Medical–industrial complex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical%E2%80%93industrial_complex 

Medical equipment and devices

The medical–industrial complex (MIC) refers to a network of interactions between pharmaceutical corporations, health care personnel, and medical conglomerates to supply health care-related products and services for a profit. The term is derived from the idea of the military–industrial complex.

Following the MIC's conception in 1970, the term has undergone an evolution by critical theory scholars throughout the early 21st century—including the fields of disability studies, Black studies, feminism, and queer studies—to describe forces of oppression against marginalized communities as they exist in the healthcare field. Prior to the conception of the "medical-industrial complex" term, themes related to the MIC were discussed in earlier American society, as shown through the work and philosophies of Rana A. Hogarth and Francis Galton.

The medical–industrial complex is often discussed in the context of conflict of interest in the health care industry and is often regarded as a result of modernized healthcare and capitalism. Discussions regarding the medical-industrial complex often concern the United States healthcare system, and propose that pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, including for-profit chain hospitals, may influence physicians' decisions through financial incentives. Physicians may also face constraints from corporate regulations and potential conflicts of interest related to investments in medical device companies. Although some large medical journals have been criticized for potentially biased publications, efforts have been made to maintain neutrality in medical literature. Continuing medical education programs funded by pharmaceutical companies may also influence physician preferences. Finally, patients may be affected by the MIC through the promotion of cosmetic surgery, drug price inflation, and physician bias. The Food and Drug Administration has implemented laws to protect patients against the potential negative impacts of the medical-industrial complex in the United States. These perspectives on the medical-industrial complex also apply to countries outside the United States, such as India and Brazil.

Drawing from diverse theoretical frameworks and the collective efforts of historically marginalized communities, critics have proposed alternatives to the medical-industrial complex that aim to reimagine health as a holistic concept, challenge the medicalization of sickness, and integrate lived experiences into healthcare settings.

Origin

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower commented on the influence and immensity of the military in American society: "...we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." This new term, the military-industrial complex, depicts a sphere of influence between a national military and the defense industry which provides essential supplies to the military. Deriving from this, the compound term composed of the intended institution with "industrial complex" is created to describe the conflict of interest between an institution's supposed goal, and the desire to profit from the businesses/agencies that profit from serving the institution. The conceptual framework of the medical-industrial complex sits alongside the military-industrial complex and the prison-industrial complex, among others, to delineate the influence of free market capitalism in sociopolitical systems and institutions.

The concept of a "medical–industrial complex" was first advanced by Barbara and John Ehrenreich in the November 1969 issue of the Bulletin of the Health Policy Advisory Center in an article entitled "The Medical Industrial Complex" and in a subsequent book (with Health-PAC), The American Health Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics (Random House, 1970). In "The Medical Industrial Complex," the emergence of the American medical industrial complex is attributed to "the growing rapport between the delivery and products industry." This definition of the medical-industrial complex describes the history of the American healthcare system, specifically the creation of social programs Medicare and Medicaid, as an industry that has transformed into a central, essential role of the American national economy. References to the perpetuation of healthcare disparities by the medical-industrial complex are described, such as "class and cultural antagonisms." Differences in accessibility of healthcare between rural and urban populations are also made at this time.

In 1980, Dr. Arnold S. Relman published a further discussion of the medical-industrial complex in The New England Journal of Medicine when he was editor-in-chief, entitled "The New Medical-Industrial Complex." Relman notably explicitly excludes pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment companies in his description of the medical-industrial complex. Relman argues that "in a capitalistic society there are no practical alternatives to the private manufacture of drugs and medical equipment." Relman still identifies the novelty of the modern medical-industrial complex, describing the medical-industrial complex as an "unprecedented phenomenon with broad and potentially troubling implications." As with the Ehrenreich definition, the medical-industrial complex continues an emphasis on profit maximization on behalf of private corporations. The "cream-skimming" phenomenon is described, where proprietary hospitals can "skim the cream" off the market, by focusing on wealthy patients who can afford the most profitable procedures and services; nonprofit hospitals are therefore left with the remaining patient base.

In the 21st century, the medical industrial complex has come to encompass a system of oppression and subject of critical analysis by scholars, activists, organizers, and advocates. The Health Justice Commons describes the medical-industrial complex as intertwined institutions, including big pharma, as well as health insurance companies, medical technology companies, and governmental regulatory bodies. Per the Health Justice Commons, the medical-industrial complex reinforces "racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism." The nature and extent of the medical-industrial complex is a subject of debate by scholars, including those who specialize in fields of critical theory, such as disability studies, queer theory, and Black studies. According to encyclopedia.com, the Medical-Industrial Complex has "contributed to improvements in the health status of the population" but "it has also strengthened and preserved the private sector and protected a plurality of vested interests."

History

The existence of the medical-industrial complex as a concept is a product of the development of the modern American healthcare system. In the 19th century, the profession and practice of medicine underwent significant professionalization and growth. Experimentation on enslaved people was common. Doctors such as gynecologist J. Marion Sims operated on enslaved black women without anesthesia in order to document and develop gynecological medical issues and techniques to repair them. The creation of hospitals to treat the sick create further disparities in favor of urban, white populations.

The contemporary American healthcare system was shaped by the passage of the Hill-Burton Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and most recently, the Affordable Care Act. The latter social programs attempt to diminish the disparity of populations with difficulties maintaining health insurance, but does not attempt to reduce the private sector. The medical-industrial complex endeavors to reconcile the modern healthcare establishment with the long-term health inequalities.

Some elements of the medical-industrial complex, including the experimentation on marginalized populations, were introduced much prior to the modern American healthcare system. The conglomerate as it is now known is the synthesis of the modern healthcare system with developed capitalism.

1780–1840

In the historical monograph Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Differences in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840, Rana A. Hogarth discusses "the ways in which blackness was reified in medical discourses and used to perpetuate notions of white supremacy," and, consequently, harm and oppression. For example, Hogarth discusses how "white physicians constructed images of healthy and robust black bodies capable of enduring brutal labor regimes" while also identifying "deficiencies within these bodies that disqualified them for self-government." Importantly, Hogarth argues that oppression of black individuals using science predates the justification of slavery, and, instead has more to do with the origins of the medical industrial complex that allowed for the "intellectual, professional, and pecuniary gains" of physicians in the English-speaking greater Caribbean region over those of black individuals.

1900s–present

Francis Galton, in a black and white picture, seated on a chair in a suit

Eugenics has played a prominent role in the history of the MIC. The term eugenics was introduced in 1904, by Francis Galton. It was defined as "the science which deals with all influences that improve and develop the inborn qualities of a race" with the goal of "represent[ing] each class or sect by its best specimens, causing them to contribute more than their proportion to the next generation." Galton's concept of eugenics soon propagated ideas that certain groups of people, whether they were distinguished by race, ability, or socioeconomic status, were superior to others. Renowned journals, such as Nature, published work by Galton and other eugenicists, thereby making it easier for eugenics to become a legitimate field in science.

Some instances of eugenics are infamous in society, such as the justification of the mass ethnic genocide of Jewish people during the Holocaust by arguing that society was in need of racial purification.

