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establish.
What
is needed
is consensus among the various camps on the ground
rules
for replicability.
For example,
individuals must rigorously apply the
same criteria
to themselves that they do
to others
,
and apply to others
the same
criteria that they themselves use elsewhere.
One approach that might move parapsychology out of the quagmire of
statistical significance levels could be
to control for desired conditions
--
i.e.,
for large effect size
--
stripping away in advance the
"noise"
injected by
those subjects with low capability.
It may be that replicability will hinge on
getting large effect sizes.
But even replicability in operators with large
effect sizes
is often problematical across
time and changing experimental
conditions
In the end,
some parapsychologists believe,
it may be that replicability
will follow from the development of theory in parapsychology.
In this view,
the
priority should be to pursue process -oriented research that can elucidate the
mechanisms controlling these anomalies.
It will then be possible to design
experiments and conditions
to produce the desired effects,
rather than relying
on experiments designed to produce statistical significance and satisfy a
critical audience.
(Critics,
if they are given the last word,
retort that
parapsychologists should not bother presenting their case
to the scientific
establishment until they have succeeded in developing an adequate theory.)
IV.
THE MEANING OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
ASSESSMENTS OF MEANING AND MEANINGFULNESS
Leading off the "Findings and Conclusions" on parapsychology in the recent
NRC report was
a provocative assertion:
"The Committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a
period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena.
Although the treatment of parapsychology in the body of the report was generally
more moderate
in tone,
this finding was taken by the media and many readers
to
be the
"bottom line"
of the report with respect
to parapsychology.
It produced
considerable distress and resentment among parapsychologists and others,
who
felt that the field had been dealt an unwarranted blow.^3
However,
the statement did clearly delineate
the view of many of those who
monitor the field.
Some critics are willing to concede that parapsychology
research has demonstrated definite anomalies, but they believe that these
reflect statistical or experimental artifacts,
not psi.
In their view,
the
22 National Research Council,
op.
cit.
,
p.
22.
See,
for example:
Palmer,
J.A.
,
C.
Honorton,
& J.
Utts,
op.
cit.
24 This statement was based on a previously published assertion by Ray Hyman,
chairman of the NRC subcommittee which authored the report
( Proc.
IEEE .
June
1986,
2^(6):
823-849).
At the workshop,
Hyman said that the precise wording
of the NRC's statement was not his.
Discussion ensued over the semantic
differences between Hyman's statement and the NRC report statement.
Hyman
said that he would have phrased the statement differently.
He later referred
to any differences between the wording he would have used and the wording in
the report as
a matter of style,
not substance
(personal communication with
Dr. Alan Shaw,
28 December 1988).
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anomalies are
lust anomalies
-- mere "puzzles"
--
and nothing more.
The more
conservative parapsychologists tend to agree that nothing more than anomalies
have been demonstrated;
but they point out that the anomalies are structured
statistically in very interesting ways,
suggesting that something more
significant
is at work.
Critics,
in turn,
counter that
if a "successful"
experiment has been cleanly run and the results are well above chance,
then most
scientists would agree that something truly puzzling has been manifested.
That
is why methodology and replicability are
so important for parapsychology
experiments.
But,
they conclude,
it is not a puzzle that has high priority when
viewed against the other questions facing scientists.
They assume that the
explanation for the puzzle, when found, will not be very interesting after all.
One reason
(of several)
for the critics'
skepticism
is
the "experimenter
effect,” which
is seen in the fact that certain investigators obtain
consistently positive experimental results while others get only chance results.
So pervasive
is this phenomenon that it has been called "the only confirmed
result of parapsychology
. ”25
The experimenter effect lends force
to criticisms
of parapsychology,
seeming as
it does almost to imply fraud
--
or at least a
lack of objectivity.
Parapsychologists point out that the identity of the
experimenter
is also positively correlated with the placebo effect in clinical
medicine.
It may be,
they suggest,
a function of belief in the phenomenon under
investigation.
According to this view,
some of those who believe
in psi are
somehow able
to elicit the phenomenon in their subjects.
But,
if true,
this
presents a problem for the experiments,
since
the investigator can influence
the
experiment subjectively and perhaps involuntarily.
In other words,
it might
demonstrate
the existence of psi while making it even more difficult to prove
scientifically
.
Stringent requirements for proof are placed on parapsychology.
The editor
of Science has stated that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. ”26
Some parapsychologists object that the burdens of proof in this field are
unique,
and unfairly
so.
In their view,
the critics of the field have an
arbitrarily high threshold for what constitutes scientifically acceptable
evidence,
and everything falling below that threshold
is dismissed as
insignificant.
Indeed,
the NRC committee recognized only two successful
experiments over
15 years
in all of parapsychology
- -
one
in remote viewing^?
and one using the random number generator^® --as meeting
"most of the minimal
25 Parker,
A.
A pilot study of the influence of experimenter expectancy on
ESP scores.
In J.D.
Morris et
al.
(Eds.) Research in Parapsychology 1974
.
Metuchen,
NJ
:
Scarecrow Press,
1975.
26 Abelson,
P.H.
"A stepchild of science starts
to win friends."
U
. S
News &
World Report.
31 July 1978.
27 Schlitz,
M. & J.M.
Haight.
Remote viewing revisited: An intrasubject
replication.
Journal of Parapsychology .
1984,
4£:
39-49.
28 May,
E.C.
,
B.S.
Humphrey, & G.S.
Hubbard.
Electronic System Perturbation
Techniques
(Final Report).
Menlo Park,
CA:
SRI International,
1980.
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