"Phone telepathy"

[bascule]

As much as I would like to believe this is true, I call bullshit:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/05/telepathy.reut/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

 

NORWICH, England (Reuters) -- Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy.

 

Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.

[swansont]

I saw that. Just to note: the statistical uncertainty on a sample size of 63 is about 12.6%.

[raivo]

Its not first time when telepathy experiments give positive results. Problem is that these tend not to be repeatable. Now and then someone or some group of researchers gets positive results then others try to repeat but most of them get no correlation. Then after some time someone again gets positive results but he can not describe what exactly he did differnetly. So most common explanation is that positive results are nothing more than unknown errors in experiment design.

 

Lets wait and see if others can repeat these results.

[swansont]

Its not first time when telepathy experiments give positive results. Problem is that these tend not to be repeatable. Now and then someone or some group of researchers gets positive results then others try to repeat but most of them get no correlation. Then after some time someone again gets positive results but he can not describe what exactly he did differnetly. So most common explanation is that positive results are nothing more than unknown errors in experiment design.

 

Lets wait and see if others can repeat these results.

 

Given the uncertainty in the counting statistics alone, the comment about the odds of this happening being one in a thousand billion is inexcusably erroneous. You don't even to look for systematic flaws yet.

[Sayonara]

I'll bet Trinity College are over the moon about this one.

[YT2095]

personaly I don`t think such a test is fair until such time as it can be recorded all the times you Think about someone calling and it never happens.

 

When that could be done and the data extracted from Those 2 sets of numbers, I`ll be a little more inclined to have faith in it.

 

the Odd thing about the human mind is that we tend to Rem the things that ARE odd (statisticly improbable) and forget all the other times.

[GutZ]

Are they done with complete strangers? You could subconscious record phone habits of people you know then when that becomes irregular you're alerted in some form...Add in the fact that the other person has that happen to him/her as well, that would increase your chances of subconscious guessing when someone will call.

[Glider]

Good point. People do become familiar with the habits and routines of friends and I think that would have a big influence.

[swansont]

Good point. People do become familiar with the habits and routines of friends and I think that would have a big influence.

 

Not applicable, though, in this particular study. "Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone."

[GutZ]

I question their randomness!

[ecoli]

Not applicable, though, in this particular study. "Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone."

 

That shouldn't count... they were expecting a call after all, and 4 people to choose from isn't very many.

[Edtharan]

That shouldn't count... they were expecting a call after all, and 4 people to choose from isn't very many.

Yes the fact that they were participating in a studdy would skew the results of it (because they knew that someone would be calling them) and the fact that there were 4 people that could be ringing them also reduces the reliability of the statistics.

 

I haerd of a studdy done on ESP where the subjects had to identify a particular image on a card (you know the ones with the wavy lines and other symbols). The ones who got it correct were promoted to the next round and the ones who failed were droped form the study (they wew only interested in the subject that demonstrated esp like abilities).

 

Finally after many rounds (not sure but it was quite a few), the people who were left in the studdy showed an uncanny ability for predicting the cards. However, upon further tests after the studdy, these people showed no ability better than pure guesswork, their ESP like abilities seemd to have vanished.

 

The answer was in the way the subjects were selected for the next round. It was only the people who got the cards correct were promoted. These results were kept as a history. So all you had were lucky guesses upon lucky guesses and because the study ignored any failures and selectivle reported successes, it appeared that the amazing results were something that they weren't.

[swansont]

Yes the fact that they were participating in a studdy would skew the results of it (because they knew that someone would be calling them) and the fact that there were 4 people that could be ringing them also reduces the reliability of the statistics.

 

 

I think it's that only 63 people were studied is what reduces the reliability of the statistics. You can roll a four-sided die and get statistics on it. The fact that it's got four sides isn't a limiting factor, it's how many times you roll it that tells you how surprising it is to have a deviation from 25%