Terry,
There is a very useful tool, and it's called "Statistics". It is used a lot when it comes to humans. Because of the unpredictable results of a single person on a single question, one can never predict with certainty a particular result for that single individual. On the other hand, if you do a significant number of tests with an appropriate number of individuals within a specified population relative and relevant to the test or question, then you can measure the results in terms of statistical probability.
If a single person has to answer a question with a yes or no, the odds are 50 - 50 that he/she will answer "Yes" or will answer "No". If you tested 1,000 individuals with the same question, and 500 of them answered "Yes" and 500 of them answered "No", then one could conclude with a high degree of certainty that this was probably no better than "Random Chance" probability. However, if in this test the results were 750 yes and 250 no, then one would have to say that there is a 75% probability that the population would answer "Yes" and only a 25% probability that the response would be "No". If the experiment were to be repeated, say 20 times on the same basis, there would be variation either on the yes side or the no side, but the results would still be close to the 50/50 line, or the 75/25 line as the case may be. This involves standard deviation, but does not nullify the overall results. Political pollsters take their results and say something like, these results have a marginal variation of +/- 4%, 19 times out of 20. What we are measuring here are collective results, taking into account statistical variations. Now if there are significant results in a certain direction, then it is valid to conclude that something is going on beyond mere "Random Chance".
Further, if you selected a good cross-section of the population spanning a number of variables, such as ethnicity, geographic region, economic level, religious belief, etc. then this statistical sampling could be used to extrapolate the results to an entire population such as State-Wide or Country-Wide. Marketers and Politicians use these tools all the time.
When it comes to Psi phenomena, I am quite willing to concede the uncertainty that is attached to any one single human being. Some people got it, and some don't. Furthermore, some people got it, but not all the time, or at their own choosing. One possible explanation is that the subjective conditions have to be right before the homo sapien subject can function effectively to make the paranormal "gift" manifest. The clinical, sterile atmosphere of the laboratory, with all kinds of probes and instruments and scientists staring at you may actually be disruptive to the process, and guarantee the results will end in failure. This is not an excuse. This is a real possibility.
So now, if we could look at number of experiments under the right conditions, and using the statistical approach to analyze the results, and by this can demonstrate that something definitely is going on that is significantly beyond "random chance", wouln't you be willing to at least concede that JUST MAYBE there is more to this Universe than what science has discovered and measured to-date? I think that is a fair question, Terry.
There are two experiments I would like to draw your attention to. One has to do with Telepathy. Specifically, this has to do with "Telephone Telepathy" where the participants could tell who was calling before answering the telephone. (A secondary experiment on telepathy has to do with the "Apparent Telepathy Between Babies and Nursing Mothers".)
The second Experiment is about the sense of being stared at from behind. Here the subject has to guess whether or not he/she is being stared at, while a looker sits behind the subject and randomly either looks at the subject or else looks away and thinks of something else.
These experiments may be examined on the following website:
http://www.sheldrake.org
Now, since you seem to have a problem with the unreliability of human beings when it comes to Psi, I would like to bring up another topic that I think will provide some interesting empirical evidence of something "beyond Science" and certainly "paranormal" but which leaves human beings out of the equation. That subject is "Crop Circles". Yes, I know it is controversial, and there are some people who have faked these. But there are tons of instances where these could not possibly have been faked, and which could not have been done in a single night, and yet there they are. If you could see that there is something going on here that is very real, but yet science cannot explain it, then I would have to say that the paranormal is operating here. At that point, you will need to admit that there may be something to the paranormal after all. From there we could explore other interesting options. Does that seem reasonable, Terry?
Rod P.
(p.s. I am going to submit the "Crop Circles" separately from this post, as I do not want to lose what I've typed above, which has already happened to me too many times.)