jwalch.hawk

June 02, 2009 at 7:49pm

That professor clearly did not pass even the most basic statistics course as an undergraduate (or, more likely, is being quoted way out of context here).  He is correct in stating that the odds OF A SINGLE GIVEN PERSON getting three in a row right are 1:125, and that's about it.  First of all, that's not *that* impressive in a relative sense - it's a little under 1%, and rarer events than that happen in poker all the time.  More significantly, he's completely ignoring the fact that more than one person will be taking the test.  The odds of a single person not getting three in a row right are about 99%, but the odds of ten people all failing to get three in a row right drops to ~92%.  Study a hundred people and all the sudden there's only about a 45% chance that not a one of them gets three in a row right!  If this study involves a reasonable number of people, more likely than not one of them will manage to get three in a row right - even if it is just dumb luck.

Cache

June 02, 2009 at 4:12pm

Given that no conclusive evidence of ESP (of which remote viewing is merely a subset) has ever been discovered in over 60 years of testing should be enough.  That there is no possible explanation for it even in theory in physics should be enough.

Fine, let them dream a little.  But the fact remains that it is still utterly rediculous even in principle.  Random chance alone dictates that a small percentage will sometimes 'get it right', but no more than get lucky on multiple choice tests.  Totally useless field of study.