One of the main reasons that parapsychology is not well received in the scientific community is because of lack of credibility, which is due in large part to lack of training and / or education on the subject. To set the record straight it should be known that as a true parapsychologist we have to be trained to understand, utilize, and adhere to many various fields and laws of science such as:

Physics                    thermodynamics             chemistry    
quantum mechanics   Theoretical physics       bioelectric function wave function           astronomy                    *EM theory geophysics               geography                     topography
*EM transference      space / time continuum    subatomic matter cartography              Biology                          history anthropology             biochemistry                  Anthropology      psychology               anatomy                        statistics
Probability                archaeology                    logic               (* EM =  electromagnetic)

            Sounds like a lot? Don’t worry, it only sounds complicated. With all of the information provided by traditional sciences it may interest you to know why some of these scientifically minded persons in the community would be interested in parapsychology. To that end I offer this information:

Anatomists would want to understand where these “anomalous” experiences are generated from, how we receive them, and why.

Biologists would be interested because any type of PSI activity found in the brainwaves would imply the existence of additional, untapped methods above and beyond the limitations of our five senses.         

Neurologists would want to know why the events occur, what the trigger for the events is, the patterns of the events, the degree of recurrence, what causes and / or creates their function within the body, and where they are generated.

Physicists are interested because of the various implications dealing with the space/time continuum, energy wave transmission and transformation, and what ramifications this has on the local environment within the electromagnetic spectrum. 

Philosophers are interested in parapsychology because evidence of PSI phenomenon would specifically prove or disprove many of their traditional arguments about their beliefs or the beliefs of others.

Psychologists would be interested in parapsychology because of the implications about the nature of the mind, its patterns, and the overall impact that these things would have on perception and personality.  

Theologians have a stake in parapsychology because they tend to be interested in what profound meaning that these events might hold in connection with any spiritual experience that they, or others, may obtain.

            So, why is this article entitled “Science or Pseudoscience?” So that we can define the sharp contrast between the true research and experiments that parapsychologists perform and the attempts of the glory hounds in the media who simply want their “fifteen minutes of fame.” Since we have already defined most of the fields of science that parapsychologists rely on we can now take this opportunity to define what pseudoscience is. 

            The word “pseudo” means fake, and the best way to spot a fake is to know as much as possible about the issue at hand, which in this case is science. Many times, because of the incredulous nature of “ghost hunters” on TV, in the movies, etc. fantasy infiltrates the areas where science should be. The media bombardment of sheer nonsense and fantasy gives the misinformed a proverbial soapbox to stand on so that they can proclaim their subjective opinion to be true facts. Trying to separate the true scientific facts from this misinformed opinion is not as hard as it sounds; it simply takes a bit of research. Pseudoscience is actually fairly easy to spot – once you know what to look for.

            Pseudoscience within any subject displays a remarkable indifference to proven fact and almost any degree of valid evidence. Many pseudoscience authors simply make up “facts” from their own subjective opinion where necessary instead of actually consulting legitimate reference works or investigating their subjects directly. For the most part, Pseudoscientists never present any valid scientific evidence to support their claims. Once their “work” is published it is almost guaranteed to never be revised. The first edition of most of these types of books is almost always the last.

            The “research” of the pseudoscientist is invariably exegesis. Generally, the pseudoscientist relies on hearsay, opinion, and other sources of misinformation. A pseudoscientist never makes an independent investigation to check their sources, which are taken at face value. The misinformation is then used as evidence to support the bogus claims of the pseudoscience author.

            Pseudoscience authors also tend to rely heavily on subjective validation which makes their “information” akin to a Rorshach ink blot test; meaning that the data is subject to personal interpretation not scientific validation. Pseudoscience authors do not pursue the ever changing facets of science as they are more comfortable relying on vague, obscure or ambiguous sources of information so that their mistakes and outright deception may not be as readily noticed.

            Pseudoscience usually gets the attention of people by proposing a hypothesis. The hypothesis is usually something which appeals emotionally, morally or ideologically and is for the most part, spectacularly implausible. From there the author of the hypothesis looks only for items which appear to support the hypothesis. In this situation all conflicting or contradictory evidence to the hypothesis will be ignored. In overall terms, the aim of pseudoscience is to rationalize strongly held beliefs and / or opinions rather than to investigate and research certain subjects of interest. 

            We can now take a look at some of the other tenants of pseudoscience so that we can better identify fact from fiction.

PSEUDOSCIENCE:

• Always avoids putting its claims to a meaningful test.

• Pseudoscientists never follow up to validate their claims, research or experiments.

• Does not progress.

• Explanations of phenomenon tend to be by scenario rather than by scientific processes.

• Results obtained cannot be reproduced or verified.

• Writings tend to be more opinion than verified fact.

• Failures are ignored, lied about, explained away, rationalized, avoided and forgotten at all costs.

• No physical phenomena or processes are ever found, noticed, studied or validated in any way.

            Why did I write all of this on the subject of pseudoscience? My reasoning behind this was for the reader to be able to easily differentiate what they are reading as science instead of an opinion or, even worse, bogus “facts.”