Utts made this point this fall in her review of 20 years of recently declassified results from experiments sponsored by various U.S. intelligence agencies. Utts' report is part of a review by the Central Intelligence Agency of $20 million worth of research into parapsychological phenomena to determine its usefulness for intelligence collection.

Since Utts' report also refers to most other research conducted in the small paranormal experimental community, it serves as well as an overall assessment of the status of parapsychology. Interestingly enough, the 20-year review also mirrors pivotal events in her own career.

Ever since her first paper on the subject in 1986, Utts has made it her business to subject the data from "psychic-functioning" experiments to the kind of rigorous critique that a professional statistician can provide. "There is a lot of uncritical acceptance of this stuff," she says. "So much is based on anecdotal evidence, and that is not science."

ESP beyond a reasonable guess

In her review, Utts found "overwhelming" statistical evidence for the existence of remote viewing and other related paranormal phenomena. "This is a robust effect that, were it not in such an unusual domain, would no longer be questioned by science as a real phenomenon," she says.

Utts compared the results to those obtained elsewhere, including the University of Edinburgh, Scotland--the only institution in the world known to offer a Ph.D. in parapsychology. Remote viewing has been conceptually replicated across a number of laboratories, Utts says, helping refute the idea of fraud, sloppy protocols or some methodological problem.

"At this stage, I think the case has been scientifically proven," she says. "It's interesting to watch the dichotomy. People within the field have stopped looking for proof; they're looking for explanations. Yet the larger scientific community is focused on proof, the existence question."

Played to her strengths

About 10 years ago, Utts spent a sabbatical year as a visiting professor of statistics at Stanford University. During that year, she attended a conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration, where she met Ed May, principal investigator for the "psychic spying" research program since 1985. Three years later, Utts spent a year on leave from UC Davis working in May's lab.

"One of the problems in parapsychology is that it is plagued by believers and detractors," says May, director of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory at Science Applications International Corp. in Palo Alto.

Held in high esteem

Utts had come to this field as an agnostic and often was unable to reconcile her skepticism and the statistics. "At times," she says, "I felt real cognitive dissonance." In her statistics,

She could distance herself from the phenomena, assigning probabilities to possible realities and quantifying the outcome. Then, the major criticism of parapsychology was that researchers were not convincingly replicating their experiments.

Utts realized much of the controversy swirled around statistical issues, yet no statisticians were involved. In her first major contribution, she pointed out that small effects and irreproducible results could be blamed on collecting too little data.

As an example of the difference more data makes, Utts cites the link between taking aspirin and reducing heart attacks, established by the Physicians Health Study of 22,000 men. The results would not have been statistically significant with just 2,200 men in the study, she says.

Increased the number of trials

A simplified version of the analysis is being used in some on-line remote-viewing experiments (see "Online sources" to the right).

The two have also developed a theory to explain the results of experiments designed to test "psychokinesis," or mind over matter. Developed by Princeton University professor Robert Jahn, then dean of Princeton's engineering school, these experiments aimed to test the prevailing theory that people know certain future events because they manipulate them.

In contrast, May and Utts believe those results are better explained by "precognition," meaning people may "predict" future events. "We all know our brains process much more information than we're consciously aware of," Utts says. "Our theory suggests an additional component; that is, information from the future, or what we think of as the future. We're not aware of the source, but we use it to make decisions. For example, subconsciously the brain may be able to determine the probabilities of the consequences of various decisions."

In addition to verifying and clarifying data, Utts has provided her share of unflattering critiques of parapsychology experiments. And she has a few complaints of her own about the field. No. 1 irritant: People who uncritically accept the phenomenon. No. 2: People who do not understand statistics well enough to know that small sample sizes and small but real effects will not often produce statistically "successful" experiments. No. 3: People who try to treat this differently from other areas of science.

Vituperative professional condemnations

She uses it to illustrate how small sample sizes may not possess enough statistical power to show important patterns. For example, after accounting for seniority and years, the mean difference between men's and women's salaries in the humanities at UC Davis was $3,612. A salary difference would have had to exceed $4,000 to be statistically significant. Nonetheless, the committee considered the difference important enough to pursue further.

Utts shrugs off the criticism, on both the paranormal and gender equity fronts. "The criticisms don't upset me, because I understand that there are emotional and political issues involved," Utts says. "I try to stay focused on the statistics." In her book, Utts aims to demystify statistical methods.

She hopes readers will finish her book with a more critical eye and confidence to make independent judgments of results emerging from surveys and studies.

"I feel like my strongest ability is to receive and process information and repackage it in a way that's understandable," says Utts, who will be tapping those talents deeper in her new position as faculty assistant to Dean and Vice Provost M.R.C. Greenwood in the Office of Academic Outreach . "That's why I wrote my book. I feel like one way I can make a difference is through education."