Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi
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Plain English Summary
Psychologist James Alcock lays out a no-punches-pulled case for why we should stay skeptical about psi -- things like telepathy and psychokinesis. His argument hits nine big problems. Nobody can clearly define what psi actually is. The results don't reliably replicate: physicist Jeffers ran a double-slit quantum experiment looking for psychic influence and got nothing, and a major multi-lab effort called PortREG also came up empty. Whenever an experiment fails, supporters invent new excuses -- bad experimenter vibes, subject boredom, mysterious "decline effects" -- conveniently making the whole idea impossible to disprove. Psi research also leans entirely on statistics rather than a repeatable, observable effect, and clashes with everything we know about physics and neuroscience. This essay remains arguably the single best summary of the skeptical position.
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Cites
- Anomaly or Artifact? Comments on Bem and Honorton — Hyman, Ray (1994)
- Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena — Hyman, Ray (1996)
- Does Psi Exist? Lack of Replication of an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer — Milton, Julie (1999)
- Skepticism and Negative Results in Borderline Areas of Science — Kennedy, J.E (1981)
Cited By
- Searching for the Impossible: Parapsychology's Elusive Quest — Reber, Arthur S (2019)
- Lessons from the First Two Years of Operating a Study Registry — Watt, Caroline (2015)
- The Capricious, Actively Evasive, Unsustainable Nature of Psi: A Summary and Hypotheses — Kennedy, J.E (2003)
- Parapsychological Phenomena as Examples of Generalized Nonlocal Correlations—A Theoretical Framework — Walach, Harald (2014)
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📋 Cite this paper
Alcock, James E (2003). Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi. Journal of Consciousness Studies.
@article{alcock_2003_give,
title = {Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi},
author = {Alcock, James E},
year = {2003},
journal = {Journal of Consciousness Studies},
}