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== Gost Arcologist ==
== The Problem of Materialist Bias ==


What is the study of Spirit, monster, Alen are called what Arcologist ] (]) 12:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
The current page entry for this subject is inaccurate and not in accordance with Misplaced Pages'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.


:Suggest deleting talk topic. This is not a discussion forum. ] (]) 04:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
(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.)


== Suggestion to include balanced and well-informed reference to the recognition of parapsychology by AAAS. ==
(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.


As noted in the discussion following from @](talk), it would be more neutral to provide information on both sides of the scientific debate on parapsychology at the get-go instead of solely references to its criticism. The American Academy for the Advancement of Science, which is the premiere scientific consortium in the world (as well as the APA), openly recognizes the exploration of parapsychological phenomena as a legitimate field of scientific inquiry. I also added references to its criticism in the first paragraph and at the end of the relevant paragraph. Here are my suggested additions to the introduction; I welcome alternative viewpoints and discussion: ] (]) 03:58, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
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. <small><span class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 01:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
::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?--] (]) 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.] (]) 22:11, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


:I agree that the text you proposed is more neutral, balanced, and informative. Well written too.
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. ] (]) 01:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
:The adjective "parapsychic" doesn't seem to get much use. Might be better to say "The most prominent research society in parapsychology today. . ."
:Cordially, ] (]) 10:34, 17 September 2024 (UTC)


::We have to edit within the bounds of ]: we have to state in the voice of Misplaced Pages that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. ] (]) 15:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
: ] 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.


:::This is incorrect. We have to state what is supported by evidence, not continue to support an erroneous foregone conclusion. I have therefore restored LetoDidac's more neutral edit. ] | ] 07:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
: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 Misplaced Pages just with our minds but it don't happen. There is no conspiracy to suppress this on Misplaced Pages 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. ] (]) 02:14, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
::::In the interest of finding a consensus, I propose:
::The statement 'there is not a shred of evidence' is often made, but is not correct. See for example ], 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 ], 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. --] (]) 18:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
::::----
::::'''Parapsychology''' (or psi research) is the study of alleged ] phenomena (such as (], ], ], ], ], and ]) and some other ] claims, for example, those related to ], ], ], etc.<ref name="Stuckrad 2007">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2007 |title=Parapsychology |encyclopedia=The Brill Dictionary of Religion |publisher=] |location=] and ] |last=Schmidt |first=Joachim |editor-last=von Stuckrad |editor-first=Kocku |editor-link=Kocku von Stuckrad |doi=10.1163/1872-5287_bdr_COM_00339 |isbn=978-9004124332}}</ref>
::::The subject areas studied by parapsychology are highly controversial and lack general acceptance in the scientific community. Critics argue that the field is ] because the very phenomena under consideration are implausible and violate the rules of nature, and because parapsychologists have failed to produce evidence for paranormal phenomena that is robust and replicable enough to satisfy the wider scientific community.<ref> {{cite journal |last1=Reber |first1=Arthur |last2=Alcock |first2=James |date=2019 |title=Why parapsychological claims cannot be true |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/2019/07/why-parapsychological-claims-cannot-be-true/ |journal=] |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=8–10 |quote=The lure of the 'para'-normal emerges, it seems, from the belief that there is more to our existence than can be accounted for in terms of flesh, blood, atoms, and molecules. A century and a half of parapsychological research has failed to yield evidence to support that belief.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gross |first1=Paul R. |url=https://archive.org/details/flightfromscienc0000unse_w3d8/page/565 |title=The Flight from Science and Reason |last2=Levitt |first2=Norman |last3=Lewis |first3=Martin W. |date=1996 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0801856761 |location=New York |page=565 |quote=The overwhelming majority of scientists consider parapsychology, by whatever name, to be pseudoscience.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Friedlander |first=Michael W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K8TaAAAAMAAJ |title=At the Fringes of Science |date=1998 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0813322001 |location=Boulder, Colorado |page=119 |quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pigliucci |first1=Massimo |title=Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem |last2=Boudry |first2=Maarten |date=2013 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0226051963 |location=Chicago |page=158 |hdl=1854/LU-3161824 |quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Alcock |first=James |title=Parapsychology – Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective |date=1981 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0080257730 |location=Oxford, England |pages=194–196}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hacking |first=Ian |date=1993 |title=Some reasons for not taking parapsychology very seriously |journal=] |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=] |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=587–594 |doi=10.1017/s0012217300012361 |s2cid=170157379}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bierman |first1=DJ |last2=Spottiswoode |first2=JP |last3=Bijl |first3=A |date=2016 |title=Testing for Questionable Research Practices in a Meta-Analysis: An Example from Experimental Parapsychology |journal=] |location=San Francisco, California |publisher=] |volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=e0153049 |bibcode=2016PLoSO..1153049B |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0153049 |pmc=4856278 |pmid=27144889 |quote=We consider in the context of a meta-analysis database of Ganzfeld–telepathy experiments from the field of experimental parapsychology. The Ganzfeld database is particularly suitable for this study, because the parapsychological phenomenon it investigates is widely believed to be nonexistent ... results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs. |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Carroll |first=Sean |date=May 11, 2016 |title=Thinking About Psychic Powers Helps Us Think About Science |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/05/thinking-psychic-powers-helps-us-think-science/ |magazine=] |publisher=] |location=New York City |quote=Today, parapsychology is not taken seriously by most academics.}}</ref> Its proponents argue that claims of seemingly paranormal experiences should be studied and treated in the same way as other experiences (that is, within the context of experience, health and illness), and that there must be a field of study to investigate, assess, and disseminate information about these experiences.
::::The incidence of parapsychology related research in major and mainstream psychology journals has increased somewhat over recent years, but is still relatively rare. <ref>{{cite journal | last = Cardeña | first = E. | year = 2018 | title = The experimental evidence for parapsychological phenomena: A review | journal = American Psychologist | volume = 73 | issue = 5 | pages = 663–677 | doi = 10.1037/amp0000236 |quote=This article clarifies the domain of psi, summarizes recent theories from physics and psychology that present psi phenomena as at least plausible, and then provides an overview of recent/updated meta-analyses. The evidence provides cumulative support for the reality of psi, which cannot be readily explained away by the quality of the studies, fraud, selective reporting, experimental or analytical incompetence, or other frequent criticisms. The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them. }}</ref> <ref>{{cite journal | last = Bem | first = D. J. | year = 2011 | title = Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect | journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 100 | pages = 407–425 | doi = 10.1037/a0021524 |quote=This article reports 9 experiments, involving more than 1,000 participants, that test for retroactive influence by "time-reversing" well-established psychological effects so that the individual's responses are obtained before the putatively causal stimulus events occur.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Storm | first1 = L. | last2 = Tressoldi | first2 = P. E. | last3 = Di Risio | first3 = L. | year = 2010 | title = A meta-analysis with nothing to hide: Reply to Hyman (2010) | journal = Psychological Bulletin | volume = 136 | pages = 491–494 | doi = 10.1037/a0019840 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Storm | first1 = L. | last2 = Tressoldi | first2 = P. E. | last3 = Di Risio | first3 = L. | year = 2010 | title = Meta-analysis of free-response studies, 1992–2008: Assessing the noise reduction model in parapsychology | journal = Psychological Bulletin | volume = 136 | pages = 471–485 | doi = 10.1037/a0019457 |quote=The mean effect size value of the ganzfeld database was significantly higher than the mean effect size of the standard free-response database but was not higher than the effect size of the nonganzfeld noise reduction database.We also found that selected participants (believers in the paranormal, meditators, etc.) had a performance advantage over unselected participants, but only if they were in the ganzfeld condition.}}</ref><ref> {{cite journal |last1=Exline |first1=Julie J. |last2=Wilt |first2=Joshua A. |title=Supernatural Attributions: Seeing God, the Devil, Demons, Spirits, Fate, and Karma as Causes of Events |journal=Annual Review of Clinical Psychology |volume=19 |pages=461-487 |date=May 2023 |doi=10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-080921-081114 |url=https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-080921-081114 |access-date=December 12, 2024 |quote=This article provides a broad overview of research on supernatural beliefs and attributions with special attention to their psychological relevance: They can serve as coping resources, sources of distress, psychopathology signals, moral guides, and decision-making tools... Our aim is to provide clinical psychologists with an entry point into this rich, fascinating, and often overlooked literature.}}</ref> ] (]) 01:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Turning this into a Side A says 'Yes' and Side B says 'No' as this proposal does is ], and we are specifically not supposed to do that. ] (]) 01:33, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::MrOllie, don't you think in this case, the suggestion is giving clear weight to the idea that they are not widely accepted? The A side is substantiated with arguments and sources about parapsychology having inconsistent findings and being implausible, while the B side is just giving a moral argument that it is ok to have a field of study for human experiences regardless of whether they are plausible or not. It is not even trying to claim that the effects are real. Does that seem like balance to you? ] (]) 07:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It seems like an attempt to cast the scientific mainstream as one of two competing opinions, and that is counter to Misplaced Pages's policy requirements. ] (]) 14:18, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Regardless of how any given editor feels about it, ] is, in fact, policy. ] (]) 13:03, 5 December 2024 (UTC)


---
::: The university textbook you talk about is a book that is supportive of parapsychology co-edited by ]. 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. ] (]) 20:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


'''Parapsychology''' (or psi research) is the study of alleged ] phenomena, such as (], ], ], ], ], and ]) and some other ] claims, for example, those related to ], ], ], etc.<ref name="Stuckrad 2007">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2007 |title=Parapsychology |encyclopedia=The Brill Dictionary of Religion |publisher=] |location=] and ] |last=Schmidt |first=Joachim |editor-last=von Stuckrad |editor-first=Kocku |editor-link=Kocku von Stuckrad |doi=10.1163/1872-5287_bdr_COM_00339 |isbn=978-9004124332}}</ref> The findings of parapsychology are highly controversial and lack general acceptance in the scientific community.
:::: Happy 15th. Birthday Misplaced Pages! 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. --] (]) 20:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
::::: {{ping|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? <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. --] (]) 16:17, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::::It seems that it's about ]s and ]s.--] (]) 17:59, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::It's irrelevant what other editors consider to be pseudoscience. We go by reliable sources. Period. --] (]) 14:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::: Indeed. I am trying to understand why Prof. Josephson rejects the reliable sources in characterising this as pseudoscience. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. --] (]) 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. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 22:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


