Home › Forum Online Discussion › General › PEAR Labs close after 28 years
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February 13, 2007 at 2:24 am #21105Alexander AlexisParticipant
This is taken from Dean Radin’s blogsite:
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2007/02/pear-lab.htmlSaturday, February 10, 2007
PEAR LabOriginal in the New York Times.
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: February 10, 2007PRINCETON, N.J., Feb. 6 Over almost three decades, a small laboratory at Princeton University managed to embarrass university administrators, outrage Nobel laureates, entice the support of philanthropists and make headlines around the world with its efforts to prove that thoughts can alter the course of events.
But at the end of the month, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory, or PEAR, will close, not because of controversy but because, its founder says, it is time. The laboratory has conducted studies on extrasensory perception and telekinesis from its cramped quarters in the basement of the universitys engineering building since 1979. Its equipment is aging, its finances dwindling.
For 28 years, weve done what we wanted to do, and theres no reason to stay and generate more of the same data, said the laboratorys founder, Robert G. Jahn, 76, former dean of Princetons engineering school and an emeritus professor. If people dont believe us after all the results weve produced, then they never will.
Besides the annoying use of the term “telekinesis,” which no one in the field uses, and the fact that Princeton University administrators were supposedly embarassed, as though embarassment has any role in evaluating scientific research, this article implies that the PEAR Lab was an academic anomaly reporting anomalous results, and as such, it was justifiably shunned by all sober scientists. What the article does not ask is whether the PEAR Lab’s results have been independently confirmed by other scientists. The answer is clearly yes, as anyone can discover with a bit of homework, or by reading Entangled Minds or The Conscious Universe. This makes the Princeton lab’s interests not so anomalous after all, and their empirical results not anomalous at all.
Was their work actually dismissed by most scientists? Perhaps in public within university circles, but certainly not in private. As the PEAR Lab found, I’ve also discovered that there’s a large and growing network of mainstream academics who are privately very interested in these topics. But taboos in academia prevent scientists from openly discussing their real interests.
There is much said about the lofty ideals of academic freedom, the freedom to explore any topic with impunity. But the ideal is a myth. It is not possible to study any topic one wishes without risk. Scientists who attempt to study controversial topics will find that they do not get tenure, or if they already have tenure they will not get promotions, and if that fails the administrator will attempt to avoid embarassment and try (usually unsuccessfully) to fire the violator. In this sense the PEAR Lab showed incredible fortitude by simply surviving within an environment that tried every trick in the book to make the lab disappear. This emotional side of supposedly rational academia is a hidden and shameful secret, not often seen by those outside the ivory towers.
I recently had a conversation with an intelligent, highly skeptical scientist who vehemently insisted with unshakable confidence that there is no reason to accept any claims of psychic phenomena because there are no peer-reviewed publications supporting their existence. Thus, any claims to the contrary, even by places like the PEAR Lab, are necessarily flawed or fraud. And further, if there were such evidence, then it would have won the “million dollar prize” by now. Ipso facto, there is no evidence. It’s all fraud run by scam artists.
I calmly pointed out that there are in fact hundreds of such publications, most in peer-reviewed journals. The scientist was incredulous, refusing to believe that this could possibly be true, and even if was true, those journals couldn’t possibly be any good. I could only sigh. There are tens of thousands of journals. No one can know more than a tiny sliver of information appearing in journals that are not within one’s speciality. To assume that because you haven’t heard of the information it doesn’t exist is the height of hubris. As Prof. Jahn said in the NYTimes piece, If people dont believe us after all the results weve produced, then they never will. I’m afraid that is quite true.
February 13, 2007 at 9:57 am #21106NnonnthParticipant… I remember one of my first conversations on this board, when someone asked me why it was that out-of-body experiences had not yet been scientifically verified, since it would be very easy to do. Here we have the answer.
One of the people from whom I’ve learned most on that subject, Robert Bruce, has always said he is ready and willing to demonstrate to any scientist who wants him to. He’s been saying it a couple of decades now.
There is a blanket of fear and stigma over anything like this, I admire those scientists for breaking through it. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, not by nature, but at the same time I am aware there is a tremendous concerted campaign to stop people actually doing anything, and in ‘rationalist’ science the stigma must feel very acute.
NN
February 13, 2007 at 10:05 am #21108voiceParticipantA nice set of experiments (I went to the PEAR homepage and looked at one of their research publications) that show the ability of consciousness to influence physical systems.
Note: the lab is not being closed by Princeton, but by the 76-year old director of the lab himself. So, no conspiracy there.
February 13, 2007 at 3:33 pm #21110Alexander AlexisParticipantThis is what the director actually said:
For 28 years, weve done what we wanted to do, and theres no reason to stay and generate more of the same data, said the laboratorys founder, Robert G. Jahn, 76, former dean of Princetons engineering school and an emeritus professor. If people dont believe us after all the results weve produced, then they never will.
The “conspiracy” is in the continuous denial of the findings by peers and publications- orthodox science in general. Denial which has prevented the necessary reeducation of a public at large who remains ignorant of the single most important fact in their lives- what they think is affecting/creating their reality.
-Alexander
February 13, 2007 at 9:46 pm #21112Michael WinnKeymasterI heard an interview with a Pears scientists today on NPR. She said they aren’t closing shop – just moving to a more conducive environment.
mFebruary 14, 2007 at 1:30 am #21114Alexander AlexisParticipant…that makes it a completely different story ! -A
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