Steve, there is a serious problem with the experiences that some people have that appear to simulate what might be expected if there were such a thing as telepathy. (And I've had a few. And things that simulate precognition. Which could, if it made sense, explain telepathy, if it existed.) Since they almost always refer to things where extreme emotions are involved, there is no way they could be replicated in laboratory conditions. Even if there could be some way to make people feel so emotional that something could be "transmitted", that would not be allowable under most experimental protocols.

What does get through, if something is getting through, is usually very blurred and lacking in useful detail, and it would be much better to phone, text, email, or send a guy with a cleft stick. Which is, of course, why we have developed language instead of relying on slightly differentiated hoots which might distinguish between snakes, eagles and leopards. (I refer to work on monkeys.)

I shouldn't bother trying to persuade people who believe it happens that it doesn't. That won't work. If people believe they have experienced something which has subsequently been confirmed, they will go on doing so. Would you be convinced if someone wrote down what they thought they had "received" and posted it to themself, and kept it sealed until such time it was confirmed by another party, or events?

And what I have experienced on a very few occasions has been quite different from being with someone whose mind follows similar thought paths and who suddenly comes out with whatever it was that I have been thinking, even though to an outsider it would not obviously follow previous utterances.