In science, theories are dynamic — this means that they are susceptible to change due to new information, either from experiments done for the theory in question or done in other fields. This is because in science, theories are supposed to be driven by data rather than the other way around. The appearance of new data or ideas forces theories to change.
There are many examples of how scientific theories have changed over time. One is the theory of evolution. Although critics and creationists often refer to it as “Darwinism,” the fact is that evolutionary theory has changed quite a bit since Darwin first wrote his ideas on the subject. It’s true that much is also the same and that the foundations he laid remain with us, but the changes are numerous and significant enough to render such a label inappropriate. It’s only used for rhetorical and political purposes, not because it conveys useful information about evolution itself.
Physics, too, has seen a tremendous amount of change in various theories. A good example here would be Stephen Hawking’s writings on black holes. For more than 30 years he advocated the idea that once information enters a black hole, it can never escape. Hawking now says, however, that “The black hole only appears to form but later opens up and releases information about what fell in, so we can be sure of the past and we can predict the future.”
We must also not forget that outside fields must also be allowed to have an influence on one’s theories. If chemists discovered something dramatic and new about the nature of DNA, that would inevitably have an effect on how biologists viewed evolution — it would be irresponsible of them to ignore it. Science may be made up of different fields of research, but because nature is a unified whole, all scientific fields share common bonds that cause changes in one field to affect others.
Does parapsychology rely upon dynamic theories? This would be a very difficult claim to defend. Parapsychologists have been pursuing the “scientific” study of psychic powers for over a century now and what sorts of dramatic changes have been made in the field? What are the differences between how parapsychologists explain paranormal phenomena today as compared to such descriptions during the early 20th century?
For that matter, where can we find in parapsychology evidence of the influence of the many dramatic discoveries made in chemistry, biology, physics, and psychology over the past century? If parapsychology really is a science, then it cannot exist disconnected from the rest of the scientific community. Parapsychologists are supposed to be studying the same universe as physicists, chemists, and biologists. This means that at least a couple of the big changes in those fields must have had some impact on parapsychology.
Then again, over a century of parapsychological research has failed to make any impact on any those fields. None of them have made changes in the work they do or how they study the universe based upon any experiment or research done in any parapsychology lab. Perhaps they don’t study the same universe after all? The more likely explanation is that they aren’t even a part of the same general human endeavor: science.
