Today I happened to come across an interesting piece of information online. It involves Project Star Gate, the government-funded investigation of remote viewing that was shut down in 1995.
Here's the skinny from the relevant website, Stargate Interactive:
Stories of the 1995 ending of the Star Gate program vary, but many have Ray Hyman saying remote viewing didn’t work and Jessica Utts saying it did. Speculation abounds over whether or not the entire program was really shut down as well as whether or not results over those twenty years were operationally valuable and/or statistically significant. Those discussions have often involved someone saying “Ray Hyman said…” and “but Jessica Utts said….” or visa versa, as if the two didn’t agree. Check out the document and see if that’s true.
The download attached to this blog is a 22-slide presentation produced in 1995. Once you look through it, you’ll be able to answer whether or not Hyman said the results were not statistically significant and, if he didn’t say that, what he actually did say.
Intrigued, I downloaded the file (a PDF) and looked through it. Indeed – if the slideshow is in fact accurately reproduced – it turns out that Hyman's views were not as totally dismissive as I'd been led to believe.
First, the slideshow gives a summary titled "Dr. Utts’ conclusions":
Asserted that “Psychic functioning” is well-established
Observed that statistical results obtained were far beyond chance expectations
Refuted argument that methodological flaws or fraud could account for results
Claimed some SRI, SAIC results were replicated in other labs
This is followed by "Dr. Hyman’s conclusions":
Recent SAIC results are methodologically superior to previously flawed SRI work
New results are statistically significant
Results hampered by secrecy, experimental database has had no community peer-reviewed, no public school they
Better than chance results do not, by themselves, establish that a paranormal phenomenon is the cause
Use of same “judge” during all SAIC experiments is possible serious flaw
“Remote viewing,” as opposed to Ganzfeld, has not been replicated in other labs
Boundary conditions, i.e., when and where remote viewing can reliably occur, have not been defined
Possibility of methodological flaws in results has not been eliminated
Note that while Hyman's conclusions are presented straightforwardly, the summary of Utts' conclusions is couched in terms like "asserted," "observed," and "claimed."
We come to the next slide, titled "AIR’s judgments on commissioned R&D reviews." AIR was the "American Institutes of Research blue-ribbon panel" that looked into this controversy for the Senate Appropriations Committee. The slide reads:
Reviewers agree more than they disagree:
– Statistically significant results
– Vast improvement in experimental protocols
Reviewers disagree on key points:
– Establishment of paranormal causality
– Replication of “remote viewing” in other labs
This is followed by a slide titled "AIR independently concludes":
The data do not establish that a paranormal phenomenon is involved, nature of source not identified
The data have not been replicated independently
The boundary constraints critical to obtaining statistically significant experimental results are not practical in real world of intelligence collection
Three points can be made about this. First, even arch-skeptic Ray Hyman conceded that the protocols had been improved and the new results were statistically significant. This is a huge admission.
Second, Hyman's claim that the "results do not, by themselves, establish that a paranormal phenomenon is the cause," which was picked up by the majority of the AIR panel and regurgitated as "The data do not establish that a paranormal phenomenon is involved," is, when you think about it, rather silly. It seems to reflect a desperate desire to steer clear of any endorsement of the "parnaormal," simply by refusing to identify remote viewing as a paranormal phenomenon. Note that Hyman could not find any specific flaw in the research and was reduced to suggesting that use of the same judge was a "possible" flaw and that, more generally, the "possibility of methodological flaws in results has not been eliminated."
Hyman has been pushing this latter line for decades: Since it is theoretically possible that some unknown flaw could be responsible for the results, we are justified in ignoring the results. Is there any category of scientific endeavor that would be exempt from this dictum? The possibility of unknown methodological flaws has not been – and logically cannot be – eliminated in any empirical investigation. There is always the possibility of an unknown error somewhere, whether you are studying psi or fossils or quantum particles; this is precisely what makes it "unknown." Yet in all areas besides psi, we are willing to accept the results of empirical studies, at least provisionally. Can anything other than materialist bias explain the special exception?
Third, it appears the reasons for defunding the Star Gate project had more to do with operational utility than with the evidence as such. The majority on the AIR panel, though clearly uncomfortable with and even hostile to this kind of research (see how they characterized Utts' statements) nevertheless could not argue that there was no evidence. They could only argue that the evidence provided by remote viewers was unlikely to prove useful in day-to-day intelligence operations. Since the project was being funded to obtain usable results, and not for the sake of "pure research," this conclusion was enough to shut down the program.
Somewhat absurdly, the slideshow reports:
AIR concluded future R&D should not take place within Intelligence Community since 20 years of IC investigation failed to establish a paranormal phenomenon
This, after admitting that better-than-chance results were obtained! Again, this is not evidence of a paranormal phenomenon only because Hyman said that it was not. To any normal, unbiased observer, this is obviously evidence of something paranormal. What else could it be?
Now, it may be just as well that the program was shut down. As the report indicates, the secrecy surrounding this research worked to its disadvantage. And maybe we don't want spies and generals using psi anyway.
But at least we should get the facts straight. Hyman did not claim the Star Gate results were statistically insignificant or easily explainable. He and Utts were found to "agree more than they disagree." This is of some importance, and it needs to be more widely known.