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Plain English Summary
This punchy commentary targets research claiming your body can sense events before they happen -- a phenomenon called "presentiment." Schwarzkopf lays out six reasons to be skeptical of a major review compiling evidence for the effect. The original studies had quality problems, the analysis ignored similar mainstream experiments, trial setups may have let participants unconsciously learn patterns, and slow-fading brain signals could create statistical mirages resembling prediction. Most damning, he argues it's biologically absurd that one brain mechanism could produce precognitive signals across wildly different measurement types. The piece sparked a formal rebuttal, making it a key volley in the presentiment debate.
Research Notes
A concise, influential skeptical commentary published in the same Frontiers journal as the presentiment meta-analysis it targets. Articulates the six strongest methodological objections to predictive anticipatory activity research. Prompted a formal reply from Mossbridge et al. (2015). Central to controversy #3 (presentiment).
Precognition claims violate the second law of thermodynamics and would invalidate baseline correction procedures fundamental to experimental research. Six objections are raised against the Mossbridge et al. (2012, 2014) presentiment meta-analysis: questionable primary study quality including circular inference in fMRI data, failure to include broader non-parapsychological literature using similar designs, neglect of ~2:1 trial imbalances enabling learned stimulus predictions, potential baseline correction artifacts from slow post-stimulus signal decay, inadequate testing of expectation bias, and biological implausibility of one neural mechanism producing precognitive effects across measures with vastly different temporal scales.
Links
Related Papers
Critiques
- Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis — Mossbridge, Julia (2012)
- Predicting the Unpredictable: Critical Analysis and Practical Implications of Predictive Anticipatory Activity — Mossbridge, Julia A (2014)
- Electrodermal Presentiments of Future Emotions — Radin, Dean I (2004)
Cites
- Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
- Electrodermal Presentiments of Future Emotions — Radin, Dean I (2004)
- Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's 'Retroactive Facilitation of Recall' Effect — Ritchie, Stuart J (2012)
- Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi — Galak, Jeff (2012)
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- An Agenda for Purely Confirmatory Research — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2012)
- A fMRI Brain Imaging Study of Presentiment — Bierman, Dick J (2002)
- A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Bem's ESP Claim — Rouder, Jeffrey N (2011)
- Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology — Utts, Jessica (1991)
- Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi — Alcock, James E (2003)
- Must Psychologists Change the Way They Analyze Their Data? — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
Companion
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- Fearing the Future of Empirical Psychology: Bem's (2011) Evidence of Psi as a Case Study of Deficiencies in Modal Research Practice — LeBel, Etienne P (2011)
- Future directions in precognition research: more research can bridge the gap between skeptics and proponents — Franklin, Michael S (2014)
More in Skeptical
Cognitive Styles and Psi: Psi Researchers Are More Similar to Skeptics Than to Lay Believers
Searching for the Impossible: Parapsychology's Elusive Quest
False-Positive Effect in the Radin Double-Slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined with the Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol
Cross-Examining the Case for Precognition: Comment on Mossbridge and Radin (2018)
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine and the Pineal Gland: Separating Fact from Myth
📋 Cite this paper
Schwarzkopf, D. Samuel (2014). We Should Have Seen This Coming. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00332
@article{schwarzkopf_2014_should,
title = {We Should Have Seen This Coming},
author = {Schwarzkopf, D. Samuel},
year = {2014},
journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience},
doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2014.00332},
}