Replication Unreliability in Psychology: Elusive Phenomena or "Elusive" Statistical Power?

When psychic experiments fail to replicate, is the phenomenon fake -- or is the study just too small to catch it? This paper argues it's often the latter. By crunching numbers from past meta-analyses (studies that pool many experiments together), it shows that most research on controversial topics -- including subliminal priming, unconscious thinking, and ESP -- simply doesn't test enough people to reliably detect the tiny effects involved. The mismatch is staggering for ESP: you'd need about 3,450 participants per study, yet the average study uses just 128. That's like trying to hear a whisper from across a football stadium. Cleverly, the paper lumps psychic research in with mainstream psychology topics that have the exact same power problem, making the point that underpowered studies plague all of psychology, not just the paranormal fringe. It also recommends better statistical tools like Bayesian analysis and confidence intervals.