Other examples of eugenics, such as the selective abortion of children with disabilities, are more controversial. Other notable eugenic-like practices include compulsory sterilization of black and poor individuals and scientific racism.

For more, see eugenics.

Within the United States

Healthcare corporations

Pharmaceutical companies and chain hospitals are key healthcare corporations within the Medical Industrial complex.

Influence of pharmaceutical companies

Packaged drugs ready for distribution

Pharmaceutical companies are a leading influence in the expansion of the Medical-Industrial Complex. Generic pharmaceutical drugs, which have the same chemical properties as branded, profitable drugs, are often sold for a fraction of the cost of their counterparts. For example, a 10 mg dose of asthma medication Singulair can cost up to $250 per month, whereas its generic counterpart Montelukast costs only ~$20 per month. Despite the inflated prices of brand-name drugs, pharmaceutical companies often induce bias in health care professionals by disproportionately promoting brand-name drugs. For example, research has shown that pharmaceutical companies promote branded drugs more, making physicians more likely to prescribe an expensive medicine over a generic alternative.

In addition to drugs, Laboratory Tests are also influenced by pharmaceutical company's vested interests. Physicians are more likely to order unnecessary tests when they are advertised by familiar pharmaceutical companies. Like branded drugs, many pharmaceutical companies set these tests at inflated prices to increase profit.

Influence of chain hospitals

Chain hospitals, in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, also lead to the escalation of health costs. A chain hospital is a subsidiary of a hospital network that works under a for-profit goal of expanding healthcare and establishing hospitals across a country, most notably the United States. These corporations set standards regarding care administration, regulation, and enforcement – often without implementing a proper code of medical ethics. Chain hospitals and other healthcare conglomerates hold a monopoly over health care costs within their hospitals and respective subsidiaries. Thus, they can inflate healthcare costs with the goal of increasing profit, or lowering hospital standards to cut corners where necessary.

This cost inflation is exacerbated by the fact that health care organizations are increasingly managed by business staff who often focus on economic gain, rather than local medical practitioners whose focus is patient benefit. Moreover, hospitals in one state can be monitored by systems elsewhere, which gives significantly less power to local healthcare professionals.

Bias in education

The curriculum of medical students often incorporates readings from large medical journals, like the New England Journal of Medicine. These peer-reviewed journals may present results that favor expensive drugs manufactured by healthcare corporations or pharmaceutical companies, as these same corporations help to fund the journal. As such, these large journals can perpetuate bias in healthcare providers' medication preferences by presenting results that are inherently influenced by the motives of businesses.

Continuing medical education

Further information: Continuing Medical Education

Beyond medical school education, continuing medical education for healthcare is also subject to biased curriculum that disproportionately promotes the interest of its funders. To continue practicing as a board-certified physician, a physician must take continuing medical education courses. Such programs ensure that physicians are up-to-date with new medicines and treatment plans. However, these continuing education courses are often sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and healthcare corporations that can instill bias in physicians' education via the material provided. For example, if a course is sponsored by a medical device company, then the coursework and exams used often reference using the company's medical device. In turn, when the course is completed, it is more likely that physicians will use that medical device when interacting with patients regardless of if that medical device is necessary in the patients treatment.

There are entities that work to reduce bias in continuing medical education courses, including the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. Other groups, like the Medical education agency, work to reduce the influence of pharmaceutical companies and hospital corporations in the continuing medical education process.

Cosmetic rhinoplasty results

Consequences

The MIC poses unique difficulties for patients and physicians. For patients dealing with widespread diseases, treatment often comes with steep prices in Medicare and insurance. In recent 2020 health-care research, data has expressed how pandemics like COVID-19 have further tested the preparedness of the entire system's ability to combat a rapidly spreading virus.

Patient-level

A health professional offers a unique service to patients, since patients often defer to the guidance and wisdom of their healthcare provider. Many healthcare corporations are cognizant of the general population's lack of medical knowledge and possess the ability to set prices. This unequal relationship between healthcare corporations and the populace is especially important as it involves the complex interaction between making a profit from a patient's suffering, but also physicians having to treat the patient as effectively as possible. For patients who do not have access to reliable health insurance, this system imposes expensive medical treatment that they must pay for.

For patients with a chronic illness, diagnosis often means expensive medications for the rest of one's life. Chronic illnesses like depression may require medications until the disease is treated, whereas more severe chronic illnesses like cystic fibrosis require expensive medical and pharmaceutical treatments for one's entire life. These diseases could be treated, but their unique long-lasting nature means money can be generated from life-long treatments as opposed to a curative treatment.

Individuals in low-income households and racial minority groups have experienced most of the impact of the high prices in the medical-industrial complex during the pandemic. Over one third of Latino adults or low-income adults were uninsured at some point during 2020. In 2020, African Americans infected with COVID-19 died at a rate of 97.9 out of every 100,000, which is a death rate over twice as high as the death rates in white people (46.6/100,000) and Asians (40.4/100,000), and a third higher than Latinos (64.7/100,000). Notably, the death rate of African Americans is comparable to that of Indigenous populations (81.9/100,000).

Physician-level

Physicians are also subject to the medical-industrial complex and its manifestations. Throughout the 21st century, plastic surgery has become more common, a process where individuals undergo surgeries to resolve cosmetic issues. Cosmetic surgeries are often used to satisfy a certain beauty standard. For-profit healthcare promotes such non-essential healthcare services so that more profits can be created from healthy populations.

The phrase "no margin, no mission" is often used to describe for-profit healthcare, where medical centers adapt to corporate interests. For physicians, this can mean not treating uninsured patients, performing unnecessary procedures that generate profit, or supplying better care to patients when they have better means of pay. For-profit healthcare can have great moral and ethical considerations for physicians who feel obligated to care more for well-insured patients as opposed to under-insured, vulnerable patients.

Corporate entities, including insurance companies, also enforce standards surrounding medical treatment and payout. These rules disregard ethical and moral dilemmas that physicians often face, setting unattainable guidelines for certain situations. Physicians are often tied between healthcare corporations and insurance companies determining what they can and cannot do for a patient, regardless of if the treatment plan is necessary or not.

Manufacturers of medical devices also fund medical education programs, physicians, and hospitals to encourage the use of their devices. Many pharmaceutical and medical device companies are investor-based, meaning that if a device or drug receives FDA approval, investing physicians will be financially invested in the device's success or demise. Thus, a physician who is financially involved in a product or service is more likely to promote or use the product, whether or not its efficacy is known. This provides a conflict of interest for physicians, who may not provide their patients with effective, safe treatment due to bias for one product over another.

Laws and policies

As indicated in Mia Mingus' diagram above, the "Medical Industrial Complex" is intertwined with the effects of economic policy on the practice of medicine. The Dalkon Shield is an interesting example of the conflict between economic profit and patient well being:

Over a decade since the invention of the Dalkon Shield, the Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990 was passed by the FDA as an amendment to the FDCA. This act required medical device manufacturer to report any information about medical devices that could contribute to death, sickness, or injury. As such, healthcare professionals were required to report malfunctioning or unsafe medical equipment.

