Parapsychology and Contemplative science? Are they true sciences?

[AgnosticBoy]

I think it requires from us acknowledgment that material science is not the only form of science and that there are sciences which deal with consciousness/mindfulness where physical science cannot go

This statement was brought up within a topic about science and the supernatural. I should say that I don't limit the supernatural to the immaterial since not all supernatural or extraordinary events are immaterial, and some may just be immaterial only in part.

With that said, I've found alternative sciences but they don't seem to be accepted by the mainstream. These 2 are parapsychology and contemplative science. Are they not accepted as true sciences because of the subject matter that they focus on or is it because of the methods that are used? Or both or other reasons?

Regarding contemplative science:

Contemplative neuroscience (or contemplative science) is an emerging field of research that focuses on the changes within the mind, brain, and body as a result of contemplative practices, such as mindfulness-based meditation, samatha meditation, dream yoga, yoga nidra, tai chi or yoga.[1][2][3] The science is interdisciplinary and attempts to clarify such mind-brain-body changes across emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and perceptual domains with an emphasis for relating such changes to neurobiology and first-person experience. It often emphasizes Buddhist approaches to contemplation and meditation, and conflates meditation with various contemplative practices. Founders of the field include Richard Davidson, Francisco Varela and B. Alan Wallace, among others. [4]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemplative_neuroscience

Re Parapsychology:

Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc.[1] Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Parapsychology has also been criticised by mainstream critics for claims by many of its practitioners that their studies are plausible despite a lack of convincing evidence after more than a century of research for the existence of any psychic phenomena.[1][10][11]

Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; instead, most papers about parapsychology are published in a small number of niche journals.[12]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology


We need a broader conception of contemplative science because the scope of science itself is expanding, and contemplative science provides the empirical methods that we need to enable this expansion. The scope of science once included only the object pole of experience. Seeking a purely objective account of reality, scientists tried to “step out of the picture and stay hidden behind the camera” (Hut, 2003). The results were the physical sciences, populating our world of experience with physical concepts like atoms, planets, and stars. The physical worldview that resulted had no precise account for consciousness, subjectivity, or first-person experience — subjective phenomena were simply out of the scope of scientific inquiry.

But scientists increasingly understand that a purely objective view of reality is not only incomplete but untenable. Reality consists of both third-person objects and first-person subjects, and we need to understand how the two are related to describe reality fully. As scientists step out from behind the camera and into their own picture of reality, they’re trying to understand how their roles as observers shape their descriptions of reality, and even reality itself. Scientists must study both the world of objects — reaching “down into the atom and out into the cosmos” (Price & Barrell, 2012) — and the world of subjects.

The scope of science is thus expanding to include both the object pole and the subject pole of experience (Hut, 2003). Having gained a wonderfully detailed understanding of the external, physical world, science is increasingly turning its attention inward, attempting to understand consciousness, awareness, thoughts, emotions, and all the other phenomena that involve first-person subjective experience (Figure 1).

For Debate:
1. Are parapsychology and contemplative science true sciences?
2. What's the difference, if any, between parapsychology and contemplative science?
3. What value do these sciences add to the mainstream sciences?

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Are parapsychology and contemplative science true sciences?

I think in terms of method, parapsychology is a real science (as opposed to pseudoscience). From my research, I think a lot of the objections to that are based on the combination of the lack of positive results and the high frequency of fraud (or perception of such) associated with extraordinary phenomenon, like psychic abilities, psychokinesis (pk), etc.

To date, many scientists don't accept the existence of paranormal abilities, like telepathy and pk. Positive results have either been nonexistent or underwhelming (but that might show it's a weak effect).

Skeptics have also exposed a lot of fraud from those that claim to be skilled at paranormal abilities. This is perhaps the strongest reason why paranormal or supernatural feats aren't taken seriously or dismissed entirely.