What is parapsychology research?

Added: 11/29/2006

Parapsychology tries to distinguish itself from run-of-the-mill psychics and reports of paranormal phenomena by its emphasis on science. If parapsychology is to make any of it respectable, it is through rigorous scientific testing. This is complicated by the fact that most belief in paranormal phenomena is based upon anecdotes and personal experiences - neither critical reasoning nor science is very much involved. Introducing science has, therefore, proved difficult.

The study of parapsychology research is generally performed in one of two ways: through large-scale experiments done with large numbers of people in search of a few statistical anomalies, or through the study of specific and allegedly extraordinary individuals who appear to demonstrate a great deal of power. Among those who do the first sort, statistical evidence is believed to be the only way to provide solid and unassailable proof of psychic powers; among those who do the second type, it is believed that the best way to understand such parapsychology research is to study it in its most extreme examples.

Before these two types of laboratory research developed, almost all of the evidence for parapsychology research phenomena came from personal anecdotes. Early studies of psi also relied very heavily on anecdotes, but even these researchers became quickly aware of both the limitations and the flaws of anecdotes and moved to establish a firmer foundation for what they believed would be a productive scientific field.

Parapsychologyl research has been around for over a century. The original British Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882. Serious and extensive work has been done in both American and Britain for a century now. The parapsychological association between talking to the dead and moving objects is no further along than it was in 1882.
The long history of fraud and deception in the field of parapsychology provided constant conflict. Fraud was a constant companion of spiritualism and the attempt to engage in systematic, scientific study of paranormal powers completely failed to leave it behind. One would think that by focusing on science the researchers would make an effort to weed out the deception, but that doesn't appear to have been the case.
Many famous researchers have not only been fooled by fraudulent psychics, but they have even participated in deliberate cover-ups in order to hide the fact that they were fooled. For example, the eminent Joseph Banks Rhine, one of the most important parapsychology researchers, wrote in "The Hypothesis of Deception"
"We do not feel that any good purpose could be served by the exposure, a la Houdini, of these instances. ...In a word, a research project in ESP does not become of conclusive scientific importance until it reaches the point at which even the greatest will-to-deceive can have no effect under the conditions. This criterion is the very threshold of the research field. It leaves us under no obligation to concern ourselves wither with the ethics of the subjects or with the morbid curiosity of a few individuals."

No obligation to make sure that no one can cheat or commit fraud? I don't know whether Rhine was just trying to rationalize his own inability to conduct real science or he if really did believe that his controls were so solid that it wasn't possible for anyone to actually cheat him. I tend to suspect something like the former is more likely true because even when fraud was discovered in his laboratory, he avoided admitting it openly.

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