Chew:
You're correct. One study I've seen mentioned elsewhere (but have been trying to find the original paper without luck) said that psi phenomena was able to take place even when isolated by a faraday cage... ruling out tons of explanations people have proposed in the past.
Regardless of our stance on the issue, I think we can agree that any valid explanation behind psi phenomena should be consistent with everything else we can show to be true about reality. A good theory can't "only be true for psi, regardless of everything else we know." What you mentioned is why I'm against the whole "psychic energy" idea... if "it" doesn't act like energy, or behave like energy (all forms we know of), why call it energy? If you haven't read it yet, this is a good piece of work:
Wait, I think I already covered this in an earlier post. Anyway, it's still good:
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/RelSci/Breath.pdf
lotek:
I kind of sympathize with what you're saying, but your arguments are just bad.
To start, I don't think there's any branch of science that begins and ends in itself. Science seeks to explain and predict reality, based off what we "experience". Experience comes first... but in the past hundred years, saying it's "based off of experience" sounds kind of misleading. We don't "experience" particles, for example, but we've developed means of indirectly experiencing them. "PSI" research is difficult, because it deals with things that either everyone doesn't necessarily experience this type of phenomena, or else perhaps they are simply unaware of if or when these things do happen (intuition and all that jazz). It's similar to how it took such a lengthy period of time for "science" to acknowledge things like lucid dreaming, or the female orgasm (This isn't an argument for psi in itself... just pointing out the difficulty in studying this type of phenomena).
To your next point... I forget the name of the fallacy, but it doesn't make sense to say "psi is bullshit, because creationism is bullshit". Psi is not creationism, regardless of your personal beliefs on each issue. If you want to debunk "PSI", then it helps to actually point out the problems with the studies, rather than just compare it to an unrelated idea.
About your list... it doesn't necessarily start with "belief". Many people have had weird experiences... whether they be telepathy, clairvoyance, seeing dead people, etc. Now, I don't take any of these true at face value, other than I doubt that everyone who has ever experienced these things is lying. It is, however, more than possible that there is an alternative explanation for any or all of these things.
To your last point, it's not theoretical. Comparatively little about "PSI" research is theoretical... its primarily composed of experimenting in various ways how conscious may/can/not remotely interact with reality, and barely any papers theorizing on the mechanism which allows the results to occur (because, as stated earlier, there currently isn't a good explanation. There are loads of results, but no one has been able to work out the "How?" yet).
The part I sympathize with is that I'm sick of all the shit you mentioned, and see it everywhere in the "new age/occult/spirituality/etc" circles. It's not that they are trying to use science to explain their beliefs... its the fact that they misrepresent science, to give undue validity to their beliefs. The paper I'll be posting shortly was prompted by the fact that no one has made a serious effort to actually use quantum mechanics to justify their beliefs, and instead write something like,
"The double slit experiment shows that consciousness shapes reality, therefore buy my crystals to increase your spiritual energy!"
Combined with copious amounts of attributing false quotes to Einstein and Tesla about shit they never actually said.
However, this is not something I have noticed among "PSI" researchers. Instead, this largely takes place among internet "psions", "occultists", "new agers", etc... which is so far removed from actual "PSI" research itself, its pretty insulting for these people call themselves "psions".