Dr Richard Wiseman, who has been active with several experiments online during his career, many which can be found on official website (and busy blog) – now branches into using Twitter. From the UK Telegraph:
In the first scientific experiment to be conducted via the social messaging service, experts will investigate “remote viewing” – the psychic ability to identify distant locations.
Members of the public will be asked to “tweet” their impressions of a randomly chosen spot in the UK visited by one of the researchers.
Okay – let’s consider probability here.
How many people in the UK who could take part, added to how many people world-wide who could take part. Quite a lot of Twitter-ers. How likely that with only three locations right it’s considered ‘support[ing] the existence of extra-sensory perception.’ Good old media-spin aside, it’s a little unlikely that this is really going to be the best sifting of the psychic-abilities. Randomly choose four from the twenty photos that are going to be put up (and notice that it’s in groups of five, so that limits it again).
Probability is 1 in 5 to the power of four. That’s one in six hundred and twenty five that you can get all of them right. Doesn’t look that impressive once you do the math. Consider how many could take part, if this becomes another ‘viral phenomenon’?
All props to Dr Wiseman for getting a good promotional idea out there for getting his site some attention – but I’d be interested in seeing the final number of people who took part in the end… and whether those who got it right said they considered themselves psychic or skeptical.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Notice that they only need 3 right, so the probability is (0.2^4 + 4*0.8*(0.2^3)) = 0.0272, i.e. a bit over 2.7%.
Yes, I noticed that! I was starting to wonder if Wiseman was really quoted right when he said ‘three was good’… so I just took the broader view of ‘okay, why not just straight-forward get all right and what does that mean?’
I mean, this is the guy who WROTE a book called ‘Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants‘, which I have a copy of on my shelf! Colour me confused… :p Mind, as I said previously – it gets some attention for the sites, gets some news articles written… eh. Perhaps there’ll be a revelation at the end of it all that demonstrates a lesson in probability for all those who took part. After all, any internet-venture runs the risk of being ‘Pharyngulated’.
I’m confused. First you have to tweet your impressions, then choose from pics – and that choice determines the experiment. Presumably your choices would have to be resolved against your impressions???
I mean, if you describe a river but choose Trafalgar Square because there’s no river pic to choose from – you failed – didn’t you?
Then Richard says the chance of three right in 1 in 125 and hopes 10,000 will participate. Stats isn’t my strong point but I’m assuming at least 80 people from that 10,000 should get at least three correct guesses.
But now, he says “If the majority of people select the correct target then the trial will count as a hit,…” That’s an interesting test, of something but will surely be dismissed by believers before it starts.
Yes, that’s even more to add to the study, isn’t it? I’m heading out for a bit, but dug out my stats book for a blog post for later on today.
Interestingly, I mentioned a river in my previous comment and, sure enough, the first (test) picture is a river!!!
What do I win?
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