Talk:Parapsychology/Archive 18

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William James was not a pseudoscientist

Off topic discussion on William James and his family, has no relevance to the article

The first sentence of this Wikipedia entry summarizes what has happened here via the Skeptics Societies' assault (and influence on Wikipedia editorial control) regarding the credible work that has been performed in parapsychology by real scientists. To even suggest (by implication since the first sentence labels parapsychology a "pseudoscience") that William James was a practicing "pseudoscientist", or J.B. Rhine was a "pseudoscientist" - the terminology of which is well known to be used and promoted by the militant group of fundamentalists in the Skeptic's Society - is remarkably prejudicial and POV. William James was a scientist - not a pseudoscientist as was J.B. Rhine. 159.118.158.122 (talk) 15:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Our sources report that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. We'd need sources indicating otherwise to change the article.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:29, 5 March 2014 (UTC) I suggest you check your sources. If you happen to walk around Harvard University - you will find a psychology building named after professor William James. There have even been some wild rumours that William James' brother was supposedly a writer. 159.118.158.122 (talk) 15:39, 5 March 2014 (UTC) No it's you who needs to check the sources. You are saying things with are deliberate lies which are not even on the article. Nobody is calling William James or Rhine a "pseudoscientist" (those words appear nowhere on Wikipedia). That's purely an invention of yourself to stir up trouble here. What the articles states is the field of parapsychology is a pseudoscience (there are countless reliable references for this) not individual researchers themselves. Goblin Face (talk) 16:03, 5 March 2014 (UTC) and PD James isn't a particularly good writer, in my opinion ;) -Roxy the dog (resonate) 16:43, 5 March 2014 (UTC) PD James? You think PD James was his brother?? Really? 159.118.158.122 (talk) 16:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC) PD James is a woman. What do you think I think? -Roxy the dog (resonate) 16:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Sigh... William James had a brother whose name was Henry James. Why do I even bother? 159.118.158.122 (talk) 17:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Was he a parawossname? -Roxy the dog (resonate) 17:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC) I have read two biographies of William James, both his brother (the novelist Henry James) and his sister Alice James were not fond of psychical research. It's nice to see you are interested in the James family as they were all fascinating individuals but I am utterly lost what Henry James etc has anything to do with this article. It seems you are using this talk pages as a forum. Your conspiracy theories about skeptic groups on the article is also wrong. Nothing positive is going to come out of ranting on here. Goblin Face (talk) 17:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC) I have read "William James on Psychical Research" by Gardner Murphy (a Harvard professor and scientist) and Robert Ballou. I have also read much of the work of William James. When he was performing research in psi phenomena - he and others like him didn't label it as "pseudoscience". That is nomenclature that has come primarily from the Skeptic's Society, and is derogatory in nature and as I said in my original statement - implies that William James (and other scientists like him) were simply practicing pseudoscience - and therefore obviously could be labeled as pseudoscientists (as the Skeptics Society has often done). 159.118.158.122 (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Pseudoscience?

WP:DEADHORSE

I'd hate to beat a dead horse, but again, I'm damned sure parapsychology isn't a pseudoscience. The sources cited to back up this idea are skeptic sources (and I don't mean "scientific skeptics", I mean "professional debunker" skeptics) that often refer to themselves, and thus only represent one-half of the debate. When people like Scott McGreal go back to say how parapsychology is a pseudoscience, they often refer not only to these same skeptics (who have been refuted again and again -- any look at the parapsychological literature will show this) but also to the worst events in parapsychology as evidence for the entire thing's being a complete sham. James Randi, in particular, has often been caught citing rumors instead of actual facts (see, for example, https://web.archive.org/web/20120412105918/http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm), and others like Zusne and Jones have been replied to several times. This isn't a conspiracy; this is a fact. And even among these sources, there are some signs that suggest parapsychology is scientific in its approaches (see Akers 1987: "Parapsychology is a Science, but Its Findings Are Inconclusive"). Citing one-half of this debate as if the final word lies with these skeptics seems like academic dishonesty. If you don't cite the replies to the skeptics, you wind up with a circular argument like this: "The skeptics who say this is pseudoscience are right, and we know they're right because the replies to them are terrible, and we know the replies are terrible because the skeptics are right." PhiChiPsiOmega (talk) 16:02, 8 March 2014 (UTC) Take, for example, the treatment of Puthoff and Targ. Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that they responded to critics, and a search on Google Scholar reveals that their very response is never cited by skeptics like James Alcock. PhiChiPsiOmega (talk) 16:02, 8 March 2014 (UTC) I am in agreement with you PhiChi. There is no longer rational open-minded scientific discussion anymore with these new fundamentalist - "pseudoskeptics" - a coin termed by former founder and CSICOP member Marcello Truzzi. Even though some highly credible scientific men (and women) in the last century have been involved in psi or para-psychological research, and some of the most famous (such as Freud)have even written papers on their conclusion of some forms of psi phenomena - none of this is ever considered in this new kind of militant fundamentalism. It is truly unfortunate that Wikipedia has lost its credibility for a non-POV stance regarding this area of credible scientific work. I know for a fact the some of the Wiki editors (who will quickly excise any opposing statement or edits based on their own biased determinations) - are members of this same organization of pseudoskeptics. 159.118.158.122 (talk) 19:04, 8 March 2014 (UTC) yes you are kicking a dead horse and yes you are dead wrong about there being any question that it is in fact a pseudoscience. So lets stop abusing the poor dead horse and call this comment closed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:57, 8 March 2014 (UTC) PhiChiPsiOmega this has already been discussed on the administrator noticeboard where you have already been warned by several users. If you keep doing this you may be topic banned from this subject or banned from Wikipedia. You are yet again citing nonsense and promoting conspiracy theories about "skeptics" and Wikipedia. Russell Targ believes Uri Geller has genuine psychic abilities, you believe that do you? Michael Prescott is a "crime writer" not a scientist, so citing his personal blog is not a reliable reference. Your existence on Wikipedia is to just cause non-existent controversies and stir trouble because your personal beliefs are not supported by science. You write "I'm damned sure parapsychology isn't a pseudoscience" nobody cares what you think because Wikipedia is not about your opinion you have complained with your personal opinions over and over and it never leads anywhere. You don't have a single reliable scientific reference to back up any of your claims and you keep choosing to deliberately ignore the scientific references on the article which indicate parapsychology is a pseudoscience (James Alcock, Mario Bunge, Terence Hines, Massimo Pigliucci etc). Please stop wasting time doing these rants nothing productive comes out of it. Goblin Face (talk) 19:06, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Word Choice

"Basic endemic problems in parapsychological research include amongst others:" [emphasis added]

"Amongst?" Really?

Look, I've heard that there's this stereotype that involvement in "serious fringe" research correlates with with a love of intellectualism, without necessarily an accompanying dedication to intellectuality: a love of smart words without a necessary care for smart thoughts. I don't know how true this stereotype is, nor how widespread; but please, for the sake of the subject, I move that we speak plainly. Ornaments are for the affected, not for the encyclopedic.

If there's a distinction I'm missing between amongst and among, please disregard this suggestion... 130.132.173.49 (talk) 02:05, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Unexplained Deletions

I admit that I am new to the controversy surrounding this topic on this site, but I have reviewed the policies regarding "pseudoscience" and postings in great detail. I have a question about why my edits were removed and marked as vandalism.

I reviewed the existing references that were provided in a small section of the article and found that the statements made in the article did not reflect the language used in the quoted source. I provided the specific quotes and modified the text to use the same language. In addition, I tried to add information to the topic by providing references to additional information to clarify the statements that were made in the article. Finally, I modified some of the text to make it less biased and more generically representative of the information referenced in the article.

This posting was completely removed and then marked as vandalism. I consider my approach to this article to be sound editing and research work. I was not promoting a specific point of view of providing a controversial perspective. What was wrong with my posting? - --Tunsa (talk) 14:44, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Tunsa. This is the edit that was reverted. It should not have been called vandalism (it certainly isn't, according to our policies). However, you should be aware of our policy on due weight. It is important for us to represent the views we find in reliable sources in accordance with their prominence in the relevant communities. Your edit shifts the weight of the article away from these tests failing and towards the tests being successful. The problem is, the relevant academic community (the scientific community, really), rejects the results of these tests, for the reasons we currently indicate in the article. We need to be careful not only to use language which is consistent with our reliable sources, but also to represent an academic view. The academic view, in this case, is not that the tests succeeded in demonstrating ESP.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:13, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Jess. Thank you for your reply. In my posting, I was trying to reflect the information provided by the references that were included in the document and the position presented by Mr. Rhine in the book that was referenced. For example, one reference indicated that "Rhine's experiments were discredited..." but the reference that was provided indicated that "researchers discount the first decade of Rhine's work with Zener cards". I changed the "discredited" statement to correspond to the language of the reference. I didn't think this would present a controversy. If a reference is used for this statement, shouldn't the statement reflect the language of the statement? Further along, a statement referenced by Melbourne indicated "[Rhine] was unable to find the same high scores reported in earlier trials", but the actual reference in the book indicated that Rhine did not find subjects who scored as high as the top scorers who were in the earlier trials. There is a difference between these statements, and again, the statement seems to misrepresent the reference that was included.

I also looked up a reference that was already included in the article about ESP After 60 Years and saw that Rhine and Pratt indicated that they had made methodological changes and thought that they were seeing the same results that they saw in their earlier tests. I added Rhine's perspective, not as a true statement about ESP, but as a true statement about Rhine's perspective as it was provided in the referenced document. Whether you believe Rhine or not, I tried to represent his perspective accurately.

Finally, I added a reference about the onset of technology and computers as a contributing factor to the demise of Zener cards being used in this type of research work. I think technology could be said to have changed any research work without presenting a biased perspective on ESP.

I don't believe that my edits presented a viewpoint that ESP is real. I think they accurately reflected the viewpoints provided in the references that were already included in the article.

Is there any reason I shouldn't restore my posting again? --Tunsa (talk) 16:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this article doesn't need your whitewash. WP:EDITWARring isn't going to help your cause. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible for me to edit this page without being accused of a policy violation? Whitewash. Editwar. Vandalism. I only made one small edit, but I am getting the impression that clarifying edits are not welcome on this page. Is this the opinion of the community? --Tunsa (talk) 17:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Stick to the rules, and you can edit it. Attempt to subvert the whole meaning of the page to make it "less sceptical" (as you have done) and you'll struggle. Here's Jimbo (talk · contribs)'s reply to remove WP:FRINGE: [1] Barney the barney barney (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Tunsa I added another reference:

• "In 1940, Rhine coauthored a book, Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years in which he suggested that something more than mere guess work was involved in his experiments. He was right! It is now known that the experiments conducted in his laboratory contained serious methodological flaws. Tests often took place with minimal or no screening between the subject and the person administering the test. Subjects could see the backs of cards that were later discovered to be so cheaply printed that a faint outline of the symbol could be seen. Furthermore, in face-to-face tests, subjects could see card faces reflected in the tester’s eyeglasses or cornea. They were even able to (consciously or unconsciously) pick up clues from the tester’s facial expression and voice inflection. In addition, an observant subject could identify the cards by certain irregularities like warped edges, spots on the backs, or design imperfections." Charles M. Wynn, Arthur W. Wiggins. (2001). Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins. Joseph Henry Press. p. 156. Does that solve your complaints? By the way I could easily find more references which indicate all of Rhine's experiments have been discredited. Here's another:

• James Alcock. (2011). Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair. Skeptical Inquirer. "Despite Rhine’s confidence that he had established the reality of extrasensory perception, he had not done so. Methodological problems with his experiments eventually came to light, and as a result parapsychologists no longer run card-guessing studies and rarely even refer to Rhine’s work."

• You can also read criticism of Rhine's experiments in Terence Hines book "The procedural errors in the Rhine experiments have been extremely damaging to his claims to have demonstrated the existence of ESP. Equally damaging has been the fact that the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. In a very real sense, the Rhines and ESP have been the Blondlot and N rays of the middle part of the twentieth century. Crumbaugh’s (1966) comments on his failure to repeat the Rhines’ findings, even after years of effort, have been noted previously; other researchers fared little better when trying to repeat the Rhines’ work. By 1940 “six different researchers, using some 500 subjects in experiments totaling about half a million trials demonstrated nothing but chance scores” (Zusne and Jones 1982, p. 375). See also Hansel (1966, 1980) for detailed accounts of the failures to replicate Rhine’s findings." From Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books.

• Regarding the quote and a following comment from Milbourne Christopher regarding Rhine which is on the article, the correct page numbers are 24-28 which I added. Robert Todd Caroll mentions the quote from Christopher "there are at least a dozen ways a subject who wished to cheat under the conditions Rhine described could deceive the investigator" (Christopher 1970: 24-25). Rhine did use a magician to observe one of his ESP phenoms, Hubert Pearce. When Wallace Lee (a.k.a. “Wallace the Magician”) was observing young Pearce, he performed at chance levels. Otherwise his scores were significantly higher." Psi History at the Skeptic's Dictionary. Also see the fraud section on the article for further references on Rhine's subjects. Goblin Face (talk) 21:20, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply, Goblin Face (talk). The references you mentioned are all informative and support the findings of methodological flaws, but they all seem to apply to the same "first decade" of work provided by Rhine. It would be more accurate if the text indicated that these flaws were recorded during that time, and that the methodology was modified when these methods were deemed to be leave room for cheating and information bleeds.

What about the other changes? They were simple, and I believe they each add value to the article.

In the next paragraph I indicated that Rhine and Pratt wrote that they had found statistical evidence for ESP though they did not find subjects who scored at the same high level as their highest scorers in earlier tests. This is a statement of their beliefs and the written record which, in a historical section, reflects the historical situation at that time. The critical perspective is also appropriately represented (with a specific mention of the date of the criticism), although I also modified the text related to the 2nd Melbourne reference because it does not reflect what Melbourne stated in that quote. You can see the actual quote in my revision.

The text about the card experiments being eliminated due to methodological flaws is incomplete, which is why I added the text about technology advances leading to a change in protocol. Again, the reference is in my previous revision.

I can see how these edits might be construed as weakening the skeptical perspective of this article, but my intention is to provide clarifying information. If my clarifications are construed to weaken a perspective, I apologize for violating sensibilities, but I do not see how my few edits change the meaning of the article or merit threats of violations or a full deletion. I would hope that all editors would have the opportunity to explore the site and participate in the community. Thank you for your consideration. --Tunsa (talk) 22:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

We don't need to get too specific on Rhine's experiments, errors were found in them and they were not replicated - that's pretty much the whole story but before you jump in I do know Dean Radin has been moaning on his blog about Wikipedia and promoting conspiracy theories by claiming it's biased against Rhine's experiments, this is not true. Radin cites Rhine and Pratt as replicating some earlier ESP experiments when the alleged sensory cues were eliminated (similar to what you have stated) this is not scientific replication from a broad consensus of neutral researchers is it? It's nonsense. It's nothing more than Rhine and his parapsychology buddy Pratt. When we look more deeper why should anyone trust Pratt anyway? He conducted an "ESP" experiment by leaving the subject alone (Pearce) during the experiment. Is that scientific? And Rhine himself deliberately suppressed the names of subjects he caught cheating (Gardner, 1991) which is already mentioned in the article (Pigliucci, 2010). Radin has not properly read Hansel (1989), Hines (2003), Sladek (1974), or Zusne and Jones (1989, 2014). Rhine's experiments have not been replicated if they had been they would be all round the world in the top scientific journals but instead all we have is a book Rhine published about it with Pratt, this is not science. The minority of psychologists who really did try and replicate Rhine's results outside of parapsychological institutions like James Charles Crumbaugh for over 30 years produced negative results.

The section on the article that discusses Rhine is just an overview like the rest of the article we don't need to go into too much detail. Anyway, If I can understand you correctly you seem to be claiming the references only mention errors in Rhine's "first decade" experiments and not his later experiments. Hansel has written a book which he revised three times (1966, 1982, 1989) and it has a very long chapter discussing the flaws in all of Rhine's experiments. We already have a reference in the article from Sladek, 1974 (The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Sciences and Occult Beliefs) which mentions flaws in Rhine's PK experiments. If you read Terence Hines (2003) he makes it clear none of Rhine's experiments have been replicated. So it's more than just his "fist decade" of experiments, absolutely none of his experiments were replicated. I suppose we could add in Hansel or Hines as an extra source. Goblin Face (talk) 00:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I added the following reference - Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 122. "The procedural errors in the Rhine experiments have been extremely damaging to his claims to have demonstrated the existence of ESP. Equally damaging has been the fact that the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories." Goblin Face (talk) 22:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Scientists who changed their minds about psi

This is carried over from the Dean Radin discussion page, where I pointed out that there were many scientists who were originally sceptical about psi but for one reason or another changed their minds when confronted with the evidence. I was asked to give examples. I enquired of a number of parapsychologists and got back a range of responses. Stephan Schwartz in particular listed several, including Harold Edgerton, Chair of the department of radio physics at MIT, who he says 'began as a deep skeptic and then co-authored a paper with me.' Probably the article should have a section about this facet of psi eventually, but I'll just raise the point in the talk page for now. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:28, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

We would need some sources for this. jps (talk) 11:28, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find. --Brian Josephson (talk) 11:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Edgerton died in 1990 at age 86. How old was he when this supposed 'conversion' to the wonders of psi happened? Odd that there is no mention of it in our article about him. SteveBaker (talk) 02:17, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The Stephan Schwartz paper referenced in your link does not appear to have been co-written with Edgerton. What it says is that Edgerton was involved with an experimentally modified side-scan radar system used to scan the harbor of Alexandria. That seems like exactly the kind of thing that you'd expect the Chair of Radio Physics at MIT to be involved with. The "remote viewing" part of the study seems to have little to do with Edgerton's work in the area. It's one hell of a stretch to infer that Edgerton "changed his mind about psi" as a result. His equipment didn't produce great results - but that's often what happens when you're trying some experimental piece of equipment for the first time. Edgerton's only recorded input to that paper is buried in one of the references "Harold Edgerton, Private Communication, 8 May 1979"...a vague reference to a 'private communication' is hardly evidence of anything. These "papers" don't appear to have been published anywhere - and I don't see any efforts to peer-review them, or to have some other team attempt to reproduce the results. This isn't science.

The impressive endorsements of Schwartz's books by "Nathaniel Branden, PhD" (who, it's claimed had his mind completely changed by reading Schwartz's book) had been publishing self-help books for years before that - on subjects such as raising self-esteem, and to "INSPIRE READERS TO HONOR THEIR LIFE AND HAPPINESS"...so not exactly a hard-core scientist who changed his mind about psi. The other endorsement is by Judith Orloff, M.D who writes books with titles like "SURRENDER TO THE POWER OF YOUR INTUITION" and "THE ECSTASY OF SURRENDER"...she's also written a bunch of online quizzes like "What's Your Money Type?", which asks penetrating scientific questions like:

• Do I worry about money every day?
• Do I make financial problems larger, not smaller?
• Do I have difficulty falling asleep because I’m worried about money?
• Do I worry about money even during comfortable times?
• Do I find I can’t stop worrying, even though I try?
• When one financial worry is solved do I immediately go onto another?

She helpfully points out that if you answered "YES!" to all six questions then you're a worrier about money. (WOW! I didn't know!)