Additionally, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, created by the United States Department of Justice, declared that all contracts that medical device companies make with physicians must be made public. As such, this act could prevent future physicians from promoting or overusing medical devices on patients to further personal interests over patient benefit.

In other countries

Indian Medical Association Clinic

The healthcare system in the United States performs worse on health indicators compared to other major nations, despite the country's higher investment in healthcare. This is reflected in lower ratings for life expectancy and satisfaction among U.S. citizens. Some argue that these lower ratings are partly due to the fact that the United States does not provide universal health coverage, unlike many other nations. Some major differences between the United States and other major countries include quality, access, efficiency, equity, and life expectancy.

White savior-industrial complex

Further information: White savior

Countries in the Global South do not always have the same amount and quality of resources as countries in the Global North. Due to these disparities, scholars argue that the white savior industrial complex (WSIC) has influenced healthcare systems on individual, interpersonal, structural, and global levels. Coined by Teju Cole, the WSIC refers to the phenomenon where privileged white individuals seek personal fulfillment by trying to "liberate, rescue, or otherwise uplift underprivileged people of color." According to this concept, people with a white savior mentality may believe they know what is best for other countries, although such individuals often end up causing more harm than good. One such example describes how a white American physician caused Ugandan medical staff to doubt their knowledge and ability in delivering a baby. Another example recounts how a White male physician used his privilege to influence medical staff in India to subvert their traditional medical practices. Scholars cite these anecdotes as examples of how widespread the WSIC has become.

India

Some individuals claim that the medical-industrial complex also exists in India, where the Indian Medical Association lobbies for their interests in local and state politics. Specifically, some doctors have accused the Indian Medical Association of engaging in unethical practices and obstructing the advancement of healthcare systems within the medical profession. The Indian Medical Association has responded to these claims by stating that their critics exaggerate rare occasions of unethical practices. Yet, some doctors have privately admitted to immoral actions and have stated that these practices are not limited to a few individual patients. Ethics is a contentious topic both within and beyond the medical profession. Claims of unethical practices may stem from the stark contrast between healthcare systems ranging from tall, high-tech hospitals to dilapidated, dirty ones. Some medical professionals and scholars suggest that stricter office guidelines may decrease unethical practices, but this could also raise the cost of healthcare for patients.

Brazil

In Brazil, scholars refer to the medical-industrial complex as the "healthcare-industrial complex." The healthcare-industrial complex also expands beyond Brazil, where internal infrastructure fails to meet medical demands, leaving patients unable to access necessary products and services. Scholars argue that Brazil's medical history reflects poor distribution of social and economic medical policies, resulting in underdeveloped and underfunded healthcare sectors in poor communities. The Program for Investment in the Health Industrial Complex, or PROCIS, funds medical research in Brazil to advance the country's global presence in pharmaceutical and medical industries. According to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, PROCIS was formed with the goal of developing Brazil's internal healthcare structure and promoting research, development, and treatment. Over 100 billion Brazilian reals have been devoted to supporting medical research efforts, development of the medical industry, and innovating existing medical products. The PROCIS also established a margin of preference on healthcare products that are nationally funded and sourced.

Cultural criticisms

A group of scholars and activists offer critiques and alternative approaches to the medical-industrial complex.

Alternative approaches

Alternative approaches to the medical-industrial complex incorporate elements from different theoretical frameworks and practices, such as holism, environmentalism, reproductive justice, the disability rights movement, feminism, and other related concepts. These alternative approaches stem from the collective efforts of historically marginalized activists facing structural violence, including Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities. According to various scholars, these alternative approaches aim to reimagine health as a holistic concept that extends beyond the traditional focus of the medical-industrial complex to include the body, mind, and spirit. Furthermore, these alternative approaches challenge the medicalization of illness and disease by highlighting how structural factors shape health, rather than just individual behaviors. Alternative approaches to the medical-industrial complex also challenge the boundaries between patient and provider to encourage collaboration between the two and to center the lived experiences of individuals in the healing process. Additionally, they highlight the importance of forming caring relationships within one's community to establish a sense of solidarity among individuals as equal participants in the healing process.

One alternative approach to the MIC is presented by disability activist, Eli Clare, who describes the Medical-Industrial Complex in a negative light, stating that, through the MIC "all of our body-minds are judged in one way or another, found to be normal or abnormal, valuable or disposable, healthy or unhealthy." He argues that the MIC is a critical component of the ideology of cure by shaping "our understandings of health and well- being, disability and disease" and perpetuating the idea that bodies and minds need improving. Clare describes the MIC as being pervasive throughout our lived experiences, "sustained by the labor of many people, ranging from doctors to nursing home administrators, nursing aides to psychiatrists, physical therapists to researchers, scientists to marketing directors." Moreover, he states that the MIC is perpetuated by pharmaceutical companies, medical ad agencies, laboratories and all health facilities. Simultaneously, Clare acknowledges that cure, and thus the medical industrial complex, has helped many individuals to cope with chronic diseases or illnesses that have caused them pain. Throughout his novel, Brilliant Imperfection: Battling with Cure, Clare suggests that we, as a society, must work to re-imagine a world with a more nuanced and critical view of cure and the MIC.

Another alternative approach to the MIC is mindfulness, which emphasizes how the resources and tools for healing exist within the self and not within the solutions offered by the medical-industrial complex. Another distinct approach from the medical-industrial complex is alternative health, which incorporates elements of traditional medicine and focuses on addressing underlying factors of disease rather than merely treating symptoms. Alternative health, as a new social movement, provides a space for individuals and communities with diverse lived experiences to actively participate in the healthcare system while emphasizing their humanity in the healing process. Scholars Jonathan Metzl and Helena Hansen advocate for a new approach to medical education in the United States, termed structural competency, which entails clinicians' ability to comprehend and address social determinants of health during patient interactions.

Dialectic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic

Dialectic (Ancient Greek: διαλεκτική, romanized: dialektikḗ; German: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and rhetoric; the object is more an eventual and commonly held truth than the "winning" of an (often binary) competition. It has its origins in ancient philosophy and continued to be developed in the Middle Ages.

Hegelianism refigured "dialectic" to no longer refer to a literal dialogue. Instead, the term takes on the specialized meaning of development by way of overcoming internal contradictions. Dialectical materialism, a theory advanced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, adapted the Hegelian dialectic into a materialist theory of history. The legacy of Hegelian and Marxian dialectics has been criticized by philosophers, such as Karl Popper and Mario Bunge, who considered it unscientific.

Dialectic implies a developmental process and so does not fit naturally within classical logic. Nevertheless, some twentieth-century logicians have attempted to formalize it.

Classical philosophy

In classical philosophy, dialectic (Ancient Greek: διαλεκτική dialektikḗ) is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses). The outcome of such a dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant proposition, or a combination of the opposing assertions (a synthesis), or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue. Socrates has become famous for his Socratic method of questioning conversation partners on topics until they agreed with him or admitted ignorance.

