Hey guys, quick announcement before I dive in today. I’m launching a podcast with Rachel
Oates and Rationality rules called The Here and How podcast where we’ll be exploring
our past and how we got here and diving deep into big ideas so that we can create a brighter
future together. I’ll have a link in the video description. Go check it out. Thanks.
If there is something to the paranormal, let’s find out what it is if anything. And on the
other hand, let’s not be taken in by the clap trap that is being offered us and at
our expense.
Psychic powers – whether it’s telekinesis, psychic healing, astral projection, seeing
auras, or detecting water, or even talking with the dead. “I see dead people.” People
claiming to have supernatural powers are all around us. But is there any merit to these
types of claims, and can you test them scientifically to know for sure.
Most psychics agree that their powers can be tested. “Before we started filming, Joe
agreed in principle to undertake a scientific test.” “Are you willing to take his test?”
“Yeah. Whatever test it is.” “But you’d be willing to do that, right?” “Oh yeah.
Yes, I would be willing to do that.” “Do you think you could have the million dollars?”
“Oh, absolutely.” Even if scientists couldn’t detect any kind of psychic energy field with
their current instruments, we would at least be able to measure the effects that this field
has on the physical world – effects like psychic healing tested against a placebo,
telekinesis of objects inside an air-tight container, clairvoyance, and pre-cognition
of unlikely events outside the psychic’s control.
If psychic waves of energy actually healed people, moved objects, or allowed for remote
viewing – that’s something we can test. Let’s examine a few ways this can and has
been done.
Claim 1: Seeing Auras. A psychic claims that they can see other people’s
unique auras even glowing through walls. You work with the psychic to devise an experiment
that you both agree upon to test that claim. You find an opaque wall that they claim they
can still see people’s unique auras through, have an unbiased third party randomly place
people behind the wall in a specific order, then have those people come forward, and have
the psychic place them in the correct order based on their auras. “If as you claim,
you can see auras through the screen, John should now be standing in the same position
as he was when he was behind the screen. Is that correct?” “Yes” If they’re actually
psychic, they should consistently score significantly higher than chance. And ideally, would get
it 100% every single time.
Claim 2: Water Divining A group of water dowsers claims that they
can psychically detect the location of water using various types of dowsing rods. You work
with them to devise an experiment to test it that they’re happy with. You bury ten
pipes a meter apart. See-through holes at the end allow third-party, unbiased judges
to make sure water is or isn’t flowing through them. The water diviners examine the entire
mechanism, test it to make sure it’s clear of any interference prior to running water
through the pipes, and any prior objections that they have are listened to and accommodated
for. “One does get a residual effect for some time afterwards. I would not be certain
in my own mind whether it was moisture within that pipe or a possible magnetic effect caused
by the initial flowing of the water.” “Ok, it could… now we have attempted to get around
that. That’s always a possibility, of course. The site that you see up there is built on
a slope. There are a couple of feet from one end to the other. The water is being gravity-fed.
It’s being brought in from a hydrant. It goes into a drum, and from the drum it flows
into the pipe. So it’s not being directly pumped through. It’s not being forced through
in gushes like that. Not only that. When the valves are opened up, all of the pipes drain
out because they are running downhill.”
Water is then run through one pipe with the douser’s knowledge to make sure that they
can, or at least think they can, psychically detect it. “Are you satisfied with the conditions.”
“They appear to be quite ok, Bob, yes.” “It seems pretty fair to me.” “Everything
that we have asked for so far has been met with, and I think this is fair enough.”
You then start randomly select one pipe at a time to run water through, and the psychics,
using nothing but their dousing rods, have to determine which pipe the water is flowing
through. Now perform this test multiple times. You can perform a similar test by placing
gold or any other substance they claim they can detect in a random box. In both cases,
the water dousers’ hits should be considerably higher than what you’d expect from random
guesses and chance alone.
Claim 3: Talking with the Dead Someone claims they can talk with the dead.
This type of claim is harder to test, due to the large number of clues given away in
a cold reading. One method would be to place someone on one side of an opaque curtain with
the psychic on the other side, so that the psychic can’t pick up on things like their
gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, etc. For the sitter, choose someone from Ireland
where the names are impossible to spell or pronounce like Tadhg (TEEG) and Oisin (OH-SHEEN)
or better yet Zimbabwe where parents traditionally give their kids very unusual English names
like Polling Station Nhamoinesu, Trymore Simango, and Released Results Matongo. I kid you not,
those are actual names in Zimbabwe. Record the reading, but don’t allow the sitter
to respond or give any kind of feedback. Then, analyze the reading afterwards and compare
it to the results you would expect to get by chance. If they’re psychic, their hits
should far exceed their misses, and rather than guessing common English names like James,
John, or Mary, they’ll be coming up with Ballot Box Makhosi, Have-a-look Dube, Aoibheann
(EVEEN) or Limited Chicafa.
Claim 4: Psychic Healing Procure a large sample of individuals suffering
from a non-lethal ailment that the psychic claims she can cure supernaturally. Divide
your sample into three groups. The first is a control group and won’t receive any treatment.
The second will receive the psychic healing procedure. Make sure that the psychic keeps
a distance of at least a foot or two to prevent them from secretly administering any kind
of medication. If they insist on touching the patient, search them prior to the procedure
and have them thoroughly wash and disinfect their hands. The third group receives the
placebo. They’re also told they’re receiving a psychic healing treatment, but instead of
a psychic, have an actor in a long white robe wave spirit fingers over the patient while
thinking about Toy Story 2. Make sure the experiment is performed double blind – in
other words, every patient assumes they’re being seen by an actual psychic and the doctors
administering the test are kept in the dark as to which one is the actor. Now just measure
the recovery rates of all three groups. If the psychic healer actually has psychic powers,
there should be a statistically significant difference in recovery rates between the “healer”
and the actor, well outside the margin of error, and it should be higher than the control
group.
Now either these exact tests or similar ones to them have been performed hundreds of times
over the last 50 years by the James Randi Educational Foundation and have never yielded
a single positive result favoring psychic claims.
“111 tries were undertaken. There were a total of 15 successful. And that makes approximately
a percentage of 12%. So the result was just a little over the 10%.”“It’s equivalent
to throwing a dart at random into a dart board or flipping coins or choosing cards at random.”
“Please reveal which position you were originally standing in. By showing us… I think it’s
inside your hat isn’t it? Take them off and let’s see. C B D A and E. So out of
this, we obtain two correct. Alright, so James you got two out of 5 correct, and I take my
hat off to you for trying.”
And yet you still have psychics claiming to have passed rigorous scientific testing. How
is that possible?
In an ideal world, testing people’s claims of psychic powers should be as easy as performing
a clinical trial – anyone should be able to do it. And for many claims it is. A great
number of self-proclaimed psychics truly believe that they have supernatural powers and sincerely
wish to demonstrate them. For them an honest scientific test like the ones above should
be sufficient. But the down side to testing psychic claims in a lab, is that scientists
aren’t usually trained in dealing with deception, and some psychics actually are skilled liars
or magicians and can be pretty deceptive! Most lab technicians aren’t used to their
subjects trying to manipulate them. Lab rats don’t cheat. But humans aren’t lab rats,
and humans do.
In my next video, we’ll cover a few instances in which psychics managed to fool scientists
in a lab and we’ll talk about some of the ways to safeguard against psychic trickery
when running tests like this. If you enjoyed this video and the work that I do spreading
scientific skepticism and critical thinking please consider supporting my work with a
few bucks on Patreon or check out my merchandise store to help me continue regularly making
great content for you. You guys rock as always! Dare to be curious, but don’t drink the
Koolaid.