Talk:Parapsychology

Erroneous removal of psychology sidebar

MrOllie Please explain your contention that parapsychology is not psychology.

Here are some sources that make it clear parapsychology is psychology: This chapter showing parapsychology listed in The Wiley‐Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology.

This page showing that the Koestler Parapsychology Unit is clearly listed as being part of the psychology department of School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the university of Edinburgh.

This page showing that The Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology is clearly part of the department of psychology.

This page showing Dr. Lance Storm who is employed in the School of Psychology.

Unless you have something more to offer than your opinion v these sources I am going to return the sidebar. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Kindly do not edit war. You don't get to dismiss the objections of others by simply claiming they are 'opinion'. You are well aware that you will not get consensus support for your addition, either here or on the sidebar template in question. Links to claims by fringe promoters aren't going to be usable, independent sources. Parapsychology should not be listed as a discipline of psychology, just like we don't list Energy medicine as a discipline of medicine, Cold fusion as a type of fusion, and so on and so on. MrOllie (talk) 03:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

"You don't get to dismiss the objections of others by simply claiming they are 'opinion'." According to the rules of Wikipedia I totally do. Do you know what we call uncited information? We call it opinion. One revert is not edit warring. I am asking you to cite sources. If you can't do that and I return this information to the article I am adding cited information and you are removing cited information with no reason other than your opinion. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

You have profoundly misunderstood 'the rules of Wikipedia' as given at WP:CONSENSUS. MrOllie (talk) 03:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm super familiar with that page. If you read it you will find it says that sources prevail over opinions. You have provided an unsourced opinion. I have provided sources.

So far you have; accused me of edit warring when I am not, Stated your unsourced opinion that parapsychology should not be listed as psychology, and claimed I don't understand policy. I ask again, please provide some sources to back up your opinion. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

You said Unless you have something more to offer than your opinion v these sources I am going to return the sidebar. <-- if you do that, that would be edit warring.

I ask again, please provide some sources to back up your opinion. I'm not actually required to WP:SATISFY your requirements to object to the inclusion of a misleading entry in a navbox, nor are talk page comments 'unsourced opinion', a phrase which commonly refers to adding unsourced commentary to articles. MrOllie (talk) 04:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

This article is literally loaded with reliable independent sources that explain why parapsychology is not a part of mainstream science. Overcoming those in a kamikaze push to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS isn't going to succeed, especially with a number of experienced editors informing you of your misapprehension of editorial policies. Better to put this crusade aside, take some time to get to know the encyclopedia better, work on some uncontroversial articles, etc. I think it will benefit us all in the long run. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The "Para" prefix in Parapsychology literally means "beside, alongside" (not within, separate from). I never liked the term because it implies that only psychologists can do paranormal research, leaving out physicists and electrical engineers. I agree the Psychology sidebar is not appropriate. 5Q5|^✉ 16:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

This article is littered with biased, outdated and poor quality sources to support the claims that parapsychology is not science. "The scientific consensus is that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of psi phenomena" this sentence alone has no source that is less than twenty years old. The reason that there are no sources supporting the scientific validity of psi is that every time any editor tries to add one they are instantly removed, regardless of whether they are peer reviewed or not. This has happened again, and again, and again, and again and again. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Electricity produced the telegraph. Parapsychology produced 1-900-PSYCHIC. They are not in the same league. 20 more years of weak correlations mean nothing if there is no smoking gun.

According to Mertonian norms, scientists have to convince the skeptics, otherwise such scientists are losers. If Einstein failed to convince the skeptics, nobody would know his name today. If they're not catering for the skeptics, scientists have made an error when choosing their own career. If they're not catering for the skeptics, they're just idiots savants. Because they lack an even basic understanding of their own job. Of course, I don't diagnose them, it's just hyperbole. But their job isn't to preach to the choir. As long as parapsychology researchers don't abandon preaching to the choir, they stand no chance of parapsychology getting recognized as bona fide psychology.