Platonism

In Platonism, dialectic assumed an ontological and metaphysical role in that it became the process whereby the intellect passes from sensibles to intelligibles, rising from idea to idea until it finally grasps the supreme idea, the first principle, which is the origin of all. The philosopher is consequently a "dialectician". In this sense, dialectic is a process of inquiry that does away with hypotheses up to the first principle. It slowly embraces multiplicity in unity. The philosopher Simon Blackburn wrote that the dialectic in this sense is used to understand "the total process of enlightenment, whereby the philosopher is educated so as to achieve knowledge of the supreme good, the Form of the Good".

Aristotle

Aristotle has been traditionally understood as viewing dialectic as a lesser method of reasoning than demonstration, which derives a necessarily true conclusion, from premises assumed to be true, via syllogism. Within the Organon, the series comprising Aristotle's works about logic, the Topics is dedicated to dialectic—which he characterizes as argument from endoxa ("generally accredited opinions") where positions are subject to lines of questioning, to which concessions may be made in response. While Aristotle asserts "dialectic does not prove anything", he considers it to be a useful art closely related to rhetoric.

Medieval philosophy

In the medieval period, dialectic was a foundational element of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic/dialectic), the essential curriculum in arts faculties at early universities. Drawing heavily on the works of Aristotle, as transmitted and commented upon by figures like Boethius, medieval thinkers employed dialectic as a rigorous method for analyzing texts and pursuing truth through reasoned argumentation. This practice was most notably formalized in the academic exercise known as the quaestio disputata (disputed question), a structured public debate where scholars presented arguments for and against a specific proposition drawn from authoritative sources such as Scripture, Church Fathers, or classical philosophers. The goal was not merely to win a debate but to use logical analysis to resolve apparent contradictions between different authorities, reconcile faith with reason, and arrive at a unified, deeper understanding of the subject matter. This method of systematic inquiry and rigorous logical consistency formed the bedrock of Scholasticism and the Western intellectual tradition, laying the groundwork for later developments in modern philosophy and science.

Following Boethius (480–524), who drew heavily on Aristotle, many scholastic philosophers made use of dialectics in their works, including Peter Abelard, William of Sherwood, Garlandus Compotista, Walter Burley, Roger Swyneshed, William of Ockham, and Thomas Aquinas.

This dialectic (a quaestio disputata) was formed as follows:

1. The question to be determined ("It is asked whether...");
2. A provisional answer to the question ("And it seems that...");
3. The principal arguments in favor of the provisional answer;
4. An argument against the provisional answer, traditionally a single argument from authority ("On the contrary...");
5. The determination of the question after weighing the evidence ("I answer that...");
6. The replies to each of the initial objections. ("To the first, to the second etc., I answer that...")

Modern philosophy

The concept of dialectics was given new life at the start of the nineteenth century by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose dialectical model of nature and of history made dialectics a fundamental aspect of reality, instead of regarding the contradictions into which dialectics leads as evidence of the limits of pure reason, as Immanuel Kant had argued. Hegel was influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte's conception of synthesis, although Hegel didn't adopt Fichte's thesis–antithesis–synthesis language except to describe Kant's philosophy: rather, Hegel argued that such language was "a lifeless schema" imposed on various contents, whereas he saw his own dialectic as flowing out of "the inner life and self-movement" of the content itself.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Hegelian dialectic was appropriated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and retooled in what they considered to be a nonidealistic manner. It would also become a crucial part of later representations of Marxism as a philosophy of dialectical materialism. These representations often contrasted dramatically and led to vigorous debate among different Marxist groups.

Hegelian dialectic

"Hegelian dialectic" redirects here. For the Prodigy album, see Hegelian Dialectic (The Book of Revelation).

See also: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel § Dialectics, speculation, idealism

The Hegelian dialectic describes changes in the forms of thought, through their own internal contradictions, into concrete forms that overcome previous oppositions.

This dialectic is sometimes presented in a threefold manner, as first stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis. However, Hegel opposed these terms.

By contrast, the terms abstract, negative, and concrete suggest a flaw or an incompleteness in any initial thesis. For Hegel, the concrete must always pass through the phase of the negative, that is, mediation. This is the essence of what is popularly called Hegelian dialectics.

To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel often used the term Aufheben, variously translated into English as 'sublation' or 'overcoming', to conceive of the working of the dialectic. Roughly, the term indicates preserving the true portion of an idea, thing, society, and so forth, while moving beyond its limitations. What is sublated, on the one hand, is overcome, but, on the other hand, is preserved and maintained.

As in the Socratic dialectic, Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. In his view, the purpose of dialectics is "to study things in their own being and movement and thus to demonstrate the finitude of the partial categories of understanding".

For Hegel, even history can be reconstructed as a unified dialectic, the major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as servitude to self-unification and realization as the rational constitutional state of free and equal citizens.

Marxist dialectic

Marxist dialectic is a form of Hegelian dialectic which applies to the study of historical materialism. Marxist dialectic is thus a method by which one can examine social and economic behaviors. It is the foundation of the philosophy of dialectical materialism, which forms the basis of historical materialism.

In the Marxist tradition, "dialectic" refers to regular and mutual relationships, interactions, and processes in nature, society, and human thought.

A dialectical relationship is a relationship in which two phenomena or ideas mutually impact each other, leading to development and negation. Development refers to the change and motion of phenomena and ideas from less advanced to more advanced or from less complete to more complete. Dialectical negation refers to a stage of development in which a contradiction between two previous subjects gives rise to a new subject. In the Marxist view, dialectical negation is never an endpoint, but instead creates new conditions for further development and negation.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, writing several decades after Hegel's death, proposed that Hegel's dialectic is too abstract. Against this, Marx presented his own dialectic method, which he claimed to be "direct opposite" of Hegel's method.

Marxist dialectics is exemplified in Das Kapital. As Marx explained,

it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

Class struggle is the primary contradiction to be resolved by Marxist dialectics because of its central role in the social and political lives of a society. Marx believed the struggle between the capitalist class (the purchasers of labor-power) and the working class (the sellers of labor-power) to be the primary contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, and that the working class must resolve this contradiction by seizing power in a revolution, to abolish class distinctions generally.

Friedrich Engels further proposed that nature itself is dialectical, and that this is "a very simple process, which is taking place everywhere and every day". His dialectical "law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa" corresponds, according to Christian Fuchs, to the concept of phase transition and anticipated the concept of emergence "a hundred years ahead of his time". Stalin and Mao interpreted the transformation of quantity into quality not as a separate law, but as a special instance of the unity and struggle of opposites.

For Vladimir Lenin, the primary feature of Marx's "dialectical materialism" (Lenin's term) is its application of materialist philosophy to history and social sciences. Lenin's main contribution to the philosophy of dialectical materialism is his theory of reflection, which presents human consciousness as a dynamic reflection of the objective material world that fully shapes its contents and structure.

Later, Stalin's works on the subject established a rigid and formalistic division of Marxist–Leninist theory into dialectical materialism and historical materialism. While the first was supposed to be the key method and theory of the philosophy of nature, the second was the Soviet version of the philosophy of history.

Soviet systems theory pioneer Alexander Bogdanov viewed Hegelian and materialist dialectic as progressive, albeit inexact and diffuse, attempts at achieving what he called tektology, or a universal science of organization.

