🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <92100.083905J5J@psuvm.psu.edu> John A. Johnson <J5J@psuvm.psu.edu>
writes:
>As an undergraduate I read Bob Toben's _Space-Time and Beyond:
>Toward an Explanation of the Unexplainable_, which was partially
>based on conversations with physicists Jack Sarfatti and Fred Wolf.
>
>I am curious about how physicists whose ideas are used to support
>parapsychological ideas are regarded by the physics establishment.

I think you have not asked the question you thought you were asking.
I've heard Newton's, Einstein's, and Schroedinger's ideas all used
putatively "to support parapsychological ideas". All three are well
thought of by the "physics establishment" if I infer the intended
meaning of that phrase correctly as being "real physicists".

I think you meant to ask how we conservative physicists regard our
colleagues who argue in favor of acceptance of the substantiality of 
"parapsychological ideas". The answer is that when they argue by the
canons of science we think them responsible. When they cross the 
line and join the kooks, which can be done by invoking new science
created specifically for the purpose of supporting those ideas and
being otherwise without testable validity, we consider them to be 
kooks. 

The so-called "shyness effect" is just such a piece of ad hoc new 
science. It is the idea that phenomena can not be demonstrated to 
people who do not believe in them. Since I have had phenomena 
demonstrated to me in which I did not initially believe, and since I 
have demonstrated such phenomena to similarly sceptical colleagues, 
I can testify that the "shyness effect" does not seem to apply to at 
least a large range of physical phenomena, and I see no compelling 
reason to accept it in these other cases.

Leigh Palmer
establishment physicist