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LauraABJ comments on Parapsychology: the control group for science - Less Wrong
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I'm not saying that psi must be real, only that it seems to merit a closer look than most people in this thread have been implying. Yes, it does seem rather unlikely that psi would exist, which is why I'm still undecided myself. But the fact that we can't come up with any physical explanation for it doesn't mean that it couldn't be real. As Yvain pointed out, Newton's theories may at the time have seemed like magical thinking as well. There could be some physical mechanism we're just not aware of, but which the brain has nonetheless evolved to take advantage of.
Or then it might just be a sign of our statistical methods being flawed, made worse by psi researchers being insufficiently rigorous in their methods.
"I'm not saying that psi must be real, only that it seems to merit a closer look than most people in this thread have been implying."
I strongly disagree. Psi has been looked at very intensively for a very long time, and the best it can yield is that it's not completely statistically insignificant. No theories have been posed as to how it works, it hasn't been quantified (ie, how far away, in what time frame can the subject predict the future), and it cannot be demonstrated reliably and repeatedly from even a few individuals who could then be studied more elaborately. Even one person who could always predict the order of a deck of cards would be fascinating. At some point, you just have to say a line of research does not merit further study.
In the mean time, giving these theories credence wastes time and resources and leads people to think they can believe anything they want about the world, including the outstanding religious dogma, since, hey, you never know.