Dialectical naturalism

Dialectical naturalism is a term coined by American philosopher Murray Bookchin to describe the philosophical underpinnings of the political program of social ecology. Dialectical naturalism explores the complex interrelationship between social problems and the ecological consequences of human society. Bookchin offered dialectical naturalism as a contrast to what he saw as the "empyrean, basically antinaturalistic dialectical idealism" of Hegel, and "the wooden, often scientistic dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxists".

Theological dialectics

Neo-orthodoxy, in Europe also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology, is a theological approach in Protestantism that was developed in the aftermath of the First World War (1914–1918). It is characterized as a reaction against doctrines of nineteenth-century liberal theology and a more positive reevaluation of the teachings of the Reformation, much of which had been in decline (especially in western Europe) since the late eighteenth century. It is primarily associated with two Swiss professors and pastors, Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Emil Brunner (1899–1966), even though Barth himself expressed his unease in the use of the term.

In dialectical theology, the difference and opposition between God and human beings is stressed in such a way that all human attempts at overcoming this opposition through moral, religious or philosophical idealism must be characterized as sin. In the death of Christ humanity is negated and overcome, but this judgment also points forwards to the resurrection in which humanity is reestablished in Christ. For Barth this meant that only through God's "no" to everything human can his "yes" be perceived. Applied to traditional themes of Protestant theology, such as double predestination, this means that election and reprobation cannot be viewed as a quantitative limitation of God's action. Rather it must be seen as its "qualitative definition".

Dialectic prominently figured in Bernard Lonergan's philosophy, in his books Insight and Method in Theology. Michael Shute wrote about Lonergan's use of dialectic in The Origins of Lonergan's Notion of the Dialectic of History. For Lonergan, dialectic is both individual and operative in community. Simply described, it is a dynamic process that results in something new:

For the sake of greater precision, let us say that a dialectic is a concrete unfolding of linked but opposed principles of change. Thus there will be a dialectic if (1) there is an aggregate of events of a determinate character, (2) the events may be traced to either or both of two principles, (3) the principles are opposed yet bound together, and (4) they are modified by the changes that successively result from them.

Dialectic is one of the eight functional specialties Lonergan envisaged for theology to bring this discipline into the modern world. Lonergan believed that the lack of an agreed method among scholars had inhibited substantive agreement from being reached and progress from being made compared to the natural sciences. Karl Rahner, S. J., however, criticized Lonergan's theological method in a short article entitled "Some Critical Thoughts on 'Functional Specialties in Theology'" where he stated: "Lonergan's theological methodology seems to me to be 'so generic that it really fits every science', and hence is not the methodology of theology as such, but only a very general methodology of science."

Criticisms

See also: Category:Critics of dialectical materialism

Friedrich Nietzsche viewed dialectic as a method that imposes artificial boundaries and suppresses the richness and diversity of reality. He rejected the notion that truth can be fully grasped through dialectical reasoning and offered a critique of dialectic, challenging its traditional framework and emphasizing the limitations of its approach to understanding reality. He expressed skepticism towards its methodology and implications in Twilight of the Idols: "I mistrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity". In the same book, Nietzsche criticized Socrates' dialectics because he believed it prioritized reason over instinct, resulting in the suppression of individual passions and the imposition of an artificial morality.

In 1937, Karl Popper wrote and delivered a paper entitled "What Is Dialectic?" in which he criticized the dialectics of Hegel, Marx, and Engels for their willingness "to put up with contradictions". He argued that accepting contradiction as a valid form of logic would lead to the principle of explosion and thus trivialism. Popper concluded the essay with these words: "The whole development of dialectic should be a warning against the dangers inherent in philosophical system-building. It should remind us that philosophy should not be made a basis for any sort of scientific system and that philosophers should be much more modest in their claims. One task which they can fulfill quite usefully is the study of the critical methods of science." Seventy years later, Nicholas Rescher responded that "Popper's critique touches only a hyperbolic version of dialectic", and he quipped: "Ironically, there is something decidedly dialectical about Popper's critique of dialectics." Around the same time as Popper's critique was published, philosopher Sidney Hook discussed the "sense and nonsense in dialectic" and rejected two conceptions of dialectic as unscientific but accepted one conception as a "convenient organizing category".

The philosopher of science and physicist Mario Bunge repeatedly criticized Hegelian and Marxian dialectics, calling them "fuzzy and remote from science" and a "disastrous legacy". He concluded: "The so-called laws of dialectics, such as formulated by Engels (1940, 1954) and Lenin (1947, 1981), are false insofar as they are intelligible." Poe Yu-ze Wan, reviewing Bunge's criticisms of dialectics, found Bunge's arguments to be important and sensible, but he thought that dialectics could still serve some heuristic purposes for scientists. Wan pointed out that scientists such as the American Marxist biologists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin (authors of The Dialectical Biologist) and the German-American evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, not a Marxist himself, have found agreement between dialectical principles and their own scientific outlooks, although Wan opined that Engels' "laws" of dialectics "in fact 'explain' nothing".

Even some Marxists are critical of the term "dialectics". For instance, Michael Heinrich wrote, "More often than not, the grandiose rhetoric about dialectics is reducible to the simple fact that everything is dependent upon everything else and is in a state of interaction and that it's all rather complicated—which is true in most cases, but doesn't really say anything."

Formalization

This section is transcluded from Logic and dialectic § History. (edit | history)

Since the late 20th century, European and American logicians have attempted to provide mathematical foundations for dialectic through formalisation, although logic has been related to dialectic since ancient times. There have been pre-formal and partially-formal treatises on argument and dialectic, from authors such as Stephen Toulmin (The Uses of Argument, 1958), Nicholas Rescher (Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge, 1977), and Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (pragma-dialectics, 1980s). One can include works of the communities of informal logic and paraconsistent logic.

Defeasibility

This section is transcluded from Logic and dialectic § Defeasibility. (edit | history)

Building on theories of defeasible reasoning (see John L. Pollock), systems have been built that define well-formedness of arguments, rules governing the process of introducing arguments based on fixed assumptions, and rules for shifting burden. Many of these logics appear in the special area of artificial intelligence and law, though the computer scientists' interest in formalizing dialectic originates in a desire to build decision support and computer-supported collaborative work systems.

Dialogue games

This section is transcluded from Logic and dialectic § Dialogue games. (edit | history)

Main articles: Game semantics and Dialogical logic

Dialectic itself can be formalised as moves in a game, where an advocate for the truth of a proposition and an opponent argue. Such games can provide a semantics of logic, one that is very general in applicability.

Mathematics

Mathematician William Lawvere interpreted dialectics in the setting of categorical logic in terms of adjunctions between idempotent monads. This perspective may be useful in the context of theoretical computer science where the duality between syntax and semantics can be interpreted as a dialectic in this sense. For example, the Curry–Howard correspondence is such an adjunction or more generally the duality between closed monoidal categories and their internal logic.

Paranormal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal

Paranormal events are purported or imagined phenomena described in popular culture, folklore, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perceptions (for example, telepathy), and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology.

Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses, or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence, because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony, and suspicion. The standard scientific models give the explanation that what appears to be paranormal phenomena is usually a misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or anomalous variation of natural phenomena.

Etymology

The term paranormal has existed in the English language since at least 1920. The word consists of two parts: para and normal. The definition implies that the scientific explanation of the world around us is normal and anything that is above, beyond, or contrary to that is para.

Paranormal subjects

On the classification of paranormal subjects, psychologist Terence Hines said in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003):

The paranormal can best be thought of as a subset of pseudoscience. What sets the paranormal apart from other pseudosciences is a reliance on explanations for alleged phenomena that are well outside the bounds of established science. Thus, paranormal phenomena include extrasensory perception (ESP), telekinesis, ghosts, poltergeists, life after death, reincarnation, faith healing, human auras, and so forth. The explanations for these allied phenomena are phrased in vague terms of "psychic forces", "human energy fields", and so on. This is in contrast to many pseudoscientific explanations for other nonparanormal phenomena, which, although very bad science, are still couched in acceptable scientific terms.

Ghost hunting

Main article: Ghost hunting

Ghost hunting is the investigation of locations that are reportedly haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity.

In traditional ghostlore and fiction featuring ghosts, a ghost is a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a person. Alternative theories expand on that idea and include belief in the ghosts of deceased animals. Sometimes the term "ghost" is used synonymously with any spirit or demon; however, in popular usage, the term typically refers to the spirit of a deceased person.

The belief in ghosts as souls of the departed is closely tied to the concept of animism, an ancient belief that attributed souls to everything in nature. As the 19th-century anthropologist George Frazer explained in his classic work, The Golden Bough (1890), souls were seen as the 'creature within' which animated the body. Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it was widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to the clothing worn by the person. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 1550 BCE), which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress.

Ufology

Main article: Ufology

The possibility of extraterrestrial life is not, in itself, a paranormal subject. Many scientists are actively engaged in the search for unicellular life within the Solar System, carrying out studies on the surface of Mars and examining meteors that have fallen to Earth. Projects such as SETI are conducting an astronomical search for radio activity that would show evidence of intelligent life outside the Solar System. Scientific theories of how life developed on Earth allow for the possibility that life also developed on other planets. The paranormal aspect of extraterrestrial life centers largely around the belief in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the phenomena said to be associated with them.

Early in the history of UFO culture, believers divided themselves into two camps. The first held a rather conservative view of the phenomena, interpreting them as unexplained occurrences that merited serious study. They began calling themselves "ufologists" in the 1950s and felt that logical analysis of sighting reports would validate the notion of extraterrestrial visitation.

The second camp held a view that coupled ideas of extraterrestrial visitation with beliefs from existing quasi-religious movements. Typically, these individuals were enthusiasts of occultism and the paranormal. Many had backgrounds as active Theosophists or spiritualists, or were followers of other esoteric doctrines. In contemporary times, many of these beliefs have coalesced into New Age spiritual movements.

Both secular and spiritual believers describe UFOs as having abilities beyond what are considered possible according to known aerodynamic constraints and physical laws. The transitory events surrounding many UFO sightings preclude any opportunity for the repeat testing required by the scientific method. Acceptance of UFO theories by the larger scientific community is further hindered by the many possible hoaxes associated with UFO culture.

Cryptozoology

Main article: Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that aims to prove the existence of entities from the folklore record, such as Bigfoot, chupacabras, or Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture.

Paranormal research

Approaching the paranormal from a research perspective is often difficult because of the lack of acceptable physical evidence from most of the purported phenomena. By definition, the paranormal (or supernatural) does not conform to conventional expectations of nature. Therefore, a phenomenon cannot be confirmed as paranormal using the scientific method because, if it could be, it would no longer fit the definition. (However, confirmation would result in the phenomenon being reclassified as part of science.) Despite this problem, studies on the paranormal are periodically conducted by researchers from various disciplines. Some researchers simply study the beliefs in the paranormal regardless of whether the phenomena are considered to objectively exist. This section deals with various approaches to the paranormal: anecdotal, experiment, al, and participant-observer approaches and the skeptical investigation approach.

Anecdotal approach

Charles Fort, 1920. Fort is perhaps the most widely known collector of paranormal stories.

An anecdotal approach to the paranormal involves the collection of stories told about the paranormal.

Charles Fort (1874–1932) is perhaps the best-known collector of paranormal anecdotes. Fort is said to have compiled as many as 40,000 notes on unexplained paranormal experiences, though there were no doubt many more. These notes came from what he called "the orthodox conventionality of Science", which were odd events originally reported in magazines and newspapers such as The Times and scientific journals such as Scientific American, Nature and Science. From this research Fort wrote seven books, though only four survive: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo!, but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo!

Reported events that he collected include teleportation (a term Fort is generally credited with coining); poltergeist events; falls of frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials of an amazing range; crop circles; unaccountable noises and explosions; spontaneous fires; levitation; ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort); unidentified flying objects; mysterious appearances and disappearances; giant wheels of light in the oceans; and animals found outside their normal ranges (see phantom cat). He offered many reports of OOPArts, the abbreviation for "out of place" artifacts: strange items found in unlikely locations. He is perhaps the first person to explain strange human appearances and disappearances by the hypothesis of alien abduction and was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Fort is considered by many to be the father of modern paranormalism, which is the study of the paranormal.

The magazine Fortean Times continues Charles Fort's approach, regularly reporting anecdotal accounts of the paranormal.

Such anecdotal collections, lacking the reproducibility of empirical evidence, are not amenable to scientific investigation. The anecdotal approach is not a scientific approach to the paranormal because it leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence. Nevertheless, it is a common approach to investigating paranormal phenomena.

Parapsychology

Main article: Parapsychology

Participant of a Ganzfeld experiment which proponents say may show evidence of telepathy.

Experimental investigation of the paranormal has been conducted by parapsychologists. J. B. Rhine popularized the now famous methodology of using card-guessing and dice-rolling experiments in a laboratory in the hopes of finding evidence of extrasensory perception. However, it was revealed that Rhine's experiments contained methodological flaws and procedural errors.

In 1957, the Parapsychological Association was formed as the preeminent society for parapsychologists. In 1969, they became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Criticisms of the field were focused in the creation (in 1976) of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and its periodical, the Skeptical Inquirer. Eventually, more mainstream scientists became critical of parapsychology as an endeavor, and statements by the National Academies of Science and the National Science Foundation cast a pall on the claims of evidence for parapsychology. Today, many cite parapsychology as an example of a pseudoscience. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research.

By the 2000s, the status of paranormal research in the United States had greatly declined from its height in the 1970s, with the majority of work being privately funded and only a small amount of research being carried out in university laboratories. In 2007, Britain had a number of privately funded laboratories in university psychology departments. Publication remained limited to a small number of niche journals, and to date there have been no experimental results that have gained wide acceptance in the scientific community as valid evidence of the paranormal.

