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Journal Article On Precognition Sparks Outrage

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the but-magic-is-fun dept.

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."

5 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Why Is It Wrong to Call This ESP? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Why Is It Wrong to Call This ESP? by AlecC · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  2. Great response paper by 246o1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    --
    Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
    1. Re:Great response paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  3. Research Funding by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.