"Why I am no longer a skeptic"

For what it's worth I find it hard to accept psi in a psychological/emotional way, but the evidence is statistically very strong, and it's unlikely all the positive results are due to fraud/mistakes etc and the millions of experiences every day are people being deluded or mistaken.

I think the problem is that extremely strong  statistical significance is worthless in the setting of a risk of bias (all you may be measuring with your statistical tests is the pervasiveness of that bias). And history (including recent history) is littered with examples of millions/billions of people who are deluded or mistaken about the same thing. So those two criteria don't help as much as one might expect when it comes to distinguishing between true and false ideas. But it wouldn't be hard to use tests which validly distinguish between psi-like and non-psi-like effects. 

Linda

There any many examples of scientists up against the same things you list. They are mostly overcome with evidence. Those problems would be relieved if parapsychologists were able to obtain results under conditions of low risk of bias (http://cobe.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/1...e.RCT_.pdf). I've often made suggestions as to how to do this (as have parapsychologists such as Kennedy, Stevenson, Utts, as well as our own Manelli and Johann).

Linda

I agree the evidence could be better and have discussed this with two of the people you listed in depth, however several of the names you listed are either proponents or at least lean towards the existence of psi. To say this would be solved with evidence is clearly not true.

I realize this is the story which is told to justify why psi isn't taken seriously. But I suspect much of it is false. You won't know, of course, until you see how scientists react when decent evidence is produced. So far, the level of evidence produced for psi is almost overwhelmingly poor, with a few hints of fair, using formal evaluations of levels of evidence.

Linda.

The evidence produced so far for psi is not overwhelmingly poor - barely any informed skeptic says this and this is an extremely unfair comment to level against Parapsychologists. It nicely backs up my and David's points though.

I think the problem is that extremely strong  statistical significance is worthless in the setting of a risk of bias (all you may be measuring with your statistical tests is the pervasiveness of that bias). And history (including recent history) is littered with examples of millions/billions of people who are deluded or mistaken about the same thing. So those two criteria don't help as much as one might expect when it comes to distinguishing between true and false ideas. But it wouldn't be hard to use tests which validly distinguish between psi-like and non-psi-like effects. 

Linda

Your are overstating the bias issue here Linda, and I find it unlikely that all these people are deluded and I know the evidence for psi is nowhere near as poor as you're making out. It's of a much higher quality then some conventional mainstream research.

I remember this coming up on Skeptiko once - what would it cost to run a proper long-term study with appropriate replications, review, etc.?

Couldn't tell you!

So far, the level of evidence produced for psi is almost overwhelmingly poor, with a few hints of fair, using formal evaluations of levels of evidence.

Are these formal evaluations of the evidence for psi available in written form?

I agree the evidence could be better and have discussed this with two of the people you listed in depth, however several of the names you listed are either proponents or at least lean towards the existence of psi. To say this would be solved with evidence is clearly not true.

I know they are proponents. That's why I included them to show that I'm not being an uninformed skeptic in this regard. Even proponent scientists agree that the level of evidence and risk of bias is not where it needs to be to be persuasive. 

Linda

Your are overstating the bias issue here Linda, and I find it unlikely that all these people are deluded and I know the evidence for psi is nowhere near as poor as you're making out. It's of a much higher quality then some conventional mainstream research.

Unfortunately, I'm not. When we formally went through this (risk of bias and GRADE level) in exquisite detail on the old old forum for the ganzfeld studies, we discovered that the risk of bias was higher and the GRADE level lower than our intuition (mine and proponent scientists) would lead us to believe. I agree that the quality has some similarities to psychology research, but recent investigations have shown that some of it also has problems with low evidentiary value. The same sorts of reforms that mainstream research is undertaking can also be applied to parapsychology. 

Linda

Are these formal evaluations of the evidence for psi available in written form?

They were. I don't know if they are still there or if they were some of the victims of the mass deletions undertaken by Alex, Andy and David. This kind of stuff (formal evaluations of the evidence) was the kind of thing Alex and his minions (;-)) found offensive. 

I may have copies on my computer (won't know till I get home).

Linda

The evidence produced so far for psi is not overwhelmingly poor - barely any informed skeptic says this and this is an extremely unfair comment to level against Parapsychologists. It nicely backs up my and David's points though.

Sorry, but even proponents say this (those who are familiar with how evidence is evaluated and where risk of bias is a problem). For example, Stevenson stated that the vast majority of his case reports were too weak to provide evidence for reincarnation. The best which could be said was that they were suggestive. The presentment studies mostly don't exclude an expectation bias (see Julia Mossbridge's pre-registered studies at the KPU registry where she specifically tries to find research designs which may overcome this problem). I can give you lots of other examples, if necessary. 

Linda