RLST 2326 EL 10 Assignment One Dr.

Wayne Sheppard February 11, 2013 Laura Elliott - 0298351

PSYCHIC STARING: CAN WE REALLY TELL?

In a scientific world spotted with remnants of controversy and paranormal phenomenon, biologist Rupert Sheldrake has taken upon himself the struggle of trying to give experiments, in regards to psychic staring, validity as well as simplicity. He explains his thoughts and methods in his book, Seven Experiments That Could Change The World, about psychic staring, trying to disprove the sceptic-friendly idea that psychic staring is merely coincidence but instead that it is, in fact, a common phenomenon that can occur to the everyday person. Sheldrake even claims that 80 percent of the people *Sheldrake has+ asked claimed to have experienced it themselves (107/108, Sheldrake). But with great theories and experiments always comes great criticism, and Sheldrake did not fail to receive his fair share of sceptics. The likes of Robert Baker of the University of Kentucky and David F. Marks and John Colwell, both working at universities in London, have openly claimed that parapsychologists such as Sheldrake are misleading the general public to believe that the mind and thoughts are something more than rational brain functions. To them, the idea that something inside our heads can touch, as Sheldrake puts it in his book, and even change something in our environment is totally irrational and not readily accepted by scientific minds. Both sides have made their arguments known through online journals and publications, both sides impacting the educational world and world of the paranormal, confirming the beliefs of some and making others uncertain. While both Sheldrake and his critics have been persuading minds with their convincing and polar-opposite arguments, the question still remains mainly unanswered, fueling the controversy further. To be able to grasp an idea on which side has the more convincing evidence, we must first be a mediator between both debates, looking with an equally-critical eye.

Over the years, the feeling someone stare at you has become a common household idea that tickles the minds of the curious with its lack of an answer. Author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake has created what he believes to be the answer: that the mind reaches out and touches everything it sees, ultimately having an impact or effect on whatever it touches. This brave claim implies that the great power of our mind can reach out to those around us, touching their central nervous systems in such a way that it causes them to feel uncomfortable and turn to meet the gaze of the starer. In his book Sheldrake claims that the roots of such a trait of survival goes all the way back to our ancestors, living with animals in the wild and constantly needing to be conscious of anyone or thing that could be staring at them, preparing to attack. He also ties the idea of psychic staring to the globally common Evil Eye, found in multiple cultures, religions and societies including the usually anti-paranormal Christianity. The Evil Eye of anger, greed or hate has been tied to the destructive eye of witches who were often accused of overlooking children or domestic animals that fell ill for no apparent reason (112, Sheldrake). Instead of looking at the controversy as a complex paranormal phenomenon, he accepts it as an uncommon fact that emerged from evolution and has been readily disregarded by science. He introduces simply ways to empirically test the phenomenon, saying it only truly needs two people, a starer and a staree a timer, and a method of recording; no fancy research laboratory necessary. In fact, Sheldrake makes it well known that the artificial settings of a laboratory would actually take away from the effectiveness of the test. His results seem to support his claims, showing a statistically significant percentage above the chance level for people being able to feel the starer. His claims are simple: the average mind can achieve this level of mental influence and it isnt really a phenomenon at all, it just requires the correct attention and testing to make it a valid scientific fact, a statement that is quite opposed to the ideas of the following intellectual minds. On the opposite pole, scientists Robert Baker, David F. Marks and John Colwell have brought upon themselves the ideals of the intellectuals and have set up similar experiments to Sheldrake in

