Tuesday Talks | Professor Chris Roe25th January 2022 | 7.30pm until 9.00pm | £6 | Online

The case for the prosecution: An analysis of sceptics’ objections to parapsychology

Informed, constructive criticism plays an important corrective role in enabling scientific progress. Just as a government in office needs a discerning opposition to call it to task to ensure good governance, so parapsychology needs a strong and capable counter-advocate movement to ensure that its methods are robust and its findings valid and meaningful. Parapsychological research has certainly received more than its fair share of criticism, though unusually this mainly comes from ‘armchair critics’ who don’t conduct their own research. In this talk I’ll reflect on modern-day criticism to explore whether it is fit for purpose; to what extent are the criticisms justified and require a response from researchers in terms of modifying research designs or tempering claims, and to what extent are they rhetorical devices that seem persuasive but lack substance when scrutinised more closely.

Join us at 7:30 PM BST via ZOOM. The Tuesday Talk will last for around 45 minutes and is followed by a live Q&A.

About Professor Chris Roe

Vice-President of the Society for Psychical Research

Prof. Chris Roe, Bsc, MSc, PhD, AFBPs, is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Northampton in the UK. He is Director of the Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes and is Course Leader for Northampton’s MSc in Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness Studies. Chris was awarded his PhD by the University of Edinburgh for research on the ways in which psychic effects might be simulated using conventional psychology. His research at Northampton has continued his interest in the psychology of anomalous experience and has concerned topics ranging from spirituality and wellbeing, psychic deception, correlates of paranormal belief and experience, and experimental tests of claimed phenomena of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. He is past Editor of the SPR Journal, a Board Member and past president of the Parapsychological Association, Council Member of the Society for Psychical Research, and a Committee member for the BPS Transpersonal Psychology Section.

He served as Editor of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research from 2003 to 2018 and was elected as President of the Society in April 2018.