Truly, I don't see a single scientist of any credible stature who had their minds changed. Sorry Brian, this is bullshit. Rather than posting vague suggestions and then promising to go find some "real" references when you're challenged, save us all a lot of effort and find the really convincing references FIRST and only after you have a stack of them should you come and suggest them to this list.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

You have obviously misunderstood what I wrote and have gone off on a wild goose chase. I've removed the link to Schwartz's home page to save anyone else getting similarly confused. I assume he added the comment about having written a joint paper in his email just to indicate that he knew Edgerton personally, but what is important is that he changed his mind, having been initially sceptical. I never met Edgerton myself, but it just happens that on my first visit to MIT someone I knew was enthusing about his breakthroughs in high-speed photography. Do you not consider Edgerton to be of credible stature yourself?
Here's a real reference showing scientists and others of reasonably credible stature who were sufficiently supportive of parapsychology to become Presidents of the Society for Psychical Research. --Brian Josephson (talk) 08:22, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Brian, this is just an argument from authority, you have a list of old people (some scientists, some philosophers) who are mostly dead who believed in paranormal powers. It means nothing. I could compile a list of 300 scientists or philosophers skeptical of paranormal powers. It means nothing. Look at the data not what people of "credible stature" have said. It is a fallacy to go down this route. Stuart Sutherland covers this in his book Irrationality - (as quoted below) "distinguished people have often been deceived". Anyway if you know your history of parapsychology then you will known most of the SPR presidents were all before the 1940s, look at the dates. This is back in the day when mediums and séances were still popular. Scientists like William Crookes, Oliver Lodge, Charles Richet or William F. Barrett were a load of old boys in their late 70s who were utterly deceived in the séance room from charlatans like Daniel Dunglas Home, or Eusapia Palladino etc. They did not understand methods of deception. We already have a page on the SPR Society for Psychical Research covering this. Goblin Face (talk) 21:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Impossibility of experimental fairness?

Somewhere in the skeptical literature, I recall coming across mention of the inherent methodological problem of isolating the effects of the psi phenomenon being studied. For example, in a telepathy experiment, it seems difficult to guard against the possibility of accidental and unconscious participation by the researchers themselves, via the same telepathic mechanism that is being examined. This would seem to make almost any double-blind psi experiment impossible to carry out. It's sort of analogous to sensory leakage, except by paranormal means. I haven't done a detailed WP search, but I can't find any specific mention of this challenge, although it seems rather obvious - to me anyway! If people think it's worth including, I'll try to hunt down a suitable reference. Thoughts? jxm (talk) 15:44, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

That's right, and it is known as the experimenter effect. I think of it more as the experimenter having a facilitatory effect rather than leakage. The experimenter effect is by no means unique to psi, probably in any psychological investigation if the experimenter makes the subject feel good the subject will do better. I think it is well worth having a section on this. --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Tnx fr that! I'll do some poking around for reliable material. However, I think it's actually more than just a garden-variety experimenter effect. Here's another way of thinking about it: a protocol that is designed to isolate and test one ESP phenomenon cannot simultaneously exclude the possibility of another ESP phenomenon being accidentally involved. For example, it seems impossible to set up a telepathy study involving Zener cards which completely eliminates the potential influence of psychokinesis, retrocognition, or another undesired psychic behavior at the time the card deck was shuffled. Karolyi 2003 (An Excursion into the Paranormal, ISBN 1-921008-83-0) describes some (quite inadequate) attempts to control for this type of problem, but it's much too credulous to be used as a reliable source. I will continue the search. jxm (talk) 20:06, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Isn't this the secondary challenge before parapyschology? Before differentiating and testing the types of ESP phenomena, parapsychology should convince mainstream scientific view and skeptics, as the primary challenge. How come do skeptics or skeptical literature raise such an argument, which -by its nature- assumes that ESP exists. Logos (talk) 11:58, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Mainstream scientists pretty open-minded compared with the small number of voluble sceptics, and it is not good use of time and effort to try to persuade that committed minority. We are up against human psychology here, including phenomena such as groupthink. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die ... ." as Max Planck once said. --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that you don't have one solid set of definitions for what these variously claimed phenomena actually are. If you make the claim that person A can read person B's mind, regardless of interference - then that's easily testable. If you make the claim that A can read person B's mind but only when A is comfortable with the setting in which it's happening - then that's probably untestable...indeed 'unfalsifiable' because A can always claim that any failure may be attributed to interference of one kind or another.

However, if A can be queried "Did you feel that you were being interfered with?" before the outcome of the experiment has been determined - then if A asserts that there was no interference - and still fails to produce results that are significantly better than chance, then it's all busted. If A asserts that interference was indeed present - then that result may be rejected from the sample.

Of course it's possible that A will always claim interference...in which case we may discount their power as being pretty darned useless - and it's possible that they'll claim that they won't know whether they were interfered with until the result of the experiment has been determined...in which case we will have to put them back into the "unfalsifiable" pile.

What is needed in order to put this onto a more orderly scientific basis is for the proponents to take an appropriately scientific stance and determine for themselves what things interfere with results and what don't. When you have that list and the proponents are prepared to stand by it - then serious scientific experiments can be designed that eliminate those things completely. However, when the so-called psychic can at any time introduce a new and previously unspecified excuse for failure, we have to say "Your claim is unfalsifiable" - and at that point, nobody should take the claim very seriously.

If a psychic writes the list of influences, the scientist methodically eliminates them all, the experiment is run, the results prove that the psychic is a fraud...then the psychic says "Oh...but there was a black cat walking by somewhere outside the building...I sensed it and it threw me off...oh...didn't I tell you about the need to exclude black cats from within a mile of me?"...then you're rather quickly going to form the opinion that this experiment is indeed impossible - and since unfalsifiable claims are generally treated as being false, the result will be considered to be negative.

SteveBaker (talk) 20:14, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

If ... ... . Yes, if. But this kind of difficulty is recognised by parapsychologists and appropriate steps are taken to deal with it. Sceptics on the other hand can't be bothered to study the details and keep up, and continue to raise the same tired old objections. --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:58, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Name one where it has been " recognised by parapsychologists and appropriate steps have been taken to deal with it." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of the steps taken in the case being discussed is quite technical and I would only take time to go into the details if I thought I was dealing with someone who was genuinely interested. People who are genuinely interested can email me if they want to learn more. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, it is amusing to reflect that climate change research is proceeding along lines that almost make it pseudoscience. The temperature rise doesn't fit expectations, so researchers hunted round for a mechanism that would make theory fit observations and with some effort found something (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28870988). It is not surprising that some are sceptical. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Ironically, neither carbon dioxide nor anything else but collective "psi power"s of people might be responsible for the unusable heat, sort of a "cancer" of the earth. Logos (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to get us distracted into a debate about climate change, but Logos raises a key point here. The climate scientists' search for 'excuses' to explain these observations involves exploring the possible application of other phenomena that are already broadly accepted in other related areas. But here, we're dealing with the potential problem of 'excusing' one apparent psi phenomenon by appealing to another equally-implausible one. As noted earlier, we still need reliable sources for cases where this issue is "recognised by parapsychologists and appropriate steps have been taken to deal with it." jxm (talk) 05:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The cabal will promptly designate any such source unreliable. As easy as falling off a log! --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:28, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

It should not be that difficult to "isolate" the so called experimenter effect. The experiments can be isolated from the experimenter, who designs and sets up the experiment, by holding the experiments by a computerized operator and on the dates the experimenter does not know. Logos (talk) 09:50, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid that wouldn't work, because if psi exists the influence would still be there. After all, in ESP experiments the pictures to be transmitted are selected by a computer (which, I may say is an example of an advance over the last 125 years, motivated by reducing the possibility of errors, that the people who say there has been no advance seem not to have heard of), and the results are also evaluated by computer, and the effect is still found. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:28, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Edits by Brian Josephson

Brian Josephson added to the article lead "It has been suggested however that most people's evaluations of parapsychology are based on false information."

His source for this is a single page commentary titled "Observation versus theory in parapsychology" by the parapsychologist Harvey Irwin. The source can be found here [2]. Can you explain Josephson what does this mean? What false information and why should this be in the lead? And does anyone have full access to this source to confirm that it even says this?

On further investigation it appears Irwin's commentary is in reply to Mario Bunge. (1987). Why Parapsychology Cannot Become a Science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10: 576-577. Goblin Face (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Your detective work hasn't got you very far, I'm afraid. The commentary by Child is in fact a response to an article 'Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul?' by James Alcock, not to the one by Bunge. What Child says (amplifying my extract) is 'critics (including Alcock) have grossly distorted the most basic facts about that research, so that most people's evaluations of it are based on false information'. I trust that explains the language of the quote and why it is an important point.
Re whether that quote should be in the lead, by my count that paragraph in the lead contains 7 sources critical of parapsychology (the rest of the lead being essentially factual), so I think adding the single quote by Child cannot be construed as excessive. Further, his comment is one that I'm sure is echoed by many others and not in any way a freak point of view. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:57, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but that sounds like garden variety special pleading rather than anything actually relevant to the topic of the article. Also, the form you have written it in is weaselly. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:40, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

What would be less 'weasly' wording, can you help? And if you are unable to see the relevance to the subject right now, I'm very sorry. --Brian Josephson (talk) 19:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"critics (including Alcock) have grossly distorted the most basic facts about that research" - why does this line use the word "that"? Obviously Child is not referring to the entire topic of parapsychology he is criticizing Alcock on a specific thing. You need to give more details, what facts has Alcock distorted and why? It seems to me you have cherry picked what Child has been saying and are not letting us know what his commentary is actually about in full. You need to explain what Child is actually saying and give full context if you want this source to be cited on the article. His commentary is behind a pay-wall and I doubt it is online. It does not belong in the lead but it could be cited with Alcock's paper somewhere if we can establish was he is actually saying. You can find Alcock's paper here [3], he argues parapsychology is not a science. Goblin Face (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Why are you doing this nit-picking, Goblin Face? You give the appearance of someone desperately looking for a reason to remove that item from the lead; otherwise you would be content to bring closure by allowing it to stay. Most people in your position would I think say 'OK, the article isn't exactly how I'd wish it to be, but I'm prepared to let it go'. Think about it! You give the appearance of grinding away with a strong PoV. For example, many of the sceptical references to the article you can't get at at all but that doesn't seem to bother you the way the fact that this particular article is not available free seems to. You refer to a paywall as if it is something impossible to scale, but all you need is a credit card and a pretty modest amount of $$$ and you can read all of the target articles and all of the comments (I am assuming you are over 18, or that could be a problem). But all that you'll find at the end of your quest is that the reference is a pretty appropriate one for the lead. By the way, the comment focusses on Alcock for the simple reason that it is the target article, and it is conveniently there so that the reader can see how he is engaging in misrepresentation by withholding important information. And 'that' is the area of psi research that Child specialises in where he can be confident that there is misrepresentation, but similar complaints have been made by others working in other areas of psi research. Misrepresentation of the evidence is a dominant aspect of the parapsychology story, and it fully deserves a mention in the lead. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:45, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

If there are examples (many or few; does not matter) of misrepresentation -with references-, then it is feasible to add a separate section named as "misrepresentation of the results" or sort of similar under the "Parapsychology#Scientific_reception" heading. Then a sentence like "There are examples of misrepresentations of..." in the lead would be justified without any citation/reference. Logos (talk) 23:23, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Josephson what you are suggesting is just irrational. The lead is supposed to represent the scientific consensus on the topic not a single parapsychologist's opinion. We do not put fringe views right into the lead on controversial topics, this is undue weight. You are being unrealistic with your suggestions. They are not in accordance with Wikipedia policy. Anyway, two days ago I purchased a book entitled "Irrationality" by the psychologist Stuart Sutherland. I finished the book last night but when I came to his chapter on parapsychology on page 315 it put a smile on my face. Here's what Sutherland wrote "Credulity is not limited to the layman. From Conan Doyle to Brian Josephson, a Nobel prize-winning physicist who holds a chair at Cambridge University, distinguished people have often been deceived." You may believe in psi and all kinds of magical pseudoscience Josephson but Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for you to promote your fringe views. I see no reason to put Child's commentary in the lead, especially as you have not even explained what "important information" Alcock has withheld. Goblin Face (talk) 12:01, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry to trouble you, but would you mind directing me to the place in the guidelines where it says 'the lead is supposed to represent the scientific consensus on the topic'. If of course the guidelines actually say that in as many words, rather than it being something produced by you making use of WP:SYNTH or WP:OR I shall of course accept it.
You say that the part I added is just 'single parapsychologist's opinion', but in fact it is the view of very many parapsychologists. --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:45, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:LEAD via WP:NPOV : The lead is a summary of the content of the article, and the article is a proportional representation of the academic mainstream says about the subject.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:03, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, I see the first part, but where does the second part come from? I can't see those words in WP:LEAD, and while WP:NPOV does refer to mainstream views it doesn't state what you are saying above. I am sorry to keep pressing you on this, but this really does look more and more like WP:SYNTH, the more I look at it. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2014 (UTC) (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

If you want to look at it that way, but WP:SYN] only applies to the actual article content. WP:CREEP clearly tells us that we do not need a specific policy for each and every variation of editing question that we come across - we are SUPPOSED to interpret how the general policies fit together for any particular circumstance. It is clearly the intent of the policies that UNDUE emphasis of very fringe claims should not be given undue prominence in the lead.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:03, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I accept the first part of RedPen's statement, with its implication that my earlier addition should not be in the lead at this time. Logos's proposal above, of a new section on 'misrepresentation by sceptics' or whatever, looks like a good way ahead initially. --Brian Josephson (talk) 08:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

However, I'd dispute the claim that parapsychology is 'very fringe'; indeed I'd ascribe that more to the people who know about the experimental work and declare it pseudoscience -- the number of such people must be small compared with the number of scientists who believe ESP exists (though only the former publicise their opinions, which creates a false impression). In 1997 I discussed ESP with Dawkins prior to his CP Snow lecture which led to him asserting that his attacks on ESP were directed at the uncritical TV shows on the subject, not on the science with which he was unfamiliar. The fact that he had not studied the scientific evidence came out very clearly in a discussion with Sheldrake in connection with a TV programme. This is the problem here, unfortunately -- declarations by sceptics cannot always be taken at face value. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:39, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Re the Cumberland quote, what a marvellous illustration of the power of groupthink!! --Brian Josephson (talk) 19:58, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected

I semi-protected this article due to disruptive editing. Our new anonymous friend should propose edits and achieve consensus then use {{editprotected}}. This will help to avoid some of the common newcomers' errors they are making. Guy (Help!) 22:43, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

"Tiny"

You can't say "tiny" in an academic article. It's meaningless. Either you say "small", and leave it ambiguous as to how far they are from a strong correlation, or you actually give a measure of the statistical deviation. "tiny" is not a term that you would ever see in a paper presenting statistics so nobody has a reference as to what it means in this context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.102.1 (talk) 01:49, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

We will follow the source in their description. [4] in their book by Oxford University which is sufficient to prove your claim invalid. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:58, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

If that's all they give I guess it can't be helped. It's still meaningless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.102.1 (talk • contribs)

Tiny cause with huge impact: polar instability through strong magneto-electric-elastic coupling in bulk EuTiO3. Your argument is invalid. Guy (Help!) 10:21, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, except that that article defines what they mean by "tiny" even in the abstract, thus giving you an exact reference for what they mean (not that showing me a badly written article would in any way disprove my point (it obviously isn't impossible to publish a badly written article)). Clearly they used the term for rhetoric rather than as an analytical statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.102.1 (talk • contribs)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 June 2015

This article is prejudicial in its framing of the discussion on PSI and has too much editorial opinion in it to assist people looking for an overview of the topic. It betrays a consistent effort to disprove PSI rather than reviewing the material from an objective and neutral point of view. It needs a much larger re-editing than simply looking at a few passages. Not up to the standard one expects from Wikipedia.

GaiusLCassius (talk) 00:27, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

 Not done No change was proposed. Please request a specific change to the article. --McSly (talk) 00:54, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Parapsychology as "Alternative theoretical formulations"

I think editors here might be interested in this call that appeared in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full

This call is signed by over 100 professors at universities, including the current president of the American Statistical Association (Jessica Utts) and several big figures in academia. The content of the article suggests that the major theories in parapsychology may be considered "alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process."

I hope that editors will re-think their categorization in light of this reference. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:51, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Briefly reviewing that article, it appears that the authors are saying that parapsychology is widely considered pseudoscience, but that (in the author's opinion), it should not be. We should report the widely held view. Many of our sources indicate parapsychology fits this category (yours included, apparently), so that's what we should report. To suggest parapsychology is "a part of the scientific process" in any way would require extensive sourcing.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:09, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The link says quite the opposite. It says some topics with present mainstream acceptance (hypnotism, pre-conscious cognition) emerged from parapsychology, and that only a minority of scientists dismiss parapsychology as pseudoscience a priori. Rhoark (talk) 18:22, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Pretty good analysis of the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience/Cardeña paper in Psychology Today. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:40, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

The journal being referenced is not very reliable. E.g., check out this. We need a better source for this dubious claim that only a minority of scientists dismiss parapsychology (a rather audacious claim). Open letters of this sort have also been found to be a feature of other pseudoscience campaigns including creationism, global warming denial, alternative medicine, ufology, and big bang denialism. Looks to me like parapsychology is just following in these well-trodden pseudoscience footsteps. jps (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

@Rhoark. The first link I checked of the surveys cited seems to indicate the opposite. [5] - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

@Rhoark, you're correct. The article says "a clear minority", and I read "majority" while skimming. That's quite a claim, and we'd need better sourcing for it than this one article. Their only citation is wikademia, which lists studies between 1938 and 1982. That certainly doesn't encourage belief that this represents the current opinion of the scientific community.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:55, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Citing Wikademia(!) is not a good sign for a paper. Yikes! jps (talk) 19:25, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I think that many of the lessons from Project Steve are applicable here. The sources in the link -- which are the only relevant parts as far as Wikipedia is concerned -- seem less than convincing. For instance considering the failed replications of Bem's "time-traveling porn" thing, citing the Bem paper makes rather the opposite point, doesn't it? It would be better if you directly provided some of the best sources that you believe support your case. Manul ~ talk 20:05, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

• This article is already covered by the arbitration findings on fringe topics / pseudoscience. No other arbitration case is required, I think. Guy (Help!) 22:44, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I do not think there is an alternative theoretical formulation that has been put forward; it's just a big tent under which one can find both science and pseudoscience. Rhoark (talk) 00:36, 25 June 2015 (UTC

Guy, if you want to talk about ArbCom findings, then I think you will find this one pertinent to our discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal#Conflation_of_parapsychology_with_unscientific_concepts

Note the language here: "In addition to mainstream science which generally ignores or does not consider the paranormal worthy of investigation, there is a scientific discipline of parapsychology which studies psychic phenomena in a serious scientific way..." --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:59, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

That arbcom case is interesting, but also from 7 years ago, and I doubt those statements would still pass today. They are certainly not supported by sources as far as I can tell. Right now, these are the sources we're using for "pseudoscience":

Sources
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Daisie Radner, Michael Radner. (1982). Science and Unreason. Wadsworth. pp. 38-66. ISBN 0-534-01153-5 Paul Kurtz. Is Parapsychology a Science?. In Kendrick Frazier. (1981). Paranormal Borderlands of Science. Prometheus Books. pp. 5-23. ISBN 0-87975-148-7 "If parapsychologists can convince the skeptics, then they will have satisfied an essential criterion of a genuine science: the ability to replicate hypotheses in any and all laboratories and under standard experimental conditions. Until they can do that, their claims will continue to be held suspect by a large body of scientists." Mario Bunge. (1987). Why Parapsychology Cannot Become a Science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10: 576-577. Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. pp. 113-150. ISBN 1-57392-979-4 Michael W. Friedlander. (1998). At the Fringes of Science. Westview Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-8133-2200-6 "Parapsychology has failed to gain general scientific acceptance even for its improved methods and claimed successes, and it is still treated with a lopsided ambivalence among the scientific community. Most scientists write it off as pseudoscience unworthy of their time." Massimo Pigliucci, Maarten Boudry. (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University Of Chicago Press p. 158. ISBN 978-0-226-05196-3 "Many observers refer to the field as a "pseudoscience". When mainstream scientists say that the field of parapsychology is not scientific, they mean that no satisfying naturalistic cause-and-effect explanation for these supposed effects has yet been proposed and that the field's experiments cannot be consistently replicated."

