Is Parapsychology a "Taboo" Subject in Science?

Parapsychology has been a controversial subject from its very inception. Many scientists have expressed doubts that psi – the broad term for paranormal phenomena such as telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis – is real or that parapsychology is a genuine science. On the other hand, some scientists support parapsychology, and in fact an opinion piece recently published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, endorsed by 100 signatories calls for a more “open-minded” consideration of the subject. What particularly struck me about this piece was the claim that investigation into the subject is not just controversial, but actually “taboo”. Examination of the history of parapsychology indicates that the scientific mainstream has shown considerable open-mindedness towards the subject, and that claims that it has been treated as some sort of “forbidden” topic are both hyperbolic and disingenuous.

Does "Theresa" possess forbidden knowledge that scientists are not allowed to investigate?

Although parapsychology has been studying paranormal phenomena for over 130 years, currently it exists mainly at the fringes of scientific institutions. Mainstream science largely ignores psi, e.g. physics textbooks make no mention of the possibility that mental events might influence physical objects at a distance and science funding agencies generally will not financially support parapsychology research (Alcock, 1987).[1]

Naturally parapsychologists object to this state of affairs and the authors of the opinion piece (Cardeña, 2014) “call for an open, informed study” of the subject. However, they do not explain what specifically prompted such a call at this particular time. Signatories to the piece include such mainstream psychology notables as Daryl Bem and Phil Zimbardo, as well as researchers into more fringe oriented topics like Dean Radin and David Luke[2]. The article starts off, apparently quite reasonably, arguing that scientists need to consider all evidence in an open-minded manner and “recognise that scientific knowledge is provisional and subject to revision.” This is in contrast to deciding things dogmatically or by appeal to authority figures. No argument from me so far. The author then goes on to bemoan the fact that purported phenomena such as telepathy and precognition have not been embraced by mainstream science. A set of claims is then made to the effect that parapsychology is a valid science and that there is evidence to support the existence of psi. Sceptics such as Ray Hyman on the other hand argue that they find the evidence unconvincing because attempts to reliably replicate initially successful psi experiments have had a history of repeated failure. I have also expressed scepticism about parapsychology in previous posts (see here and here. However, this is not particularly what I wish to focus on here.

What exactly the author and the signatories hope to achieve by publishing this article is not entirely clear. However, the following statement provides some clues: “This research has continued for over a century despite the taboo against investigating the topic, almost complete lack of funding, and professional and personal attacks” (emphasis added). Lack of funding and professional and personal attacks I can well believe. Funding bodies have limited resources and so may have good reasons for declining to fund a field they consider unpromising. Professional and personal attacks, however regrettable, occur in many fields of endeavour, and are hardly unique to parapsychology. But claiming that there is an actual taboo against investigating the topic is a very puzzling one indeed for which the article offers no evidence or even any definition of what this is supposed to mean.[3] In fact, the article actually cites survey evidence to the effect that only a minority of scientists dismiss parapsychology as pseudoscience or an illegitimate area of study. If this is correct, then how could parapsychology actually be taboo? Does this minority group of parapsychology-deniers have some special veto power that they can impose on the majority?

Taboo implies that investigating the topic is strictly forbidden and that anyone who dares to defy the taboo can expect severe punishment. This is a pretty serious charge, as it implies that mainstream scientists have actively prohibited curious investigators from studying the subject with an open mind, contrary to the whole spirit of scientific inquiry. Some parapsychologists have gone so far as to accuse mainstream scientists of being prejudiced against the subject or even having an irrational fear of psi. A google search of “parapsychology taboo” reveals that this claim is not new and has been widely repeated by parapsychologists. Dean Radin, one of the article’s signatories, in particular once gave a lecture called “Science and the taboo of psi” in which he claims flatly that the “This taboo has been sustained for over 100 years.” (About 4:35 in the video.) He also states that “it is extremely difficult to get accurate reporting of this topic in the science media”[4] and implies that the media selectively reports only studies that disconfirm parapsychology but is strangely silent about ones that validate it. (An informative critique of this video can be read here.) A few years after Radin’s lecture, Daryl Bem’s (2011) paper that claimed to provide evidence that people can “feel the future” received an enormous amount of media attention (e.g. in Discover magazine[5]). Perhaps parapsychology is no longer so “taboo” as it was a few years ago? Alternatively, maybe it never was taboo in the first place. The fact that mainstream science tends not to take parapsychology seriously is not proof of an irrational taboo, as scientists may have good reasons for being unconvinced of its claims. Cardeña and company enjoin sceptics to consider the evidence with an open mind, so it would be helpful to examine just what evidence there is that parapsychology has ever been a taboo topic.

