Global Consciousness Project - Criticism

Criticism

Based on an exploratory analysis of 'highly statistically significant' experimental results, the GCP has suggested changes in the level of randomness may have occurred during the September 11, 2001 attacks at the times of the plane impacts and the building collapses, and over the two days following the attacks. Moreover, the GCP has identified similar 'anomalies' in the EGG data hours and even days before the attacks; while the GCP does not claim a causal relationship, such changes—if genuine—would seem to imply either subconscious mass precognition, or backwards causality.

Independent scientists Edwin May and James Spottiswoode conducted an analysis of the data around the 11 September 2001 events and concluded there was no statistically significant change in the randomness of the GCP data during the attacks and the apparent significant deviation reported by Nelson and Radin existed only in their chosen time window. Spikes and fluctuations are to be expected in any random distribution of data, and there is no set time frame for how close a spike has to be to a given event for the GCP to say they have found a correlation. Wolcotte Smith said "A couple of additional statistical adjustments would have to be made to determine if there really was a spike in the numbers," referencing the data related to September 11, 2001. Similarly, Jeffrey D. Scargle believes unless both Bayesian and classical p-value analysis agree and both show the same anomalous effects, the kind of result GCP proposes will not be generally accepted.

In 2003, a New York Times article concluded "All things considered at this point, the stock market seems a more reliable gauge of the national—if not the global—emotional resonance."

According to The Age, Nelson concedes "the data, so far, is not solid enough for global consciousness to be said to exist at all. It is not possible, for example, to look at the data and predict with any accuracy what (if anything) the eggs may be responding to."

Robert Matthews called it "the most sophisticated attempt yet" to prove psychokinesis existed, but cited the unreliability of significant events to cause statistically significant spikes, concluding "the only conclusion to emerge from the Global Consciousness Project so far is that data without a theory is as meaningless as words without a narrative".