Those seem fairly strong, but I have no doubts we could do even better. I see no sources whatsoever describing it as in any way scientific.   — Jess· Δ♥ 13:05, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for providing these sources, Jess. It is useful to understand the basis on which editors here are classifying parapsychology as a pseudoscience. However, have you noticed that all but one of your sources are older than the ArbCom decision above? As for sources describing parapsychology as scientific, I am currently gathering those, but here are three in which the famous skeptic Chris French is on record as saying that his opinion parapsychology is a real science:

French, C. (2009). Anomalistic psychology. In M. Cardwell, L. Clark, C. Meldrum, & A. Wadeley (eds.). [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychology-A2-Level-AQA/dp/0007255047 Psychology A2 for AQA A]. 4th ed. London: Collins. Pp. 472-505. ISBN: 978-0007255047

Holt, N., Simmonds-Moore, C., Luke, D., & French, C. C. (2012). [http://www.amazon.com/Anomalistic-Psychology-Palgrave-Insights/dp/0230301509/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1435254510&sr=8-2&keywords=anomalistic+psychology Anomalistic Psychology]. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Chapter 5. ISBN: 978-0230301504

French, C. C., & Stone, A. (in press). [http://www.amazon.com/Anomalistic-Psychology-Exploring-Paranormal-Experience/dp/1403995710/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435254562&sr=8-1&keywords=french+anomalistic+psychology Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience]. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-1403995711

So to summarize, so far I have evidenced 100 university professors publicly legitimizing the field of parapsychology in a mainstream scientific journal, Wikikpedia's on Arbitration Committee describing parapsychology as a science, and one of the most prominent skeptics in the field describing parapsychology as a science. Tell me, what more do you need? --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:15, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you give links or isbns for your sources, please? The version of Anomalistic Psychology I checked is only 325 pages long, so I can't verify your reference to page 472-505.   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:34, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

My apologies. Links and ISBN #'s added above. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm still having a lot of trouble. I checked every isbn on both amazon and google books and wasn't able to find a preview, so these works are inaccessible to me. Do you have them? You say they support the idea that parapsychology is a science. Could you provide quotes to that effect? Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:08, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

French's position appears to be summarized here. Looks more like a personal opinion qualified by an IF/THEN condition than a rousing endorsement. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's a lengthy quote (important for context) from the psychology textbook linked above:

The Scientific Status of Parapsychology

Having described the typical characteristics of pseudoscience, we can now consider the scientific status of parapsychology as a discipline. Anyone can call themselves a parapsychologist and there is no doubt that many of those who do would fit the bill as pseudoscientists perfectly. For this reason, we need to be very clear what we mean by parapsychology in this context as it would obviously not be fair to judge any discipline as a whole on the basis of its worst practitioners. The type of parapsychology that we will consider is that exemplified by contributions to the Journal of Parapsychology and the research carried out by members of the Parapsychological Association which became an affiliated organization of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), amid much controversy, in 1969.

In a true scientific spirit, we will draw upon the empirical approach taken by Mousseau (2003) in addressing this issue. She compared the contents of a sample of mainstream scientific journals (e.g. British Journal of Psychology, Molecular and Optical Physics) with a sample of ‘fringe’ journals (e.g. Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Scientific Exploration) with respect to several common criteria of pseudoscience. In general, her analysis showed that parapsychology appears to meet the implicit criteria of science, to a greater or lesser extent, rather better than it meets the criteria of pseudoscience. In some cases, parapsychology actually fared better than mainstream science.

For example, with respect to an alleged emphasis on confirmation, Mousseau (2003) p.274, found that, in her sample, ‘almost half of the fringe articles report a negative outcome (disconfirmation). By contrast, no report of a negative result has been found in my sample of mainstream journals.’ With respect to an alleged absence of self-correction, ‘… 29 per cent of the fringe-journal articles […] discuss progress of research, problems encountered, epistemological issues. This kind of article is completely absent from the mainstream sample.’ (Mousseau 2003), p.275. Overall, the only reasonable conclusion is that parapsychology, at its best, is a true science.

Clear enough? --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:47, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

it is clear that your one source is outweighed by Parapsychology#Scientific_reception sources 130 -224. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:46, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

One source? I've provided quite a few from several mainstream, neutral, and skeptical sources - including Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee's ruling on the subject.--Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:19, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Look at the details. Your source says that parapsychology shouldnt be judged as pseudoscience based on the sloppy work of its worst players. The nearly 100 sources just in our article alone identify the sloppiness of the marquee players- completely invalidating not only in number, but in premise, the claim of your source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:14, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

• This text by French is similar to what you posted. He goes on to admit that it is "probably a minority view", and it surely is from the perspective of sources. By the way there are glaring problems which suggest the reason for this. Take for instance the criterion of parapsychology's lack of connection to other fields. Citing Mousseau, French counters this point by saying that "over a third of citations in fringe journals were of articles in mainstream science journals..." But this only shows a one-way connection. Mainstream science doesn't need parapsychology; mainstream papers don't cite parapsychology papers, generally. That's what is meant by lack of connection. A homeopathy paper citing mainstream papers on quantum mechanics (like this) does not demonstrate a "connection" between homeopathy and quantum mechanics in any practical sense.

The issue here is weight in the face of established science, and I had hoped my mention of Project Steve would have illuminated this a bit. Also please see WP:NPPOV. Manul ~ talk 01:28, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I would be most grateful for a reference of your claim that "mainstream papers don't cite parapsychology papers". And your idea that there is a 'lack of connection' is on shaky ground given the PA's affiliation with the AAAS, and symposiums that those working in the field have been invited to present at the American Psychological Association, The British Psychological Society, and the American Psychological Society in recent years.

Additionally much like Chris French's analogy, the Wikipedia's ArbCom findings describe the study of the paranormal as a "three layer cake with frosting" stating, "In addition to mainstream science which generally ignores or does not consider the paranormal worthy of investigation, there is a scientific discipline of parapsychology which studies psychic phenomena in a serious scientific way, and popular culture concepts which have a following either in historical or contemporary popular culture, but are not taken seriously or investigated even by parapsychology. A fourth phenomenon is skeptical groups and individuals devoted to debunking.]] Notice how they define parapsychology as scientific discipline despite the perception that they are ignored by mainstream science. Also, the sloppy work you and Chris French refer to might be better described in your article Paranormal Investigation, but should not be conflated with parapsychology. Finally, there are sloppy biologists and sloppy physicists in this world, but the sloppiness of a single biologist or physicist doesn't make the entire fields of biology or physics pseudoscientific.

Finally, if we are concerned with a NPOV , then the negatively-connotated word "pseudoscience" really doesn't belong in the definition of parapsychology in the lead given the evidence presented to the contrary and the ArbCom's findings on this subject. Currently the definition is limited to a single point of view - the debunker's point of view - when words like "study" or "discipline" would be more neutral. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:57, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

FYI I have added you as a {{connected contributor}} above. Manul ~ talk 01:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

See how easy I made that for you. :-) Good faith also applies here - and on that note, I haven't edited this article this circa 2007, which also happens to predate when I became professionally employed in the field. Make of that what you will. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:57, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

What I said was, "Mainstream science doesn't need parapsychology; mainstream papers don't cite parapsychology papers, generally." This was in the context of my suggestion of why French's view is not widely held. It should be obvious that French's use of one-way connections is a crucial defect in his argument, but no matter. What ultimately matters on Wikipedia are the sources.

On the whole I don't think the arbitration case is as clear-cut as you suggest, but in any case arbitrators do not make content decisions. Direction should come from policies and guidelines, including but not limited to WP:PSCI, WP:WEIGHT, WP:GEVAL, and WP:FRINGE. You might be surprised to learn that Wikipedia is not neutral.

(I never mentioned "sloppy" -- I guess you conflated my comment with the one above it.) Manul ~ talk

---

• oppose "and then something happens for which we have no explanation nor any repeatable evidence" is not an "alternative theoretical formulation" - its magic. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:13, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Especially since in most cases we have a perfectly satisfactory explanation, but the true believers simply refuse to accept it. Guy (Help!) 10:18, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

• oppose I can't believe that a case can even be made to suggest that the investigation of telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims, which after more than 100 years has found bugger all. I've seen previous bigwigs of the Parapsychological Association claim that the AAAS only does science, to which my answer is "why are you lot in it then?" -Roxy the non edible dog™ (resonate) 19:12, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
• what are we voting on? Did somebody start a straw poll? If so, what is the question or the action being deliberated? It's not clear to me what folks are getting in line to oppose. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:19, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
  • One would presume it is the proposition implied in the section title, in the initial posting comment " parapsychology may be considered 'alternative theoretical formulation'" and in your bolding of The Scientific Status of Parapsychology. ie that we act under the premise of: Parapsychology as "Alternative theoretical formulations" as opposed to the current: "Obvious pseudoscience" / "Generally considered pseudoscience". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:55, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, that is not how I worded the section title. Is it common for editors to now edit each other's work on talk pages too? And my quote heading from the Chris French textbook contribution was just that - a quote, not a call to action. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:57, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

your section title was actually MORE specific in expressing that is what you wanted [6] - i am guessing that someone shortened it. WP:TPG discuss what type of modifictions are and are not allowed.

But if you are/were not suggesting such a change, then apparently this section is just a WP:FORUM and should be hatted straight off? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:03, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Hypnosis

Hypnosis seems noticeably absent from the article. Considering it is the most scientifically accepted form of parapsychology it clearly deserves to be included — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.131.31 (talk) 10:45, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Please reference a parapsychology text book or similar that includes a hypnosis section. I am certain that hypnosis is not an accepted form of parapsychology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.108.140 (talk) 21:05, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Lead sentence

There may be better ways to word the opening sentence, but describing the subject as being "regarded by skeptics as a pseudoscience" is not one of them. Earlier versions of the article called it a "discipline", which might be preferable. --McGeddon (talk) 12:03, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say that in general the lead is not particularly informative, nor does it outline what is contained in the body of the article, as a lead should. Check out what the lead looked like on the day that it received featured article status:

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal events including extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness after death. Parapsychological research involves a variety of methods including laboratory research and fieldwork, which is conducted at privately funded laboratories and some universities around the world though there are fewer universities actively sponsoring parapsychological research today than in years past. Experiments conducted by parapsychologists have included the use of pseudorandom number generators to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception, and research trials conducted under contract to the United States government to investigate the possibility of remote viewing. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting scientists to accept their research, and science educators and scientists have called the subject pseudoscience. Scientists such as Ray Hyman, Stanley Krippner, and James Alcock have criticized both the methods used and the results obtained in parapsychology. Skeptical researchers suggest that methodological flaws, rather than the anomalistic explanations offered by many parapsychologists, provide the best explanation for apparent experimental successes. To date, the scientific community has not accepted evidence of the existence of the paranormal.

It might be helpful to look at the past successes of this article in this case. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:57, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That version has some problems with due weight, but what it does well is explaining the level of acceptance. Calling the whole field pseudoscience is incorrect, since some researchers do use valid and rigorous methods. What should be emphasized is that the accepted research has not validated the existence of the phenomena under study. Rhoark (talk) 15:49, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That is like saying that we cannot call the ocean "water" because some of the space has fishes. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:54, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Ocean currently defines it as "a body of saline water that composes much of a planet's hydrosphere". If that were to be replaced with just "water", it would indeed be incorrect. Rhoark (talk) 16:14, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I think there is nothing inherent about pseudoscience that says that researchers who engage in pseudoscience must also necessarily use invalid or less-than-rigorous methods to come to their conclusions. One of the things Richard Wiseman points out is that parapsychologists actually are more rigorous than many psychologists in their statistical approaches to data, but that this just speaks poorly of psychology rather than being an effective apologia for parapsychology. jps (talk) 16:03, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That's actually the definition of pseudoscience. Rhoark (talk) 16:14, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

No, it isn't. The definition of pseudoscience is "a claim, belief or practice which is incorrectly presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status." There are ways to be pseudoscientific without any consideration of the methods of research whatsoever. jps (talk) 16:31, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The only part of that which offers an escape is the elastic "lacks scientific status", which if interrogated for a precise meaning will probably not lead to anything other than unscientific methodology. Rhoark (talk) 22:27, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I think if we want to maintain NPOV then "Parapsychology is the study of..." would be more appropriate, followed by some commentary on the field's limited acceptance by mainstream scientists. Pseudoscience - in addition to it's negative connotation - is also far too specific and excludes the study of the paranormal as it is approached by historians and philosophers. --Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 16:48, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Part of the problem with that formulation is that it is possible to study paranormal events without engaging at all in parapsychology. jps (talk) 17:14, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

"is possible" or "would be possible"? I'm not sure what you're getting at. Rhoark (talk) 19:33, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

E.g. many of the people at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry who study paranormal events do not consider themselves parapsychologists. jps (talk) 20:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Tough cookies? Rhoark (talk) 20:25, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Or, we can go by what reliable sources say which identify parapsychology as being the aspects which are inclined to pseudoscience. Wikipedia generally prefers to follow reliable sources. jps (talk) 21:09, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Handwaving about what things are "inclined to" is evading the reliable sources, not following them. Reliable sources attest to activities within parapsychology that are pseudoscientific, and activities that are genuinely scientific. The latter include studies with negative results, meta-analyses, studies of deliberate deceptions, and neurological phenomena that are subjectively perceived as supernatural (near-death experiences, hypnosis, blindsight, etc.) Rhoark (talk) 22:36, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

"Parapsychology" as it is generally discussed includes people who believe in psychic phenomenon trying to prove that it exists using pseudoscientific means. If you can find a group of active parapsychologists who do not believe in psychic phenomena, then maybe you'd have my ear. jps (talk) 20:37, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Interesting point. The Skeptic's Dictionary says: "Parapsychology is the search for evidence of paranormal phenomena, such as ESP and psychokinesis. Most scientists try to explain observed and observable phenomena. Parapsychologists try to observe unexplainable phenomena." That seems to me to be a pretty accurate and neutral summary, which also identifies why it's pseudoscience. Guy (Help!) 10:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Scientists often gather phenomenological data for which there is not yet an explanatory theory. There's not a definition of pseudoscience that stands up to scrutiny, except that it presents itself as science without following the scientific method. Rhoark (talk) 18:03, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Not really. Most scientists who gather phenomenological data have theories that explain most of it. Outliers can become interesting, but theory tends to precede experimentation. There is no extant parapsychology theory which is one of the big reasons it is considered pseudoscience. It is similar to perpetual motion. jps (talk) 20:40, 25 June 2015 (UTC) How is it similar to perpetual motion? Straw man.

There is no extant theory of gravity, we can just measure it accurately. It is not a pseudoscience, with academic courses available at good Universities (e.g. Edinburgh). Wikipedia becomes less credible with the bias and weasel words that articles like this attract, stick to facts not mud slinging! http://www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/index.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.108.140 (talk) 21:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 July 2015

May I please the beginning sentence of this article. It is misleading. Parapsychology is not a pseudoscience by any means. Even Chris French, one of the field's biggest critics, and a parapsychologist himself, stated that it is NOT a pseudoscience by any means in his lecture "Parapsychology and science" which you can find on Youtube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObXWLF6acuw. Being a skeptic and critic of the field, Chris has a lot of knowledge on the subject. As a scientific enterprise parapsychology could be defined as being a controversial science, but it has no merit to be called a pseudoscience. Pararpsychologists are honest scientists. They even publish failed findings. This is telling of the boldness and objective, scientific pursuit that the field actually holds.

That being said, thank you for reading. I do hope that you reconsider.

Johndun320 (talk) 20:55, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

 Not done see the discussions above and multitudes of sources above and in the article. Parapsychology is pretty much the poster child of pseudoscience.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:49, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 July 2015

I'm going to really have to press that you change that intro sentence. Parapsychology isn't a pseudoscience in the slightest. The sources that say it is are biased, and do not at all prove the case that it is one. The lecture by Chris French provided in my last request gives unbiased reasons as to why it is not a pseudoscience. If you're not going to change it, can you at least watch the lecture I provided the last time and at least consider it? Johndun320 (talk) 01:00, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Not done: Declining request for same reasons that prior request was declined. French is one expert on parapsychology that says it isn't pseudoscience, this article cites multiple other experts that say it is. I would suggest you follow The Red Pen of Doom's advice and read through the discussion above, as well as reading through Parapsychology#Scientific_reception and looking at the myriad of sources cited there. Cannolis (talk) 01:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 July 2015

     Under <Research - Scope> The article claims that parapsychologists do not research "bigfoot." Although true, this is a very narrow claim. Replace "bigfoot" with "cryptozoology."