According to Alcock (1987), when parapsychology research began in the 1880’s, a number of prominent psychologists, such as Pierre Janet and William James, along with scientists from other fields, were involved in looking for evidence of paranormal phenomena and psychical research societies were set up in France, America and Britain. The Fourth International Congress of Psychology held in 1900 in Paris had an entire section devoted to psychical research and spiritualism. Much of this research focused on investigating the alleged powers of spiritualist mediums, many of whom turned out to be frauds. As a result, many psychologists lost interest in the subject.

Parapsychology attracted attention again in the 1930’s with the pioneering experimental research into ESP by JB Rhine at Duke University. A 1938 poll of psychologists found that 89% of them thought that the study of psi was a legitimate scientific exercise (Alcock, 1989). I suppose they were not aware that this was supposed to be a taboo subject. Unfortunately, methodological problems in Rhine’s studies were exposed that invalidated his conclusions, and psi research failed to gain mainstream scientific support.

Parapsychology received mainstream attention in the 1960’s and 70’s. In 1969, the Parapsychology Association became an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS is a well-respected international institution of mainstream science, rather than some fringe organisation. (It is worth noting that a 1982 survey of “elite” scientists in the AAAS found that only 4% of 339 thought that ESP had been scientifically established (Alcock, 1987).) In 1974, Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, agreed to publish a paper by Targ and Puthoff (1974), which presented results of a series of experiments apparently showing evidence of paranormal phenomena such as clairvoyance and remote viewing. Several of these experiments used the notorious Uri Geller as their test subject. This paper was preceded by an editorial ("Investigating the paranormal," 1974) which noted a number of shortcomings of the paper identified by the peer reviewers, such as weaknesses in design and presentation, “uncomfortably vague” details about the safeguards and precautions against conscious and unconscious fraud, and the criticism that the paper seemed more “a series of pilot studies… than a report of a completed experiment.” The editors go on to say that in spite of these criticisms, two of the three reviewers of the paper felt that it should be published because it was a serious attempt to “investigate under laboratory conditions phenomena which, while highly implausible to many scientists, would nevertheless seem to be worthy of investigation even if, in the final analysis, negative findings are revealed.” The editor goes on to explain that although Nature is a highly respected journal, they occasionally publish “high-risk” papers, and that “the unusual must now and then be allowed a toe-hold in the literature, sometimes to flourish, more often to be forgotten within a year or two.”

What the quotes from the editorial show is that the editors and reviewers of one of the world’s most highly respected journals, far from demonstrating their dogmatic prejudice against a “taboo” topic, went out of their way to be open-minded and allow informed discussion of a controversial topic, even though it was regarded by many scientists as “highly implausible”.

A similar incident occurred again in 2011, when Daryl Bem, one of the signatories to the Frontiers article claiming that parapsychology is taboo, published his paper on precognition (Bem, 2011) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. This journal is considered the flagship publication in its field, and news of this paper generated an enormous media response, even before it was officially published. Once again, the editors of the journal were moved to write an editorial explaining the reasons why such a paper was accepted and including this statement:

We openly admit that the reported findings conflict with our own beliefs about causality and that we find them extremely puzzling. Yet, as editors we were guided by the conviction that this paper—as strange as the findings may be—should be evaluated just as any other manuscript on the basis of rigorous peer review. (Judd & Gawronski, 2011)

Yet again, the editors of a respected mainstream journal have gone out of their way to ensure that parapsychological research receives a fair and informed hearing, even though in this case the editors acknowledge that they find the reported findings very hard to believe. Admittedly, it is a rare event for papers on parapsychology research to be published in such top-tier journals. However, the fact remains that they were published. Alcock (1987) also notes that between 1950 and 1987 over 1500 parapsychological papers were abstracted in Psychological Abstracts, which is published by the American Psychological Association. Research on the subject has hardly been suppressed by the mainstream then.

