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Controversy and the problems of parapsychology
Journal of Parapsychology, The, March, 2002 by Nancy L. Zingrone
I would like to make one final comment on the intertwining of the history of controversy with the history of parapsychology. Controversy has been the life of the parapsychological community from the beginning of our attempts to build a science of the paranormal. Controversy has been our life's blood as well. We have struggled with controversy, but we have also thrived on it. While we may long for closure, for the peace of a solidified consensus, what we really know in our heart of hearts is that science is a process. Science in general and parapsychology in particular are monumentally engaging, inspiring, infuriating, and full of twists and turns and differing perspectives. The scientific methodology of parapsychology is particularly well suited, as it now stands and as it is evolving, to deal with both the questions our anomalies raise and with the wider mysteries that are just beyond the horizon. Controversy may be a growth industry in the social sciences, but in parapsychology, controversy is also the engi ne that drives our progress. It is ubiquitous, frustrating, exhilarating, and unavoidable. If we add an understanding of the social, political, and rhetorical surround to the methodological and analytical tools we already have on our research bench, progress in parapsychology is inevitable.
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(1.) Of course simply working in parapsychology is sufficient to completely destroy any status a scientist may have accrued from a conventional degree or a conventional place of scientific or academic employment. See, for example, Alcock (1979), in which he used the term parapsychologist to denigrate the qualifications of Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson in his discussion of their research into death-bed visions (p. 29). Alcock also used the term to dismiss unfairly the work of John Palmer (p. 33). Many other examples of this particular ploy are available in the skeptical literature.
(2.) Virtually all of Martin Gardner's works and James Randi's works contain statements in which the parapsychological community is battered rhetorically by a brandishment of idealized scientific norms and misconceptions of scientific practice in prose that fairly drips with moral indignation. See, for example, Gardner (1957, 1981) and Randi (1980)
REFERENCES
ALCOCK, J. E. (1979). Psychology and near-death experiences. Skeptical Inquirer, 3(3), 25-41.
BARNES, B. (1977). Interests and the growth of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
BARNES, B., BLOOR, D., & HENRY, J. (1996). Scientific knowledge: A sociological analysis. London: Athlone.
BARNES, B., & EDGE, D. (Eds.). (1991). Science in context: Readings in the sociology of science. Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press.
BELOFF, J. (1968). ESP: A scientific evaluation [Correspondence]. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 1473-1475.
BEM, D.J., PALMER, J., & BROUGHTON, R. S. (2001). Updating the Ganzfeld database: A victim of its own success? Journal of Parapsychology, 65, 207-218.
BERGER, R. E. (1989). A critical examination of the Spinelli dissertation data. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 56, 28-34.
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