70.119.54.13 (talk) 22:20, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Done Cannolis (talk) 20:26, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Please could you reference an example of 'cryptozoology' in any parapsychological literature (text books or journals, not web sites!). The scientific study of parapsychology does not include cryptozoology, you will probably be surprised to find it doesn't even investigate spontaneous psychic events - 'ghosts' - despite a popular film about parapsychologists! A lack of knowledge does not excuse the bias clearly shown, if you don't like or know parapsychology well and just want to bang a sceptical drum leave the article to those with an interest, it may become vastly more informative. And I don't mean leave it to those helplessly gullible types... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.108.140 (talk) 21:26, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Parapsychology vs. Magic

There is only limited discussion about the relationship of Parapsychology to the trade of professional magicians. Many magicians perform tricks that mimic effects that Parapsychology attempts to prove as legitimate. While James Randi is listed as one of the skeptics, I believe there is more that could be added. --68.188.183.91 (talk) 22:16, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Edit war 9/9/15

Stoppit, children. Please discuss here .... -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 17:55, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

• There is no evidence that there is any measurable support within the mainstream academia that Parapsychology is not a psuedoscience. the multiple sources within the article clearly and specifically support that analysis and so we appropriately WP:ASSERT that position in the article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:05, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

c'mon 120, stop being a dick. Clearly you know what you are doing? -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 18:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

[7] Requested page protection. - LuckyLouie (talk)

[8] duplicated! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

See the talk-page for the Samuel Soal article which the IP has also edited with vandalism and attacked people in edit summaries. There is convincing evidence that these IPs belong to Rodgarton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) a banned editor. A little angry (talk) 19:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Lead section/line #1

Sock evading block. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:19, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

The introductory line re "parapsychology" is encyclopediacally perverse--on the basis, for a start, of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Opening_paragraph: "the lead should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view;" "The lead should establish significance, include mention of consequential or significant criticism or controversies, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more." "The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and direct quotations, should be supported by an inline citation." "Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations" "Do not hint at startling facts without describing them." "avoid difficult-to-understand terminology" "The first paragraph should define the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being overly specific. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it." Again: The first paragraph should define the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being overly specific. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it. ... Try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead use the first sentence to introduce the topic, and then spread the relevant information out over the entire lead." The bald statement, offered without citations, that "parapsychology is a pseudoscience" fails all of the above: it is not neutral POV, it could suggest that readers should NOT want to know more, it neglects the fact that the statement is open to challenge, it offers nil rather than MANY citations, it does not describe/define how parapsychology is a pseudoscience, and it does not define what is a pseudoscience, and how parapsychology summarily fits the definition. This failure results, of course, because saying that "parapsychology is a pseudoscience" is not of the same facticity as saying that "A square has four sides". The term "pseudoscience" requires social endorsement if it is to stand up. For just a few citations of many papers by philosophers and sociologists of science that should be considered here: Truzzi, M. (1978). On the extraordinary: An attempt at clarification. Zetetic Scholar, 1, 11-22. Truzzi, M. (1980). A skeptical look at Paul Kurtz's analysis of the scientific status of parapsychology. Journal of Parapsychology, 44, 35-55. Jenkins, H. (2001). Examining the evidence for psi in the context of scientific revolution. Australian Journal of Parapsychology, 1, 117-126. Truzzi, the sociologist of science, particularly shows how "pseudoscience" is itself an inexact, wobbly idea that parapsychology can counter at every turn. You could well conclude from these papers that there is no definitive, inarguable equality between pseudoscience and parapsychology. Do you insist that parapsychology offers nothing to science, or is never cited within scientific journals? Try, in salve, the following, for more nuanced opinion, just for starters: Bohm, D. J. (1986). A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 80, 113-135. Child, I. L. (1984). Implications of parapsychology for psychology. In S. Krippner (Ed.), Advances in parapsychological research (Vol. 4, pp. 165-182). Jefferson, NC, US: McFarland & Co.. Gowan, C. H. B. (1941). The scientific claims of psychical research. Hibbert Journal, 40, 49-54. Marshall, N. (1960). ESP and memory: A physical theory. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 10, 265-286. Murphy, G. (1967). Methods in parapsychology. Science, 155, 951-952. Radin, D. I., & Nelson, R. D. (1989). Evidence for consciousness-related anomalies in random physical systems. Foundations of Physics, 19, 1499-1514. Severi, B. (1994). Parapsychological publications in non-parapsychology journals. European Journal of Parapsychology, 10, 104-129. Shan, G. (2004). Quantum collapse, consciousness and superluminal communication. Foundations of Physics Letters, 17, 167-182. Watt, C. (2005). Parapsychology's contribution to psychology: A view from the front line. Journal of Parapsychology, 69, 215-231. For WP editors to insist, at the outset, that parapsychology "is a pseudoscience" amounts to aberrant "handwaving" -- "which asserts that a conclusion has been demonstrated." This is contra WP, because "Wikipedia articles should not be making arguments in the first place. Simply state facts, cite the sources of them, and let the readers draw their own conclusions." [[9]] Note also, as above: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." So, WP Kabal editors, please offer no further abuse of such knowledge. Parapsychology cannot be definitively said, at the outset, to be "pseudoscience", whatever and however that term is meant to apply. If you insist on advertising your opinions nevertheless, to the contrary (WP has no straightforward mechanism to hinder such rapes), please oblige yourselves to expouse them as reasoned arguments in a section dedicated to your opinions, while respecting the arguments cited, and so the knowledge-interests of people still silly enough to turn to WP as a source of knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.21.188.179 (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2015 (UTC) Yes, it can. And will. As such a definition appropriately represents the overwhelming majority of the academic opinion. We are a source of knowledge, not an abettor of Woo.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:51, 16 September 2015 (UTC) The IP 120.21.188.179 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and a dozen others that he was using on this article belong to the banned user Rodgarton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Check the Samuel Soal talk-page for a mass-log of his other IPs which all trace to the same geographical location. He does the same thing every few months, come onto Wikipedia and insert parapsychology is not a pseudoscience (cites bogus paranormal journals as his evidence) or defend Samuel Soal's fraudulent ESP experiments and claim they are genuine. When his edits get removed he turns abusive or promotes conspiracy theories about skeptics as seen here [10], he also deletes peoples comments as seen above. A little angry (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Skeptics and psychic powers branded as "Pseudoscience"

Spammed nonsense
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Skeptics have been completely mistaken about the results of tests for psychic abilities. Unfortunately people are not chemicals or other materials you might test in a laboratory. To expect to get reproducable results in a laboratory for any psychic test is probably impossible as this is not where these kinds of events happen. The analogy is people who have sex in the privacy of their bedrooms and claim to enjoy themselves and that is how they reproduce. The skeptics want to test if sex is real, so they take the couple into the laboratory and place a table and have a group skeptics sit around and watch them try to have their supposed sex. The couple can't have sex, so the skeptics claim sex does not exist and that they can't possibly reproduce in that manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.172.0.204 (talk • contribs)

The Problem of Materialist Bias

The current page entry for this subject is inaccurate and not in accordance with Wikipedia's Neutral POV policy. Never before have I seen a topic that presented such a heavily one-sided and biased point of view. I understand that the bully materialists who censor this page are under the impression that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support even the mere possibility of the phenomena — which simply is not true. And when I tried to submit such evidence I was told that it was not credible and that it was "fringe." Since when are mainstream universities, institutions, and publications "fringe"?! It is ironic that the materialists, who think of themselves as the vanguard standard bearers of the Enlightenment have become just as insolent and bigoted as the religionists.

(1) The vitriolic designation "pseudoscience" needs to be taken out of the introductory sentence. If such cynics want to ad the word at the end of the paragraph that seems fair enough. This is not asking much, due not only to NPOV policy but the other standard mainstream dictionaries and encyclopedias are doing the same. This is because, despite what the materialists are trying to force others to believe, the issue has not been settled. (Furthermore, putting "pseudoscience" into the introductory sentence is just plain immature and not very classy.)

(2) Data that indicate statistical anomalies that cannot be attributed to known causes and PROVEN deficiencies (as opposed to assumed), must be left undeleted. I understand that no matter what source I submit the militant materialists will concoct a way to condemn it, which is why this double-standard method needs to stop. If a book that is used on another page is considered legitimate then it should be applicable to this topic as well.

And in return we will show the same fairness, because, I am sure that if I looked hard enough, I could find some imperfections in the materialist source material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Novoneiro (talk • contribs) 01:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand the use of the word materialism in the term materialist bias. What is its supposed meaning? What is the connection or lack of connection between parapsychology and matter?--89.120.156.224 (talk) 17:24, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

You are not really writing the truth about your edits. You added a paranormal pseudoscience book called "Unseen World: The Science, Theories, and Phenomena behind Events Paranormal" by Rupert Matthews (an author who has also written books claiming bigfoot is real) to argue that J. B. Rhine's discredited ESP experiments were actually valid, this is not a reliable source. The majority of reliable sources show that Rhine's experiments contained strong biases, errors and sensory leakage problems.JuliaHunter (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You forgot to mention that Matthew's book was put out by Reader's Digest, which is about as mainstream as it gets (that was my intention). And are you sure that Matthews claims that Bigfoot is real, or did he simply just write a book about Bigfoot? But even if I submitted studies from respected peer-reviewed journals, I am sure that the materialists would just concoct some new excuse to delete it. This is exactly why parapsychologists themselves have given up on wikipedia and let it fall prey to the cynics and the bullies. I have not seen anything that demands that JB Rhine's experiments have been completely discredited beyond all doubt. It's ironic that you see bias in Rhine's work and yet do not seem to see bias from the other side. The problem with bias is so pervasive that any scientist who has sought to conduct honest experimentation have had to publish in specialty journals - in which there is plenty of the rigorous attention to detail that you seek. I could easily cite such studies but I suppose that would get deleted to. The main point is that this is not settled science. The haughty declaration in the opening sentence that "Parapsychology is a pseudoscience," is misleading and needs to be amended. Let' start with that. Novoneiro (talk) 01:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Rupert Matthews is a British politician and paranormal believer. And yes he's also written books endorsing not just Bigfoot but ghosts as well. He is about as fringe as it gets. Professional psychologists such as James Alcock and C. E. M. Hansel have pointed out the flaws in Rhine's experiments. They are more reliable so that is why such references have been cited on the article. It has nothing to with being a 'materialist'. As for the parapsychology is a pseudoscience statement, this is well sourced to scientific books and publications. There is no repeatable evidence from parapsychology, not a shred of evidence in over 150 years. Not a single experiment that can provide conclusive repeatable results outside of parapsychology labs. It has not made any testable predictions or yielded any reliable theory.

The subject matter dealing with 'immaterial' psychic forces or 'psi' that blatantly do not exist is hardly encouraging, the field of parapsychology is not scientific or supported by any empirical evidence to date. That is what the sources say, it has nothing to do with materialistic bias. If the evidence was in, the scientific journals would be endorsing it but it doesn't exist. I am sure we would all like a magical cancer cure by now from 'psychic' forces or logging into Wikipedia just with our minds but it don't happen. There is no conspiracy to suppress this on Wikipedia like you claim. There is not a shred of scientific evidence for bigfoot, parapsychology, creationism, astrology or other magical claims. The statement that parapsychology is a pseudoscience is supported by many reliable sources on the article. I do not see it being removed any time soon. JuliaHunter (talk) 02:14, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The statement 'there is not a shred of evidence' is often made, but is not correct. See for example ref. 2, which I believe is a university textbook on the subject. If the existence of conclusive proof were a criterion for some activity to be scientific, that would exclude investigations into gravitational waves, and indeed any field of research where the true situation is unclear. What matters is how the research is conducted, and by this criterion there is much scientific work on the subject, as the reference cited shows. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

The university textbook you talk about is a book that is supportive of parapsychology co-edited by Caroline Watt. So what Novoneiro is saying is not entirely true. Not all of the sources on the article are entirely skeptical or written by 'materialists'. What is the actual problem here? It just comes down to the lead again. There seem to be an obsession from parapsychology proponents to try and remove pseudoscience from the lead. As stated this is well sourced to reliable sources, so there really is no problem. JuliaHunter (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Happy 15th. Birthday Wikipedia! If we want to be accurate, what is correct is to say that it has been claimed to be a pseudoscience, since clearly there are many sources, including the one I cited, that claim the reverse. It is surely bad practice to write the first paragraph of the lead in such a way as to ignore these opposing points of view. And since Caroline Watt is a lecturer on the staff of a very well accredited university WP can hardly dismiss her views. --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@Brian Josephson: I'd like to understand something here: do you simply reject the label of pseudoscience outright, for all subjects; do you accept that some subjects are pseudoscience, but reject it in this case; or do you think that it is always subjective and should always be presented as having been claimed to be pseudoscience? Is your problem with the demarcation issue, the term, or what? Are there any fields of study you would happily classify as pseudoscientific? Guy (Help!) 14:38, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Glad to clarify this. I do not reject the label of pseudoscience outright for all subjects. I would not be prepared to characterise any specific field as pseudoscientific, as one would have to study the arguments made in detail to decide whether they came up to scientific standards or not. That being said, one may well be able to determine that particular individuals are speaking in unscientific ways, but one it would not be safe to conclude from the arguments of an individual in a field that the whole field is pseudoscience. And it is very easy to dismiss a field on the basis of flawed arguments; one meets this kind of thing all the time. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:17, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems that it's about hasty generalizations and faulty generalizations.--89.120.156.224 (talk) 17:59, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It's irrelevant what other editors consider to be pseudoscience. We go by reliable sources. Period. --Iantresman (talk) 14:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. I am trying to understand why Prof. Josephson rejects the reliable sources in characterising this as pseudoscience. Guy (Help!) 14:59, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

In which case, ask him why he "rejects the reliable sources in characterising this as pseudoscience", not his personal views on the use of "pseudoscience" as a label, as he is not attributable as an editor (unless he has a book on the subject), and his views are irrelevant. --Iantresman (talk) 15:46, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Glad to comment on this also. The source of an article is not that relevant: good sources may occasionally have bad articles and dubious sources may equally on occasion have very good arguments. Far too much empasis is placed in these parts on the supposed 'reliability' of a source. And, as I have said above, it is very easy to consider an argument demolished for reasons that in the end turn out to be flawed. I'd really suggest that you take into account my experience in science -- and be aware that criticisms may not stand up -- and not rush to judgement. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:17, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

The reason why the label "pseudoscience" in this article is incorrect is simple: The principal international organization of scientists and scholars interested in parapsychology is the Parapsychological Association (PA), and the PA has been an elected affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1969. Parapsychology is thus recognized by the largest mainstream scientific organization in the world as being a legitimate science. It is irrelevant that some WP editors may not like this. The fact is that the AAAS only elects organizations as affiliates that clearly promote science, and not pseudoscience. 2601:643:C100:CCEC:2586:DC9D:DF21:A0D7 (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I suggest the replacement of 'pseudoscience' by the neutral 'field of research'. To amplify my previous point, the only time it would be valid to use this kind of term unconditionally would be if there were a clear consensus to this effect, which there isn't -- it is only a small number of disadvocates that have said this. Even if were the case (as some incorrectly maintain) that there has been no proof after 125 or whatever years, that would not be equivalent to characterising the field as a pseudoscience. --Brian Josephson (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Furthermore, it appears that the dictionary published by the American Psychological Association makes no reference to 'pseudoscience' in its entry on the subject, referring to it only as the step-by-step analysis of supposed psychological phenomena consisting of the transfer of data or energy which can't be described with regard to currently recognized scientific data or laws. That must be regarded as pretty authoritative, IMHO. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Mainstream sources can be found which do not use the term pseudoscience, but that doesn't mean those sources are making a claim that parapsychology is legitimate. The APA dictionary definition doesn't contradict the pseudoscience label, instead supporting it: "...can't be described with regard to currently recognized scientific data or laws." The first paragraph already contains five solid sources for this being a pseudoscience, and to equivocate on this would be non-neutral. The article also has a lengthy, well-sourced section on scientific reception and pseudoscience, and the lead should summarize the body of the article. Even if the PA is one of the hundreds of members of the AAAS, using that membership as an endorsement is selective WP:OR. Do we go by one small sub-organization, or by the published opinions of the large majority of members? Holding a non-mainstream belief and belonging to a mainstream organization doesn't make the belief mainstream by inheritance. Grayfell (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The argument is faulty. Radioactivity, superconductivity and dark energy are all examples of accepted phenomena which were inconsistent with other data and accepted theories at the time of their discovery, but they were not branded pseudoscience; they came out of accepted scientific methodology. The same applies to cases such as faster-that-light neutrinos and gravitational waves from the big bang, which were discovered to be flawed but not considered pseudoscience.
'Published opinion of a large majority of members '? Surely not! Let's have the numbers, please: how many members does the APA have, and how many of these have published opinions to the effect that parapsychology is a pseudoscience?
I'd agree with you that parapsychology is not mainstream, but that's very different from it being pseudoscience. I agree with the points made by Novoneiro below, by the way. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:35, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Moving right along... Not every significant discovery has been labeled pseudoscience, and some that once were are now taken for granted as mainstream. Pseudoscience has been, and still is, regarded as a pseudoscience. This is directly supported by many sources. The AAAS membership is already mentioned at Parapsychological Association where it belongs. Using that detail to indirectly support the claim that parapsychology isn't pseudoscience in the article would be original research. Regardless of whether or not the APA dictionary supports the pseudoscience label (and I think it does), it doesn't contradict it, and such a brief and minor source isn't really helpful here anyway. Grayfell (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I assume you meant to write ' parapsychology has been ... regarded as a pseudoscience.' Moving on, look at the investigation A survey of elite scientists: Their attitudes toward ESP and parapsychology:

339 council members and selected section committee members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science completed a questionnaire regarding their attitudes toward ESP, parapsychology, and anomalous experience. Only 29% of the Ss considered ESP to be an established fact or likely possibility

Having 29% of high-level members of the AAAS consider ESP to be real hardly suggests pseudoscience.
In any case, the argument for it being a pseudoscience is OR, as it constitutes an extrapolation so, by the rules, we have to rule it out. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:42, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I would have responded sooner but I got blocked even though I was taking my point to the Talk page. If this was just a source material issue, then why was my contribution to the Princeton PEAR page deleted? which was sourced directly from the Princeton website itself. This is not a case of healthy scientific skepticism, but rather agenda-driven cynicism with a snarky tone. The fact that the Parapsychology page is protected by someone or some group that is referring to themselves as the “materialists” proves the point. It is evident that the real reason for resistance is due to the fact that the topic is so called “fringe.” Indeed, this was one of the comments that was sent to me. There is nothing wrong with exploration. All historical scientific investigations have started out on the fringe. In regards to findings that were not repeated elsewhere, there are plenty of phenomena in the natural world that cannot always be forcefully concocted in a lab. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The subject of parapsychology has not been settled. This is partly because the interpretation of the data is influenced by one's own perspectives and bias's —including bias from the critics. There is a lot being posted pertaining to how imperfect the studies were that indicated anomalous results and yet I do not see such scrutiny when it comes to opponent studies (probably because it got deleted). Some of these complaints even seem to be based on conjecture. Due to the current state of bias, some mainstream journals refuse to even look at studies into parapsychology, which is why specialty publications have had to be created: The Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, European Journal of Parapsychology, International Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the Society for the Psychical Research.and other journals, institutions, and credentialed researchers. are all reporting significant findings. }} It is difficult to believe that these are all charlatans. I suspect that the reason people seem to be under the impression that there is no repeatable evidence is probably because those who submitted such evidence had their info deleted before anyone saw it.

