Helmut Schmidt (21 February 1928 – 18 August 2011) was a German-born
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...
and
parapsychologist whose experiments on
extrasensory perception
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universi ...
were widely criticized for machine bias, methodological errors and lack of replication. Critics also noted that necessary precautions were not taken to rule out the possibility of fraud.
Biography
Schmidt was born in
Danzig, Germany. He was educated at the
University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...
(M.A., 1953) and obtained a Ph.D. in physics from
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university t ...
in 1958. He taught theoretical physics at universities in America, Germany and Canada.
In the 1960s Schmidt carried out experiments into
clairvoyance
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
and
precognition
Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.
There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
.
[ C. E. M. Hansel. (1980). ''ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-Evaluation''. Prometheus Books. pp. 222-232] In the early 1970s he pioneered research into the effects of human consciousness on machines called
random number generator
Random number generation is a process by which, often by means of a random number generator (RNG), a sequence of numbers or symbols that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by random chance is generated. This means that the particular out ...
s or random event generators
at the
Rhine Research Center Institute for Parapsychology. He was appointed Research Director of the Institute in 1969.
Schmidt initially conducted experiments with electronic random event generators of either a flashing red or green light. Subjects would attempt to make one illuminate more than the other by
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural la ...
means. Schmidt reported success rates of 1–2% above what would be expected at random over a large number of trials. He has been credited by critics of parapsychology as the researcher with the most sophisticated approach to the methodological design of parapsychological experiments.
Reception
Critics have written Schmidt's experiments in parapsychology have not been replicated. Schmidt worked alone with no one checking his experiments. He was accused of being a careless experimenter.
The psychologist
C. E. M. Hansel found flaws in all of Schmidt's experiments into clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis. Hansel found that necessary precautions were not taken, there was no presence of an observer or second-experimenter in any of the experiments, no counterchecking of the records and no separate machines used for high and low score attempts. There were weaknesses in the design of the experiments that did not rule out the possibility of trickery. There was little control of the experimenter and unsatisfactory features of the machine employed.
Regarding the machine used in the experiments, Hansel wrote:
The most obvious weakness in Schmidt's machine is that the results are in no case recorded positively inside the machine. They are only revealed after processing data obtained from the resettable counters in the machine or from the paper punch connected it. While machines may be foolproof, human beings seldom are... If Schmidt had used two machines, his scores for high- and low-aiming runs could have been kept separate from the start. Nonresettable counters could have ensured that all attempts were recorded and some supervision of the use and recording of the counters would have instilled more confidence into readers of the reports than they are likely to have at present.
The psychologists
Leonard Zusne
Leonard Zusne (1924–2003) was an American psychologist.
He published articles and books on the history of psychology, magical thinking and visual perception. Zusne worked as a Professor of Psychology at the University of Tulsa. A critic of para ...
, Warren H. Jones supported Hansel and also noted:
The effect obtained by Schmidt and others is very small, at most a 2% deviation from the 50% chance level. Because of the very large number of trials that can be run with the REG in a short period of time (each trial lasts only a second or less), the odds against even such minuscule deviations range from 100 to 1 to several billions to 1. When, in addition to assessing the statistical significance of the results, their clinical or practical significance is also assessed using the appropriate statistics, it turns out to be practically zero... It can be assumed that the smaller the absolute size of a measured effect, the greater the likelihood that the effect is due to some extraneous, uncontrolled variable. In the REG experiments, statistical significance of the results is achieved only against a background of a very large number of trials, and the practical significance of the results is concomitantly zero. It can be, therefore, also assumed that such results are probably the outcome of one or more uncontrolled variable.
According to the physicist
Victor Stenger "While Schmidt claims positive results, his experiments also lack adequate statistical significance and have not been successfully replicated in the thirty-five years since his first experiments were reported."
The psychologist
James Alcock
James E. Alcock (born 24 December 1942) is a Canadian educator. He has been a Professor of Psychology at York University (Canada) since 1973. Alcock is a noted critic of parapsychology and is a Fellow and Member of the Executive Council for the C ...
wrote that he found "serious methodological errors" throughout Schmidt's work which rendered his conclusions of psychokinesis untenable. This included criticism of Schmidt acting both as experimenter and subject and lack of clarification and detail from his reports such as the possibility of optional stopping during the experiments.
Schmidt has also drawn criticism for endorsing the psychic claims of
Uri Geller.
[Grove, J. W. (1989). ''In Defence of Science: Science, Technology, and Politics in Modern Society''. University of Toronto Press. pp. 138-140]
See also
*
Extrasensory perception
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universi ...
*
Remy Chauvin
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Helmut
1928 births
2011 deaths
20th-century German physicists
Danzig emigrants to the United States
German expatriates in Canada
German expatriates in the United States
Parapsychologists
University of Cologne alumni
University of Göttingen alumni