Talk:Parapsychology/Archive 1

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Maybe in the article should also be some mention of quantum mechanics. There is certainly a link between both issues. Unfortunately I have not enough detailed knowledge in both disciplines. -Der Eberswalder 15:50, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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I found an abundant glossary of parapsychology terms at http://www.mdani.demon.co.uk/para/paraglos.htm --Magnus Manske

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I'm still not entirely satisfied with the definition here..."the study of unexplained phenomena" to me implies that the phenomena themselves actually exist, and that we justdon't know what causes them. That is the issue in contention: scientists claim that the phenomena only exist in the minds of those who want to believe they exist. I can't think of a better definition offhand, though. --LDC

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Doesn't the "psychology" part of the word indicate that it applies specifically to mental effects, such as telepathy, telekinesis, etc. but not to UFOs, alien abductions, hollow earths, or other weird beliefs?

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Lee, I'd say that "phenomena" includes beliefs, nonveridical "experiences," and other phenomena that are not themselves paranormal. --LMS

My impression is that the term is usually restricted to paranormal occurrences. Hypnosis produces unverifiable experiences but psychic researchers don't seem to get interested unless there are stories of past-life memories or whatnot. Also, the Rhine Institute was at Duke University but was not connected to it; I don't know whether that's what the author is referring to. AMT.

Perhaps not stated well, but what I'm getting at is that things currently unexplained might not require any fundamental change in "science" if they were proved to occur. The idea of science that comes up in discussions of parapsychology just strikes me as vague and unexamined. A prehistoric fish is caught in a net off Africa and leads to no great restatement of biology, merely the observation that the species isn't dead yet. There's a good deal of criticism of parapsychological methods, of course. But that doesn't bear on the question of what mind-reading would mean if it did turn out to exist.

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Again, the most recent revision by the anonymous reviser was not an improvement. The following was on the page:

Since these reported phenomena cannot be linked to generally-accepted physics, both skeptics and believers tend to claim that their existence would require some radical revision of existing theories.

"Cannot be linked to generally-accepted physics" is vague (I'm not sure what it means!) and certainly a lot worse than what it replaced. I'm reverting the text to this: "Typically, if we knew the phenomena were real, physicists and psychologists would have to revise their models of the universe radically." This is concise and accurate.

Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, the following is just false:

A parapsychological explanation therefore must exclude explanation by conventional means (e.g., coincidence, or auto-suggestion or fraud).

I believe that parapsychologists are interested in all sorts of explanations of the data, ordinary and extraordinary. --LMS

Tomorrow someone provides proof that ghosts exist. Exactly what finding of physics would be contradicted? What theory would be disconfirmed? The connection is vague, not the statement of the connection. The biologist's model of the universe at one time did not include the continued existence of supposedly extinct fish; now it does, but what else has changed?

I doubt that proof of ghosts would move physicists to re-examine all the formulae of quantum mechanics. Some of them might start wondering what particles ectoplasm was made of. The field of biology might seem a better candidate for radical revision, but I just don't know of any theory that would be overturned by the existence of ghosts; all I can think of are prescientific truisms like "Nobody lives forever."

What strikes me about this field of discussion is the unexamined notion of science that is constantly set against the parapsychological. Science doesn't have the burden of explaining everything.--AMT

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Science certainly tries to provide an explanation for everything- look at the new fields applying science to human interaction, like psychology, anthropology. As for theories needing changing -it seems almost all would. Certainly conservation of energy and mass, particle physics (which doesn't just list what particles there are, but proves that those are the opnly ones possible.) -rmhermen

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The existence of a gross phenomenon like a ghost would not prove the existence of a new particle nor would it contradict the idea of conservation of energy. Somebody jumps out of a plane with a parachute, and nobody claims that the result contradicts the usual calculations of the acceleration of falling bodies. Think in terms of a null hypothesis--what theory is being tested and disconfirmed by the existence of ghosts?

