Journal of Parapsychology

J OURNAL OF P ARAPSYCHOLOGY R HINE RESEARCH CENTER Volume 80, Number 2 Fall 2016 ISSN 0022-3387 EDITORIAL STAFF John A. Palmer, Editor David Roberts, Managing Editor Donald S. Burdick, Statistical Editor Robert Gebelein, Business Manager The Journal of Parapsychology is published twice a year, in Spring and Fall, by Parapsychology Press, a subsidiary of The Rhine Center, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. The Journal is devoted mainly to original reports of experimental research in parapsychology. It also publishes research reviews, methodological, theoretical, and historical papers of relevance to psi research, abstracts and selected invited addresses from Parapsychological Association conventions, book reviews, and letters. An electronic version of the Journal is available to all subscribers on the Rhine Research Center’s website (www.rhine.org.) The current subscription rates are: Individuals ($65.00), institutions ($77.00), with no other categories available. Members of the Rhine Research Center in the Scientifc Supporter category receive the electronic journal free with their membership. The current subscription rates for paper copies of the Journal are: Individuals ($100.00), institutions ($118.00). Foreign subscribers must pay in U.S. dollars. Selected single issues (current or archival) are available at $35.00 each; go to www.rhine.org for more information. Orders for subscriptions or back issues, correspondence, and changes of address should be sent to: Journal of Parapsychology, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. Subscriptions may also be ordered online at www.rhine.org. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Journal of Parapsychology, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. Subscribers: Send change of address notice 30 days prior to the actual change of address. 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For those organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. The Journal is an affliated publication of the Parapsychological Association. Copyright © 2016 by the Parapsychology Press ISSN 0022-3387 Volume 80 / Number 2 / Fall 2016 EDITORIAL Statistical Issues in Parapsychology: Hypothesis Testing —Plus an Addendum on Bierman et al. (2016) 141 John Palmer PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS As It Occurred to Me: Lessons Learned in Researching Parapsychological Claims 144 Chris A. Roe ARTICLE Is the Methodological Revolution in Parapsychology Over or Just Beginning? 156 J. E. Kennedy SPECIAL BOOK REVIEW SECTION: DO WE SURVIVE DEATH? A PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION Introduction 169 John Palmer PART I: BEYOND PHYSICALISM The Elusiveness of Souls: An Essay Review of Beyond Physicalism 169 Douglas M. Stokes Brief Reply to Doug Stokes (and MoA) 185 Edward F. Kelly Reply to Ed Kelly 188 Doug Stokes PART II: THE MYTH OF AN AFTERLIFE The Myth of Mortality: Comments on Martin and Augustine’s The Myth of an Afterlife 190 James G. Matlock Evidence or Prejudice? A Reply to Matlock 203 Keith Augustine Response to Matlock 231 Claus F. Larsen Replying to Matlock 232 Ingrid Hansen Smythe Whose Prejudice? A Reply to Augustine, Smythe, and Larsen 235 James G. Matlock PART III: DISCUSSION Survival and the Mind-Body Problem 251 John Palmer Correspondence (Stokes, Kennedy, Butler) 265 Announcement: Change of Editor 271 Benefactors 272 Index 273 Postal Forms 279 Instructions for Authors 282 We would like to thank the following persons for their work in translating the abstract for this issue of the Journal: Eberhard Bauer (German), Etzel Cardeña (Spanish), and Renaud Evrard (French). Journal of Parapsychology, 80(2), 141–143 EDITORIAL STATISTICAL ISSUES IN PARAPSYCHOLOGY: HYPOTHESIS TESTING—PLUS AN ADDENDUM ON BIERMAN ET AL. (2016) By John Palmer Hypothesis Testing In a previous editorial I described and defended my heretical views on how multiple analyses of empirical results should be addressed (Palmer, 2013). In this editorial, I express and defend equally heretical views on hypothesis testing. The issue of how hypotheses should be evaluated statistically is important for two reasons. First, confrmation of a hypothesis goes beyond confrmation of the effect itself because it supports, or at least should support, a theory or model. Second, a more lenient criterion of statistical signifcance is commonly applied to hypothesized effects than to other effects, which are often labeled “post hoc.” I have heretical proposals regarding both of these observations. A tagline for my frst proposal is that what is important