An anonymous reader writes: Have scientists finally found replicable evidence for psychic phenomena? A social psychologist at Cornell University has conducted a series of experiments that reveal the brain may be able to anticipate future events.
Dr. Daryl Bem, a social psychologist at Cornell University, has tested over 1000 participants in nine experiments that test for retroactive, or "time-reversed," influence. In other words, the brain is reacting to events before they happen. Precognition used to be in the domain of science fiction, mutants, and superheroes, but there may be truth behind the myth. Fifty years ago, this notion was utterly unthinkable; however recent experiments in quantum mechanics are challenging our view of time and space. The effect may not be large enough to give you tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers, but experiments like this may lead the path to new discoveries in neuroscience, cognition, and consciousness research.
This is not the first time Dr. Daryl Bem has garnered attention for his parapsychology experiments. In 1994, he, along with Charles Honorton, published an analysis on the Ganzfeld experiments, one of the strictest protocols to test for the existence of telepathy. Parapsychology often gets a bad rap from mainstream science; however its experimental methodology has improved dramatically since its inception in the late 19th century. Long gone are the days of playing cards with funny symbols on them, modern parapsychology experiments are conducted with computer systems and sophisticated equipment.
Suggested Reading:
Bem, D. J. (in press) Feeling the Future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
