Citation

We examine the critique of parapsychology offered by Professor Richard Wiseman in his 2010 paper, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose; How Parapsychologists Nullify Null Results, published in the Skeptical Inquirer, and offer detailed rebuttals to his main contentions. Some of the analyses we conduct are as follows: We compare reproducibility of psi experiments to reproducibility of experiments across related mainstream fields, finding that they are similar. Using both theoretical and empirical approaches, we demonstrate that file-drawer effects are not significant in the ganzfeld. We scrutinize and critique cases of alleged experimenter nullification of null results. We challenge—and offer alternatives to—the conclusions of the Milton and Wiseman meta-analysis, based on findings from Bem, Palmer, and Broughton, as well as our own results. We show that the evidence for ostensible declines in the actual effects of ganzfeld and forced-choice ESP paradigms is largely illusory and challenged by findings of recent inclines. Finally, we present strategies for progress according to the most compelling trends and consistencies we have found in the present database. These results, we hope, serve an illustrative purpose: a case examination of criticism in parapsychology with Wiseman as the main example, showing the degree to which the literature seems to support psi as the most plausible explanation of the data.