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From: wasser@viking.DEC (John A. Wasser)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Possibly poor control?
Message-ID: <2784@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Jun-85 17:55:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2784
Posted: Wed Jun 19 17:55:58 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 09:20:57 EDT
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Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 36

> ...a series of lamps connected in an approximately circular shape, 
> and a ring counter... driven by a 'random' source.
> When left alone, the next state (clockwise or counter-clockwise) had a 
> 'random' probability.  Under the influence of some observers, it has been 
> 'shown' that they can 'will' the shift register to shift right or shift 
> left for a large number of trials.
>
	I suspect that no matter WHO did the observing, the light will
	(for selected periods of time) make rather large excursions
	to the left and right.  Even if the subject is told to make
	it go in a certain direction, he need only wait till the
	random chance comes up his way and say "There, I finaly got
	it to move in the right direction!".  The only way for this
	experiment to be controlled is to give the subject a SPECIFIC
	time interval and RANDOM direction each trial and to have
	many trials.  I'm willing to bet that the results will show
	no statistical significance.

	Remember Wasser's Law:

             +---------------------------------------------------------+
             | Wasser's Law of Paranormal Demonstrations: Paranormal   |
             | abilities are only demonstrable under conditions where  |
             | they are indistinguishable from fakery.                 |
             +---------------------------------------------------------+

	If the experiment is properly controlled, the PSI ability to
	influence the apparatus will fail.

		-John A. Wasser

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