Precognition in science paper

[Tamagochi]

Stumbled upon an interesting article about human precognition powers. However this one does not come from local fortune teller but from university environment and has been published in a scientific journal.

There's some criticism about the paper and the tests has not been reproduced by other scientists yet.

And it seems that humans are really good at finding the porn

From:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/feeling-the-future-is-precognition-possible/

Bem

 

[kita]

A few days ago someone sent me a link to the original paper, which is here.

I took a few courses in psychological research in college, and I know it is very easy to manipulate data and experiments to support your hypothesis. So the fact that his results were "statistically significant" doesn't convince me his findings are correct.

I haven't had time to actually read it though, so I'm just being skeptical.

 

[Ecton]

Time will tell, (in proper causal order--thank you very much) whether there is anything to this. Perhaps the bestbangle on this is the open minded scientist idea: that rather than dismiss this work, it is important to give it a fair shake. If it turna out to have flaws, understanding those flaws might improve experiment design.

 

[88chaz88]

Oh c'mon. This is just proof that students are instinctively able to find porn under any conditions. That's like conducting the experiment using spiked drinks or instant noodles.

 

[Norton]

A few days ago someone sent me a link to the original paper, which is here.

I took a few courses in psychological research in college, and I know it is very easy to manipulate data and experiments to support your hypothesis. So the fact that his results were "statistically significant" doesn't convince me his findings are correct.

I haven't had time to actually read it though, so I'm just being skeptical.

You're right. Depending on the power and statistics of a study, it is possible for it to be considered "statistically significant" even if there is a 5% possibility that the results are completely due to chance, that is, that they are completely random. A good book about this and many other potential flaws in our knowledge, understanding, and interpretation is Fooled by Randomness, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He also wrote The Black Swan, which is equally good and expands on the first book.