Striking it rich

Skeptics sometimes say that if psychic powers were real, people would use them to win the lottery. The usual rejoinder is that maybe psychic powers just don't work that way. But there's another possible reply: Maybe some people do use psi to win the lottery, and we just haven't noticed.

Although psi seems to be latent in nearly everyone, it appears to be robust in only a few. So we would expect that only a small number of people would be winning the lottery through the exercise of psychic talents. Moreover, it seems that even people with strong psychic abilities are often unaware of how to use them, or even that they are using them. They may feel vaguely that they use their "intuition" or follow a "hunch" or "just feel it in their gut." So we would expect that people who win the lottery via psi might not attribute their winnings to anything other than luck.

Is there any way, then, to distinguish genuine chance from psi, as far as the lottery is concerned? There might be. If a small group of people could repeatedly beat the odds, winning big prizes again and again, it might signal that something more than chance is involved.

Guess what? There are such people. Here's a news story about two of them.

One of the repeat winners is Joan Ginther, who won the lottery jackpot four times - in 1993, 2006, 2008, and 2010. The odds of winning were never better than 1 in 900,000 and ran as low as 1 in 15.8 million for the 1993 ticket. She's raked in a total of $20.4 million so far. She now lives in Las Vegas (one wonders how her "luck" holds up in the casinos) but, according to another article, won her prizes in Texas while living at a remote ranch where she carefully guarded her privacy. The second article says that she has a degree in math and was known to buy a lot of tickets, implying that she used some kind of system. Maybe she did, but if it generated four jackpot wins, it must have been one heck of a system.

Then there's a Canadian man, Segura Ndabene, who has won five jackpots in five years. CBS News provides more details. Since 2004, Ndabene has won the following prizes: $1 million, $100,000, $1 million, $50,000, and now $17 million. Total: $19.5 million.

Philadelphia Inquirer article lists a number of repeat winners and tries to explain it all in terms of chance. I agree that chance can explain cases where the same person wins twice, especially if one of the two prizes is relatively small. For instance, the Inquirer article mentions a North Carolina man who won $10,000 one year and $3 million the next. Well, sure, that could be pure chance.

But when the same person wins three or four times or more - garnering major prize money each time - this explanation starts to look a bit strained.

The Inquirer also notes archly that one man, who won $81,000 on three separate picks, attributed his success to guidance from the spirit of his dead wife. Clearly the article's author thinks little of this explanation, but maybe this kind of statement hints at a genuine psychic component to the winner's unusual "luck." More on this particular winner, who played the lottery for years but only started winning the year after his wife died, is found here.

Could psi be involved in some of these cases? Or do some people actually have a system rooted in mathematics that allows them to pick winning numbers? Or does it really come down to that all-purpose explanation, random chance?

I don't know. Neither does anyone else. Which is why I don't think much of the argument that psi can't exist because it's never been used to win the lottery. For all we know, it has indeed been used that way by a gifted few.

Comments

[Art]

One time I went to a dinner meeting at a Chinese restaurant in Knoxville, TN with my wife. There were a group of her Tai-Chi friends there and they were giving out door prizes. We were given tickets with numbers on them when we first entered the restaurant and towards the end they were dipping into a hat and calling out numbers. The first time they dipped into the hat, right before they called out the number, I got a strong feeling that I had won. It was like I "knew" that I had won. I almost called out before they read out the winning number. It was for two free dinners at that particular chinese restaurant. And yes, I really had one. What is interesting is that a year or so later my wife told me the same thing happened to her. She was at some meeting with door prizes and she knew a second or two before hand that she had won. It is like a very strong feeling comes over you - but the problem is that for me I am only given a few seconds warning when it happens - and I have absolutely no control over it. It happens when it happens and I am not in control of it. I wish I could control it but I can't.

[Aftrbrnr]

I think there seems to be a confusion between PSI and omnipotence, and some people are expecting the latter. As Michael says, there appears to be varying degrees of abilities in terms of PSI abilities. I remember hearing that in a debate, Michael Shremer tried to dismiss verdicial NDEs by saying if they were real, how come we don't know where Jimmy Hoffa's body is? And I think that's the point, NDE experiencers who have had OBE components are not omnipotent, they didn't see everything in the entire world but usually a specific area for a short time period.

I think some of you may see what I'm getting at, but maybe Michael is right in that there maybe some use of PSI in lotteries but either the person was unaware of it or the person just isn't advertising it.

