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Re: bill "Uri" beaty scares himself

William Beaty wrote:

choice was right! Next trial, guessed right, aaaag! Next trial,
guessed totally wrong (finally!) After 20 trials (with a several more
hits and a few total errors.) the results given were 9:1 against. Stats
fluctuation, eh? Scary though.
...

the test was at the (non-university, private) Cog. Sci. Laboratories site,
http://csl.lfr.org/bi/gotpsi.htm Go see if you can scare yourself too!



Sounds like a way to unwind for a few minutes. We used to do this a lot
as kids. I had some very psychic days, some very anti-psychic days, and
many mediocre days.

So I gave it a shot. I found the intro questions a bit perturbing. Is
it common or not to keep interchanging the position of "yes" and "no"
responses? Are these positions a subtle cue to the answers that the
investigators believe a likely psychic would give?

On to the test itself. I was given 25 trials and got 6 correct
- resulting in an "odds against" of 3:1. I then went to the daily
summary. I'm no statistician, but with 250 people and a top score of
92:1 odds against, it doesn't look like a strong result to me. I'm also
curious that everybody with 21% or up got a 2:1 or higher odds-against,
and everybody lower got a one. One person got zero out of 25. I would
have thought the odds against that were pretty high. I think odds
against should be given for both sides of the median result. Curiously,
I got 3:1 at the end of my trial, but show up as 2:1 in the daily
summary.

I tried again, and the next time I got 8 out of 25, with an
odds-against of 9:1. I guess my powers were just getting dusted off
from childhood and coming to life. Perhaps I'd scare myself too if I
kept going.

But then again, we are numbers people here, the total daily numbers were
given - and I repeat them at the end. The bottom line: 2920 correct
answers out of 14882 trials = 19.62% success - just beneath the 20%
expected for pure guessing. Or (I did this summary before my second
trial) adding in my additional 8/25 gives 19.64%.

Of course the true psychics (Bill and myself and perhaps a few others)
may just be lost in the noise, or even worse - there is just enough
antipsychic activity (e.g. people who subconciously answer against their
intuition because they don't want to believe) to cancel out the stats
from real psychics.

Ok, I hope I can be forgiven for taking the analysis above to indicate
that Bill and my scores are fluctuations in an overall random set of
results. Perhaps somebody else can comment on the shape of the curve
better.

With all the questions they ask before you begin the survey I take it
for granted that they will find some "statistically significant"
correlations for some survey response types with psychic activity. My
understanding of odds says they will even if all is random. What would
then be a REAL test would be to start over again to test that result as
a hypothesis to see if it reproduces on a new set of data. This is what
I see to be sorely lacking in general when I read results from studies
such as this. The "anexoria" result may be another example of this -
combing data for correlations and periodicities without ever starting
over with a new set of data and a falsifiable hypothesis.

My usual apprehension about any kind of web survey holds as well.
Particularly of concern is the fact that people can keep adding as much
data as they want. I expect they would be most likely to leave when
they see their score dropping. Its getting too late at night to think
clearly, I can't decide how that may affect things.

Here's the results as of when I took the test:

