Do scientists believe in ESP at all?

Answer 1

It mostly depends on which science you are asking this question in and what survey you are using for your results.
However, at least one survey indicates the following:

"A survey of more than 1,100 college professors in the United States found that 55% of natural scientists, 66% of social scientists (excluding psychologists), and 77% of academics in the arts, humanities, and education believed that ESP is either an established fact or a likely possibility. The comparable figure for psychologists was only 34%. Moreover, an equal number of psychologists declared ESP to be an impossibility, a view expressed by only 2% of all other respondents (Wagner &h; Monnet, 1979)."
(link below)

So in every case (natural science, arts, humanities, education, social science (excluding psychologist)) the majority of academic professors "believed that ESP is either an established fact or a likely possibility"

Some scientist go even further. Jessica Utts (link below) a professor of statistics at the University of California -Davis in filing her government sponsored evaluation of Remote Viewing programs for the government concluded:

"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 expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud."
(link below)

So, yes many scientist (in one survey the majority) believe in ESP and some have concluded by evaluation of the research that "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established."

Robert Rosenthal (link below) an expert in meta analysis concluded:
"Rosenthal, after considering the possible influence of various flaws upon study outcome, concluded that the overall hit rate of the studies could be estimated to be 33 percent, whereas chance expectancy was 25 percent."
(link to full article below)

Answer 2

Some of them do, or are at least interested enough to study it.

Stanford University and Duke University, both major universities in the US, at one time each had parapsychology labs. I know the Duke one shut down after the founder died, but the lab was moved away from Duke University and became another organization. I don't think Stanford still has a lab, but I am not sure.

The labs were, at one time, very well-funded, and one of their main areas of interest was ESP, as it is a bit easier to test for than some other areas of the paranormal. I have read articles about their experiments with a special deck of cards which has five different symbols. The experiments tested whether or not one person, a transmitter, could turn over a card and mentally send the image to another person, a receiver, who could then correctly identify the symbol. I don't know a lot about the testing, but I do know that they did get anomalous results in some experiments where "receivers" did much better at picking up on the symbols than could be explained by regular mathematical probability.

I also know that some of those labs (I believe there have been others at other universities, as well) have done contract work for the US government. If the US government is willing to put money into a research project, they most likely have done it because they thought there was actually something to be learned, rather than just because they wanted to throw money at an institution.

It's all kind of a gray area, but there are still today scientists who are interested in and who work in the area of the paranormal. I know there are professional journals on the paranormal, as well, as I used to work at the library and we ordered some copies of articles for a patron one time.

So, do all scientists believe? Absolutely not. Do SOME believe? Well, they must because they spend a significant portion of their professional lives investigating that type of thing.

I hope that is of use to you.

Answer 3

Scientists investigate and attempt to explain observed phenomena. No one has ever observed ESP, and there are no feasible explanations of how it could exist, so scientists tend to not believe in it. This is not because they are close-minded; it is because they need more evidence than stories and accounts of personal experience, which are notoriously unreliable.

One serious objection to the existence of ESP is the evolutionary argument. If an ability is useful to an organism and helps it survive, e.g. sight, hearing, etc, the organs used evolve (eyes, ears). There are no organs of ESP, and such powers would be so useful to the individuals that possessed them that everyone would have ESP by now and people without would have died out. There is no way that a sense of ESP can have evolved.

Answer 4

The evidence doesn't seem to support it. But a lot of scientists do seem to believe that it is a possibility despite the lack of evidence (see first link). Perhaps in the future we will have sufficient reproducible, independently confirmed evidence such that the ESP hypothesis is supported, and at that point it would make sense to consider ESP as a valid scientific hypothesis. After all, science is a self-correcting method and theories are always revised to account for new data. However, as it stands now, there is not a good scientific reason to accept the existence of ESP.

By the way, the whole thing about a bumblebee which should not be able to fly is urban legend. See second link.

Answer 5

A number of different groups have studied psi phenomena. However, studying phenomena doesn't imply belief that such phenomena exist.

