Anti-intellectualism, obscurantism and the paranormal: New Age influences on the paranormal community with examples about the historical Jesus and contemporary religious pluralism

In a previous post, I complained about anti-intellectual, obscurantistic and pseudoscientific trends in certain paranormal circles. In this post, I want to expand this argument. For the purposes of this post, let's call "paranormalist" the people who exemplifies this kind of anti-intellectual mindset. (I'm not impliying that everybody who accepts the paranormal, myself included, are paranormalists in that sense. On the contrary, people like Dean Radin, Charles Tart, Chris Carter, Stephen Braude and many, many others are people of high intellectual level and enjoy my utmost respect, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with some of their views).

I argued in my post that many paranormalists use (or rather, misuse) science, specially quantum mechanics in order to support some of their paranormal views. I showed that the proper interpretation of quantum mechanics is controversial among QM scholars and philosophers of physics, and that there are exists around 10 different interpretations of it, which have wholly different metaphysical implications. This point tends to be bypassed by paranormalists, who speak of QM as whether its metaphysical implications (supposedly supporting the paranormal) are a straightforward and settled matter.

They have no idea of what the hell they are talking about.

Let's see another example of the influence of New Age beliefs in contemporary paranormal community:

   Example of the historical Jesus: 

Since discussing about Jesus and Christianity seems to evoke very, very strong and negative emotions in so many people which tends to impair their rationality, objectivity and logical thinking, I ask all my readers, including the Christian ones, to assume (just for the purpose of this post and of helping readers with emotional/spiritual wounds and scars to think with less bias) that Christianity is false. This assumption will allow us together to discuss the matter objectively and without strong feelings of "fear" and "guilty" connected with Christianity. Are you ready? Let's it on!

In New Age circles, what predominates is religious pluralism, the view that salvation is possible through several religions or spiritual paths, not just one. One reason for it is that the New Age has been strongly influenced by Eastern worldviews and philosophies, which include a plurality of views about God and spiritual matters. Some of these worldviews are atheistic and impersonalistic (e.g. some versions of Buddhism or Hinduism), and even polytheistic, other pantheistic or theistic.

Hinduism has played a major influence on New Age thinkers and authors. In the wikipedia entry on Hinduism, you can read this about its concept of God:

Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism, and atheism among others;^{[136][137][138][139]} and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. It is sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.

Note that regarding the concept of God, Hinduism includes beliefs which are mutually incompatible with each other, from atheism to polytheism. And the concept is dependent on "each individual and tradition and philosophy followed", because Hinduism doesn't share a canon or set of stable beliefs regarding God.

This kind of radical subjectivism and religious pluralism has had its impact on the New Age and from it to the paranormal community.

For example, in one of my posts about Jesus' resurrection, several paranormalists "suggested" that the resurrection, if happened, happened because Jesus was an expert in Yoga, Chi Kung, Meditation, Buddhism, Tai Chi and so forth, and these practiques/techniques allowed him to bring back to life his corpse.

Like in the case of QM, these people hold such beliefs on a prioristic grounds and independently of the historical evidence. No serious, scholarly, historical evidence supports such claims. In fact:

-No evidence exists for Jesus knowing, let alone mastering, these techniques. (Obviously, if Jesus was God or the Son of God, then presumibly he knew them... but we're assuming in this post that Christianity is false, remember?).

-No evidence exists that these techniques, after being mastered, allow the practitioner to become immortal through the resurrection (in the Judeo-Christian understanding of it).

-No evidence exists that Jesus gave credit to un-Jewish religions, worldviews or philosophies (like Hinduism or Buddhism or Taoism), let alone their idiosyncratic practiques (whatever their utility could be).

-The best evidence about Jesus supports that he preached the coming of God's Kingdom and the conditions for enter in it, and this implies assuming from the beginning and throughly a radically theistic worldview, not an atheistic nor polytheistic ones (hence, hardly, Jesus would confuse his hard-core monotheistic Jewish followers with worldviews or philosophies which are atheistic, pantheistic, polyheistic or at best highly confused about  God, which would ring blasphemeous, implausible and incoherent to his followers who expected a Messiah understood in Jewish terms). This supports the implausibility of the claims of Jesus teaching Eastern philosophies or practiques.

So, not only no evidence supports any of these paranormalists' speculations, but that the actual evidence at hand supports contrary conclusions.

But for many paranormalists... to the hell with the historical evidence about Jesus!

This kind of "suggestions" by paranormalists are possible only in people more or less infected with New Age beliefs and idiosyncratic ideas about the Historical Jesus, or simply ignorant of the scholarly discussion about Jesus (or all of these together).

In fact, note that if we apply the criteria of authenticity (widely used by Jesus scholars) we don't find ANY support to the view that Jesus knew or mastered all or some of these techniques (nor that he used them to produce his resurrection). But if we apply such criteria, we get at least prima facie evidence for Jesus' self-understanding as the unique or exclusive Son of God with special prerrogatives to the salvation of man.

Now the interesting question is: Why does people become hostile, skeptical, dissmisive and incredulous regarding Jesus claiming being the unique and special Son of God (when some of such exclusivistic claims DO pass the criteria of authenticity), but at the same time become extremely sympathetic, favourable, prone to accept and consider very plausible the view that Jesus knew and mastered a bunch of hinduistic, chinese, non-Jewish techniques like Yoga or Tai Chi (a claim which doesn't pass any criterion of authenticity)? How do we explain this ASYMMETRY in the use, reading and evaluation of the evidence and of what is plausible or not?

This asymmetry provides telling and compeling evidence of the implicit prejudices, bias and pressupositions operative in these people.

Thinking hard about this taught me that for many in the New Age community, evidence is secondary. What they think about Jesus is largely determined by their prejudices and pressupositions about what "Jesus is supposed to be", and not about what the historical evidence shows. They "read" the evidence, and the sources of the evidence, in terms of such presuppositions (e.g. from the beginning, they give more credibility to liberal authors who say what they want to hear, than to Christian authors who defend the traditional view, without examining the evidence supporting each position... an approach very similar to "skeptics" who, instead of engaging with the evidence themselves, give credit to what the Skeptic Dictionary or James Randi says because, supposedly, "psychic researchers like Dean Radin are professionally interested in defending parapsychology and hence are biased and unreliable"). Sheer prejudice and superficiality.

Why would a materialistic author like Michael Shermer be more objective regarding parapsychology than Dean Radin? Why would the Jesus Seminar (which supports an atheistic and naturalistic mindset as seen in the introduction of his main book) be more objective and credible that Christian scholars (evangelical, catholic, or whatever)? 

Everybody defend what they think is true, and we have to examine the evidence to settle the matter. Simply pointing out that certain people (e.g. Christian apologists) are unreliable because they're defending a one side of the story is stupid, since every rational person defends the side of the story he thinks is true (if you defend both sides of a contentious issue, you're breaking the law of non-contradiction, holding mutually incompatible theses, and don't contributing anything to settle the debate). 

Does Dean Radin defend the case AGAINST parapsychology? Obviously not, because he thinks parapsychology is a science and the evidence for psi is good (hence he actively supports the case FOR it, for example creating the website SHOW ME, which shows precisely some of the best evidence FOR psi. Although evidence against psi also exist in the literature, and Dean Radin mentions it, the skeptical belief that only negative evidence against psi exists is false, as Radin tries to show in his website. Therefore, he's trying to show, on the grounds of all of the evidence, positve and negative, that psi is an actual, really existing phenomenon). 

Does Chris Carter defend the case for the SUPER-ESP interpretation of afterlife evidence? Obviously not, since he thinks the super-ESP cannot account for the best cases. 

Does Richard Dawkins defend the case for theism? Obviously not, since he thinks atheism is true and theism false.