is not whether an outcome is hypothesized but whether it is hypothesizeable. There are two key circumstances where there is a mismatch between the two. The frst is: An outcome is hypothesized that should not have been hypothesized (i.e., is not hypothesizeable). The fact that hypothesis tests are supposed to be tests of a theory or model implies that the author has an obligation to show how the hypothesis follows from the theory and/or previous empirical results related to the theory. In fact, this is one of the major purposes of the introduction section of a research report. This prescription is expressed as follows in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2010): “In empirical studies, [explaining your approach to solving a problem] usually involves stating your hypotheses or specifc questions and describing how these are logically connected to previous data and argumentation” (p. 28; my emphasis). The word “argumentation” leads me to point out that the theory or model need not meet the formal requirements of such; any coherent and plausible conceptual scheme that fulflls this role should suffce. On the other hand, “hypotheses” that are ad hoc or based on hunches should simply be outlawed. The second circumstance is the converse of the frst: The outcome is not hypothesized but should have been hypothesized (i.e., is hypothesizeable). I am sure that most researchers have had the experience of trying to interpret a signifcant post hoc effect and in the process of doing so realize that there was a sound basis for hypothesizing the effect. (The hypothesis would be the generalized form of a prediction of the effect.) However, I am equally sure that most parapsychologists would not retrospectively change the status of the effect from post hoc to hypothesized (and reap the rewards of doing so) because it looks like cheating. This is a powerful illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. As I noted above, the purpose of a hypothesis test is to provide evidence for or against a theory or model, but to fulfll that role, and for the purported hypothesis to legitimately be designated as such, the relevance of the hypothesis to the theory must have been established. If a proposition meets this test, a full interpretation of the effect requires that it be identifed as a hypothesis; otherwise, the support that the confrmation of the hypothesis provides for the theory is obscured. Of course, it is the responsibility of the researcher to justify the reclassifcation in the Discussion section of the report, and referees can decide whether the author has succeeded. On the other hand, the argument against reclassifcation is based on the premise that a hypothesizeable effect should only be hypothesized if the researcher was astute enough to recognize that it was hypothesizeable before the study was conducted. This is clearly nonsensical. So my frst heretical proposition is that demonstrably hypothesizeable post hoc effects not only can be , but should be, retrospectively reclassifed as hypothesized if the researcher becomes aware of its hypothesizeability. 142 The Journal of Parapsychology The practical consequences of adhering to my frst heretical proposal is markedly reduced by ad- herence to my second. A major reason why a researcher would want a proposition to be classifed as a hypothesis is that the criteria that the prediction(s) derived from it must meet for statistical signifcance to be claimed are more generous. There are generally two such criteria: (a) a one-tailed rather than a two-tailed signifcance test, and (b) waiving of the requirement for replication or a multiple-analysis correction. My proposal is that the signifcance criteria for a hypothesis test should be the same as for a post hoc test, name- ly, a two-tailed test and a multiple analysis correction or replication. I have two arguments for my proposal. First, to confrm a hypothesis, a signifcant effect must be shown to be “real,” and this latter determination should be made irrespective of whether the higher-level proposition is classifed as a hypothesis. To do otherwise is to assume what is at issue: that is, that classif- cation of the proposition as a hypothesis is proper. My second argument is similar to my objections to the use of Bayesian statistics, which I presented in a previous editorial (Palmer, 2011). What Bayesian statistics essentially does is to allow a more liberal criterion to be applied in assessing whether an effect is real if it can be shown that the effect has a high a priori probability of being real.

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