hopes to disprove his theory. Baker claims that the only reason Sheldrake can receive the positive feedback and results he can is because he is looking for them; a bias empirically known as the experimenters bias: the experimenter, whether consciously or not, somehow controls the outcome of the study to fit that of his hypothesis (Baker, 2000). Marks and Colwell agreed with Baker, repeating Sheldrakes experiments (to their liking), coming up with surprisingly opposite results to Sheldrake. Baker also makes a claim that one of the reasons for Sheldrakes positive results was due to something known as the participant bias, where the participant skews their answers to sound a specific way, in this case, to make them seem more paranormally-inclined. Baker, who tried to replicate Sheldrakes experiments the best he could, made an interesting claim about something Sheldrake says: Sheldrake claims that artificial settings will take away from the sensitivity of the participant and negatively affect the results, but Baker says this is a contradiction because the participant should be focusing more on their central nervous system, being more aware of whether theyre being stared at. He also makes note that he found a pattern in Sheldrakes randomization, making the randomness of the test not random enough to be considered valid. These Sheldrake-critics claim that results with such bias are readily discarded in the scientific world, and this one should be no different. Although both sides are strong in their arguments, which one is stronger? From a psychological point of view, I can find some aspects of both debates that could be detrimental to the strength of their arguments. The most prominent of these aspects are validity and reliability. In a psychological study, a test must be valid, meaning it has no sign of bias or prejudice. This already takes off some of the validity of both of the experiments because both Sheldrake and his critics show signs of experimenters bias. As Baker points out, Sheldrake himself is a starer in some of his experiments which implies that he could, in turn, unconsciously interpret the results in favour of his hypothesis. This bias, however, is also prevalent in Bakers experiments, even if he is not aware of it. In his article, Baker readily discards the five participants that gave negative (for him, positive for Sheldrake) results because he believed that two

were suspect to participant bias, while the other three were discarded because they could not correctly state the place of the starer sitting behind them. This aspect is truly curious because Baker, after being presented with results that contradicted his hypothesis, added new confines to what is considered psychic staring, saying that the participant must not only be able to know the exact time they were being watched, but the position of the starer in the environment behind them. This action is a sign of a conscious change to the parameters of Sheldrakes claim, becoming a prime example of experimenter bias. These parameters are further blurred by the specificity of knowing whether someone is staring at you. Sheldrake claims that his positive results from his experiment where he measures change on the sub threshold level of the central nervous system is enough to prove that the mind has an effect on the person it is staring at, whereas Baker claims that to be considered knowing, the idea must be in the realm of the conscious state of mind, not below our conscious mind. This extreme blurring of the lines takes away from the impact of the two arguments in total because they cant even agree the boundaries of their argument, making the controversy in question one of the main reasons that neither experiment has true validity. The other aspect that could be detrimental to both experiments is reliability, the idea that if you conduct the same empirically correct test repeatedly, you should get very similar and comparable results. For Sheldrake, Baker, and Marks and Colwell, who were all doing similar tests that should have all reached similar results, the answers were skewed dramatically. Those attempting to disprove Sheldrake did so by reaching the results they were going for, which was the same case for Sheldrake. Whether this is due to experimenter bias or lack of a stable, reliable test, it dramatically taints any and all evidence given by the scientists. These examples of the lack of empirically-acceptable validity and reliability show that although both sides are convincing, it is hard to accept either argument without extreme criticism. From the confines of the sceptic realm to the open-mindedness of the parapsychologists, the controversy over whether or not psychic staring actually exists has been lividly argued, specifically by

the likes of Rupert Sheldrake, Robert Baker, David F. Marks and John Colwell, all well-educated men with strong feelings toward their view of the subject. Although they have put quite a bit of time, effort, and, undoubtedly, money, into making sure their argument is stated and supported, the entire controversy, from a psychological perspective, seems faulty due to the lack of empirically-acceptable evidence on both sides of the spectrum. If more scientists, preferably ones that have a neutral outlook on the controversy than the current researchers, took this type of research under their umbrella, then perhaps a supported answer can be achieved. Until that day, the grounds on which these scientists are basing their evidence are too shaky due to low validity and reliability and bring an amateur reputation to an already taboo science.

You have written a reflective and well-balanced study of the subject matter, although you tend to stumble at times because your sentences seem to be tripping over each other. I would suggest that you use a few more short sentences. What you are aiming for is clarity. Well done! 77%

WORKS CITED
Baker, Robert. Can We Tell When Someone Is Staring At Us?Csi Cop.com. 24.2. Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2000. Web. February 11, 2013. Marks, David and Colwell, John. The Psychic Staring Effect: An Artifact of Pseudo Randomization Csi Cop.com. 24.5. Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2000. Web. February 11, 2013. Sheldrake, Rupert. Experiments On The Sense Of Being Stared At: The Elimination Of Possible Artefacts Sheldrake.org. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 2001. Web. February 11, 2013. Sheldrake, Rupert. Follow-Up: Research On The Feeling Of Being Stared At Sheldrake.org. Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2000. Web. February 11, 2013. Sheldrake, Rupert. Seven Experiments That Could Change The World . Rochester: Park Street Press, 2005. Print.