>Since [...] every known
>demonstration of psychic phenomena is in the fakable set, that
>alone--while not proof--is strong statistical evidence that the
>phenomena are in fact faked.
This might be true of, say, `impossible objects' alleged to be created by
teleportation, or levitation, etc, but your remark evades the heart of
current anomalies research, which is the vast database of preferentially
skewed distributions in binary and ternary sequences randomly generated by
various firewalled methods, and Ganzfeld and RV experiments that have
impressed even critics of the calibre of Dr Susan Blackmore - conducted at
such places as the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research centre, tucked
into an inconspicuous little burrow under the university, and the Koestler
unit in Edinburgh. As Dr Roger Nelson of PEAR has written to me, this
accumulated evidence is far more impressive, and baffling, than any number
of corrigible anecdotal items of `paranormal' wizardry, the kind Randi
makes his entertaining stock in trade.
Damien Broderick