The most prominent parapsychic research society today is the ], which is a member society of the ](AAAS), the umbrella association of American scientific professional societies. The AAAS recognises parapsychology as a legitimate field of study because it follows accepted scientific procedures such as ], double blinds, and other standard scientific devices; because of the highly controversial nature of the topic, the AAAS submitted the decision to a vote, which landed 5:1 in favor of recognition. <ref> {{cite web |last=Dean |first=E. Douglas |date=1969 |title=Parapsychology is now a recognised science. How it was done. |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000400040024-0.pdf |access-date=2024-09-11 |work=Newark College of Engineering |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency}} </ref> In 2018, a comprehensive review of the discipline was published in a peer-reviewed article of ], a major psychology journal. <ref> {{cite journal |last=Cardeña |first=E. |year=2018 |title=The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review |journal=American Psychologist |volume=73 |issue=5 |pages=663–677 |doi=10.1037/amp0000236}} </ref> Despite recognition of its attempted scientific procedures, the actual findings of the discipline are still considered implausible by many, if not most scientists, and critics often dismiss them as ].<ref> name="AlcockSI">{{cite journal |last1=Reber |first1=Arthur |last2=Alcock |first2=James |date=2019 |title=Why parapsychological claims cannot be true |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/2019/07/why-parapsychological-claims-cannot-be-true/ |journal=] |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=8–10 |quote=The lure of the 'para'-normal emerges, it seems, from the belief that there is more to our existence than can be accounted for in terms of flesh, blood, atoms, and molecules. A century and a half of parapsychological research has failed to yield evidence to support that belief.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gross |first1=Paul R. |url=https://archive.org/details/flightfromscienc0000unse_w3d8/page/565 |title=The Flight from Science and Reason |last2=Levitt |first2=Norman |last3=Lewis |first3=Martin W. |date=1996 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0801856761 |location=New York |page=565 |quote=The overwhelming majority of scientists consider parapsychology, by whatever name, to be pseudoscience.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Friedlander |first=Michael W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K8TaAAAAMAAJ |title=At the Fringes of Science |date=1998 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0813322001 |location=Boulder, Colorado |page=119 |quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pigliucci |first1=Massimo |title=Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem |last2=Boudry |first2=Maarten |date=2013 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0226051963 |location=Chicago |page=158 |hdl=1854/LU-3161824 |quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Alcock |first=James |title=Parapsychology – Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective |date=1981 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0080257730 |location=Oxford, England |pages=194–196}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hacking |first=Ian |date=1993 |title=Some reasons for not taking parapsychology very seriously |journal=] |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=] |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=587–594 |doi=10.1017/s0012217300012361 |s2cid=170157379}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bierman |first1=DJ |last2=Spottiswoode |first2=JP |last3=Bijl |first3=A |date=2016 |title=Testing for Questionable Research Practices in a Meta-Analysis: An Example from Experimental Parapsychology |journal=] |location=San Francisco, California |publisher=] |volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=e0153049 |bibcode=2016PLoSO..1153049B |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0153049 |pmc=4856278 |pmid=27144889 |quote=We consider in the context of a meta-analysis database of Ganzfeld–telepathy experiments from the field of experimental parapsychology. The Ganzfeld database is particularly suitable for this study, because the parapsychological phenomenon it investigates is widely believed to be nonexistent ... results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs. |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Carroll |first=Sean |date=May 11, 2016 |title=Thinking About Psychic Powers Helps Us Think About Science |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/05/thinking-psychic-powers-helps-us-think-science/ |magazine=] |publisher=] |location=New York City |quote=Today, parapsychology is not taken seriously by most academics.}}</ref>
::::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. --] (]) 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. --] (]) 21:57, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

:{{od|::::}}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 ]. Do we go by one small sub-organization, or by the {{strike|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. ] (]) 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.<br>'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?<br>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. --] (]) 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 ] where it belongs. Using that detail to indirectly support the claim that parapsychology isn't pseudoscience in the article would be ]. 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. ] (]) 00:59, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

::::<small>I assume you meant to write ' ''parapsychology'' has been ... regarded as a pseudoscience.'</small> Moving on, look at the investigation<ref name="ESP survey">{{cite journal|last1=McClenon|first1=James|title=A Survey of Elite Scientists: Their Attitudes Toward ESP and Parapsychology|journal=The Journal of Parapsychology|date=Jun 1, 1982|volume=46|issue=2|page=127|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232523907_A_survey_of_elite_scientists_Their_attitudes_toward_ESP_and_parapsychology|accessdate=23 January 2016}}</ref> ''A survey of elite scientists: Their attitudes toward ESP and parapsychology:''<blockquote>''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''</blockquote>Having 29% of high-level members of the AAAS consider ESP to be real hardly suggests pseudoscience.<br>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. --] (]) 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 : <ref>http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/experiments.html</ref> . 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. <ref>http://web.arizona.edu/~vas/358/doespsi.pdf</ref> 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. <ref>http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm</ref> <ref>http://parapsych.org/articles/36/55/what_is_the_stateoftheevidence.aspx</ref> 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 Misplaced Pages 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 <ref>http://wikipediocracy.com/</ref>&nbsp;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.” <ref>http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/bio.html</ref>

The fair thing to do is to at least put up a Disputed Neutrality tag up. ] (]) 01:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
{{reflist-talk}}
: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 ] (and ]...) This isn't the place to talk about PEAR, but ] 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". ] has almost nothing to do with parapsychology or ] as a philosophy, it's about ''materials'': metals, minerals, plastics, that kind of thing. ] (]) 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 ]", 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. ] (]) 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.<br>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. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 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. --] (]) 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.] (]) 01:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

::::Basically, the question boils down to ]. In some articles, the subject is considered to be a pseudoscience by a large minority, and it is appropriate to say "{{tq|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 "{{tq|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 ] and ]. Reviewing both, you'll find the latter even uses parapsychology as an example of pseudoscience. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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 <ref>Tucker, Jim B., M.D., Life Before Life. St. Martin's Press, NY, 2005. p. 195-196</ref>. 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 <ref>http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf (from Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 407-425. © 2011 American Psychological Association)</ref> .
A study confirming mind and matter interactions by the French physician-researcher, Jean Barry: <ref>Barry J. “General and comparative study of the psychokinetic effect on a fungus culture,” Journal of Parapsychology 32:237-243, 1968.</ref>
A study confirming the reality of distance healing: Cypher-Springer, Shelley; Eicher, Dorothea J. <ref>http://search.proquest.com/openview/dfbead9d0b25356a3512f8e5694526eb/1?pq-origsite=gscholar ( “Effects of a prayer circle on a moribund premature infant.” Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicinevol.5, no.2 (Mar 1999): p. 120.)</ref>
A study by R.A. McConnell also indicates that “the phenomena are real, and they can be investigated.” <ref>McConnell, R.A. “Psi Phenomena and Methodology.” American Scientist, Vol. 45, No. 2 (MARCH 1957): p. 136</ref>
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.<ref>Tucker, Jim B., M.D., Life Before Life. St. Martin's Press, NY, 2005. p 188-189.</ref>
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 <ref>Tucker, Jim B., M.D., Life Before Life. St. Martin's Press, NY, 2005. p.191-192.</ref>. 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.” <ref>McConnell, R.A. “Psi Phenomena and Methodology.” American Scientist, Vol. 45, No. 2 (MARCH 1957): p. 136</ref>. Moreover, researchers argue that there have indeed been replications: <ref>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cassandra-vieten/esp-evidence_b_795366.html</ref> . 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 Misplaced Pages and something needs to be done about it. Moreover this is not just an affront to wikipedia but an affront to science. ] (]) 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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 05:46, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
::OK then. '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). --] (]) 09:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Jess, you might find Misplaced Pages's ArbCom ruling on this topic both brief and useful for framing this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal#Conflation_of_parapsychology_with_unscientific_concepts ] (]) 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 ]. 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, "{{tq|is investigation of ''ESP'' a legitimate scientific ''undertaking''}}" is a distinctly different question than "{{tq|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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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?] (]) 10:30, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::: For the purposes of Misplaced Pages, parapsychology is not considered to be an independent and unbiased ] source of commentary about itself. This applies to most subjects on Misplaced Pages and especially with fringe topics, so we follow ] here. Also I should point out that has a member listing with the AAAS. It does not serve as validation of a member's "scientific" status. - ] (]) 14:28, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::: Indeed. Misplaced Pages 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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). --] (]) 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 Misplaced Pages described as a "reality-based encyclopaedia", but a verifiable source-based one, which is why good editors can easily describe non-reality such as ]s or utter ] without any issues whatsoever. --] (]) 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. - ] (]) 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 ] 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. --] (]) 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.<ref>Barry J. “General and comparative study of the psychokinetic effect on a fungus culture,” Journal of Parapsychology 32 (94),1968. p237-243.</ref> A long distance version of this experiment was replicated by researches at the University of Tennessee.<ref>Teddler, W.H. And Monty, M.L. “Exploration of a long-distance PK: a conceptual replication of the influence on a biological system,” Research in Parapsychology, 1980.</ref> Similar findings were confirmed by research was carried out by Carroll Nash, at St. Joseph's University, on E coli microbes.<ref>Nash, C.B. “Test of Psychokinetic Control of Bacterial Mutation,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 78, 1984, p. 145-152.</ref> 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. <ref>Radin, D. “Beyond Belief: Exploring Interaction Among Mind, Body and Environment,” Subtle Energies & Energy and Medicine, 2 (3), 1992, p. 1-40.</ref> 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.<ref>Grad, B. “Dimensions in “Some Biological Effects of the Laying on of Hands” and Their Implications.” Dimensions in Wholistic Healing: New Frontiers in the Treatment of the Whole Person, Nelson Hall, Chicago, 1979.</ref> A number of other scientists confirmed the findings.<ref>Pyatnitsky L.N., and Fonkin, V.A. “Human Consciousness Influence on Water Structure,” Journal of Scientific Exploration, 9 (1), 1995, p. 89.</ref>; <ref>Rein G. and McCraty R. “Structural Changes in Water and DNA Associated with new Physiologically Measurable States,” Journal of Scientific Exploration , 8 (3), 1994, 438-9.</ref> 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,<ref>Jahn R.J. et. al. “Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Prestated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12- Year Program.” Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11, 1997, p.345-67.</ref> These results were replicated independently by 68 other investigators!<ref>Jahn R.J. et. al. “Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Prestated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12- Year Program.” Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11, 1997, p345-67.</ref> <ref>Radin, Dean, and Nelson, Roger. “Evidence for Consciousness-related Anomalies in Random Physical Systems,” Foundations of Physics, 19 (12 ), 1989: 1499-1514.</ref> + a study that measured electrical frequencies emitted by distance healers. <ref>Zimmerman, J. “New Technologies Detect Effects in Healing Hands,” Brain/Mind Bulletin, 10 (2), 1985, p.20-23.</ref> was confirmed by a similar study.<ref>Seto, A., et al. “Detection of extraordinary Large Biomagnetic Field Strength from the Human Hand during External Qi Emission,” Acupuncture and Electrotherapeutics Research International, 17, 1992, p 75-94.</ref> Furthermore, I was told 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 Pratt and Woodruff <ref>Pratt, J.G., and Woodruff, J.L.. “Size of Stimulus Symbols in Extrasensory Perception.” Journal of Parapsychology., 3. , 1939. 121-158</ref> 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.” <ref>Rhine, J.B. and Pratt, J.G. Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Charles C Thomas, 1957. p 46-47.</ref> 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.” <ref>Rhine, J.B. and Pratt, J.G. Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Charles C Thomas, 1957. p.48.</ref> 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.<ref>Rhine, J.B. and Pratt, J.G. Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Charles C Thomas, 1957. p48</ref>. Therefore, we are not just talking about isolated cases, but numerous studies that clearly indicate the reality of the phenomena.<ref>Rhine, J.B. and Pratt, J.G. Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Charles C Thomas, 1957. p50.</ref> 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.<ref>Rhine, J.B. and Pratt, J.G. Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Charles C Thomas, 1957. p62.</ref>
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. ] (]) 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. ] (]) 18:35, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
:Let's say that there is a correlation between electricity consumption in ] and the flow rate of ]. What does that prove? Nothing, I guess. It's just a spurious statistical correlation having no plausible causal mechanism. ] (]) 00:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
{{reflist talk}} {{reflist talk}}


:According to the ] in science wins he/she who is able to convince most skeptics. This has not happened for parapsychology. If Albert Einstein had the success which parapsychology had till now, he would have been largely forgotten. ] (]) 04:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
== Lead Style ==

I suggest that we aspire to the Misplaced Pages manual of style and examine how we might better introduce this article using ]. 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:

:''']''' is the study of ] events including ], ], and ] 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 ]s to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation ]s to test for extrasensory perception, and research trials conducted under contract to the United States government to investigate the possibility of ]. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the ], active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting scientists to accept their research, and science educators and scientists have called the subject ]. Scientists such as ], ], and ] 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 ] has not accepted evidence of the existence of the paranormal.

