A Response to Psychic Research

James Alcock of The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry responds to Cornell professor?Darryl Bern‘s controversial recent research on psi effects. “However, this is hardly the first time that there has been media excitement about new ‘scientific’ evidence of the paranormal,” writes Alcock. “Over the past 80-odd years, this drama has played out a number of times, and each time, parapsychologists ultimately failed to persuade the scientific world that their phenomena actually exist.” Alcock reviews past attempts at proving psychic phenomenon and Bern’s experiments. His conclusion: “Early excitement is often misleading, and as Ray Hyman has pointed out, it often takes up to 10 years before the shortcomings of a new approach in parapsychological research become evident.” [%comments]