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From: JGA%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Helmut Schmidt's PSI experiment and others
Message-ID: <15910@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Jan-84 11:28:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.15910
Posted: Tue Jan 24 11:28:00 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jan-84 11:29:19 EST
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From:  John G. Aspinall <JGA @ MIT-MC>

This "random walking" experiment is a good example of something that
Gardner and others point out often:

  Many "psi" experiments hide their data with irrelevant noise.

If this "psi adept" can influence the decay of radioactive substances,
then you should measure the decay as directly as possible.  Instead,
this experiment attempts to mask any deviations (or lack thereof) with
another noisy process - the random walk.

Another well known "psi" experiment involves influencing the fall of
dice.  If our "adept" can exert force on dice why not put the dice on
a sensitive balance and measure the force as directly as possible?
"But NOOOO..." (as the late J. Belushi would say), they have to tumble
the dice and introduce randomness.

Statistics is an extremely useful discipline, but when noise is
introduced by the experimenter, any scientist should hear alarm bells.

John Aspinall.