Recap:

• it has produced correlations;
• it has no plausible causal mechanism;
• it has no technological applications;
• it does not seek to convince the organized skepticism, but rather sees it as an obstacle which should be removed. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Concur with @Tgeorgescu - couldn't have said it better myself. Simonm223 (talk) 14:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't say that immaterial souls or spirits don't exist. But quantum mechanics does not allow them to interact with matter. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

On the question of why "peer reviewed" sources are excluded I guess the question was whether any of them were ever successfully replicated by a researcher who was not a true believer. Peer review says "this is not plagiarized and the math looks OK" rather than "this is truth." Replication is key. Simonm223 (talk) 14:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Also @Morgan Leigh could you please provide actual diffs for removed peer-reviewed sources? Because, out of all those links, this is all I could find and, from the abstract, it seems like even the author concluded that marginal statistical correlations and lack of replicability are research problems to overcome. Simonm223 (talk) 15:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Being specific the abstract says the following as a partial list of next-steps: conducting multidisciplinary studies with enough power, developing further nonconscious measures of psi and falsifiable theories, analyzing the characteristics of successful sessions and participants, improving the ecological validity of studies, testing how to increase effect sizes, Simonm223 (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I absolutely can provide you exactly the dates and editors who have removed information if you want it laid out more clearly.

The abstract you refer to also clearly says 'The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them.". This cited quote was in the article previously but was removed by LuckyLouie on October 1st 2018 and then removed again by SkepticalRaptor on October 2nd 2018.

This cited statement was removed "a branch of psychology that studies a group of phenomena collectively known as psi, a term referring to the transfer of information or energy that cannot be explained by known physical or biological mechanisms".Kihlstrom, J. (2000). Parapsychology. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 43-46). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. was removed by you on October 2 2018.

You also removed this "In Sweden Etzel Cardeña, professor of psychology at at Lund University, Sweden, where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP) has published more than 250 journal articles and book chapters in journals such as Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Archives of General Psychiatry, Cortex, and American Psychologist" on October 2nd 2018.

This cited quote "results supporting the validity of psi phenomena continue to be published in peer-reviewed, academic journals in relevant fields, from psychology to neuroscience to physics."Cardeña, E. (2014), A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousnesshttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full was removed by Roxy the dog on October 8th 2018 and again 9th of October 2018 by LuckyLouie.

This cited quote "Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses". Cardeña, E. (2014), A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 27 January 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full was also removed by Roxy the dog on October 8th 2018.

This cited information "However in 2014 nearly one hundred academics signed a statement to the effect that they were convinced that the case for psi phenomena had already been made. Cardeña, E., (2014) A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness, Front. Hum. Neurosci., 27 January 2014 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017. "The undersigned differ in the extent to which we are convinced that the case for psi phenomena has already been made, but not in our view of science as a non-dogmatic, open, critical but respectful process that requires thorough consideration of all evidence as well as skepticism toward both the assumptions we already hold and those that challenge them." was removed on the 9th of October 2018 by LuckyLouie

This cited infomation was removed by LuckyLouie on the 9th of October 2018. "However others have countered that despite increasingly stringent experimental controls corroborating results have been demonstrated. * Cardeña, Etzel, 2014 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00017/full A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness "Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses" Storm, Lance, Tressolsi, Patrizio, 2013 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23294093 Testing the Storm et al.(2010) meta-analysis using Bayesian and frequentist approaches: reply to Rouder et al. (2013), American Psychological Association, Psychological Bulletin volume 139 issue 1|pages 248-54 doi=10.1037/a0029506 "Rouder et al. used a Bayesian approach, and we adopted the same methodology, finding that our case is upheld." Utts, Jessica, 1991, Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology, Statistical Science, volume 6, issue 4, 363-378, "The recent focus on meta-analysis in parapsychology has revealed that there are nonzero effects across studies, experiments and laboratories" Hastings, A.C., 1976 A confirmatory remote viewing experiment in a group setting, Proceedings of the IEEE volume 64, issue 10, pages 1544-1545, "A remote viewing experiment was conducted with a group of 36 persons who successfully identified, without apparent sensory communication, a target location chosen randomly and visited by two observers (p = 6 × 10 -7 )"

Beloff, John, 1984, The reality of psi, New Ideas in Psychology, volume 2, no 1, pages 51-55 "people can, on occasion interact with their external environment by means other than those of the recognised sensory and motor chanels"

And this is just a section of a few days in one year. For brevity's sake I will spare you the many, many other instances of the removal of cited, peer reviewed, published information that has been systematically removed from this article with no justification other than the personal opinion of the removing editor. I got more. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

AFAIK Frontiers is predatory. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

E.g. the Global Consciousness Project proved that hardware random numbers generators will produce highly unlikely results. But what does that prove? Nothing. It proves nothing. Because there is no link from such results to real-world events. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

These are not diffs. Simonm223 (talk) 13:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I have provided you exact data and I don't have to WP:SATISFY your request for any particular way of presenting that data. Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I asked for diffs and you gave me a decontextualized textwall including an edit you said I made six years ago? I'm sorry but this is non-actionable. Simonm223 (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

A particular sociologist's theory is not relevant here. What is relevant is wikipedia policy, which policies say that we include published, peer reviewed sources and we don't remove them with the only reason being editors individual opinions. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

A more simple point is that rational skeptics do have the power to define what counts as science. So, anyway, we reach the same conclusion: if parapsychology fails to convince rational skeptics, it is not a science. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

But it has. Perhaps then you will take the word of renowned skeptic Christopher French, who has spent many years studying parapsychology and who has now come to the conclusion that parapsychology is a science.

