Editing Precognition (section)

==Scientific reception==
Claims of precognition are, like any other claims, open to scientific criticism. However, the nature of the criticism must adapt to the nature of the claim.<ref name="hyman217">Hyman (2007), page217.</ref>

===Pseudoscience===
Claims of precognition are criticised on three main grounds:
*There is no known scientific mechanism which would allow precognition. It breaks temporal causality, in that the precognised event causes an effect in the subject prior to the event itself.
*The large body of experimental work has produced no accepted scientific evidence that precognition exists.
*The large body of anecdotal evidence can be explained by alternative psychological mechanisms.
Consequently, precognition is widely considered to be [[pseudoscience]].<ref name=":0">[[James Alcock|Alcock, James]]. (1981). ''Parapsychology-Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective'' Pergamon Press. pp. 3–6. {{ISBN|978-0080257730}}</ref><ref>Zusne, Leonard; Jones, Warren H. (1989). ''Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking''. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. p. 151. {{ISBN|978-0-805-80507-9}}</ref><ref>Ciccarelli, Saundra E; Meyer, Glenn E. ''Psychology''. (2007). Prentice Hall Higher Education. p. 118. {{ISBN|978-0136030638}} "Precognition is the supposed ability to know something in advance of its occurrence or to predict a future event."</ref>

===Violation of causality===
Precognition would violate the principle of antecedence ([[causality]]); that is, that an effect does not happen before its cause.<ref>[[Mario Bunge|Bunge, Mario]]. (1983). ''Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volume 6: Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World''. Springer. pp. 225–226. {{ISBN|978-9027716347}}</ref><ref name="hyman217" /> Information passing backwards in time ([[retrocausality]]) would need to be carried by physical particles doing the same. Experimental evidence from high-energy physics suggests that this cannot happen. There is therefore no direct justification for precognition from a physics-based approach.<ref name=":1">[[John G. Taylor|Taylor, John]]. (1980). ''Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician''. Temple Smith. p. 83. {{ISBN|0-85117-191-5}}.</ref>

Precognition would also contradict "most of the neuroscience and psychology literature, from electrophysiology and neuroimaging to temporal effects found in psychophysical research."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Schwarzkopf | first1 = Samuel | year = 2014 | title = We Should Have Seen This Coming | journal = Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | volume = 8 | page = 332 | pmc=4034337 | pmid=24904372 | doi=10.3389/fnhum.2014.00332| doi-access = free }}</ref>

===Lack of evidence===
A great deal of evidence for precognition has been put forward, both as witnessed anecdotes and as experimental results, but none has been accepted as rigorous scientific proof of the phenomenon. Even the most prominent pieces of evidence have been repeatedly rejected due to errors in those experiments as well as follow-on studies contradicting the original evidence. This suggests that the evidence was not valid in the first place.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fiedler |title=Afterthoughts on precognition: No cogent evidence for anomalous influences of consequent events on preceding cognition |journal= Theory & Psychology|date=26 April 2013 |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=323–333 |doi=10.1177/0959354313485504 |s2cid=145690989 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0959354313485504?icid=int.sj-full-text.citing-articles.3 |access-date=19 October 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="ritchie">{{cite journal |last1=Ritchie |title=Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's 'Retroactive Facilitation of Recall' Effect |journal=PLOS ONE |date=14 March 2012 |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=e33423 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0033423 |pmid=22432019 |pmc=3303812 |bibcode=2012PLoSO...733423R |doi-access=free }}</ref>

===Alternative explanations===
Various known psychological processes have been put forward to explain experiences of apparent precognition. These include:

* [[Coincidence]], where apparent instances of precognition in fact arise from the [[law of truly large numbers]].<ref>[[Richard Wiseman|Wiseman, Richard]]. (2011). ''Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There''. Macmillan. pp. 163-167. {{ISBN|978-0-230-75298-6}}</ref><ref>[[Stuart Sutherland|Sutherland, Stuart]]. (1994). ''Irrationality: The Enemy Within''. pp. 312–313. Penguin Books. {{ISBN|0-14-016726-9}}</ref>
* [[Self-fulfilling prophecy]] and unconscious enactment, where people unconsciously bring about events which they have previously imagined.{{citation needed|date=February 2022|reason=not necessarily unconsciously}}
* [[subliminal stimuli|Unconscious perception]], where people unconsciously infer, from data they have unconsciously learned, that a certain event will probably happen in a certain context. When the event occurs, the former knowledge appears to have been acquired without the aid of recognised channels of information.{{citation needed|date=February 2022|reason=no specific precognitive recollection}}
* [[Retrofitting]], which involves the false interpretation of a past record of a dream or vision, in order to match it to a recent event. Retrofitting provides an explanation for the supposed accuracy of [[Nostradamus]]'s vague predictions. For example, quatrain I:60 states "A ruler born near Italy...He's less a prince than a butcher."  The phrase "near Italy" can be construed as covering a very broad range of geography, while no details are provided by Nostradamus regarding the era when this ruler will live.   Because of this vagueness, and the flexibility of retrofitting, this quatrain has been interpreted by some as referring to [[Napoleon]], but by others as referring to the [[Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor|Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II]], and by others still as a reference to [[Hitler]].<ref name="Nickell SI 2019">{{cite journal |last1=Nickell |first1=Joe |title=Premonition! Foreseeing what cannot be seen. |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |date=2019 |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=17–20}}</ref>
*False memories, such as [[identifying paramnesia]] and [[List of memory biases|memory biases]], where the memory of a non-existent precognitive event is formed after the real event has occurred.<ref name="hines">Hines (2003).</ref> Where subjects in a dream experiment have been asked to write down their dreams in a diary, this can prevent selective memory effects such that the dreams no longer seem accurate about the future.<ref>{{cite book|last=Alcock|first=James E. |title=Parapsychology: Science or Magic?: a psychological perspective| publisher=Pergamon Press|location=Oxford |year=1981|isbn=978-0-08-025773-0}} via Hines (2003).</ref> 
* [[Déjà vu]], where people experience a false feeling that an identical event has occurred previously. Some recent authors have suggested that déjà vu and identifying paramnesia are the same thing.<ref>"[https://www.britannica.com/science/memory-abnormality/Paramnesia-and-confabulation paramnesia and confabulation]", ''Britannica'' (retrieved 14 February 2022).</ref> This view is not universally held, with others instead treating them as distinct phenomena.<ref>Herman N. Sno (1991); "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/20910707_The_deja_vu_experience_Remembrance_of_things_past The deja vu experience: Remembrance of things past?]", ''American Journal of Psychiatry'' 147(12):1587-95. DOI:10.1176/ajp.147.12.1587</ref>

Psychological explanations have also been proposed for belief in precognition. [[Psychologist]]s have conducted experiments which are claimed to show that people who feel loss of control in their lives will turn to belief in precognition, because it gives them a sense of regaining control.<ref name="Greenaway Louis Hornsey 2013 p=e71327">{{cite journal | last1=Greenaway | first1=Katharine H. | last2=Louis | first2=Winnifred R. | last3=Hornsey | first3=Matthew J. | editor-last=Krueger | editor-first=Frank | title=Loss of Control Increases Belief in Precognition and Belief in Precognition Increases Control | journal=PLOS ONE | publisher=Public Library of Science (PLoS) | volume=8 | issue=8 | date=7 August 2013 | issn=1932-6203 | pmid=23951136 | pmc=3737190 | doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0071327 | page=e71327| bibcode=2013PLoSO...871327G | doi-access=free}}</ref>