Parapsychology

From RationalWiki

Parapsychology is the study of supposed paranormal phenomenon involving the human mind. This includes such things as psychokinesis, clairvoyance, and telepathy.

The goal is to apply the rigors of the scientific method and the advancements learned in studying the human mind learned in psychology to the world of the paranormal. In practice most of the experiments are of very poor quality design. They use poor controls (if any at all), usually have small sample sizes, ill defined terms and procedures, and rarely apply the concepts of double-blind studies.

[edit] Specific programs

The most famous example of bona fide parapsychology is probably the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR). PEAR attempted to prove that human thought could manipulate the functioning of machines. They used devices designed to generate random phenomena, and then had subjects focus on disrupting that random pattern. They claimed to have shown that the experimental group of subjects focusing on disruption made the machine perform non-randomly in the direction the person was focusing. However, review of their procedures and data put that conclusion into serious doubt. All of the "effect" were witnessed by a single observer, who was a member of the lab. The PEAR group was recently shut down and is no longer in operation.

Mention must also be made of Joseph B. Rhine, a professor at Duke University in the mid-20th century, who did extensive work on parapsychology and was responsible to a great degree for the field's sloppy protocol design. Rhine designed a special deck of cards containing five visually distinct shapes for use in telepathy and clairvoyance experiments, but also seemed blind to the consistent failure of experiments done under proper controls.

Parapsychology is a pseudoscience due to its continuous lack of verifiable results.

[edit] Further reading

• Gardner, Martin, Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus, 1981.