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

:''']''' is the study of ] events including ], ], and ] after death. Parapsychological research involves a variety of methods including laboratory research and fieldwork, which '''<s>is</s> have been''' conducted at privately funded laboratories and some universities around the world '''<s>though there are fewer universities actively sponsoring parapsychological research today than in years past</s> (this sounds like original research).''' Experiments conducted by parapsychologists have included the use of ]s to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation ]s to test for extrasensory perception, and research trials conducted under contract to the United States government to investigate the possibility of ]. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the ], active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting '''other''' scientists to accept their research, and '''<s>science educators and scientists</s> counter-advocates''' have called the subject ]. '''<s>Scientists</s> Psychologists'''such as ] '''<s>],</s>''' and ] have criticized both the methods used and the results obtained in parapsychology. '''<s>Skeptical researchers</s> 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''' ] has not accepted evidence of the existence of the paranormal.

Thoughts? ] (]) 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. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 21:12, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

::: The scientific consensus is that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. Misplaced Pages does not give equal weight to fringe views. Look at the lead of ] or ]. ] (]) 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. ] (]) 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 ], the lead's function is to summarize the article's most important contents, not subtly argue a more sympathetic view for its subject. - ] (])

:::::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 "{{tq|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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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? ] (]) 04:55, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

:::I don't see any source suggesting "{{tq|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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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.<br><small>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!</small> --] (]) 10:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
::::I also included a link to the . The table is more relevant to the pseudoscience issue than the abstract, which may be the source of your comment above. --] (]) 10:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

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

:''']''' is the study of ] events including ], ], and ] 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 ]s to test for evidence of psychokinesis, sensory-deprivation ]s to test for extrasensory perception, and studies investigating the possibility of ]. Though recognized as a legitimate scientific field by the ], active parapsychologists have admitted difficulty in getting other scientists to accept their research, and some regard the field as ]. 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 ] 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? ] (]) 15:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

:I'm prepared to accept that (subject to correction of the typo ''psuedoscienfic''!). --] (]) 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. ] (]) 16:20, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

:::The new version is significantly worse, for several reasons I've already indicated. @Brian, where does McClenon indicate "{{tq|69% of elite scientists considered parapsychology to be a legitimate scientific field}}"? Thanks. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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. - ] (]) 16:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
{{od}}I see no particular reason to change the lede and there is no consensus discussion that this is something we should do. ] (]) 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? --] (]) 17:37, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
:::I see more than one person who is opposed to the change. Let's deal in actual fact. ] (]) 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?? --] (]) 18:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Did I write that? ] (]) 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? --] (]) 18:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Indeed, ] is more complicated than just counting accounts. ] (]) 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/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 ]. ] (]) 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 ] today (not a decade ago) should be a pretty clear indicator that things have, indeed, changed since 2008. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 20:54, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::A parenthetical example on ] does not merit more consideration than a clear, concise, and thorough ArbCom ruling. ] (]) 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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 21:13, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::::Just an FYI that I've suggested at the talk page at ] 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. ] (]) 21:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::::: ] is a well known psychic believer. No evidence she represents the mainstream scientific community. ] (]) 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. ] (]) 22:25, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::::::: No it is not an attack it is just factual. Jessica Utts believes in psychic powers, ] and other silly things. David Marks discusses this in his book ]. Basically the only people you can cite are fringe paranormal believers. You have no case at all. ] (]) 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? --] (]) 22:13, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

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

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

:::JuliaHunter - your lack of civility toward your fellow Misplaced Pages editors has been noted. ] (]) 18:11, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

:::''Ad hominem'' comments such as the above are a violation of WP principles, and should be removed. --] (]) 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 :) ] (]) 10:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

::::: ] 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. --] (]) 20:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

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

] (]) 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. --] (]) 10:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
::::Why didn't you publish in ]? After all, if we are to believe the parapsychology supporters that are here present, the organization which publishes that journal is supportive of parapsychology! ] (]) 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. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 22:33, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
:::You're not a scientist, are you? --] (]) 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. ] (]) 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 ].<br>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? --] (]) 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. ] (]) 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 {{t|POV}} tag to the article. --] (]) 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). ] (]) 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. --] (]) 10:30, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

::: This is boring, your editing history on Misplaced Pages seems to be just trying to stir up controversies on various fringe topic talk-pages (you did the same on your friend ], 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. ] (]) 10:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

:::: It is not the case that "nobody cares." Lots of people care. They just don't bother with Misplaced Pages 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. <small>Not signed. Come on, SineBot, are you asleep?</small>

:::::Exactly! Well said. --] (]) 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. --] (]) 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 Misplaced Pages: ]. - ] (]) 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. ] (]) 18:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::It's not our fault if all the most reliable ] sources indicate that this "field" of research is either a dead end or plagued by charlatans. ] (]) 21:32, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::::I think editors here tend to ignore evidence that is contrary to their assumptions. ] (]) 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. ] (]) 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 Misplaced Pages, find the Misplaced Pages article on parapsychology to be a shame and a disgrace. This article illustrates the core problem with Misplaced Pages: 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 Misplaced Pages as an enterprise. ] (]) 00:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

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

{{quote|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 ]. ] (]) 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.] · ] 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 ], as explained at ]. ] (]) 01:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
::I dont think that follows.] · ] 01:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
:::While I am not sure whether parapsychology is pseudoscience or fringe science, I think ] say that fringe subjects should be clearly labeled as fringe, not presented as having mainstream acceptance. ] (]) 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".] · ] 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. ] (]) 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. ] · ] 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 ]; parapsychology relies almost exclusively on "{{tq|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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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). ] (]) 04:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::::::Neither of those sources are high-quality. ] (]) 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/?utm_source=about-box&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=Impact-Message). The ''Journal of Statistics Education'' is published by the ]. 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. ] (]) 14:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
{{od}}Laughably unconvincing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is an open access journal with the ]. As for Utts' self-congratulatory hagiography, what would you have us do with that? Treat it as though she wasn't ]? 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! ] (]) 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. --] (]) 15:40, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
::. You really have no idea, do you? ] (]) 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.] · ] 16:33, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::Obviously, this is the ] 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 ]. Go ahead and e-mail Beall what he thinks about this paper if you don't believe me that his critique is relevant. ] (]) 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. --] (]) 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? ] (]) 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'. --] (]) 15:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
:Hi Brian. See ] -] ] 15:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

::Hi Roxy, thanks for pointing this out:<blockquote>''Editors who maintain a neutral, detached, and civil attitude can usually reach consensus on an article through the process described above.''</blockquote>It would be marvellous if were to work out like that, but I'll be amazed if it does. --] (]) 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. -] ] 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. --] (]) 18:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Why don't you try it out? I would start with just about anyone in the physics department. ] (]) 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! --] (]) 21:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Misplaced Pages 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. ] (]) 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! --] (]) 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! ] (]) 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/Brian_Josephson#Nobel_Prize. ] (]) 04:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::Nobel Prizes are not inoculations against magical thinking. ] (]) 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.<br>(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!).<br>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). --] (]) 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 ] 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. --] (]) 09:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::You live in an agnotological bubble. You are a general laughing stock and should be aware of this. ] (]) 12:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
{{outdent}}
It is quite sad, ], that you find it necessary to laugh in another editor's face, accuse them of making "pseudoscientific claims", and living "in an ]", and what is worse, consider this relevant to the ''contents'' of an article. I consider this insulting, deprecating and uncivil, and no substitute for ], 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 ]). 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. --] (]) 18:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
:Your sympathy for ] is very much in line with the pseudoscience promotion for which you were (and continue to be) sanctioned. ] (]) 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 ] --] (]) 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. ] (]) 19:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
::::] --] (]) 19:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::]. ] (]) 19:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Surely you're joking, Mr. jps. You can ''not'' be serious! --] (]) 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 ] 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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 ]), many of them qualified scientists with doctorates, which seems to contradict your statement, including:
::* (1893-1984)
::* at the University of Edinburgh.
::*, affiliated with the ]
::* at the University of York
::* at Goldsmiths, University of London
::* at the University of Derby
::*And 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 ] in order to maintain ]. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 19:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
::::No, an AAAS affiliate has to meet certain , 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 Misplaced Pages which is interested in verifiability per ]. --] (]) 19:43, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::], 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. ] (]) 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 20:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::::::Very brave of you. I hear that there will be picketers. ] (]) 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

] (]) 18:46, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
:Youtube? ] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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 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."

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. <ref name=MacFarland01-1937>{{Cite journal|title=Extra-sensory perception of normal and distorted symbols|journal=Journal of Parapsychology |date=June,1937 |first=J.D.|last=McFarland |issue= 2|pages=93-101 }}</ref>
<ref name=MacFarland02-1938>{{Cite journal|title=Discrimination shown between experimenters by subjects|journal=Journal of Parapsychology |date=September,1938 |first=James D.|last=McFarland |issue=3 |pages=160-170 }}
</ref> 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." MacFarland never published another article in the Journal of Parapsychology after the fraud was discovered.

] (]) 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.
] (]) 23:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

{{reflist talk}}

== The Use of this Weasel word Pseudoscience in the first Sentence ==

] 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/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. “

]

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.