Does socialists support the case for capitalism? Obviously not, since they think socialism is correct and capitalism wrong.

Does Jime Sayaka defend the case for materialistic pseudoskepticism? Obviously not, since I think materialism is false and pseudoskepticism is obscurantistic and contrary to reason.

Every rational person defends what he thinks is true, and hence he defends one side of the story. Why would the rational defenders of Christianity (e.g. Christian apologists) would be an exception? Like everyone else, they're defending what they think is true. Why exactly the defenders of Christianity are unreliable, but the apologists and defenders of any other position (e.g. liberal Christianity, atheism, religious pluralism, NDEs, parapsychology, animal rights, science, spiritualism, democracy, socialism, free market, feminism, enviromentalism, abortion, anti-abortion, etc.) are, or could in principle be, reliable?

I've became increasingly dissapointed with the intellectual atmosphere of many people in the paranormal communities, which I now consider them to be extremely prejudiced, obscurantistic, misleading, extremely arrogant and profoundly ignorant of topics regarding which they talk authoritatively and dogmatically but know next to nothing (like QM, the Historical Jesus and many others).

Regardless of the influence of materialism and pseudoskepticism in the outcasting of paranormalists and the paranormal itself, I'm sure that many paranormalists themselves are guilty of having so bad intellectual reputation. They deserve it.

In future posts, I'll provide more examples of contemporary "paranormal obscurantism".

Chris Carter: Does Telepathy Conflict With Science? Many are starting to think not

Does Telepathy Conflict With Science? Many are starting to think not

by Chris Carter
(originally published here).

Recently, journalist Steven Volk was surprised to discover that leading skeptical psychologist Richard Wiseman has admitted that the evidence for telepathy is so good that “by the standards of any other area of science, [telepathy] is proven.” Mr. Volk goes on to write, “Even more incredibly, as I report in Fringe-ology, another leading skeptic, Chris French, agrees with him.”

Mr. Volk might even be more surprised to learn that back in 1951 psychologist Donald Hebb wrote this:

“Why do we not accept ESP [extrasensory perception] as a psychological fact? [The Rhine Research Center] has offered enough evidence to have convinced us on almost any other issue … Personally, I do not accept ESP for a moment, because it does not make sense. My external criteria, both of physics and of physiology, say that ESP is not a fact despite the behavioral evidence that has been reported. I cannot see what other basis my colleagues have for rejecting it … Rhine may still turn out to be right, improbable as I think that is, and my own rejection of his view is—in the literal sense—prejudice.”

Four years later, George Price, then a research associate at the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, published an article in the prestigious journal Science that began:

“Believers in psychic phenomena … appear to have won a decisive victory and virtually silenced opposition. … This victory is the result of careful experimentation and intelligent argumentation. Dozens of experimenters have obtained positive results in ESP experiments, and the mathematical procedures have been approved by leading statisticians. … Against all this evidence, almost the only defense remaining to the skeptical scientist is ignorance.”

But Price then argued, “ESP is incompatible with current scientific theory,” and asked: “If, then, parapsychology and modern science are incompatible, why not reject parapsychology? The choice is between believing in something ‘truly revolutionary’ and ‘radically contradictory to contemporary thought’ and believing in the occurrence of fraud and self-delusion. Which is more reasonable?”

So, here we have two skeptics in effect admitting that if this were any other field of inquiry then the experimental data would have carried the day by 1950.

Like Price and Hebb before them, both Wiseman and French hold that the claim of telepathy is so extraordinary that we need a greater level of evidence than we normally demand. Why should this be so? Most people believe in the reality of telepathy based on their own experiences, and are puzzled by the description of telepathy as “extraordinary.”

It is even more puzzling when surveys show that a large proportion of scientists accept the possibility that telepathy exists. Two surveys of over 500 scientists in one case and over 1,000 in another both found that the majority of respondents considered ESP “an established fact” or “a likely possibility”—56 percent in one and 67 percent in the other.

Polls such as this suggest that most scientists are curious and open-minded about psi. This, however, does not seem to be the case in one field: psychology. In the former study, only 3 percent of natural scientists considered ESP “an impossibility,” compared to 34 percent of psychologists.

In fact, the most prominent skeptics of psychic abilities today—such as Wiseman, French, James Alcock, Susan Blackmore, and Ray Hyman—are psychologists. An exception is biologist Richard Dawkins, but like Wiseman and French, he is also on record as saying that the existence of telepathy would “turn the laws of physics upside down.”

Failure to Jibe With Other Areas of Science?

Psychologist James Alcock recently wrote that the claims of parapsychology “stand in defiance of the modern scientific worldview. That by itself does not mean that parapsychology is in error, but as the eminent neuropsychologist Donald Hebb pointed out, if the claims of parapsychology prove to be true, then physics and biology and neuroscience are horribly wrong in some fundamental respects.”

But neither Alcock, Hebb, Wiseman, nor French ever bother to explain how the claims of parapsychology “stand in defiance” of science, or how “physics and physiology say that ESP is not a fact.”

Indeed, it is rare for a skeptic to ever back up this claim with specific examples. As I show in my new book “Science and Psychic Phenomena,” on those rare occasions that they do, they invariably invoke the principles of classical physics, which have been known to be fundamentally incorrect for more than three-quarters of a century.

However, a number of leading physicists such as Henry Margenau, David Bohm, Brian Josephson, and Olivier Costa de Beauregard have repeatedly pointed out that nothing in quantum mechanics forbids psi phenomena. Costa de Beauregard even maintains that the theory of quantum physics virtually demands that psi phenomena exist. And physicist Evan Harris Walker has developed a theoretical model of psi based on von Neumann’s formulation of quantum mechanics.

Ray Hyman’s 1996 argument (in the Skeptical Inquirer) that the acceptance of psi would require that we “abandon relativity and quantum mechanics in their current formulations” is thereby shown to be nonsense. Contrast Hyman’s statement with that of theoretical physicist Costa de Beauregard, who has written “relativistic quantum mechanics is a conceptual scheme where phenomena such as psychokinesis or telepathy, far from being irrational, should, on the contrary, be expected as very rational.”

As mentioned earlier, adherence to an outmoded metaphysics of science seems much more prevalent among psychologists than physicists. Skeptics such as psychologist Susan Blackmore are fond of saying that the existence of psi is incompatible “with our scientific worldview”—but with which scientific worldview?

Psi is certainly incompatible with the old scientific worldview, based on Newtonian mechanics and behaviorist psychology. It is not incompatible with the emerging scientific worldview based on quantum mechanics, the neurosciences, and cognitive psychology.

But even before quantum mechanics began to supersede classical mechanics in the 1920s, many physicists were much more open to investigating psi phenomena than most psychologists seem today. An astonishing number of the most prominent physicists of the 19th century expressed interest in psychic research, including William Crookes, inventor of the cathode ray tube, used today in televisions and computer monitors; J.J. Thomson, who won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for the discovery of the electron; and Lord Rayleigh, considered one of the greatest physicists of the late 19th century, and winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1904.

Of course, for their efforts in investigating these and other unusual phenomena, these men were often criticized and ridiculed mercilessly by their colleagues.

But modern physics is very different from the classical physics of the 19th century, and it is time the skeptical psychologists realized this. The great psychologist Gardner Murphy, president of the American Psychological Association and later of the American Society for Psychical Research, urged his fellow psychologists to become better acquainted with modern physics.

Murphy wrote in 1968: “… the difficulty is at the level of physics, not at the level of psychology. Psychologists may be a little bewildered when they encounter modern physicists who take these phenomena in stride, in fact, take them much more seriously than psychologists do, saying, as physicists, that they are no longer bound by the types of Newtonian energy distribution, inverse square laws, etc., with which scientists used to regard themselves as tightly bound.… psychologists probably will witness a period of slow, but definite, erosion of the blandly exclusive attitude that has offered itself as the only appropriate scientific attitude in this field. The data from parapsychology will be almost certainly in harmony with general psychological principles and will be assimilated rather easily within the systematic framework of psychology as a science when once the imagined appropriateness of Newtonian physics is put aside, and modern physics replaces it.”

