What Is Swept Under the Rug?

Abstract

Playing with the Occam’s razor trope, Nobel laureate Sidney Brenner coined the term Occam’s broom to describe the practice of sweeping under the rug facts that do not support the scientist’s hypothesis. This practice is taken to extremes by some critics of anomalous cognition research (psi), who engage in dismissing inconvenient research data (including sometimes their own), naturalistic observations, and eminent scientists supporting this research. They also engage in rhetoric in which they claim that psi ought not be considered unless published in mainstream journals while simultaneously blocking such publication, and fail to acknowledge methodological and statistical advances spurred by psi research.