] (]) 20:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

{{quote|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 Misplaced Pages to venture such projections.|]}}

:Science is organized skepticism, see ]. ] (]) 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

:: ] (]) 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.] · ] 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 ], 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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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.] · ] 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.<br>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). --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 23:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
::: The perspective is that of scientific rationalism. Which is Misplaced Pages'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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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 Misplaced Pages admins behave now?? ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 00:53, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
::::I am sorry but "scientific rationalism" is not Misplaced Pages's perspective - ] failed.] · ] 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. --] (]) 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 ] it is not our task to correct the bias of mainstream science. ] (]) 23:47, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
{{quote|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 ] (]) 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.] · ] 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. ] (]) 23:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
{{od}}
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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. ] · ] 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 09:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
:::Guy says above:<blockquote>'' 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.''</blockquote>
That's a reasonably good definition, so let's see what the ] (a conventional text book, dealing with psychology in general) has to say: <blockquote>''The rigour with which modern parapsychological reasearch is conducted would put to shame the work of many other psychological resarchers.''</blockquote>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. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 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 Misplaced Pages. ] 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 ] and ]. --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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
*"the scientific study of events" merriam-webster
*"field of study that deals with paranormal phenomena" OED
For the record, I don't believe in paranormal phenomena. -] (]) 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 ], objectivity and ]ness.--] (]) 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 ]. Those who self-identify as parapsychologists are, as far as I can tell, pretty much all ]s. 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 ] 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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 ]. I am more than happy to attribute some views that consider the subject to have pseudoscientific characteristics, subject to ] and good sources. --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. --] (]) 15:45, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
::::: In your view. But then, you do have a bit of a history of promoting fringe views on Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages always employs). <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 18:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
{{od}}
I don't promote fringe science, any more than editing articles on World War II would make me a promoter of war.<br>
"It is often identified as pseudoscience" seems satisfactory to me.
"Solid supporting sources"? Just looking at
*"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. --] (]) 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 ], who later with : "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?" --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 15:08, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
::Interesting this mentioning of ] in this context. Is scientific objectivity possible without ]ness? What is the connection between objectivity and analysis of several alternate scientific explanations?--] (]) 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! --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. --] (]) 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.--] (]) 19:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
: And of course Sheldrake was ''completely'' objective in testing his own ideas. Just as ] 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 20:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
::I remember reading somewhere that there are several criteria (about 6) for accepting a ]. 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.--] (]) 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 23:49, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
::Is peer-reviewed content required for characterizing the field as a pseudoscience? ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 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 ] 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. ] suggests we "Ask for a verifiable reference supporting a statement", because I have no idea where you are getting this information from. --] (]) 12:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::So...the questions was, is peer-reviewed content required for characterizing the field as a pseudoscience?] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 15:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::P.S. ] was, for some years, was a member of the ] 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 (). 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 , if you'd like to take a look for yourself. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 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. ] (]) 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. --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 10:55, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

== Lede ==

How about:
: '''Parapsychology''' is a field of study concerned with the investigation of ] and psychic phenomena which include ], ], ], ], ]s, ], ]s, and other paranormal claims. It is often identified as ] .
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). <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. --] (]) 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. ] (]) 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. ] (]) 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 01:05, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


*This proposal is not neutral for a variety of reasons. A lengthy paragraph on the AAAS is not proportionate to the topic, and tucking away the many, many sourced refutations of this supposed consensus with a ]ish "{{tq|Despite...}}" is not appropriate, and goes against ] norms. Emphasizing the 2018 source in this way is a form of editorializing, as well. ] (]) 02:17, 4 December 2024 (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? ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 01:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
*:One reasonable revision would be to remove "Despite recognition of its attempted scientific procedures, " so that the end of the paragraph simply reads: "The actual findings of the discipline are still considered implausible by many, if not most scientists, and critics often dismiss them as pseudoscience."
*:I disagree that discussion of the AAAS decision is not appropriate. An entire field of study - that is, the study of a particular topic - cannot be described as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience refers to unscientific methods and procedures, which in this case scientists in the discipline have addressed with careful experimental deaign over many years and with significant success. The AAS even noted that many well known scientific devices had their birth in Parapsychology. Misplaced Pages and its moderators cannot continue to refer to an entire field of study as PSCI. At best, it is unconscionable with regards to all of the thousands of staff and research participants involved in proving or disproving these studies, and at worst it is criminal misrepresentation. ] (]) 03:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*::For the record, I support this suggestion. ] | ] 03:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:If you can't see a consensus then you can't count. Three editors have agreed that this edit is better than the one you and tgeorgescu are advocating for. Moreover you have reverted the edit without discussion. I suggest, seeing you are in the minority, that you reply to the compromise solution LetoDidac made, which I support. ] | ] 03:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*::This isn't a vote. ] (]) 04:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Seven citations to claim it's pseudoscience is not proportionate either, someone is compensating for lack of quality with quantity, but here we are. ] | ] 03:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Grayfell is entirely correct. This is massively ] weight and the proposal would take the article further from ] - which means that we are supposed to follow what most mainstream, independent sources have to say, not give primacy to the opinion of the AAAS, which (in part) represents parapsychologists. ] (]) 03:57, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:::As MrOllie says, this isn't a vote. Further, local consensus cannot over-rule site-wide consensus on how to treat fringe topics, such as this one. The current wording already is the compromise. These current sources are in-part to dissuade exactly this kind of cherry-picking that is being proposed here. The current consensus has been built up over many years of such discussions (and Morgan Leigh has been involved in some of those, and has previously attempted to overturn this consensus). This consensus was not only formed on this talk page, but also at noticeboards such as ], where this has been raised dozens of times over the years. ] (]) 04:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Pseudoscience is when you accept a belief due to prior held convictions and dogma, instead of genuine scientific curiosity and inquiry. If this is the fifth time that you've argued that parapsychology is 'Fringe' without first reading any of the recent literature reviews published  by the major psychology journals, then I beg that you reflect on this statement. Becoming informed is really not that hard.
::::The cumulative evidence for so-called 'psi' is now so overwhelming, particularly concerning studies of near death experiences, extra-sensory perception and micro-PK, that this article will be in stark opposition to many readers' direct lived and witnessed experience, and thus erode trust in Misplaced Pages. This is not a vote, it is a failure.
::::To be clear, I am not suggesting overturning a consensus to now support so-called 'paranormal' beliefs.  I am supporting to describe a scientific field of study and it's purpose, avoiding sweeping generalisations about its scientific procedures that are not reflective of any of the major journals' views today. ] (]) 06:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I changed the order of your contributions since this is obviously a response to Grayfell.
:::::Your private definition of pseudoscience is not relevant here. Neither is your opinion that the evidence is "overwhelming". We follow not your opinion but reliable sources. Finding tiny effects in huge amounts of data, which tend to disappear over time or when other people do it, are a typical property of Langmuir's ]. Parapsychology is exactly that. --] (]) 09:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I confess I was frustrated by the whole page being reverted. I will go off and think of a way of having an introduction that is well written at the least, and at best is informative for a variety of readers. It is clear to me now that there needs to be a front-focused discussion that there is a lingering debate of whether parapsychology is a valid field of study, including the for and against, like langmiurs criticism. I am an academic, and I am confident I can synthesise the relevant views and write something that will work for all of the editors and also raise the quality of the page. ] (]) 20:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I encourage you in this endeavour. I suggest that you first spend some time reading the archive of this talk page. You will find that many good quality sources have been added to this page by many editors over the years, only to be repeatedly removed. For example consider why Etzel Cardeña is neither mentioned nor cited in this article.
:::::::You might consider if sources that are used to support claims that parapsychology is pseudoscience are in fact indicating the opposite. You might look to see if it is the case that sources that are allowed to be used to support claims against parapsychology are all of a sudden discovered to either not be good sources or accusations of cherry picking appear, when those exact same sources are used to support parapsychological findings.
:::::::You might also like to peruse wikipedia's policies about outdated sources and see if any such sources are being cited in this page. Perhaps you could also draw your attention to if it is the case that sources that are not generally allowed to be cited on wikipedia, such as blogs, are being used on this page.
:::::::Some searching through the fringe theories noticeboard will be very instructive to you. Also useful to you will be a close reading of wikipedia policy on fringe topics as well as a look back through arbitration committee decisions about parapsychology and about NPOV.
:::::::Good luck ] | ] 02:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Morgan Leigh, this is very useful. Is there a PM service on Misplaced Pages? - I am a bit too new and would love to understand different processes. I could pass you a junk email address, would that work? ] (]) 07:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::First, when we refer to mainstream independent sources, we should be referring to significant works (i.e. studies), not uninformed statements by lifelong skeptics that are currently referenced in the page.
:::And how can you claim that the AAAS represents parapsychologists? It is the largest scientific organization in the world, and it voted 5:1 to recognise parapsychology as a genuine field of study. Less than a handful of the hundreds of people who voted in that consensus are parapsychologists or represent them in any way, shape or form. It is certainly a much more authoritative and scientific institution than Misplaced Pages, and indeed, than almost any other in the world.
:::Consensus overturning is the natural progression of science. We should not shy away from it. If Misplaced Pages was now placed side by side with the large peer reviewed psychology journals, it would basically be the last one to recognise parapsychology as a valid field of study. It is simply behind the curve. If this so-called "consensus" is not turned over soon, it will simply serve to alienate its readers to turn to more trusted sources, which concerning this topic, are now pretty much anything. ] (]) 05:46, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Your demand to cite "studies" goes against ], a rule which reflects how scientists actually handle studies. Your claim that parapsychology is "recognised" by everybody except Misplaced Pages needs a really good source. Well, if you redefine "everybody" by excluding people who disagree with you as you do above ({{tq|lifelong skeptics}}), then you can privately maintain that opinion, but Misplaced Pages does not work like that. (Nor does science.) --] (]) 09:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Frankly if we were to base a parapsychology article on primary sources (we should not) then it would still show parapsychology to be bunk because parapsychology leaves in its wake a host of non-replicable studies that used deeply flawed methodologies and, even then, often showed no evidence of "psi." ] (]) 13:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Secondary studies are studies. ] | ] 22:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I think my comment was misunderstood; secondary studies (e.g., meta analyses) are perfectly valid. But just having opinions of uninformed observers that are not backed by a true underlying analysis is very different. For example, applying a Bayesian technique to say that under a particular statistical model psi no longer has 5 sigma is perfectly valid analysis and conclusion.
::::::Having unsubstantiated quotes of somebody claiming that it is pseudoscience, without even getting nitty gritty into the research design or data, is little more than religious Dogma. It is what science was invented to stop. It is certainly not a valid scientific source. There is danger because there is true scientific taboo around this topic; it is too easy to give credence to uninformed opinions. ] (]) 07:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Misplaced Pages doesn't require our sources to provide proof to your specific standard, and you can't discount things this site considers to be ] by calling them 'uninformed observers'. ] (]) 14:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::It's true that the given due weight of any given critic of parapsychology should be assessed on its individual merits. However I would caution people trying to soften the POV on a perennial ] pseudoscience topic to seek consensus for ] derived changes prior to making them. ] (]) 15:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::What happened was that a bunch of editors ] to say that sources, e.g. the Skeptical Inquirer, that would normally not be considered reliable on wikipedia because they are self published, were cool and normal and now these sources are used to attack all kinds of topics as if their word is gospel, even though arbcom said they should be treated as opinion sources. ] | ] 02:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::1) What you wrote here doesn't match what's in that RFC very well and 2) Even if that is what Arbcom wrote (it isn't) Arbcom has no authority to make content decisions. - ] (]) 02:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::The claim the Skeptical Inquirer is "self-published" is crazy shit. Where do you get such ideas? --] (]) 06:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Probably the same place as all the people who argued that it was not a good source ]. You might want to review ] ] | ] 03:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::That's not 'at Arbcom', that was an RFC held on a noticeboard, one that came to the opposite conclusion to what you're espousing here. Here's what Arbcom wrote on the matter: {{tq|there was a general consensus in that discussion that the Skeptical Inquirer is not a self-published source}}. ] (]) 03:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Morgan Leigh has stated that Arbcom said they should be treated as opinion sources, which is correct. I'm thankful for the links and discussion as they will very much come in handy. ] (]) 07:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::You don't understand: at Misplaced Pages admins sanction ''behavior.'' ] or ARBCOM dictating ''content'' are taboo. ] (]) 08:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::? The discussion Morgan Leigh linked to was a Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion on whether SI was reliable and whether any extra conditions applied beyond those normally expected of all sources. The close read: {{tq|It is overwhelmingly clear by both the number and strength of arguments that the discussion participants rejected }} and {{tq|I believe that the discussion '''establishes a reasonably clear consensus to use the''' ''Skeptical Inquirer'' '''with consideration given to proper usage in consonance with existing sourcing and content policy.'''}} Nothing there suggests there was anything close to consensus that SI is an SPS. ] (]) 03:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::"Self-published" is obvious bullshit no matter how much you try to defend it with fallacious reasoning. The correct reaction to getting statements refuted is not to dodge the matter by saying "you are uncivil" (read ]). Maybe you could try to think about what the correct response is instead. --] (]) 07:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)