In summary, the claim by Cardeña and colleagues that investigating parapsychology has been taboo, and Dean Radin’s claim that “this taboo has been sustained for over 100 years” due to dogmatic prejudice and close-mindedness appears to be nonsensical. Parapsychology has had multiple opportunities for over a century to earn mainstream acceptance. Furthermore, when parapsychologists have had studies published in mainstream journals, scientists have responded to them by subjecting them to careful scrutiny rather than ignoring them. As this Discovery article points out, after Daryl Bem published his paper on precognition, other teams of scientists (see here for example) independently attempted their own experiments to see if Bem’s results could be replicated. In 2012 a meta-analysis of all known attempts to replicate Bem’s findings was published (Galak, LeBoeuf, Nelson, & Simmons, 2012) which concluded that the average effect size for precognition was no different from zero. Some parapsychologists such as Dean Radin, have accused critics of parapsychology of being “scientific fundamentalists” who are unwilling to consider that their model of the world might be wrong. On the contrary, Smith (2011) points out that mainstream science has actually advanced by accepting challenges to its model of the world. He gives the recent example of the discovery of dark energy. Prior to this discovery, the conventional view in cosmology was that the expansion of the universe was slowing down. However, astronomical observations led to the observation that the rate of the universal expansion was actually accelerating instead, suggesting that a previously unknown antigravity force exists. Five years of observation was all that was needed to completely revise our understanding of cosmology and now dark energy is being studied intensively and receives massive funding. Compare this to the over 130 years that parapsychologists have had to establish the existence of psi. It seems to me that if parapsychology has not won widespread acceptance it is most likely because of the emptiness of the subject itself and its repeated failures to create an evidence base rather than because of alleged bigotry on the part of scientists or some supposed unspecified taboo for which no evidence has been provided.

Footnotes

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[1] On the other hand the United States government provided millions of dollars of funding into military uses of psi research, particularly remote viewing, for over 20 years, only to abandon it in 1995 after it had produced no useful applications.

[2] Examples of David Luke’s interest in fringe topics include this paper on non-human entities perceived under the influence of psychedelic drugs (see here and here for my own, less esoteric, views on the subject) and this paper “Parapsychology as a science of magick: An occult perspective on psi.”

[3] The quote from the article includes a citation by Cardeña (2011) which gives examples of professional and personal attacks against (and by) parapsychologists, but contains no mention of a “taboo” or issues with funding.

[4] As an example of faulty reporting of parapsychology in the “science media” he cites an article from The Boston Globe, an online newspaper. Why he considers a general news source to represent the “science media” is not exactly clear.

[5] Which has a more credible claim to represent “science media” than The Boston Globe which Radin cites.

 

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

My previous articles on parapsychology:

Precognition: Science or Fanta-Psi? Science meets Alice in Wonderland - has parapsychology gone mainstream?

The Magical World of Parapsychology: Parapsychology is a fruitless quest for "spiritual truths".

Further reading 
Editorial by psi researchers calls for open mindedness - interesting take on the Frontiers letter by Doubtful News site.

There is no taboo on studying psychic phenomena, just boredom - this was written before the Frontiers letter, but provides a good debunking of claims about a "taboo."

The Elusive Open Mind: Ten Years of Negative Research in Parapsychology by Dr Susan Blackmore. A remarkable account of how a parapsychologist became disillusioned by the search for psi after a decade of sincere but fruitless attempts to find evidence for it.

Image credits: Psychic by John Stephen Dwyer via Wikipedia; Zener Cards via Wikipedia. 

References    

Alcock, J. E. (1987). Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(4), 553-643.

Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(3), 407-425. doi: 10.1037/a0021524

Cardeña, E. (2011). On Wolverines and Epistemological Totalitarianism. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 25(3), 539–551.

Cardeña, E. (2014). A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness. [Opinion] Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017

Galak, J., LeBoeuf, R. A., Nelson, L. D., & Simmons, J. P. (2012). Correcting the past: Failures to replicate psi. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0029709

Investigating the paranormal. (1974). Nature, 251(5476), 559-560. doi: 10.1038/251559a0

Judd, C. M., & Gawronski, B. (2011). Editorial Comment. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 100(3), 406.

Smith, J. C. (2011). A challenge to psi researchers Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit: Wiley-Blackwell.