There is a question of whether ghosts, mind-reading, or precognition occur. This is not a scientific question, it's a question of fact. Then there's the question of what difference these things make if they do exist. The field of parapsychology is defined in a wooly fashion by the belief that such things just have to be outside the realm of scientific explanation, but nobody ever says how or why. True believers want it to be so and professional skeptics want to use the authority of science as a good reason for not believing. But this doesn't make any sense.

(Granted that a thorough investigation would seek to exclude conventional explanations, so L's statement that parapsychologists are interested in all forms of explanation is correct; but for something to count as a parapsychological explanation, it would by definition have to be outside the realm of the currently-conventional.)

The disconnection from ideas of science is the essential point. You prove the existence of ghosts and what do you know, scientifically? Damn little. Is this a reason for doubting the existence of ghosts? No. Is it a reason for claiming you've transcended science? No.--AMT

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If a person falls with a parachute there path is completely described by the known laws of physics. However if someone dies and a ghost with mass exists it would have to violate mass conservation because no mass changes have ever been measured at death. It would also require new particles because "ghost particles" do not obey the laws of physics and new theories because present theories which account for all particles do not predict ghost particles. Likewise if a non-mass or energy ghost existed, the theories would be invalidated because they do not predict such. Like Newtonian physics is falsify by relativity. --rmhermen

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As fascinating as this conversation is (really!), I can't help but think that it would be more fulfilling to spend your Wikipedia time actually adding content to the article... AMT's thesis is a nonstarter, and I wouldn't waste my time arguing with him/her. --LMS

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rmhermen, I understand your point, but I think it's jumping to the same conclusion that discussions of this stuff usually jump to. I used the term "ghost" as though it were self-evident what a ghost is and you naturally follow the same folkloric path--they emanate from the body at death, they can pass through walls or whatever. But until you prove they exist, you can't really say much about how they exist. My discomfort here is about a definition of a field that states baldly than any parapsychological phenomenon would require drastic revision of existing scientific theories.

This is only true in a trivial sense: if the thing exists AND it turns out to answer to no scientific principles, then by definition it's parapsychological.

Parapsychology groups reports of mental and spiritual events on the presumption that they lie outside science, although the notion of science is almost never given the specificity you provided. The presumption is OK as a starting point, but it does not follow that these phenomena would fall outside science if they occurred. It doesn't even follow that they would probably fall outside science. All you can say is any possible connection to established scientific principles, and any possible refutation of established scientific principles, is not known. --AMT

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If a ghost were not a ghost. Not really much of a starting point. --rmhermen

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Larry, I just read your change to why some consider parapsychology to be pseudoscience. The notion that these studies have produced no real evidence seems to always be mentioned only tangentially. A parapsychologist might claim they are attempting to use observation to ascertain if a phenomena exists or not. How is this not scientific? It reminds me of James Randi's phony 1,000,000$ prize to anyone who can demonstrate magic, or any other "nonscientific" phenomena. If you can demonstrate it, its observable, and so conforms to the scientific method. he never has to give out a prize because it is always a "trick". scientists demean parapsychology because they consider it beneath study.

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I've removed the reference to spirits in the definition. Spirits represent only one way of trying to explain parapsychic phenomena, and probably not the one that would be chosen by those who would like to establish any scientific basis to the subject. Eclecticology, Sunday, May 5, 2002

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What does "bizarre" mean here? All I can think of is poltergeists, which do thoroughly ordinary if annoying things (flinging stuff around). Vicki Rosenzweig

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"Psychic" should really be a separate article rather than a redirect. --user:Daniel C. Boyer

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Hello Eclecticology,

please try to work with me on making this article more neutral. I know that you believe that some parapsychologist views are correct or at least deserving of more attention. However, the article should be written in such a way to be readable as neutral by both mainstream scientists and parapsychologists.

