Statistics

INSTITUTIONAL VERSUS PRIVATE OPINIONS ON PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN ACADEMIA

Anonymous poll results on attitudes toward parapsychology among scientists, college professors and the general public:

On the question of whether they believed ESP was "an established fact" or "a likely possibility", the answer was yes - with a rate of 56% in a survey of 500 scientists, and 67% in a survey of 1,000 scientists (Carter 2007, p 89).

When a similar questions was posed to university professors, the acceptance rate for ESP was 2/3 (Radin 1997, p 226)

In the general population, National Science Foundation, U of Chicago and other surveys show that 60% of the respondents strongly believed in ESP, with the percentage actually increasing with the level of education (Radin 2006, p 38-40). A similar majority has been found in Swedish surveys - and in both populations the percentage of believers has been increasing over time (Radin 2006 p 38-40)

References:

Carter, Chris (2007) Parapsychology and the Skeptics: A Scientific Argument for the Existence of ESP SterlingHouse Books, Pittsburgh, PA 2007

Radin, Dean (1997) The Conscious Universe HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY 1997

Radin, Dean (2006) Entangled Minds Simon & Schuster New York, NY 2006