This paper was first published as an appendix to The Survival Files.
The Scientific Fallacy —Ruminations on Psi Research and Reviews by Miles Edward Allen (abridged)
Carl Sagan, whom I greatly admired as a concerned and public-spirited stronomer, once asked: “How is it, that channelers never give us verifiable information otherwise unavailable?” Other than the biased way in which Sagan’s question is phrased (i.e. the assumption that they don’t give such information), there are several difficulties here. The main one… is that channelers have provided information unknown to anyone living at the time, yet subsequently verified… But besides revealing his ignorance of psychic phenomena, Sagan’s comments demonstrate several common problems with the so-called “scientific” approach.
On first hearing it, the concept of “verifiable information otherwise unavailable” sounds reasonable enough, but a closer examination reveals an extremely tough, if not impossible, criterion. “Information otherwise unavailable” would have to be information proven not to exist in any person’s mind or in any library or any other place in the world! And since, as skeptics are so fond of pointing out, “it is impossible to prove a negative,” this proof is unattainable. No matter how hard one tried, one could never be sure that the information was not available somewhere.
As if this wasn’t obstacle enough, Sagan also wants the information to be “verifiable.” Just how, do you suppose, is it possible to verify information that doesn’t exist?
Let’s look at one of the examples he offers in elaborating his query. “Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb?” Suppose that a psychic did meet with professor Sagan and channeled Alexander, who revealed his tomb’s location precisely enough for an archeological team to dig it up. Based on the history of the scientific community’s reaction to phenomena that do not fit in their world view, we can be sure that such a series of events would change the minds of very few scientists, and of no professional skeptics. Instead of “Wow, channeling is a real phenomenon!” we would have a chorus of lettered men and women claiming:
- that the location of the tomb must have been in some document seen by the channeler, or
- that the channeler actually ‘saw’ the tomb clairvoyantly, or
- that the channeler precognitively saw the future discovery of the tomb, or
- that the location of the tomb was pulled from the “collective unconscious,” or
- that Sagan and the channeler are frauds who made up the story after the tomb was discovered.
If you think this last option too outlandish, you don’t know how fast scientists can turn on a brother, no matter how well respected. Had he endorsed the channeler, the esteemed professor would have been ostracized faster than you can say “Crackpot Carl.”
And how might Sagan have reacted to the tomb’s discovery? A strong clue is in his next paragraph, in which he says: “If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I’d be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote.”
Whenever scientists demand that psychic evidence be “scientific,” they mean that it must come from replicable experiments, perfectly designed and perfectly controlled. Of course, they are well aware that no experiment of any kind has ever been “perfect” and so they will always have a way of discrediting evidence that doesn’t fit their view of things. And even if it were “good” evidence based on “real scientific data,” Sagan does not suggest that he would accept it, only that he would “examine it.”…
Not only does Sagan require this scientific evidence, he goes further and rules out the acceptance of “mere anecdote.” Now, an “anecdote” is a brief account of an interesting incident; therefore, Sagan is setting up a dichotomy: either evidence is “real scientific data” or it must be treated as just another story or fable. Note that this leaves no room for testimony. No matter how many nor how prestigious the witnesses to the interesting incident, no matter what oath is taken under what penalty, all testimony is relegated to folklore unless the incident can be repeated in a laboratory or seen through a scope.
As another example of how scientists tend to handle unwelcome data, let’s look at the reaction to Schwartz’s publication of The Afterlife Experiments. In my view, Schwartz’ results are proof, beyond any reasonable doubt, of life after death. Thus it was with great anticipation that I read the reviews of this book by prominent skeptics. What I found was about what I expected: condemnation of Schwartz’ statistics, castigation of his control groups, and some nasty, but not quite libelous, insinuations about the people involved. What I did not find also lived up to my expectations. That is, there was no addressing of the evidence presented in the book other than a few quick references to “coincidence,” let alone any suggestion of alternative explanations for the outcomes. To my mind, Schwartz’ work is important, not for his flawless application of pristine scientific method (which is patently impossible) but for the presence of unimpeachable witnesses (not to mention the independently produced videotapes).
