Interview with Professor Christopher French on Scepticism
Chris French is Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Chris heads up their Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, is the co-editor of The Skeptic Magazine (UK), and his main research interest is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and of ostensibly paranormal experiences.
In the book “Debating Psychic Experience”, your first contributing chapter is entitled: “Reflections of a (relatively) moderate skeptic”. Perhaps you could expand upon this, and explain what you mean by moderate scepticism?
I think that there are at least two types of sceptic. For me, true scepticism is not about denying that certain things are possible without even considering the evidence, it is about critical evaluation of the evidence put forward in support of claims. Scepticism should be about doubt, not denial, and for me a true sceptic is someone who always acknowledges that they may be wrong. Most sceptics, I believe, do fit this description. Like me, many of them have spent a lot of time considering the evidence put forward in support of paranormal claims and remain unconvinced that psi is real. This moderate scepticism may be contrasted with a more extreme approach which is taken by a few people, some of them quite vocal, who label themselves as “sceptics”. Such people would claim to KNOW that paranormal forces cannot possibly exist and they therefore do not feel any need to actually examine the available evidence or to run experiments of their own.
In many ways, the discussion(s) between sceptics and psi advocates is a well worn path. We tend to see, at least from certain quarters, familiar differences, disagreements and rebuttals offered. Do you feel that the debate has ‘fossilized’ in recent years, or that it remains lively and current?
I think the debate goes in phases. Back in the 1970s, I’d say the sceptics had the upper hand. Critics of the claims of self-proclaimed psychic superstars like Uri Geller argued convincingly that many apparently paranormal phenomena could be replicated by conjuring techniques. Claims from experimental parapsychology such as those relating to remote viewing were seriously undermined when critics pointed out major flaws in methodology. I was heartened by the constructive collaboration between Ray Hyman and Charles Honorton with respect to the ganzfeld technique in the mid-1980s and the meta-analysis of the auto-ganzfeld data by Bem and Honorton in 1994 was a serious challenge to sceptics. After that, the debate did become rather predictable again for a while but I’d say it’s getting quite interesting again recently (see below).
Of course, to a large extent the debate about whether psi is real or not is of secondary importance to me. As an anomalistic psychologist, I am much more interested in what looks like it’s psychic but isn’t. Although anomalistic psychology has been around for a much shorter period than parapsychology, it can already boast of having made real progress. Anomalistic psychology – in sharp contrast to parapsychology – feels “lively and current” and like it has a very promising future.
If you were to identify the top three areas that psi researchers and advocates needed to push forward, to better satisfy sceptics - what would they be?
There are some areas that I feel are more promising than others even though I do not think the available evidence is yet anywhere near compelling enough to constitute “proof” that psi exists. These areas would include the ganzfeld studies, presentiment-type studies, and possibly telephone telepathy. I would once have included PK studies in that list but recent critiques have made me even more doubtful about that body of research. More important than identifying particular areas of research, however, I think is the challenge to parapsychologists to take steps to meet their critics head-on by agreeing to pre-register studies before data collection commences and to accept and publish the results even when the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
What challenges, do you think, face contemporary scepticism?
I think contemporary scepticism is in a very healthy state, at least in the UK. Grassroots scepticism has, for whatever reason, really taken off over the last few years. I think we need to avoid presenting issues in too simplistic a fashion though. People like a nice simple story with black and white answers to complex questions but the real world isn’t like that. Complex questions usually require nuanced answers however much we might prefer it to be otherwise. I actually used to believe in the paranormal but when I first began to think of myself as a “sceptic”, I had a fairly simplistic view of the issues involved. It was reassuring then to think that all psychics were either fraudulent or mad and that all parapsychologists were idiots. I now know that this is just not true (not of all of them, anyway!).
Research is the lifeblood of better understanding paranormal phenomena. What research (to-be-started or ongoing) have you got in place at Goldsmiths right now?
The research that we do at the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit falls into two main categories. Most of it revolves around attempting to develop and, where possible, test non-paranormal explanations for ostensibly paranormal experiences. We have a number of ongoing projects that are investigating the relevance of false memories, suggestibility, inattentional blindness, tendency towards hallucinations, and so on, with respect to paranormal experiences and belief. You can find out more about our research and other activities at www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru
However, we also put a considerable amount of time into directly testing paranormal claims in recognition of the fact that our current scepticism may conceivably prove to be unfounded. We have tested many psychic claimants over the years and are currently engaged in collaborative research into telephone telepathy (with Rupert Sheldrake) as well as an attempt to replicate some of the highly publicised effects reported by Bem recently. It is worth noting that we actually put a lot more time into actually directly testing paranormal claims experimentally than do some of the more vocal proponents of the paranormal who would label us as “closed-minded”! So far, however, we have never managed to produce any convincing evidence for the reality of psi.
Thank you, Chris.
