Title
Investigating Psychic Phenomena with Statistics
Speaker
Jessica Utts, University of California, Davis
Abstract
Anecdotal stories about phenomena such as telepathy (mind to mind communication) and precognition (knowledge of the future) are intriguing and compelling. But they do not constitute solid evidence for these phenomena because for any particular anecdote, random events or normal methods of communication can provide alternative explanations. For several decades scientists have been studying these alleged abilities using well-designed experiments and simple statistical methods. This talk will cover the basics of these experiments and the statistical methods used to analyze them, and speculate on what can be concluded from this research. Except for a short Bayesian analysis, this talk should be accessible to anyone who has taken an introductory statistics course.
Meet the speaker in Room 212 Cockins Hall at 4:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served.