[Art]

I've had quite a few precognitive dreams, probably due to sleep apnea. The problem is that I can't control them. They happen when they happen and I don't really know it's a precognitive dream until after the fact. Sometimes they are just mundane innane stuff and sometimes they are like really "WOW!" dreams - but I don't even know I've had a precognitive dream until I see something that reminds me "Oh yeah, I dreamed about that a couple of nights ago." Sometimes I'll wake up and say something to my wife like "I had the weirdest dream last night, I dreamed about these giant swordfish" and then a couple of nights later I'll be watching the movie "The Perfect Storm" on TV and they will be catching these giant swordfish that look exactly like the ones I saw in my dream. Precognitive? I don't know? And it happens when it happens and I have absolutely no control over it.

[Bryan.A]

Psi is just a fancy word with multiple possibilities.

Seeying the future as some people claim to do in dreams or precognition by mediums is done by a person being an intermediary for spirits of the light.

Be it inspiration or trance, people might get cocky thinking they have the skills themselves when it's actually in the hand of a higher spirit.

Why do spirits focus on solving murders or convincing loved ones of the reality of a life after death instead of winning the lottery?

Well,materialism is a big no no for any spirit that has progressed enough in the afterlife.Inspiring mediums to get money is actually detrimental for their progress as there needs to be a harmony between a medium and a spirit for contact to stay fluid as is and spirits from dark spheres to stay as far as possible of a possible medium.

Above explains why so many of the supposed best mediums are poor or haven't asked a cent for their services,it's to avoid any temptation which money brings and instead get something of real value,light.

Spirits from the dark spheres also have limited potential besides possesion/poltergeist or what not compared to higher evolved spirits who can make much more possible including winning the lottery,if even 10 times over because seeying a possible future is within their grasp.

Above explains why this is so unlikely to happen as regularly as other topics come into play.

[michael duggan]

Not too impressed. With the huge number of people who consistently play the lottery YOU WILL get a number who are multiple winners. What would be impressive is if those few individuals who are identified as "lucky" go on to win more, then I will pay attention.

[Michael Prescott]

"What would be impressive is if those few individuals who are identified as 'lucky' go on to win more, then I will pay attention."

Hasn't that already happened? I mean, Joan Ginther must have seemed pretty lucky after she won two jackpots, and she went on to win two more. Segura Ndabene must have seemed lucky after his first two or three wins, and he's now won five times.

[Vitor]

Hi, Michael

in the article "PURPORTED SPONTANEOUS PSI PHENOMENA, PSYCHOTHERAPY AND TRANSFERENCE AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYSTEM OF INTEGRATED FACTORS" the researcher, Andre Percia de Carvalho, mentions the case of Janaina, who said to him the right number to win the lottery, but "My session with Jana occurred at 8 am, the draw took place at ten o'clock and I only learned of the result at 12:30 the same day."

[Bruce Siegel]

"Not too impressed. With the huge number of people who consistently play the lottery YOU WILL get a number who are multiple winners."

I hear what you're saying, Michael D, but I trust this phenomenon because I've read a number of accounts over the years in which people describe vivid dreams that showed them what horse to pick, or what lottery numbers to choose.

Since I've had many compelling precognitive dreams myself, I can't brush those stories aside.

[RabbitDawg]

When all else fails, go check it out at Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/luck/lottery/dreamwin.asp

[Michael Prescott]

Interesting, RabbitDawg. Thanks.

[Bruce Siegel]

RabbitDawg, MP's right, that article IS interesting, and certainly relevant to my point about the precognitive dream connection. But this part leaves me baffled:

"You see, Mary had already purchased a lottery ticket with the combination she later dreamed about, but her vision instilled her with such confidence that she went out and bought a second ticket with those same numbers."

So how the heck did she come with the winning numbers the first time? Seems to me an important part of that story is missing.

[Aftrbrnr]

Weird Rabbitdawg, I clicked on that Snopes link with the expectation that such things was a hoax, I actually jumped a little when Snopes said it was true. Of course, that doesn't prove anything, as Michael said, winning twice could be easily passed as a coincidence, but more than that is harder to explain away.

