I'll be skeptical about ESP and similar phenomena until I read some more support about it from essentially all groups that follow the correct procedure, including skeptics. Unfortunately, my reading of James Randi (the supernatural debunker) leads me to doubt occasional reports of positive supernatural results. Randi's reported experience was that positive results were sometimes reported by scientists who were drunk or otherwise careless in their observations and allowed themselves to be duped.

I'm waiting for the more skeptical segment of the population to do the same experiments. If a skeptic drops something it seems to fall the same rate as when a believer in gravity drops it. Thus, I accept the acceleration of gravity to be what the best experiments suggest it is. The same can't be said yet about ESP and similar things. Personally, I doubt that convincing evidence for ESP will ever exist except to those who believe in it already.

• Randi - yanniru - March 19, 2001 - 22:09 UTC
  • Randi is well-qualified to catch deception - johnpowell - April 5, 2001 - 02:30 UTC