Chris Carter was educated at Oxford University and is the author of “Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics” (Inner Traditions).

Sources:

Alcock, J.E., 1981.  Parapsychology: Science or Magic? New York: Pergamon.

Alcock, J.E., 1985.  “Parapsychology: the Spiritual Science”.  Free Inquiry, 5 (2), p. 25-35.

Costa de Beauregard, Olivier, 1975. “Quantum Paradoxes and Aristotle’s Twofold Information Concept,” in Laura Oteri, editor, Quantum Physics and Parapsychology (New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1975), pages 91 – 102.

Costa de Beauregard, Olivier, 1979.  “The Expanding Paradigm of the Einstein Theory”, in A. Puharich, editor, The Iceland Papers (Amherst: Essentia Research Associates, 1979), pages 161-191.

Evans, Christopher, 1973.  “Parapsychology – what the questionnaire revealed”, New Scientist, 25, January 1973, page 209.

Hyman, R. 1996b.  The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 1996, pp. 24-26.

Price, George, R. 1955.  “Science and the Supernatural”, Science Volume 122, number 3165, August 26, pages 359-367.

Wagner, Mahlon, and Mary Monet, 1979. “Attitudes of College Professors Toward Extra-Sensory Perception,” Zetetic Scholar, 1979, 5, pages 7 – 16.

Walker, E.H. 1979.  “The Quantum Theory of Psi Phenomena”, Psychoenergetic Systems, Vol. 3, pages 259 – 299.

Dean Radin, PhD on the logical structure of invalid criticisms. A commentary on Radin's insight for other fields of rational inquiry

Dean Radin, one of the world's leading experimental parapsychologists, has provided a cogent explanation of the scientific structure  and properties of valid and invalid criticisms. In this article, Radin comments:

It is commonly thought that all criticisms in science are equal. This is not so. In fact, criticisms must have two properties to be valid. First, it must be controlled, meaning that the criticism cannot also apply to well-accepted scientific disciplines. In other words, we cannot use a double standard and apply one set of criticisms to fledgling topics and an entirely different set for established disciplines. If we did, nothing new could ever be accepted as legitimate. Second, a criticism must be testable, meaning that a critic has to specify the conditions under which the research could avoid the criticism, otherwise the objection is just a philosophical argument that falls outside the realm of science.

Keep in mind that Radin is postulating two properties which are necessary and sufficient for a criticism to be valid, namely, that it be controlled and testable. As consequence, a criticism will be invalid it doesn't satisfy at least one of both conditions.

So, Radin comments "Some skeptics have protested that “It’s impossible to distinguish between psi and chance effects even in a successful experiment without the use of statistics.” This criticism is invalid because the same can be said for almost all experiments in biology, psychology, sociology and biomedicine"

Technically, we could define the concept of an invalid criticism like this: A criticism is invalid, if and only if, it is uncontrolled and/or untestable. 

It is uncontrolled if the criticism also applies to well-accepted scientific disciplines or hypotheses. 

It is untestable if it doesn't specify the conditions under the which the criticism would fail.

Most of the professional skeptics' objections to the scientific evidence for psi are invalid criticisms. The most egregious example of this is Richard Wiseman's concession that the evidence for ESP satisfies the standards of any other are of science, but it is still unacceptable to parapsychology. (See more evidence in this link)

INVALID CRITICISMS IN OTHER FIELDS OF RESEARCH AND INQUIRY

Radin's insight also applies to other fields of rational inquiry, for example in philosophy. Here I'll mention just one example:

Richard Dawkins' "main" criticism against the hypothesis "God explains why something exists rather nothing" is an egregious example of invalid criticism, because it is "uncontrolled", namely, it also applies to many well-accepted scientific hypothesis.

Dawkins' criticism is that if we posit God as an explanation for the existence of the universe (or for the complexity or apparent design of it) we explain absolutely nothing, because the existence of God himself remains unexplained. Watch it for yourself:

Dawkins' criticism implies that no scientific hypothesis could be ever accepted, because each time you posit some explanatory entity E for explaining the fact X, you will need an explanation for the explanation (otherwise, your explanation couldn't be accepted). This is obviously false, and if accepted, it would lead to an infinite regress of explanations and science would be destroyed.

Sophisticated philosophers have exposed Dawkins' invalid criticisms. For example, Daniel Came, an atheist philosopher from Oxford University, comments "Dawkins maintains that we're not justified in inferring a designer as the best explanation of the appearance of design in the universe because then a new problem surfaces: who designed the designer? This argument is as old as the hills and as any reasonably competent first-year undergraduate could point out is patently invalid. For an explanation to be successful we do not need an explanation of the explanation. One might as well say that evolution by natural selection explains nothing because it does nothing to explain why there were living organisms on earth in the first place; or that the big bang fails to explain the cosmic background radiation because the big bang is itself inexplicable."

On Radin's criteria, Dawkins' criticism is demostrably invalid, because it is uncontrolled.

Radin's thoughtful insight about the structure of invalid criticisms is a fruitful one. It doesn't apply to science alone, but also to other fields of rational inquiry, like philosophy or history (for example, atheist Richard Carrier's obscurantist views on the non-historicity of Jesus is an invalid criticism, because it is uncontrolled: most of such skeptical criticisms also apply to other individuals in ancient history, like Socrates, Buddha or Julius Caesar, individuals that no serious professional historian or scholar denies).

If you master the structure of invalid criticisms, you can easily recognize that most of the common objections posed by atheists and "skeptics" are demostrably invalid criticisms and hence worthless.

I suggest you to think in deep about the structure of invalid criticisms, and find your own examples of them in the atheistic and pseudoskeptical literature.

Was skeptic Susan Blackmore the inspiration for Sigourney Weaver's skeptical role in the movie Red Lights?

In a previous post, I commented about the movie Red Lights, which (I argued) was apparently promoting pseudo-skepticism in Hollywood. I was only partially wrong, but I won't tell you the story of the movie, you should watch it by yourself (it is a very good movie, by the way... you are going to enjoy it a lot).

I'm going to comment only that one of my top favorite actresses, Sigourney Weaver, features a nice but tough-minded, highly intelligent woman and very experienced and trained experimental scientist, whose professional experience dealing with "psychics" has made her a hard-nosed skeptic. She fully knows the fake psychic's bag of tricks and how to design experiments to expose them.

I suspect that Weaver's role was inspired in professional skeptic Susan Blackmore. Although less eccentric than Blackmore, Weaver's role is very similar in her scientific approach and moderate manners (not a Randi-like type of rhetorical skeptic), specially regarding the fact that her skepticism is based on her own personal scientific experience. 

In fact, when a student questions her about whether she thinks that all paranormal claims are false, she answers that she's not saying such a thing, that her point is that most of them can be explained in conventional ways, according to her experience.

Remember that Blackmore has said that she didn't find any convincing scientific evidence for psi (this is not exactly like that, because she has admitted in Confessions of a Parapsychologists that "The other major challenge to the skeptic's position is, of course, the fact that opposing evidence exists in the parapsychological literature. I couldn't dismiss it all." (p. 74), so actually she knew that positive scientific evidence did exist for psi, only that she couldn't find it in her own experiments).

The end of the movie is, for a large extension, very unexpected. I think this movie should be watched by all fans, students and reserachers of parapsychology and psychic research, and even pseudoskeptics will surely like it, except for...

