The criticism that there is no reliably reproducible demonstration of psi

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.