17 Oct A Battle at the Edge of Science Adapted from: Stonefoot & Herreid (2004), https://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/collection/
A Battle at the Edge of Science
Adapted from: Stonefoot & Herreid (2004), https://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/collection/detail.html?case_id=229&id=229 (Links to an external site.)
Its silver surface gleamed in the light coming in from the window as it rested in the center of the table. If you looked directly across the table, you could just make out Eliza sitting perfectly still at one end staring at it, her nose resting on the tabletop. Eliza, who usually couldn’t sit still for 10 minutes, was now completely frozen. If it weren’t for the fact that she was sitting in an incredibly odd position or her attentive eyes, one might have mistaken her for being asleep. Eliza was far from sleep. She was wide awake and concentrating fully upon the silver spoon in the middle of the table.
“Eliza? Eliza, where are you?” Eliza’s mother, Amy, came into the dining room. Startled by her daughter’s stillness, Amy reached down to touch her. “Eliza, honey, are you ok?”
“Shhhhh,” Eliza whispered, refusing to move from her position.
“Eliza, what on earth are you doing?” her mother exclaimed, growing tired of her daughter’s antics.
Eliza refused to respond. Maybe if she didn’t talk to her mother, she would leave her alone and let her get back to work.
But Eliza’s silence only infuriated her mother. “Eliza, answer me!” Amy exclaimed as she grabbed the spoon from the table.
“Nooooo,” Eliza squealed, leaping up from the table.
“What are you doing?” her mother demanded, holding the spoon out of her daughter’s reach.
Eliza began to jump up in an attempt to retrieve the spoon. “I’m going to make it move, or at least I was until you took it away.”
“What?” her mother replied in confusion.
Eliza stopped jumping long enough to explain. “I’m going to make it move. Matilda could do it, she moved lots of things. I can do it too. You just have to let me concentrate!” Eliza was referring to the title character from the book, Matilda, by Roald Dahl, a little girl who had the ability to move objects with her mind just by focusing on them.
After a moment’s hesitation, Amy returned the spoon to its position on the table. “Thanks,” was all Eliza managed to get out before resuming her position. Amy watched her daughter sink back into concentration and then slowly backed out of the dining room. As she did, she bumped into her wife, Sonia.
“Amy, is something wrong?” Sonia asked.
“Oh, Sonia! I didn’t see you there!” Amy, laughing slightly, guided Sonia back into the kitchen. Although she could deal with her daughter’s interest in the paranormal, she knew Sonia wouldn’t allow it. They already got into an argument almost every week when Sonia found Amy reading her horoscope. “Such nonsense,” Sonia would say. Amy really wanted to keep Sonia out of Eliza’s experiment for now. She knew it wouldn’t last long, none of Eliza’s phases did, but she could at least let her have some fun. It was good for her.
“What is Eliza doing in there?” Sonia asked, aware of Amy’s attempts to hide it.
“Oh nothing, she’s just reading.”
“But, then where’s her book?” Sonia asked.
“She’s just playing,” Amy said in response, trying to get Sonia to lose interest.
“Playing? It looks more like she’s being punished. She’s just sitting there.” Before Amy could say anything more, Sonia squeezed past her into the dining room.
“Eliza, what are you doing?” Sonia demanded.
“Mummy, be quiet,” Eliza whined.
“What!?” Sonia’s voice rose in response to the tone of her daughter’s voice.
“Sonia, come here. I’ll explain,” Amy said, guiding her wife back into the kitchen. Amy tried to make Eliza’s behavior sound as normal as possible, hoping her wife would just see it as a game, something to amuse Eliza for a while before she got bored of it. But Sonia did not take it so lightly; she saw this as “more of the same nonsense” that was overtaking the house. So, it was beginning – another monumental argument in the DeSantos-McCrary household. Amy was really dreading this one. She knew it would turn into another one of Sonia’s condescending speeches, where her professional title, Sonia DeSantos, Professor of Psychology, would loom over the entire discussion. Amy had dubbed them Sonia’s “holier than thou” speeches whenever she complained to her friends. She wasn’t going to let Sonia immediately put her down with scientific jargon. She figured if she could at least postpone the discussion long enough to jump on the Internet, she could find some information to back herself up.
“Sonia, honey, I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t have the time to argue about this right now. I have to get dinner started. But as soon as we’re done with dinner, I promise you, we’ll discuss this.” Amy guided Sonia out of the kitchen, being careful not to let her get a word in.
Amy leaned against the door and took a deep breath once Sonia was out of sight. Then she rushed to the computer. They could eat leftovers tonight.
* * * * * * *
Amy had managed to convince Eliza to interrupt her efforts long enough for dinner. However, right after dinner, Eliza resumed her position, giving Sonia and Amy time to talk.
“Ok, Amy, I know you want to have a reasonable discussion about this, but I’m telling you right now there’s no way you’re going to convince me that telepathy and clairvoyance exist.”
“I know I’m not going to be able to convince you, Sonia, but I would like you to just consider the possibility that people can read minds, that people can move things with their minds. There are a lot of things out there that can’t be explained. Who’s to deny that one of the reasons for that is that people have extrasensory perception? Moreover, what is the harm in our daughter determining for herself whether or not it exists?”
Sonia eyed her wife. “Amy, there is scientific evidence for everything that happens. There are reasonable, logical explanations for everything. The only problem lies in the fact that people aren’t educated enough to understand those reasons. And that’s when pathetic ideas like ESP take hold, and it is those kinds of ideas we do not need filling our daughter’s mind.”
“Okay, okay. But what about all of the experiments that have been conducted that show that ESP can exist? Are you just going to ignore all of the work J.B. Rhine did, all of the tests he conducted? What about the Ganzfeld procedure, where six of the 10 studies had positive results for telepathy?” Amy was surprised at how much she was getting into this conversation, and she was pretty proud of herself for remembering all of that information.
“No, Amy, I am not going to ignore any of those experiments.” Sonia was getting incredibly annoyed with the conversation and was not afraid to show it. “Rather, I’m going to acknowledge ALL of the studies that have been done, including the hundreds that have shown no positive results and have been conveniently ignored. How about you show me an example of an experiment that upholds the crucial experimental principles AND found positive results. Show me an experiment that has been conducted that has positive results and has been successfully replicated. Show me an experiment that has not been influenced by human bias.”
Sonia paused for effect and then continued: “Amy, there are certain fundamentals of the scientific process that have to accompany an experiment before you can go around declaring that something exists.”
Amy felt frustrated. She didn’t know enough. She couldn’t prove Sonia wrong. But she believed that Sonia was wrong. She wasn’t going to give up. It would take a lot more than a couple of scientific principles to convince her otherwise. Luckily, there was a sound in the background that cut their conversation short for the time being. It was a soft clink of some metal object falling on their dining room table. It sounded just like a spoon.
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