That's why I had changed the following points:

• ".. is the study with scientific methods .." - Unfortunately, this is not an uncontroversial claim. Many scientists / skeptics would contend that the field of parapsychology is littered with methodological errors and fraud, and it therefore is generally to be considered a pseudoscience. I think it is therefore better to remove the "scientific methods" part and to neutrally state the different positions on science vs. pseudoscience.
• I have added to the sentence "Parapsychologists generally maintain that gathering evidence in a controlled environment to prove the existence of any such phenomenon has been frustratingly problematic" the notion that many parapsychologists believe the phenomena they examine to be rare, which is certainly true (some believe that something like clairvoyance or other psychic abilities can be inherited). This is actually a claim in support of the statement that collecting evidence is hard -- otherwise I would have to insert a note here stating that so-and-so believe this to be an invalid argument, because parapsychology should not have any more difficulties proving causal relationships than any other sciences.
• A loaded word like "zealous" is certainly not helpful in the context of NPOV, but if you insist on using it, you should provide an actual quote or citation of some sort. Otherwise it looks like Wikipedia is accepting this characterization.
• "rather than on any substantive grounds" is clearly not NPOV (and incorrect, methodological errors and lack of verifiability are very substantive grounds).

I thought these changes would be obvious, but since you have basically reverted them, apparently they are not. Please explain any objections you may have to making the article more NPOV in the way described above. Please realize that having an article in a non-neutral tone will only strengthen many people's belief that pseudoscience is bogus (and discredit Wikipedia at the same time). The facts should speak for themselves. --Eloquence

Since you asked for general feedback... I agree with all of the comments above (I'd probably even go further); although I'm a little unsure about your first point. Ideally, I think that the intention of parapsychology is to perform a scientific study of "spooky" phenomena (whether its adherents are actually carrying out that task in general is a different question). But one could state the same about CSICOP (Commitee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal); they also try to scientifically study claims of extraordinary phenomona, but come from a different theoretical point of view. How do we distinguish between these fields of endeavor?

As others have noted, two issues seem to being conflated here. One is the idea that there exists a particular phenomenon (observable result), and the other that there is a consistent theory which explains and predicts the (ostensibly real) phenomenon, and serves to guide the types of experiments which are performed. The (self-appointed) task of the parapsychologist is certainly to address both of these issues; but primarily appears to be to demonstrate that there "really are" observable phenomena meeting certain requirements. As noted in The Skeptics Dictionary, "Most sciences try to explain observable phenomena. Parapsychologists try to observe unexplainable phenomena." As opposed to those at CSICOP, whose disbelief in these phenomena are at least supported by experiment, parapsychologists continue to seek evidence of these phenomena in spite of a lack of supporting data because they are convinced of the possibility of their underlying theories (mental action); and it is this latter feature which seems least "scientific". (Although I suppose this can be considered a gray area - is it reasonable or not to take the large amount of personal anecdotal evidence of "psychic" experiences as evidence of an "incompleteness" in current scientific theories?)

If parapsychologists were to demonstrate an "unexplained" phenomenon (as in the controversial ganzfeld experiments), this would not neccesarily prove that the results were caused by telepathy; but such experimental results, if performed in a rigorous fashion, would still at least constitute valuable and interesting empirical data.

I suppose the above comments are more to the point in an article on pseudoscience. In my opinion, the parapsychologist's search is a futile duplication of effort; driven by wish-fulfillment. But while the field includes charlatans, and is rife with improper experimental approaches; it also contains some who really are trying to do science, often with, for the practitioner, frustrating results; see ex-parapsychologist Susan Blackmore's home page Cheers Chas zzz brown 23:20 Dec 17, 2002 (UTC)

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• Controversial or not, I think that there are parapsychologists (scientists) making honest attempts to apply scientific methods to the study of the subject phenomenon. That the field is "littered with methodological errors and fraud" is contentious in itself and a serious charge. Every branch of science is likewise littered. Even if we grant that that parapsychology is so littered to a much larger degree (and who really has any hard statistics on it?), this ignores the core of qualified scientists who do in fact know about proper methodology and properly apply it to parapsychology. I vote that "scientific methods" stays in.