PS
I ask all the readers that, while watching the movie, ask themselves: Am I more sympathetic to DeNiro (the psychic) or to the researchers (Weaver and Cillian)? This test will tell you a lot about your own prejudices...

Review by skeptic Gerald Woerlee of Chris Carter's book Science and the Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics and Carter's reply

In a previous post, I published a review by skeptic Gerald Woerlee of Chris Carter's book Science and Near-Death Experience, with Carter's reply. Now, Woerlee has published another Amazon review, this time of Carter's first book titled Science and Psychic Phenomena (previously  published as Parapsychology and the Skeptics). I'll publish this review, with Carter's reply. Draw your own conclusions (but read the book first!).

Gerald Woerlee's review

I purchased this book with my usual open mind when I read of this work being a definitive end to all discussion of the reality of the paranormal / psychic phenomena. Unfortunately I received a rude shock upon reading the blurb on the back cover....

"Carter reveals how the doctrine of materialism - in which nothing matters but matter - has become an infallible article of faith for many scientists and philosophers, much like the convictions of religious fundamentalists. Consequently, the possibility of psychic abilities cannot be tolerated because their existence would refute materialism and contradict a deeply ingrained ideology. By outlining the origin of this passionate debate, Carter calls on all open-minded individuals to disregard the church of skepticism...."

I began to suspect the worst. Was this book no more than a heated polemic by a true member of the congregation of the Church of Paranormalia? The foreword written by Rupert Sheldrake did little to reassure me, for here I read much the same:

"From my own experience talking to scientists and giving seminars in scientific institutions, dogmatic skeptics are a minority within the scientific community. Most scientists are curious and open-minded, if only because they themselves or people they know well have had experiences that suggest the reality of psi phenomena. Nevertheless, almost all scientists are aware of the taboo, and the open-minded tend to keep their interests private, fearing scorn or ridicule if they discuss them openly with their colleagues." (Page xii)

This opinion was supported by the statistics presented on pages 131-132 where two surveys of 500 to 100 scientists during the 1970's revealed that the majority (56-67%) believed ESP to be an established fact or likely probability. This type of statistic is similar to stating that one hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong. However, undeterred by this foolishness, I continued bravely in the true spirit of skepticism as defined by Chris Carter on page 43:

"Many writers have pointed out that true skepticism involves the practice of doubt, not of simple denial,..."

I consider myself a true skeptic, even though many label me a pseudoskeptic - whatever that may be. Chris Carter's discussions of the various experiments and discussions employed to convince the reader of the reality of the phenomena discussed reminded me strongly of my own beliefs in the reality of these phenomena until I passed 40 years of age. A referral back to a previous mindset. Fascinating to read, and mull over how I too once thought in a similar manner, spending many hours working out possible drug combinations to pharmacologically enhance paranormal perceptive abilities.

Carter spares no effort to convince the reader of the reality of these phenomena. Throughout the book he derides "establishment" science, and the "fear" most scientists seem to have to express their true belief in psychic phenomena. Such statements seem to be standard in this type of work, and remind me strongly of similar even more rabid statements in "The Spiritual Brain", a book written by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary. This sort of polemic does nothing to advance the cause of Chris Carter. Instead, such statements generally repel the true skeptic and other open-minded readers, by informing them of the equally intransigent attitudes of the "Church of Paranormalia".

The book deviates from its course of attempting to convince readers of the reality of psychic phenomena, by dragging in some of the other "usual suspects" as a sort of smokescreen to hide the poverty of convincing material: the mystery of consciousness, and quantum mechanics. My only thought on reading this was, "Oh dear....":

1. Consciousness is not understood. True. But that does not mean it is something mysterious and located outside the body. It is simply not understood as yet. To explain it otherwise is to use the tired old "God of the gaps" explanation as first formulated by the evangelist Henry Drummond during 1904, and dismissed by him as a sad form of reasoning.

2. Quantum mechanics is a possible mechanism proposed for paranormal perception, and as such is irrelevant in a book whose purpose is to demonstrate the reality of these phenomena.

Then we come to the main problem of this book. On pages 111 and 133 Chris Carter states that parapsychological research is underfunded. Again the usual suspects are trotted out, especially on page 133, where we read:

"Psychologist Sybo Schouten compared the funding directed toward parapsychology over the one hundred years spanning 1882 to 1982 and found that it was approximately equal to the expenditures of two months of conventional psychological research in the United States in 1983."

The implication is evident. Parapsychology is underfunded, which is why no unequivocal and conclusive proof has been provided sufficient to convince even skeptics. I find this very curious. Recent polls reveal that about 50% people in modern Western countries believe in paranormal phenomena, and about 10-15% of all people in modern Western countries claim to have experienced paranormal perceptions. This means paranormal perceptions such as:

- telepathy,
- clairvoyance,
- precognition,
- retrocognition,
- and psychokinesis,

are very common indeed. This was also known by the founders of the British Society for Psychical Research in 1882, and the founders of the similar American Society for Psychical Research in 1885. The founders of these societies believed that because these phenomena and experiences were so common, that scientific proof of the reality of these phenomena was a mere formality and rapidly achieved. But what is the current situation 130 years later, after vast effort by capable scientists, and rigorously controlled studies? The reality of paranormal phenomena is still doubtful and unproven. Expensive funding is not needed to prove the reality of something as ostensibly common as paranormal sensory abilities. The reality of these sensory abilities should be clearly evident after 130 years. This is why hard-headed financers of such research understandably say the following; "130 years of research has failed to convincingly demonstrate the reality of what you claim are really very common sensory abilities. This means a number of things:

- paranormal sensory abilities and psychic phenomena do not exist,
- people have been using the wrong testing procedures for 130 years,
- these sensory abilities and phenomena are very different to what people have defined and believe them to be."

This is why the funding of parapsychological research is drying up. This is why chairs of parapsychology are disappearing from universities all over the world. And this book by Chris Carter does nothing to dispel these facts.

Furthermore, as I pointed out in a book, "Mortal Minds" during 2003, the world about us provides abundant proof of the absence of paranormal perceptions. Many hundreds or even thousands of books teach people how to develop their supposedly dormant paranormal senses. Equally many people and organizations offer courses teaching people to develop these same supposedly dormant paranormal senses. So many people believe paranormal senses can be developed. According to the World Health Organization, there are about 314 million people alive on this world with a visual impairment, of which 45 million are totally blind (WHO statistics). According to the World Health Organization statistics, there are about 278 million people alive on this world with moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears (WHO statistics). Yet blind and deaf people are not offered courses to train any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. Nor do blind and deaf people spontaneously develop any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. So ages-old common knowledge teaches us that deaf and blind people live in a dark and silent world. Their information about this world, and their perceptions of this world, are derived only from their remaining physical senses, modified by their memories of the world as they experienced it when they still possessed the ability to see and hear. The blind and the deaf are living proof that people possess no paranormal sensory abilities, and this knowledge supplements the lack of conclusive proof of more than 120 years of research into paranormal sensory abilities. Blind and deaf people prove popular belief in paranormal abilities to be no more than a deeply rooted ancient delusion!

True, studies revealing the absence of "something", do not mean that "something" is absent. Nonetheless, such studies do reveal that if such perceptive abilities do exist, they function entirely differently than defined. This means that paranormal abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc.: if they exist, definitely do not possess the properties defined by parapsychology as it now exists. So if there is anything at all, then it is a form of anomalous perception, and definitely part of the normal perceptive abilities of humans and the laws of statistics and chance. Such is the attitude of the founders of chairs of "anomalous psychology", a way of looking at these poorly understood apparent aberrations in normal physical perceptive abilities.