"When I first became a sceptic, I formed a very negative view of parapsychology. Based upon what I was reading, it seemed to me that all parapsychologists were incompetent when it came to skills such as experimental design and statistical analysis. As I got to know more parapsychologists personally, including such intelligent and open-minded individuals as the first holder of the Koestler Chair in Parapsychology, the late Bob Morris, and the current holder, Caroline Watt, I realised that this was not necessarily true. It is understandable (and indeed perfectly legitimate) for skeptics to highlight examples of poor practice in parapsychology but this can give a very misleading, one-sided impression. Surely it is only fair to take account of good quality work within a discipline as well when judging the discipline as a whole? I dread to think how psychology would fare if it were to be judged only on the basis of the poorest work within the discipline!"

https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/09/why-i-now-believe-parapsychology-is-a-science-not-a-pseudoscience/

I am glad you brought this up. It is a good point and so I have added your some text in support of your point to the article. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Parapsychological experiments offer correlations, no smoking gun, and certainly did not produce any useful technology based upon psi phenomena. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Morgan Leigh. Please don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a WP:POINT as you did here. This is becoming a WP:TE problem. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, this isn't about "open mind" or "non-dogmatic". It is about the fact that nobody could prove that a causal mechanism exists. Computing correlations makes no sense if the causal mechanism is completely implausible in the first place. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations tgeorgescu (talk) 22:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Dungeons and Dragons players may believe dice have personality and will because of anomalous results but it's really just noise in random data. The dice jail didn't really scare the dice straight. Simonm223 (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

This discussion appears to no longer be about removal of the Psychology sidebar and in any event needs an outdent. 5Q5|^✉ 15:26, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Parapsychology

the statement “there is a lack of convincing evidence after more than a century of research for the existence of any psychic phenomena” is incorrect. There are numerous papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals presenting scientifically rigorous evidence that, for example, Remote Viewing is real. Reference the work of Stephan A. Schwartz. He is still alive and I suggest you contact him; he can supply incontrovertible evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena. RocketmanJay (talk) 17:23, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

We're not going to substitute your personal opinion of how convincing the evidence is for that of the cited reliable sources. MrOllie (talk) 17:28, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

I rewrote that sentence because 1) it was needlessly wordy and hard to understand and 2) whether evidence is convincing is subjective; that the evidence has failed to convince mainstream scientists is a fact supported by the sources. I'm abstaining from the discussion on whether the journals you mentioned are reliable sources, but if I were you, I would name and/or link to those here instead of asking fellow editors to contact Schwartz. Mr. Squidroot (talk) 02:59, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Non-neutrality of article

This article has a serious non-neutrality issue in that it represents only the majority view that there is no good evidence for psychic phenomena, and doesn't represent at all the minority view that there is in fact good evidence for psychic phenomena, or strawmans these arguments. I attempted to start correcting this with these two edits , which were promptly deleted. These should be included to start improving the glaring neutrality issue of this article.

Additionally, I removed part the statement "Numerous researchers have criticized the popularity of meta-analysis in parapsychology, and is often seen as troublesome even within parapsychology" because it is simply a gross misrepresentation of the source cited . In fact the whole sentence should be changed to conform to what the source actually says (the relevant quotation, "While much of the controversy [in parapsychology] has focused on poor experimental design and potential fraud, there have been attacks and defenses of the statistical methods as well, sometimes calling into question the very foundations of probability and statistical inference." p. 363). PaulB223 (talk) 12:18, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

It is a common misconception that Wikipedia needs to 'balance' views of a subject - but Wikipedia explicitly rejects this (at WP:FALSEBALANCE).

Following the mainstream view is not a 'non-neutrality issue', it is what our guidelines and policies (such as WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE) require us to do. MrOllie (talk) 14:05, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Alright well I'll just cite the sources you've provided above:

Fringe theories, "... significant-minority views published in reliable sources should be represented fairly and proportionately." The reliability of the source, Statistical Science, is evident; in fact it was the source already cited for the sentence "Numerous researchers have criticized the popularity of meta-analysis in parapsychology, and is often seen as troublesome even within parapsychology"– a statement which I deleted (again, because it misrepresents the source) and you reinstated.