Targ, R., & Puthoff, H. (1974). Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding. Nature, 251, 602-607. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/251602a0

Precognition: Science meets Alice in Wonderland, part 2

Part 1 of this article discussed Daryl Bem’s studies on precognition and the failure of subsequent studies to replicate his results. This second part discusses reasons for the incompatibility of parapsychology with modern science and possible reasons why interest in this field persists in spite of its continued failure to establish its validity. Belief in the paranormal is commonly associated with magical thinking and mystical belief. Many parapsychologists seem to be motivated by a desire to establish the reality of a nonmaterial dimension of existence, and in particular that of the human soul. 

  Alcock (1987) has argued that there are two main views on what psychic phenomena (psi) might represent if real. One view is that psi will ultimately turn out to be something physical that will eventually be incorporated into an expanded version of the worldview of normal science. Other phenomena that were once regarded as inexplicable, such as the ability of bats to navigate in the dark, or of birds to navigate over thousands of miles, have eventually been explained in physical terms acceptable to modern science. In this view, psi will eventually be shown not to be ‘paranormal’ at all.

Philosophical implications of precognition were explored in the film "Minority Report"

  The other view is that psi is a manifestation of a nonphysical dimension of existence. In this view, psi represents a “radically different relationship between consciousness and the physical world” than is accepted as possible by modern science (Alcock, 1987). Therefore, disputes about psi represent a clash between two conflicting views about reality. The monistic materialistic view currently accepted in neuroscience regards mind as an emergent manifestation of brain processes. The view of many parapsychologists is the dualistic one that regards mind as at least partially independent of the brain. Parapsychology originally developed in the nineteenth century out of attempts to scientifically validate the concept of survival of consciousness/personality after bodily death, and this subject is still researched by parapsychologists today.

According to a survey 56% of parapsychologists believed that the results of parapsychological research indicate a non-material basis of life or thought, whilst 43% disagreed, and 1% had no opinion (Akers, 1987). This finding indicates that although there is diversity in what parapsychologists believe, the majority of parapsychologists do believe in a non-material dimension of reality, and hence believe in mind-body dualism. Many people feel that the existence of psi has important spiritual implications. According to Kennedy (2005), paranormal experiences are similar to mystical ones in that they result in an increased sense of meaning in life, interconnectedness, and spirituality. A survey of people who believe they have had paranormal or transcendent experiences found that 72% agreed that as a result of these experiences they believed that a higher power was watching over them.

Research has found that paranormal belief and experience, as well as mystical experience, are positively correlated with a number of psychological characteristics including absorption, magical ideation, fantasy proneness, creative personality, and manic experience (Thalbourne & Storm, 2012). The researchers argue that underlying all these tendencies is a psychological trait known as transliminality, “the tendency for psychological material (imagery, ideation, affect, and perception) to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness.” In other words, both paranormal and mystical beliefs are related to a propensity for imagination and fantasy.

Transliminality has also been used to explain why a substantial minority of scientists hold religious beliefs in spite of their commitment to empiricism (MacPherson & Kelly, 2011). MacPherson and Kelly found that religious scientists were higher than non-religious scientists in both self-rated creativity and in magical thinking, indicating greater acceptance of unconventional views of reality. Transliminality might be a factor in why parapsychologists persist in investigating paranormal phenomena in spite of the weight of evidence against psi. Alcock (1987) has criticised parapsychology as being incompatible with modern science because of its “anything goes, anything is possible” attitude. No speculation seems too wild for psi researchers. There seems to be no constraints on how psi is supposed to operate – it can work forwards or backwards in time, across thousands of miles of distance, or even between animals and objects. Psi operates like wishful thinking and no skill or knowledge is needed to make it work. Therefore, parapsychology might be attractive to people who are naturally prone to transliminality themselves. As noted in part 1, at least some parapsychologists believe that an experimenter’s attitudes to psi can have a paranormal effect on their participants’ results (the “experimenter effect”). This is an outright appeal to magical thinking to explain inconsistencies in research findings. Kennedy (2005) has argued that psi is difficult to replicate because of its ‘capricious’ and uncontrollable nature. This hardly seems indistinguishable from saying that psi only occurs when God or some higher power decides so. From an empirical perspective, a phenomenon that cannot be predicted or replicated lies beyond the realms of science.  

