Courtney Brown (researcher)

Courtney Brown is a an associate professor in the political science department at Emory University and is known for promoting the use of nonlinear mathematics in social scientific research. He is also known as a proponent of remote viewing, a form of extrasensory perception.

Applied mathematics

Brown's research in applied mathematics is mostly focused on social science applications of time-dependent models. He has published five peer-reviewed books and numerous articles in applied mathematics. Brown is also a very visible advocate of the use of the R Programming Language, both for statistical as well as nonlinear modeling applications in the social sciences.

Remote viewing

Brown learned the basic Transcendental Meditation and an advanced technique called the TM-Sidhi program in 1991. He claims to have engaged in Yogic Flying at the Golden Dome of Pure Knowledge at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa in 1992.[1] Nevertheless, there have been no empirical evidences on "yogi flying". Such a claim is questionable.

The field of remote viewing is exceptionally controversial. Brown's remote viewing findings have been dismissed by scientists, such as his colleague at Emory University Scott O. Lilienfeld, who has claimed that Brown has refused to subject his ideas and his claimed psychic powers to independent scientific testing on what Lilienfeld describes as "curious" grounds.[2] This claim is based on a request that Brown show up in an Emory classroom to remote view something. Brown refused saying that he does not do anything related to remote viewing at Emory. Brown is not restricted in listing his affiliation with Emory when talking about remote viewing or any other subject, something that has been incorrectly reported elsewhere.[3] He normally acts as a data analyst while working with other remote viewers (who do the actual viewing) who have been trained in procedures that were developed by the U.S. military.

Among a variety of controversial topics, Brown has claimed to apply remote viewing to the study of multiple realities, the nonlinearity of time, planetary phenomena, extraterrestrial life, UFOs, Atlantis, and even Jesus Christ.[3] According to Michael Shermer "The claims in Brown's two books are nothing short of spectacularly weird. Through his numerous SRV sessions he says he has spoken with Jesus and Buddha (both, apparently, are advanced aliens), visited other inhabited planets, time traveled to Mars back when it was fully inhabited by intelligent ETs, and has even determined that aliens are living among us—one group in particular resides underground in New Mexico."[4]

Robert Baker writing in the Skeptical Inquirer came to the conclusion that Brown's beliefs from remote viewing about alien civilizations is a case of self-deception.[5]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Brown, Courtney (1996). Cosmic Voyage: A Scientific Discovery of Extraterrestrials Visiting Earth. Farsight. pp. 38–42. ISBN 9780525940982.
  2. ↑ Lilienfeld, Scott O. (1996-09-09). "The Courtney Brown affair and academic freedom". First Person. Emory Report 43 (3) (Office of Communications and Marketing, Emory University).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Shermer, Michael (2001). The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9780198032724.
  4. ↑ Shermer, Michael. (1997). Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. Henry Holt and Company. p. 325. ISBN 0-8050-7089-3
  5. ↑ Baker, Robert. (1996). "Scientific Remote Viewing" Csicop.org. Retrieved 2014-06-13.

External links