Why Some Scientists Refuse to Believe in Psi Personal Perspective: Scientific fundamentalism is at work
For the past 12 years, I’ve been writing blog posts for Psychology Today. I’ve frequently written about “psi” phenomena like telepathy or precognition, as well as other strange phenomena like reincarnation and after-death communications. I’ve presented evidence for such phenomena, explaining why I think they’re real rather than the result of delusion, fraud, or wishful thinking.
The comments and emails I’ve received from readers have encouraged me over the years. Many of them claim to have had their own psi experiences or to have always believed in the phenomenon but had no idea there was evidence for it. Readers frequently express relief at discovering that they can believe in the phenomenon without being labelled as “crazy.”
Physicalism as a System of Belief
Some people believe that believing in psi phenomena is “crazy” because the dominant worldview in our culture—at least in academia and science—is “physicalism.” Physicalism is founded on several tenets or beliefs. For instance, matter is the most fundamental thing in the universe, consciousness is a neurological phenomenon, mental problems are brain problems that can be treated like physical conditions, humans are genetic machines, and so on. Many people believe that the beliefs listed above are established facts, but this is not the case for me. I contend that these are simply assumptions based on a lack of hard evidence.
1.Physicalism’s belief system may explain why many scientists and academics reject evidence of psi. Metaphysical paradigms or belief systems are extremely difficult to dislodge once established. They have a strong psychological impact. They provide us with a sense of direction and assist us in making sense of our lives. They provide us with a sense of assurance and security. They provide a comprehensive, integrated view of the world that eliminates existential ambiguity and doubt.
They also give us a sense of control over the world. Feeling that we understand the world means that we overstand it. To feel that you completely understand nature and the world provides a satisfying sense of superiority and dominion. Not knowing means living in uncertainty and confusion, being subordinate to the mysterious forces of nature.
When a person’s belief system is threatened, it creates cognitive dissonance. The possibility that the principles of your worldview are false–and that you have much less power and control over the world than you thought–feels dangerous and disorientating.
By punishing and isolating anyone who deviates from their views, fundamentalist religious organizations sow the seeds of fear. Some physicalists act in a comparable manner. Free thinkers who disagree with scientism’s principles are labeled as pseudo-scientists. They might have trouble obtaining study funding, publishing their findings in journals, presenting them at conferences, or landing a position as an academic at a university. The Internet may remove videos made by free thinkers, edit their Wikipedia pages, or mock them. (Rupert Sheldrake experienced this in 2013, when his TED presentation was removed at the request of a well-known eminent Americans who doubt.)
Additionally, fundamentalist organizations reject any proof that conflicts with their beliefs. Similar to this, some skeptics decline to look at the psi evidence. In 2018 Etzel Cardeña published a paper in American Psychologist in which he carefully and systemically reviewed the evidence for psi phenomena and concluded that there was a very good case for their existence: The evidence for psi is “comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines.”
The journal issued a refutation the following year written by Arthur Reber and James Alcock. The Cardea’s evidence was not discussed in the piece. Claims made by parapsychologists cannot be true, the authors noted. Data that suggests they can, therefore, must be flawed and the product of poor methodology or poor data analysis.
Furthermore, fundamentalists frequently engage in irrational cognitive gymnastics to deny evidence that contradicts their beliefs. For instance, creationists will claim that fossils exist because “God put them there to test our faith” in an attempt to justify their position. (or by Satan to tempt us into unbelief). Similar to this, skeptics may go to great lengths to prove that positive findings have not been made if they engage with the psi evidence or perform study.
An excellent illustration of this occurred in 2005, when Notre Dame University researchers ran a series of eight Ganzfeld experiments and discovered a highly significant overall “hit rate” of 32%. As skeptics, the researchers acknowledged that they were “uncomfortable” with this finding because it “precariously close to demonstrating that humans do have psychic powers.”
In response, they created a new experiment in which they matched together participants from the prior eight tests who had “hits.” These couples yielded the highly significant negative outcome of a 13% hit rate for some unexplained reason. (significantly lower than the 25 per cent chance rate). The researchers argued that the eight previous tests were invalidated as a result of this disappointing finding. They came to the conclusion that there was no proof of telepathy.
Skeptics probably don’t intentionally act in any of these ways. It could be an unintentional reaction to cognitive dissonance. Any evidence that appears to conflict with a strongly held opinion might cause cognitive dissonance, which can lead to an urge to “bury” the evidence.
These tactics, however, might highlight how similar fundamentalist religious believers’ behavior is to that of physicalists. The irony in this, however, is that most physicalists might not be aware that they have embraced a belief system. Realizing that we frequently view the world through the lens of our beliefs is difficult.
