Tuesday Talks

Professor Chris Roe

25th January 2022 | 7.30pm until 9.00pm  | £6 | Online

ABOUT

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 Professor Roe will 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.

You can purchase a ticket online for £6.00  or you can call us on 0131 625 0700 to book over the phone. Season passes are available and grant access to all the New Year 2022 talks for a heavily discounted price.

About Professor Chris Roe

Vice-President of the Society for Psychical Research

Prof. Chris Roe, Bsc, MSc, PhD, AFBPs, holds a Chair in Psychology at the University of Northampton, UK, and is Director of the Centre for the Psychology and Social Sciences that is based there. He is the International Affiliate for England of the Parapsychology Foundation and is a Vice-President of the Society for Psychical Research. Chris has served as the Perrott-Warrick Senior Researcher (2015-2021), Chair of the British Psychological Society Transpersonal Psychology Section (2015-2018), President of the Parapsychological Association (2015-2017), and as President of the SPR (2018-2021). He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Parapsychology and is on the editorial board for the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and the Transpersonal Psychology Review. His research interests are around understanding the nature of anomalous experiences and includes research on the phenomenology of paranormal experience, particularly as it affects wellbeing, the psychology of paranormal belief and of deception, as well as experimental approaches to test claims for extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, particularly where they involve psychological factors. Recent research has been concerned with the relationship between altered states of consciousness and psychic experience. He has published over 120 journal papers and book chapters and given over 200 conference presentations.

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