In his Parapsychology blog, Carlos S. Alvarado summarises a recent short communication by him and Nancy Zingrone in the Journal of Parapsychology, which was a response to a previous editorial by Etzel Cardeña, entitled "On scientific amnesia":
https://carlossalvarado.wordpress.com/20...-the-past/
An extract from the short communication is available here:
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/...g-the-past
The theme is that publications in parapsychology often ignore related earlier work, even when it is highly pertinent. Cardeña had suggested inadequate reviews of the literature showed a failure to do one's homework and an arrogance on the part of the writer. Alvarado and Zingrone add:
"We would also argue ... that some persons in the field, particularly those coming from other areas, have a low level of basic literacy in the parapsychological literature. This is easy to understand due to the marginal status of parapsychology in academia and, consequently, the lack of formal educational programs."
No doubt this is all true, and people do often seem unaware of the sheer volume of parapsychological work that has been published. Even as long ago as 1977, there was enough material for a 900-page Handbook of Parapsychology, consisting essentially of literature reviews.
But I have another bugbear. What is the point of parapsychologists complaining that the field is under-resourced and that people are unfamiliar with the evidence they publish, when the main parapsychology journals continue to be inaccessible to the world at large because they are hidden behind pay-walls? This is the era of open science, and in some mainstream fields open access is the norm. The SPR itself maintains an open-access repository for experimental data, but the papers where the data were published can often be read only at a price - and of course the same is true of the SPR's own journal. Isn't parapsychology shooting itself in the foot by hiding its work, rather than publishing it as accessibly as possible?
https://carlossalvarado.wordpress.com/20...-the-past/
An extract from the short communication is available here:
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/...g-the-past
The theme is that publications in parapsychology often ignore related earlier work, even when it is highly pertinent. Cardeña had suggested inadequate reviews of the literature showed a failure to do one's homework and an arrogance on the part of the writer. Alvarado and Zingrone add:
"We would also argue ... that some persons in the field, particularly those coming from other areas, have a low level of basic literacy in the parapsychological literature. This is easy to understand due to the marginal status of parapsychology in academia and, consequently, the lack of formal educational programs."
No doubt this is all true, and people do often seem unaware of the sheer volume of parapsychological work that has been published. Even as long ago as 1977, there was enough material for a 900-page Handbook of Parapsychology, consisting essentially of literature reviews.
But I have another bugbear. What is the point of parapsychologists complaining that the field is under-resourced and that people are unfamiliar with the evidence they publish, when the main parapsychology journals continue to be inaccessible to the world at large because they are hidden behind pay-walls? This is the era of open science, and in some mainstream fields open access is the norm. The SPR itself maintains an open-access repository for experimental data, but the papers where the data were published can often be read only at a price - and of course the same is true of the SPR's own journal. Isn't parapsychology shooting itself in the foot by hiding its work, rather than publishing it as accessibly as possible?
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