This has been the point all along. Whether a person has used scientific method is not proved simply by having successful experiments. A good faith reasonable attempt to develop experiments to test the hypotheses is all that is needed. If the experimental results are inconclusive the whole subject is still on the table. Skeptics constantly need to be reminded that failure to prove that a hypithesis is true is not the equivalent of proving that it is false. The burden of proof that parapsychic phenomena exist is clearly on the shoulders of the scientists working in that field. A skeptic who alleges fraud manages to shift some of that burden onto himself, contrary to his own intention. Being "littered with methodological errors and fraud" is a non-productive generalization that doesn't say much beyond that these things happen; that is a truism that is accepted by parapsychologists and their critics alike. Close investigation could reveal that it occurs in other scientific fields as well, especially when juicy Defence Department contracts are involved.

• Proper gathering of good, properly qualified data in any field is difficult. However, while some parapsychologists would say the phenomenon is rare, others take the opposite view, namely that psi is ubiquitious, that everyone has latent psi abilities to some degree (which actually makes a lot more sense from an Occam's razor POV). The difficulty, they say, is due to the small effect size of the phenomena, which requires (1) extreme care in the design and execution of experiments and (2) statistical measures of the results. The leading parapsychologists claim they have collected ample statistical evidence of the existence of several types of anamolous phenomena, though of course it is not convincing to "the mainstream scientists", and that the phenomena can be replicated by any careful experimentor who makes the effort of conducting the experiments, which are well-documented (see Radin's book for references). So while these parapsychologists may agree that proper design of experiments is problematic, I don't think that they would say that this has been frustratingly so; rather, they would say that many of the problems have been overcome and progress is being made.

Again we agree. That most parapsychologist would claim that these phenomena are rare is factually wrong. In all likelyhood psi ability in individuals follows some kind of bell curve like any other ability. It is those individuals at the high end of the bell curve who are rare and more noticeable than the others. The low end of the curve doesn't get noticed because his deficiencies are not recognized as deficiencies; a possible member of the low end could be the psychological klutz who fails to ever anticipate consequences. The ubiquity of the phenomenon may in fact contribute to making existence proofs more difficult; average psi ability would be so tied in with everyday life that nobody notices that it's there. -Ec

• It is inaccurate to say there is no evidence whatsoever for any psi phenomena whatsoever. Parapsychologists do offer evidence. It is more accurate to say that (many) other scientists do not find the offered evidence convincing.

Yes. -Ec

• While I would agree that there are zealous advocates of the anti-paranormal POV (e.g. Randi and many other members of CSICOP), I agree that use of the word is inflammatory.

Okay, maybe I was just a little over-reactive with that word to what is often such an in-your-face approach by the skeptics. -Ec

• I agree with Chas's comments that existence of anamolous phenomena and theories to explain them are two different things. From what I gather, the parapsychologists believe they have established the first, but still have no concensus on the second. And that's fine for a science in its relative infancy. (For that matter, as Radin points out, physics is still trying to come up with a good theory for dealing with the phenomenon of gravity.)

165.247.218.176 08:02 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)Grizzly 08:03 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

More agreement. Although psi phenomena and/or claims to them have been there throughout history, their scientific study is relatively recent. Parapsychology has been so mired in proofs of existence that theoretical understandings have suffered. Some hypotheses for explanation have been absurd, but most of these do get weeded out fairly easily by those working in the field. These theories merit no more publicity than an oddball events column at the back of a newspaper. I'm sure that a thorough review of the history of science would review a lot of these in every field of study. In the early years of the German Nazi Party they adopted as the official party policy in cosmology a hypothesis that space was filled with tiny ice crystals; the effect of the friction from these particles on the moon made its orbit a slowly involutionary spiral that would eventually cause it to come crashing into the earth. This was a policy area where what they believed didn't matter a great deal, because they couldn't harm anybody with it. That was only one example of a failed weird theory.