It would have been better had Carter simply acknowledged these basic facts. "Science and Psychic Phenomena" would then have made a true contribution to the study of such fascinating poorly understood possible perceptive anomalies. Ultimately, I can only concur with Shaun Mason, one of the 2009 reviewers of the first edition of this book:

"The day that ESP is proven to exist under scientific conditions with no chicanery, parlor tricks, or stage magic, you won't have to read about it in obfuscated rhetoric by pseudoscientists like this, it will be unavoidable front-page news. Despite all the claims in this book, that day has not arrived. Save your money."

Chris Carter's reply

I will start with the quote with which Gerry ends his review of my book:

"The day that ESP is proven to exist under scientific conditions with no chicanery, parlor tricks, or stage magic, you won't have to read about it in obfuscated rhetoric by pseudoscientists like this, it will be unavoidable front-page news. Despite all the claims in this book, that day has not arrived. Save your money."

This is an obviously naïve view of the way that science - or any human enterprise for that matter - actually works. Here is an excerpt from my book that illustrates the issue involved here:

"As our theories change, what was once considered extraordinary can become quite ordinary-as, for instance, has happened with the acceptance of meteorites, continental drift, and quantum mechanics. What makes the claims of the psi researchers so extraordinary to the skeptics is the supposed inconsistency of psi with all of modern science. This misconception, probably more than any other factor, explains the continuing refusal of the skeptics to accept the best of the latest evidence as conclusive, even when they have run out of counterexplanations.

It also explains why the controversy has continued for as long as it has. In any other field, the debate would have ended long ago. Back in 1951, the psychologist Donald Hebb wrote:

`Why do we not accept ESP as a psychological fact? Rhine has offered enough evidence to have convinced us on almost any other issue. . . . Personally, I do not accept ESP for a moment, because it does not make sense. My external criteria, both of physics and of physiology, say that ESP is not a fact despite the behavioral evidence that has 186 Would the Existence of Psi Contradict Established Science? been reported. I cannot see what other basis my colleagues have for rejecting it . . . Rhine may still turn out to be right, improbable as I think that is, and my own rejection of his view is-in the literal sense-prejudice.'

Four years later, in 1955, George Price wrote that `Believers in psychic phenomena . . . appear to have won a decisive victory and virtually silenced opposition. . . . This victory is the result of careful experimentation and intelligent argumentation. Dozens of experimenters have obtained positive results in ESP experiments, and the mathematical procedures have been approved by leading statisticians.'

Yet later in the same article, after writing that "ESP is incompatible with current scientific theory, he offers his conclusion:

`My opinion concerning the findings of the parapsychologists is that many of them are dependent on clerical and statistical errors and unintentional use of sensory cues, and that all extrachance results not so explicable are dependent on deliberate fraud or mildly abnormal
mental conditions.'

Here we have two skeptics in effect admitting that if this were any other field of inquiry - that is, one with results less threatening to a worldview based on seventeenth-century science - then the experimental data would have carried the day by 1950." [Carter, p. 186]

Gerry delivers what he plainly considers to be a coup de grace:

"Furthermore, as I pointed out in a book, "Mortal Minds" during 2003, the world about us provides abundant proof of the absence of paranormal perceptions. Many hundreds or even thousands of books teach people how to develop their supposedly dormant paranormal senses. Equally many people and organizations offer courses teaching people to develop these same supposedly dormant paranormal senses. So many people believe paranormal senses can be developed. According to the World Health Organization, there are about 314 million people alive on this world with a visual impairment, of which 45 million are totally blind (WHO statistics). According to the World Health Organization statistics, there are about 278 million people alive on this world with moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears (WHO statistics). Yet blind and deaf people are not offered courses to train any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. Nor do blind and deaf people spontaneously develop any dormant paranormal sensory abilities. So ages-old common knowledge teaches us that deaf and blind people live in a dark and silent world. Their information about this world, and their perceptions of this world, are derived only from their remaining physical senses, modified by their memories of the world as they experienced it when they still possessed the ability to see and hear. The blind and the deaf are living proof that people possess no paranormal sensory abilities, and this knowledge supplements the lack of conclusive proof of more than 120 years of research into paranormal sensory abilities. Blind and deaf people prove popular belief in paranormal abilities to be no more than a deeply rooted ancient delusion!"

Gerry wrote above that "many people believe paranormal senses can be developed." What many people believe is in this context completely irrelevant. Whether or not psi abilities are capable of being developed is an empirical matter, and thus can only be determined by controlled observation and experiment.

Regardless, he goes on to conclude that "The blind and the deaf are living proof that people possess no paranormal sensory abilities." But again, whether or not the blind and deaf have greater telepathic or clairvoyant abilities than the unimpaired is an empirical question, and thus cannot be settled with a priori arguments. At the present time no research has been conducted into this matter, and so the question remains unanswered.

As Gerry pointed out, parapsychology is a poorly funded branch of science, and if it were not for the campaigns of ridicule carried out by "skeptical" materialist organizations such as CSI/CSICOP, then funding would be available to answer questions such as this.

For the record I should reveal that "Gerry" is in fact Gerald Woerlee, a fanatical materialist and militant atheist, author of the book The Unholy Legacy of Abraham.

Why are there so many "skeptics" such as Gerald Woerlee eager to debunk not just reports of psychic phenomena, but also phenomena such as the near death experience?

As I discuss in my book, this militant opposition is something peculiar to Western societies, and it is basically due to the historical conflict in the West between secular and religious members of society.

Genuine skepticism plays an important role in science; but genuine skepticism involves the suspension of belief, not the refusal of belief. So, individuals such as Woerlee are not genuine skeptics, but rather pseudo-skeptics strenuously defending the theory of materialism from the data which refute it. As Karl Popper stressed, science progresses with the refutation of theories; it follows from this that defending a theory by strenuously denying the data which refute it must be one of the defining characteristics of pseudo-science.

Essentially, this debate is not primarily about evidence. Rather, the debunkers and deniers are defending an out-moded world view in which psychic phenomena and out-of-body experiences are simply not allowed to exist. It is essential to realize that most of the deniers and phony-skeptics are militant atheists and secular humanists. For instance, the world's leading "skeptical" organization, The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was founded in 1976 by atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz, at a meeting of the American Humanist Association. For various reasons, these people have an ideological agenda which is anti-religious and anti-superstitious. One of the main pillars of their opposition to religion and superstition is the doctrine of materialism: that is, the doctrine that all events have a physical cause, and that the brain therefore produces the mind. If they conceded the existence of psychic abilities such as telepathy, and of the Near Death Experience as a genuine separation of mind from body, then this pillar of their opposition to religion would crumble. Hence, their dogmatic denial of the evidence that proves materialism false.

The words of C. D. Broad, the Cambridge philosopher of science, are appropriate here. In his 1962 "Lectures in Psychical Research," Broad wrote: "Anyone who at the present day expresses confident opinions, whether positive or negative, on ostensibly paranormal phenomena, without making himself thoroughly acquainted with the main methods and results of the careful and long-continued work may be dismissed without further ceremony as a conceited ignoramus."

And it should be noted that Woerlee and I have tangled before. In fact, his "review" of my book is obviously a petty attempt at revenge. I embarrassed him recently in The Journal of Near Death Studies, Fall 2011 issue 30(1), in which he tried and failed to discredit the famous Pam Reynolds near death experience.

Chris Carter

Sources

Hebb, D. O. "The Role of Neurological Ideas in Psychology." Journal of Personality 20 (1951): 39-55.

Price, George R. "Science and the Supernatural." Science 122, no. 3165 (1955): 359-67. 

Jime's additions:

-Insider's confession by a former skeptic about organized skepticism.

-My posts on Jime's Iron Law about the cognitive faculties of hard-core atheistic materialists.

