Parapsychology: Fact or séance fiction?

Scotland's Sunday Herald sums up the problem faced by researchers of the paranormal:

MENTION Sea Of Souls in Edinburgh University’s Koestler Parapsychology Unit, and the staff roll their eyes. They may have inspired the fictional paranormal sleuths of the BBC drama series, but it irks them to be misrepresented as ghost-busting fruitcakes. Edinburgh University’s parapsychologists are not cranks. Acting head, Caroline Watt, is a quietly-spoken psychologist whose work includes studying the childhoods of people who claim paranormal experiences, and investigating ghostly incidents in Edinburgh’s underground vaults. Her colleagues include a former professional magician who is researching the history of deception, and a philosopher who’s probing the possibility that humans can predict the future. They speak the language of scientific method and they do statistics the way most people do lunch. Yet many of the things they investigate – telepathy, precognition and psychokinesis – are regarded as anathema within “mainstream” science.

This puts academic parapsychologists in a peculiar position. If they can explain how and why apparently paranormal phenomena happen , then they are scientific pioneers like Newton and Einstein , thinking the unthinkable in the face of derision. If they fail, they are intellectual heirs of the medieval alchemists: years of endeavour will have left them with a handful of fool’s gold.

Very long article but well worth reading.