How many of these 'remote viewing' sessions didn't bear any similarities to anything?
If you throw a bunch of stuff at a wall, some of it is going to stick. Especially when it appears to be random words that can be applicable to millions of situations.
> Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is ex-
pected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of a magnitude similar to those found in government sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories around the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.
From Jessica Utts, who was the president of the American Statistical Association and asked to review the Stanford Research Institute psychic programs (including Star Gate).
> Using the standards applied to any other area of science
Assuming this is true, I have to wonder why it would be that the science community apparently places a higher burden of proof on this sort of research, and whether that higher standard has been earned or not.
Ray Hyman, the other member of the review panel with Jessica Utts, disagreed with her conclusions ("the overwhelming amount of data generated by the viewers is vague, general, and way off target. The few apparent hits are just what we would expect if nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation are operating."). Utts also seems to be involved in parapsychology organizations, which is pseudoscience -- I hope you won't dispute this much -- so I'd rule out her opinion as fringe, and not in any way the mainstream scientific opinion on RV.
RV is pseudoscience, you won't find scientific support for it, or anyone able to reproduce its purported results under controlled conditions.
The Amazing Randi probably had a challenge about RV that no con artist was able to win.
Edit: wait, it's even worse. Utts was completely biased and compromised:
> The psychologist David Marks noted that because Utts had published papers with [Edwin] May [a parapsychologist who took over Project Stargate in '85] "she was not independent of the research team. Her appointment to the review panel is puzzling; an evaluation is likely to be less than partial when an evaluator is not independent of the program under investigation."
So she was completely biased and wasn't independent of the leadership of Stargate! She had vested interests in it being "real", she was invested on RV and parapsychology!
> If you throw a bunch of stuff at a wall, some of it is going to stick. Especially when it appears to be random words that can be applicable to millions of situations.
Indeed. I'm amazed so many HN regulars are surprised by this. It's how horoscopes work, we've known this for centuries now.
Have people forgotten the scientific method, the standards of proof, etc?
If you throw a bunch of stuff at a wall, some of it is going to stick. Especially when it appears to be random words that can be applicable to millions of situations.