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13 - Evaluating Parapsychological Claims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Ray Hyman
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg ,
Henry L. Roediger III  and
Diane F. Halpern
Ray Hyman
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Henry L. Roediger III
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
Diane F. Halpern
Affiliation:
Claremont McKenna College, California
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Summary

Imagine that you have been assigned to evaluate a parapsychological claim. The assignment could be from a journal editor or from a media outlet. Or it could come from a granting agency or an instructor. You might be faced with such a task in your role as a referee for a professional journal. Or you might take on the assignment out of curiosity.

How would you proceed? Your first step might be to decide on the scope of the parapsychological claim. Are you dealing with a specific claim based on one experiment? Or is the claim based on evidence from a series of experiments? Perhaps you want to assess the status of the entire field of parapsychology.

What, indeed, makes a claim “parapsychological?” The term parapsychology was borrowed by J. B. Rhine to refer to what previously had been called psychical research. With the new label, Rhine wanted to promote an experimental science. Previous to Rhine, psychical research had focused on field investigations of haunted houses, tests of spiritualist mediums, surveys of premonitory dreams, and other dramatic, but controversial, paranormal claims. Rhine wanted parapsychology to focus on quantitative evidence obtained in controlled, laboratory settings. Beginning in the 1930s, parapsychologists started accumulating experimental evidence for the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK). According to the glossary in the back of The Journal of Parapsychology, ESP is defined as “Experience of, or response to, a target object, state, event, or influence without sensory contact.” ESP includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

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Chapter
Information
Critical Thinking in Psychology , pp. 216 - 231
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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References

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