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August 17th, 2008 by Sean Pseudoscience

Parapsychology is commonly regarded as pseudoscience - it is attacked for its lack of adherence to the scientific method. This is a problem - because they are right.

Let’s outline the problem:

We are trying to discover and learn things about reality. We are seeking genuine, reality-based truth.

What are the problems we need to overcome to do that? Wild theories from armchair philosophers. Confirmation bias. Self-deception.

1. Wild theories are easy - let’s focus on personal experience. If you haven’t experienced something, then you have no business in trying to make sense of it. Let’s just throw out the ideas of the world being created on the back of a turtle, since no one actually saw it happen.

2. Confirmation bias is a little harder - let’s develop intelligent tests that can falsify our ideas. If we develop and execute tests that can disprove our idea, then we can be more sure that our idea is true.

3. Self-deception is tough. Well, if something happened, then it should be able to happen again. So, we should tell everyone what we experienced and tested. If other people reproduce our results, then we can be sure we aren’t deceiving ourselves. Or at least, if we are deceiving ourselves, then so is everyone else who is seeing the same thing we are.

Sounds like a plan! Actually, it’s a revolutionary idea that transformed the human race - it’s called the “scientific method”. Start with personal experience, followed by experiments to try and prove our ideas false, followed by peer-review.

So why don’t we use this for researching the paranormal? It turns out that’s very hard. Well… maybe we can simplify things.

What if we just focus on personal experience? Confirmation bias and self-deception is overrated anyways, so just throw that out the window. A lot of online communities take this position - including PsiPog (when it was open)!

What happens? Eventually, the community fails at discovering genuine truth. When a community’s focus is solely on personal experience, then it rewards confirmation bias and self-deception.

Confirmation bias manifests itself as a bunch of people sitting around, doing nothing. After all, there’s no need to test anything when you have it all figured out. The scientific method states that we should be trying to prove our ideas false, in order to avoid confirmation bias. But if the community throws that idea out the window, then why test anything? We have it figured out, so there’s no need to do anything.

Self-deception manifests itself as varying levels of delusion. Did you just blow a hole in someone’s shield? Better check with the referee! Awesome, you did! You are now level 98. You’ll be flying around and blowing up planets in no time. Welcome to fluff-ville.

Without dealing with confirmation bias and self-deception, we will forever be doomed to apathetic inactivity and fluff bunnies.

So why can’t we just use the scientific method to research parapsychology? To answer that, let’s use our imagination for a second.

We need to deal with wild theories, confirmation bias, and self-deception. We’ve come up with three solutions to these problems, labeled collectively as the “scientific method”. Is it possible that there exists a property about reality that will naturally “evade” discovery based on the three solutions we’ve provided? Phrased another way: do the three solutions guarantee that we will discover every truth about reality? And another way: could a real phenomenon exist that, when the scientific method is applied to it, makes the phenomenon itself go away?

Now, at this point, I’m not saying that these types of “evading phenomenon” exist. I’m just saying, is it possible that they exist? The answer has to be: yes!

With that said, I believe parapsychology has become a grab-bag of these such phenomenon. Telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, DMILs, OBEs, ghosts, aliens, precognition, etc. These are all very strange things, that normally wouldn’t be grouped together. But they share a common thread: they naturally evade discovery when applying the three solutions outlined above.

So, when someone claims that parapsychology is nothing but mere pseudoscience… I have to agree. Except without the condescending attitude :-). I believe that parapsychology is, by definition, the collection of phenomenon that, by their very nature, evade discovery when applying the scientific method. So of course it’s pseudoscience!

Now, after all that, saying something is “pseudoscience” doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. I definitely believe in telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, DMILs, OBEs, “ghosts” (in a sense) and precognition, with some curious skepticism for aliens. The label of “pseudoscience” isn’t an insult.

But just because we are throwing parts of the scientific method out the window, by necessity, doesn’t mean we can just do whatever we want. In order to ensure our pursuit of truth is legitimate, we must create new solutions for the problem of confirmation bias and self-deception - perhaps on a case-by-case basis. If the scientific method’s solution to these problems will cause the phenomenon we are studying to naturally “evade” discovery, then we must come up with new solutions. Not just toss the scientific method out the window and hope things work out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Note to Self, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

### 13 Responses to “Pseudoscience”

1. cinderwild Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 11:04 pm

   What a surprise that no one has responded yet! XD

   First off, a blog entry idea for you: Why don’t you list all the reasons why you believe in something? You know, what I’m going to go make a forum topic about that right after this.

   Besides that:

   I really hate not taking things seriously. I have to admit I’m so interested in this stuff, but every time I look around I always end up leaving a bit uncaring or hopeless feeling. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to try, I’m just kind of..sick of it. I was sick of it when Psipog was still open, and it still bothers me now.

