PARAPSYCHOLOGY

Methodological Problems Involved in Parapsychology



Methodological Problems Involved in Parapsychology

Introduction

Parapsychology is the multidisciplinary study using the experimental method of phenomena that involve the psyche and its interaction with the environment. These phenomena are known as Psi. The founder of this discipline is Joseph Banks Rhine. Parapsychology has historically succeeded in psychic, which studied sleepwalking and mediums in the nineteenth century. For most scientists, parapsychology is still considered a pseudo-science. Parapsychology attempts to establish scientifically the existence of psi. Psi phenomena are generally classified into two broad categories:

The extrasensory perception (ESP): clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy ;

The psychokinesis (PK): macro-PK (on objects size "normal"), micro-PK (at the quantum level), bio-PK (living organisms).

Parapsychology is widely regarded in scientific circles as a pseudo-science because of its inability to prove the existence of its object of study, Psi, but also by its questioning of the principles of many other scientific fields, such as the physical or basic biology. Research in parapsychology is criticized or even debunked by scientists within the scientific skepticism. Skeptics accuse mainly to parapsychologists do not give a chance for the hypothesis H0. They are willing to challenge points of theory, but never their basic premise, which is the existence of psi, set a priori (Caroline 2007, 320).

Validity

Parapsychology is a particularly controversial area of study. The existence of its object of study is not proven and is regularly called into question. While some observers believe that work in this area has led to identification of inexplicable phenomena other than by psi, others dispute this analysis and question the scientific status of parapsychology. Indeed, the discipline is facing serious criticisms.

Parapsychology and Fraud

The issue of fraud is a source of much debate. We may first note that there are several historical examples of fraud in parapsychology. In the nineteenth century, for example, while the debate raged about spiritualism and the existence of spirits, the illusionist Harry Houdini was a critic of certain mediums. He denounced the conjuring tricks used by mediums, spiritualists to believe they were able to communicate with the dead. However, it should be noted that parapsychologists and psychic have done this work of explanation and demonstration of various processes (Thalbourne 2005, 387).

Methodological Problems of Parapsychological Research

Although parapsychology as a science existed before the beginning of the twentieth century (the old name of "psychical research"), its position among other sciences greatly transformed under the influence of theories and discoveries, not only in natural sciences (Opening of the II law of thermodynamics, quantum physics, evolutionary theory, molecular biology and environmental theories of the brain), but also in the social sciences (Marxism, the theory of paradigm shifts, etc.). One way or another, most scientists do not think of parapsychology as a serious science, for several reasons. We select some of them:

Interaction in parapsychology (transfer effect on the distance) - contrary to fundamental notions of science, that is just an exception psychic facts of scientific analysis;

Parapsychology is not able to perform an experiment that can be repeated here, even if an event is permissible, then one fact ...