The Culture of Parapsychology

[cj.23]

I have to go out now and have not had time to read the thread in question properly but I just noticed another thread mentioning Sue Blackmore, and it reminded me of something.

There seems to be this widespread sceptical myth that all parapsychologists are delusional woo peddlers who spend their time selling New Age snake oil medicine and writing outrageously naive books. Maybe that is a fair assessment of the parapsychological community in the uSA - I would not know - but in my twenty years kicking around UK parapsychology I can assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

What differentiates Wiseman, French and Blackmore for instance is their conclusions not their methodoologies. Their reading of the evidence for certain phenomena is largely negative, others are more positive. All participate in the same discourse, publish in the same peer reviewed journals and attend the same conferences. Surely some of you have enough experience of the SPR, SSPR and people like Beloff, Carr, Wiseman, French, Roy, Ellison, Cassirer, etc etc to explain to those who are not personally familiar with these figures that a huge amount of rot is here spoken in ignorance by their detractors?

And surely people can read the peer reviewed parapsychological literature, and actually understand that it is often utterly misrepresented? Ersby? Soapy Sam? I know many of you know it is in fact a methodologically rigorously scrutinized discipline?

Let's break this myth of parapsychologist as woo pushers, and face up to the facts: they are researcher pursuing a legitimate but contentious branch of science with weak and questionable results to date, no more, no less.

cj x

 

[jhunter1163]

Well, that's the British view.

Here in the States, there is so much woo lumped under the general heading of "parapsychology" that separating what you in the UK would consider the wheat from the chaff is well-nigh impossible.

I'm not familiar with Sue Blackmore, but if she truly examines paranormal phenomena with a critical eye, and calls a woo a woo when she sees one, good on her. I know a fellow like that here in the States; he wants very much to believe in various woo theories, but he has sufficient training in critical thinking to see that they don't hold water. Doesn't stop him looking though.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

From Professor Wiseman's site at:

http://www.richardwiseman.com/latestnews.html

April 2008: Prof Wiseman will MC 'An Evening With James Randi and Friends' in London, involving Chris French, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Susan Blackmore and James Randi.

Seems to me that Randi at least puts these three in a different class than the Targs, Randins and Sheldrakes of the World.

Me too -- at least for Blackmore -- the one I am most knowledgeable about.

 

[Limbo]

Great OP CJ.

It seems that Ersby generally doesn't bother correcting the widespread sceptical myth you speak of. He lets it slide.

 

[blutoski]

I have to go out now and have not had time to read the thread in question properly but I just noticed another thread mentioning Sue Blackmore, and it reminded me of something.

There seems to be this widespread sceptical myth that all parapsychologists are delusional woo peddlers who spend their time selling New Age snake oil medicine and writing outrageously naive books. Maybe that is a fair assessment of the parapsychological community in the uSA - I would not know - but in my twenty years kicking around UK parapsychology I can assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

What differentiates Wiseman, French and Blackmore for instance is their conclusions not their methodoologies. Their reading of the evidence for certain phenomena is largely negative, others are more positive. All participate in the same discourse, publish in the same peer reviewed journals and attend the same conferences. Surely some of you have enough experience of the SPR, SSPR and people like Beloff, Carr, Wiseman, French, Roy, Ellison, Cassirer, etc etc to explain to those who are not personally familiar with these figures that a huge amount of rot is here spoken in ignorance by their detractors?

And surely people can read the peer reviewed parapsychological literature, and actually understand that it is often utterly misrepresented? Ersby? Soapy Sam? I know many of you know it is in fact a methodologically rigorously scrutinized discipline?

Let's break this myth of parapsychologist as woo pushers, and face up to the facts: they are researcher pursuing a legitimate but contentious branch of science with weak and questionable results to date, no more, no less.

cj x

I think the problem with generalizations is that they are generalizations.

If I were to say that 'most' parapsychologists do x, how would I defend this view? Is there a certification process so that I know who is - and is not - a parapsychologist to include in the analysis?

One of the reasons I have a negative opinion of parapsychology is that there seem to be a lot of high-profile parapsychologists who have terrible methodology. My question, then, is why they are high-profile? Are they the paranormal equivalent of Pons & Flieschmann, stripped of their memberships, degrees, and with little prospect of funding?


There's a second point that I'd like to visit: that what differentiates French, Blackmore, and Wiseman is not just their conclusions in isolation from their methodologies, but their conclusions because of their different methodologies (also, however, because of different worldviews, which is really the distinction imo). Even something like literature review does have an established methodology, so once a literature review is done, all people in the profession should agree on the outcome because they agree on the methodology. Wiseman, French, and Blackmore use a more recognizeable scientific methodology for literature review. Paranormal advocates use different criteria. This is because of a different worldview. They do not agree on methodology, and so, they have different views about what the literature says.

