Psi, or psychic powers, exist.

This is my opponent's response for my request that he provides evidence that "psychic powers" exist, and I added that the burden of evidence is heavier on his side. This is not taking an advantage of the fact that my opponent is the instigator of this debate. If he started the debate and his position was that psychic powers don't exist, I would not request him to provide hard evidence for that. Thus, this has nothing to do with the fact that he started this debate. The real issue here is that my opponent is claiming that something controversial as a fact, and that is why he has a heavier burden of proof. If elucidate this point, if I go about claiming tooth fairies exist, people would not feel the need to provide evidence to disprove that, but instead, would ask me for evidence instead. What this all boil downs to is that if my opponent fails to provide sufficient evidence, he should lose this debate. I on the other hand, only have to state that the lack of evidence is the evidence for nonexistence." Sorry, bud, but that's wrong. You must prove me wrong. I must prove me right. Burden of proof is equal. I don't care who's making the claim. Your tooth fairy argument is null, because this does not describe everybody. Instead, it simply describes what you think(That people wouldn't prove you wrong and would simply ask for proof instead). "My opponent first claimed that they had a success rate that was notable. This is very debatable (and because the results were so inconclusive, the project was canceled eventually)." Sorry, nope. From Mind Wars, By Ron McRae: "Convinced? Not yet, demurred V1. Perhaps Puthoff had listened to the tape and then selected a corresponding target. For the third test, V1 sat alone with his eyes shut and his ears covered, and both he and the team at the site made recordings and sketches. The sketches and recordings were exchanged before anyone said anything. This time, V1 had to concede, 'My God, it really works.' His taped impressions and drawings obviously depicted the target, a playground merry-go-round four miles from the SRI.'" Page 99 of Mind Wars, First Edition. That doesn't sound debatable. In this case, V1 was the viewer in this remote viewing test. He was the one seeing everything, and he had reason to believe in ESP, too. In the middle of the fifties, he was a CIA case officer in Germany. One day, he was assigned to alarm one of the spies working for him or a higher up that he had been discovered. He also had to do this without notifying any German authorities. You try it. All he knew was that he bought a new Mercedes. He didn't know anything else. Well, he found him all right. He found a new Mercedes, went into the nearest hotel, and then went straight to the spies door. He didn't know if that was the spies room or not, but it turned out it was. An incredible stroke of luck, or a spontaneous demonstration of ESP? V1 credits the above as an ESP demonstration. The rest of that argument, I am unsure of. However, I would like to present the quote "My God, it really works." from V1. I think that is proof enough that you are wrong. Now, for your argument about how general the views were. Well, I can say that I don't know if there weren't any very general views, but I know that there were some very descriptive, and very right, views, also. Again, from Mind Wars. "Swann correctly described a previously unknown Soviet installation, sketching buildings and rail lines, and noting an 'unusually high proportion of women' among the personnel. A U.S. Spy satellite verified Swann's report three months later." Page 101, Mind Wars, First Edition. Swann also correctly described the Soviet/French weather research station on the island of Kerguelen, without the use of a map. Sure, some might call his description general, but the fact that he said it's a rocky island with mathematically laid out orange buildings and two white cylinder tanks is pretty impressive, especially since those aren't characteristics of any average island, except maybe the rocky terrain. " What is more likely? A poorly conducted research produced unreliable results, or that our currently mainstream scientific understanding of biology and psychics is wrong?" What's more likely is that our understand of biology and psychics are incomplete, and therefore are wrong. "My opponent might rethink this argument if he actually realizes how many 'facts' we humans once believed in great numbers, yet no one believes in them now. One example is the 'flat earth theory'." The flat Earth theory had not proof, it was simply pure speculation. Right now, we have proof for Psychics. "most people who should believe in this should be scientists (although the opposite is the reality)," Are you so sure? Maybe some scientists just don't want to put their reputations on the line. That is what happens when you say you believe in psychics. Many people, including other scientists, don't, and your reputation will be hurt for that. My source: Mind Wars, By Ron McRae, First Edition.