-Blind Study of the
Effect of Distant Healing in a Population With Advanced AIDS--Report of a
Small Scale Study. The Western Journal of Medicine. December 1998.
by Fred Sicher, Elisabeth Targ, Dan Moore II, and Helene S. Smith; A
Prayer Before Dying by Po Bronson (Wired Dec. 2002); Is there
scientific evidence that intercessory prayer speeds medical recovery? A
Debate; and
A Magical
Death? (2003) by Phillips Stevens, Jr.
- 1999: The Harris Study (St. Lukes Hospital) (Mass
Media Bunk). "A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of
Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the
Coronary Care Unit," The Archives of Internal Medicine;
Can Prayers Heal? Critics Say Studies Go Past Science's Reach by
Benedict Carey, New York Times, October 10, 2004.
- 2001. MANTRA study: Krucoff MW, Crater SW, Green CL, et al:
"Integrative Noetic Therapies as Adjuncts to Percutaneous Intervention
During Unstable Coronary Syndromes: The Monitoring & Actualization of
Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) Feasibility Pilot." American Heart Journal,
2001;142:760-769; 'No
health benefit' from prayer' BBC News;
Effectiveness
of prayer: Used in addition to medical treatment;
Can Prayer Heal? Does prayer have the power to heal? by Jeanie
Lerche Davis WebMD.
- 2005. Mantra II
Study published in Lancet. (The Lancet article is available online (free registration
required)).
- 2006. "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer
(STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of
uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer," Herbert
Benson et al., American Heart Journal.
Abstract.
-
Religion, Spirituality & Medicine by Richard P. Sloan, Ph.D. (a
skeptical look at the connection between medicine and spirituality)
- If Looks Could
Kill and Words Could Heal (There'd be a lot more dead and a lot fewer
sick people around) by Robert Baker (1994)
- Prayer Wars by
Robert Baker (1997)
-
A close shave with Occam's razor by Chet Raymo (2006)
-
Retroactive prayer: a preposterous hypothesis? by Brian Olshansky,
director of cardiac electrophysiology and Larry Dossey, BMJ.com,
British Medical Journal 2003;327:1465-1468 (20 December).
- An
Examination of the Media Coverage of a Prayer Study-in-Progress by Gary
P. Posner, M.D. (From The Scientific Review of Alternative
Medicine, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1998)
The third paper will describe and critically evaluate either the
ganzfeld studies, the PEAR PK studies, or the healing prayer studies.
This paper is due at the last class in week 13.
Unit
Four: Cold reading, subjective validation, and the afterlife experiments
Concepts
cold reading, warm
reading, hot reading,
subjective validation (Forer effect),
forking, Barnum statements, Rainbow Ruse, push statements, conditional
probability, "cross-talk," "white crow," "dazzle shot," living soul
hypothesis, network memory resonance, super-psi, conditional probability,
sitter bias, the Russek Protocol (Schwartz, 129), the Campbell procedure, and soul science.
Themes
Skeptics and soul scientists like Gary Schwartz evaluate the role of
cold reading in mediumship differently. Schwartz claims that cold reading
can't explain the performances of some of the mediums he's tested.
Schwartz and others agree that there are frauds but they claim that
some astrologers, Tarot
and palm readers, and mediums have genuine paranormal or spiritual gifts.
Others disagree and claim that the gift, if any, demonstrated here is the
gift of being good at cold reading and manipulating people to subjectively
validate a reading.
Weeks 13-14: Cold reading.
Research paper
3 due at end of week 13.
Video: "Beyond Science? Scientific American
Frontiers" [available for checkout at the SCC Learning Center
main desk: [Q162.S427 1997] (Ray Hyman does palm reading). Video: Ian
Rowland on "Primetime". Video: Penn & Teller "Talking to the Dead."
Cold and hot reading
in palm, tarot card, astrological, and psychic readings.
Reading:
Schwartz:
Foreword (by Deepak Chopra), Preface (Are Life and Love Eternal?), ch.
1, The Journey Begins, and ch.2 Bringing Soul Science into the
University; chapters 3-8 (pages 31-118)
Reading: Carroll: entries on
cold reading,
hot reading,
subjective validation,
Barnum effect, Forer
effect, palmistry,
Tarot, and
astrology.
-
Guide to
"Cold Reading" by Ray Hyman;
-
Probability Misjudgement and Belief in the Paranormal A Newspaper Survey
by Susan Blackmore, British Journal of Psychology, 88, 683-689,
1997
-
"The Cold Reading Technique," Experientia 44 (1988):
326-32, by Denis Dutton;
-
Cold
Reading: Confessions of a "Psychic" by Colin Hunter, Skeptic
Report, October 2004;
-
"Cold Reading: The Tricks of the Psychics" by William Goldberg, MSW,
BCD;
-
Deconstructing The Dead: Cross Over One Last Time To Expose Medium John
Edward by Michael Shermer;
-
"The Rorschach
Inkblot Test, Fortune Tellers, and Cold Reading" by James M. Wood, M.
Teresa Nezworski, Scott O. Lilienfeld, and Howard N. Garb Skeptical
Inquirer July 2003.
- My
review of the Primetime performance of Ian Rowland
- My review of
3 books on persuasion: The Power of Persuasion, Don't Get Taken, and The
Full Facts Book of Cold Reading
-
Crassing Over With John Edward by Ian Rowland
- John
Edward Revisited with James Randi
- Nickell, Joe. (2001). Investigative Files
John Edward: Hustling the Bereaved
- Review
of Psychic Medium Van Praagh on CNN's Larry King Live by Joe Nickell,
Senior Research Fellow, CSICOP
Weeks 15-16. Gary Schwartzs afterlife experiments
and criticisms of the experiments.
Reading: Schwartz: chapters 9-19 (119-270).
- Afterlife study #1. Potential Medium to
Departed to Medium Communication of Pictorial Information: Exploratory
Evidence Consistent with Psi and Survival of Consciousness by Gary
E. R. Schwartz, Ph.D., Linda G. S. Russek, Ph.D., Donald E. Watson, M.D.
Laurie Campbell, Susy Smith Elizabeth H. Smith (hyp), William James,
M.D.(hyp), Henry I. Russek, M.D.(hyp), & Howard Schwartz, M.S.(hyp),
The Noetic Journal 2(3) July, 1999 [hyp= hypothesized
co-investigator]
- Afterlife study #2.
Accuracy and
Replicability of Anomalous After-Death Communication Across Highly
Skilled Mediums Gary E. R. Schwartz, Ph.D., Linda G. S. Russek,
Ph.D., Lonnie A. Nelson, B.A. and Christopher Barentsen, B.A., (HBO
experiment) Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 2001,
Vol. 65.1, Num. 862, pages 1-25.
-
Afterlife study #3.
"Accuracy
and Replicability of Anomalous Information Retrieval: Replication and
Extension" by Gary E. R. Schwartz, Linda
|