James E. Alcock (born 24 December 1942) is Professor emeritus (Psychology) at York University (Canada).

[1] Alcock is a noted critic of parapsychology and a Fellow and Member of the Executive Council for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

After completion of that degree he was extended admission to the graduate program in physics but instead chose to accept a job at IBM as a Systems Engineer.

When asked if he was closed-minded to the possibility of psi, Alcock responded that there is no good research out there that would change his position.

"[12] In 1976, Alcock attended the organizing conference at which the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal was founded, and was invited to be a Fellow of CSICOP at that time.

[14][15]A long–time member of the Skeptic's Toolbox faculty, Alcock lectured at the 4-day workshops that taught attendees critical thinking skills for their daily lives.

If we play the same piece of tape over and over ... we maximize the opportunity for the perceptual apparatus in our brain to 'construct' voices that do not exist.

[3] As a member of the executive council of CFI, he addressed the opening session of the 2012 6th World Skeptic Congress in Berlin.

He outlined the history of the modern skeptical movement as begun by CSICOP in April 1976 in Buffalo, NY.

Alcock carried out a systematic review of parapsychological research involving random event generators.

In addition to concerns regarding methodology, Alcock determined that if one were to remove the data related to one particular participant, the results of the study were no longer statistically significant.

Moreover, the fact that the participant was the individual who set up and oversaw the research for Dr. Jahn rang alarm bells for James Alcock.

"[9] Media attention was directed toward Daryl Bem's research paper Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect.

The amount of actual tests done is unknown and no explanation of how it was determined that participants had "settled down" after seeing erotic images was given.

To that end, conclusions of parapsychologists like Susan Blackmore who acknowledge lack of psi evidence and abandon the field are "downplayed or ignored".

"[24] Alcock's book Belief: What it Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling is a 638 page expansion on his 1995 article "The Belief Engine," where he wrote, "Our brains and nervous systems constitute a belief-generating machine, a system that evolved to assure not truth, logic, and reason, but survival".