• DOI:10.31275/2019/1653
• Corpus ID: 212522547

“The Data Are Irrelevant”: Response to Reber and Alcock (2019)

@article{Cardea2019TheDA,
  title={“The Data Are Irrelevant”: Response to Reber and Alcock (2019)},
  author={Etzel Carde{\~n}a},
  journal={Journal of Scientific Exploration},
  year={2019},
  volume={33},
  pages={593-598}
}

• E. Cardeña
• Published 30 December 2019
• Psychology
• Journal of Scientific Exploration

The rebuttal by Reber and Alcock (2019a,b) to an umbrella review of multiple meta-analyses on the evidence for parapsychological (psi) phenomena (Cardena 2018) did not engage deliberately with its data or analyses. Instead, the authors proposed that because they and some physicists consider psi phenomena to be impossible, “the data are irrelevant” (Reber & Alcock 2019b). After presenting some background information, this Commentary discusses how: 1) Reber and Alcock’s disregard for the data goes against a core tenet of science, 2) eminent physicists have not considered psi phenomena to be incompatible with their discipline and some have even proposed theories to explain it, so no defi nitive conclusion can be advanced with regard to the possibility or impossibility of psi phenomena based on physics, and 3) Reber and Alcock misrepresent the history and current status of psi research. (Less)