Comment by almosthere
3 months ago
The problem with science approaching telepathy tapes is that a parent will say:
My kid knows when another kid is sick.
Scientist: We have to apply scientific rigor, so let's ask him for tomorrow's lotto numbers.
Parents: Yeah, we said he can tell you when another kid is sick and it's 100% correct every time.
Scientist: That proves this is all bullshit.
The problem with claims of telepathy is that they disappear when actually tested with sufficient controls to disallow cheating. Have a look at James Randi's Paranormal Challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_...
Your "scientist" seems to be somewhat of an idiot - that particular telepathy claim could be fairly well tested with a supply of sick and well kids and sufficient barriers to prevent sound/sight/smell from providing clues to the kid being tested. It's the kind of double-blind test that has been used to test if dogs can diagnose disorders e.g. Parkinson's.
Interestingly, there's a woman who can detect Parkinson's through smell alone. When she was initially tested (double-blind sniffing of t-shirts that had been worn overnight) she identified all the diagnosed Parkinson's sufferers correctly, but also diagnosed one other person. However, a few months later, that participant was also diagnosed with Parkinson's which means that there should be chemical markers (that produce the scent) that could lead to early diagnosis.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/8202745...
We can do the test with sick kids, or broken machinery, or whatever parents would claim. Should be easy enough to set up in proper way, organizer would get his once in a lifetime Nature publication. Parents and a kid would get a million dollars award for performing real magic, and kid would become an instant celebrity for life. Like meeting with Presidents level celebrity. Everyone wins, right?
Except parents lie of course, and if pressed to participate it would become apparent that 100% is actually 50%, that their kid must meet a test subject kid in person in advance (so an attentive person can spot elevated temperature of a test subject kid, or sweat, or maybe odor (there are a few proven unicums who could do this) etc.). Basically reducing telepathy claim to either complete fabrication or cases of hyper attentiveness.