CarlShulman comments on Parapsychology: the control group for science - Less Wrong
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To get more funding for their work, more fame within the parapsychology community, and to make it more likely that the world at large will realize the truth via "fake-but-accurate" experiments. Some parapsychologists pay for their own experiments, using resources garnered from a "day job" in some other field, but many rely on donations from wacky psi-enthusiasts (people who also get excited about ghosts, "subtle energies" and so forth), or selling psi-controlled meditation lamps. Many others think that it's critically important for mainstream funding sources to provide grants to parapsychologists (such as themselves) to do the work they find interesting and important.
Under those circumstances, a psychic believer could come up with all sorts of justifications: