This is a prepublication .pdf of a paper by Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem detailing experimental evidence for precognition, accepted for publication by a respected peer-reviewed psychological journal. (link).
Backlash:
- Has a U.S. psychologist uncovered proof of ESP? (ctv.ca)
- NYT on the controversial ESP paper (boingboing.net)
- “Psychic” paper provokes backlash (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- NY Times: Journal to publish paper on ESP, scientists mortified (seattlepi.com)
On the one hand, this work is sort of mind-blowing — it clearly uses established methods to prove a disconcerting result. To me, it raises some questions about whether even a reproducible effect that is only a percent or two above chance has the amount of meaning that we ascribe to it — there’s all kinds of research being done all the time, and p values that make “chance results” very unlikely still mean that 5 (or 1) percent of all that work could be crap.
I recommend this fascinating (and also disconcerting) article that appeared in a recent New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
It discusses the fact that many results turn out not to hold up after the initial flurry of confirmations (i.e., a decade later, the drugs have little effect, etc.) and visits various possible explanations from confirmation bias to a larger “reversion to the mean” sort of statistical result. Makes one have more skepticism for any science that’s based on statistical claims. whew!!
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There was something about how subjects could correctly guess whether a photo was behind a screen on the right or the left, but it only held true for erotic photos.
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here’s an article suggesting something the effect that the more you learn about an experiment the less pre-determined its’ outcome becomes, suggesting this is the basis of beginner’s luck,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cassandra-vieten/esp-evidence_b_795366.html
has anyone ever studied what the experiments that demonstrate the decline effect have in common?
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