Normal Explanations of the Paranormal: The Demarcation Problem and Fraud in Parapsychology

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 9, Issue 3, 1979, Pages 329-348

  Pinch, Trevor J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BATH   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84970772619     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: 14603659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631277900900303     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. Social Studies of Science (SAGE, London and Beverly Hills), Vol. 9 (1979), 329-48
2. C. Scott and P. Haskell, ‘Fresh Light on the Shackleton Experiments?’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 56 (1974), 59.
3. H. Schmidt, ‘Towards a Mathematical Theory of Psi’, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 69 (1975), 315.
4. The ghost materialized as the central issue of the public scientific debate over ESP with the publication of an article on fraud in parapsychology by G. R. Price: ‘Science and the Supernatural’, Science, Vol. 122 (26 August 1955), 359-67. In an Editorial on ‘Extra Sensory Perception’ (Science, Vol. 123 [6 January 1956], 7), Dael Wolfle claimed that: ‘The central issue is whether or not the possibility of fraud has been ruled out'.’.
5. See also C.E.M. Hansel, ESP: A Scientific Evaluation (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966), and C. Scott and P. Haskell, ‘ “Normal” Explanations of the Soal-Goldney Experiments in Extrasensory Perception', ’, Nature, Vol. 245 (7 September 1973), 52-54. For a recent discussion of subject fraud, see P. Diaconis, ‘Statistical Problems in ESP Research’, Science, Vol. 201 (14 July 1978), 131-36.
6. J. B. Rhine, ‘A New Case of Experimenter Unreliability’, Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 38 (1974), 215-25.
7. See, for example, J. Hanlon, ‘Uri Geller and Science’, New Scientist (17 October 1974), 170-85
8. P. Morrison, ‘Uri Geller: International Pied Piper of the Credulous and other matters’, Scientific American (February 1976), 134-35
9. M. Gardner, ‘Magic and Paraphysics’, Technology Review, Vol. 78 (June 1976), 43-51
10. R. Hyman, 'Review of The Geller Papers', The Zetetic, Vol. 1 (Fall/Winter 1976), 73-80.
11. Some of the methodological criticisms are documented by C. Ransom, ‘Recent Criticisms of Parapsychology: A Review’, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 65 (1970), 289-307.
12. See L. A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Enquiries by D. Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). The Humean position is advocated by, for instance, Marcello Truzzi, former chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, in The Zetetic, Vol. 1 (Fall/Winter 1976), 4.
13. See T. J. Pinch and H. M. Collins, ‘Is Anti-Science not-Science? The Case of Parapsychology’, in H. Nowotny and H. Rose (eds), Counter-Movements in the Sciences, Sociology of the Sciences, Vol. III (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), 221-50. In this paper we discuss the compatibility issue in some depth.
14. As one writer has put it: ‘Much of the time we accept the ridiculous assumptions that if the investigator knows in his own heart that he is honest and objective, self-deception cannot occur.'.’ C. W. Churchman, ‘Perception and Deception’, Science, Vol. 153 (2 September 1966), 1089.
15. H. M. Collins and T. J. Pinch, ‘The Construction of the Paranormal’, in Roy Wallis (ed.), On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge, Sociological Review Monographs, No. 27 (1979), 237-70. The prime concern of this paper is an investigation of the relationship between the content of arguments made for and against parapsychology and the context in which such arguments are presented. The fraud hypothesis is briefly discussed but there is no exhaustive examination of it, as in the present paper.
16. J. C. Crumbaugh, ‘A Scientific Critique of Parapsychology’, International Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Vol. 2 (1966), 526.
17. In fairness, I should point out that there has, in fact, been one claim for this type of replication in the area of subject fraud. This was made by James Randi, a magician who specializes in emulating Geller metal-bending feats: J. Randi, The Magic of Uri Geller (New York: Ballantine, 1975), 256-63. Randi managed to convince the newspaper Psychic News (a popular spiritualist weekly) that he had produced phenomena which could be interpreted as paranormal – but which were, as he later revealed after publication, produced by fraud. Psychic News hardly provides the necessary stamp of scientific legitimacy.
18. D. Marks and R. Kammann, ‘The Nonpsychic Powers of Uri Geller’, The Zetetic, Vol. 1 (Spring/Summer 1977), 9-17.
19. V. P. Zinchenko, A. N. Leont'ev, B. F. Lomov and A. R. Luria, ‘Parapsychology: Fiction or Fact?’, Soviet Psychology, No. 4 (1974), 15.
20. C. E. M. Hansel, ‘Experiments on Telepathy in Children’, The British Journal of Statistical Psychology, Vol. 13 (1960), 176.
21. See, for example, the comments of Leon Harmon concerning the ease with which it is possible to invent ‘normal’ explanations for the ‘remote viewing’ experiments conducted at the Stanford Research Institute, in Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 64 (1976), 1259.
22. T. S. Szasz, ‘A Critical Analysis of the Fundamental Concepts of Psychical Research’, Psychiatric Quarterly, Vol. 31 (1957), 98.
23. K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).
24. T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1970).
25. See also the debate between Kuhn and various philosophers of science in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). The relevance of this debate to the problem of demarcation has been stressed by D. L. Phillips, in his Wittgenstein and Scientific Knowledge (London: Macmillan, 1977), 142-68.
26. ‘Symposium on the Analysis of Scientific Discourse”, San Diego, The Salk Institute, 15 April 1977.