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Department of Statistics, The Ohio State University
Statistics and Biostatistics Colloquium Series
Investigating Psychic Phenomena with Statistics
Jessica Utts
Department of Statistics, University of California, Davis
3:30PM - Thursday, April 12, 2007
Room 170, Eighteenth Avenue Bldg. (EA 170)
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.
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