Conflicting theories are just another fact of life. The wave and particle theories of light have learned to live with each other. It is no longer a question of "My theory is right, so yours must be wrong." Another difficulty to be faced by parapsychological theory is the challenge to a concept of causality that is very deeply embedded in western culture. I don't think that there is much willingness in western culture (which includes western science) to accept acausal phenomena. The implications of such an acceptance just cut too deeply. -Ec

Could you clarify what you mean with "small effect size"? I still don't see the difference between parapsychology and, say, quantum physics. --Eloquence

Hmm! I would prefer not to comment on your view that parapsychology and quantum physics are the same thing. ;-) The first sentence is easy to deal with. What he is saying is similar to discussions of signal-to-noise ratios in radio communications. In that there are weak signals that people do want to receive in an atmosphere filled with radio static which make the signal barely audible, and in this context there is a need to amplify the signal without amplifying the background noise. Double-blind tests of new pharmaceuticals also face similar challenges when the efficacy of the subject drug is only slightly better than that of a placebo. (And that's without getting into parapsychic issues as they could relate to why placebos work.) Eclecticology 18:45 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, that is my understanding. The gross, macro phenomena such has bending spoons, levitating tables, 100% accurate predictions of coin tosses, etc, have not to date been reproduced under laboratory conditions and proper scientific protocols. PK effects that have been studied and observed under these conditions are on devices like random event generators (that use, for example, radioactive particle decay or single electron emission onto one of two paths) and the effects are seen in shifts in the probabilities of events beyond what can reasonably be attributed to chance, but are far less 100%, i.e. they have to be measured statistically over many trials in a session or experiment. Likewise for performance on anamolous cognition phenomena: the hit rates are still far less than 100% but may show, say, a 30% hit rate in a given experiment where null hypothesis would predict 25%. The sort of thing that typically is measured in statistical terms.

It is interesting that many people have drawn parallels between parapsychology and quantum physics, but I don't know enough about it have any comment here (and so would not bother putting such into the article), except to say that recently I read an article about the efforts going on in "loop quantum gravity" which is a minority approach currently competing with "string theory" in physics circles, and the article noted that neither theory yet has any empirical evidence in its favor, apparently because the effects (quantum gravitation) are so small that physicists have not yet devised a practical means to perform the measurements that might be needed to provide evidence for one hypothesis or the other. Grizzly 08:39 Dec 19, 2002 (UTC)

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It seems that when this and other related subjects have reached some kind of agreeable balance somebody comes along and lights a fire under the subject with major revisions. RK's recent edit seems to have done just that. The repeated use of words like "purported" represent an "in-your-face" hostility that detract from an understanding of the subject. We all know that parapsychology is a controversial topic; why does that fact need to be repeated ad nauseam? Expressing that point of view once can sometimes be more effective.

I was trying to make changes necessary for NPOV. The article, as it existed previously, had many paragraphs which stated that parapsychological phenomenon existed. It did not distinguish between claims, and facts. Well, that is not so. That claim is not accepted. The article was not NPOV. This is no different than articles on anti-gravity and hyperspace, which may have some physicaly reality, but of which no proof or consensus exists. RK

In one of his recent columns in Scientific American Michael Shermer wrote about astrology, (but it could have been about parapsychology or any other object from the Kuyper belt of knowledge). Shermer's credentials as a sceptic are well known, and he often reaches conclusions with which I seriously disagree. Still, there was one thing that struck me in that article that was to Shermer's great credit: he never even once used the word "pseudoscience". I think that those people who so vehemently oppose subjects from the fringes of science should take note. There are many Kuyper Belt objects, most of which are destined to stay there for as long as there is human consciousness, but a very few do break away to have an impact on the better known parts of the solar system. We have no way of knowing which ones.

I did agree with RK that the article had developed grammatical and stylistic structural problems, I do not object to those improvements.