* Unless there's been some major shift in the academic consensus, ] would still apply. Which means a ] is what's being proposed here. No. ] <small><small>]</small></small> 20:09, 6 December 2024 (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. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 01:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
*As others have noted, PSCI policy explicitly proscribes presenting pseudoscience topics with false balance. Consensus is achieved only through ''policy-based'' arguments, not through perennial attempts by a rotating cast of new SPAs to reframe pseudoscience in a more sympathetic light. ] (]) 02:41, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Thanks JoelleJay and Hob, etc, yes, this is very clear. Attempts must be directed to policy. ] (]) 05:22, 8 December 2024 (UTC)


==Erroneous removal of psychology sidebar==
::::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:


] Please explain your contention that parapsychology is not psychology.
:::: '''Parapsychology''' is a field of study concerned with the investigation of ] and psychic phenomena which include ], ], ], ], ]s, ], ]s, 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 02:08, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


Here are some sources that make it clear parapsychology is psychology:
:::::No, that significantly implies that parapsycholoy engages in scientific research before saying it is pseudoscience. The two are in conflict. &nbsp; &mdash; ]<span style="margin:0 7px;font-variant:small-caps;font-size:0.9em">&middot; ]]</span> 02:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
chapter showing parapsychology listed in The Wiley‐Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology.


page showing that the Koestler Parapsychology Unit is clearly listed as being part of the psychology department of School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the university of Edinburgh.
::::::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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 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). <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 09:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
{{od}}
"It is often identified as pseudoscience" seems satisfactory. I'm doubtful of some of the sources though, which I mentioned above. --] (]) 10:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
: Any suggestions for better ones? <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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. - ] (]) 14:21, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


page showing that The Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology is clearly part of the department of psychology.
==Pseudoscience dispute?==
So now that we have mentioned that parapsychology "is often identified as pseudoscience" 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? --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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) --] (]) 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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 ] 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 Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines support reporting from some or all of the sources" - ]
::::--] (]) 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:
::::: &nbsp;
::::: 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. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 18:07, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


page showing Dr. Lance Storm who is employed in the School of Psychology.
== Bunge Pseudoscience Ref Deletion ==


Unless you have something more to offer than your opinion v these sources I am going to return the sidebar. ] | ] 03:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
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 ], among others.


:Kindly do not edit war. You don't get to dismiss the objections of others by simply claiming they are 'opinion'. You are well aware that you will not get consensus support for your addition, either here or on the sidebar template in question. Links to claims by fringe promoters aren't going to be usable, independent sources. Parapsychology should not be listed as a discipline of psychology, just like we don't list ] as a discipline of medicine, ] as a type of fusion, and so on and so on. ] (]) 03:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
''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 ] 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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 16:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
::"You don't get to dismiss the objections of others by simply claiming they are 'opinion'." According to the rules of Misplaced Pages I totally do. Do you know what we call uncited information? We call it opinion. One revert is not edit warring. I am asking you to cite sources. If you can't do that and I return this information to the article I am adding cited information and you are removing cited information with no reason other than your opinion. ] | ] 03:29, 9 December 2024 (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 Misplaced Pages's voice, that psi actually exists, because there is no credible evidence it does. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 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 ]. --] (]) 21:20, 2 February 2016 (UTC) :::You have profoundly misunderstood 'the rules of Misplaced Pages' as given at ]. ] (]) 03:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I'm super familiar with that page. If you read it you will find it says that sources prevail over opinions. You have provided an unsourced opinion. I have provided sources.
:::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. ] <sub>(] | ])</sub> 17:31, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
::::So far you have; accused me of edit warring when I am not, Stated your unsourced opinion that parapsychology should not be listed as psychology, and claimed I don't understand policy. I ask again, please provide some sources to back up your opinion. ] | ] 04:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::You said {{tq|Unless you have something more to offer than your opinion v these sources I am going to return the sidebar.}} <-- if you do that, that would be edit warring.
:::::{{Tq| I ask again, please provide some sources to back up your opinion.}} I'm not actually required to ] your requirements to object to the inclusion of a misleading entry in a navbox, nor are talk page comments 'unsourced opinion', a phrase which commonly refers to adding unsourced commentary to articles. ] (]) 04:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::This article is literally loaded with reliable independent sources that explain why parapsychology is not a part of mainstream science. Overcoming those in a kamikaze push to ] isn't going to succeed, especially with a number of experienced editors informing you of your misapprehension of editorial policies. Better to put this crusade aside, take some time to get to know the encyclopedia better, work on some uncontroversial articles, etc. I think it will benefit us all in the long run. ] (]) 13:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::The "Para" prefix in Parapsychology literally means "beside, alongside" (not within, separate from). I never liked the term because it implies that only psychologists can do paranormal research, leaving out physicists and electrical engineers. I agree the Psychology sidebar is not appropriate. <span style="background:#8FF;border:solid 1px;border-radius:8px;box-shadow:darkgray 4px 4px 4px;padding:1px 4px 0px 4px;">]&#124;]</span> 16:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::This article is littered with biased, outdated and poor quality sources to support the claims that parapsychology is not science. "The scientific consensus is that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of psi phenomena" this sentence alone has no source that is less than twenty years old. The reason that there are no sources supporting the scientific validity of psi is that every time any editor tries to add one they are instantly removed, regardless of whether they are peer reviewed or not. This has happened , and , and , and and . ] | ] 03:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Electricity produced the telegraph. Parapsychology produced 1-900-PSYCHIC. They are not in the same league. 20 more years of weak correlations mean nothing if there is no smoking gun.
:::::::According to ], scientists ''have'' to convince the skeptics, otherwise such scientists are losers. If Einstein failed to convince the skeptics, nobody would know his name today. If they're not catering for the skeptics, scientists have made an error when choosing their own career. If they're not catering for the skeptics, they're just idiots savants. Because they lack an even basic understanding of their own job. Of course, I don't diagnose them, it's just hyperbole. But their job isn't to preach to the choir. As long as parapsychology researchers don't abandon preaching to the choir, they stand no chance of parapsychology getting recognized as bona fide psychology.
:::::::Recap:
:::::::*it has produced correlations;
:::::::*it has no plausible causal mechanism;
:::::::*it has no technological applications;
:::::::*it does not seek to convince the ], but rather sees it as an obstacle which should be removed. ] (]) 14:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Concur with @] - couldn't have said it better myself. ] (]) 14:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I don't say that immaterial souls or spirits don't exist. But quantum mechanics does not allow them to interact with matter. ] (]) 14:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::On the question of why "peer reviewed" sources are excluded I guess the question was whether any of them were ever successfully replicated by a researcher who was not a true believer. Peer review says "this is not plagiarized and the math looks OK" rather than "this is truth." Replication is key. ] (]) 14:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Also @] could you please provide actual diffs for removed peer-reviewed sources? Because, out of all those links, and, from the abstract, it seems like even the author concluded that marginal statistical correlations and lack of replicability are research problems to overcome. ] (]) 15:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Being specific the abstract says the following as a partial list of next-steps: {{tq| conducting multidisciplinary studies with enough power, developing further nonconscious measures of psi and falsifiable theories, analyzing the characteristics of successful sessions and participants, improving the ecological validity of studies, testing how to increase effect sizes,}} ] (]) 15:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::I absolutely can provide you exactly the dates and editors who have removed information if you want it laid out more clearly.
::::::::::::The abstract you refer to also clearly says 'The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them.". This cited quote was in the article previously but was removed by LuckyLouie on October 1st 2018 and then removed again by SkepticalRaptor on October 2nd 2018.
::::::::::::This cited statement was removed "a branch of psychology that studies a group of phenomena collectively known as psi, a term referring to the transfer of information or energy that cannot be explained by known physical or biological mechanisms".Kihlstrom, J. (2000). Parapsychology. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 43-46). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. was removed by you on October 2 2018.
::::::::::::You also removed this "In Sweden ], professor of psychology at at ], Sweden, where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP) has published more than 250 journal articles and book chapters in journals such as '']'', '']'', '']'', ''],'' ''Cortex,'' and '']" on October 2nd 2018.
::::::::::::This cited quote "results supporting the validity of psi phenomena continue to be published in peer-reviewed, academic journals in relevant fields, from psychology to neuroscience to physics."Cardeña, E. (2014), A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousnesshttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full was removed by Roxy the dog on October 8th 2018 and again 9th of October 2018 by LuckyLouie.
::::::::::::This cited quote "Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses". Cardeña, E. (2014), A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 27 January 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full was also removed by Roxy the dog on October 8th 2018.
::::::::::::This cited information "However in 2014 nearly one hundred academics signed a statement to the effect that they were convinced that the case for psi phenomena had already been made. Cardeña, E., (2014) A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness, Front. Hum. Neurosci., 27 January 2014 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017. "The undersigned differ in the extent to which we are convinced that the case for psi phenomena has already been made, but not in our view of science as a non-dogmatic, open, critical but respectful process that requires thorough consideration of all evidence as well as skepticism toward both the assumptions we already hold and those that challenge them." was removed on the 9th of October 2018 by LuckyLouie
::::::::::::This cited infomation was removed by LuckyLouie on the 9th of October 2018. "However others have countered that despite increasingly stringent experimental controls corroborating results have been demonstrated. * Cardeña, Etzel, 2014 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness "Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses" Storm, Lance, Tressolsi, Patrizio, 2013 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23294093 Testing the Storm et al.(2010) meta-analysis using Bayesian and frequentist approaches: reply to Rouder et al. (2013), American Psychological Association, Psychological Bulletin volume 139 issue 1|pages 248-54 doi=10.1037/a0029506 "Rouder et al. used a Bayesian approach, and we adopted the same methodology, finding that our case is upheld." Utts, Jessica, 1991, Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology, Statistical Science, volume 6, issue 4, 363-378, "The recent focus on meta-analysis in parapsychology has revealed that there are nonzero effects across studies, experiments and laboratories" Hastings, A.C., 1976 A confirmatory remote viewing experiment in a group setting, Proceedings of the IEEE volume 64, issue 10, pages 1544-1545, "A remote viewing experiment was conducted with a group of 36 persons who successfully identified, without apparent sensory communication, a target location chosen randomly and visited by two observers (p = 6 × 10 -7 )"
::::::::::::Beloff, John, 1984, The reality of psi, New Ideas in Psychology, volume 2, no 1, pages 51-55 "people can, on occasion interact with their external environment by means other than those of the recognised sensory and motor chanels"
::::::::::::And this is just a section of a few days in one year. For brevity's sake I will spare you the many, many other instances of the removal of cited, peer reviewed, published information that has been systematically removed from this article with no justification other than the personal opinion of the removing editor. I got more. ] | ] 04:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::AFAIK ''Frontiers'' is predatory. ] (]) 11:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::E.g. the ] proved that hardware random numbers generators will produce highly unlikely results. But what does that prove? Nothing. It proves nothing. Because there is no link from such results to real-world events. ] (]) 11:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::These are not diffs. ] (]) 13:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::I have provided you exact data and I don't have to ] your request for any particular way of presenting that data. ] | ] 21:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::I asked for diffs and you gave me a decontextualized textwall including an edit you said I made six years ago? I'm sorry but this is non-actionable. ] (]) 22:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::A particular sociologist's theory is not relevant here. What is relevant is wikipedia policy, which policies say that we include published, peer reviewed sources and we don't remove them with the only reason being editors individual opinions. ] | ] 04:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::A more simple point is that rational skeptics do have the power to define what counts as science. So, anyway, we reach the same conclusion: if parapsychology fails to convince rational skeptics, it is not a science. ] (]) 12:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::But it has. Perhaps then you will take the word of renowned skeptic Christopher French, who has spent many years studying parapsychology and who has now come to the conclusion that parapsychology is a science.
::::::::::"When I first became a sceptic, I formed a very negative view of parapsychology. Based upon what I was reading, it seemed to me that all parapsychologists were incompetent when it came to skills such as experimental design and statistical analysis. As I got to know more parapsychologists personally, including such intelligent and open-minded individuals as the first holder of the Koestler Chair in Parapsychology, the late Bob Morris, and the current holder, Caroline Watt, I realised that this was not necessarily true. It is understandable (and indeed perfectly legitimate) for skeptics to highlight examples of poor practice in parapsychology but this can give a very misleading, one-sided impression. Surely it is only fair to take account of good quality work within a discipline as well when judging the discipline as a whole? I dread to think how psychology would fare if it were to be judged only on the basis of the poorest work within the discipline!"
::::::::::https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/09/why-i-now-believe-parapsychology-is-a-science-not-a-pseudoscience/
::::::::::I am glad you brought this up. It is a good point and so I have added your some text in support of your point to the article. ] | ] 22:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Parapsychological experiments offer correlations, no smoking gun, and certainly did not produce any useful technology based upon psi phenomena. ] (]) 22:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::: @Morgan Leigh. Please don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to make a ] as you did . This is becoming a ] problem. ] (]) 22:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Also, this isn't about "open mind" or "non-dogmatic". It is about the fact that nobody could prove that a causal mechanism exists. Computing correlations makes no sense if the causal mechanism is completely implausible in the first place. ] (]) 22:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations ] (]) 22:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Dungeons and Dragons players may believe dice have personality and will because of anomalous results but it's really just noise in random data. The dice jail didn't really scare the dice straight. ] (]) 22:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
{{od}} This discussion appears to no longer be about removal of the Psychology sidebar and in any event needs an outdent. <span style="background:#8FF;border:solid 1px;border-radius:8px;box-shadow:darkgray 4px 4px 4px;padding:1px 4px 0px 4px;">]&#124;]</span> 15:26, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

