Extra-sensory perception

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Pseudoscience Alert
This topic is a pseudoscience, and is not accepted by the scientific community as a valid discipline.
Although it may use scientific terminology, it does not use scientific methodology.
Remember: just because it sounds right doesn't mean it's actually right.

Extra-sensory perception (ESP) is the alleged ability to obtain information independently of the senses known to science.

It includes such things as:

  • Clairvoyance - The ability to communicate with another unseen person without speaking to them.
  • Precognition - Seeing or predicting events in the future.
  • Remote viewing - The ability to see something that cannot be seen with the eyes. Such as a painting sealed in an envelope in another room.
  • telepathy - Specifically the ability to communicate with another person using the power of the mind.
  • telekinesis - The ability to move objects without touching them.

ESP is classed as a pseudoscience by the scientific community. Evidence to support the existence of ESP is more often than not purely anecdotal ("Well, my friend swears that she knew I was going to call when I did!") or at least subject to extreme bias and selective reporting. ESP can be tested very easily with blind trials, simply asking someone to guess (ahem, "sense") what is in an envelope shows a sucess rate no greater than simply guessing.


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