Participant-observer approach

A ghost hunter taking an EMF reading, which proponents claim may be connected to paranormal activity

While parapsychologists look for quantitative evidence of the paranormal in laboratories, a great number of people immerse themselves in qualitative research through participant-observer approaches to the paranormal. Participant-observer methodologies have overlaps with other essentially qualitative approaches, including phenomenological research that seeks largely to describe subjects as they are experienced, rather than to explain them.

Participant observation suggests that by immersing oneself in the subject that is being studied, a researcher is presumed to gain an understanding of the subject. Criticisms of participant observation as a data-gathering technique are similar to criticisms of other approaches to the paranormal, but also include an increased threat to the scientific objectivity of the researcher, unsystematic gathering of data, reliance on subjective measurement, and possible observer effects (i.e. observation may distort the observed behavior). Specific data-gathering methods, such as recording EMF (electromagnetic field) readings at haunted locations, have their own criticisms beyond those attributed to the participant-observer approach itself.

Participant observation, as an approach to the paranormal, has gained increased visibility and popularity through reality television programs like Ghost Hunters, and the formation of independent ghost hunting groups that advocate immersive research at alleged paranormal locations. One popular website for ghost hunting enthusiasts lists over 300 of these organizations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.

Skeptical scientific investigation

James Randi was a well-known investigator of paranormal claims.

Scientific skeptics advocate critical investigation of claims of paranormal phenomena: applying the scientific method to reach a rational, scientific explanation of the phenomena to account for the paranormal claims, taking into account that alleged paranormal abilities and occurrences are sometimes hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. A way of summarizing this method is by the application of Occam's razor, which suggests that the simpler solution is usually the correct one. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is an organization that aims to publicize the scientific, skeptical approach. It carries out investigations aimed at understanding paranormal reports in terms of scientific understanding, and publishes its results in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

CSI's Richard Wiseman draws attention to possible alternative explanations for perceived paranormal activity in his article, The Haunted Brain. While he recognizes that approximately 15% of people believe they have experienced an encounter with a ghost, he reports that only 1% report seeing a full-fledged ghost, while the rest report strange sensory stimuli, such as seeing fleeting shadows or wisps of smoke, or the sensation of hearing footsteps or feeling a presence. Wiseman makes the claim that, rather than experiencing paranormal activity, it is activity within our own brains that creates these strange sensations.

Michael Persinger proposed that ghostly experiences could be explained by stimulating the brain with weak magnetic fields. Swedish psychologist Pehr Granqvist and his team, attempting to replicate Persinger's research, determined that the paranormal sensations experienced by Persinger's subjects were merely the result of suggestion, and that brain stimulation with magnetic fields did not result in ghostly experiences. Oxford University Justin Barrett has theorized that "agency"—being able to figure out why people do what they do—is so important in everyday life that it is natural for our brains to work too hard at it, thereby detecting human or ghost-like behavior in everyday meaningless stimuli.

James Randi, an investigator with a background in illusion, felt that the simplest explanation for those claiming paranormal abilities is often trickery, illustrated by demonstrating that the spoon bending abilities of psychic Uri Geller can easily be duplicated by trained stage magicians. He was also the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation and its million dollar challenge that offered a prize of $1,000,000 to anyone who could demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. Despite many declarations of supernatural ability, the prize was never claimed.

Psychology

Main article: Anomalistic psychology

In "anomalistic psychology", paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations resulting from psychological and physical factors, which have sometimes given the impression of paranormal activity to some people, in fact, where there have been none. The psychologist David Marks wrote that paranormal phenomena can be explained by magical thinking, mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud. According to studies, some people tend to hold paranormal beliefs because they possess psychological traits that make them more likely to misattribute paranormal causation to normal experiences. Research has also discovered that cognitive bias is a factor underlying paranormal belief.

Chris French, founder of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit.

Many studies have found a link between personality and psychopathology variables correlating with paranormal belief. Some studies have also shown that fantasy proneness correlates positively with paranormal belief.

Bainbridge (1978) and Wuthnow (1976) found that the most susceptible people to paranormal belief are those who are poorly educated, unemployed, or have roles that rank low among social values. The alienation of these people due to their status in society is said to encourage them to appeal to paranormal or magical beliefs.

Research has associated paranormal belief with low cognitive ability, low IQ, and a lack of science education. Intelligent and highly educated participants involved in surveys have proven to have less paranormal belief. Tobacyk (1984) and Messer and Griggs (1989) discovered that college students with better grades have less belief in the paranormal.

In a case study (Gow, 2004) involving 167 participants, the findings revealed that psychological absorption and dissociation were higher for believers in the paranormal. Another study involving 100 students had revealed a positive correlation between paranormal belief and proneness to dissociation. A study (Williams et al. 2007) discovered that "neuroticism is fundamental to individual differences in paranormal belief, while paranormal belief is independent of extraversion and psychoticism". A correlation has been found between paranormal belief and irrational thinking.

In an experiment Wierzbicki (1985) reported a significant correlation between paranormal belief and the number of errors made on a syllogistic reasoning task, suggesting that believers in the paranormal have lower cognitive ability. A relationship between narcissistic personality and paranormal belief was discovered in a study involving the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale.

De Boer and Bierman wrote:

In his article 'Creative or Defective', Radin (2005) asserts that many academics explain the belief in the paranormal by using one of the three following hypotheses: Ignorance, deprivation, or deficiency. 'The ignorance hypothesis asserts that people believe in the paranormal because they're uneducated or stupid. The deprivation hypothesis proposes that these beliefs exist to provide a way to cope in the face of psychological uncertainties and physical stressors. The deficiency hypothesis asserts that such beliefs arise because people are mentally defective in some way, ranging from low intelligence or poor critical thinking ability to a full-blown psychosis (Radin). The deficiency hypothesis gets some support from the fact that the belief in the paranormal is an aspect of a schizotypical personality (Pizzagalli, Lehman, and Brugger, 2001).

A psychological study involving 174 members of the Society for Psychical Research completed a delusional ideation questionnaire and a deductive reasoning task. As predicted, the study showed that "individuals who reported a strong belief in the paranormal made more errors and displayed more delusional ideation than skeptical individuals". There was also a reasoning bias, which was limited to people who reported a belief in, rather than experience of, paranormal phenomena. The results suggested that reasoning abnormalities may have a causal role in the formation of paranormal beliefs.

Research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens have higher levels of absorption, dissociativity, fantasy proneness and tendency to hallucinate.

Findings have shown in specific cases that paranormal belief acts as a psychodynamic coping function and serves as a mechanism for coping with stress. Survivors from childhood sexual abuse, violent and unsettled home environments have reported having higher levels of paranormal belief. A study of a random sample of 502 adults revealed paranormal experiences were common in the population which were linked to a history of childhood trauma and dissociative symptoms. Research has also suggested that people who perceive themselves as having little control over their lives may develop paranormal beliefs to help provide an enhanced sense of control. The similarities between paranormal events and descriptions of trauma have also been noted.

Gender differences in surveys on paranormal belief have reported women scoring higher than men overall and men having greater belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. Surveys have also investigated the relationship between ethnicity and paranormal belief. In a sample of American university students (Tobacyk et al. 1988) it was found that people of African descent have a higher level of belief in superstitions and witchcraft while belief in extraterrestrial life forms was stronger among people of European descent. Otis and Kuo (1984) surveyed Singapore university students and found Chinese, Indian and Malay students to differ in their paranormal beliefs, with the Chinese students showing greater skepticism.