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Gost Arcologist

What is the study of Spirit, monster, Alen are called what Arcologist 157.49.236.143 (talk) 12:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggest deleting talk topic. This is not a discussion forum. LetoDidac (talk) 04:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to include balanced and well-informed reference to the recognition of parapsychology by AAAS.

As noted in the discussion following from @Luxnir(talk), it would be more neutral to provide information on both sides of the scientific debate on parapsychology at the get-go instead of solely references to its criticism. The American Academy for the Advancement of Science, which is the premiere scientific consortium in the world (as well as the APA), openly recognizes the exploration of parapsychological phenomena as a legitimate field of scientific inquiry. I also added references to its criticism in the first paragraph and at the end of the relevant paragraph. Here are my suggested additions to the introduction; I welcome alternative viewpoints and discussion: LetoDidac (talk) 03:58, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the text you proposed is more neutral, balanced, and informative. Well written too.
The adjective "parapsychic" doesn't seem to get much use. Might be better to say "The most prominent research society in parapsychology today. . ."
Cordially, O Govinda (talk) 10:34, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
We have to edit within the bounds of WP:PSCI: we have to state in the voice of Misplaced Pages that parapsychology is a pseudoscience. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
This is incorrect. We have to state what is supported by evidence, not continue to support an erroneous foregone conclusion. I have therefore restored LetoDidac's more neutral edit. Morgan Leigh | Talk 07:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
In the interest of finding a consensus, I propose:
----
Parapsychology (or psi research) is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (such as (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and psychometry) and some other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc.
The subject areas studied by parapsychology are highly controversial and lack general acceptance in the scientific community. Critics argue that the field is pseudoscience because the very phenomena under consideration are implausible and violate the rules of nature, and because parapsychologists have failed to produce evidence for paranormal phenomena that is robust and replicable enough to satisfy the wider scientific community. Its proponents argue that claims of seemingly paranormal experiences should be studied and treated in the same way as other experiences (that is, within the context of experience, health and illness), and that there must be a field of study to investigate, assess, and disseminate information about these experiences.
The incidence of parapsychology related research in major and mainstream psychology journals has increased somewhat over recent years, but is still relatively rare. LetoDidac (talk) 01:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Turning this into a Side A says 'Yes' and Side B says 'No' as this proposal does is WP:FALSEBALANCE, and we are specifically not supposed to do that. MrOllie (talk) 01:33, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
MrOllie, don't you think in this case, the suggestion is giving clear weight to the idea that they are not widely accepted? The A side is substantiated with arguments and sources about parapsychology having inconsistent findings and being implausible, while the B side is just giving a moral argument that it is ok to have a field of study for human experiences regardless of whether they are plausible or not. It is not even trying to claim that the effects are real. Does that seem like balance to you? LetoDidac (talk) 07:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
It seems like an attempt to cast the scientific mainstream as one of two competing opinions, and that is counter to Misplaced Pages's policy requirements. MrOllie (talk) 14:18, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Regardless of how any given editor feels about it, WP:PSCI is, in fact, policy. Simonm223 (talk) 13:03, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

---

Parapsychology (or psi research) is the study of alleged psychic phenomena, such as (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and psychometry) and some other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. The findings of parapsychology are highly controversial and lack general acceptance in the scientific community.

The most prominent parapsychic research society today is the Parapsychology Association, which is a member society of the American Association for the Advancement of Science(AAAS), the umbrella association of American scientific professional societies. The AAAS recognises parapsychology as a legitimate field of study because it follows accepted scientific procedures such as blinds, double blinds, and other standard scientific devices; because of the highly controversial nature of the topic, the AAAS submitted the decision to a vote, which landed 5:1 in favor of recognition. In 2018, a comprehensive review of the discipline was published in a peer-reviewed article of American Psychologist, a major psychology journal. Despite recognition of its attempted scientific procedures, the actual findings of the discipline are still considered implausible by many, if not most scientists, and critics often dismiss them as pseudoscience.

