Telepathy
Scientific reception
Scientific reception
--------------------

A variety of tests have been performed to demonstrate telepathy, but there is no scientific evidence that the power exists.Simon Hoggart, Mike Hutchinson. (1995\). *Bizarre Beliefs*. Richard Cohen Books. p. 145\.  "The trouble is that the history of research into psi is littered with failed experiments, ambiguous experiments, and experiments which are claimed as great successes but are quickly rejected by conventional scientists. There has also been some spectacular cheating."Robert Cogan. (1998\). *Critical Thinking: Step by Step*. University Press of America. p. 227\.  "When an experiment can't be repeated and get the same result, this tends to show that the result was due to some error in experimental procedure, rather than some real causal process. ESP experiments simply have not turned up any repeatable paranormal phenomena."[Terence Hines](/wiki/Terence_Hines "Terence Hines"). (2003\). *Pseudoscience and the Paranormal*. Prometheus Books. p. 144\.  "It is important to realize that, in one hundred years of parapsychological investigations, there has never been a single adequate demonstration of the reality of any psi phenomenon." A panel commissioned by the [United States National Research Council](/wiki/United_States_National_Research_Council "United States National Research Council") to study paranormal claims concluded that "despite a 130\-year record of scientific research on such matters, our committee could find no scientific justification for the existence of phenomena such as extrasensory perception, mental telepathy or 'mind over matter' exercises... Evaluation of a large body of the best available evidence simply does not support the contention that these phenomena exist."[Thomas Gilovich](/wiki/Thomas_Gilovich "Thomas Gilovich"). (1993\). *How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life*. Free Press. p. 160 The scientific community considers [parapsychology](/wiki/Parapsychology "Parapsychology") a pseudoscience.Daisie Radner, Michael Radner. (1982\). *Science and Unreason*. Wadsworth. pp. 38–66\. Michael W. Friedlander. (1998\). *At the Fringes of Science*. Westview Press. p. 119\.  "Parapsychology has failed to gain general scientific acceptance even for its improved methods and claimed successes, and it is still treated with a lopsided ambivalence among the scientific community. Most scientists write it off as pseudoscience unworthy of their time."[Massimo Pigliucci](/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci "Massimo Pigliucci"), [Maarten Boudry](/wiki/Maarten_Boudry "Maarten Boudry"). (2013\). *Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem*. University Of Chicago Press p. 158\.  "Many observers refer to the field as a "pseudoscience". When mainstream scientists say that the field of parapsychology is not scientific, they mean that no satisfying naturalistic cause\-and\-effect explanation for these supposed effects has yet been proposed and that the field's experiments cannot be consistently replicated." There is no known mechanism for telepathy.Charles M. Wynn, Arthur W. Wiggins. (2001\). *Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins*. Joseph Henry Press. p. 165\.  "One of the reasons scientists have difficulty believing that psi effects are real is that there is no known mechanism by which they could occur. PK action\-at\-a\-distance would presumably employ an action\-at\-a\-distance force that is as yet unknown to science... Similarly, there is no known sense (stimulation and receptor) by which thoughts could travel from one person to another by which the mind could project itself elsewhere in the present, future, or past." Philosopher and physicist [Mario Bunge](/wiki/Mario_Bunge "Mario Bunge") has written that telepathy would contradict [laws of science](/wiki/Laws_of_science "Laws of science") and the claim that "signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics".[Mario Bunge](/wiki/Mario_Bunge "Mario Bunge"). (1983\). *Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volume 6: Epistemology \& Methodology II: Understanding the World*. Springer. pp. 225–226\. 
 "Precognition violates the principle of antecedence ("causality"), according to which the effect does not happen before the cause. Psychokinesis violates the principle of conservation of energy as well as the postulate that mind cannot act directly on matter. (If it did no experimenter could trust his own readings of his instruments.) Telepathy and precognition are incompatible with the epistemological principle according to which the gaining of factual knowledge requires sense perception at some point."
 "Parapsychology makes no use of any knowledge gained in other fields, such as physics and physiological psychology. Moreover, its hypotheses are inconsistent with some basic assumptions of factual science. In particular, the very idea of a disembodied mental entity is incompatible with physiological psychology; and the claim that signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics."

