How Not to Review Mediumship Research

FOLLOW-UP How Not To Review Mediumship Research GARY E. SCHWARTZ ost rational scientists agree that maintain his belief drat die phenomenon accurate and informed decision. What we the credibility and integrity of in question is impossible? As I document strive for is seeking the truth as reflected a review of a body of research below, Hyman resorts to (consciously in Harvard's motto "Veritas." M and / or unconsciously) selectively ignor- is that it includes all die important infor- I appreciate Hyman's effort to outline mation, not just the reviewer's favored ing important information dial is incon- some of the possible errors and limitations information. Ray Hyman's review "How sistent with his personal beliefs. in the mediumship experiments discussed Not To Test Mediums" (January/February Selective ignoring of facts is not in The Afterlife Experiments. However, as 2002) is a textbook example of the selec- acceptable in science. It reflects a bias that Hyman emphasizes in his review, I do tive ignoring or dismissing of historical, obviates the purpose of research and disal- "strongly disagree" with him about his procedural, and empirical facts to fits lows new discoveries. I have made die interpretations. The two fundamental dis- statement that the survival consciousness one's preferred interpretation. The result agreements I have with Hyman's argu- hypothesis does account for the totality of is an inaccurate, mistaken, and biased set ments are: of conclusions of the current data. the research data to date. Of course, this does not make the survival hypodiesis the 1. Hyman has chosen to ignore numer- Hyman is a distinguished professor ous historical, procedural, and emeritus from the Department of only or correct hypothesis—my state- empirical (acts that are inconsistent Psychology at the University of Oregon, ment reflects die status of die evidence to with his interpretive descriptions of who has had a longstanding career as a date, not necessarily the truth about the our experiments; and skeptic focused on uncovering potential underlying process. This is why more 2. Hyman has chosen not to acknowl- research is needed. edge the totality of the findings fol- flaws in parapsychology research. Hyman lowing Occam's heuristic principle as is well skilled in carefully going through Note diat I do not use die word a means of integrating the total set of die conventional checklist of potential "believe" in relationship to the statement. findings collected to daic. sources of experimental errors and limita- This is not a belief. It is an empirical Space precludes my providing a tions in research designs. observation derived from experiments. detailed and diorough commentary here Hyman's overall appraisal of the It is correct that some of die single- illustrating how pervasively Hyman research conducted to date is implied by blind and double-blind studies have ignores and omits important information. his conclusion: "Probably no other weaknesses—we discuss the experimental (An extensive commentary has been pub- extended program in psychical research limitations at some length in our published on various Web sites, including deviates so much from accepted norms of lished papers as well as in The Afterlife www.openmindsciences.com.) Four sam- scientific methodology as does this one." Experiments. However, these weaknesses ples of important ignored facts are pro- Is Hyman's summary conclusion based do not justify dismissing die totality of vided below. upon a thorough review of the total body the data as mistaken or meaningless. of research? Or does it reflect the system- Quite the contrary, an honest and accu- Selective Ignoring of Historical, atic ignoring of important historical, pro- rate analysis reveals that the data, in total, Procedural, and Empirical Facts cedural, and empirical facts—a cognitive deserve serious consideration. Veritas 1: In his review, Hyman failed to bias used by the reviewer in order to Our research presents all the find- mention the important historical fact that ings—the hits and the misses, the creative our mediumship research actually began Gary E. Schwartz is with the Human aspects of the designs and dieir limita- with double-blind experimental designs. Energy Systems Laboratory, University of tions^—so that the reader can make an For example, die published experiment Arizona, Tucson. 