I can be specific. As somebody who designs and analyzes scientific experiments, I was stunned by Sheldrake's protocols for his phone telepathy experiment. It was a dog's breakfast. If I brought this to my thesis advisor he would have thought I was on crack.

I have also criticized work done by Wiseman. Specifically, the Demkina test. Its protocol was obviously rushed and sloppy, and he admits this. There is something worse than no research: bad research. This is because it leads to the publication of false or misleading findings.

 

[arthwollipot]

Let's break this myth of parapsychologist as woo pushers, and face up to the facts: they are researcher pursuing a legitimate but contentious branch of science with weak and questionable results to date, no more, no less.

This is true in some cases, not true in others.

I dare you to have a look at Rupert Sheldrake's methodology and tell me he's a researcher pursuing a legitimate branch of science.

 

[Ersby]

Since I have little knowledge of other fields of science (by which I mean anything more advanced than popular science books) I can't really comment on how rigorous parapsychology is.

One thing I would say is that commentators distort parapsychology's findings (either in a positive or negative light), and these are the things referenced by others. It's essential in this field to constantly refer to primary sources, rather than rely on second hand reports.

Great OP CJ.

It seems that Ersby generally doesn't bother correcting the widespread sceptical myth you speak of. He lets it slide.

I'm here for purely selfish reasons, in a sense - I'm here because I want to know what's going on. So I use the forums as a resource, for posts pointing out interesting new results that I would have otherwise missed.

I don't spend my time correcting every mistake I see. I'd be here all day.

 

[Aepervius]

CJ.23 the problem is, for the few of us which went on read some of what is published in parapsychological journals, there is a lot of bad methodology or simple claim without evidence whatsoever. Granted last time I looked at, was something like 10 or 15 years ago, so in the mean time somebody might have gotten themselves straight, but there was a lot of bad chaff which would not have known what scientific method was when it kick them in the butt. So if you have to spend so much time « Séparer le bon grain de l'ivraie » (separate the bad stuff from the good one) you end up a bit tired of hearing of those so called "good study" which provide "scientific evidence" and never seeing them.

The problem has never been of scientist rejecting ad-hoc parapsychology, the problem has always been the parapsychological culture of not wanting to adapt proper scientific method as a whole, and as a culture having a tendency to relax protocol/selection until they finally get the result they wish.

I am still waiting for a proper double blind and properly isolated test on zener card or similar on a relatively good sample for example. And if it was coming from somebody neutral , and not somebody which has time and time again announced he was a proponent , and was suspected of intentionally using abd methodology, that would be the kirch on the top of the kuchen.

 

[PixyMisa]

I know many of you know it is in fact a methodologically rigorously scrutinized discipline?

Laughing dog, laughing dog, laughing dog, laughing dog, laughing dog.

Sheldrake!

Laughing dog, laughing dog, laughing dog, laughing dog, laughing dog.

 

[Soapy Sam]

cj- I think your own perspective may be distorted by being closer than most to either serious or at least semi-serious paranormal investigation. The truth does seem to be that the very small number of genuine paranormal investigators are hugely outnumbered by either TV entertainers with a book contract or people running home businesses selling some form of psychic snakeoil.

When I spoke to Richard Wiseman in Vegas at TAM 5 , he said he was trying to move away from paranormal research into more psychological matters- the sort of thing his "Quirkology" site has. This reflects Blakemore's experience- the long, slow erosion of open mindedness in any scientist when positive results just keep on not turning up.

One might compare this with Archie Roy for instance. I've made clear to you before that I have great respect for Professor Roy , but I still disagree totally that he has produced a single datum that convinces me of the case for post mortem survival. He is arguably the best there is- but is that good enough? At this year's SSPR AGM Innes Smith summarised the active cases investigated by the SSPR- and to say they were mundane is to exaggerate wildly. There was nothing there at all.

And with the best will in the world, that seems to be the bottom line. There really is nothing there. Here the non-sceptic is at a disadvantage as an investigator. I can look at the paranormal and merely see my assumptions endlessly confirmed. This , naturally, does not depress me. The believer on the other hand is constantly hoping for more, wanting to see something. He is, therefore, constantly tempted to exaggerate , or misinterpret. He has no incentive to double check a seemingly positive result, as it may vanish like fairy gifts melting away with sunrise.

What I would truly like to see is serious scepticism brought to groups like the SSPR and consistently and unrelentingly applied. Because if there IS anything out there, whether spirit, quantum effect or oddity of neural function, it would be a shame to miss it.
I won't hide my expectation- there are no such phenomena- but it doesn't hurt to look.
But lending the imprimatur of a supposedly objective research group to every flavour-of-the-month medium spouting the same generic blather is an unforgivable error . Science doesn't come with options; there is objective research and there is wishful thinking. There is no middle ground.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm not familiar with Sue Blackmore, but if she truly examines paranormal phenomena with a critical eye, and calls a woo a woo when she sees one, good on her.

In her own words:

It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud.