Courtney Brown (social scientist)

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For other people named Courtney Brown, see Courtney Brown (disambiguation).
Courtney Brown
Born1952 (age 71–72)
NationalityAmerican
Scientific career
FieldsPolitical science
InstitutionsEmory University

Courtney Brown (born 1952) is an American political scientist and parapsychologist who is an associate professor in the political science department at Emory University. He is known for promoting the use of nonlinear mathematics in social scientific research, and as a proponent of remote viewing, a form of extrasensory perception.

He is the founder of the Farsight Institute.

Applied mathematics[edit]

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 on the subject of applied mathematics. Brown is also an advocate of the use of the R Programming Language, both for statistical as well as nonlinear modeling applications in the social sciences.

Remote viewing[edit]

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]

Brown's remote viewing findings have been dismissed by scientists, such as his colleague at Emory University Scott O. Lilienfeld, who has stated 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]

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]

Martin Gardner wrote about Brown's book "Cosmic Voyage" about his remote viewing findings of extraterrestrials, "The only earlier book about UFOs I can think of that is nuttier than this one is George Adamski's 'Inside the Space Ships' (1955)."[5]

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.[6]

Publications[edit]

  • Cosmic Voyage: A Scientific Discovery of Extraterrestrials Visiting Earth (1996)
  • Cosmic Explorers: Scientific Remote Viewing, Extraterrestrials, and a Message for Mankind (1999)
  • Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception (2005)
  • Politics in Music: Music and Political Transformation From Beethoven to Hip-Hop (2007)
  • Ballots of Tumult: A Portrait of Volatility in American Voting (1991)
  • Serpents in the Sand: Essays on the Nonlinear Nature of Politics and Human Destiny (2007)

References[edit]

  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. Vol. 43, no. 3. Office of Communications and Marketing, Emory University.
  3. ^ 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. ^ Gardner, Martin (2000). Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?. W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393322386.
  6. ^ Baker, Robert. (1996). "Scientific Remote Viewing" Csicop.org. Retrieved 2014-06-13.

External links[edit]

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