Dean Radin, PhD., speaks about this issue:

“Most scientists I've spoken to are very interested in psi, but science, like any social enterprise, has strictly enforced rules of acceptable beliefs, so it is not safe for one's scientific career to publicly pursue controversial topics of any type. The controversy is reflected in the way that Wikipedia covers psi and the biographical entries of scientists who study it. These pages have been hijacked by anonymous vandals who apparently have nothing better to do. (See WIKIPEDIOCRACY  for a website devoted to exposing the rising tide of nonsense contained in this popular but critically flawed encyclopedia.)”n [. . .] “After studying these phenomena through the lens of science for about 30 years, I've concluded that some psychic abilities are genuine, and as such, there are important aspects of the prevailing scientific worldview that are seriously incomplete. I've also learned that many people who claim to have unfailingly reliable psychic abilities are delusional or mentally ill, and that there will always be reprehensible con artists who claim to be psychic and charge huge sums for their services. These two classes of so-called psychics are the targets of celebrated prizes offered for demonstrations of psychic abilities. Those prizes are safe because the claimed abilities of the people who apply either do not exist or because the abilities are insufficiently robust to meet challenges that are actually impossible-to-win publicity stunts. There is of course a huge anecdotal literature about psychic abilities, but the evidence that convinced me is the accumulated laboratory performance by qualified scientists who do not claim to possess special abilities, collected under well-controlled conditions, and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. There is ample room for scholarly debate about these topics, and I know a number of informed scientists whom I respect who have different opinions. But I've also learned that those who loudly assert with great confidence that there isn't any scientifically valid evidence for psychic abilities don't know what they're talking about.” }}

The fair thing to do is to at least put up a Disputed Neutrality tag up. Novoneiro (talk) 01:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Tags aren't supposed to be a badge of shame, they are for improving the article. If every content dispute lead to a tag, then every article worth reading would have more tag than content. Dean Radin's findings and opinions are not in agreement with the academic consensus, and his self-written bio is a poor source for any article other than Dean Radin (and even then...) This isn't the place to talk about PEAR, but WP:PRIMARY sources are not acceptable for controversial claims, which was explained in the edit summaries. I'm not sure why you keep bringing up "materialists", are you confused about the name of the editor who protected the page? That editor's username is "Materialscientist". Materials science has almost nothing to do with parapsychology or materialism as a philosophy, it's about materials: metals, minerals, plastics, that kind of thing. Grayfell (talk) 03:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Speaking of the PEAR article, the issue of pseudoscience there was finally addressed as follows: "PEAR's activities have been criticized for lack of scientific rigor, poor methodology, and misuse of statistics, and have been characterized as pseudoscience", along with a series of reliable reference sources. Surely our job here is to more accurately reflect someone else's claim or characterization in a similar fashion, rather than opening with the bald assertion "...is a pseudoscience" as the first phrase. Seems like it would be better to lead off with a brief descriptive phrase of the field, and add the pseudo characterization after that. The idea is to differentiate between good-faith (though somewhat wacky IMO) research in psi and real pseudoscience as practiced by faith healing con artists, psychic spoon-benders, and the like. jxm (talk) 16:41, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

You say 'wacky research', but have you studied actual research articles before coming to that conclusion? But maybe you just mean unorthodox.
Anyway, I've now been able to get a copy of the full McClenon paper from a colleague. Most pertinent to the pseudoscience issue is Table 2 of that paper, detailing responses from 5 questionnaires to the question do you consider the investigation of ESP a legitimate scientific undertaking, where the precentages answering 'yes' in the five independent investigation are 89, 89, 85, 84, 69 (the last being that of McClenon's own investigation). This is absolutely inconsistent with the assertion that there is consensus that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. The fact that a few fanatical scientists have characterised it in such terms is irrelevant; they are a tiny minority. --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:18, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, the majority of respondents to five questionaires consider ESP investigation a legitimate scientific undertaking. How on earth can that be inconsistent with "the assertion that there is consensus that parapsychology is a pseudoscience"? The respondents were addressing investigation of ESP, not its efficacy. Moriori (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Let me reword that in the interests of clarity: the majority of respondents to five questionaires consider ESP investigation a legitimate scientific undertaking is inconsistent with the assertion (which some people are trying to claim here) that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. Why? Because if something is legitimate science it cannot be characterised as pseudoscience, since pseudoscience is by definition not legitimate science. I trust I make myself clear. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

No you do not. Your third sentence is not addressing your first sentence. The majority (X) of the respondents said it is ok to investigate ESP. The majority of X might actually think ESP is a crock, but being good scientists think scientific investigation should proceed. They support investigation, not claims for or against ESP. Re "if something is legitimate science it cannot be characterised as pseudoscience", try that in reverse, that pseudoscience cannot be legitimate science. It is fine to investigate whether ESP is a legitimate science. It is ok to treat it as a pseudoscience until proved otherwise. And it will be ok to treat it as science if it proves so.Moriori (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Basically, the question boils down to due weight. In some articles, the subject is considered to be a pseudoscience by a large minority, and it is appropriate to say "has been characterized as pseudoscience by this group". In other articles, the pseudoscience label is held by a majority, or very significant majority, and we should not relegate the characterization to a small group as though it were disputed. We do not, for example, say "the Earth has been characterized as round". The state of our sourcing is that nearly every reliable academic source on the topic views parapsychology as a pseudoscience. That isn't "a large minority". That is "the overwhelming majority", compelling us to abide by WP:PSI and WP:FRINGE. Reviewing both, you'll find the latter even uses parapsychology as an example of pseudoscience.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:27, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Are you a member of the materialscientists? Just wanted to know if you are qualified to make that assertion because it does not say “materials scientist” (as in materials and engineering), it says material scientist. So it is then just coincidence that the issue here is between materialism and non-material phenomena and you guys chose that name? Furthermore, I was not trying to infer that Tags are a badge of shame, but rather that visitors to the page who are seeking the truth should be alerted to the one-sided point of view that is dominating this page, and all other related topic pages, such as ESP and PEAR. This is a fair request. Furthermore, the PEAR controversy happened on the PEAR page. I brought it up because I was accused of not submitting credible sources. And yet when I did it still got deleted it. The explanation for the deletion (either on that PEAR edit, or one of the other deletions on the ESP page) was that I was legitimizing the subject!, which I think was a very telling admission of bias. That was my point. And no, Radin's credentials cannot be denied. Moreover, all scientific investigations have started out with a person or a small group of persons who were out of the mainstream. That is why the mainstream consensus point means absolutely nothing. It should also be remembered that there was a time when the theory of continental drift, germs, and meteorites were considered too fringe as well. Here are some more examples from credentialed scientists that can also not be dismissed: A study on retrocausation out of Cornell by Daryl Bem Ph.D. indicates significant results. A study confirming mind and matter interactions by the French physician-researcher, Jean Barry: A study confirming the reality of distance healing: Cypher-Springer, Shelley; Eicher, Dorothea J. A study by R.A. McConnell also indicates that “the phenomena are real, and they can be investigated.” Credentialed researchers such as Elizabeth Rauscher, Russell Tag, O. Costa de Beauregard and Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson have all attested to the serious nature of the phenomena. See also: See also Russell Targ Ph.D. The Reality of ESP: A Physicists Proof of Psychic Abilities. (2012). And Robert Almeder, Ph.D., Truth and Skepticism and Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life after Death. (1992). The findings indicate that the energy of consciousness is not confined to the brain and that mind and matter interactions have been confirmed. Even the renowned skeptic Carl Sagan admitted in his book, Demon-Haunted World (1996), that there were some aspects related to the paranormal that “might be true.” (p. 302). In terms of books, journals, qualified scientists and scholars, I could go on. Their books are all over Amazon. I understand that critics argue that because the findings cannot be precisely repeated that they must be false. Firstly, one cannot use entirely different people in a separate study and then expect the results to be the same. For example, a subject who who drinks a lot of beer and watches a lot of TV is not going to score the same as Buddhist monk. Therefore the critics have failed to take the subjective nature of the experience into account. This is a major oversight. Indeed, “Its effects are unconscious and evanescent, involving the experimenter as well as his presumed test material.”. Moreover, researchers argue that there have indeed been replications:. The reason why you guys don't know about this is because it keeps getting repressed! I am also wondering if you guys are subjecting the critical data to the same standard that you are subjecting the psi data to? I suspect not. The reason why this is not more commonly known is because it keeps getting disregarded and repressed. If you guys want to make the point that the topic is debatable that is fair. What is not fair is behaving as if the issue has already been settled. This is absurd. The censorship that has been occurring on these pages is a major dark stain on the reputation of Wikipedia and something needs to be done about it. Moreover this is not just an affront to wikipedia but an affront to science. Novoneiro (talk) 04:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow, that's a mess. Let's take things one at a time. Can you pick out just one source, ideally the highest quality, which suggests there is significant disagreement in the scientific community about parapsychology and its status as a pseudoscience? Please just give me something really brief, and we'll work through it. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:46, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

OK then. Here's the table, extracted from the article that I cited earlier (trust this isn't so much of a 'mess' that you can't follow it). --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Jess, you might find Wikipedia's ArbCom ruling on this topic both brief and useful for framing this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal#Conflation_of_parapsychology_with_unscientific_concepts 75.118.11.184 (talk) 14:25, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Excerpts from an arbcom ruling a decade ago don't change the sourcing. In terms of policy, this article falls under the pseudoscience DS, and is used as an explicit example of pseudoscience in WP:FRINGE/PS. Sourcing was improved since 2008, and it has been appropriately categorized and described since then.

frustrating@Brian, those surveys are from 1938 to 1981, meaning they are between 35 and 80 years old. The question they ask, "is investigation of ESP a legitimate scientific undertaking" is a distinctly different question than "is parapsychology a legitimate science". The authors of the paper were presumably well aware of this distinction, since even in their own conclusion they do not quote the 69% figure. In addition to the significant age, and the entirely different question, the paper is published by the Journal of Parapsychology, which is not a reliable scientific source on this topic. We have loads of sources from many backgrounds indicating parapsychology is not in any way a scientific discipline, so finding parapsychologists from the 1980s who say it is is hardly surprising.   — Jess· Δ♥ 16:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Your way of arguing is deeply circular. You consider as reliable only sources that say that parapsychology is a pseudoscience and you reject any source that say the contrary. Obviously, you can reach only one conclusion with this way of reasonning. No wonder some people find that this page is not neutral. It simply cannot be with this way of approaching the topic. For example, I don't understand why you don't consider the Journal of Parapsychology as a reliable scientific source. As other have explained before on this Talk Page, it's published by the Parapsychological Association which is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It seems to me you reject that source as unreliable because of your position on the debate, not because of any real good reason from a wikipedia standpoint. Are you claiming that the AAAS is a pseudoscientific organisation?JMA1 (talk) 10:30, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

For the purposes of Wikipedia, parapsychology is not considered to be an independent and unbiased WP:RS source of commentary about itself. This applies to most subjects on Wikipedia and especially with fringe topics, so we follow WP:FRIND here. Also I should point out that American Alpine Club has a member listing with the AAAS. It does not serve as validation of a member's "scientific" status. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:28, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. Wikipedia is a reality-based encyclopaedia, by design. We don't shy from describing the universe as scientific inquiry finds it, rather than as some people might wish it to be. We will change our description of parapsychology just as soon as their is compelling evidence in the form of repeatable and verifiable empirical experiment to show that it actually exists. The trend over the last few decades has been the other way, with most recent research instead showing the quirks of the human mind whihc cause us to believe things that are not so. Guy (Help!) 14:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree with you Guy, but I've been following parapsychology for some 40 years, and while it is the case that recent research shows 'the quirks of the human mind which cause us to believe things that are not so', parapsychologists have been busy combating this problem by for example automating experiments so that people can't interfere or introduce errors, improving experimental design so as to eliminate known sources of error. And they take account the advice of people much more expert in statistics than those who criticise the design, and tend not to take proper account of the facts! There is a lot to be said here, but I can't spare the time to go into details (yes, I know that's a pity). --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

LuckyLouie, can you point me to the ruling/policy which considers "parapsychology is not considered to be an independent and unbiased", I would like to read it.

JzG, I have never heard Wikipedia described as a "reality-based encyclopaedia", but a verifiable source-based one, which is why good editors can easily describe non-reality such as fairy tales or utter nonsense without any issues whatsoever. --Iantresman (talk) 15:08, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry Ian, I can't point you to a "ruling/policy" that addresses the portion of my comment you have lifted completely out of context. And I find the question very odd, since it appears you have been around long enough to know our policies regarding sourcing for fringe topics and the reasoning behind them. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I thought I was aware of most policies, but did not recall one which infers your statement. I've read through WP:INDEPENDENT a couple times, and can find nothing which singles out what you call "fringe topics", let alone parapsychology, so I assumed there was something else I wasn't aware of. I'll keep on looking. --Iantresman (talk) 17:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

This wiki page is filled with so many deceitful quotes from determined skeptics who assert that successful experiments “could have” been a trick, and visual cues “may have”taken place, and that statistical flaws “have been proposed.” Another skeptic “speculated” that the positive results must be a scheme. One even claimed that a pair of dice that were used in a successful experiment were probably “drilled, shaved, falsely numbered and manipulated.” (Feel free to do a key word quote search on the page to see if I am telling the truth). It is inconceivable that professional scientists would not have made sure that the dice were unaffected. These accusations are in fact conjecture and yet these quotes are repeatedly presented as if proves something, which is very misleading —– which seems to be the aim of the page. I wonder what would happen if the parapsychologists made such hypothetical claims? Are they allowed to say that they presume that psi exists? The most repeated criticism that I am seeing is that there are no "repeatable results.” But this is simply not true. A study on mind matter interactions by the French physician-researcher and president of the Institut Metapsychique International, Jean Barry, who tested negative intention on fungus, produced significant results. The experiment showed that of the 195 petri dishes involved in negative intention, 151 (77 percent) were smaller than the average size of the controls. A long distance version of this experiment was replicated by researches at the University of Tennessee. Similar findings were confirmed by research was carried out by Carroll Nash, at St. Joseph's University, on E coli microbes. Dr. Radin conducted similar experiments with a culture of human brain cells. As the experiment progressed the treated cells (vs. the untreated control cells) began to grow more quickly and became more ordered. Changes in background ionizing radiation were also observed. Likewise, Bernard Grad, associate professor of biology at McGill University in Montreal, chemically analyzed water treated by healers and discovered that the water had undergone fundamental change in the bonding of oxygen and hydrogen in its molecular makeup. A number of other scientists confirmed the findings.; Furthermore, regarding the effect of mind on random-event generators. Over the course of 2.5 million trials Jahn and Dunne decisively demonstrated that human intention can influence electronic devices in a specified direction, These results were replicated independently by 68 other investigators! + a study that measured electrical frequencies emitted by distance healers. was confirmed by a similar study. Furthermore, I was told [see above] that the Duke University Rhine experiments are not considered valid because they could not be repeated. However, this too does not appear to be true. (which is what happens when one gets their information from this wiki page.) As Rhine elucidates: “The first experiment which, in our judgment met the criteria for a conclusive test of ESP, was one that has come to be known as the Pearce-Pratt Series (at Duke University) [. . .] The results of the series were so far above chance expectation as to be highly significant and no alternative to ESP has ever been proposed [ . . .] The results of the experiments were confirmed in a separate study published [Five years later] Pratt and Woodruff [in 1939.] [. . . ] Here too, the scoring rate was highly significant and chance as well as all the other conceivable hypotheses were ruled out, leaving only the hypothesis of ESP.” According to Rhine, the suspicion that that favorable ESP results may have been affected by experimenters belief in psi. “The suspicion is not consistent with the facts.” The skeptical scientist S.G. Soal attempted to replicate Rhine's findings, however, months after he announced that his results were negative it was brought to his attention by one of his assistants that there was indeed results that were statistically significant that provided indirect evidence for the existence of ESP.. Therefore, we are not just talking about isolated cases, but numerous studies that clearly indicate the reality of the phenomena. In regards to Psychokinesis and dice throwing: a rigorous standard was indeed established that “meets the requirements for verification on its more advanced level. These conclusive studies (made, incidentally by the Re-examination Method) were made on the records of eighteen separate investigations carried out in, or in conjunctions with, the Duke laboratory. [. . .] The evidence was highly significant of a reliable trend which could not conceivably be attributed to any other factor than a mental one having to do with the direct influencing of the dice. A later study was made that was in every respect independently confirmatory. [. . .] In a subsequent report the independent analysis of the same material by Pratt exemplified the fact the case now has the special advantage that the entire analytic study is repeatable by any qualified examiner. It is also disingenuous to complain that these findings are only published by journals related to the topic, when other journals refuse to publish it——not because the studies do not have scientific merit, but because it is considered “fringe.” That is some very dubious/machiavellian logic. Moreover, to attribute the existing evidence for psi to such factors as negligence and oversight is to postulate a level of experimenter incompetence that is unparalleled in the history of science! In the words of Rhine and Pratt: “the demands for verification have already been sufficiently met.” The more that I look into this topic the more I learn that the standards of research in this field – percentage, for example, of blind experiments and controlled studies – exceeds that of other branches of science. This is because skeptics have set up a ridiculously high bar in a biased attempt to conserve a belief system that they have become accustomed to. What they do not understand that psi represents the next level. The next frontier. Novoneiro (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

"chemically analyzed water treated by healers ... that measured electrical frequencies emitted by distance healers." That's the stuff that makes people laugh at it. Again, significant results for p=0.05 only mean that the change of getting a false positive is 1:20. So, nobody denied that they got some significant correlations, mainstream scientists denied that such occasional significant results actually mean anything. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:35, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Let's say that there is a correlation between electricity consumption in Bijlmer and the flow rate of Niagara Falls. What does that prove? Nothing, I guess. It's just a spurious statistical correlation having no plausible causal mechanism. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Lead Style

I suggest that we aspire to the Wikipedia manual of style and examine how we might better introduce this article using WP:LEAD. Back in 2008, this was a featured article and it's lead did a good job of defining the topic, establishing a context, explaining why the topic is notable, and summarizing the most important points, including any prominent controversies. In those days, it read like this:

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal events including extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness after death. Parapsychological research involves a variety of methods including laboratory research and fieldwork, which is conducted at privately funded laboratories and some universities around the world though there are fewer universities actively sponsoring parapsychological research today than in years past. Experiments conducted by parapsychologists have included the use of pseudorandom number generators to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception, and research trials conducted under contract to the United States government to investigate the possibility of remote viewing. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting scientists to accept their research, and science educators and scientists have called the subject pseudoscience. Scientists such as Ray Hyman, Stanley Krippner, and James Alcock have criticized both the methods used and the results obtained in parapsychology. Skeptical researchers suggest that methodological flaws, rather than the anomalistic explanations offered by many parapsychologists, provide the best explanation for apparent experimental successes. To date, the scientific community has not accepted evidence of the existence of the paranormal.

I recommend tweaking it a bit and having it read as thus (changes bolded):

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal events including extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness after death. Parapsychological research involves a variety of methods including laboratory research and fieldwork, which is have been conducted at privately funded laboratories and some universities around the world though there are fewer universities actively sponsoring parapsychological research today than in years past (this sounds like original research). Experiments conducted by parapsychologists have included the use of pseudorandom number generators to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception, and research trials conducted under contract to the United States government to investigate the possibility of remote viewing. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting other scientists to accept their research, and science educators and scientists counter-advocates have called the subject pseudoscience. Scientists Psychologistssuch as Ray Hyman Stanley Krippner, and James Alcock have criticized both the methods used and the results obtained in parapsychology. Skeptical researchers Critics suggest that methodological flaws, rather than the anomalistic explanations offered by many parapsychologists, provide the best explanation for apparent experimental successes. To date, the general scientific community has not accepted evidence of the existence of the paranormal.

Thoughts? 67.149.219.157 (talk) 20:44, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

OK at the start, nice and objective, but then it gets a bit unbalanced, focussing on the negative -- see my comments in previous section. I'm sure though that your text can be amended so that it gives appropriate cover of both sides. Those four succeeding sentences might well be reduced to one or two summarising the views of scientists, giving due attention to what surveys have indicated about scientists as a whole, rather than just the minority of vocal objectors. --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:58, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. The sentence "Scientists such as Ray Hyman Stanley Krippner, and James Alcock have criticized both the methods used and the results obtained in parapsychology." is redundant and could easily be deleted, since the sentence following says the same thing more generally. 67.149.219.157 (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

The scientific consensus is that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. Wikipedia does not give equal weight to fringe views. Look at the lead of creationism or homeopathy. 84.43.115.148 (talk) 00:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

One wonders how we came to abandon the 2008 version in the first place! :-) The suggested tweaking looks good to me, with one suggested change. The phrase conducted under contract to the United States government seems a bit out-of-place in the exemplar list. Aside from being distracting, it's also inaccurate, as early RV work was independently funded in any case. jxm (talk) 01:43, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with someone adding more detail to the lead, as long as it reflects the relative weight of the material contained in the body of the article, such as mentioning the Ganzfield experiments, random number generators, PEAR, etc. However the changes you've suggested above -- such as replacing the word "researchers" with "critics", and "science educators and scientists" with "counter-advocates", or specifying that a "general" scientific community "doesn't accept evidence" of the paranormal (?) -- actually misrepresent what's in the body of the article. Per WP:LEAD, the lead's function is to summarize the article's most important contents, not subtly argue a more sympathetic view for its subject. - LuckyLouie (talk)

LL has this right. Expanding the lead would be fine, but we need to do it with respect to the weight of the sources. We should not sandwich "pseudoscience" between "X considers parapsychology to be...Y disagrees", because that doesn't reflect the best sources we have. The proposed lead takes pains to present parapsychology as scientific, which is problematic. Reviewing our current lead, I don't see anything glaringly wrong, but it does appear short. Summarizing our article more thoroughly would be a better step forward than reverting to 2008.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:14, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

The US government did sponsor remote viewing research for a time, but it seems reasonable to remove the mention from the lead in the spirit of keeping things simple and not "distracting".