References

  1. ^ Schmidt, Joachim (2007). "Parapsychology". In von Stuckrad, Kocku (ed.). The Brill Dictionary of Religion. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/1872-5287_bdr_COM_00339. ISBN 978-9004124332.
  2. Reber, Arthur; Alcock, James (2019). "Why parapsychological claims cannot be true". Skeptical Inquirer. 43 (4): 8–10. The lure of the 'para'-normal emerges, it seems, from the belief that there is more to our existence than can be accounted for in terms of flesh, blood, atoms, and molecules. A century and a half of parapsychological research has failed to yield evidence to support that belief.
  3. Gross, Paul R.; Levitt, Norman; Lewis, Martin W. (1996). The Flight from Science and Reason. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. p. 565. ISBN 978-0801856761. The overwhelming majority of scientists consider parapsychology, by whatever name, to be pseudoscience.
  4. Friedlander, Michael W. (1998). At the Fringes of Science. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0813322001. 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.
  5. Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 158. hdl:1854/LU-3161824. ISBN 978-0226051963. 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.
  6. Alcock, James (1981). Parapsychology – Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. pp. 194–196. ISBN 978-0080257730.
  7. Hacking, Ian (1993). "Some reasons for not taking parapsychology very seriously". Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review. 32 (3). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press: 587–594. doi:10.1017/s0012217300012361. S2CID 170157379.
  8. Bierman, DJ; Spottiswoode, JP; Bijl, A (2016). "Testing for Questionable Research Practices in a Meta-Analysis: An Example from Experimental Parapsychology". PLoS ONE. 11 (5). San Francisco, California: Public Library of Science: e0153049. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1153049B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153049. PMC 4856278. PMID 27144889. We consider in the context of a meta-analysis database of Ganzfeld–telepathy experiments from the field of experimental parapsychology. The Ganzfeld database is particularly suitable for this study, because the parapsychological phenomenon it investigates is widely believed to be nonexistent ... results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs.
  9. Carroll, Sean (May 11, 2016). "Thinking About Psychic Powers Helps Us Think About Science". WIRED. New York City: Condé Nast. Today, parapsychology is not taken seriously by most academics.
  10. Cardeña, E. (2018). "The experimental evidence for parapsychological phenomena: A review". American Psychologist. 73 (5): 663–677. doi:10.1037/amp0000236. This article clarifies the domain of psi, summarizes recent theories from physics and psychology that present psi phenomena as at least plausible, and then provides an overview of recent/updated meta-analyses. The evidence provides cumulative support for the reality of psi, which cannot be readily explained away by the quality of the studies, fraud, selective reporting, experimental or analytical incompetence, or other frequent criticisms. The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them.
  11. Bem, D. J. (2011). "Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 100: 407–425. doi:10.1037/a0021524. This article reports 9 experiments, involving more than 1,000 participants, that test for retroactive influence by "time-reversing" well-established psychological effects so that the individual's responses are obtained before the putatively causal stimulus events occur.
  12. Storm, L.; Tressoldi, P. E.; Di Risio, L. (2010). "A meta-analysis with nothing to hide: Reply to Hyman (2010)". Psychological Bulletin. 136: 491–494. doi:10.1037/a0019840.
  13. Storm, L.; Tressoldi, P. E.; Di Risio, L. (2010). "Meta-analysis of free-response studies, 1992–2008: Assessing the noise reduction model in parapsychology". Psychological Bulletin. 136: 471–485. doi:10.1037/a0019457. The mean effect size value of the ganzfeld database was significantly higher than the mean effect size of the standard free-response database but was not higher than the effect size of the nonganzfeld noise reduction database.We also found that selected participants (believers in the paranormal, meditators, etc.) had a performance advantage over unselected participants, but only if they were in the ganzfeld condition.
  14. Exline, Julie J.; Wilt, Joshua A. (May 2023). "Supernatural Attributions: Seeing God, the Devil, Demons, Spirits, Fate, and Karma as Causes of Events". Annual Review of Clinical Psychology. 19: 461–487. doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-080921-081114. Retrieved December 12, 2024. This article provides a broad overview of research on supernatural beliefs and attributions with special attention to their psychological relevance: They can serve as coping resources, sources of distress, psychopathology signals, moral guides, and decision-making tools... Our aim is to provide clinical psychologists with an entry point into this rich, fascinating, and often overlooked literature.
  15. Dean, E. Douglas (1969). "Parapsychology is now a recognised science. How it was done" (PDF). Newark College of Engineering. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
  16. Cardeña, E. (2018). "The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review". American Psychologist. 73 (5): 663–677. doi:10.1037/amp0000236.
  17. name="AlcockSI">Reber, Arthur; Alcock, James (2019). "Why parapsychological claims cannot be true". Skeptical Inquirer. 43 (4): 8–10. The lure of the 'para'-normal emerges, it seems, from the belief that there is more to our existence than can be accounted for in terms of flesh, blood, atoms, and molecules. A century and a half of parapsychological research has failed to yield evidence to support that belief.
  18. Gross, Paul R.; Levitt, Norman; Lewis, Martin W. (1996). The Flight from Science and Reason. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. p. 565. ISBN 978-0801856761. The overwhelming majority of scientists consider parapsychology, by whatever name, to be pseudoscience.
  19. Friedlander, Michael W. (1998). At the Fringes of Science. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0813322001. 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.
  20. Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 158. hdl:1854/LU-3161824. ISBN 978-0226051963. 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.
  21. Alcock, James (1981). Parapsychology – Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. pp. 194–196. ISBN 978-0080257730.
  22. Hacking, Ian (1993). "Some reasons for not taking parapsychology very seriously". Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review. 32 (3). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press: 587–594. doi:10.1017/s0012217300012361. S2CID 170157379.
  23. Bierman, DJ; Spottiswoode, JP; Bijl, A (2016). "Testing for Questionable Research Practices in a Meta-Analysis: An Example from Experimental Parapsychology". PLoS ONE. 11 (5). San Francisco, California: Public Library of Science: e0153049. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1153049B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153049. PMC 4856278. PMID 27144889. We consider in the context of a meta-analysis database of Ganzfeld–telepathy experiments from the field of experimental parapsychology. The Ganzfeld database is particularly suitable for this study, because the parapsychological phenomenon it investigates is widely believed to be nonexistent ... results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs.
  24. Carroll, Sean (May 11, 2016). "Thinking About Psychic Powers Helps Us Think About Science". WIRED. New York City: Condé Nast. Today, parapsychology is not taken seriously by most academics.
According to the Mertonian norms in science wins he/she who is able to convince most skeptics. This has not happened for parapsychology. If Albert Einstein had the success which parapsychology had till now, he would have been largely forgotten. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
  • This proposal is not neutral for a variety of reasons. A lengthy paragraph on the AAAS is not proportionate to the topic, and tucking away the many, many sourced refutations of this supposed consensus with a WP:WEASELish "Despite..." is not appropriate, and goes against WP:FRINGE norms. Emphasizing the 2018 source in this way is a form of editorializing, as well. Grayfell (talk) 02:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    One reasonable revision would be to remove "Despite recognition of its attempted scientific procedures, " so that the end of the paragraph simply reads: "The actual findings of the discipline are still considered implausible by many, if not most scientists, and critics often dismiss them as pseudoscience."
    I disagree that discussion of the AAAS decision is not appropriate. An entire field of study - that is, the study of a particular topic - cannot be described as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience refers to unscientific methods and procedures, which in this case scientists in the discipline have addressed with careful experimental deaign over many years and with significant success. The AAS even noted that many well known scientific devices had their birth in Parapsychology. Misplaced Pages and its moderators cannot continue to refer to an entire field of study as PSCI. At best, it is unconscionable with regards to all of the thousands of staff and research participants involved in proving or disproving these studies, and at worst it is criminal misrepresentation. LetoDidac (talk) 03:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    For the record, I support this suggestion. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    If you can't see a consensus then you can't count. Three editors have agreed that this edit is better than the one you and tgeorgescu are advocating for. Moreover you have reverted the edit without discussion. I suggest, seeing you are in the minority, that you reply to the compromise solution LetoDidac made, which I support. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    This isn't a vote. MrOllie (talk) 04:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    Seven citations to claim it's pseudoscience is not proportionate either, someone is compensating for lack of quality with quantity, but here we are. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    Grayfell is entirely correct. This is massively WP:UNDUE weight and the proposal would take the article further from WP:NPOV - which means that we are supposed to follow what most mainstream, independent sources have to say, not give primacy to the opinion of the AAAS, which (in part) represents parapsychologists. MrOllie (talk) 03:57, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
As MrOllie says, this isn't a vote. Further, local consensus cannot over-rule site-wide consensus on how to treat fringe topics, such as this one. The current wording already is the compromise. These current sources are in-part to dissuade exactly this kind of cherry-picking that is being proposed here. The current consensus has been built up over many years of such discussions (and Morgan Leigh has been involved in some of those, and has previously attempted to overturn this consensus). This consensus was not only formed on this talk page, but also at noticeboards such as Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, where this has been raised dozens of times over the years. Grayfell (talk) 04:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Pseudoscience is when you accept a belief due to prior held convictions and dogma, instead of genuine scientific curiosity and inquiry. If this is the fifth time that you've argued that parapsychology is 'Fringe' without first reading any of the recent literature reviews published  by the major psychology journals, then I beg that you reflect on this statement. Becoming informed is really not that hard.
The cumulative evidence for so-called 'psi' is now so overwhelming, particularly concerning studies of near death experiences, extra-sensory perception and micro-PK, that this article will be in stark opposition to many readers' direct lived and witnessed experience, and thus erode trust in Misplaced Pages. This is not a vote, it is a failure.
To be clear, I am not suggesting overturning a consensus to now support so-called 'paranormal' beliefs.  I am supporting to describe a scientific field of study and it's purpose, avoiding sweeping generalisations about its scientific procedures that are not reflective of any of the major journals' views today. LetoDidac (talk) 06:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I changed the order of your contributions since this is obviously a response to Grayfell.
Your private definition of pseudoscience is not relevant here. Neither is your opinion that the evidence is "overwhelming". We follow not your opinion but reliable sources. Finding tiny effects in huge amounts of data, which tend to disappear over time or when other people do it, are a typical property of Langmuir's pathological science. Parapsychology is exactly that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I confess I was frustrated by the whole page being reverted. I will go off and think of a way of having an introduction that is well written at the least, and at best is informative for a variety of readers. It is clear to me now that there needs to be a front-focused discussion that there is a lingering debate of whether parapsychology is a valid field of study, including the for and against, like langmiurs criticism. I am an academic, and I am confident I can synthesise the relevant views and write something that will work for all of the editors and also raise the quality of the page. LetoDidac (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I encourage you in this endeavour. I suggest that you first spend some time reading the archive of this talk page. You will find that many good quality sources have been added to this page by many editors over the years, only to be repeatedly removed. For example consider why Etzel Cardeña is neither mentioned nor cited in this article.
You might consider if sources that are used to support claims that parapsychology is pseudoscience are in fact indicating the opposite. You might look to see if it is the case that sources that are allowed to be used to support claims against parapsychology are all of a sudden discovered to either not be good sources or accusations of cherry picking appear, when those exact same sources are used to support parapsychological findings.
You might also like to peruse wikipedia's policies about outdated sources and see if any such sources are being cited in this page. Perhaps you could also draw your attention to if it is the case that sources that are not generally allowed to be cited on wikipedia, such as blogs, are being used on this page.
Some searching through the fringe theories noticeboard will be very instructive to you. Also useful to you will be a close reading of wikipedia policy on fringe topics as well as a look back through arbitration committee decisions about parapsychology and about NPOV.
Good luck Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Morgan Leigh, this is very useful. Is there a PM service on Misplaced Pages? - I am a bit too new and would love to understand different processes. I could pass you a junk email address, would that work? LetoDidac (talk) 07:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
First, when we refer to mainstream independent sources, we should be referring to significant works (i.e. studies), not uninformed statements by lifelong skeptics that are currently referenced in the page.
And how can you claim that the AAAS represents parapsychologists? It is the largest scientific organization in the world, and it voted 5:1 to recognise parapsychology as a genuine field of study. Less than a handful of the hundreds of people who voted in that consensus are parapsychologists or represent them in any way, shape or form. It is certainly a much more authoritative and scientific institution than Misplaced Pages, and indeed, than almost any other in the world.
Consensus overturning is the natural progression of science. We should not shy away from it. If Misplaced Pages was now placed side by side with the large peer reviewed psychology journals, it would basically be the last one to recognise parapsychology as a valid field of study. It is simply behind the curve. If this so-called "consensus" is not turned over soon, it will simply serve to alienate its readers to turn to more trusted sources, which concerning this topic, are now pretty much anything. LetoDidac (talk) 05:46, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Your demand to cite "studies" goes against WP:PRIMARY, a rule which reflects how scientists actually handle studies. Your claim that parapsychology is "recognised" by everybody except Misplaced Pages needs a really good source. Well, if you redefine "everybody" by excluding people who disagree with you as you do above (lifelong skeptics), then you can privately maintain that opinion, but Misplaced Pages does not work like that. (Nor does science.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Frankly if we were to base a parapsychology article on primary sources (we should not) then it would still show parapsychology to be bunk because parapsychology leaves in its wake a host of non-replicable studies that used deeply flawed methodologies and, even then, often showed no evidence of "psi." Simonm223 (talk) 13:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Secondary studies are studies. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I think my comment was misunderstood; secondary studies (e.g., meta analyses) are perfectly valid. But just having opinions of uninformed observers that are not backed by a true underlying analysis is very different. For example, applying a Bayesian technique to say that under a particular statistical model psi no longer has 5 sigma is perfectly valid analysis and conclusion.
Having unsubstantiated quotes of somebody claiming that it is pseudoscience, without even getting nitty gritty into the research design or data, is little more than religious Dogma. It is what science was invented to stop. It is certainly not a valid scientific source. There is danger because there is true scientific taboo around this topic; it is too easy to give credence to uninformed opinions. LetoDidac (talk) 07:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages doesn't require our sources to provide proof to your specific standard, and you can't discount things this site considers to be reliable sources by calling them 'uninformed observers'. MrOllie (talk) 14:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
It's true that the given due weight of any given critic of parapsychology should be assessed on its individual merits. However I would caution people trying to soften the POV on a perennial WP:FRINGE pseudoscience topic to seek consensus for WP:DUE derived changes prior to making them. Simonm223 (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
What happened was that a bunch of editors voted to say that sources, e.g. the Skeptical Inquirer, that would normally not be considered reliable on wikipedia because they are self published, were cool and normal and now these sources are used to attack all kinds of topics as if their word is gospel, even though arbcom said they should be treated as opinion sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
1) What you wrote here doesn't match what's in that RFC very well and 2) Even if that is what Arbcom wrote (it isn't) Arbcom has no authority to make content decisions. - MrOllie (talk) 02:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
The claim the Skeptical Inquirer is "self-published" is crazy shit. Where do you get such ideas? --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Probably the same place as all the people who argued that it was not a good source here at Arbcom. You might want to review WP:UNCIVIL Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:04, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
That's not 'at Arbcom', that was an RFC held on a noticeboard, one that came to the opposite conclusion to what you're espousing here. Here's what Arbcom wrote on the matter: there was a general consensus in that discussion that the Skeptical Inquirer is not a self-published source. MrOllie (talk) 03:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Morgan Leigh has stated that Arbcom said they should be treated as opinion sources, which is correct. I'm thankful for the links and discussion as they will very much come in handy. LetoDidac (talk) 07:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
You don't understand: at Misplaced Pages admins sanction behavior. WP:ANI or ARBCOM dictating content are taboo. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
? The discussion Morgan Leigh linked to was a Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion on whether SI was reliable and whether any extra conditions applied beyond those normally expected of all sources. The close read: It is overwhelmingly clear by both the number and strength of arguments that the discussion participants rejected and I believe that the discussion establishes a reasonably clear consensus to use the Skeptical Inquirer with consideration given to proper usage in consonance with existing sourcing and content policy. Nothing there suggests there was anything close to consensus that SI is an SPS. JoelleJay (talk) 03:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
"Self-published" is obvious bullshit no matter how much you try to defend it with fallacious reasoning. The correct reaction to getting statements refuted is not to dodge the matter by saying "you are uncivil" (read WP:SEALION). Maybe you could try to think about what the correct response is instead. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Erroneous removal of psychology sidebar

MrOllie Please explain your contention that parapsychology is not psychology.