You have to keep in mind that a consequence of Jime's Iron Law is the hard-core atheist's simplistic and illogical mindset and full unability to grasp complicated arguments (specially if they're posed against atheism or materialism). As an example of this, Woerlee misrepresents one of Carter's arguments for consciousness being (ontologically) independent of the brain as an "God of the gaps" argument.

According to Woerlee's misinterpretation of Carter's case: "Consciousness is not understood. True. But that does not mean it is something mysterious and located outside the body. It is simply not understood as yet. To explain it otherwise is to use the tired old "God of the gaps" explanation as first formulated by the evangelist Henry Drummond during 1904, and dismissed by him as a sad form of reasoning."

If you have read carefully Carter's book, you know that nowhere Carter is arguing FROM the lack of understanding of consciousness TO the conclusion that consciousness is "mysterious" or "located outside of the body". It would be a massively stupid argument that not intelligent person (let alone, a Oxford-trained philosopher like Carter) would defend. (Note: Richard Dawkins is a trained scientist from Oxford, but he has defended massively stupid arguments... see here for evidence).

On the contrary, Carter is arguing from what IS POSITIVELY KNOWN about consciousness (from quantum mechanics, parapsychology, near-death experiences, etc.) to the conclusion that consciousness is ontologically independent of the brain. Carter is not appealing to the lack of understanding of consciousness, but to POSITIVE evidence and data about the nature and functioning of consciousness in order to show that that positive evidence is, overall, best explained by the transmission hypothesis than by the productive (materialistic) one. (Note that no "gaps" is part of Carter's argumentation, therefore, not "God of the gaps" exists in his case).

The God of the gaps argument has the following logical structure: Science lacks understanding of X, therefore God explains X. No intelligent and sophisticated theist in the history of thought has been so stupid as to defend an argument like that. But hard-core atheists, intellectually incapable of subtle thinking and logic argumentation, will blindly repeat again and again the "God of the Gaps" objection against any argument for the existence of God (and, for that matter, for any argument against materialism, including arguments for the paranormal and the afterlife, as Woerlee did).

As example, just watch this question posed by a member of the audience (and the reply by theistic philosopher William Lane Craig) about the "God of the gaps" argument in an academic debate about the existence of God a few years ago:

Don't try to explain this to a hard-core atheistic materialist, because Jime's Iron Law predicts that they won't get it.

William Lane Craig on parapsychology and precognition, molinism and the problem of human freedom

Christian philosophers (and philosophers, scientists and scholars in general, for that matter) have not interest (and tend to be ignorant about) parapsychology and psi research.

As a rule, the few contemporary professional philosophers interested in psi research are naturalistic-materialistic-atheistic ones, who are members of militant atheist or debunking organizations (like Paul Kurtz, Paul Edwards, Robert Caroll, Keith Augustine, etc.) who, correctly, can see that the evidence for psi (and survival) is in tension with the basic premises of the metaphysical naturalistic worldview, and hence they try to refute or undermine the evidence (or explain them in terms compatible with naturalism, e.g. as self-delusions, frauds, flawed experimental methods, tricks, etc.).

Another small group of philosophers interested in psi (smaller in comparison with "skeptics"), like Chris Carter, Stephen Braude, David Ray Griffin or Robert Almeder, are not necessarily metaphysical naturalists (in the sense in which Kurtz or Augustine are) nor materialists, and hence they tend to be more sympathetic to the scientific evidence for psi.

Christian philosphers in general, are too busy refuting atheists, or defending theism or Christianity, and most of them seem show no interest in (or knowledge of) parapsychology. Some Christian believers even consider the whole topic a "Satanic matter", not worthy of further inquiry.

So, you can imagine my astonishment when, while reading Craig's very short book "The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom", he wrote sympathetically on parapsychological researches about precognition, for example:

Although many philosophers and scientists regard precognition as utter nonsense, the evidence for it is impressive (p. 97)

More dazzling to me was seeing Craig quoting technical articles in the Journal of Parapsychology, and showing good command and understanding of some works of people like Helmut Schmidt, Whately Carreton, Russell Targ, Alan Gauld, Michael Scriven, C.D.Broad and other informed psi researchers. (Craig's book is from 1987, so it doesn't include the lastest references on precognition).

You have to keep in mind that Craig's book is NOT about parapsychology. The reason he explores this matter (specifically regarding precognition) is that it is relevant to the topic he's discussing in the book, namely, if given God's foreknolwedge, human freedom is possible or not (a topic which is pressing for Christians, because the Bible suggests both God's precognition and human freedom).

Craig defends a position known as molinism (a position very controversial among Christian thinkers), which makes compatible God's omniscience (including foreknowledge of creaturely free decisions) and human freedom.

The importance of Craig's book for non-religious precognition studies

Regardless of each's person theological persuasion, I think Craig's book is important because the topic he's addressing is, mutatis mutandis, the same theoretical problem that any believer in precognition will face: If precognition exists, is freedom of the will possible?

This theoretical question almost never is addressed in most books on parapsychology, in part because most parapsychologists are not trained philosophically, and in part because parapsychology is still theretically weak even though it is empirically strong ("skeptics" will disagree about the latter point).

We could roughly summarize the problem like this:

-If precognition is true, then all of these future events known by precognition are already determined in advance (otherwise, no actual and present knolwedge of them would be possible by precognition or other means).

-If these events are determined in advanced, then free will doesn't exist (because the "will" is determined in advanced too).

-Precognition is true

-Therefore, free will doesn't exist.

The conclusion is counterintuitive. Moreover, if true, moral responsability is destroyed. Even logical reasoning and science are destroyed (because your beliefs would be determined in advanced too and you hold them due to that determism, not because they conform to valid canons of logic and evidence). We would be mere automata, with the illusion of having free will.

My preliminary opinion is that Craig's molinistic model provide a way out of this situation. Craig's model is relevant to theology but, in my opinion, it is also relevant to parapsychology and the problem of precognition and human freedom (note that the argument mentioned above is the same regardless of whether precognition is attributed to God or to human beings: the whole point is that if it exists, human freedom seems to be illusory).

I cannot summarize Craig's model yet, because to be honest with you, I don't fully grasp it (I've just began to read his book), and I don't known if it's correct or more plausible than the alternatives. I have to explore other possibilities too in order to make my mind on this matter.

But since I'm a believer in free will (as a precondition of my morality and rationality), I'm antecedently sympathetic to any model which makes precognition (divine or human) compatible with free will.

I'll have more to say about this problem in the future.

Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics by Chris Carter (foreword by Rupert Sheldrake)

The new edition of Chris Carter's excellent book "Parapsychology and the Skeptics" will be available in March 15, 2012 with a new title "Science and the Psychic Phenomena: the Fall of the House of Skeptics".

This book is a must read for any person interested in the science of parapsychology and psychic research and how "professional skeptics" (=materialistic pseudoskeptics or materialistic ideologues) behave in order to suppress the scientific evidence which refutes materialism.

Stay tuned for more information on the new edition of this book.

Skeptic Ray Hyman on the lack of scientific replicability of parapsychology and the reply by Chris Carter

Chris Carter

Ray Hyman

In the book Debating Psychic Experience, professional skeptic of parapsychology, professor Ray Hyman, wrote his lastest skeptical reflections on the current state of scientific parapsychology.

I will limit this post to one of Hyman's main objections and criticisms of parapsychology (which he considers the Aquiles' heel of this discipline): The lack of replicability of the evidence for psi.

It's well known that parapsychologists have argued that meta-analyses provide valid scientific replication of psi phenomena. Hyman directly disputes this view.

