Has any "formal" scientist ever researched paranormality

Rhine was among the first,

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/esp_extrasensory_perception.html

Houdini was even earlier--and enjoyed debunking fortune tellers.

Essential reading for the sensible skeptic:

http://www.csicop.org/

Yes, many. No supportive evidence ever has been discovered. One foundation has long offered a validated, in-escrow One Million Dollar Reward for any scientifically valid proof whatsoever of paranormal phenomena.

Timber--

That organization is Csicop.

The money has been accumulating interest--all sorts of interest--for years.

CISCOP is an associate member of the foundation offerin' the reward, Noddy. One of CSICOP's founding members, James Randi, heads The James Randi Educational Foundation, host of the reward.

Timber--

Thanks for the clarification. I'm a speed reader with a faulty memory and exceeding self-confidence.

No biggie - BTW, I'm a card-carryin', dues-payin', news-letter receivin' member of JREF ... have been since well before there was a website.

Timber--

I knew we were step-soulmates.

Who was "J B Rhine?"
J B Rhine (Joseph Banks Rhine) is widely considered to be the "Father of Modern Parapsychology." Along with his wife Dr Louisa E. Rhine, Dr J B Rhine studied the phenomena now known as parapsychology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Drs. Joseph Banks (JB) Rhine and Louisa Rhine
J B Rhine collaborated with Professor William McDougall who served as the Chairman of the Department of Psychology. Dr. J B Rhine coined the term "extrasensory perception" (ESP) to describe the apparent ability of some people to acquire information without the use of the known (five) senses). He also adopted the term "parapsychology" to distinguish his interests from mainstream psychology.

The Duke experiments on telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition used specially designed cards called Zener cards. About the size of regular playing cards, these cards were composed of decks of 25 cards, with each card having one of five symbols on one size: a cross, star, wavy lines, circle and square.

Zener cards, used by J B Rhine in early ESP card guessing experimentsZener cards
Under various experimental conditions, subjects would attempt to guess these cards. Out of each deck of 25 cards, 5 correct guesses were expected by chance. Using exact binomial probability calculations, it is possible to determine how "improbable" it would be to guess an excess number of cards correctly. In one set of experiments, 2400 total guesses were made and an excess of 489 hits (correct guesses) were noted. The statistical probability of this outcome is equivalent to odds of 1,000,000 to 1 (against chance) and thus show significant evidence that "something occurred." Skeptics will argue that factors other than ESP account for the deviations (some claim cheating by the subjects, sloppiness by the experimenters, etc.)

J B Rhine's work was summarized in a now-famous book Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years (Rhine, J.B., Pratt, J.G.; Smith, Burke M; Stuart, Charles E; and Greenwood, Joseph A. Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years, Holt: New York, 1940; Humphries: Boston, 1966)

What conclusions can we draw about Rhine's overall research program? By 1940, 33 experiments had accumulated, involving almost a million trials, with protocols which rigorously excluded possible sensory clues (e.g., by introducing distance and/or barriers between sender and receiver, or by employing precognition protocols (i.e., where the target has not yet been selected at the time subjects make their responses).

Twenty seven (27) of the 33 studies produced statistically significant results -- an exceptional record, even today. Furthermore, positive results were not restricted to Rhine's lab. In the five years following Rhine's first publication of his results, 33 independent replication experiments were conducted at different laboratories. Twenty (20) of these (or 61%) were statistically significant (where 5% would be expected by chance alone).

A meta-analysis was done specifically for precognition experiments conducted between the years 1935 - 1987. (Honorton, C., & Ferrari, D. [1989]. Meta-analysis of forced-choice precognition experiments 1935 - 1987. Journal of Parapsychology, vol 53, 281 - 308). This included 309 studies, conducted by 62 experimenters. The cumulative probability associated with the overall results was p = 10-24 (that is equivalent to .000000000000000000000001 where .05 is considered statistically significant). The scientific evidence for precognition, the most provocative of all parapsychological phenomena, stands of firm statistical grounds.

The Rhine Research Center in Durham still continues to be a thriving center for parapsychological research.

http://www.psiexplorer.com/jbrhine.htm

Cool. Thanks.

James Randi is one of my heroes. Brilliant, offering a large sum of money to prove a negative! This does all a favor by, perhaps, keeping those who might involve us all in more of their mischief, busy. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop and all that.

I still remember his investigation into a faith healer who seemed to miraculously know personal life details of individuals picked "randomly" out of the audience, there were 2-way radio transmissions involved. These were recorded real time by Randi and then played back to the faith healer during a mock interview process set to expose same by Randi. He was then asked to comment. Priceless!

Given: An extraordinary performance involving ,seemingly, miracles.

Two types of reactions:

"My, my, he must have supernatural powers."

or

"My, My he may have supernatural powers. But if not, how would he achieve such a performance?"

Since this was a modern audience familiar with radio and even TV transmissions one suspects some sort of denial mechanism working on an individual basis.

Oh well.

JM

A local Oklahoman investigation team, GHOULI, hosted the first Oklahoma Paranormal Conference on Saturday. It was great; I've always been interested in the paranormal, always studied on my personal time, and now I am actually part of an investigation team. This was just the next step.

Who knows what's out there! But we'll find something, eventually - even if it's proving that there never was anything.

Thanks for the info, guys.

Puthoff & Targ are notorious in some circles for having been taken in by Uri Geller. Dr. Puthoff is a physicist, but i haven't been able to determine Dr. Targ's discipline.

Since the 1930's, Parapsychology has been taught at various at Euroean universities.

At the moment, there's just one chair (left), the Arthur Koestler Chair in Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh.
(The other - quite famous one - in Freiburg/Germany became a chair (and institute) of Paedogogic Psychology instead in 2001.)

The paranormal is 269th in the table of things used to distract the population from thinking.

UK Bioligist Rupert Sheldrake also investigates phenomena that could be classified paranormal.

He's obviously part of the problem then.

I'd say do some research on it. It would not hurt, it would give us more knowledge and perhaps debunked or validate certain paranormalities.

Sheldrake has do-it-yourself research ideas. a well-known one is the claim that one does better on newspaper crossword puzzles later in the day than earlier, because more people have solved them, and that somehow influences those who haven't yet attempted them. if true, it provides a rationale for my propensity to procrastinate on assignments and studying for tests. ;-)

to get some sort of sample, you'll maybe do a crossword a day for a year, each day at a randomly chosen time, then plot your success against time of day, where you measure success as time required to complete, or perhaps number of boxes left unfilled. but i'm just speculating; i'm sure one of his books gives official instructions.