There is a minority of researchers who engage in parapsychological research from a skeptical/materialist point of view, so the term "critics" would keep things more general, but maybe there is a better term. Do you have a different suggestion?

The survey cited by Brian Josephson of AAAS council members and section leaders showed that approximately 69% of "elite scientists" considered parapsychology to be a legitimate scientific field. The other 31% are also scientists, but run counter to the majority. So there are scientists and science educators who support the legitimacy of parapsychology as scientific field, and scientists/educators who do not. If the term "counter-advocates" is unacceptable, then how else do we handle this in a neutral manner? 75.118.11.184 (talk) 04:55, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any source suggesting "69% of elite scientists considered parapsychology to be a legitimate scientific field." Can you cite that for me? The journal of parapsychology, cited above, gives a significantly lower number, and it is hardly a reliable academic source on this topic.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, it was there, but it's hard to track things down in the middle of this lengthy discussion. So I've added it to the reflist: see the paper by McClenon.
I've just realised that what has been confusing my attempts to edit this page is the fact that there are two reflists in the same section, so if you don't find the ref. in one list the look for another one! --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I also included a link to the actual table. The table is more relevant to the pseudoscience issue than the abstract, which may be the source of your comment above. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, here's an updated version based on the feedback that I've heard so far:

Parapsychology is the study of paranormal events including extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness after death. Parapsychological research involves a variety of methods including laboratory research and fieldwork, which have been conducted at privately-funded laboratories and some universities around the world. Experiments conducted by parapsychologists have included the use of pseudorandom number generators to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception, and studies investigating the possibility of remote viewing. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting other scientists to accept their research, and some regard the field as psuedoscientific. Critics suggest that methodological flaws, rather than the anomalistic explanations offered by many parapsychologists, provide the best explanation for apparent experimental successes. To date, the mainstream scientific community has not accepted evidence of the existence of the paranormal.

I understand that there are some issues outstanding still, but hopefully we're getting closer to reaching consensus. Thoughts? 75.118.11.184 (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm prepared to accept that (subject to correction of the typo psuedoscienfic!). --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:59, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Original research "Some regard the field as pseudoscientific", not according to sources - Massimo Pigliucci, Maarten Boudry. (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University Of Chicago Press p. 158. ISBN 978-0-226-05196-3 "Many observers refer to the field as a "pseudoscience". When mainstream scientists say that the field of parapsychology is not scientific, they mean that no satisfying naturalistic cause-and-effect explanation for these supposed effects has yet been proposed and that the field's experiments cannot be consistently replicated." Michael W. Friedlander. (1998). At the Fringes of Science. Westview Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-8133-2200-6 "Parapsychology has failed to gain general scientific acceptance even for its improved methods and claimed successes, and it is still treated with a lopsided ambivalence among the scientific community. Most scientists write it off as pseudoscience unworthy of their time." Most scientists consider it pseudoscience, not some. 84.43.115.148 (talk) 16:20, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

The new version is significantly worse, for several reasons I've already indicated. @Brian, where does McClenon indicate "69% of elite scientists considered parapsychology to be a legitimate scientific field"? Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 16:22, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I see now that McClenon quotes a survey from 35 years ago about ESP (not parapsychology), which includes the 69% figure. I've responded to it in the section above.   — Jess· Δ♥ 16:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the new proposed version is significantly worse than the present lead, Jess. A few examples of why it's worse are distortions such as "recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the American Association for the Advancement of Science" (an AAAS listing does not confer formal recognition of scientific legitimacy) and suggesting that the scientific community has not accepted evidence of the paranormal "to date" (as if there is evidence being ignored, but imminent change is expected soon). Seriously, if the goal is to expand and improve the lead, look at the table of contents, read the sections of the article, and based on their relative weight, suggest how they might be summarized in a sentence or two. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I see no particular reason to change the lede and there is no consensus discussion that this is something we should do. jps (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm intrigued. Is your position that unless everyone in this discussion wants a change (consensus), we keep things exactly as they are? So if a single person doesn't want a change then there isn't consensus, so that single person (or let's allow two people) don't want a change, they can in effect veto change? If that's not what you mean, then what do you mean? --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:37, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I see more than one person who is opposed to the change. Let's deal in actual fact. jps (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Actual fact, sure! So you really believe that if more than one person is opposed to a change, then no change should be made. Really?? --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Did I write that? jps (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough, that was a bit of OR on my part based on what you wrote and I may have got it wrong. To get the situation clear then, the fact that more than one person is opposed to change does not, in your view, imply that there shouldn't be any change? --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, WP:CONSENSUS is more complicated than just counting accounts. jps (talk) 19:38, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

We could spend all day trading selected sound bytes to prop up one position or another, but we wouldn't get any closer to fashioning an encycopedia article that reflects reality. The most recent Arbcom ruling on this subject was that parapsychology is to be treated as a scientific discipline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal#Three_layer_cake_with_frosting). It might be an 8-9 year old ruling, but the credentials of the field have not degraded any since then. However, we would not be doing the article any justice if we did not also acknowledge that there is a very vocal minority who consider the discipline to be a pseudoscience. The lead should begin first by defining in neutral terms what parapsychology is (the study of paranormal events/experiences), and then describe the controversy. The current lead negatively skewed from the start. If we can't resolve this on our own, then I suggest that we ask for some help from Wikipedia:DRN. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 20:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

That's not what the arbcom ruling says, and were you to take this to arbcom today, a decade after that ruling, I assure you there would be a much less sympathetic treatment of the subject. The fact that parapsychology is listed as an example of pseudoscience in WP:FRINGE/PS today (not a decade ago) should be a pretty clear indicator that things have, indeed, changed since 2008.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:54, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

A parenthetical example on WP:FRINGE/PS does not merit more consideration than a clear, concise, and thorough ArbCom ruling. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 20:59, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Our policy matters when making content decisions. You're welcome to take this to Arbcom for clarification if you'd like. In the meantime, a decade-old ruling about editor behavior doesn't override our content guidelines, especially when they explicitly say they apply to this subject.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:13, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Just an FYI that I've suggested at the talk page at WP:FRINGE that the parenthetical reference to parapsychology be reexamined in light of the fact that the current President of the American Statistical Association is quite outspoken about the scientific legitimacy of parapsychology. See http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v22n2/rossmanint.pdf. In the meantime, I think a neutrality tag is in order until this dispute is resolved. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Jessica Utts is a well known psychic believer. No evidence she represents the mainstream scientific community. 84.43.115.148 (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

If you are going to resort to ad hominem attacks, 84.43.115.148 then I have nothing further to discuss with you. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 22:25, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

No it is not an attack it is just factual. Jessica Utts believes in psychic powers, remote viewing and other silly things. David Marks discusses this in his book The Psychology of the Psychic. Basically the only people you can cite are fringe paranormal believers. You have no case at all. 84.43.115.148 (talk) 22:33, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I get it! She gets appointed to these esteemed positions mentioned in the interview because people, like you, think her judgement is poor? Or might it be instead because they think she's a very competent individual? --Brian Josephson (talk) 22:13, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Nobody is immune from irrationalism. Look at Lynn Margulis or yourself. It is true that there are a minority of academics or scientists out there that end up endorsing wishful thinking and pseudoscience. 84.43.115.148 (talk) 22:29, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Why should anyone take Brian Josephson seriously? He thinks Uri Geller and other tricksters have psychic abilities [11]. JuliaHunter (talk) 10:33, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

JuliaHunter - your lack of civility toward your fellow Wikipedia editors has been noted. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 18:11, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Ad hominem comments such as the above are a violation of WP principles, and should be removed. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

You are on record for claiming "I believe there are psychic abilities. They don't accord with any science we have at the moment, but maybe some future science will back them up with theories". You wrote that in 1973, we are in 2016 now and still no evidence or theories :) JuliaHunter (talk) 10:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

JuliaHunter How much do you know about what other scientists and magicians think about Uri Geller?

As far as I am aware, the majority of scientists don't believe Geller is genuine. Am I mistaken in that belief? Re magicians, I've come across one magician who believes he is genuine, and Randi at least states he is a fraud (but also Randi has admitted to lying, so we can't infer much from that). Apart from that there's little I can say on this question. --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

http://blog.happierabroad.com/2008/11/what-scientists-and-magicians-have-said.html

Probrooks (talk) 20:42, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Your quote is correct, but using it as justification for your commet suggests you don't understand the meaning of ad hominem comments. And as it happens, Fotini Pallikari and I have published a possible explanation in Foundations of Physics (it is referenced on my WP bio page), but I think better explanations will be found. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Why didn't you publish in Science (journal)? After all, if we are to believe the parapsychology supporters that are here present, the organization which publishes that journal is supportive of parapsychology! jps (talk) 21:34, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Science is a very general journal. FoP was far more appropriate for a rather technical paper that most readers of Science would have been unable to follow. --Brian Josephson (talk) 22:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Extremely poor excuse. Science publishes technical breakthroughs in science all the time. If your paper is as good as you claim, you wouldn't have had to publish it in a low-impact, fringe journal. jps (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

You're not a scientist, are you? --Brian Josephson (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I am, actually. I note that you seem fairly allergic to ask scientists their opinions on your claims. For example, below, you seemed almost gleeful at the prospect of not having to expose yourself to ridicule for your promotion of parapsychology. jps (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Do you publish in Science often yourself? I'd hardly describe our paper as a breakthrough, it just established a theoretical possibility, and Found. Phys. seemed an appropriate place for it. We didn't really consider alternatives, but probably Phys. Rev. would have published it if we'd sent it there. Antony Valentini had the same idea independently and he only published it in Physics Letters.
The 'gleefulness' is in your mind, and I have responded to your point in response to someone else below: in summary, I do discuss the ideas with my colleagues, who listen with interest and don't criticise me for holding them. Let's move on, shall we? --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:07, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You are pretending that your inability to publish about parapsychology in high-impact, high-quality journals is your own choice in the matter. I contend it's because you cannot get past the peer review and you are either fooling yourself or intentionally obfuscating your own marginalization -- which is substantial. jps (talk) 12:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality issue

The article selectively quotes references that favour the disputed view that parapsychology is pseudoscience. Surveys quoted on the talk page suggest that in reality the majority of scientists consider the field of investigation to be legitimate science. Therefore I have added a {{POV}} tag to the article. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

There are about 20 references in the article that indicate parapsychology is a pseudoscience. Every time these references are mentioned you seem to ignore them and go silent. Look at the very lead itself, six references there that show it is a pseudoscience. Do you just pretend these do not exist? Your statement is completely incorrect, references actually show the majority of scientists consider it to be pseudoscience (see the six references on the first line on the article). JuliaHunter (talk) 10:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

You don't seem to have read (or maybe are unable to understand) the 'conditions for removal' -- click on the link to see them. Under the circumstances, removal of the tag consitutes a serious violation of WP rules. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:30, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

This is boring, your editing history on Wikipedia seems to be just trying to stir up controversies on various fringe topic talk-pages (you did the same on your friend Russell Targ, and countless others). Nobody cares about your support for pseudoscience. You and your IP friend are the only users who think there is a neutrality issue. There is no consensus here there is an issue. JuliaHunter (talk) 10:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

It is not the case that "nobody cares." Lots of people care. They just don't bother with Wikipedia because it is clear from this and other talk topics that editors like you assume that topics that are not in the scientific mainstream are necessarily pseudoscience. This is not true, but given that arguments not to your liking are blithely ignored, potential contributors who actually know something about this topic quickly learn that attempting to inject neutrality into this article is an utter waste of time. So the article remains a distorted cartoon worthy only for demonstrating how not to write an encyclopedia. Not signed. Come on, SineBot, are you asleep?

Exactly! Well said. --Brian Josephson (talk) 19:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be forgetting about editor Novoneiro. 3 people, if that's all there is, seems a reasonable indicator of disquiet as to the pseudoscience characterisation. Anyway, if I may bore people with this again, the fact of the matter is that consensus, however defined, is not needed to place such a tag, only for removing it. Your claiming it is needed, as you appear to be doing, is specious. I may be wrong in this of course, and if anyone can show chapter and verse for needing consensus to place a tag please do so. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:25, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Re the recent POV tagging and questions of neutrality, I find this essay especially helpful in explaining the confusion around why some fringe topics have an appearance of being unfairly marginalized in Wikipedia: WP:NOTNEUTRAL. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

There is nothing neutral about negatively defining an entire field of research in the first sentence of an encyclopedia article. By all means, the controversy and criticism should be acknowledged, but like the article, that discussion should happen one-half to two-thirds into the lead. Until this is addressed the POV tag should stay up. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not our fault if all the most reliable independent sources indicate that this "field" of research is either a dead end or plagued by charlatans. jps (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I think editors here tend to ignore evidence that is contrary to their assumptions. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 02:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that editors could agree upon whether paranormal phenomena are real. But we could reach consensus upon how the mainstream science sees parapsychology. The later should hold true regardless upon how one answers the former issue. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:47, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I am just looking at this wikipedia article and talk page for the first time. I don't have a lot of time for this sort of argument. However, I just wanted to note that I, and many other scientists who don't have time to hassle with anti-parapsychology zealots on Wikipedia, find the Wikipedia article on parapsychology to be a shame and a disgrace. This article illustrates the core problem with Wikipedia: a few people with extreme emotions about some topic and lots of time on their hands can hijack a page. Yeck. Look, this shouldn't be so complicated. Whether psi phenomena exist or not is still under dispute by various scientists -- that's true. However, the METHODS of the parapsychology field are certainly highly scientific, and so parapsychology obviously IS a science, not a pseudoscience. The fact that there are various charlatans associated with advocating or even studying psi phenomena, does not actually detract from the quality of parapsychology as a scientific field. This sort of nonsense makes me doubt the long-term viability of Wikipedia as an enterprise. Bengoertzel (talk) 00:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The parapsychology does claim to use scientific methods, however its results are occasional significant correlations, further nothing impressive.

Research Progress Research on the polygraph has not progressed over time in the manner of a typical scientific field. It has not accumulated knowledge or strengthened its scientific underpinnings in any significant manner. Polygraph research has proceeded in relative isolation from related fields of basic science and has benefited little from conceptual, theoretical, and technological advances in those fields that are relevant to the psychophysiological detection of deception.

— The National Academy of Sciences, The Polygraph and Lie Detection, 2003, p. 213

The same could be said about parapsychology, just bracket the fuss of quantum flapdoodle. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the distinction between fringe science and pseudoscience applies. I think it is clearly not the case that there is a consensus that parapsychology is pseudoscience, but I do think it is generally considered to be on the fringe.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 01:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

So, it is not the result of biased editors having too much time, it is a basic issue of WP:PAG, as explained at Wikipedia:Academic bias#Big Science. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I dont think that follows.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 01:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

While I am not sure whether parapsychology is pseudoscience or fringe science, I think WP:PAG say that fringe subjects should be clearly labeled as fringe, not presented as having mainstream acceptance. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but labeling something as fringe is not the same as labeling it as pseudoscience. Being fringe simply means "outside of the mainstream area of research".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:38, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

For me this distinction does not mean much, since seems too much like splitting hairs, so I am prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Pseudoscience is something that claims to be science but which does not in fact correctly use the scientific method (for example by posing unfalsifiable hypotheses), fringe science are fields of scientific inquiry that mainstream science finds to be irrelevant "dead ends", unfashionable or unlikely to produce significant result. Sometimes the two overlap (for example sometimes scientists working on the fringe also use pseudoscientific reasoning or methods). Astrology is a pseudoscience, because it does not pose falsifiable questions. Parapsychology poses falsifiable questions, but the mainstream generally consider it to have been already experimentally falsified - some researchers just think it still merits a couple of more experiments to be absolutely sure. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Sort of, but don't conflate "parapsychology" and "scientific investigation of the paranormal". ESP can certainly be investigated scientifically, but by and large "parapsychology" doesn't do that. Quite some time ago there was legitimate investigation into ESP, but even then much of it was pseudoscience, lacking even the most basic of scientific rigor. Now, that describes nearly all of the field. Pseudoscience also includes more than just claims which are unfalsifiable. Read the second paragraph of pseudoscience; parapsychology relies almost exclusively on "confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, as well as contradictory and exaggerated claims. Our sources back all that up, of course. I agree with you that claims about ESP can be falsified and scientific investigation of ESP isn't intrinsically pseudoscience. I disagree that parapsychology isn't pseudoscience. Of course, that disagreement should be resolved with sourcing.   — Jess· Δ♥ 03:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Briefly, two quality references in non-fringe academic journals that run counter to your assertions. 1. A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness (http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full) containing links to parapsychological studies published in mainstream scientific journals and signed by 100 university professors and 2. an interview with the current president of the American Statistical Association - starting on page five (http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v22n2/rossmanint.pdf). 75.118.11.184 (talk) 04:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Neither of those sources are high-quality. jps (talk) 12:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is the number one most-cited journal in psychology, the number one most-cited open access journal dedicated to neuroscience and the 10th most-cited journal in all of neuroscience. (http://blog.frontiersin.org/2015/11/20/quality-and-impact-analysis-frontiers-in-human-neuroscience/ The Journal of Statistics Education is published by the American Statistical Association. Both articles are less than two years old.

Contrast that with the 6 references used to defend the pseudoscience label: only one comes from a peer-reviewed publication (Bunge's in BBS, which included many other opinions counter to his), and 2 come from an advocacy press (Prometheus Book, founded by Kurtz, a cofounder of CSICOP). Not a single of these references is current, and some are decades old. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 14:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Laughably unconvincing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is an open access journal with the attendant problems associated with that form of publishing. As for Utts' self-congratulatory hagiography, what would you have us do with that? Treat it as though she wasn't heavily involved in making it as one-sided as possible? Publish in Science or Nature, parapsychologists. Dispense with this beating around the bush. After all, if what they claim is true, the parapsychologists deserve Nobel Prizes for their work in medicine, chemistry, and physics! jps (talk) 15:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The remark about problems associated with open access journals is a clear example of inadequate editing. He is ignoring Beall's 'Many new open-access publishers are trustworthy. But not all.' FHN clearly isn't one of the kinds of journals he is criticising, as it would hardly be 'the number one most-cited open access journal dedicated to neuroscience' if it were that kind. --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:40, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

[12]. You really have no idea, do you? jps (talk) 16:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You may want to step down the incivility jps. That link criticizes the journals practices for contacting reviewers, not its reliability.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:33, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Obviously, this is the WP:REDFLAG we see waving. The person listed as the reviewer for parapsychology is a true believer in parapsychology. It's a corrupt system of getting reviewers who lack the requisite independence. Go ahead and e-mail Beall what he thinks about this paper if you don't believe me that his critique is relevant. jps (talk) 16:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure my colleagues, were they to take the time to look into the matter, would view jps's comments above as some of many desperate and implausible attempts by him and others to evade the issues. This is a very clear example of such. --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You're clearly not going to show your colleagues these comments, though. So it doesn't help us to speculate as to what you think your colleagues are going to think, does it? jps (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Meaning of consensus

Some remarks made here lead me to wonder if some people don't quite understand the meaning of the word 'consensus'. The word means, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, 'a general agreement about something : an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group'. It is clear for example (on the basis of this definition) that there is no consensus in this group that it is correct to consider parapsychology a pseudoscience. Equally, one may be able to find (and quote) a number of people asserting that the subject is a pseudoscience, but there may equally be a similar number who do not agree with this proposition, implying that there is no consensus as to this view. Indeed, as far as ESP (a major field of investigation within parapsychology generally) is concerned, the surveys cited indicate that the situation is that a majority of those questioned consider that this is a legitimate field of investigation. So I hope we can go ahead now without being distracted by the false understanding that 'many people believe X' can be equated with 'there is a consensus that X'. --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Brian. See wp:con -Roxy the dog™ woof 15:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Roxy, thanks for pointing this out:

Editors who maintain a neutral, detached, and civil attitude can usually reach consensus on an article through the process described above.

