Parapsychology is commonly regarded as pseudoscience - it is attacked for its lack of adherence to the scientific method.  This is a problem - because they are right.

Let’s outline the problem:

We are trying to discover and learn things about reality.  We are seeking genuine, reality-based truth.

What are the problems we need to overcome to do that?  Wild theories from armchair philosophers.  Confirmation bias.  Self-deception.

1. Wild theories are easy - let’s focus on personal experience.  If you haven’t experienced something, then you have no business in trying to make sense of it.  Let’s just throw out the ideas of the world being created on the back of a turtle, since no one actually saw it happen.

2. Confirmation bias is a little harder - let’s develop intelligent tests that can falsify our ideas.  If we develop and execute tests that can disprove our idea, then we can be more sure that our idea is true.

3. Self-deception is tough.  Well, if something happened, then it should be able to happen again.  So, we should tell everyone what we experienced and tested.  If other people reproduce our results, then we can be sure we aren’t deceiving ourselves.  Or at least, if we are deceiving ourselves, then so is everyone else who is seeing the same thing we are.

Sounds like a plan!  Actually, it’s a revolutionary idea that transformed the human race - it’s called the “scientific method”.  Start with personal experience, followed by experiments to try and prove our ideas false, followed by peer-review.

So why don’t we use this for researching the paranormal?  It turns out that’s very hard.  Well… maybe we can simplify things.

What if we just focus on personal experience?  Confirmation bias and self-deception is overrated anyways, so just throw that out the window.  A lot of online communities take this position - including PsiPog (when it was open)!

What happens?  Eventually, the community fails at discovering genuine truth.  When a community’s focus is solely on personal experience, then it rewards confirmation bias and self-deception.

Confirmation bias manifests itself as a bunch of people sitting around, doing nothing.  After all, there’s no need to test anything when you have it all figured out.  The scientific method states that we should be trying to prove our ideas false, in order to avoid confirmation bias.  But if the community throws that idea out the window, then why test anything?  We have it figured out, so there’s no need to do anything.

Self-deception manifests itself as varying levels of delusion.  Did you just blow a hole in someone’s shield?  Better check with the referee!  Awesome, you did!  You are now level 98.  You’ll be flying around and blowing up planets in no time.  Welcome to fluff-ville.

Without dealing with confirmation bias and self-deception, we will forever be doomed to apathetic inactivity and fluff bunnies.

So why can’t we just use the scientific method to research parapsychology?  To answer that, let’s use our imagination for a second.

We need to deal with wild theories, confirmation bias, and self-deception.  We’ve come up with three solutions to these problems, labeled collectively as the “scientific method”.  Is it possible that there exists a property about reality that will naturally “evade” discovery based on the three solutions we’ve provided?  Phrased another way: do the three solutions guarantee that we will discover every truth about reality?  And another way: could a real phenomenon exist that, when the scientific method is applied to it, makes the phenomenon itself go away?

Now, at this point, I’m not saying that these types of “evading phenomenon” exist.  I’m just saying, is it possible that they exist?  The answer has to be: yes!

With that said, I believe parapsychology has become a grab-bag of these such phenomenon.  Telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, DMILs, OBEs, ghosts, aliens, precognition, etc.  These are all very strange things, that normally wouldn’t be grouped together.  But they share a common thread: they naturally evade discovery when applying the three solutions outlined above.

So, when someone claims that parapsychology is nothing but mere pseudoscience… I have to agree.  Except without the condescending attitude :-).  I believe that parapsychology is, by definition, the collection of phenomenon that, by their very nature, evade discovery when applying the scientific method.  So of course it’s pseudoscience!

Now, after all that, saying something is “pseudoscience” doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.  I definitely believe in telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, DMILs, OBEs, “ghosts” (in a sense) and precognition, with some curious skepticism for aliens.  The label of “pseudoscience” isn’t an insult.

But just because we are throwing parts of the scientific method out the window, by necessity, doesn’t mean we can just do whatever we want.  In order to ensure our pursuit of truth is legitimate, we must create new solutions for the problem of confirmation bias and self-deception - perhaps on a case-by-case basis.  If the scientific method’s solution to these problems will cause the phenomenon we are studying to naturally “evade” discovery, then we must come up with new solutions.  Not just toss the scientific method out the window and hope things work out.