Precognition: Scientifically Tested and Validated Phemonema?

[Lord Z]

If you haven't been listening to The Paranormal Report lately, particularly Report #38, you can miss interesting news. Consider this. In summary, Doctor Daryl Bem of Cornel University has documented information traveling backwards in time by using traditional psychology experiments. In one experiment, he had volunteers read a list of words and then test them on their memory of those words. After the tests were completed, one section of the volunteers was allowed to study the list (after the test was completed, that's important). Dr. Bem found that this section of testers did in fact score slightly higher on the test than the volunteers who were not allowed to retroactively study the test. Outside confirmation of these tests have not yet been conducted.

[Gallahan]

This is neat Z. I've heard/read several theories/positions on this. There seems to be something to it. It's something about quantum physics/mechanics and how cause doesn't necessarily preceed effect, and vice versa. It's about a weird theory about how our future actions can have an impact upon our past, more than we ever imagined. I love redemption themes and think this somehow, weirdly fits into all of that.

[Lord Z]

Concerning the physics, weeeeeeell, yes and no. If we go all the way back to Newtonian Phsyics, we can think of particles as looking like balls on a pool table, knocking each other around to cause reactions. If we video tape the balls and then play the video backward, we see that at the molecular level, there is no way to differenitate between forward or backward movement in time. Einstein defined the four dimension (after length, width, and height) as time, so movement back or forth in time could be theoretically possible, especially when dealing with tiny particles that don't have a lot of momentum going forward in time already. String Theory (the current favorite child of physicists and mathematicians) is a branch of quantum theory. There is nothing in String Theory which prevents backward causation and would seem to allow it. String Theory has not and probably can not be proven in experimentation, just mathematically proven. One of the goals of the Large Haydron Collider is to prove a small part of String Theory which is testable. Two physicists working at the collided, however, published a paper last year explaining that the projects failures could theoritically be attributed to backward causation. Thus the experiment indicates supports String Theory if the experiment succeeds and if it fails.

Professor Hawkings thinks that wormholes in time-space happen all the time, but they are too small for any matter to fit through them. Maaaybe photon could get through, but finding it on the other side would be impossible for a variety of reason, not the least of which is Hizenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

Sci-fi writers who say that String Theory proves time travel as possible are over stating the situation.

[mrloucifer]

Interesting.

[ZorValachan]

And the Counter:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swi ... -that.html

[Lord Z]

Thank you for the link, Zor. It's nice to see obersvations of the same event from different points of view.

That being said, I didn't enjoy reading Jamy Swiss' collumn. If fact, I am fighting down a strong urge to embrace Doctor Bem's findings just because Swiss is being such a jerk.

Here are my problems with Swiss. First problem -- Swiss is glancing over perfectly legitimate criticisms about the double-blind status of the experiments and instead focuses on attacking parapsychology itself. If you were to publish a paper about the effects of radiation therapy on a particular type of medical patient, would it be fair of me to so strongly your paper if I didn't like nuclear power?

Second problem -- Swiss is making an implication about a hidden agenda on the part of Doctor Bem. Even if Bem does have some strange pro-paranormal agenda, he is following well established proceedures like releasing raw data and methodology details despite that agenda. -- not because of it.

Third problem -- Swiss also implies that the research is invalid because of the lack of a mechanical explanation. That argument is just silly. Were Newton's experiments wrong because he did not predict the Einsteinian warping of space? Is Darwin a villain because he did not accurately predict the discovery of DNA?

As this forum's unofficial and self-appointed half-skeptic, I am willing to wait for the replicated experiments which will either confirm or disprove Bem's original experiments. Swiss is unwilling to wait before denouncing both the experiments and Bem himself in a backhanded way.

[glitterboy2098]

Third problem -- Swiss also implies that the research is invalid because of the lack of a mechanical explanation. That argument is just silly. Were Newton's experiments wrong because he did not predict the Einsteinian warping of space? Is Darwin a villain because he did not accurately predict the discovery of DNA?

newton explained the laws of motion based on his observations, and developed the basis for Newtonian physics from it. while his explanation didn't cover some of the weirder things that einstein explained, he did develop a mechanical explanation for it.
Darwin had mendel's Hereditary research to work with, and knowledge of Chromosomes. they just didn't know it went down an extra level (DNA). but he did develop a mechanical explanation for eveolution, which matched the evidence seen.

Second problem -- Swiss is making an implication about a hidden agenda on the part of Doctor Bem. Even if Bem does have some strange pro-paranormal agenda, he is following well established proceedures like releasing raw data and methodology details despite that agenda. -- not because of it.

less "hidden agenda" and more bias. these days you don't do research on precognition without a desire to show precognition exists. if your subconciously or even conciously wishing to prove it exists, you could subconciously be processing and interpriting the raw data in ways that favor your position.

that said, Swiss was really being a jerk in that blog. something that i find annoying as a skeptic myself. Skeptics have to be both open minded, and polite. rudeness or automatically discounting tests based on a dislike of the popular image of something isn't very productive behavior for skeptics.

[Lord Z]

Excellent points around, GB!

[Supergyro]

If you haven't been listening to The Paranormal Report lately, particularly Report #38, you can miss interesting news. Consider this. In summary, Doctor Daryl Bem of Cornel University has documented information traveling backwards in time by using traditional psychology experiments. In one experiment, he had volunteers read a list of words and then test them on their memory of those words. After the tests were completed, one section of the volunteers was allowed to study the list (after the test was completed, that's important). Dr. Bem found that this section of testers did in fact score slightly higher on the test than the volunteers who were not allowed to retroactively study the test. Outside confirmation of these tests have not yet been conducted.

No.

No. No. No. No. No.

There is a subtle problem that this has that a majority of these claims have. The problem is that the claimant doesn't seem to understand how utterly revolutionary his claim is, and as such he doesn't put the data through the level of scrutiny that is required for this level of claim.

The scientist is claiming precognition is possible?

Is this a bigger claim than "I've found a cure for cancer"? Yes it is, because people at least agree that a cure for cancer is theoretically possible. Claiming precognition is a bigger claim than having a super-putty that cures cancer, maintains cold fusion, and quantum computes all at once.

Which is not to say science is a stranger to this sort of thing, Relativity was *also* a claim on this level of WOW, but Einstein made sure his t's were crossed and his i's dotted before publishing it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Einstein made extraordinary claims, he also provided extraordinary evidence and his theories keep getting confirmed by third parties.

It certainly says a lot (negative) about the discipline of Cornell Psychologists.

Outside confirmation of these tests have not yet been conducted.

I think that says it all. Wait for outside confirmation. If precognition were possible, people would be co-discovering it and using it right and left.

[Supergyro]

As for those attempts to reproduce the study, not so much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/scien ... =2&_r=2&hp