Science and Spirit Weekly Post: Studies in PSI research

Studies in Psi research or parapsychology exist at the intersection between science and spirituality, with a broad range of opinions and perspectives. There is more research in this area than ever, with a huge effort being made for showing credible methodology. One person who stands at the forefront of this is Dean Radin, at the Institue of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma. His research is gaining wider attention and appreciation. However there are, and may always be, skeptics of this kind of research. Skeptics play a useful role in any research in helping us to weed out bad data or methods. However there are those who are skeptical no matter what, perhaps because they simply don't want to believe in the possibility of something beyond what we can know with our five senses. Additionally, funding in this area is meager and politicized. Then there are those on the other side who believe most anything, without discernment or a process of real reasoning. I believe a true scientific mindset is one that is open, but withholds certainties except for very few things---and those are well thought through. The world is full of mysteries and wonders we have barely begun to measure and record, much less understand or explain! Well done research in PSI is a good example of the of the pioneering curiosity of a scientific mind willing to break the taboo of the status quo.

Below is something I have copied that I found was useful for explaining a little about the subject. I found it at https://www.economicexpert.com/a/Parapsychology.html
(There are a lot of great links there as well)

I will be posting more in this subject, and would love to hear from any of you out there what you may have, or think about it.

your host,
Julia Bystrova

Parapsychology is the study of mental phenomena, whether actual or purported, that are not currently explainable within the framework of mainstream, conventional science.1 Types of parapsychology

The phenomena in question fall into two broad groups.
Extra-sensory perception, also known as anomalous cognition, includes telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairalience , clairgustance , and precognition. Anomalous operation includes psychokinesis (in the past referred to as telekinesis), out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, mediumship and reincarnation. The general term " psi phenomena" (or the somewhat older term, "psychic phenomena") covers all of these categories.

2 Status of the field

The standing of the field of parapsychology has always been controversial within the scientific community.
As its name indicates, parapsychology is sometimes considered a sub-branch of psychology, and this arose historically since it involves the study of apparently mental faculties. In its modern form, parapsychology is an interdisciplinary field, which has attracted physicists, engineers, and biologists as well as psychologists and those from the softer sciences.
Many people are not satisfied with the term, and have proposed alternatives, such as "psi research" (similar to the older term " psychical research"), but parapsychology is the term that has the greatest acceptance today.

3 Parapsychology as a Science

While there are some who believe it is in principle impossible to approach the study of paranormal phenomena in a scientific manner, much as it would be impossible to scientifically prove or disprove the existence of a diety, the majority of both believers and skeptics believe that many aspects of psi phenomena can be studied by science.

4 How science views the field

Scientists treat all claims with scientific skepticism.Scientific skepticism (UK spelling, sceptici After examining psi claims for over a century, there has been significant difficulty in merging the results of parapsychology studies with other fields of science. As a result, many in the scientific community feel that parapsychology is not a real science, that psi phenomena do not exist, and that parapsychology is a pseudoscienceA pseudoscience is any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which fails to comply with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is a kind of counterfeit or masquerade of science which makes use of some of the superficial tr. Many scientists and skeptical observers of the field believe that some parapsychologists knowingly commit fraud ; that some are incompetent; and that some are naive and therefore easily deceived by fraudulent participants; or perhaps some combination of the above.
Parapsychologists disagree with this assessment. Many have been formally trained in science, and are familiar with the scientific method. Statistician Jessica Utts has shown in a number of papers that

"Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted."

The precise percentage of scientists holding negative views about parapsychology is unclear, since surveys targeting this group are far less common than those targeting the general population. In his article Save Our Science: Paranormal Phenomena and Zetetics, skeptic Henri Broch bemoans,

"These data are based on an investigation on the belief in parasciences among Frenchmen (published in 1986). [...] Contrary to what might have been thought, the level of belief in the paranormal is directly proportional to the level of education, whatever the religious persuasion may be. Those with higher scientific degrees fare slightly better, although their level of belief is superior to [greater than] the average!"

Sociologist Andrew Greeley, studying surveys and polls since 1978, found that not only did the percentage of Americans admitting to psychic experiences increase over a decade, about two thirds of college professors accepted ESP, and more than 25% of "elite scientists" believed in ESP. Other polls have shown that many scientists hold such beliefs privately but do not share such opinions publicly for fear of ridicule.
The Parapsychological Association is an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). There are chairs, centers, or research units concerned with parapsychology in whole or in part at many universities around the world, as well as independent laboratories involved in parapsychology.
A few parapsychologists are skeptics, for example Chris French and his colleagues at the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths College in LondonGoldsmiths College (founded 1891 by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute has been a part of the federal University of London since 1904, when it took its current name. It specialises in courses and researc, and Richard Wiseman and his colleagues at the Perrott-Warrick Research Unit in the Psychology Department of the University of HertfordshireThe University of Hertfordshire is a modern university based largely in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, from which the university takes its name. It has more than 20,000 students. History In 1951, the de Havilland company gave la, both of which units are affiliates of the Parapsychological Association. These researchers do not approach the field with a belief in the paranormal, but are rather interested in the purely psychological aspects of those who report paranormal experiences, along with the study of the psychology of deception, hallucination, etc. These researchers also have provided their own guidelines and input to other parapsychologists for the design of experiments and how to properly test those who claim psychic abilities.