[Aftrbrnr]

I also think there is a serious issue if PSI is essentially omnipotent. Imagine if psychics could predict who would win the American presidency every four years, what day everyone on the planet was going to die, or pretty much predict the action of every living being here. I'm not arguing for or against the existence of free will, but let's imagine some scenarios: let's imagine PSI was proven and accurate. Imagine a psychic told you your were going to be a serial killer and kill 16 (random arbitrary number I came up with) in your life. Given in that scenario PSI is proven to be known and accurate, you can only watch in horror as you essentially have no will over the 16 people you'll eventually kill.

Or even if you were a good person of good nature, what if a a psychic told you would one day seriously injure or kill your spouse out of a fit of anger? (Again, this assumes PSI is always accurate)

Or on the topic of death, let's take the accurate psychic scenario again and say PSI was shown to you that you only had two years left to live. Would it be something that you would accept or would it trouble you for the remainder of your life? I guess it really depends on the person, but I am willing to guess if PSI was to show your life expectancy was a lot shorter than you expected it to be, it would be something that would trouble a lot of people.

The only way I could see this being resolved is a "Minority Report" scenario where PSI rather predicts possible outcomes rather than what will exactly happen in the future. Of course, this raises a whole new set a questions about PSI if this was true.

So I think in conclusion, if PSI was like an omnipotent power it would ultimately be more of a curse than good in my opinion anyways. It would be like someone explaining to you the details of the plot and ending of an extremely long movie you have to sit through with no choice, I think it would make some people feel helpless.

[michael duggan]

I wonder if any controlled research with multiple winners has been done? Do they perform better in standardised psi tests, and are they generally lucky / precognitive in other areas? Ideally a cohort of these lucky few could be monitored (and the number of tickets bought checked) to see if they are really special or just the few that probabilty theory predicts.

[Roger Knights]

OT (posted here because the Kindle vs. iPad thread is closed):

Holy cow, check out this site full of insightful commentary on the Kindle and other ereaders. (I clicked on Firefox's Readability plug-in and printed out the whole shebang.)

http://ireaderreview.com/

[Roger Knights]

Scott Adams described many weird coincidence of this sort in pages 228-30 his book, The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Business Stupidity in the 21st Century, including a family that consciously won lotteries, etc., whenever it was hard up for cash. Here's a link to a "Look Inside the Book" view of those pages.

He also proposed a very "alternative" way of looking at reality in the pages on that Look Inside that precede and follow 228-30 in the "Look Inside" above. Used copies are only a penny.

[Matthew_X]

I would even go as far to say that it would be more likely to be able to use PSI to win the lottary than to beable to develope a system to actually win the lottary. Perhaps some numbers might come up more often for some strang reason but to know which numbers will come up when... I seriously doubt it.
Some system might have a pattern but there pattern is beyond our comprehension or it is not a pattern at all, it is truely random. I learned about this when I was 20 and read Chaos Theory by James Glieck. The movie Pi well illustrates this phenomena as well...

This is an awesome post.

Now I want to know if Monozygotic Twins (genetically identical twins) have more PSI ability between them! I bet some of the similarities between Twins Reared Apart is because of PSI and not genetics!

[RabbitDawg]

Bruce, good point, but I believe the confusion has more to do with poor sentence and paragraph structure than fact dodging. I checked further, and found this link to the Ontario Lottery website post concerning Ms. Wollens:

http://www.lotterycanada.com/lottery/?job=lottery_news_oct_2006

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a better phrased, clearer version of her story.
Apparently she dreamed the numbers first, and bought a ticket on Thursday. She felt so strongly about the veracity of the numbers, that she bought another ticket the next day. In a way, the strength of her conviction is the second half of the story here, but then...

***********************************************************

October 6th, 2006

* Lottery officials do double-take on Ontario senior's repeat Lotto win

With luck like hers, Mary Wollens should buy a lottery ticket -- or two.

In what's being described as an unprecedented win in Lotto 6/49 history, 86-year-old Wollens held two of three winning tickets in the Sept. 30 draw, scoring her a windfall of $16 million.

The Etobicoke woman credited a dream for the win, saying she saw the winning numbers in her sleep.

"I was lying in bed and I had a dream about numbers so I wrote them down when I woke up," she said.

Wollens felt so confident she bought a second ticket playing the same numbers.

"I bought my ticket on Thursday, felt really good about the numbers so I played them again on Friday ... guess it paid off," she said.

The other winning ticket was sold in B.C.

Wollens plans to splurge on herself, beginning with a haircut and a new wardrobe.

"It has been a while since I treated myself, so now is as good a time as any."

Source: Calgary Sun

[Bruce Siegel]

Thanks for clearing that up, RabbitDawg! It's such a great story.

