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Most dictionaries define SCIENTIFIC METHOD simply as: "Principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses." But the same dictionaries usually do not indicate that the chief workhorse of the scientific method IN PRACTICE involves quantitative statistical analysis. STATISTICS is defined as: 1. "A collection of quantitative data; a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data; and 2. A statistic is a function of the observations in a sample designed to estimate a parameter of the population from which the sample was drawn, or to carry out a test of significance of a hypothesis." Returning briefly to the parapsychological definition of parapsychology as "the more restrictive field which uses the scientific method," it is now more clear that: 1. the initial designers of parapsychology parameters restricted THEIR frames of reference to be consistent with the frames of reference of the scientific method, and 2. which methods lean very heavily on statistics and statistical analyses. Indeed, it is amply recorded that this was conceptualized and set in motion in order to "make parapsychology scientifically acceptable," on the political assumption that doing so would permit the full acceptance of parapsychologists into the ranks of the mainstreamfunded modern sciences themselves.