A reader named "eteponge" sent me a link to a Harvard University study that supposedly discredits ESP. I must admit that I read the article rather quickly and didn't have time to look into it further, but for those who may be interested, here's the link.
My off-the-cuff email reply:
I'm not sure I understand this article. Are they saying that the ESP stimuli were presented simultaneously with the non-ESP stimuli? In other words, the picture was shown to the test subject while simultaneously being shown to a relative or friend in another room?If so, this sounds like a good way not to study ESP. A better approach, if they want to use brain scans, would be to use the ganzfeld method, where the test subject is placed in a mild state of sensory deprivation and then presented with non-ESP stimuli only.If the subjects were presented with non-ESP stimuli and ESP stimuli simultaneously, then instead of sensory deprivation, there would be sensory overload.Besides, it makes no sense. Why would ESP be activated when the information is already being delivered through normal channels? Presumably ESP works to acquire information that is not available to the five normal senses.The whole thing sounds like a mess. But maybe I've misunderstood the protocol.In any event, there is already more than enough evidence to establish the reality of ESP, though it would, of course, be nice to understand the mechanism behind it.
As I said, I spent very little time on this, so if readers who are better informed than I am about the Harvard tests wish to weigh in, please feel free.