Talk:Parapsychology

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

It says on the talkpage copyright concerns that the user had done a few unattributed merges, - not copyright infringement. Theres no evidence any of that information in the theory section is taken or copied from anywhere, hence no reason for it to be deleted. Start scanning through it and theres no evidence for copyright infringement. Ghosts Ghouls (talk) 19:28, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I have found incidents of copyright infringement by this banned sockpuppet. Here is an example of text you have inserted: "there is no need to base a theory of psi on physical principles." is almost verbatim from "Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality". It's up to your to do the checks if you restore the material because you are accepting responsibility. You reverted me 8 minutes after I removed the text, I'm going to guess you haven't done your due diligence on restoring the banned sockpuppets material. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:35, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

You havn't found any incidents, if you did you would point out the page numbers etc. I also find it strange that you deleted all of GreenUniverse's material regarding the theories but keep his references for the "Evaluation" where he claimed there is no evidence for a theory of parapsychology in science. You are like a creationist quote mining bits and pieces you like and don't like, whilst deleting the rest as "copyright infringement". There is no copyright infringement in what that user added, and according to his case page was banned for merging articles together not copyright infringement. You obviously havn't done your research and have been exposed as biased on this matter. You are also now claiming GreenUniverse is me well that is false becuase I believe in the paranormal, perhaps you should scan of some of that users edits and every paranormal article on wikipedia he claimed none of it exists and offered the skeptical viewpoint. Ghosts Ghouls (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

IRWolfie writes on the sockpuppet article Sockpuppet investigations "he makes claims about GreenUniverse, including that he was skeptical (this was not the case) while he is not etc". Please do your research on GreenUniverse and you will see he was banned from wikipedia for merging and deleting articles not copyright infringement, check out his edits on things like ectoplasm or spirit photography and you can see he wrote these articles in a position to conclude these things do not exist, he was a skeptic of the paranormal this is the opposite of myself. You are not making any sense by claiming I am GreenUniverse. Yes I have just looked through this users edits and perhaps I have similar interest to this user, but unlike her/him not to "debunk" them. It is true I have just created the Jule Eisenbud article but only becuase it came up red on the parapsychology page. Eisenbud was a psychologist who believed ESP was real. Ghosts Ghouls (talk) 21:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

We blocked GreenUniverse as a sockpuppet, not for merging articles. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BookWorm44/Archive. Dougweller (talk) 12:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Rebuttals

The section on rebuttals is completely WP:UNDUE and contrary to WP:FRINGE. I've started a discussion on the talk page. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The removed section looks to me like parapsychology apologetics with special pleading for the lack of scientific evidence.

I don't think such content is encyclopedic in nature and as Wolfie pointed out, it appears to run afoul of WP:FRINGE. The article should present the mainstream, scientific evaluation of the subject without the juxtaposition of minority claims; doing so gives the appearance of an equal validity not reflected by academic sourcing. Sædon^talk 21:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I concur. It's special pleading and speculation, and a good bit of irrelevent griping, too. There are major problems with weight, and some of the sources are not reliable. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 05:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Much of what I removed was put there by the banned sockpuppet GreenUniverse. If people want to re-insert material by a banned sockpuppet they require consensus, some of the material has copyright issues as I indicated above. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:44, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Indicating what certain scientists in the parapsychological community have responded to criticism is perfectly DUE. You're coming from the standpoint that parapsychology is like other FRINGE issues, which the article makes clear it is not. As with any other science -and it's not up to you to define science- we should note what scientists in the field believe. This allows for responses to criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.103.95.226 (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

You need reliable third party sources, not apologia by advocates. ----Snowded ^TALK 05:12, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Good point, although I suspect that such sources would also be attacked as apologetics. But deleting it due to a purported WEIGHT issue is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.103.95.226 (talk) 05:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The edit was not justified by wikipedia principles, until you do that any experienced editor will delete it and you are wasting everyones time. ----Snowded ^TALK 06:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I would have deleted it myself. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:14, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

It's likely that these are more sockpuppets of BookWorm44. They are back trying to push his contributions. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:43, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The education of the parapsychologists

It's worth noting that many or most of the parapsychologists have actually a psychologists' degree. I hope you may add this to the article in order to further the seriousness of it (because they are not off the street or some con-artists like that...) 37.200.45.6 (talk) 09:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Got a source for that? — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 15:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

One paragraph makes no sense

I've quoted it below. It's supposed to be an example of top-notch scientific thinking on this topic, apparently. Notice how they both say an explanatory force would have been detected in psi experiments if it had been there, yet they both presumably think that the few psi experiments where instruments were used to monitor EM fields and such yielded no(!) statistically convincing results to begin with. So how exactly do they think that the energies through which psi operates should already have been detected when there has been no detection attempt during a single statistically significant experiment? These people should've brought their detectors when Yuri Geller broke the "laws of nature" in a series of experiments well-known to those familiar with the field. They should've brought them when other luminaries pulled off similar feats. It makes no sense to attempt to detect hypothesised psi energies only in experiments involving average Joes, as if everyone had the same amount of psi ability or any amount at all. Obviously, most people don't express any psi ability in the lab. So why bother with them?

Read for yourselves, below. These two "sceptics" are like a photographer who claims that if there were light he would already have found evidence of it, what he doesn't mention is he has only been photographing during the night in pitch black. What a genius.