   BUT, the thing I wanted to ask about was this: Why do you need to prove something wrong? I understand it needs to have some way of being right -or- wrong, but to try and prove it specifically wrong just doesn’t make sense and seems like it would make you feel a bit depressed on the subject. Shouldn’t you be trying to prove it as something -whether that be right or wrong- instead of just wrong? Maybe I’m looking at it too literally.

2. cinderwild Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 11:05 pm

   EDIT: I meant why you believe in all those things you listed that you believe in.

3. Sean Says:
   August 21st, 2008 at 5:44 am

   cinderwild: you attempt to prove something wrong to avoid confirmation bias. Read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias . Basically, if you don’t do this, then your theory might be needlessly complicated, when the reality is more simple.

4. cinderwild Says:
   August 21st, 2008 at 6:27 am

   Oh, I knew that, but I was thinking that aren’t you technically trying to prove it right OR wrong, not just one or the other?

5. Trick Says:
   August 21st, 2008 at 11:17 am

   I think its still provable. Like micro PK. You can do many repeated tests with that, cant you?

6. redefine Says:
   August 21st, 2008 at 11:40 am

   well, it comes from karl popper’s falsifiability, its all well and good if a theory fits in and sounds good, but unless there is a concievable scenario where the theory is false, it means nothing. its to take that possible scenario and test it. if the theory fails, you re-think it. that, and alot of things in science cant be proven right, or its much easier to prove them wrong. so if you try to prove the theory wrong and you fail, then thats one tick toward your theory. this is especially important with things that cant necesarily be proved true.

   sean, have you thought about this other thing which may be prevalent in parapsychology (esp. among ametures like us), which i cant remember the name of, but its skewing and manipulating the results to fit the theory, rather then changing the theory to fit the results. its something like ‘conventionalist twist’ i think, which is separate from confirmation bias

7. NeoPsychic Says:
   August 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm

   Actually I don’t think we should classify psionics under pseudoscience. It should still be kept in the realm of science. This stuff needs to be studied accurately in the basis of the natural world no matter how supernatural it seems.

   The idea that science cannot explain everything is no reason to throw it out the window when examining our own practices. I say keep researching and formulating theories until we get it right or wrong.

8. gigamosh57 Says:
   August 27th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

   What makes you think that these phenomena under the umbrella of “pseudoscience” are “evading phenomena” ? You said you believe they are, but perhaps they only seem that way because the groups involved in their discovery (although I am not familiar with them, PsiPog seems to be a good example) do not function in a scientifically rigorous manner. If more money and time were designated for paranormal research, experiments could easily be devised to test the validity of these phenomena.

   Take telekinesis for instance (I have not done much research into the subject, but this is just one example): I have an object on a table that I would like a supposedly telekinetic individual to move. If the experiment was in a closed system and closely observed (to prevent outside tampering), and the person was able to make an object move, independent of any visible external forces, 29 out of 30 times, wouldn’t that prove that the assumption that telekinesis was impossible is false?

   My point is that so long as there is a physical manifestation of the results of these “paranormal events” (visible ghosts, moving objects, impossible knowledge, etc.) then they are not evading phenomena; the people who talk about them may be unscientific in their methods (Online communities are hardly the place to look for scientific rigor). With proper funding and experimenters with accountability and peer review, any of these phenomena can be tested and proved or disproved.

   It is a good thing that you are thinking in this way; so long as you are committed to the honest truth about your experience (and not your online reputation) you will continue to discover amazing things about the world and be taken seriously for them.

   Page

9. Trick Says:
   August 27th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

   Yeah, I disagreed too. It doesnt evade being discovered, just not a lot of people can do it so they really dont have that many known proofs. It has been tested with VERY significant results though.

10. Antisankari Says:
    September 2nd, 2008 at 6:35 pm

    Its been discovered.

    Fusion has been discovered too.
    Why aren’t there any fusion plants operational in full production yet?

    Because the damn thing just isn’t worth the effort yet.
    Psi is kewl but the bang for the invested buck just ain’t very good.

11. Trick Says:
    September 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 am

    Its been discovered, just how it WORKS hasnt been discovered. So we cant really do much.

12. fruo Says:
    September 5th, 2008 at 9:38 pm

    So what do you think we should do to alter the scientific method in a way it is still usable and will yield true results?

13. indigoblade Says:
    October 9th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

    How do you deal with something intangible…like quantum mechanics…huh…lets see…you have an observation, make a theory, test it repeatedly and then make your conclusion…but what if technology hasn’t caught up yet? You could always wait for the tech. to catch up…or you could look at existing data and utilize that to come up with inteligent theoroms that make since according to existing data. But thats just what i think…er…excuse the spelling. Basicly what i am trying to say is that there are ways to find that which seems to be intangible…scientist have done it for years…as did the ancients before scientific method evolved. So if you wanna know you cna either wait for tech to catch up and help you prove the case, or you can have the guts to use whats already there to set up the future explorers….think einstein

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