Here are some sources that make it clear parapsychology is psychology: This chapter showing parapsychology listed in The Wiley‐Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology.

This page showing that the Koestler Parapsychology Unit is clearly listed as being part of the psychology department of School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the university of Edinburgh.

This page showing that The Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology is clearly part of the department of psychology.

This page showing Dr. Lance Storm who is employed in the School of Psychology.

Unless you have something more to offer than your opinion v these sources I am going to return the sidebar. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Kindly do not edit war. You don't get to dismiss the objections of others by simply claiming they are 'opinion'. You are well aware that you will not get consensus support for your addition, either here or on the sidebar template in question. Links to claims by fringe promoters aren't going to be usable, independent sources. Parapsychology should not be listed as a discipline of psychology, just like we don't list Energy medicine as a discipline of medicine, Cold fusion as a type of fusion, and so on and so on. MrOllie (talk) 03:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
"You don't get to dismiss the objections of others by simply claiming they are 'opinion'." According to the rules of Misplaced Pages I totally do. Do you know what we call uncited information? We call it opinion. One revert is not edit warring. I am asking you to cite sources. If you can't do that and I return this information to the article I am adding cited information and you are removing cited information with no reason other than your opinion. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
You have profoundly misunderstood 'the rules of Misplaced Pages' as given at WP:CONSENSUS. MrOllie (talk) 03:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm super familiar with that page. If you read it you will find it says that sources prevail over opinions. You have provided an unsourced opinion. I have provided sources.
So far you have; accused me of edit warring when I am not, Stated your unsourced opinion that parapsychology should not be listed as psychology, and claimed I don't understand policy. I ask again, please provide some sources to back up your opinion. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
You said Unless you have something more to offer than your opinion v these sources I am going to return the sidebar. <-- if you do that, that would be edit warring.
I ask again, please provide some sources to back up your opinion. I'm not actually required to WP:SATISFY your requirements to object to the inclusion of a misleading entry in a navbox, nor are talk page comments 'unsourced opinion', a phrase which commonly refers to adding unsourced commentary to articles. MrOllie (talk) 04:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
This article is literally loaded with reliable independent sources that explain why parapsychology is not a part of mainstream science. Overcoming those in a kamikaze push to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS isn't going to succeed, especially with a number of experienced editors informing you of your misapprehension of editorial policies. Better to put this crusade aside, take some time to get to know the encyclopedia better, work on some uncontroversial articles, etc. I think it will benefit us all in the long run. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
The "Para" prefix in Parapsychology literally means "beside, alongside" (not within, separate from). I never liked the term because it implies that only psychologists can do paranormal research, leaving out physicists and electrical engineers. I agree the Psychology sidebar is not appropriate. 5Q5| 16:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
This article is littered with biased, outdated and poor quality sources to support the claims that parapsychology is not science. "The scientific consensus is that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of psi phenomena" this sentence alone has no source that is less than twenty years old. The reason that there are no sources supporting the scientific validity of psi is that every time any editor tries to add one they are instantly removed, regardless of whether they are peer reviewed or not. This has happened again, and again, and again, and again and again. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Electricity produced the telegraph. Parapsychology produced 1-900-PSYCHIC. They are not in the same league. 20 more years of weak correlations mean nothing if there is no smoking gun.
According to Mertonian norms, scientists have to convince the skeptics, otherwise such scientists are losers. If Einstein failed to convince the skeptics, nobody would know his name today. If they're not catering for the skeptics, scientists have made an error when choosing their own career. If they're not catering for the skeptics, they're just idiots savants. Because they lack an even basic understanding of their own job. Of course, I don't diagnose them, it's just hyperbole. But their job isn't to preach to the choir. As long as parapsychology researchers don't abandon preaching to the choir, they stand no chance of parapsychology getting recognized as bona fide psychology.
Recap:
Concur with @Tgeorgescu - couldn't have said it better myself. Simonm223 (talk) 14:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't say that immaterial souls or spirits don't exist. But quantum mechanics does not allow them to interact with matter. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
On the question of why "peer reviewed" sources are excluded I guess the question was whether any of them were ever successfully replicated by a researcher who was not a true believer. Peer review says "this is not plagiarized and the math looks OK" rather than "this is truth." Replication is key. Simonm223 (talk) 14:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Also @Morgan Leigh could you please provide actual diffs for removed peer-reviewed sources? Because, out of all those links, this is all I could find and, from the abstract, it seems like even the author concluded that marginal statistical correlations and lack of replicability are research problems to overcome. Simonm223 (talk) 15:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Being specific the abstract says the following as a partial list of next-steps: conducting multidisciplinary studies with enough power, developing further nonconscious measures of psi and falsifiable theories, analyzing the characteristics of successful sessions and participants, improving the ecological validity of studies, testing how to increase effect sizes, Simonm223 (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I absolutely can provide you exactly the dates and editors who have removed information if you want it laid out more clearly.
The abstract you refer to also clearly says 'The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them.". This cited quote was in the article previously but was removed by LuckyLouie on October 1st 2018 and then removed again by SkepticalRaptor on October 2nd 2018.
This cited statement was removed "a branch of psychology that studies a group of phenomena collectively known as psi, a term referring to the transfer of information or energy that cannot be explained by known physical or biological mechanisms".Kihlstrom, J. (2000). Parapsychology. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 43-46). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. was removed by you on October 2 2018.
You also removed this "In Sweden Etzel Cardeña, professor of psychology at at Lund University, Sweden, where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP) has published more than 250 journal articles and book chapters in journals such as Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Archives of General Psychiatry, Cortex, and American Psychologist" on October 2nd 2018.
This cited quote "results supporting the validity of psi phenomena continue to be published in peer-reviewed, academic journals in relevant fields, from psychology to neuroscience to physics."Cardeña, E. (2014), A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousnesshttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full was removed by Roxy the dog on October 8th 2018 and again 9th of October 2018 by LuckyLouie.
This cited quote "Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses". Cardeña, E. (2014), A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 27 January 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full was also removed by Roxy the dog on October 8th 2018.
This cited information "However in 2014 nearly one hundred academics signed a statement to the effect that they were convinced that the case for psi phenomena had already been made. Cardeña, E., (2014) A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness, Front. Hum. Neurosci., 27 January 2014 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017. "The undersigned differ in the extent to which we are convinced that the case for psi phenomena has already been made, but not in our view of science as a non-dogmatic, open, critical but respectful process that requires thorough consideration of all evidence as well as skepticism toward both the assumptions we already hold and those that challenge them." was removed on the 9th of October 2018 by LuckyLouie
This cited infomation was removed by LuckyLouie on the 9th of October 2018. "However others have countered that despite increasingly stringent experimental controls corroborating results have been demonstrated. * Cardeña, Etzel, 2014 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness "Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses" Storm, Lance, Tressolsi, Patrizio, 2013 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23294093 Testing the Storm et al.(2010) meta-analysis using Bayesian and frequentist approaches: reply to Rouder et al. (2013), American Psychological Association, Psychological Bulletin volume 139 issue 1|pages 248-54 doi=10.1037/a0029506 "Rouder et al. used a Bayesian approach, and we adopted the same methodology, finding that our case is upheld." Utts, Jessica, 1991, Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology, Statistical Science, volume 6, issue 4, 363-378, "The recent focus on meta-analysis in parapsychology has revealed that there are nonzero effects across studies, experiments and laboratories" Hastings, A.C., 1976 A confirmatory remote viewing experiment in a group setting, Proceedings of the IEEE volume 64, issue 10, pages 1544-1545, "A remote viewing experiment was conducted with a group of 36 persons who successfully identified, without apparent sensory communication, a target location chosen randomly and visited by two observers (p = 6 × 10 -7 )"
Beloff, John, 1984, The reality of psi, New Ideas in Psychology, volume 2, no 1, pages 51-55 "people can, on occasion interact with their external environment by means other than those of the recognised sensory and motor chanels"
And this is just a section of a few days in one year. For brevity's sake I will spare you the many, many other instances of the removal of cited, peer reviewed, published information that has been systematically removed from this article with no justification other than the personal opinion of the removing editor. I got more. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
AFAIK Frontiers is predatory. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
E.g. the Global Consciousness Project proved that hardware random numbers generators will produce highly unlikely results. But what does that prove? Nothing. It proves nothing. Because there is no link from such results to real-world events. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
These are not diffs. Simonm223 (talk) 13:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
I have provided you exact data and I don't have to WP:SATISFY your request for any particular way of presenting that data. Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
I asked for diffs and you gave me a decontextualized textwall including an edit you said I made six years ago? I'm sorry but this is non-actionable. Simonm223 (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
A particular sociologist's theory is not relevant here. What is relevant is wikipedia policy, which policies say that we include published, peer reviewed sources and we don't remove them with the only reason being editors individual opinions. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
A more simple point is that rational skeptics do have the power to define what counts as science. So, anyway, we reach the same conclusion: if parapsychology fails to convince rational skeptics, it is not a science. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
But it has. Perhaps then you will take the word of renowned skeptic Christopher French, who has spent many years studying parapsychology and who has now come to the conclusion that parapsychology is a science.
"When I first became a sceptic, I formed a very negative view of parapsychology. Based upon what I was reading, it seemed to me that all parapsychologists were incompetent when it came to skills such as experimental design and statistical analysis. As I got to know more parapsychologists personally, including such intelligent and open-minded individuals as the first holder of the Koestler Chair in Parapsychology, the late Bob Morris, and the current holder, Caroline Watt, I realised that this was not necessarily true. It is understandable (and indeed perfectly legitimate) for skeptics to highlight examples of poor practice in parapsychology but this can give a very misleading, one-sided impression. Surely it is only fair to take account of good quality work within a discipline as well when judging the discipline as a whole? I dread to think how psychology would fare if it were to be judged only on the basis of the poorest work within the discipline!"
https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/09/why-i-now-believe-parapsychology-is-a-science-not-a-pseudoscience/
I am glad you brought this up. It is a good point and so I have added your some text in support of your point to the article. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Parapsychological experiments offer correlations, no smoking gun, and certainly did not produce any useful technology based upon psi phenomena. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
@Morgan Leigh. Please don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to make a WP:POINT as you did here. This is becoming a WP:TE problem. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Also, this isn't about "open mind" or "non-dogmatic". It is about the fact that nobody could prove that a causal mechanism exists. Computing correlations makes no sense if the causal mechanism is completely implausible in the first place. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations tgeorgescu (talk) 22:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Dungeons and Dragons players may believe dice have personality and will because of anomalous results but it's really just noise in random data. The dice jail didn't really scare the dice straight. Simonm223 (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

This discussion appears to no longer be about removal of the Psychology sidebar and in any event needs an outdent. 5Q5| 15:26, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

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