Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200450001-8 1 At bottom, the question of whether parapsychology is a science runs up against philosophical questions that challenge the prevailing world-view of contemporary science. To quote again from the article cited above: "The dispute about psi reflects the clash of two fundamentally different views of reality. The first of these is the materialistic, monistic view that the human mind is some sort of emergent manifestation of brain processes, whereas the second is the dualistic position that maintains that the human mind/personality is something beyond the stuff of atoms and molecules." The issue of psi thus seems, to many, to transcend ordinary scientific controversy and to take on overtones of philosophy and even religion. This fact seems to account, in part, for the unusually strong resistance the field has met with from the scientific establishment. RESISTANCE BY "ESTABLISHMENT" SCIENCE This report has made repeated reference to the difficulty that parapsychology has encountered, throughout its long history, in gaining acceptance within the scientific community. This resistance by the scientific establishment appears to have taken three forms: (1) the loosely defined but stringent criteria for proof imposed on parapsychology experiments; (2) a nearly total rejection by mainstream scientific journals of articles or research reports supporting parapsychology; and (3) the more derisive and more public form of criticism practiced by some members of the CSICOP. One workshop participant documented a long series of exchanges with the management of the journal Science and its parent organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, over the issue of publication. No report of research conducted by a parapsychologist has ever been published in Science, although criticisms of parapsychological research have been published from time to time. According to this participant, parapsychology research reports submitted to Science have been reviewed by reviewers from outside the field and rejected on often arbitrary and irrelevant grounds. Positive reviews by parapsychologists are evidently discounted on the basis that the reviewers are biased by their belief in psi. Repeated efforts to bring this situation to the attention of Science and AAAS management apparently failed to gain a sympathetic hearing. This individual recommends (1) that editors and grant- givers be required to define publicly the qualifications of their reviewers for any given paper or proposal and (2) that reviewers be required to sign their evaluations. Also heard during the workshop was the suggestion that there is a hierarchy of sciences, in which psychology and the other social sciences rank below the physical sciences and, indeed, from the most conservative perspective are still only barely established as being legitimate. According to this view, psychologists (generally the most active in criticism of parapsychology) do not wish to be tarnished by association with a field that resembles psychology but which they consider unscientific and "flaky." They are therefore anxious to act as the "gatekeepers" of science with respect to parapsychology, partly in order to reinforce their own sense of legitimacy and acceptability. Those who hold this rather harsh view suggest that there may also be an underlying motivation to suppress potential competitors for the same limited pool of research funds. 34 Alcock, J.E., op. cit., p. 565. Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200450001-8