|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Another popular research tool in recent years is the random number generator (RNG). These machines combine electronic and computer technology to measure whether the mind has an effect over the machine. Basically, the machine spits out a series of zeroes and ones in random patterns. The experiment aims to measure whether psychokinesis (using the mind to affect matter) occurs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In one type of RNG experiment, a subject focuses his or her thoughts on trying to change the random distribution of the numbers. This is sort of like a high-tech coin toss, where you expect to get a 50/50 ratio of heads and tails. But using a completely computerized testing system eliminates the possibility that someone could somehow cheat by throwing the dice in a controlled way. This test has been repeated over three decades by more than 60 scientists, and has shown small but consistent results: The human mind can definitely change otherwise random systems. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Statistics and Psychic Ability |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All of these experiments show that psi scientists are making progress in their research. For years, skeptics have resisted this notion by tearing apart individual experiments and claiming that this or that lab or researcher had biased results. Specifically, if one lab's results differed from another's, all the results were cast into doubt. However, one must understand the nature of experiments before criticizing too harshly. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In his influential book on the state of psi research, The Conscious Universe (Harper SanFrancisco, 1997), Dean Radin, Ph.D., defends the way that psi experiments are measured and compared to other sciences. He explains that two versions of the same experiment seldom come up with the same results. And this is true of the hard sciences as well as soft sciences. (It seems that the experiments school teachers have students follow from textbooks are among the few that have consistent resultsand they don't always work either!) Furthermore, the same experiment that is performed with any variation, such as the number of subjects tested, may be evaluated according to a separate set of odds. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
According to Radin and other scientists across many disciplines, the likelihood that every experiment may have somewhat different results makes repeated trialsby different people in varied placesespecially important. It is the overall, combined results of many experiments that indicate what's really going on. The art of looking at these combined results is called meta-analysis, and it provides the key to putting soft sciences, such as psi, on the same turf as hard sciences. It seems the two types of sciences, when compared through meta-analysis, are subject to the same statistical laws for measuring effects that are greater |
|
|
|
|
|