Jessica Utts
Jessica Utts, Ph.D.

Arguing Towards the Truth - How Controversy Helps Science Progress: Two Case Studies from the Science of
Human Consciousness

Abstract:

Roman rhetorician Publilius Syrus is famous for having said "In quarreling, the truth is always lost." In the progress of science, that otherwise pithy saying often turns out not to be true. In fact, it is through the debate of ideas that science is able to come closer and closer to the truth about the physical universe, human nature, and -- most importantly for those of us interested in remote viewing -- the mysteries of human consciousness.

Professor Jessica Utts will discuss two remote viewing related research controversies, one involving PEAR Laboratory's precognitive remote perception experiments, and the other involving Ganzfeld protocols, to show how the science got better and the evidence stronger thanks to the arguing.

Jessica Utts, Ph.D. professor of statistics at the University of California at Davis. She spent a year as a Visiting Scientist with the Remote Viewing Program at SRI International in 1988-89 and was a consultant for the duration of the program at SRI and SAIC. Dr. Utts was one of the evaluators of the government remote viewing program when it was declassified in 1995 (see the AIR report).