It would be marvellous if were to work out like that, but I'll be amazed if it does. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I suppose you could call it successful, after all we've got over five million articles nowadays, haven't we? I realise that there are disputes and stuff, but we've got policy and guideline to help us out, and by and large the Dispute space is a tiny proportion of the Article space, so we must be getting something right. -Roxy the dog™ woof 18:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. General opinion among my colleagues is that the level of accuracy in WP articles is not that high. Also, on the question of neutrality, I suspect that most of them would be shocked at the evident lack of neutrality in this article were I to show it to them. They don't have time of course to argue the point out here, and it needs to be borne in mind that the set of editors that contribute to pages like these is very far from representative of the whole. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Why don't you try it out? I would start with just about anyone in the physics department. jps (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Fine! Just as long as you, and all the others who insist that the article is neutral, agree that the non-neutrality tag can be restored and remain, should my view be confirmed. Don't all rush at once! --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a suicide pact. If you can convince any colleagues of yours in the physics department under about the age of 40 or 50 to take your claims seriously and have them go on record with their agreement with your evaluation, let us know. Then we can verify the reliability of your report. jps (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

So sorry. I can't see the point in my taking the not inconsiderable time it would take to do the survey, involving finding a colleague willing to look through the article and then go through it step by step showing how biassed it is, unless there something significant to be gained by doing this. It would be crazy to do that. So sorry to disappoint you, have a good evening! --Brian Josephson (talk) 22:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

What is potentially to be gained is to have a personal colleague of yours explain to you how problematic your advocacy for pseudoscience is. You certainly seem immune to people on the internet doing so, and perhaps rightly so, you don't know us. I'm certain that you've been taken to task before for your problematic pseudoscientific claims. The hope is that maybe if a colleague you respect explains these things to you, you might take them more seriously than us. As it is, it seems you're too afraid to do so. Good evening, indeed! jps (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

If "taken to task" means "awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics" then I guess you win: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson#Nobel_Prize. 75.118.11.184 (talk) 04:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Nobel Prizes are not inoculations against magical thinking. jps (talk) 12:19, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I do in fact have conversations with colleagues discussing my ideas, I was only refusing to do what you suggested I do, i.e. wasting their time and mine going through the article in detail to see if they agree that it is highly biased, and as far as I am aware none of my colleagues take the position that you suggest people are taking. I don't think they would continue the conversation if that were the case. Of course my colleagues at Trinity particularly are unusually intelligent, and more open-minded than some editors here (who I think condemn themselves by their comments) seem to be. Just recently I got an email from a speaker at whose talk I had made a number of comments in the discussion 'appreciating my presence at the talk'. People like you are living in a fantasy world. Of course I do get attacked by outsiders who don't like my views but I see that as their problem.
(I expect someone will be jumping in saying this is not what talk pages are for. I agree entirely, but then I did not start this thread!).
PS: For the record, none of my colleagues has ever, during the course of the conversations I've referred to 'explained to me how problematic my advocacy for pseudoscience is' (in the words of your misguided suggestion). --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, there was one a few years ago, who said to me that my arguments supporting the possibility of memory of water were misconceived. I tried out his analysis on the head of our research group when the opportunity arose, and he agreed that I was right and my distinguished critic was wrong. When people are emotional their thinking does tend to go off beam. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You live in an agnotological bubble. You are a general laughing stock and should be aware of this. jps (talk) 12:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It is quite sad, jps, that you find it necessary to laugh in another editor's face, accuse them of making "pseudoscientific claims", and living "in an agnotological bubble", and what is worse, consider this relevant to the contents of an article. I consider this insulting, deprecating and uncivil, and no substitute for WP:NPOV, rather than "citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or is on living persons. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong" (per WP:FIVEPILLARS). I also find it tiring that I now need to justify my position: that I don't believe in the paranormal, that I am aware of others who have labelled the paranormal "pseudoscience" (and am happy to attribute some of them in the article, as I have done in previous articles). I also better mention that just because I have an interest in a subject, that it does not make me an advocate or supporter, just as if I had an interest in World War II, that does not make me an advocate of war, or even a supporter of those that do. --Iantresman (talk) 18:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Your sympathy for Rupert Sheldrake is very much in line with the pseudoscience promotion for which you were (and continue to be) sanctioned. jps (talk) 18:16, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I wish you would use your expertise to discuss content and sources, rather than spend your time disparaging, putting-down and insulting the character of other editors. "Comment on content, not on the contributor" per WP:NPA --Iantresman (talk) 19:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Your predilection for supporting outrageous and, frankly, odiously incorrect pseudoscience makes it very difficult to have a reasonable conversation with you because you will not move on even after being shown that you are wrong. jps (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:ASPERSIONS --Iantresman (talk) 19:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:COMPETENCE. jps (talk) 19:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Surely you're joking, Mr. jps. You can not be serious! --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:29, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Psi phenomena are an anachronism. Nobody in science seriously believes in them any more. You can trace the arc of interest through treatment in hard science fiction - no way would Gil "The Arm" Hamilton make it into a new book by a hard-SF writer like Niven. There's no active supportive publishing in the mainstream journals, and what study there is focuses on the psychological and cognitive errors which cause people to make these false inferences - a fascinating study in itself.

As Brian Cox put it, "The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!" Note that we are entitled to ridicule the view, not the person advancing it. I don't think goading Prof. Josephson is especially helpful. Guy (Help!) 11:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I have no idea whether there are scientists who "believe" in parapsychology, but that is a completely separate issue to the fact that numerous university-based groups teach or research parapsychology (or anomalistic psychology), many of them qualified scientists with doctorates, which seems to contradict your statement, including:

• The Parapsychology Laboratory operated at Duke (1893-1984)
• The Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh.
• The Parapsychology Association, affiliated with the AAAS
• The Anomalous Experience Research Unit at the University of York
• The Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London
• Anomalistic Psychology and Parapsychology at the University of Derby
• And numerous courses and research at dozens of other universities

For record, I do not believe in the veracity of psi phenomenon myself, and am happy that your point of view is included subject to WP:V in order to maintain WP:NPOV. --Iantresman (talk) 13:13, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

The AAS affiliation is in name only. They haven't had a presence at any AAS conference since the 1970s, I believe. There hasn't been a vote on the affiliation since those decades past, but I imagine if there were one today they'd be removed. "Who cares?" is generally the answer I get when I ask AAS members whether they should be removed for inactivity. jps (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

No, an AAAS affiliate has to meet certain criteria, otherwise the AAAS could throw them out. They could also vote them out, but don't. The Parapsychology Association are a full affiliate, equal in standing to any other member. Of course that does not make any parapsychology phenomena true, which is good for Wikipedia which is interested in verifiability per WP:V. --Iantresman (talk) 19:43, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:RTFA, or in this case, the criteria. It so happens that the council last took up the question when I said they did and, as such, that vote stands until a new one is taken in spite of whether the affiliate is a pseudoscience-promoting outfit like the PA or not. jps (talk) 19:52, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Just a quick FYI that a meta-analysis of Ganzeld research was presented at the national AAAS meeting 1993, and entire day of papers was presented at AAAS regional meeeting in 2012. And I just so happen to be attending the upcoming AAAS national meeting next month in DC as the PA's representative. Last I checked, it would take a two-thirds vote of the AAAS council to eject the PA, and given that the last known survey of AAAS members on the topic showed that 69% recognized parapsychology as a science, the likelihood of that happening in pretty slim. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 20:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Very brave of you. I hear that there will be picketers. jps (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, after all that verbal firing, I would like to offer an extraordinary youtube which clearly shows some scientists testing an Indonesian man for PSI ability and then becoming completely convinced of his powers, which might show to some that there is at least some phenomena on this earth to which scientific (not pseudoscientific) researchers would do well to explore.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Aos0hnwiHt8

Probrooks (talk) 18:46, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Youtube? jps (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's a video of a delusional charlatan hoodwinking a credulous person. The Nobel is in the post. Guy (Help!) 00:08, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Fraud Section Change Request

The section entitled Fraud contains an inaccuracy regarding J.D. MacFarland and the quote from Louisa Rhine's book, Something Hidden. MacFarland was a young researcher from Tarkio College in Missouri. There is no record of his having worked at the Rhine lab or that he was Rhine's assistant. MacFarland had 2 articles published in the Journal of Parapsychology in 1937 & 1938, but, according to Louisa's writings, after the falsification of records was discovered, he never published another article in the Journal of Parapsychology.

I would recommend the following change.

Original text: Rhine's assistant James D. MacFarland was also accused of fraud. Louisa Rhine wrote "Jim [James D. MacFarland] had actually consistently falsified his records... To produce extra hits Jim had to resort to erasures and transpositions in his records of his call series."[202]

Recommended text: A researcher from Tarkio College in Missouri, James D. MacFarland, was suspected of falsifying data to achieve positive psi results. Before the fraud was discovered, MacFarland published 2 articles in the Journal of Parapsychology (1937 & 1938) supporting the existence of ESP. Presumably speaking about MacFarland, Louisa Rhine wrote that in reviewing the data submitted to the lab in 1938, the researchers at the Duke Parapsychology Lab recognized the fraud. "...before long they were all certain that Jim had consistently falsified his records... To produce extra hits, Jim had to resort to erasures and transpositions in the records of his call series."[202] MacFarland never published another article in the Journal of Parapsychology after the fraud was discovered.

Tunsa (talk) 19:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Because I have not received any comments or objections to this change, I am implementing it on the main page. Tunsa (talk) 23:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

References

The Use of this Weasel word Pseudoscience in the first Sentence

Brian Josephson comes off here very clearly here with a lot of good points. I have been arguing against the use of this confusing buzzword typically used by skeptics, in the first sentence wikipedia entry for Crystal Healing, unknowingly as he was posting here on the same topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Crystal_healing#Use_of_the_word_Pseudoscience_in_the_first_line

My issue here, is why is this word being used and then linked to a skeptical web site, in the first sentence, isn’t this really just taking the piss?

Nobody claims crystal healing is a science at all, and the wikipedia article doesn’t even have any secondary sources to information about crystal healing! (Maybe if the page wasn’t so unkind to Crystal Healing in the beginning, some people who actually cared enough about this practice would help edit this page!)

I think there is a big difference between Crystal Healing and Parapsychology, because one of these methods is scientists trying to understand the world, and one of them has some random claims about the healing power of rocks which nobody can prove and doesn't seem very popular in the real world!

Pseudoscientific is pretty much a weasel word, it means almost nothing, and is used to denote that modern science considers this view heretical, a taboo topic outside of the realm of the easily explained and doesn’t want to entertain it, because it conflicts with the present dogma.

The scientific method is the scientific method, whatever the field of study.

“Indeed, the search for knowledge wherever it may lead inspired a group of notable scientists and philosophers to found in 1882 the Society for Psychical Research in London. Its purpose was “to investigate that large body of debatable phenomena… without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems.” Some of the areas in consciousness they investigated such as psychological dissociation, hypnosis, and preconscious cognition are now well integrated into mainstream science. “

journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full

What is fringe now, may be mainstream in 100 years. This is the perspective that people like Brian and I have, of many fields involving the depths of the human psyche. If you do not believe that, please consider that at least 10-20% of what is fringe now, will evolve and become part of the mainstream in the future at some point.

Extraordinary claims should be explored, and science is a tool to do that. To call an entire field devoted to exploring the edges of what science explores, where further evolution and discoveries can be made, a false or not true science just does not make ANY sense at all.

If science is not exploring, not understanding, not growing, what is it doing? Rotting in its certitude and dogma just like the church did for many centuries - that’s what!

The skeptical position is to doubt everything before proven and often also seems to actively and emotively denigrate any possibility which is not already proven or established by facts. This is when skepticism becomes a negative force, preventing and denying exploration and the possibility of evolution and big paradigm shifts.

Probrooks (talk) 20:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Although currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections.

— WP:BALL

Science is organized skepticism, see Mertonian norms. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I think Dean Radin really gives a most thorough reply to that in this article

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/Examskeptics/field_guide.html

Probrooks (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• I have changed the definition to make it clear that the field of inquiry is frequently described as a pseudoscience - but without pretending that there is a solid consensus that this is the case, because such a claim is not borne out in the quoted sources. The sources talk about skepticism towards the discipline and one notes that some consider it a pseudoscience. None of them state as a simple fact that the discipline is inherently a pseudoscience.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Maunus. Thanks for the effort. While it's possible our sourcing could be improved (last I checked it was pretty solid, but I'm not sure of its state right now), we need to be careful to reflect the weight of the academic opinion, and saying it is a "controversial subject" which is considered pseudoscience only by "its critics" is not the way to do that, I don't think. The subject is listed as an example of pseudoscience in in our guidelines, which I believe is pretty well backed up by sources. I'll see if I can put together some time to pull a few with quotes in the next couple days.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The current sourcing plainly does not support the definition. That something is met with skepticism is not evidence that something is inherently a pseudoscience, neither is the fact that some people have called it so. What is required for such a definition is a very solid reliable source (preferably tertiary) that states that this is the consensus view.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 21:26, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

And as I've said already, surveys indicate that it is not the general view among scientists that parapsychology (e.g. study of ESP) is pseudoscience. People who do think this tend not to discriminate between scientific research and what is shown on populist TV programmes.
This was well illustrated by an interaction I had once with Richard Dawkins, where he ended up admitting in a lecture that what he was directing his criticisms at was the kind of things seen on TV, and that he had not actually studied the scientific investigations so could not include them in his criticisms. And, as I have also said, being able to drum up a dozen or so references using the word pseudoscience does not prove that this is the majority (and please to not try to distort the analysis with your 'reliable sources', which are themselves distinctly 'pseudo' as has been pointed out). --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• It is the very opposite of a weasel word. In fact, it is a forthright and accurate description of the field. It adopts the trappings of science but without the rigour and - most especially - usually without the essential scientific element of allowing that the hypothesis might be wrong. Guy (Help!) 22:33, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that pseudoscience is not a weasel word. It does, however, describe a perspective - not a fact - and a negatively constructed one at that. Introducing any topic at wikipedia as a pseudoscience violates NPOV. State what the subject is first, then address any controversies. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The perspective is that of scientific rationalism. Which is Wikipedia's perspective. If you want to pretend that parapsychology is a legitimate field if inquiry into objectively valid phenomena, feel free to start another wiki. Guy (Help!) 23:08, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Guy - nice to meet you. It's quite an introduction to put words in my mouth and then invite me to leave. Is this how all Wikipedia admins behave now?? Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:53, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I am sorry but "scientific rationalism" is not Wikipedia's perspective - WP:SPOV failed.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

'Pretend' is just a word you are bringing in as a ploy to prevent a proper article being produced. Purely a ploy, an attempt to pose your PoV, but anyone looking at this objectively can see that that is what you are doing. --Brian Josephson (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Then how do you explain something like this: "Due to the current state of bias, some mainstream journals refuse to even look at studies into parapsychology, which is why specialty publications have had to be created: The Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, European Journal of Parapsychology, International Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the Society for the Psychical Research."? Remember, per WP:RGW it is not our task to correct the bias of mainstream science. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:47, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

It’s damn hard to get papers on psi accepted into mainstream scientific journals due to the overall anti-psi bias of the scientific community.

— Ben Goertzel, Is Precognition Real? Cornell University Lab Releases Powerful New Evidence that the Human Mind can Perceive the Future

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Keyword "some". In the 19th century some academic journals refused to look at any studies into the origin of language considering them to be unfruitful speculation. Today such studies are found in all kinds of scientific journals. This does not mean that something is or isnt pseudoscience, just that it is fringe science and not considered part of the mainstream. That sometimes has more to do with fashionability than with scientific principles. Yes, parapsychology is clarly outside of the mainstream of psychology and physics research. But you have not provided sources that show that a consensus is that it is pseudoscientific.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I would not object to designating it fringe, instead of pseudoscience, although in my own opinion I would (weakly) choose for the later. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

It's hard to get psi papers into reality-based journals because the reality-based community considers psi to be bollocks. Vaguely plausible half a century ago, perhaps, but even that is doubtful: things like Stargate really only existed because of paranoia. Russia was said to be doing it, therefore the US must do it more Americanly. Guy (Help!) 00:06, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

An similar example from a different context is studies of biological variation between racial groups. You will have a very hard time getting such research accepted in mainstream journals, and indeed specialized journals for that field of research have emerged for that reason. This does not however mean that the field as such is pseudo-scientific (even if much of it is indeed pseudoscientific in its methods and argumentation) but it simply means that this kind of research is not compatible with the currently dominant scientific paradigm (which considers the category of "race" to be misleading and to have been superseded by other approaches to understanding the distribution of human genetic variation). Similarly measuring someone's head circumference and correlating it with IQ tests is not pseudoscientific in itself, but making specific claims about the meaning of such a relation may be so. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:09, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Sure, but variation between ethnic groups doesn't violate substantial chunks of known physics, whereas psi does. A more apt analogy would be studies of the mechanism of operation of reiki. Guy (Help!) 09:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Guy says above:

[pseudoscience] is the very opposite of a weasel word. In fact, it is a forthright and accurate description of the field. It adopts the trappings of science but without the rigour.

That's a reasonably good definition, so let's see what the RS Foundations of Psychology (a conventional text book, dealing with psychology in general) has to say:

The rigour with which modern parapsychological reasearch is conducted would put to shame the work of many other psychological resarchers.

