I found this article to summarize how I view the problem: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble . It's not just parapsychology, it's the way we do science today. To summarize, a negative resulting study will more likely not than get published, this has created a meta-statistical crisis. If one uses a 95% confidence interval, 1 in 20 studies will have an incorrect conclusion, so repeating studies is important. Now, if I through cut back grant funding across the country, and create a hoard of desperate professors who are cranking through studies to find something to hang their hat on the next grant, and they do 20 studies and find 1 with a positive result--they publish. You end up with a bunch on non-reproducible studies: http://www.jove.com/blog/2012/05/03/studies-show-only-10-of-published-science-articles-are-reproducible-what-is-happening Parapsychology is only the tip of a far bigger crisis of how science is currently conducted, from funding to publication. What can you do? Don't buy into pop-news sensationalist claims from a single study. Start believing in it when multiple studies report the same result, and remain skeptical.