person |odds |correct|number of
# |against|number |trials taken
1 92 17 50
2 82 10 25
3 38 16 50
4 38 16 50
5 33 28 100
6 25 9 25
7 25 9 25
8 25 9 25
9 25 9 25
10 25 9 25
11 21 33 125
12 15 15 51
13 11 49 204
14 9 21 80
15 9 8 25
16 9 8 25
17 9 8 25
18 9 8 25
19 9 8 25
20 9 8 25
21 9 8 25
22 9 14 50
23 7 9 30
24 7 8 26
25 7 14 52
26 5 8 28
27 5 13 50
28 5 13 50
29 5 13 50
30 5 12 46
31 4 92 424
32 4 20 83
33 4 66 300
34 4 7 25
35 4 7 25
36 4 7 25
37 4 7 25
38 4 7 25
39 4 7 25
40 4 7 25
41 4 7 25
42 4 7 25
43 4 7 25
44 4 7 5
45 4 7 25
46 4 7 25
47 4 7 25
48 4 7 25
49 4 18 75
50 4 8 30
51 3 70 324
52 3 7 26
53 3 12 50
54 3 12 50
55 3 12 50
56 3 12 50
57 3 8 32
58 3 38 175
59 3 21 94
60 2 22 100
61 2 6 25
62 2 6 25
63 2 6 25
64 2 6 25
65 2 6 25
66 2 6 25
67 2 6 25
68 2 6 25
69 2 6 25
70 2 6 25
71 2 6 25
72 2 6 25
73 2 6 25
74 2 6 25
75 2 6 25
76 2 6 25
77 2 6 25
78 2 6 25
79 2 6 25
80 2 6 25
81 2 6 25
82 2 11 50
83 2 11 50
84 2 11 50
85 2 6 26
86 2 16 75
87 2 21 100
88 2 21 100
89 2 21 100
90 2 6 27
91 2 11 52
92 1 7 33
93 1 6 28
94 1 35 175
95 1 9 44
96 1 10 50
97 1 10 50
98 1 10 50
99 1 10 50
100 1 10 50
101 1 10 50
102 1 10 51
103 1 10 51
104 1 5 25
105 1 5 25
106 1 5 25
107 1 5 25
108 1 5 25
109 1 5 25
110 1 5 25
111 1 5 25
112 1 5 25
113 1 5 5
114 1 5 25
115 1 5 25
116 1 5 25
117 1 5 25
118 1 5 25
119 1 5 25
120 1 5 25
121 1 5 25
122 1 5 25
123 1 5 25
124 1 5 25
125 1 5 25
126 1 5 25
127 1 5 25
128 1 5 25
129 1 5 25
130 1 5 25
131 1 5 26
132 1 5 26
133 1 5 26
134 1 5 26
135 1 5 26
136 1 19 100
137 1 10 53
138 1 9 48
139 1 16 85
140 1 14 75
141 1 5 27
142 1 10 54
143 1 9 49
144 1 14 76
145 1 29 155
146 1 5 28
147 1 5 28
148 1 9 50
149 1 14 78
150 1 49 263
151 1 8 47
152 1 13 75
153 1 13 75
154 1 77 412
155 1 4 25
156 1 4 25
157 1 4 25
158 1 4 25
159 1 4 25
160 1 4 25
161 1 4 25
162 1 4 25
163 1 4 25
164 1 4 25
165 1 4 25
166 1 4 25
167 1 4 25
168 1 4 25
169 1 4 25
170 1 4 25
171 1 4 25
172 1 4 25
173 1 4 25
174 1 4 25
175 1 4 25
176 1 4 25
177 1 4 25
178 1 4 25
179 1 4 25
180 1 9 54
181 1 8 49
182 1 4 26
183 1 4 26
184 1 4 26
185 1 17 100
186 1 71 387
187 1 8 50
188 1 8 50
189 1 4 27
190 1 4 27
191 1 291 1525
192 1 8 52
193 1 12 75
194 1 12 75
195 1 91 500
196 1 4 29
197 1 150 809
198 1 7 50
199 1 7 50
200 1 3 25
201 1 3 25
202 1 3 25
203 1 3 25
204 1 3 25
205 1 3 25
206 1 3 25
207 1 3 25
208 1 3 25
209 1 3 25
210 1 3 25
211 1 3 25
212 1 3 25
213 1 3 25
214 1 3 25
215 1 3 25
216 1 3 25
217 1 3 25
218 1 3 25
219 1 3 25
220 1 3 25
221 1 3 25
222 1 7 51
223 1 15 100
224 1 11 77
225 1 13 89
226 1 6 48
227 1 87 500
228 1 6 50
229 1 6 50
230 1 14 100
231 1 6 51
232 1 3 31
233 1 3 31
234 1 2 25
235 1 2 25
236 1 2 25
237 1 2 25
238 1 2 25
239 1 2 25
240 1 2 25
241 1 2 25
242 1 2 25
243 1 8 75
244 1 1 25
245 1 1 25
246 1 1 25
247 1 1 25
248 1 1 25
249 1 4 57
250 1 0 25


\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\

Doug Craigen
http://www.dctech.com/physics/about_dc.html