That, to me, puts the lid on it. A small number of writers who have axes to grind call it pseudoscience, but if you look inside the book to the section dealing with parapsychology you'll see that the truth is nothing of the kind. The book does talk about the 'pseuddpsi hypothesis', but makes it clear that this is just one option. It provides an excellent example of NPoV at work, and WP should do the same, rather than declaring point blank at the very start that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I know very well that reputable parapsychologists are honest people who apply the scientific method with maximal rigor. However, they failed to convince the mainstream. That's why parapsychology is either fringe science or pseudoscience. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:43, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It is opinion that "failing to convince the mainstream" makes a subject fringe science or pseudoscience. It is further opinion that this applies to parapsychology. The solution is simple, and one required by Wikipedia. WP:BURDEN requires as to have several reliable sources that clearly state that "parapsychology is a pseudoscience", and that this label is applied above all others. I am more than happy that some editors have their own difference of opinion here, and that some scientists have considered parapsychology to be pseudoscience for a variety of reasons, and am happy to add this somewhere, based on WP:V and WP:RS. --Iantresman (talk) 20:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, failing to convince the mainstream is pretty much the definition of fringe. Nothing puts you on the fringes more certainly than persisting in the belief in something after the relevant professional scientific community has reviewed it and found it not to be plausible, especially when, as with psi, it conflicts with some very solidly proven principles of science such as conservation of energy and the second law of thermodynamics. Guy (Help!) 18:16, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Paradox: "Parapsychology is a pseudoscience"

"Parapsychology is a pseudoscience" is a paradox. It suggests that any mainstream scientist who decides to undertake a scientific study of a paranormal subject, is not conducting science, but pseudoscience. While I understand that "paranormal" subject may be considered "bollocks" (to parrot some editors), it seems that editors are confusing the "study" with their "subject/topic". The scientific method can not appear to change based on the subject it is studying. Secondary sources seem to contradict what appears to be a paradoxical statement:

• "Discipline concerned with investigating events that cannot be accounted for by natural law " Britannica[13]
• "the scientific study of events" merriam-webster[14]
• "field of study that deals with paranormal phenomena" OED[15]

For the record, I don't believe in paranormal phenomena. -Iantresman (talk) 11:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand the use of the word belief here. What is the role of belief in science? Science does not work by belief, but by scientific evidence, objectivity and open mindedness.--89.120.156.224 (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I think I can see where you went wrong there. A mainstream scientist who studies these phenomena is, at least these days, not a "parapsychologist". The days when legitimate scientists studied the purported phenomena, rather than the reasons people falsely believe them to be real, are long behind us. These days reality-based study of paranormal claims is undertaken by psychologists like Richard Wiseman. Those who self-identify as parapsychologists are, as far as I can tell, pretty much all True Believers. This article seems to cover it. The mainstream view is that you can't study something unless there's credible evidence that it exists in reality: the reason parapsychology is considered pseudoscience is that it starts from the false premise that the null hypothesis has already been rejected, or at least that the null hypothesis and the paranormal one are of equal merit. As Carl Sagan said: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The only extraordinary thing about the evidence for psi is that anyone would consider it to be evidence for psi. Guy (Help!) 12:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not discussing the merits of the scientific method, and the philosophical arguments for what you can and can not study. This is not a place to debate. I have presented sources that contradict your view. Please provide some reliable secondary sources that describe parapsychology as a pseudoscience, per WP:BURDEN. I am more than happy to attribute some views that consider the subject to have pseudoscientific characteristics, subject to WP:V and good sources. --Iantresman (talk) 12:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

You have produced dictionary definitions which you interpret as sources contradicting the mainstream view. That's not the same thing at all. Guy (Help!) 15:07, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I made no interpretation. I said that they contradict the paradoxical statement that "Parapsychology is a pseudoscience". I have seen no sources from you or anyone that support this statement. I have no problem including the mainstream view, but I have no idea which sources you want to refer to. --Iantresman (talk) 15:45, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

In your view. But then, you do have a bit of a history of promoting fringe views on Wikipedia, don't you? There's nothing paradoxical about the statement that parapsychology is pseudoscience, it has solid supporting sources, it's just that believers don't like the label (and if they remove that then they'll dispute fringe, and so on until we lie and say it's a legitimate field of study, because that is exactly the ratchet effect that every single proponent of fringe views on Wikipedia always employs). Guy (Help!) 18:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't promote fringe science, any more than editing articles on World War II would make me a promoter of war.
"It is often identified as pseudoscience" seems satisfactory to me. "Solid supporting sources"? Just looking at reference #1

• "Daisie Radner, Michael Radner. (1982). Science and Unreason. Wadsworth. pp. 38-66" seems to suggest that there are 28 pages devoting to describing parapsychology as pseudoscience. Without a excerpt, it is not possible to assess the context. Poor source.
• Paul Kurtz. Is Parapsychology a Science?. In Kendrick Frazier. (1981). Paranormal Borderlands of Science. The quote provided says nothing about pseudoscience. Poor source.
• Mario Bunge. (1987). Why Parapsychology Cannot Become a Science. No indication whether he even mentions pseudoscience. Poor source.
• Terence Hines. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Only 5 pages mention "Parapsychology" and "Pseudoscience" on the same page, never in the same sentence. Poor source.

These other two references are satisfactory, but no context is provided, so the label "Pseudoscience" comes across as a weasel word. --Iantresman (talk) 10:37, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Credible evidence question

There's a trap here, in that acceptability of evidence is a function of one's prior beliefs, and so is not an absolute matter. Rupert Sheldrake has responded to your quotation about extraordinary evidence, actually due originally to Marcello Truzzi, who later withdrew it as being misleading, with this comment: "This depends on what you regard as extraordinary. Most people say they have experienced telepathy, especially in connection with telephone calls. In that sense, telepathy is ordinary. The claim that most people are deluded about their own experience is extraordinary. Where is the extraordinary evidence for that?" --Brian Josephson (talk) 12:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Since Sheldrake is a crank who wants to abandon scientific objectivity in order to allow for his own refuted hypothesis, we have no obligation to consider his views at all. Guy (Help!) 15:08, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Interesting this mentioning of scientific objectivity in this context. Is scientific objectivity possible without open mindedness? What is the connection between objectivity and analysis of several alternate scientific explanations?--89.120.156.224 (talk) 17:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I at least think he's making a good point. If you follow that link you'll see that Dawkins, like you, didn't want to discuss evidence. Do read the article! --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Sheldrake's agenda is very obvious: he considers the whole of science to be completely broken because his nonsense is not given a respect it has entirely failed to earn. The psychological basis for the belief that people have telepathic awareness of who is about to phone, is well understood. In fact, it's also the basis of the entire fraudulent industry of grief vampires. Feel free to find a better example in support of your argument, from someone who is rather less obviously pushing a heavy barrow up a very steep hill. Guy (Help!) 15:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Sheldrake has done controlled experiments on telephone telepathy (a random number generator is used deterimine which of three callers will phone and the receiver has to guess which it is); his beliefs are not based on assuming that people's beliefs can be taken at face value. Feel free to have your own beliefs, which as I noted above are a function of the views you start off with, if it pleases you to do so. --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

The use of controlled experiments is a trait pertaining to proper scientific procedures. It seems however that some people have armchair beliefs which are against scientific objectivity and open-mindedness.--89.120.156.224 (talk) 19:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

And of course Sheldrake was completely objective in testing his own ideas. Just as Prosper-René Blondlot was in testing his. As you cannot fail to be aware, the mark of a theory is its independent confirmation in robust experiments of varying designs, not in the ability of its inventor to confirm it. Guy (Help!) 20:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I remember reading somewhere that there are several criteria (about 6) for accepting a scientific hypothesis. One of them refers to means and measuring devices for detecting a hypothesized phenomenon. The degree of acceptance is higher when the detection devices have higher precision.--89.120.156.224 (talk) 20:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

2014 Science quote

While researching another matter, I accidentally ran into the follow quote in Science (12 SEPTEMBER 2014 VOL 345 ISSUE 6202 p. 1253) in a book review of The Improbability Principle: "The author draws from diverse topics, including parapsychology (the scientific study of paranormal phenomena), financial markets, and gambling."

I'm not a big fan of cherry-picking references to illustrate a point, but if you want one from Science characterizing the field, there you've got it. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 21:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not "characterising the field" though, it's a passing mention and not in the peer-reviewed content either. Guy (Help!) 23:49, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Is peer-reviewed content required for characterizing the field as a pseudoscience? Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Here's the problem: in the 1950s, the state of scientific knowledge about the nature of the universe was much less mature, and several people engaged in legitimate scientific investigation of psi. By the 1980s, many of the more industrious publishers had been revealed to be engaging in sloppy work, including pathological science, and most if not all legitimate researchers had left the field. Its thought leaders are now, bluntly, cranks. Reality-based science has formed the view that there is nothing to investigate and we're left with people like Rupert Sheldrake, whose claims are entirely unsupported by good evidence and who insists that the cautious approach of the scientific method needs to be jettisoned in order to make room for his nonsense. Anyone who claims that lack of acceptance of a claim is evidence that science is broken, is almost certainly engaging in pseudoscience.

So we have a situation where something that was once a field of legitimate scientific inquiry, albeit a fair way from the mainstream, is now populated by people who have failed to properly understand the burden of proof, failed to understand why mainstream science does not consider their work legitimate, and in pretty much every case refuses to accept the interpretation which Occam's razor suggests. And that's why mainstream sources specialising in the philosophy of what is and is not pseudoscience, characterise the field, including much of the past work by True Believers like Targ and Puthoff, as pseudoscientific. Reality-based study focuses on the psychological processes by which people believe nonsense, and that is undoubtedly science. See Richard Wiseman for example.

And the perspective of any individual writer on the subject is likely to be influenced by their age, because the outside view of the field has moved on a great deal in half a century.

Remember, reality-based scientific journals do not usually discuss the demarcation dispute and do not usually give house room either to crank views or their rebuttal. That's why fraudulent fields like homeopathy and parapsychology have their own journals, a walled garden where unwelcome reality need never intrude. Guy (Help!) 11:35, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, that's your opinion, which I may agree with, but other editors may have their views, and may provide a counter-argument. WP:TALK#FACTS suggests we "Ask for a verifiable reference supporting a statement", because I have no idea where you are getting this information from. --Iantresman (talk) 12:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

So...the questions was, is peer-reviewed content required for characterizing the field as a pseudoscience?Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 15:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Richard Wiseman was, for some years, was a member of the Parapsychological Association and received his training at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit among other notable personalities in the field. To my knowledge has never referred to the field as a "pseudoscience" and is listed on the PA's website as available to supervise PH.D. students for issues in parapsychology (see Herfordshire). He has also published widely in the Journal of Parapsychology, European Journal of Parapsychology, and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research - some of those "walled gardens" that you speak of. His CV is here, if you'd like to take a look for yourself. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 15:56, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

... and is thus unusually well-placed to critique the methods used by True Believers. He and Chris French both demolish parapsychological "research" with great ease, because the True Believers never seem to learn from their mistakes. Guy (Help!) 18:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

...speaking of Chris French, he has also supported the Parapsychological Association as a member and has gone on record as stating that parapsychology is a legitimate science. Parapsychology is not a point of view, nor is it a belief. It is a collection of research topics that are investigated by a variety of scientists, scholars, and clinicians - all with different orientations. You can stop with your True Believer rhetoric anytime. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:36, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

It is a collection of research topics that attracts cranks and True Believers who engage in pseudoscientific attempts to "prove" their beliefs. There may also be some legitimate scientists, but not many because "psi still bullshit" doesn't make for much of a career. 86.28.97.168 (talk) 08:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Your first sentence is indeed valid but, in regard to your second sentence, there are quite a number of legitimate scientists working in the field. Whether this is 'many' or not depends on how you define that term. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there are a few, they are the ones publishing the negative results. I already mentioned Chris French, for example. Guy (Help!) 10:55, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Lede

How about:

Parapsychology is a field of study concerned with the investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena which include telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims. It is often identified as pseudoscience .

Obviously we're not going to remove the term pseudoscience, because so many sources explicitly discussing pseudoscience use parapsychology as an example, but some people above think that chartacterising it unambiguously as pseudoscience, i.e. containing nothing but pseudoscientific work, is tendentious, and there is at least some merit in that. It is possible that some current studies are not, in fact, pseudoscientific (for example they may be negative, or they may simply be sloppy). Guy (Help!) 18:21, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

That's probably alright. I think we ought to be careful not to give too much weight to the fringe within the field. In parapsychology, that's the "not pseudoscience" bits. In any pseudoscience, adherents point to legitimate science and "reasonable" proponents in its history. Homeopathy, cold fusion, and phrenology all got studied at some point... and anyone could still run a legitimate scientific experiment on them... but that doesn't represent the field, that's the fringe, and it doesn't reflect on their status as a pseudoscience today. That said, we should follow the sourcing, and if the sourcing isn't clear, then "often characterized" would be acceptable to sum it up.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:48, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Obviously I agree, the issue is that while by now pretty much 100% of "basic research" into homeopathy is blatant pseudoscience, people above insist that some of the current research into parapsychology is not. I am unconvinced, since I have yet to see any positive result in parapsychology that meets basic standards of scientific rigour, but I think there are still negative results being published, which indicates at least some proper work. Guy (Help!) 22:52, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

You're suggesting that negative results is due to "proper" science, any other results lacks "basic standards of scientific rigour". This is why it is not up to editors to be "convinced" of whether a phenomenon is apparent or not. While I may not believe in paranormal phenomena myself, all editors should be basing their content on SECONDARY sources. --Iantresman (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, at the standard of p=0.05, which is customary for psychology and sociology, one in twenty scientifically rigorous studies will provide a false positive (type I error). So, there is nothing amazing that some scientifically rigorous studies support psi effects. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:50, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, as Ioannidis points out, P=0.05 is a valid test only if the underlying premise is plausible. The chances of a positive being false are dramatically higher when the underlying premise is implausible, as is the case with psi. 86.28.97.168 (talk) 08:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

What Guy is proposing is an improvement. I wonder, however, if it would be possible to express the second sentence in active (rather than passive) voice, while avoiding weasel words...something like "Critics often identify it as a pseudoscience." Or something like that. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:44, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

"Critics" isn't an improvement. "The scientific community" isn't just a "critic". In Guy's sentence, the implied actor is the scientific community, authors and journalists that write about the subject. I'm not sure how to represent that better than Guy has.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:05, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

....Or something like that. Now the 'It' - is that referring to all of parapsychology (including all scholarly, theoretical, historical, field and clinical work) or just experimental parapsychology? Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

All. The whole field is "often identified as pseudoscience". The question is whether the times it isn't are the minority or the fringe. I'm not sure what the answer is to that question.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, there is both an art and a science of parapsychology. For instance, when an anthropologist or a religious scholar writes about parapsychology (i.e. comparing cross-cultural beliefs and practices) or a philosopher writes about phenomenological models of psi, I don't think those would be considered pseudoscholarship. What if the lede said something like this:

Parapsychology is a field of study concerned with the investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena which include telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims. Parapsychological research involves a variety of methods including laboratory and case studies, as well as scholarly, analytical, and theoretical research. Efforts to establish the existence of these phenomena experimentally have often been identified as pseudoscience. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:08, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

No, that significantly implies that parapsycholoy engages in scientific research before saying it is pseudoscience. The two are in conflict.   — Jess· Δ♥ 02:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

You do understand that the words "research", "case study", "scholarly", "analytical" and "theoretical" are not synonyms for science, right? A good number of these approaches (i.e. cross-cultural studies of beliefs) do not even attempt to prove psi. And scientific or pseudoscientific, at least some parapsychologists are employed in laboratories. These folks don't do their research in huts. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:25, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I saw a very interesting talk by Chris French in which he argued that the field of parapsychology is not itself pseudoscience, despite its use of unverifiable concepts, but that much of the work done in the field is pseudoscientific. He acknowledged that most people would probably be unpersuaded by this argument since it involved discounting the great majority of published work in the field and focusing only on the minority which is robustly conducted (and almost uniformly negative). Guy (Help!) 09:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

"It is often identified as pseudoscience" seems satisfactory. I'm doubtful of some of the sources though, which I mentioned above[16]. --Iantresman (talk) 10:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Any suggestions for better ones? Guy (Help!) 10:53, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind "often identified as" or better yet, "most often identified as", to better indicate the overwhelming majority who identify it as pseudoscience. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:21, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Pseudoscience dispute?

So now that we have mentioned that parapsychology "is often identified as pseudoscience"[17] based on a number of sources, does that mean we can use sources of similar quality from academics/scientists of similar learning, to mention that it is sometimes disputed that parapsychology is a pseudoscience? --Iantresman (talk) 10:49, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Why would we? That much is obvious from the current wording. We'd also have to be extremly careful not to include nutters. Sheldrake swears blind it's science, but he would not know good science if it bit him on the arse. Guy (Help!) 10:54, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Because sources may said so. If we can't include nutters, can we include people who identify as Christians, Jews, and Muslims? (other religions are available) --Iantresman (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Frankly, saying that some people claim it's not pseudoscience undermines it rather than legitimising it. It also seems redundant given the existing wording and the rather obvious core problem for the entire field: it's hard to study things that don't exist. Guy (Help!) 12:21, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Have to smile, arguing that something does not exist, by declining to look at good sources that may exist. Reminds me of the Galileo affair and those who refused to look through his telescope.

"If you are familiar with multiple credible sources on a subject and they are significantly different from each other, you may realize that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines support reporting from some or all of the sources" - WP:CHERRYPICKING

--Iantresman (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Here's a complete list of all papers ever published that provide repeatable proof of the objectively tested existence of psychic powers, of any kind:

 

I didn't miss any.

Given the amount of work that's been done, and the number of papers that have been published and debunked, I think that we would know by now. As Chris French puts it, when they designed the LHC they did not take psychic powers into account.

So, psi does not exist is a robust statement of the evidence for the existence of psi. Any researcher could change it tomorrow (all science being provisional) by providing a single irrefutable experimental demonstration of it, but the people active int he field seem not to be terribly interested in that, according tot he available evidence. Either that or they know deep down that they can't. Guy (Help!) 18:07, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

In response to Iantresman - Daisie Radner, Michael Radner's book (1982). Science and Unreason apparently lists a number of important reasons why parapsychology is a pseudoscience, I have ordered this book, so will clarify if the source has been used correctly/and or expand the information from it. JuliaHunter (talk) 02:10, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

I have no dispute that a number of sources list parapsychology as a pseudoscience, and am more than happy to attribute them, if they are good sources, per WP:V. The issue I have is that just because a number of individuals consider parapsychology to be pseudoscience, doesn't make it a fact for various reasons, such as (a) the Demarcation problem (b) that because some people may be "practising" parapsychology in a pseudoscientific manner, doesn't mean that all investigators are doing so (c) there are various university-affiliated groups who are researching parapsychology (eg. Koestler Parapsychology Unit at University of Edinburgh) (d) Parapsychological Association affiliated to the AAAS. All of these are different views of parapsychology, even if we may personally consider some of the phenomena to be bunkum. --Iantresman (talk) 09:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Bunge Pseudoscience Ref Deletion

The Bunge Reference (Mario Bunge. (1987). Why Parapsychology Cannot Become a Science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10: 576-577.) should be removed as a source supporting the pseudoscience characterization because it has been cherry-picked from that issue. Elsewhere in the issue there is a pro psi article by Palmer and Rao, and an anti-psi article by Alcock. In the commentary section, there is the anti psi comment by Bunge, but there are many pro-psi as science commentaries as well, including those of Irvin Child, past chair of the Dept. of Psychology at Yale, Victor Adamenko, Charles Akers, and the very eminent physicist Olivier Costa de Beauregard, among others.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences is one of the top psychology journals of the field and this issue would be a great source for a more nuanced discussion of the demarcation problem, but using it to support a single point of view is WP:Cherrypicking at its worst. I prefer not edit the Parapsychology article directly because of my potential COI, but if someone else were to do the honors of deleting it (or expanding the lede), it would be much appreciated. Thanks. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 16:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

It's a valid reference. If you want to propose other content based on other valid references then feel free, just as long as you don't go over the line into attempting to state, in Wikipedia's voice, that psi actually exists, because there is no credible evidence it does. Guy (Help!) 18:03, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

If it's a valid reference, then the other references offering a different point of view, in the same compilation are also valid, but apparently they have all been excluded per WP:Cherrypicking. --Iantresman (talk) 21:20, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I will examine the issue more closely and propose a change, but in the meantime, Guy - would you agree that a statement saying that "some prominent members of scientific community regard the field of parapsychology to be scientific" would not be the same as saying that psi is real? If so, we may be on the same page. I think it would be irresponsible to give the impression that the existence of psi has been demonstrated and accepted by the scientific community. If it was, we'd be living in a much different world. Annalisa Ventola _{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:31, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Annalisa I don't think you should be accusing Wikipedia editors of cherrypicking, look at your own parapsychology list that you recently created[18], you deliberately leave out any of the skeptical papers debunking those articles or any of the papers negative for parapsychology. JuliaHunter (talk) 04:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

We don't only care that an idea has been published. We also care whether that idea is supported by the relevant academic community. "Psi existing" has no support in the academic community. "Psi not existing" does. We certainly can't say "some prominent members of scientific community regard the field of parapsychology to be scientific", per your proposal, because that is a fringe position, at best.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:14, 1 March 2016 (UTC)