[skidoo]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Which 'scientific skeptics' would these be? Who are they, what research have they done and where is it published?

Er, scientific skepticism is a term I would expect anyone serious about these debates to be familiar with. The Wikipedia entry explains it as well as anyone:

Scientific skepticism...is a scientific or practical epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence.... Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our right to claim knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Scientific skepticism utilizes critical thinking and attempts to oppose claims which lack suitable evidential basis.

I think the analogy is fine. The 'solar neutrino problem' was a major discrepancy between measurements for 4 decades. Most solar neutrinos have energies that are below the detection thresholds for the heavy water detectors, therefore one could have a contrived a 'noise' argument until more recent years.

Huh? How do you "contrive" a noise argument in this context? Scientists had a theoretical model of the sun that predicted more neutrinos impacting the earth than what they were actually seeing. And in fact, after evaluating all of the evidence over time, the scientists actually self-adjusted one of their most fundamental models to account for apparent neutrino mass.

So the subject of your analogy is actually a great example of scientists at their non-dogmatic, evidence-based, peer reviewed best. When there's a compelling argument for pursuing a particular line of reasoning, you can bet some enterprising Nobel-hopeful somewhere will go after it. In the case of the neutrinos, a tiny effect size wasn't the issue. They had plenty of other evidence supporting their model of the sun, but they began to suspect that their fundamental understanding of the neutrino was incorrect after they were just unable to get the sun model's predictions to jive with detected neutrinos (even after totally re-doing the sun model a few times).

Better detectors of the last few years have allowed 0.01% of the neutrinos the Sun emits to be measured and these still miss 99.9% of the neutrinos emitted (apparently electron neutrino change into less detectable muon and tau neutrinos)

This is irrelevant. The physical model -- all of its parts intricately interrelated -- makes predictions. About neutrinos, among other things. Those predictions come true. Repeatedly. And when there is a discrepancy, the model is updated if necessary.

Look, you're ultimately trying to argue that even if a line of inquiry presents only the tiniest sliver of a shred of hope for an explanation of this nonsense that is life, it's worth pursuing. I can dig that motivation. But I think that that hope might be blinding you to the reality of the situation.

There really is nothing there. No one is conspiring to squelch a bunch of positive psi experiment results. The fruits of psi research through history simply are what they are: Non-existent.