The Ganzfeld debate continued: A response to Milton and Wiseman (2001)

Abstract

Most researchers in parapsychological circles and beyond are familiar with the ganzfeld debate, which was revived in a series of articles that appeared in Psychological Bulletin. This article is a response to J. Milton and R. Wiseman's (2001) reply to L. Storm and S. Ertel (2001), who took issue with J. Milton and R. Wiseman's (1999a) claim that the evidence for psi in the ganzfeld was not replicable. The authors (Storm & Ertel) argue that in their reply, J. Milton and R. Wiseman (2001) misrepresented the issues raised in R. Hyman and C. Honorton's (1986). Joint Communiqué to their advantage. Milton and Wiseman wrongly took the standards of the Communiqué as implying low quality of all previous studies and downplayed the accumulated evidence that doubts about the credibility of pre-Communiqué ganzfeld researchers were unwarranted. They wrongfully belittled statistical significance, an important contributor to empirical evidence, and on mere circumstantial grounds, they ignored the necessity of the bidirectionality test, which is acknowledged as a unique psi indicator. The authors reassess the effect sizes for the various ganzfeld databases and conclude that Milton and Wiseman's critique is essentially out of place. For future ganzfeld and psi research in general, the authors recommend a process-oriented strategy.