Journal Article On Precognition Sparks Outrage

thomst writes "The New York Times has an article (cookies and free subscription required) about the protests generated by The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology's decision to accept for publication later this year an article (PDF format) on precognition (the Times erroneously calls it ESP). Complaints center around the peer reviewers, none of whom is an expert in statistical analysis."

Comments

Why Is It Wrong to Call This ESP?

[eldavojohn]

on precognition (the Times erroneously calls it ESP).

Why is that erroneous? Precognition and premonition are two facets of Extrasensory Perception. From its wikipedia article:

Extrasensory perception (ESP) involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Sir Richard Burton,[citation needed] and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance, and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.

So if you were dealing with anything of the above or anything external to our normal senses, I think that qualifies as ESP and calling it ESP. Sure that acronym has a lot of baggage but from the study itself:

... this is an experiment that tests for ESP (Extrasensory Perception).

That's what the tests subjects were told and I don't think the article is erroneous.

Re:Why Is It Wrong to Call This ESP?

[AlecC]

From the summary, the implication is that the data analysis was not proper - or at least, not shown to be proper. Since the claimed effect is a fairly small artifact only detectable by sophistcated statistics, it seems reasonable that the reviewers should include those who have a deep understanding of such statistics - which, it is claimed, they did not.

Great response paper

[246o1]

For those who haven't seen it, here's a pretty sharp takedown of this paper, as well as some notes on statistical significance in social sciences in general: www.ruudwetzels.com/articles/Wagenmakersetal_subm.pdf

Re:Great response paper

[Anonymous Coward]

And for those who still haven't seen it, here's a proper link.

Research Funding

[MoonBuggy]

I haven't yet had a chance to read the paper fully (it's 50 or so pages), but if they are actually that confident in their evidence that precognition has been found, the James Randi Foundation has a million dollars waiting for them.

Re:Research Funding

[MoonBuggy]

Oh, absolutely, but the rules state:

Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”

Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal.

I'm sure that if a bunch of scientists came along and said "we have statistically significant evidence of precognition, and not a damn clue how it works", the Randi foundation would jump at the chance to test them.

I don't believe for a second that these people actually do have any legit evidence, but on the off chance that they are for real then this will be a massive breakthrough. Of course, it will be explainable by science in time, and perhaps "supernatural" is a poor choice of word, but if you read through the entire FAQ you'll see that the foundation sound entirely reasonable, and I don't doubt that they would be willing to test something on the basis that it runs quite counter to currently accepted theory.

Their aim (and one that I applaud) seems to be to either disprove paranormal claims, or to prove them in a scientific manner. Sure, doing so will, by definition, destroy their 'paranormal' status, but it could also revolutionise scientific thinking. As I said though, it's probably a moot point, since I see no reason to believe this paper any more than the thousands that came before it.

Reminds me of this hoax...

[LordNacho]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Basically, a physicist made up some BS and got it published in a journal called Social Text about postmodern cultural studies. He then came out later and revealed the hoax, embarrassing the reviewers and the journal. Lack of intellectual rigour seemed to be the target. This time, it seems to be more specifically aimed at the lack of understanding of statistics in certain subjects.

Concur.

[Peter Trepan]

It's a compelling model that addresses a lot of tricky questions very neatly.

For instance, if you combine this with many-worlds theory, you can eliminate the paradox of free will - that is, when I make a decision, what internal process prompted me to make that decision? And what prompted that? And so on.

If you think of the universe as a static object that at every instant in time (or "the fourth dimension," if you prefer) branches off into multiple possible realities, then you can think of yourself as having made every possible decision, but being able to remember only one, because the state of your brain in this particular branch of the decision tree is only consistent with one past.

It works the same way as the anthropic principle. Why is the universe perfect for supporting life? Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't have asked. Why did I make that particular decision? Because you're thinking about the decision from the perspective of a universe in which that particular decision was made. This also explains why consciousness appears to have a special place in quantum collapse. It's really an illusion, and there is no "collapse" - you have just chosen a particular viewpoint that is only consistent with one specific observation.

Problem is, this hypothesis may be nondisprovable.