* + Physicist [John Taylor](/wiki/John_G._Taylor "John G. Taylor") has written that the experiments that have been claimed by parapsychologists to support evidence for the existence of telepathy are based on the use of shaky statistical analysis and poor design, and attempts to duplicate such experiments by the scientific community have failed. Taylor also wrote the arguments used by parapsychologists for the feasibility of such phenomena are based on distortions of [theoretical physics](/wiki/Theoretical_physics "Theoretical physics") as well as "complete ignorance" of relevant areas of physics.[John Taylor](/wiki/John_G._Taylor "John G. Taylor"). (1980\). *Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician*. Temple Smith. p. 84\. .

Psychologist [Stuart Sutherland](/wiki/Stuart_Sutherland "Stuart Sutherland") wrote that cases of telepathy can be explained by people underestimating the probability of [coincidences](/wiki/Coincidence "Coincidence"). According to Sutherland, "most stories about this phenomenon concern people who are close to one another—husband and wife or brother and sister. Since such people have much in common, it is highly probable that they will sometimes think the same thought at the same time."[Sutherland, Stuart](/wiki/Stuart_Sutherland "Stuart Sutherland"). (1994\). *Irrationality: The Enemy Within*. p. 314\. Penguin Books.  [Graham Reed](/wiki/Graham_Reed_%28psychologist%29 "Graham Reed (psychologist)"), a specialist in [anomalistic psychology](/wiki/Anomalistic_psychology "Anomalistic psychology"), noted that experiments into telepathy often involve the subject relaxing and reporting the 'messages' to consist of colored geometric shapes. Reed wrote that these are a common type of [hypnagogic image](/wiki/Hypnagogia "Hypnagogia") and not evidence for telepathic communication.[Graham Reed](/wiki/Graham_Reed_%28psychologist%29 "Graham Reed (psychologist)"). (1988\). *The Psychology of Anomalous Experience*. Prometheus Books. pp. 38–42\. 

Outside of parapsychology, telepathy is generally explained as the result of fraud, self\-delusion and/or self\-deception and not as a paranormal power.[Skepdic.com on ESP](http://www.skepdic.com/esp.html). Retrieved February 22, 2007\. Psychological research has also revealed other explanations such as [confirmation bias](/wiki/Confirmation_bias "Confirmation bias"), [expectancy bias](/wiki/Observer-expectancy_effect "Observer-expectancy effect"), [sensory leakage](/wiki/Sensory_leakage "Sensory leakage"), [subjective validation](/wiki/Subjective_validation "Subjective validation"), and [wishful thinking](/wiki/Wishful_thinking "Wishful thinking").Leonard Zusne, Warren H. Jones. (1989\). *Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking*. Psychology Press.  Virtually all of the instances of more popular psychic phenomena, such as [mediumship](/wiki/Mediumship "Mediumship"), can be attributed to non\-paranormal techniques such as [cold reading](/wiki/Cold_reading "Cold reading").[Ian Rowland](/wiki/Ian_Rowland "Ian Rowland"). (1998\). *The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading*. Ian Rowland Limited: 4th Revised edition. [Derren Brown](/wiki/Derren_Brown "Derren Brown"). (2007\). *Tricks of the Mind*. Channel 4: New edition.  Magicians such as [Ian Rowland](/wiki/Ian_Rowland "Ian Rowland") and [Derren Brown](/wiki/Derren_Brown "Derren Brown") have demonstrated techniques and results similar to those of popular psychics, albeit without claiming paranormal skills. They have identified, described, and developed psychological techniques of cold reading and [hot reading](/wiki/Hot_reading "Hot reading").


What's the difference between mediumship and other forms of psychic phenomena?