Book Review: An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning (1995) Author: Professor Jessica Utts, Division of Statistics, University of California, Davis Length: 33 pages (plus appendices) Originally prepared for: American Institutes for Research (AIR) on behalf of the U.S. government (CIA/DIA review of the Stargate remote-viewing program)
Jessica Utts’ 1995 report is not light beach reading — it’s a dense, statistics-heavy government-commissioned evaluation of two decades of classified psychic research. Yet it reads like a detective story for anyone interested in the intersection of rigorous science and the paranormal. Utts, a highly respected frequentist statistician (later president of the American Statistical Association), was asked to answer two blunt questions: (1) Has psychic functioning been scientifically established? and (2) Is it useful for government purposes? Her answer to the first is a clear yes; to the second, a cautious maybe.
Core Thesis and Structure
Utts reviews the government’s own data from Stanford Research Institute (SRI, 1973–1988) and later Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC, 1989–1995). The focus is almost entirely on remote viewing (a form of clairvoyance where “viewers” describe hidden targets) and related anomalous cognition experiments. She deliberately sidesteps belief or philosophy and sticks to the data using standard scientific and statistical tools.
The paper is organized cleanly:
- Science Notes – definitions, stats basics, methodological pitfalls.
- SRI Era – early operational successes and lab work.
- SAIC Era – 10 tightly controlled experiments (the heart of the report).
- External Replication – ganzfeld telepathy studies from other labs.
- Usefulness and Conclusions.
She uses effect sizes (not just p-values) to show results that are small-to-medium but highly consistent across thousands of trials, multiple labs, and decades. For example, in SAIC remote-viewing sessions, effect sizes ranged from 0.248 to 0.550 — far above chance — and replicated SRI findings. Precognition worked, senders weren’t needed, and performance improved when targets contained high “entropy” (visual change). She even includes a clever appendix explaining the rank-order judging statistic they used.
Strengths
- Statistical rigor: Utts is merciless about proper controls, blind judging, randomization, and avoiding data snooping. She directly addresses every common criticism (sensory leakage, fraud, selective reporting) and shows why the data survive them.
- Clarity: Even non-statisticians can follow the logic. She explains why p < 10⁻²⁰ across 26,000+ SRI trials matters, and why replication across labs is more convincing than any single flashy result.
- Intellectual honesty: She admits the effect is small (roughly 0.2–0.5), that most people can’t do it, and that we still don’t know how it works. No hype.
Weaknesses (and the elephant in the room)
The paper is essentially one half of a two-person review — statistician Ray Hyman wrote the skeptical counter-report for the same AIR project and reached different conclusions about methodological flaws. Utts refutes many of Hyman’s points head-on, but readers should know the debate existed in parallel.
More broadly, the extraordinary nature of the claim (“psychic functioning is real”) demands extraordinary replication standards. While the government data are impressive on paper, mainstream science has largely moved on; large-scale replication attempts since 1995 have been mixed, and funding dried up. Utts herself notes that future work should shift from “proof” to “mechanism,” but that shift never fully happened in academia.
Why It Still Matters in 2026
This report remains one of the most careful, data-driven documents ever produced on the topic. It’s required reading for anyone studying parapsychology, research methodology, or the history of government psi programs (Stargate). Utts shows how a skeptical statistician can follow the evidence wherever it leads — even to uncomfortable places.
Verdict: 9/10 for scientific writing and statistical integrity. Whether you walk away convinced of psychic functioning will depend on your prior beliefs, but you will not walk away unimpressed by the quality of the analysis. If you’re into Bayesian vs. frequentist debates, replication crises, or “fringe” science done right, download the PDF immediately. It’s free, fascinating, and still sparks arguments 31 years later.
Highly recommended for statisticians, skeptics, and open-minded scientists who want to see what happens when you apply textbook methods to extraordinary claims. Just bring your calculator.
