Exploring the limits of science and beyond: research strategy and status

Journal of Parapsychology, The, March, 1994 by J.E. Kennedy

In this paper, I offer a perspective on where the field of parapsychology has been, where it is today, and where it is going. This perspective may be of value to those deciding what lines of research to undertake and particularly to those pondering questions about whether scientific progress has been made and can be made in parapsychological research.

This paper covers a diverse range of topics that together form a framework or map that has guided my thoughts and decisions about parapsychological research. First, the paper discusses the scientific method and the evolution of parapsychology in the context of what hypotheses can and cannot be scientifically investigated. Then, some thoughts on the status of the current outer limits of scientifically testable hypotheses are presented. Finally, the paper discusses the role that scientific research can play relative to concepts and beliefs that are currently beyond the domain of direct scientific test.

The Scientific Method and Parapsychology

Many Possible Mechanisms for Psi

Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain how psi operates in parapsychological experiments. Figure 1 shows a matrix of possible sources and mechanisms for psi effects in a typical ESP experiment. The matrix in Figure 1 contains a representative range of possibilities for discussion and is not intended to be definitive or exhaustive.

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The possible sources of psi in typical ESP experiments include:

1. Subjects. Historically, researchers have assumed that the subjects were the source of psi in experiments.

2. Experimenter or dominant participant. Following the terminology of Nash (1975), the "dominant participant" is the person who appears to control or dominate the experimental results. This person may be the experimenter or the subject, or someone else with a role in the experiment. This category also includes the "observational theory" that the first person to observe the results is the source of psi (see Millar, 1978).

3. Combined effect of all involved. The psi effect could be a combined result of all persons involved in the research project rather than the result of one dominant person.

4. Future observers. Observational theories can include the hypothesis that a psi effect is a combined result of all persons who eventually learn about the experimental results, not just the first observer (Millar, 1978).

5. Spirit guide(s). The idea that spirits of deceased persons are responsible for at least some psi effects is the underlying premise of spiritualism.

6. Angel(s), God(s), or karma. Many religious beliefs hold that paranormal effects are produced by entities such as angels, God, or god(s), or by the less discrete forces of karma. For purposes of this discussion, these various concepts can be put in one category and precise definitions are not necessary.

As shown in Figure 1, possible mechanisms for psi effects in typical ESP experiments include:

1. ESP on individual trials. Parapsychologists have traditionally assumed that ESP experimental results were due to the subjects' using ESP on individual trials.

2. PK on individual trials.(1) The possibility that the random generation of ESP targets could be influenced by PK to match the subjects' calls was recognized from the onset of laboratory PK experiments (Rhine, 1942; Rhine & Pratt, 1957, p. 62). This category of mechanism includes both PK effects on the generation of targets and PK effects on the subject to influence the subject's calls to match the targets.

3. ESP on groups of trials. In an effort to explain displacement effects and other patterns of ESP scoring, Pratt (1974) proposed that experimental subjects may respond to a sequence of targets as a unit rather than to individual trials. For example, the subject may respond to a run of 25 ESP cards as a unit.

4. PK on groups of trials. PK effects that influence either the random generation of targets or the subject's calls could also occur on groups of trials as a unit rather than on individual trials. For example, the observational theories propose that psi will operate on a group of trials as a unit if the feedback to the observer is the outcome of the group of trials (Millar, 1978).

5. Goal-oriented psi. If the dominant goal of the psi source(s) is to get an overall significant result on the experiment, the experiment as a whole may be viewed as one complex random event with the probability of success equal to .05 (or the alpha significance level of the experiment). Under the goal-oriented psi hypothesis, the case when a person says, "I'm going to carry out an experiment and get a significant result" is not different from "I'm going to roll the die and get a six." In both situations a person wants a certain outcome from a random process. The probability of a successful outcome by chance is 1 in 6 for the die and 1 in 20 for the experiment. The primary difference between these two cases is that the experiment is a more complex random process. However, goal-oriented psi is assumed to achieve the outcome or goal independent of the complexity of the random process. When the goal is the outcome of the experiment, the specific design and details of the experiment may not matter, just as the details of the RNG do not matter when goal-oriented psi is applied to each trial. However, if the psi source(s) focus on each trial separately, then the unit of psi operation will be each individual trial, as traditionally assumed. The idea that psi is not related to task complexity can be traced back at least as far as the early discussions of the "unitary" nature of psi (Foster, 1940; Rhine et al., 1940) and has been reviewed previously (Kennedy, 1978; 1979).