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Did you ever dream about an event before it happened to you? Or,
perhaps you knew what another person was going to say before they said
it? These events, examples of anomalous cognition, are part of our
everyday experience but still remain to be understood scientifically.
Jessica
Utts, professor of statistics at UC Davis, has been one of the few
statisticians to work in the field of parapsychology, analyzing data
and helping with experimental design.
Gathering statistics for parapsychology still uses the same methods, Utts said.
"As a statistician we can work on data in any field and it's still the same statistical methods," she said.
"The evidence for remote viewing is much stronger than aspirin
preventing heart attacks and yet we have people taking aspirin
everyday to try to prevent heart attacks," Utts said. "People aren't
willing to either look at this evidence or aren't willing to believe it
when they see it."
Utts
earned a bachelor's degree in math and psychology at the State
University of New York at Binghamton in 1973 and a doctorate in
statistics from Penn State University in 1978. She has since worked as
a professor and statistician at UC Davis, catching a few breaks to work
as a visiting professor at Stanford University and as a senior research
fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
In 1995, Utts
was hired by the American Institutes of Research, an independent
research firm, along with psychologist Ray Hyman from the University of
Oregon to analyze data from a 20-year research program sponsored by the
U.S. government to investigate paranormal activity.
After doing initial research, Hyman and Utts found statistical support, she said.
"The
two of us did this review and we both concluded that there were really
strong statistical results there, but [Hyman] still didn't believe that
it could be explained by something psychic - he thought there would be
some explanation [that he] can't provide," Utts said.
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