[Art]

The important thing to remember is that when these things happen to people it is NOT under their control. They can't make themselves dream to win the Powerball or Megamillions jackpot. It just happens spontaneously without any input from themselves. You just wake up and realize that you have experienced something very profound and mystical. As to where it originates from - we can only speculate. I am convinced though that it happens and it is "real."

But I reiterate - it is not something one can do on command. It happens when it happens and it is what it is.

[MatthewX78]

Art -

Maybe its a bit more dynamic than that.... Maybe sometimes a person can be really good at it and sometimes there not as good, maybe the degree of ability has variance not constancy. If someone has a higher than normal PSI ability than they could still use it to win the lottery if they played consistently. However, there are sometimes these mystical experiences which provide profound insight.

[Art]

Whenever I've had mystical or transcendental experiences they happened on their own; I didn't cause them to happen. I can't control it. That is one of the complaints I have with the million dollar Randi prize - my experience has been that it's not like a science experiment that one can reproduce on command. I am somewhat skeptical of people who try and make money off it and say they can control it. That hasn't been my experience.

[MatthewX78]

Art

I agree with everything you said there Art. The most amazing of my mystical experiences I have had between long intervals and they sometimes happened when I least expected them. I suppose that I am just saying that there are people who have a consistent gift and they could probably use it to help there winnings.

Instead of challenging what your saying I think I am adding to it. That highly mystical experiences happen, usually out of our control. But also that some people have heightened extraordinary sense compared to others.

The last thing I want to do is challenge someone else on the same team especially if I at least mostly agree with that they are saying. You make a vital point regarding the nature of mystical experiences.

[Harley]

The fact that someone, somewhere, has multiple wins in a lottery is just not impressive, nor is it necessary to infer some psychic ability at work. Coincidences happen all the time and there is nothing special going on.

What would make these coincidences special would be if the winners had predicted the specific wins (and publicised it) before they had actually won. It is likely that someone will win the next lottery draw here in the UK; now, is there any psychic who is going to tell us who it is BEFORE the draw? I don’t think so. Do THAT four or five times, and I will be convinced. If you are going to claim that someone has won due to some psychic ability they don’t even know they have, then that is an extraordinary claim – please supply the equivalent evidence.

But asking a psychic to predict the lottery is a cliché. When I occasionally meet someone who claims to be psychic, I tend to ask slightly different questions – has Albert Einstein finally formulated a theory of everything, and what is it; or can you explain Fermat’s last theorem; or what is the cure for cancer; or what fundamental physical forces have yet to be discovered by we mere mortals; or how can the existence of the paranormal be proven beyond any doubt? I suppose you won’t be surprised that they tell me “psychic powers just don't work that way.” (And a “psychic” I know is one of the worst players I have ever come across in the local pub quiz)

About three years ago at a social club I belong to I won the BIG BIG cash draw prize three weeks in a row. (Big money) But I won nothing for the next three years until just last week when I won the consolation prize of ten pounds. Personally, I think those three wins were just coincidence, but if your argument is correct then I must be psychic! In reality, I make a conscious prediction each week that I will NOT win that night’s prize. And it turns out that I am right about 99.9% of the time. Do I qualify as being psychic?

No-one who has any training in probability theory is going to be amazed by these coincidences. Now, can we list all the people who have had a prophetic lottery dream and then gone on to lose their money?

[Michael Prescott]

"If you are going to claim that someone has won due to some psychic ability they don’t even know they have, then that is an extraordinary claim – please supply the equivalent evidence."

Two quick points: 1, I'm not insisting on this explanation, only raising it as a possibility; and 2, it doesn't seem like an extraordinary claim to me, since I'm already convinced, on the basis of other evidence, that psi is a real phenomenon.

[Roger Knights]

Harley said:

"The fact that someone, somewhere, has multiple wins in a lottery is just not impressive, nor is it necessary to infer some psychic ability at work. Coincidences happen all the time and there is nothing special going on."

It actually may be impressive, depending on what statisticians work out to be the likelihood of such multiple wins from the universe of worldwide lotteries.

[Sardondi]

Someone who attributes multiple winning-number picks to psychic ability certainly might want to remain unknown.