In his essays titled Parapsychology’s Achilles Heel: Persistent Inconsistency, Hyman wrote:

A meta-analysis is basically an exploratory rather than a confirmatory procedure. The notion of replication (or reproduction) of an experiment in the regular sciences is a prospective (or predictive) one. A successful replication is one that achieves essentially the same result that was predicted on the basis of a previously conducted experiment. The parapsychologists who try to justify the replicability of psi results with meta-analysis are using a retrospective notion. They are arguing for successful replication if a set of already completed experiments show evidence of similar effect sizes whose combined average is significantly different from chance. Replicability implies the ability to predict successfully from the results of a meta-analysis to a new set of independent data. This is where parapsychological evidence falls woefully short. (p.44. Emphasis in blue added).

So, we can construct Hyman's argument like this:

1-Scientific replicability is essentially prospective, i.e. it implies to predict the results of previous experiments to a new set of data which confirms the previous results.

2-Parapsychologists who use meta-analyses as justification of replicability are using a retrospective (not a predictive/prospective) notion.

3-Therefore, the positive results produced by such a meta-analyses done by parapsychologists don't support the claim of scientific replicability.

Hyman's argument is logically valid, so the question is to know if the premises of such argument are true. Premise 1 is correct, so we don't have anything to comment here.

But is premise 2 true? Answering this question is essential to the debate about parapsychology, because Hyman's whole case rests on the truth of this premise 2. If Hyman's premise 2 were true, then his position would be essentially correct, and any rational person would be forced to accept that the evidence for psi lacks replicability in the scientific sense. This would seriously undermine the parapsychology's scientific status.

ONE EXAMPLE USED BY HYMAN TO SUPPORT PREMISE 2:

In order to support premise 2, Hyman mentions the following example:

Consider the parapsychological claims that the autoganzfeld experiments successfully replicated the original ganzfeld database (Bem & Honorton, 1994). At least two parapsychologists now agree with my assertion that the autoganzfeld experiments failed to replicate the original ganzfeld data base (Bierman, 2001; Hyman, 1994; Kennedy, 2001). In the original database the average effect size was derived from studies that all used static targets. The autoganzfeld experiments used both static and dynamic (action video clips) targets. Only the dynamic targets produced a significant effect. The results on the static targets were consistent with chance and differed significantly from the results on the static targets in the original data base. (p.49. Emphasis in blue added)

Please, read carefully Hyman's example above. It's absolutely essential that we understand exactly what Hyman's objection is, and interpret it in its best, strongest formulation. No straw man is allowed in such an important question.

Hyman is arguing that the results of the original database of the ganzfeld experiments WERE NOT replicated in the autoganzfeld experiments because:

1-The original ganzfeld database consisted of studies which used only STATIC targets and produce positive results.

2-The autoganzfeld database consisted of both STATIC targets and DYNAMIC targets, but only the dynamic targets produced a significant effect.

3-The results of the autoganzfeld database on the static targets were consistent with chance

4-Therefore, the autoganzfeld experiments didn't produce positive effects in the case of STATIC targes amd hence they failed to replicate the original ganzfeld database (whose positives effects were precisely obtained with the static targets).

Therefore, Hyman's concludes, the autoganzfeld experiments don't provide evidence for replication of the original ganzfeld database.

Again, if Hyman's argument is correct, then his conclusion is valid and true, and any rational person must agree with him. But is Hyman right?

Chris Carter's reply to Ray Hyman:

In his reply to Hyman's argument, specially regarding the example mentioned above, Chris Carter wrote this:

The truth of the matter seems closer to the opposite of what Hyman tells us. The original ganzfeld experiments used quasi-dynamic targets (View Master “slide” reels) in addition to completely static targets. Studies using the View Master reels produced significantly higher hit rates than did studies using single-image targets (50% versus 34%). Meta-analysis of the original data led to the prediction that dynamic targets would show greater results than static targets. (p.158. Emphasis in blue added).

Note that Carter directly denies one of Hyman's factual premises, namely, the claim that the original ganzfeld database used only static targets.

According to Chris, the truth of the matter is that the original ganzfeld database used TWO kinds of targets (not one as Hyman misleadingly says), namely:

1-Quasi-dynamic targets (View Master "slide" reels)

2-Static targets

Keeping this fact in mind is absolutely essential, because it actually destroys Hyman's example.

Why? Because according to Hyman, the original ganzfeld database used only static target and hence it implies that any future replication of this database only will can be attained if future experiments produce positive results using static targets. And given that the autoganzfeld experiments produced results consistent with chance in the case of static targets, the original database wasn't replicated.

But Carter's mention that the original database used both (static AND quasi-dynamic) kinds of targets, leave open the possibility that at least regarding the dynamics targets, the autoganzfeld experiments produced positive results consistent with the original ganzfeld database and hence results which replicate the previous findings on dynamic targets.

And this is what actually happened. As Carter mentions: (regarding the non-static, dynamic targets) "Meta-analysis of the original data led to the prediction that dynamic targets would show greater results than static targets"

So, the autoganzfeld experiments didn't replicated the ganzfeld experiments regarding static targets, but they replicated the ganzfeld experiments regarding the DYNAMIC targets. and therefore, the parapsychologist's claim that the autoganzfeld experiments offer evidence of replication is demostrably true (contrary to Hyman's misleading position).

This point has not been understood by some readers of this book (even by readers sympathetic to the evidence for psi). For example, in Michael Prescott's blog, leading Brazilian psi researcher Vitor Moura posted the following comment regarding Carter's reply to Hyman: "But this clearly was not Hyman's criticism. What he said was that "the results on the static targets were consistent with chance and differed significantly from the results on the static targets in the original data base"

Carter clearly missed the point here. Carter wrote about the dynamic targets, which Hyman admits to be significant. But the criticism of the static targets remains untouched."

Moura clearly missed Carter's (and Hyman's) point here. The debate is not about static targets or dynamic targets, but about the REPLICATON of the evidence for psi.

Certainly as Moura realizes, Hyman accepts that the results about dynamic targets were significant while denying that the original positive evidence of the static targets were replicated. But Hyman concludes from this fact that the autoganzfeld didn't offered any replication at all of the original database, which is false.

Even agreeing with Hyman about the chance results of the static targets, the dynamic targets got positive results, and such positive results WERE PREDICTED by the original database, which is everything what Carter needs in order to refute Hyman's charge of lack of replication.

So, Moura's charge of irrelevance against Carter ("Carter wrote about the dynamic targets") is unjustified, because precisely the positive evidence in the case of dynamic targets replicates the prediction about dynamic targets (not about static targets in which Hyman misleadingly focused his criticisms) done on the grounds of the original database.

As Carter concluded this part of his reply to Hyman: "This prediction was in fact strongly corroborated, as Bem and Honorton (1994) reported:

Dynamic versus static targets. The success of [these studies] raises the question of whether dynamic targets are, in general, more effective than static targets. This possibility was also suggested by earlier meta-analysis, which revealed that studies using multiple-image targets (View Master stereoscopic slide reels) obtained significantly higher hit rates than did studies using singleimage targets. By adding motion and sound, the video clips might be thought of as high-tech versions of the ViewMaster reels. The 10 autoganzfeld studies that randomly sampled from both dynamic and static target pools yielded 164 sessions with dynamic targets and 165 sessions with static targets. As predicted, sessions using dynamic targets yielded significantly more hits that did sessions using static targets (37 percent vs. 27 percent, p < .04). (p. 12)

As Hyman observed, “replicability implies the ability to predict successfully from the results of a meta-analysis to a new set of independent data.” And because of these results, virtually all ganzfeld studies ever since have used only dynamic targets. (p.158)

In conclusion, I agree with Carter and other parapsychologists that this evidence for psi has been scientifically replicated and therefore Hyman's objection that the evidence for psi is not replicable is demostrably fase.

Dean Radin on the positive definitions of PSI and James Alcock's skeptical cavils

Dean Radin

James Alcock

One of the main and repetead objections of James Alcock against parapsychology is the use of "negative" definitions.