Specifically from the Neutral Point of View article which you linked above, "Generally, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely because it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process." This is the opposite of what you've done.

You may think that parapsychology is in a par with "claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax", but it's not. There are mounds of peer-reviewed evidence and reliable publications that offer evidence of these phenomena. Particularly strong are the meta-analyses that look at the totality of research; they tend to weigh in favor of the reality of psychic phenomena. It seemed to me to be the most glaring omission in an article that certainly does not follow the Neutral Point of View, one of the Five Pillars of Wikipedia. PaulB223 (talk) 16:11, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

That's fantastic Paul, "there are mounds of peer-reviewed evidence and reliable publications that offer evidence of these phenomena", this means that we can improve the article with the sources that you know.

Could you please show us say the best three sources that comply with our requirements (WP:RS) so that we can make a start? Thanks. - Walter Who mentioned Pearl Harbour? Ego 17:28, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

How about we start by undeleting the wrongfully deleted edits ( and ) from an impeccable source which, like I said before, was already in the article, not something that I added, in contravention of the Wikipedia guideline that MrOllie linked? PaulB223 (talk) 14:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Statistics does not prove existential claims, it takes them for granted, then it shows how strong they are. E.g., in psychology and sociology, theories postulate existential claims, not the statistics. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:39, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is, but I'll quote again Wikipedia guidelines that were cited at me:

"Prefer secondary sources – Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a paper reviewing existing research, a review article, monograph, or textbook is often better than a primary research paper." emphasis mine

"Secondary sources, such as meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available, so as to provide proper context." emphasis mine PaulB223 (talk) 14:23, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Have you got any sources follow these policies then, because we understand what a reliable source is, but we are not certain you do. - Walter Who mentioned Pearl Harbour? Ego 15:51, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes I do, it's the source that I used for the two additions that were wrongfully deleted, and, again, it's the source that was already in this Wikipedia article's references, I didn't add it

237. Utts, Jessica (1991). "Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology". Statistical Science. 6 (4): 363–403. doi:10.1214/ss/1177011577 PaulB223 (talk) 14:26, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Have you got any WP:FRIND sources? Utts, Honorton, Cardena et al are parapsychologists. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:06, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Shouldn't you be actually reading the thing that you are citing at me? "The best sources to use when describing fringe theories, and in determining their notability and prominence, are reliable sources that are outside the sourcing ecosystem of the fringe theory itself..." My source, which again, for the fourth time, I didn't add, it was already in the article's list of references, is Statistical Science. That is not a parapsychology journal, it is a journal on statistics. Whether Utts is a parapsychologist or not makes no difference. But since you mentioned it, she is not a parapsychologist, according to UC Irvine's page on her, she is a statistician, and she has written on parapsychology. PaulB223 (talk) 14:41, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Again, statistics cannot say if parapsychology is legit. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:44, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

If you have that view that’s fine, but the Wikipedia guideline is different, “Secondary sources, such as meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available, so as to provide proper context." PaulB223 (talk) 14:25, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Like the majority of universities, UC Irvine doesn't have a parapsychology department or even a course, so Utts would naturally not be listed as a parapsychologist on the school roster, however they do acknowledge her main focus is parapsychology , which would hardly make her an independent view on the subject. There have been attempts to shoehorn the Utts paper into this article before and they were all rejected. See an example at . To paraphrase, the article lead and the encyclopedia itself is biased in favor of mainstream science. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:00, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

The journal is impeccable as a source, and that is the main criterion for determining the suitability of a source. If you’re going to say this or that author needs to be excluded for whatever reason, you’re essentially saying that your own personal judgment on an individual as a Wikipedia editor supersedes that of the journal itself. Furthermore, to say that Utts can’t be included because “she is a parapsychologist” (what makes her a parapsychologist? because she has done work on paraspychology; her training is in statistics) is patently absurd; it would be like saying you can’t include any articles on biology written by biologists in the Wikipedia biology article because they’re compromised by the fact that they’re biologists. So there could never possibly be any reliable evidence, because as soon as someone does work on parapsychology they become a parapsychologist, and therefore are unreliable.

