Betty Markwick

Betty Markwick (b 1933) is a British mathematician and statistician, credited with having uncovered fraud in ESP experiments by SG Soal.

Early Life

Betty Markwick was born in 1933 and studied mathematics at London University. She later worked as a computer programmer.

Psychical Research

Having read Modern Experiments in Telepathy by SG Soal and F Bateman, Markwick joined the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in 1969. She became its statistical adviser, sometimes critiquing the methodologies employed by ESP researchers.[1]

In the early 1940s, SPR researcher SG Soal reported apparently successful results in ESP card-guessing experiments with Basil Shackleton as the subject.  Certain circumstances led later to suspicions of cheating being voiced. In the 1970s, collaborating with DJ West, Markwick used computer technology to expose likely manipulation by SG Soal of data sheets, with the insertion of extra digits to create a false ESP effect. Markwick’s expertise in this regard has been called ‘exemplary’.[2]

See here for full details of the fraud and its exposure.

Selected Works

Articles

Correspondence (1976). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 48, 287-88.

The Soal-Goldney experiments with Basil Shackleton: New evidence of data manipulation (1978). Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 56, 250-77.

Notes: Re-analysis of some free-response data (1988). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 55, 220-22.

Two tests of survival after death: Report on negative results (1989, with I. Stevenson and A. Oram). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 55, 329-36.

The Spinelli database (1990). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 56, 225-28.

Critique of the PEAR remote-viewing experiments (1992, with G.P. Hansen and J. Utts). Journal of Parapsychology 56/2, 97-113.

ESP experiments (1994). Psi Researcher 12, 8.

A television ESP experiment (1995, with M.R. Barrington). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 60, 267-69.

Correspondence (2007). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 71, 258-59.

Dr Soal: A psychic enigma (2018, with D.J. West). Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 224.

Book Chapters

Dream states and ESP: A distance experiment with a single subject (1982, with J. Beloff).  In Research in Parapsychology, ed. by W.G. Roll, J. Beloff and R.A. White New York: Scarecrow Press.

The establishment of data manipulation in the Soal-Shackleton experiments (1985).  In A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology, ed. by P. Kurtz. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.

Dream states and ESP: A distance experiment featuring a pure clairvoyance, free-response design (1987, with J. Beloff).  In Research in Parapsychology, ed. by D.H. Weiner and R.L. Morris. London: Scarecrow Press

Book Reviews

Know your own Psi-Q by H.J. Eysenck and C. Sargent (1984). Review of chapter 10 and appendices. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 52, 397-99.

The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal by P. Kurtz (1991). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 57, 366-69.

Melvyn Willin

Literature

Markwick, B. (1984). Review of Know your own Psi-Q by H.J. Eysenck and C. Sargent. Chapter 10 and appendices. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 52, 397-99.

Markwick, B. et al (1993) cited in Psi Researcher 9, 20.

Pratt, J.G. (1978). Statement. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 56, 279-81.

Endnotes

Footnotes

- 1. Eg. Markwick (1984), 399, Markwick (1993), 20.

- 2. Pratt (1978), 279.

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