Some people have argued that although science has been successful in giving us greater control over our environment, it cannot provide a sense of meaning and purpose in life that has been traditionally provided through religion and spirituality (Kennedy, 2005). Although not all parapsychologists see psi as an indicator of a nonmaterial dimension of reality, spiritual motives do seem to be important for many of these investigators. This would seem to present a problem. A person seeking purpose, meaning in life and self-transcendence is hardly likely to find much help from parapsychology. Recent failed attempts to replicate Bem’s findings on precognition reflect a broader and repeated failure of the field to demonstrate the existence of psi, let alone that mind exists independently of the brain. Over a hundred years ago Frederic Myers argued that the duty of psychical researchers was “the expansion of science herself.” However, parapsychology seems to be incompatible with what is generally considered science and seems more akin to a fruitless form of mysticism. Sam Harris has argued that people can experience self-transcendence without necessarily believing in a non-material dimension of reality. This is an area that could be investigated empirically. Scientific research grounded in evidence is far more likely to produce insights into the nature of the relationship between consciousness and reality than the magical “anything goes” approach of parapsychology.    

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.  

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

References

Akers, C. (1987). Parapsychology is science, but its findings are inconclusive. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(4), 566-568.

Alcock, J. E. (1987). Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10 (4), 263-291 DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00054467

Kennedy, J. E. (2005). Personality and motivation to believe, misbelieve, and disbelieve in paranormal phenomena. Journal of Parapsychology, 69(2), 263-291.

MacPherson, J. S., & Kelly, S. W. (2011). Creativity and positive schizotypy influence the conflict between science and religion. Personality and Individual Differences, 50 (4) DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.11.002

Thalbourne, M. A., & Storm, L. (2012). Has the Sheep-Goat Variable Had Its Day? Testing Transliminality as a Psi Predictor. Australian Journal of Parapsychology, 12(1), 69-80. 

Precognition: Science meets Alice in Wonderland, part 1

In 2011, Daryl Bem, who has the distinction of being both a respected social psychologist and an investigator into the paranormal, published a remarkable paper describing a series of experiments which he claimed provided evidence that people can be influenced by events before they have happened. In other words, precognition really exists and people have the ability to “feel the future.” This paper, which was published in the top tier publication Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, naturally provoked an enormous amount of controversy because it violates the common-sense view of causality that a cause always precedes its effect and never the other way around. Multiple attempts to replicate Bem’s findings have failed, suggesting that his results were due to methodological shortcomings rather than a breakthrough discovery about the nature of reality. Individual differences in personality traits associated with magical thinking may help explain why interest in parapsychology persists in spite of repeated failures to establish any credible evidence of the existence of psi.

Bem’s (2011) experiments involved taking a number of classic psychological procedures, such as priming, and ‘time-reversing’ them, so that the effects preceded the cause. For example, in two studies of retroactive facilitation of recall, participants were presented with a list of words and then asked to recall as many of the words as possible. Afterwards, they were asked to study a selected subgroup of these words. Bem found that participants were more likely to recall words that appeared in the list they subsequently studied. This reverses more usual priming procedures where people are exposed to a group of words that later appears in a list they are asked to recall.

  Imagine the implications for students taking an exam if Bem’s claim that studying material after being tested on it could retroactively improve one’s performance is true. They would be advised to carefully study the material after sitting the exam, focusing on finding answers to the questions they had just seen. One could test this experimentally by having participants sit a test they have not prepared for, and then providing half the participants with answers to the questions and asking them to study them carefully. The control group could be asked to study unrelated material. If the precognition hypothesis is true, the participants who study the answers after the test would be expected to do better.

  Bem actually introduces the concept of retroactive facilitation of recall by quoting the White Queen from Through the Looking Glass, who notes that people in her country can recall the future as well as the past. After reviewing the results of his nine studies he again quotes the White Queen’s famous statement about believing “impossible things before breakfast”.

Lewis Carroll anticipated Daryl Bem by over a century. Was this precognition?