I’m glad you linked that other conversation because it goes to show just how virulently committed you are to excluding the minority point of view. The very first sentence of the Wikipedia neutrality article “All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.” As you define it any attempt to include something doesn't represent the majority view is “shoehorning it in.” PaulB223 (talk) 14:23, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

What you are writing here bares little resemblance to the WP:RS guideline, which clearly states that the author matters as much as a publishing venue, and that no source is 'impeccable' in all contexts. Your arguments are also in direct opposition to Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Independent_sources. MrOllie (talk) 15:07, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Utts would be a good author to cite even if the source were her own published book, for the reasons I gave in the last comment. The guideline you cited talks about author in relation to all potential sources: articles, books, websites, newspapers, self-published documents, etc. In the context of a scientific journal like Statistical Science, the criterion of who the author is is of little significance for a Wikipedia editor, because peer-reviewed scientific journals exist exactly for the purpose of determining what material is good to publish and vetting conflicts of interest.

No source is impeccable in all contexts; in this particular context it is an excellent source, and again, it is already in the list of references.

What I wrote is not in opposition to Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Independent_sources; it adheres perfectly to those guidelines. Statistical Science is exactly the kind of journal that you want to be using, “outside the sourcing ecosystem of the fringe theory itself." Note too the high citation count, 321 according to Google Scholar (WP:SCHOLARSHIP).

Let’s take a step back here and consider what we’re debating: I’m saying that accurate citations of "Replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology,” already in this Wikipedia article's references, should be included, and that falsely attributed statements, like “Numerous researchers have criticized the popularity of meta-analysis in parapsychology, and is often seen as troublesome even within parapsychology," should be removed. You’re arguing, no, the true attributions need to be kept out and false ones kept in. PaulB223 (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

No. Again, what you are writing here flatly contradicts Wikipedia's policies. When editing about a fringe concept or a pseudoscience, the author absolutely does matter, and that Utts is a parapsychologist means that they cannot and will not be used like a source that is actually part of the scientific mainstream. We're going to follow what the policies and guidelines actually say and not the backward interpretation of them you're basing your arguments on. You’re arguing, no, the true attributions need to be kept out and false ones kept in. Putting words in my mouth will not work. That's not what I'm arguing for, and you will not somehow convince me that I don't know my own mind. MrOllie (talk) 14:02, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Well it's true, numerous people have criticized the meta-analysis fad within parapsychology, including some parapsychologists themselves. I assume the Utts paper contains those contextual observations, but probably only as a background to her claims that meta-analysis shows significant results that need further exploration. We could probably find a better source such as Hyman et al to cite for this. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

The journal is impeccable as a source For statistics, which is a subdiscipline of mathematics. Not for stuff that belongs in psychology. Psychologists know rookie mistakes in their field most statisticians never heard of. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:40, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

From the two most recent issues of Statistical Science:

Bayesian Nonparametric Inference for “Species-Sampling” Problems

A Primer on Bayesian Neural Networks: Review and Debates

Modern Statistical Models and Methods for Estimating Fatigue-Life and Fatigue-Strength Distributions from Experimental Data

From Corrado Gini’s Early Contributions to Overdispersion to Modern Models of Voting Behaviour

Are the editors of Statistical Science fools because they're publishing things that aren't pure statistics?

If you'll scroll up to this discussion, you'll see that in fact parapsychology has nothing to do with psychology, and so anything published in a journal on psychology certainly cannot be valid for parapsychology! Also, if you scroll up a little in our discussion, you'll see that any work done by a parapsychologist – no matter how loosely defined the term – is inadmissible in an article on parapsychology because that person is automatically compromised by the fact that they're a parapsychologist. So anything published in a parapsychology journal is out the window too. Basically there can never possibly be any good evidence for parapsychology by definition. PaulB223 (talk) 16:29, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Read WP:FALSEBALANCE we reflect what the bulk of RS say. Slatersteven (talk) 11:36, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

I saw this on the noticeboard, and agree that WP:FALSEBALANCE is the correct rule to follow here Kotthu (talk) 14:54, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

"plausible but unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship." The article in question here is accepted academic scholarship, and as I said before was already in this article's list of references, albeit erroneously to reference a statement that doesn't pertain to the article (note too that my attempt to rectify that error was rejected as well, and as of writing the misattributed statement remains). This is coming on the heels of similar instances too, like in the discussion above or in this archived discussion. There are several instances of "commonly accepted mainstream scholarship," which were simply rejected out of hand on the basis of being "fringe," notwithstanding the very fact that they are appearing in mainstream academic scholarship nullifies the whole notion of their being fringe in the first place, per wp:falsebalance. In sum, what we are dealing with here is a minority viewpoint in academic scholarship, not a fringe viewpoint, and as such should be represented in this article. PaulB223 (talk) 16:01, 14 May 2026 (UTC)