Does hostility dampen ability?

Most (para)psychologists would agree for that explains why skeptics never seem to get the real results. This argument was raised even against parapsychologist Blackmore when she couldn't repeat a colleague's findings.

On the more lunatic fringe of parapsychology, one went even so far to say that the skeptics reading articles from parapsychological research (and not wanting them to present a positive finding) retroactively (in time) make the experiment fail. So he blamed those skeptical future readers of his articles for preventing him to find a positive result when he did the experiment. (that may be too far out even for LH; :-))

Hostility can dampen ability (that's undisputed), but not to the effect of nil ability at all (on the average; in a single case, it could be). If a reported effect goes down to nil for all subjects when a skeptic is present and up when the skeptic leaves, there is at least one other explanation. You won't be surprised I find that more probable. But you knew I would.

Wolfgang