  Bem claimed that the retroactive facilitation of recall experiments produced the largest effects of all the studies he ran and would therefore be the easiest to replicate. Two papers (Galak, LeBoeuf, Nelson, & Simmons, 2012; Ritchie, Wiseman, & French, 2012) have since been published reporting attempts to replicate these experiments. Together these two papers report the results of 10 separate experiments using Bem’s methods with a much larger combined sample. Only one of the ten experiments produced a significant result, although the authors (Galak, et al., 2012) report that when the results of their seven experiments were combined the overall effect size was close to zero. Additionally, Galak et al. performed a meta-analysis of all known published and unpublished attempts (comprising over 4,000 participants) to replicate Bem’s retroactive facilitation of recall studies. The overall average effect size was not significantly different from zero. Interestingly, studies conducted by experimenters who expected to get significant results did have a significant effect size, whereas those conducted by experimenters who did not expect to get significant results did not. Parapsychologists are familiar with this tendency for experimental results to match the biases of the experimenter and refer to it as the “experimenter effect” (Alcock, 1987). Amazingly, some parapsychologists actually claim this is due to a paranormal influence of the experimenter on the results! Furthermore, the effects reported by Bem were significantly larger than in any of the replication studies. Perhaps Bem has more paranormal power than other researchers? Ritchie et al. (2012) concluded from their failure to replicate that Bem’s findings were most likely due to methodological artefacts rather than a real paranormal effect. Referring to Bem’s allusion to Alice in Wonderland they suggested that psychologists do not “venture too far down the rabbit hole just yet.”

  Methodological artefacts that might have favourably biased Bem’s results have been carefully examined in detail here. I won’t go into detail about these, but will briefly note that there are signs that Bem may have massaged his data to make the results appear more favourable. For example, in more than one of the reported studies he changed the procedure mid-course without providing an adequate explanation for doing so. Normally, a change of procedure would be reported as a separate study. So it appears that Bem may have combined the results of initially separate studies after examining the data in order to present a statistically significant result. This falls short of outright faking of data but also falls short of rigorous and disciplined scientific investigation. An independent statistical analysis of Bem’s results found that the number of significant results he achieved was “abnormally high” considering the small size of the effects found (Francis, 2012). The author argued that Bem’s results have been selectively reported (that is, non-significant findings appear to have gone unreported) and therefore we cannot draw any scientifically useful conclusions from his paper. Francis concluded that the standards and practices of experimental psychology need to be raised to prevent misleading and biased findings from being published.

  The pattern that emerges here has been a common one in the history of parapsychology. A researcher publishes what appear to be revolutionary findings that if true would require that our current understanding of the universe be altered. Hardnosed scientists are understandably reluctant to revise well accepted notions about reality, so attempts at replication of the results are demanded, and these attempts invariably fail. Bem’s paper is not the first one making paranormal claims to be published in a prestigious journal. In 1974, physicists Targ and Puthoff published research evidence for remote viewing, the ability to observe events at a distance by non-sensory means, in Nature. However, this research was later discredited when independent researchers were unable to replicate it and found serious flaws in the remote viewing procedure that could account for the results (Alcock, 1987). In fact, over century of research in parapsychology has failed to produce any findings that could be replicated by independent experimenters under stringent conditions (Alcock, 1987).  

   It is reasonable to ask then, why would serious researchers, including someone as respected as Daryl Bem, continue to investigate a field that has failed to demonstrate that any of the phenomena it studies actually exist? Alcock (1987) argued that parapsychology is not just about a search for something that is currently unknown to science; it is fundamentally a quest to validate the existence of the human soul. That is, parapsychology represents a deep view of reality that is at odds with that of mainstream science.

The evidence for this claim and its implications are discussed in part 2 of this article.

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.  

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

References

Akers, C. (1987). Parapsychology is science, but its findings are inconclusive. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(4), 566-568.

Alcock, J. E. (1987). Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(4), 553-643.

Bem DJ (2011). Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of personality and social psychology, 100 (3), 407-25 PMID: 21280961
Francis, G. (2012). Too good to be true: Publication bias in two prominent studies from experimental psychology. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(2), 151-156. doi: 10.3758/s13423-012-0227-9

Galak J, Leboeuf RA, Nelson LD, & Simmons JP (2012). Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi. Journal of personality and social psychology PMID: 22924750
Kennedy, J. E. (2005). Personality and motivation to believe, misbelieve, and disbelieve in paranormal phenomena. Journal of Parapsychology, 69(2), 263-291.

MacPherson, J. S., & Kelly, S. W. (2011). Creativity and positive schizotypy influence the conflict between science and religion. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(4), 446-450. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.11.002

Ritchie SJ, Wiseman R, & French CC (2012). Failing the future: three unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem's 'retroactive facilitation of recall' effect. PloS one, 7 (3) PMID: 22432019
Thalbourne, M. A., & Storm, L. (2012). Has the Sheep-Goat Variable Had Its Day? Testing Transliminality as a Psi Predictor. Australian Journal of Parapsychology, 12(1), 69-80.