"On the subject of psychokinesis the physicist Sean M. Carroll has written that both human brains and the spoons they try to bend are made, like all matter, of quarks and leptons; everything else they do is emergent properties of the behaviour of quarks and leptons. And the quarks and leptons interact through the four forces: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational. Thus either it's one of the four known forces or it's a new force, and any new force with range over 1 millimetre must be at most a billionth the strength of gravity or it will have been captured in experiments already done. This leaves no physical force that could possibly account for psychokinesis.[84] The physicist John Taylor in a series of experiments was concerned to establish whether there is an electromagnetic basis for psi phenomena such as psychokinesis but his experiments were negative and after failing to find it, wrote there could not be any other explanation in physics.[85]"

Firrtree (talk) 21:13, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

The unmentioned difficulty in gathering evidence

Apparently, people who don't believe in psi, especially people who strongly disbelieve it, tend to score slightly below chance, while people who are confident they have psi ability tend to score slightly above chance. This means that when experiments don't control for strength of belief, the results will likely show little in terms of a statistically significant effect, because the oppposite forces will tend to balance each other out. The attitudes of the researchers seem to also affect the outcome, so that hopeful researchers versus disbelieving research subjects might tend to produce the above sort of effect. Strong disbelief of a strong individual or group may temporarily neutralise psi ability even in an exceptionally gifted person (which could be one reason why Randi has trouble losing his million; he's like a Titan of scepticism).

Firrtree (talk) 12:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

The "Psionics" Concept

A new section has been added to the Talk-pages of telepathy that says, by and large, "Please, Take Note of "Psionics", "...there may be truth to a conceptual analysis on this word, psionics, in claiming that the existence of this concept must entail that telepathy is true!" Any good? 109.189.67.107 (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Removal of text from lead

IRWolfie, regarding your first delete..please quote the sentence on this WP help page, Wikipedia:Independent sources that implies that the Parapsychological Association is "not an independent source". Here is how the page defines one "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a written topic and therefore it is commonly expected to describe the topic from a disinterested perspective. An interest in a topic is vested where the source holds a financial or legal relationship with the topic..,"

Regarding you second delete...Brian David Josephson is a Nobel Prize laureate in physics, why do you regard his view that there has been "irrational attacks on parapsychology" an "attack" - Dave3457 (talk) 05:08, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Brian Josephson is well known for his fringe views about parapsychology and physics in general (read his page). The parapsychological association is a fringe group for proponents of parapsychology. Thus they both non-independent (see WP:FRINGE). You have positive commentary before the criticism, and an attack on the criticism afterwards, both sourced to proponents. Basically you are marginalising the mainstream point of view, contrary to WP:FRINGE, and hiding the criticism amid praise. That is, your are giving parapsychology undue legitimacy, a topic which is often regarded as containing much pseudoscience. As an aside, if I called you irrational, wouldn't you regard that as an attack? Sounds like an attack to me IRWolfie- (talk) 10:41, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with IRWolfie. Your edits give undue weight to fringe positions. Neither Josephson not the Parapsychological Association are reliable sources, and their views cannot be equated with the mainstream view. Nor can they be used to challenge the mainstream view. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

IRWolfie you said: > "As an aside, if I called you irrational, wouldn't you regard that as an attack"

Josephson didn't call anyone irrational, he called the attacks irrational. So again, how is calling someone's attacks irrational, an attack? Also, it is not "an aside" it is the reason you said you deleted the entry.

I'll also ask you again, please quote the sentence on the Wikipedia:Independent sources WP help page, that implies that the Parapsychological Association is "not an independent source". That is the reason you said you deleted the entry and that is the page that defines what is and what is not an independent source.

The logic you guys seems to be using is this...While opponents of parapsychology get to express their views on parapsychology, proponents don't get to express their views because by virtue of being a proponent, their views are fringe. Isn't that just a little self serving?

I believe this messed up logic has its roots in the following non-logical, emotion way you feel about it......Opponents of parapsychology should get to express their views on parapsychology because they are right and proponents of parapsychology shouldn't get to express their views on parapsychology because they are wrong.

The fact that you are changing the "reason" for deleting the entries, supports this view.

-- Dave3457 (talk) 06:14, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Its not a reliable third party source I'm afraid, other than for the views of the association. If you don't accept that you can go to the reliable sources notive board and ask for other editors opinions. Otherwise I recommend you stop speculating on other editors emotional states and focus on logical and rational uses of sources ----Snowded ^TALK 06:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

All of your questions are fully answered in our policies, especially WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. Take the time to read and understand them. Also, the burden is on you to convince your fellow editors that a source that you want to use is reliable, not on others to prove that it's not. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 06:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The specific guideline that is most relevant for you to read is WP:FRINGE. It addresses neutrality and sourcing requirements, including what are independent sources with respect to fringe science/pseudoscience/paranormal articles. Basically this is how wikipedia works: Proponents of parapsychology should not be allowed to have the last word on criticism because they are the vast minority; they are a fringe group. It is undue to give them more weight than they are given in the most reliable sources. Fringe groups always have some claimed rebuttal, but if it's not been noted and discussed by a mainstream source with respect to the specific criticism, it's beneath our notice because otherwise we violate neutrality by giving them undue weight. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The Criticism and Controversy section

I am well aware of how controversial Parapsychology is as a field but isn't the controversy a little big at taking up a third of the article?-98.247.76.149 (talk) 14:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't seem too much to me. How much should there be? What content should go? MartinPoulter (talk) 16:11, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

The lead really should reflect it FAR more then just one sentence begging as "critics state." Critics here being the entire scientific and medical communities. This stuff is as wacko fringe as it gets. — raekyt 18:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)