Eloquence's latest offering is less drastic but I can use it to illustrate my point. In the opening sentence, "Parapsychology is a field of study which claims to use scientific means to explore claims of...", he was the one who changed "uses" to "claims to use". Respectfully, this is the kind of change that injects POV. Substitue the name of any accepted science for parapsychology and the statement is just as true, but it is hard to imagine that such a change would be tolerated there. Furthermore the object of the parapsychologist's studies are are already claims. The simple use of scientific methods is not enough to guarantee success in those studies. I believe that a presumption of good faith is important to maintaining NPOV, and even erroneous or uninformed attempts to apply scientific method are nevertheless in good faith. I propose to change "claims" to "attempts". Eclecticology 20:44 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

Allow me to explain my position. You wrote that "Substitue the name of any accepted science for parapsychology and the statement is just as true, but it is hard to imagine that such a change would be tolerated there." I believe this to be in error: For instance, Geologists do not merely claim to study the Earth, they really do study the Earth. No one denies that the Earth exists. Meteorologists study the weather, and noone denies that weather exists. Chemists study the bonding of atoms, and noone denies that matter exists. However, when someone says that they scientificially study "psychic powers", then their science is suspect, because the very subject of their study appears not to exist. I can claim to be a scientist studying unicorns, but most people could object that it is difficult to scientifically study something that probably isn't even there. However, I have no problems with recent changes. RK

Given the strong opposition to parapsychology from mainstream science, I think the phrase "claims to use" is more accurate than "attempts to use". "Claims to use" is something parapsychologists can agree with, because that's what they actually do. "Attempts to use" is something some critics of parapsychology who consider the whole venture oxymoronic and nothing but a fraud would probably not accept. I do agree, however, that the word "claim" has slightly negative connotations, and prefer "state" when that is possible. I do not really see a good alternative here, though.

Parapsychology is different from other fields in the amount of controversy it elicits, and this should be properly reflected by the phrasing we use. --Eloquence 23:11 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

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I invested my time to make a major expansion of the article. Tried my best for NPOV, but I'm sure there will be lots of feedback. Due to the size, I placed some of the material on history and current claims into subarticles. Since I have not structured articles this way before, would appreciate if someone checks out the links to make sure they come up correctly, or advise on better ways of organizing the material. Grizzly

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This page (as well as Psychokinesis) links to Helmut Schmidt, but clearly a different Helmut Schmidt is meant. Perhaps someone should create something like Helmut Schmidt (Parapsychologist) and link to that instead? -- Timwi 22:19 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This "famous people accused of being a fraud" list is idiotic. Anyone may accuse anyone of anything; the point is to have some sort of evidence. I know of evidence for some of these people, but not for others. Who, for instance, accused Edgar Cayce of being a fraud, and on the basis of what evidence, if any? As it stands, I could add George Bush to this list, as I've certainly heard him accused of being a fraud. Can we possibly maintain some minimal standards of evidence here? Gene Ward Smith 10:23, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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I identified (not "accused," which implies doubt) Edgar Cayce of being a fraud for the simple reason he was a total out-and-out fraud. Read his page. But I did not write the line Famous people who have been accused of being frauds. It seems to have been someone named User:Maveric149, which a little research would have revealed.

All were total frauds, no "accusation" even makes sense. Saying Mother Shipton is "stupid" to list is a an insult and not good language to use -- be more polite. Lots of peope actually believe in her.-- dino

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Apparently dino is utterly irrational on this topic. I've checked the alleged frauds, and where I could find no evidence on the web that any credible evidence has been found that they were ever shown to be frauds, I moved them. I then added a few more alleged frauds. I also removed a "famous" person for which only this article shows up in a search, and the psychic telephone guy, who should I presume be on a page devoted to EVP if someone wants to write one.

Can we kindly keep the irrationality, crypto-religious ranting and fervour, and general lack of intellecutal standards to a mimimum? I'm well aware this topic arouses strong emotions, that does not excuse stupidity and ignorance, and I'm sorry but I am not polite towards that sort of thing. Gene Ward Smith 00:46, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Thank you for insulting me, Gene. I shall not waste time on this topic anymore. — dino