Such reviews, and similar diatribes against other positive psychical research, lead me to believe that these zealots of scientism have agreed to approach psychic phenomena in the following manner: If you can imagine any possible way that the results could be arrived at via researcher error or via duplicitous or fraudulent means, assume such to be the case. If no such possibilities occur to you, then repel all interested parties by enveloping the case within a dense and malodorous smokescreen of statistical quibbling…
Consider… an incident related in the confessions of Lamar Keene. No skeptic has ever doubted Keene’s claim that he achieved wealth and fame as a trance medium through the use of trickery and fraud. His life was turned completely around, Keene testifies, when he met a woman named Florence Hutchinson who became an inspirational mother figure to him. This woman had traveled from Oklahoma to obtain a reading from Keene at the spiritualist enclave of Camp Chesterfield in Indiana. But she had not made a reservation so, Keene says, “my first inclination was to tell her to get lost… But she really was a kindly and appealing lady,” so he allowed her to take the place of her friend who did have an appointment for the next day.
Now, Keene claims that there is a network of fraudulent mediums around the country who maintain and share files of information on their sitters, and that the files kept at Chesterfield were some of the most extensive anywhere. But, when he went to consult these files, he says, “I found myself stymied. Florence Hutchison had never been to Chesterfield before and there was nothing on her in the files. However, since she looked like such an agreeable sort,” Keene decided he could get away with doing a cold reading. This he did, and things were going fine until Florence requested his help in finding a legal document that had been missing since her husband’s death. At first she asked if the document had been taken by a certain cousin of whom she was suspicious. It would have been easy for Keene to say yes and end the inquiry right there, but instead, for reasons unknown to him, he said: “Oh no.” Whereupon Florence (speaking to whom she thinks is her departed husband) asks: “Well darling, where is it?”
“There was no way of ducking the question except by pretending to lose trance and to suddenly wake up,” Keene writes, but: “Then I said the first thing that came into my head, which was: ‘You have a metal file cabinet at home, the portable one, and it has a false top in it. There is a key to the false top in the bottom under some papers. The document is in that false top.’” Keene thought that this sounded stupid but, at least it got rid of the woman — but not for long. As you have probably guessed by now, Florence rushed home to Oklahoma and found the missing document just where Keene said it would be.
Florence’s mention of the cousin was exactly the kind of clue Keene was searching for in his cold reading, so what prompted him to reject that solution? As for the rest, Keene thinks it was an “incredibly lucky” guess. Actually, though, it was a series of four statements: (1) that Florence had a portable metal file at home, (2) that the file had a false top, (3) that the key to that top was beneath the papers, and (4) that the missing document was in the false top. Dismissing those four statements plus the rejection of the cousin’s involvement as luck is, indeed, not credible.
Remember, also, that this incident proved to be the key to Keene’s reformation from fraudulent medium to honest citizen. Thus, we are asked to believe that this once-in-a-lifetime series of lucky guesses just happened to occur when the person who could inspire Keene’s turnaround just happened to unexpectedly take a friend’s place in his séance room. I, for one, reject such a long line of coincidences as preposterous. It is far more reasonable to conclude that Keene had a real psychic experience when he most needed one, especially in light of all the other evidence in favor of spirit contact…
Overall, the trouble science has with psi arises from trying to quantify information that is essentially qualitative… Statistics are designed to smooth over anomalous results; what we need is to focus on the anomalies. All the bar charts and derivatives in the world are not as convincing as a single revelation of unique character attested to by unimpeachable witnesses…
All this should not be construed to mean that I am some sort of psychic Luddite seeking a return to the days of table tipping in darkened parlors — not without an infrared camera anyway. EMF meters, voice analyzers, EEG machines, and other such technological advances have a definite place in psi research. And science has a valid role in determining the characteristics and factors at play in various phenomena. But, scientists need to stop wasting time and resources on attempts to prove the already proven existence of psychic phenomena and concentrate more on determining how it works.