Furthermore, it's not uncommon for a person or group to conduct studies in an effort to find evidence supporting the existence of phenomena they have an *a priori* belief in. This doesn't make them scientists.

EDIT:
To mirko: The geocentric model was a product of the Church, not science. Failure to comply meant arrest, torture and/or death. Also, the bumble bee story is a myth. Scientists never said a bee shouldn't be able to fly. They simply didn't understand how it created enough lift to do so. Due to scientific study and understanding it has since been explained.

Answer 6

"The existence of ESP abilities is highly controversial, and no scientifically conclusive demonstrations of the existence of ESP have been given."

That being said, I like to keep an open mind.

In my own experience, my girlfriend and I seem to share some connection--often calling each other by phone at the same time. Of course, this anecdotal evidence, and therefore quite unscientific.

To prove or disprove something like ESP is pretty difficult; much like proving the [non]existance of aliens or God.

Answer 7

I'm not a scientist...just somebody looking in on it from the outside. (Kind of like the story of "The Little Match Girl).
This is something I wonder about scientists: If your gf/bf told you "I love you."..would a scientist say..."There is no proof ..so I don't believe you" (Some things don't require "proof".)

Answer 8

Please remember scientists agreed the Sun was circling the Earth until a few hundreds years ago.
As a friend of mine recently told me, "the wing span and body weight of a bumble bee are so out of correlation that it should not be able to fly".
Fortunately, no one has told the humble bumble bee this.

I'd say there are scientists and scientists. Einstein was a scientist; do you know what he said? He said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

So, in conclusion, pity those scientists who can't see what's everywhere around and inside us - it is their loss, after all.

[EDIT:]
Peter D.: Thank you for reminding me. However, as I know it, this one is not one of the Church's sins, but goes way back. I read at some point that ancient Greeks and Egyptians KNEW there was 'a big central fire' around which Earth and the other naked eye planets were circling as... spheres! Guess what: their knowledge was 'improved' and, years later, those who still mentioned such theories were ridiculed (see link; sorry for wikipedia quotes):
"Not all Greeks agreed with the geocentric model. [...] some Pythagoreans believed the Earth to be one of several planets going around a central fire."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_system#Geocentrism_and_rival_systems

On the other hand, during the Middle Ages, the scholars (what you'd call 'scientists' today) were able to actually learn and hold the entire accredited knowledge of the world - as you know, it was not that much and far from accurate, but it was officially and widely accepted as genuine. Those scholars WERE somewhat separated from the clergy and they must have laughed hard when Galileo Galilei allegedly said "E pur si muove".

My point is: the moment you step out of the general opinion the moment you get banished from your circle. There are scientists who have been and are excluded from the scientific circles the second they come up with a revolutionary idea.
Having a 'doctor' title is a risky business; it's easy to become a patient if you are associated with studying and practices beyond commonly accepted 'truths'.
So why risk it?

T R: Yeah... Whatever... I see urban myths are swinging a lot these days: soon we will learn that we are actually using 200% of our brain, the old theory being stupid; the bumble bee has license to fly now, but only because a two-ton tank of mineral oil driven by six computer-controlled motors did it. My quote still stands: the bumble bee flew easily and before scientists allowed him to.
And so are all the other phenomena some call 'para'-normal: they occur without scientists' permission or the presence of the press.

Answer 9

Despite massive amounts of evidence for the existence of psychic abilities and psi phenomena, mainstream science has disavowed psychic phenomena because it doesn't fit within their electromagnetic paradigm and because psychic effects can't be replicated over and over again like flicking a light switch.

However, not all scientists are so narrow-minded and many well known physicists such as Oliver Lodge, William Crookes, Sir William Barrett, and many others believed-- or believe-- in psychic phenomena.

Paradoxically, while mainstream science turns its collective nose at psychic phenomena, both the military and the intelligence communities believe in such abilities ("wild talents" as they are called) and have spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out how to effectively utilize these abilities.

Answer 10

Scientists don't go in for belief. They observe nature and try to explain it.

If they observed ESP then they'd be busy right now examining it, but they aren't, because nobody HAS observed ESP