According to American surveys analysed by Bader et al (2011) African Americans have the firmest belief in the paranormal, and while the findings are not uniform, the "general trend is for whites to show lesser belief in most paranormal subjects". Polls show that about fifty percent of the United States population believes in the paranormal. Robert L. Park says a lot of people believe in it because they "want it to be so".

A 2013 study that utilized a biological motion perception task discovered a "relation between illusory pattern perception and supernatural and paranormal beliefs and suggest that paranormal beliefs are strongly related to agency detection biases".

A 2014 study discovered that schizophrenic patients have more belief in psi than healthy adults.

Neuroscience

Some scientists have investigated possible neurocognitive processes underlying the formation of paranormal beliefs. In a study (Pizzagalli et al, 2000), data demonstrated that "subjects differing in their declared belief in and experience with paranormal phenomena as well as in their schizotypal ideation, as determined by a standardized instrument, displayed differential brain electric activity during resting periods." Another study (Schulter and Papousek, 2008) wrote that paranormal belief can be explained by patterns of functional hemispheric asymmetry that may be related to perturbations during fetal development.

It was also realized that people with higher dopamine levels have the ability to find patterns and meanings where there are none. This is why scientists have connected high dopamine levels with paranormal belief.

Criticism

Some scientists have criticized the media for promoting paranormal claims. In a report by Singer and Benassi in 1981, they wrote that the media may account for much of the near universality of paranormal belief, as the public is constantly exposed to films, newspapers, documentaries, and books endorsing paranormal claims, while critical coverage is largely absent. According to Paul Kurtz, "Regarding the many talk shows that constantly deal with paranormal topics, the skeptical viewpoint is rarely heard; and when it is permitted to be expressed, it is usually sandbagged by the host or other guests." Kurtz described the popularity of public belief in the paranormal as a "quasi-religious phenomenon", a manifestation of a transcendental temptation, a tendency for people to seek a transcendental reality that cannot be known by using the methods of science. Kurtz compared this to a primitive form of magical thinking.

Terence Hines has written that on a personal level, paranormal claims could be considered a form of consumer fraud as people are "being induced through false claims to spend their money—often large sums—on paranormal claims that do not deliver what they promise" and uncritical acceptance of paranormal belief systems can be damaging to society.

Belief polls

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (November 2021)

While the existence of paranormal phenomena is controversial and debated passionately by both proponents of the paranormal and by skeptics, surveys are useful in determining the beliefs of people regarding paranormal phenomena. These opinions, while not constituting scientific evidence for or against, may give an indication of the mindset of a certain portion of the population (at least among those who answered the polls). The number of people worldwide who believe in parapsychological powers has been estimated to be 3 to 4 billion.

A survey conducted in 2006 by researchers from Australia's Monash University sought to determine the types of phenomena that people claim to have experienced and the effects these experiences have had on their lives. The study was conducted as an online survey with over 2,000 respondents from around the world participating. The results revealed that around 70% of the respondents believe they have had an unexplained paranormal event that changed their life, mostly in a positive way. About 70% also claimed to have seen, heard, or been touched by an animal or person that they knew was not there; 80% have reported having a premonition, and almost 50% stated they recalled a previous life.

Polls were conducted by Bryan Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward of the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006. They found fairly consistent results compared to the results of a Gallup poll in 2001.

Percentage of U.S. citizens polled

Phenomena	Farha-Steward (2006)			Gallup (2001)			Gallup (2005)
	Belief	Unsure	Disbelief	Belief	Unsure	Disbelief	Belief	Unsure	Disbelief
Psychic, Spiritual healing	57	26	18	54	19	26	55	17	26
ESP	29	39	33	50	20	27	41	25	32
Haunted houses	41	25	35	42	16	41	37	16	46
Demonic possession	41	28	32	41	16	41	42	13	44
Ghosts	40	27	34	38	17	44	32	19	48
Telepathy	25	34	42	36	26	35	31	27	42
Extraterrestrials visited Earth in the past	18	34	49	33	27	38	24	24	51
Clairvoyance and Prophecy	24	33	43	32	23	45	26	24	50
Mediumship	16	29	55	28	26	46	21	23	55
Astrology	17	26	57	28	18	52	25	19	55
Witches	27	19	55	26	15	59	21	12	66
Reincarnation	16	28	57	25	20	54	20	20	59

A survey by Jeffrey S. Levin, associate professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, found that more than two-thirds of the United States population reported having at least one mystical experience. A 1996 Gallup poll estimated that 71% of the people in the U.S. believed that the government was covering up information about UFOs. A 2002 Roper poll conducted for the Sci Fi channel reported that 56% thought UFOs were real craft and 48% that aliens had visited the Earth.

A 2001 National Science Foundation survey found that 9% of people polled thought astrology was very scientific, and 31% thought it was somewhat scientific. About 32% of Americans surveyed stated that some numbers were lucky, while 46% of Europeans agreed with that claim. About 60% of all people polled believed in some form of Extra-sensory perception, and 30% thought that "some of the unidentified flying objects that have been reported are really space vehicles from other civilizations."

In 2017, the Chapman University Survey of American Fears asked about seven paranormal beliefs and found that "the most common belief is that ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis once existed (55%). Next was that places can be haunted by spirits (52%), aliens have visited Earth in our ancient past (35%), aliens have come to Earth in modern times (26%), some people can move objects with their minds (25%), fortune tellers and psychics can survey the future (19%), and Bigfoot is a real creature. Only one-fourth of respondents didn't hold at least one of these beliefs."

Paranormal challenges

Main article: List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal

In 1922, Scientific American offered two US$2,500 offers: (1) for the first authentic spirit photograph made under test conditions, and (2) for the first psychic to produce a "visible psychic manifestation". Harry Houdini was a member of the investigating committee. The first medium to be tested was George Valiantine, who claimed that in his presence spirits would speak through a trumpet that floated around a darkened room. For the test, Valiantine was placed in a room, the lights were extinguished, but unbeknownst to him, his chair had been rigged to light a signal in an adjoining room if he ever left his seat. Because the light signals were tripped during his performance, Valiantine did not collect the award. The last to be examined by Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924.

Since then, many individuals and groups have offered similar monetary awards for proof of the paranormal in an observed setting. These prizes have a combined value of over $2.4 million.

The James Randi Educational Foundation offered a prize of a million dollars to a person who could prove that they had supernatural or paranormal abilities under appropriate test conditions. Several other skeptic groups also offer a monetary prize for proof of the paranormal, including the largest group of paranormal investigators, the Independent Investigations Group, which has chapters in Hollywood, Atlanta, Denver, Washington, D.C., Alberta, B.C., and San Francisco. The IIG offers a $100,000 prize and a $5,000 finders fee if a claimant can prove a paranormal claim under 2 scientifically controlled tests. Founded in 2000, no claimant has passed the first (and lower odds) of the test.