The criticism that there is no reliably reproducible demonstration of psi

This is the question I'm not seeing asked. Why after 120 years of research is there not one established psi thing?

That question is really the topic of this thread.

I asked what people thought about it. The failed replication of the PEAR experiments which you raised is actually an excellent example of what I was thinking about. I think there are three possible responses to failures of replication:

(1) That the failure to replicate shows that the original results were owing to chance, flaws in experimental design or questionable research practices (i.e. psi doesn't exist).

(2) That the failure to replicate is owing to a lack of power in the experimental design, perhaps owing to a misinterpretation of or unwarranted assumptions about previous studies, or the omission of some vital but misunderstood feature (i.e. psi is well-behaved but we don't understand it well enough yet).

(3) That the failure to replicate is owing to some inherent feature of psi that makes it elusive, such as experimenter effects, other difficulties in shielding psi experiments from the influence of the rest of the universe, a "trickster" element, a Blinovitch limitation effect, or whatever (i.e. psi is badly behaved).

I'm going to go put on a limb and suggest it's because  the majority of posters, find that statement unrealistic.

That question is really the topic of this thread.

I asked what people thought about it. The failed replication of the PEAR experiments which you raised is actually an excellent example of what I was thinking about. I think there are three possible responses to failures of replication:

(1) That the failure to replicate shows that the original results were owing to chance, flaws in experimental design or questionable research practices (i.e. psi doesn't exist).

(2) That the failure to replicate is owing to a lack of power in the experimental design, perhaps owing to a misinterpretation of or unwarranted assumptions about previous studies, or the omission of some vital but misunderstood feature (i.e. psi is well-behaved but we don't understand it well enough yet).

(3) That the failure to replicate is owing to some inherent feature of psi that makes it elusive, such as experimenter effects, other difficulties in shielding psi experiments from the influence of the rest of the universe, a "trickster" element, a Blinovitch limitation effect, or whatever (i.e. psi is badly behaved).

All reasonable. I would drop shielding and the trickster effect. Now I must get back to my Tardis. Later.

I'm going to go put on a limb and suggest it's because  the majority of posters, find that statement unrealistic.

Why?

This is the question I'm not seeing asked. Why after 120 years of research is there not one established psi thing?

Against my better instincts I am going to try again to ask you to consider alternatives to your dogmatic approach. I know at the outset that's futile but at least I am trying.

What, in your mind, is psi - how would you define it? For me, it is a catch-all term, like parapsychology or the paranormal or (sometimes) supernatural. What I mean is that it is a term we use to cover all manner of anomalous effects such a PK, telepathy and remote viewing but also including Near Death Experiences, OOBEs, deathbed visions, Stevenson's work on reincarnation, after-death communication. All of these areas have lots of evidence - many examples are being posted right here on this site. 

Many (if not most) of the scientists (and I don't mean professional debunkers like Wiseman or Nickell) who actually took the trouble to investigate these phenomena concluded that they could not be dismissed in the manner that you do. You want proof? The smoking gun? The evidence that will settle the matter for all time? Then no, it doesn't exist. But that could be said for a lot of areas of science. Proof is something for mathematics but it is a rare (if not impossible) thing elsewhere. So we rely on weight of evidence and, to preempt what you might be tempted to point out - yes, much of that evidence is, by necessity, anecdotal. This gives dogmatists like you any easy way out: just keep shouting anecdotal evidence is not evidence. But I'm sorry, it is and it can't be ignored. Maybe 90% or more is bullshit, but the fact that evidence of this sort exists everywhere in the world and throughout history means that it can't be ignored.

As to why experiments fail to be repeated, I've already tried to explain and you just waved that away as an excuse for failure. When it comes to psi - the same rules don't apply. Of course, to you - who believes that reality is defined by the known physical laws and measurements - any failure to repeat anomalies when applying the same rules as for normal physical experiments constitutes proof of non-existence of said phenomena. But most of us here are not so dogmatically wedded to physicalism and are willing to consider that we have a lot to learn about how the mind works or how the immaterial interacts with the material (if you take the dualist view). Or the idealists might ask how the mind manifests the material reality. 

If you are going to continue to reject these considerations a priori then as I said before, there is no point in discussion with you. Your mind is made up. You are not a sceptic, you are a fundamentalist and you come across as a man on a mission.

Speaking for myself, I find the experiments performed by the French scientists Charles Richet and Gustave Geley. With the phyicic Stefan Ossowiecki. Extremely convincing.
Ossowiecki was consistently able to read the contents of carefully sealed envolpes.and could frequently discribe the people and surroundings that where present at the letter or notes composition.
On one occasion, Richet had the letter, the contents of which he was not aware of, sealed inside a lead pipe, with the ends soldered shut. Ossowiecki was able to divine the contents all the same.
This is just a small portion of the research he was involved in.
In my opinion he was James" one white crow."

Speaking for myself, I find the experiments performed by the French scientists Charles Richet and Gustave Geley. With the phyicic Stefan Ossowiecki. Extremely  convincing.
Ossowiecki was consistently able to read the contents of carefully sealed envolpes.and could frequently  discribe the people and surroundings that where present at the letter or notes composition.
On one occasion,  Richet had the letter, the contents of which he was not  aware of, sealed inside a lead pipe, with the ends soldered shut. Ossowiecki was able to divine the contents all the same.
This is just a small portion of the research he was involved in.
In my opinion he was James" one white crow."