In particular, Alcock says: "Not only does parapsychology have difficulty in deciding just what is its legitimate subject matter, but unlike the various domains of mainstream science, it deals exclusively with phenomena that are only negatively defined. Extrasensory perception? It can be said to occur only when all normal sensory communication can be ruled out. Psychokinesis? It is claimed to have occurred when an individual can produce effects on the physical environment without the application of any known force. Such definitions tell us not what the phenomena are, but only what they are not."(Debating Psychic Experience, p. 33. Emphasis in blue added)

When we're examining an objection, we have to try to read it in his best, strongest formulation, in order to avoid straw men, and give the critic the best or more sympathetic reading of his argument (it is not say that it's always easy; many times we unconsciously misrepresent other people's position. But we need to do an effort in order to avoid this).

So, read carefully Alcock's objection. He's saying that psi phenomena are not defined positively, but negatively (i.e. in terms of what they're NOT).

Let's to examine this objection in detail:

1-It's false that psi is defined negatively. In 2006, in his book Entangled Minds, Dean Radin addressed this objection: "As a positive definition, psi is a means by which information can be gained from a distance without the use of ordinary senses"(p.284)

Now, Alcock would reply that it is still a negative definition, because psi is still a phenomenon which occurs when the use of ordinary senses are discarded. In fact, in his reply to Chris Carter (when Carter quoted Radin's above citation in order to refute Alcock's objection), Alcock said: "He [Carter] totally misunderstands my concern about the negative definition of psi, and quotes Dean Radin’s view that psi is positively defined as a means by which information can be gained from a distance without the use of the ordinary senses. This of course means that one must first rule out “the use of the ordinary senses,” which is, of course, the very essence of a negative definition." (p.130)

Alcock clearly missed Carter's and Radin's point. The essence of the definition of psi is not that "one must first rule out" anything. The latter is only a methodological requeriment in order to test psi in the laboratory (not in order to define it).

Alcock, showing again his lack of training in logic, conflates the definition of psi with the methodological procedures used to detect it under controlled conditions.

As Dean Radin mentioned in Entangled Minds: "the "what psi isn't" definition reflects how psi is investigated in the laboratory, not what's thought to be"(284).

Alcock clearly conflates the methods of investigation of a phenomenon (which in case of psi, implies discarding normal sensory perception) with the definition of the phenomenon (which says what the phenomenon IS, regardless of how it is investigated in the particular cases).

The reason why Alcock doesn't understand this difference is because he is ignorant of logic. In any textbook on logic, in the chapters about definitions, you will never found that definitions of an object are identical to the ways to test the existence of such object.

So, I don't think that Alcock is being dishonest in his criticism. I do think his criticism is fully rooted in his sound ignorance of logic and how to define a construct.

In fact, look carefully at Alcock's definition of extrasensory perception given above: "Extrasensory perception? It can be said to occur only when all normal sensory communication can be ruled out."

Ruling out normal sensory communication is needed to KNOW the occurrence of ESP under experimental laboratory conditions, not to define ESP. In fact, if ESP exists, it could occur even in cases where we have not idea of such occurrence, and outside of laboratory conditions. In other words, if ESP exists (as an ontologically real fact), it is independent of the methods used in order to know it (which is an epistemological problem, not an ontological one).

Alcock defines ESP not in terms of what it is supposed to be (ontologically = as a putative objective fact in reality), but in terms of how we KNOW that such ESP has occured (which is an epistemological and methodological question). He conflates methodology of psi research (which implies excluding and ruling out certain factors in order to ascertain the existence of ESP in the laboratory) with the definition of ESP in ontologically terms (which positively asserts what ESP is supposed to BE regardless of the methodological controls used to test its putative existence).

So, it's unlikely that Alcock will recant of such objection. His objection is based on a studied ignorance of the distinction between ontology and methodology, and specially of the different kinds of definitions (e.g. essential definitions and operationalist definitions).

The only remedy to this is a deeper knowledge of logic and philosophy.

2-But let's assume, for the argument's sake, that psi is defined purely in negative terms, which is the problem with it? Why is it an objection against parapsychology? Which is exactly what is supposed to follow from this?

As Radin wrote in his reply to Alcock: "Even if this assertion were true, so what? Negative definitions are common in many disciplines, ranging from physics, where concepts like dark energy and matter are defined by what they are not, to psychology, where concepts like inattentional blindness, implicit cognition, and unconscious processing are defined by contrast to conscious awareness, i.e., to what is not conscious. (Debating Psychic Experience, p.119)

Look at wikipedia for scientific definitions of many scientific facts in which the definitions are clearly negative ones:

-Spontaneous remission: "The spontaneous regression and remission from cancer was defined by Everson and Cole in their 1966 book ^[1]: "The partial or complete disappearance of a malignant tumour in the absence of all treatment, or in the presence of therapy which is considered inadequate to exert significant influence on neoplastic disease."" (emphasis in blue added)

Note that in order to call a healing of cancer as a "spontaneous remission" according to the above definition, you need to rule out the use of "all treatment". And that ruling out is, according to Alcock, the "very essence of a negative definition". So, the scientific definition of spontaneous remission of cancer is demostrably a negative definition.

Is Alcock (and his skeptical fellows) going to challenge that scientific definition of spontaneous remision on the grounds of being a negative definition?

-Unconscious processes: "Unlike in the psychoanalytic research tradition that uses the terms "unconscious", in the cognitive tradition, the processes that are not mediated by conscious awareness are sometimes referred to as "nonconscious"... Specifically, the process is non-conscious when even highly motivated individuals fail to report it, and few theoretical assumptions are made about the process"

Is the psychologist Alcock going to challenge scientific concepts like the above ones, because they're "negatively" defined?

Even concepts beloved by "skeptics", like scientific naturalism or metaphysical naturalism are defined negatively. According to infidels.org, naturalism is defined like this: "The hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system, which means that nothing that is not part of the natural world affects it... naturalism implies that are no supernatural entities- including God"

So, the view that nature is a closed system (essential to naturalism) means that NO entities outside of this system will be causally efficacious in that system. In other words, EXTRA or SUPER natural entities can NOT affect the natural world. And this implies that causally active on nature entities (like God, minds, spirits, etc.) DON'T exist. So, naturalism implies atheism (=the negation of theism).

Would Alcock criticize the infidels.org explicit definition of naturalism as a anti-scientific or pseudo-scientific definition? Is the "hypothesis" of naturalism a wrong one, because it's defined negatively (i.e in terms of which it discards or rules out, namely God and other extra-natural entities with causally active powers?).

Obviously not. Alcock's objection against parapsychology is a mere cavil, rooted in his ignorance of logic and in his personal prejudices against psi research (prejudices which are direct and necessary consequences of his ideological commitment to the negatively defined metaphysical naturalism and atheism).

3-Moreover and finally, Radin also offered in his reply explicit positive definitions of particular kinds of psi phenomena: "In any case, a positive definition of telepathy is easy to state: “A means of communication between people who are isolated by distance or shielding.” Likewise, precognition may be defined as “a means of perception through time.” Psychokinesis as “mind/matter interactions.” And so on." (emphasis in blue added).

Such positive definitions should settle the question once and for all, and prevent skeptics of using this cavil again.

Why does Alcock keep repeating his cavil about negative definitions of psi as an objection to parapsychology, when POSITIVE definitions are available and have been explicitly mentioned? Is Alcock being objective in his criticisms? Is it a valid criticism or objection against parapsychology which is unanswered or unanswarable by psi researchers? Obviously not, the criticism is invalid, irrelevant, based on injustifiable double standards and demostrably false.

So, the next time that you see a professional skeptic repeating the same objection about "negative definitions", you'll know you're dealing with a person with a personal ideological agenda against parapasychology, not an objective and reliable researcher.