People Still Believe in Psychic Powers Despite the Evidence
Lifelong Lessons in Skepticism
As a child, I found myself fascinated with the topic of psychic phenomena. The sort of fortune-teller psychics many people pay to visit today held no interest. My focus was on things like telepathy, telekinesis, and remote viewing. I spent countless hours in our local public library researching the topic. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this would be an important introduction to science.
I hoped psychic powers were real, but I didn’t assume they were real. I wasn’t sure. My goal was to find out whether there was any truth to the claims. What I found in the library helped me achieve this goal.
Testing Psychic Phenomena
The books I read were all non-fiction. Most of them were reports of research coming out of parapsychology labs. The typical format was that the author would present the claims of psychic powers first. Who were these psychics? What did they say they could do? I marveled at the powers they described.
Next, the author would invite the reader to consider the challenge of testing such claims. What kind of research design would work best? I learned about sampling methods, experimental design, controls, and experimenter bias. I realized how complicated it could be…