I think James was referring to Leonore Piper as his one white crow but, nevertheless, I'm interested to read more about Stephan Ossowiecki. For that matter, D. D. Home was the Geller of his day - perhaps even more so. Houdini was perhaps the Randi of his day too, claiming to have debunked Home (although there seems to be doubt that he ever did so successfully). Here's Michael Prescott's summary of the D. D. Home controversy (including comments about Randi's own attempts to debunk Home).

Oddly, although Houdini tasked himself to expose psychics, etc., he seems to have been a fervent believer in reincarnation. Go figure.

[EDIT] Excuse any confusion - I thought I was in the Uri Geller thread so if my response makes no sense in the context of this thread, perhaps it will in the other.

My replies will be in blue font


"Against my better instincts I am going to try again to ask you to consider alternatives to your dogmatic approach. I know at the outset that's futile but at least I am trying."
Why am I dogmatic. I'm here on a forum dedicated to spreading the truth by some of its members psi is real. Are you a member of a skeptical forum?

"What, in your mind, is psi - how would you define it? For me, it is a catch-all term, like parapsychology or the paranormal or (sometimes) supernatural. What I mean is that it is a term we use to cover all manner of anomalous effects such a PK, telepathy and remote viewing but also including Near Death Experiences, OOBEs, deathbed visions, Stevenson's work on reincarnation, after-death communication. All of these areas have lots of evidence - many examples are being posted right here on this site."
I agree this word psi is a placeholder term. I'm not sure the anomalous evidence that has so many convinced is what you think it is.

"Many (if not most) of the scientists (and I don't mean professional debunkers like Wiseman or Nickell) who actually took the trouble to investigate these phenomena concluded that they could not be dismissed in the manner that you do. You want proof? The smoking gun? The evidence that will settle the matter for all time? Then no, it doesn't exist. But that could be said for a lot of areas of science. Proof is something for mathematics but it is a rare (if not impossible) thing elsewhere. So we rely on weight of evidence and, to preempt what you might be tempted to point out - yes, much of that evidence is, by necessity, anecdotal. This gives dogmatists like you any easy way out: just keep shouting anecdotal evidence is not evidence. But I'm sorry, it is and it can't be ignored. Maybe 90% or more is bullshit, but the fact that evidence of this sort exists everywhere in the world and throughout history means that it can't be ignored."
I don't dismiss them in the way you think I do. What I'm saying is don't be so quick to believe everything you think. Many appear to do just that because it feels intuitively right. Since there's not one smoking gun I wonder how you can be as certain as you are that anecdotal evidence amounts to proof ( hard evidence)? For example. I think of Sprites, Elves, Blue Streaks or the gorilla both had anecdotal evidence but eventually hard evidence was produced proving the existence of both, not so with psi. Since a smoking gun doesn't exist for psi why are you so certain you're right? A smoking gun is needed.

"As to why experiments fail to be repeated, I've already tried to explain and you just waved that away as an excuse for failure. When it comes to psi - the same rules don't apply. Of course, to you - who believes that reality is defined by the known physical laws and measurements - any failure to repeat anomalies when applying the same rules as for normal physical experiments constitutes proof of non-existence of said phenomena. But most of us here are not so dogmatically wedded to physicalism and are willing to consider that we have a lot to learn about how the mind works or how the immaterial interacts with the material (if you take the dualist view). Or the idealists might ask how the mind manifests the material reality."
The underlined is an excuse. And yet you'll happily cite science research that favors your point of view, many do just that.

"If you are going to continue to reject these considerations a priori then as I said before, there is no point in discussion with you. Your mind is made up. You are not a sceptic, you are a fundamentalist and you come across as a man on a mission."
As I asked before. Are you a member of a skeptical forum? It seems we are both fundamentalists by your description. I guess you consider the many like yourself the good kind though.

This is the question I'm not seeing asked. Why after 120 years of research is there not one established psi thing?

Loaded question much? LOL
You've been on the Skeptiko board for a decade and you come up with this? You can do better than that.

How come it has taken more than 20 centuries to find evidence for the existence of atoms, since they were postulated in ancient Greece?
Why after 300 years since the discovery of gravity we still don't comprehend it?
Why after 100+ years since the formalization of quantum mechanics it is still incomplete?

I don't have data to back this up, but I betcha the amount of money spent in psi research is monumentally smaller than what goes in unravelling either gravity or Quantum Mechanics, yet we don't really comprehend both of them.

So... I guess it's time for physicist to quit. Time is up, right?

Cheers

Loaded question much? LOL
You've been on the Skeptiko board for a decade and you come up with this? You can do better than that.

How come it has taken more than 20 centuries to find evidence for the existence of atoms, since they were postulated in ancient Greece?
Why after 300 years since the discovery of gravity we still don't comprehend it?
Why after 100+ years since the formalization of quantum mechanics it is still incomplete?

I don't have data to back this up, but I betcha the amount of money spent in psi research is monumentally smaller than what goes in unravelling either gravity or Quantum Mechanics, yet we don't really comprehend both of them.

So... I guess it's time for physicist to quit. Time is up, right?

Cheers

The answer is simple. There exist today the technological tools. During the previous centuries individual scientists researched with little financial backing or non at all. Einstein changed the way we understood this universe with little money and and a lot of insight. Small scale studies require little money. Who said anything about quitting? 
By the way, it's not a loaded question. It is neither false or controversial, hard evidence is lacking. Scientific investigation started in Britain in 1882 which would make it 135 years old.

It is neither false or controversial ...

Oh, yes it is!