How Reliable Are Psychic Test Results?

[newp175]

I have found the following tests:


http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/experiments/



They try to determine the effect of the observer on random number generation. They seem to work for me but I would like some feedback from other members here.

 

[SGT]

To be fair, the test should not ask for the observer inform if he/she is trying to move the mean to the right or to the left.
Anyway, I made an experiment myself and posted it at this forum. I generated a stream of pseudorandom +1 and -1 and plotted the sum along the time. I obtained a similar result as the one in this test. Sometimes I had a long series of +1, sometimes of -1, so ocasionally the graph passed through zero.
By the way, I obtained a final result of -8, so it seems that the test is not biased.

 

[newp175]

I got 1/175 score the first time I did this. I ran it for 50 times in my absence and most of the results were between 1/2 to 1/5 (once 1/14). I didnt keep a detailed record or do any statistics. I got very high scores like the first one 4-5 times and the usual I got was 1/20 to 1/30. I also noticed that I got score more easily when I wasnt making a conscious effort and that if my mood was bad or if I was thinking about the test I got the opposite results from what I expected but still significant. I also ran the test while doing some other task in my computer and while downloading. In both cases there was some ''warping'' in the pendulum. I think that the test involves truly random numbers generated from radioactive decay (see the rest of that site). I am interested in the results that anyone else produced and under which circumstances in terms of emotional status.

 

[scott1]

It doesn't seem like it's real.I tried the clock experment,I clicked on the botton for clockwise but I tried making go counterclockwise and it still went clock wise.I did it the other way around and it still didn't work.

 

[newp175]

Like I said, you sometimes get the opposite results from what you are trying to achieve. The site also has some references (amongst other things) where in similar studies these observations were made. Anyway, as long as the results are significant, this works. Does anyone have any suggestions on why though?

 

[SGT]

Like I said, you sometimes get the opposite results from what you are trying to achieve. The site also has some references (amongst other things) where in similar studies these observations were made. Anyway, as long as the results are significant, this works. Does anyone have any suggestions on why though?

The results are not significant at all. As I said in my previous post, I ran a simple simulation with pseudorandom numbers and obtained very similar results. I would be seriously surprised if the average was exactly zero, or even near zero.