Importance of Parapsychology

Despite existing for a long time, parapsychology is still within the realm of pseudoscience. This is so because the character of science or pseudoscience is not given by time or antiquity but by the fact that the objects of study are verifiable or not. In the case of parapsychology, many of the elements that make up this type of study have not been able to be verified through scientific methods. However, this is not to say that it is not important and significant for many people.

Explanation of parapsychology and origin

According to the etymology of the term, originating from the Greek, parapsychology would be the study of what is close to the mind. Thus, parapsychology seeks to study the phenomena that live near a person's mind and that can become reality for that mind. However, parapsychology is not similar to psychology, a science that considers the first a farce or the study of inexplicable phenomena.

Parapsychology is a characteristic practice that human beings have to seek an explanation for rationally inexplicable elements. This means that they have existed for a long time. However, it was only at the end of the 19th century when different scholars in this area systematically shaped the work. Since then and up to the present, parapsychology has created analysis methods for phenomena such as apparitions, ghosts and spirits, telepathy, the ability to move elements with the mind, etc.

Parapsychology as pseudoscience

When we talk about pseudoscience, we refer to any intellectual or academic activity that does not follow the parameters of Western science in terms of the method of study and the construction of hypothesis. Thus, parapsychology falls within this classification because it does not use the scientific method to test hypotheses.

If the possibility of the existence of paranormal phenomena It is their permanent hypothesis, their existence cannot really be proven and, furthermore, only tests are taken as certain. that are positive, ruling out situations in which the results are negative, which in science becomes part of the investigation used to prove or deny a hypothesis.

Criticism of parapsychology

From the scientific field, both parapsychology and other ways of investigating paranormal phenomena are understood as fraudulent and not very serious ways of working with knowledge. This makes parapsychology equate with religion or faith, issues that go more through the force of a person to believe in certain myths or beliefs that by the scientific verification of the facts.

Parapsychology is scientifically open to criticism but its effects may reach further than science itself due to the huge number of people who claim to have suffered situations involving paranormal events or who claim to believe in them.

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