5 8 May/June 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER FOLLOW-UP referred to in The Afterlife Experiments as Hyman fails to mention mat NIH, for mation, by chance, could fit multiple sit- "From Here To There and Back Again" example, requires that investigators who ters—an erroneous conclusion that can be with Susy Smith and Laurie Campbell apply for research grants calculate statisti- reached only if we do what Hyman did was completed almost a year before cal power and sample size to determine and accept the information selectively. we conducted die more naturalistic multi- what n is required to obtain a statistically medium/multi-sitter experiments in- significant result. This is accepted scien- Veritas 4: Hyman's conclusion that expe- volving John Edward, Suzanne tific practice and is required for obtaining rienced cold readers can readily replicate Northrop, George Anderson, Anne NIH funding. the kinds of specific information obtained Gehman, and Laurie Campbell. The early Smith-Campbell double-blind studies did not suffer from possible sub- tle visual or auditory sensory leakage or Just as I don't take the claims of the rater bias—and strong positive findings mediums on faith, I don't take the claims were obtained. of the magicians on faith either. Our decision to subsequently conduct more naturalistic designs (which are inherendy less controlled), was made par- tially for practical reasons (e.g., develop- Conclusion: Hyman would rather dis- under the conditions of our experiments ing professional trust with highly visible miss the fact that the highly accurate rat- is mistaken at best and deceptive at worst. mediums) and pardy for scientific ones ings obtained in the single-blind pub- Under experimental conditions where (e.g., we wished to examine under labora- lished study for GD were indeed repli- (a) professional cold readers do not know tory conditions how mediumship is often cated in the double-blind published die identity of die sitters (i.e., cheating is conducted in die field). study, than to admit the possibility that ruled out), and (b) cold readers are not Conclusion: Hyman makes a factually individual differences in sitter characteris- allowed to see or speak with the sitters erroneous criticism when he reports diat tics are an important and genuine factor (i.e., cueing and feedback is ruled out), it double-blind experiments were initiated in mediumship research. is (c) impossible for cold readers to use only late in our research program, and whatever pre-obtained sitter specific therefore makes a serious interpretative Veritas 3: It is curious that among the information they might have obtained, mistake when he decides tliat all the early many examples of readings provided in and (d) impossible for cold readers to use data can be dismissed because they were The Afterlife Experiments, one early subset their feedback tricks to help them get not conducted double-blind. (cluster/pattern) of facts happened to fit information from the sitters. Hyman nicely. It is true that mention of At the two-day meeting I convened in Veritas 2: In an exploratory double-blind the "Big H," a "father-like figure," an Los Angeles of seven highly experienced long distance mediumship experiment "HN sound" would fit Hyman's father professional mentalist magicians and cold where George Dalzell (GD) was one of six like it did the sitter's husband mentioned readers, they all agreed that they could not sitters and Laurie Campbell (LC) was the in the book. apply their conventional mentalist tricks medium, Hyman states "because nothing Hyman chose not to report the fact under these stria experimental condi- significant was found, die results do not that many other pieces of specific infor- tions. However, a vocal subset (Hyman warrant claiming a successful replication mation also reported for the "Big H" did was one of rhe three), made the unsub- of previous findings." not fit Hyman but did fit the sitter pre- stantiated claim that if dicy had a year or However, Hyman minimizes the fact cisely. Moreover, Hyman consistently two to practice, they might be able to fig- that the number of subjects in this failed to report scores of examples from ure out a way how to fake what the medi- exploratory experiment was small («=6). readings reported verbatim in the book ums were doing. More importandy, Hyman fails to cite a that were highly unusual and unique to My response to this vocal subset was important conclusion mat we reached in individual sitters (e.g., John Edward see- simple. It was "show me." Just as I don't me discussion: "If die binary 66 percent ing a deceased grandmother having two take the claims of me mediums on faith, I figure approximates (1) LC's actual ability large poodles, a black one and a white don't take die claims of die magicians on to conduct double-blind readings, cou- one, and die white one "tore up the faith either. I am a researcher. Mentalist pled widi (2) the six sitter's ability, on die house"). magicians who make these claims will average, to score transcripts double-blind, Conclusion: The reason Hyman railed have to "sit in the research chair" and die 66 percent figure would require only to mention these numerous examples is show us that diey can do what diey claim an n of 25 sitters to reach statistical signif- because they contradict the conclusion they can do. icance (e.g., p< .01)." Hyman chose to accept—that the infor- Thus far, the few cold readers who SKEPTICAL INQUIRER May/June 2003 59 FOLLOW-UP have made these claims have refused to his preference is to propose mat the set of So what is the truth at the present be experimentally tested.

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