Jessica Utts (born 1952) is a parapsychologist and statistics professor at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. She is known for her textbooks on

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

and her investigation into

remote viewing Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. There is no scientific evidence that remote viewing exists, and the topic of remote viewing is generally regarde ...

Robert Todd Carroll Robert Todd Carroll (May 18, 1945 – August 25, 2016) was an American author, philosopher and academic, best known for '' The Skeptic's Dictionary''. He described himself as a naturalist, an atheist, a materialist, a metaphysical libertarian, ...

. (2003). '' The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions''. Wiley. pp. 331–333.

Statistics education

In 2003, Utts published an article in ''

American Statistician ''The American Statistician'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering statistics published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the American Statistical Association. It was established in 1947. The editor-in-chief is Daniel R. Jeske, ...

'', a journal published by the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

, calling for significant changes to collegiate level

education. In the article she argued that

curricula In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...

do a fine job of covering the

mathematical Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

side of statistics, but do a poor job of teaching students the skills necessary to properly interpret statistical results in scientific studies. The argument continues that common errors found in

news article An article or piece is a written work published in a print or electronic medium, for the propagation of news, research results, academic analysis or debate. News A news article discusses current or recent news of either general interest (i.e. ...

s, such as the common misinterpretation that

correlative In grammar, a correlative is a word that is paired with another word with which it functions to perform a single function but from which it is separated in the sentence. In English, examples of correlative pairs are ''both–and, either–or, nei ...

studies show causation, would be reduced if there were significant changes made to standard statistics courses. In 2016, Utts served as the 111th president of the

. She is a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The designation of ASA Fellow has been a sign ...

, and also a Fellow of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts ...

Investigation of remote viewing

In 1995, the

American Institutes for Research The American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan behavioral and social science research, evaluation, and technical assistance organization based in Arlington, Virginia. One of the world's largest social science research o ...

(AIR) appointed a panel consisting primarily of Utts and

Ray Hyman Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...

to evaluate a project investigating

for

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

applications, the Stargate Project, which was funded by the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

and

Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) specializing in military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense and the United States In ...

, and carried out initially by

Stanford Research Institute SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...

and subsequently by SAIC.

David Marks David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who was an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a frequent participant at t ...

; Richard Kammann. (2000). ''

The Psychology of the Psychic ''The Psychology of the Psychic'' is a skeptical analysis of some of the most publicized cases of parapsychological research by psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann. The first edition, published in 1980, highlights some of the best-kn ...

''. Prometheus Books. pp. 71–74. A report by Utts claimed the results were evidence of psychic functioning, however Hyman in his report argued Utts' conclusion that ESP had been proven to exist, especially precognition, was premature and the findings had not been independently replicated. According to Hyman "the overwhelming amount of data generated by the viewers is vague, general, and way off target. The few apparent hits are just what we would expect if nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation are operating." Funding for the project was stopped after these reports were issued. Jessica Utts also co-authored papers with the parapsychologist Edwin May, who took over Stargate in 1985. The psychologist

noted that because Utts had published papers with May "she was not independent of the research team. Her appointment to the review panel is puzzling; an evaluation is likely to be less than partial when an evaluator is not independent of the program under investigation." The Stargate Project was terminated in 1995 with the conclusion that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. The information was vague and included a lot of irrelevant and erroneous data. There was also reason to suspect that the research managers had adjusted their project reports to fit the known background cues. Utts is on the executive board of the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA)."About IRVA"
. International Remote Viewing Association.

Publications

Books

* ''Seeing Through Statistics, 3rd edition'' (2005) – The use of statistical methods to solve real world problems, and to gain understanding from the application of statistics in addition to simply calculating them. * ''Mind On Statistics, 4th edition'' (2012), with R.F. Heckard – Textbook for an introductory statistics course, with emphasis on understanding the use of statistics in everyday life.

Papers

*Utts, J. (1988). ''Successful replication versus statistical significance''. Journal of Parapsychology, 52(4): 305–320. *Radin, D. and J. Utts. (1989). ''Experiments investigating the influence of intention on random and pseudorandom events''. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 3(1): 65–79. *Utts, J. (1989). ''Randomness and randomization tests: A reply to Gilmore''. Journal of Parapsychology, 53(4): 345–351. *May, E. C., J. M. Utts, B. S. Humphrey, W. Luke, T.J. Frivold, and V. V. Trask. (1990). ''Advances in Remote Viewing'', Journal of Parapsychology, 54(3), 193–228. *Hansen G. P., J. M. Utts, and B. Markwick. (1992). ''Critique of the PEAR remote viewing experiments''. Journal of Parapsychology, 56(2), 97–113. *Utts, J. (1993). ''Analyzing free-response data—a progress report''. In ''PSI Research Methodology—A Reexamination'', ed. L. Coly and J. D. S. McMahon, Parapsychology Foundation, New York, 71–83. *Utts, J. (2018). ''An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning''. Journal of Parapsychology, 82: 118–146.

References

External links

Jessica Utts's UC Irvine page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Utts, Jessica 1952 births Living people American women statisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics American parapsychologists People from Davis, California Remote viewing University of California, Davis faculty University of California, Irvine faculty Presidents of the American Statistical Association 21st-century American women Statistics educators