Why? They'd likely be concerned about a well-financed abduction of family members for ransom. The fact we don't hear about such doesn't mean they haven't happened. If I banked, say, $200M, surely there would be any number of thugs fantasizing about how easy it would be to take my wife or child for a massive ransom. Worse, the true bad guys - Mafia, domestic or international drug gangs, or even terrorist organizations - might look at me, and decide that before I'd had a chance to do substantial security upgrades, I was a very big, soft target. Seems to me there's a not insignificant chance such a group could snatch me or a family member, and demand I start laying golden Lotto predictions, pronto.

I suspect most persons with psychic ability already suspect this, because they've likely been imposed on for "psi favors". Surely they would know how important to their sanity & security it would be to keep multiple wins quiet.

So I think it's likely psi-winners are out there, but we just don't know where because they don't want us to know. Or is it that, as my wife has only half-jokingly accused, a lifetime as a professionally suspicious SOB has left a permanent warp in my weltanschauung?

[a]

Also, if people can manipulate the lottery psychically - even if only slightly - then multiple people may be competing with each other for the same thing, and as a result, there may be a canceling out of the effects.

[Art]

"What would make these coincidences special would be if the winners had predicted the specific wins (and publicised it) before they had actually won. It is likely that someone will win the next lottery draw here in the UK; now, is there any psychic who is going to tell us who it is BEFORE the draw? I don’t think so. Do THAT four or five times, and I will be convinced. If you are going to claim that someone has won due to some psychic ability they don’t even know they have, then that is an extraordinary claim – please supply the equivalent evidence." - Harley
--------------------------------------------

LOL! It doesn't work like that. It's more like a powerful "feeling" that you "know" you are going to win. Almost like a Kundalini experience. You get this profound feeling (it feels really good by the way) that makes you smile, and you just know that something amazing has happened. It's not like being a trained seal that can perform on command.

Here's a "for instance." One time my wife's Tai Chi group was celebrating the Chinese New Year at a local Chinese restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee. We were all together in one big group and they were giving out door prizes. They had given us these little coupons with numbers on them and at the end of the meal they were reaching into a bowl (or a hat can't remember) and pulling out the corresponding coupon and reading off the number. When they were giving away two free meals at that same Chinese Restaurant before they read off the number I KNEW I had won and that they were going to read off my number. It was like a real strong feeling - before they even read the number. I almost blurted out before they'd even read the number "I have the winning ticket!" but I remember it was like this really good feeling; probably similar to a Kundalini experience that I'd read about before.

A few other times in my life when I've bought Powerball tickets I've known a second or two ahead of time - before I'd even gone on the computer to check my numbers - that I'd won a few bucks, like I had the powerball or three of the first five balls and I'd won a few bucks. I remember it put a smile on my face. It's really neat when it happens, but it only happens a few seconds before I actually look up the number. It's like I "KNOW" before hand that I've won something - even if it's only getting the powerball right and winning back my $3.00 I'd spent in the first place.

But I guess if you've never experienced anything similar you wouldn't understand. All we can hope is that one day you will. It's really neat when it happens.

[Art]

This fits right in with what we've been talking about. It's like someone whispered the answer in her ear. And after you see it becomes so obvious.

"I've got a good feeling about this: Gameshow contestant stuns audience by solving seven-word Wheel Of Fortune puzzle with just ONE letter"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327672/Contestant-Caitlin-Burke-solves-Wheel-Fortune-puzzle-1-letter.html#ixzz14hbeZTD3

[Michael Prescott]

That Wheel of Fortune video is fun, but I think the answer was guessable, given the apostrophe in the first word. As at least two commenters on the linked site pointed out, once you've guessed that the first word is "I've," the rest falls into place - or at least it *could* fall into place, if you're good at seeing patterns.

[Art]

Albert Einstein once said: "There are two ways of looking at the world — either you see nothing as a miracle or you see everything as a miracle." ...
www.jewishmag.com/97mag/.../davidaaron.htm

I'm more of a "everything is a miracle" sort of guy.

[Chris]

Michael Duggan:

"With the huge number of people who consistently play the lottery YOU WILL get a number who are multiple winners."

Harley:

"No-one who has any training in probability theory is going to be amazed by these coincidences."

These commentators are raising the right question. Are there more Joan Ginthers out there than we would expect by chance, or not?

The first problem is that the news stories about these cases don't ever seem give enough information to calculate the odds in a rigorous way. If Joan Ginther had won four consecutive lotteries, each at an odds of 1 million to one, by buying one ticket for each, the total probability would be (according to my calculations) 1 in 10^24. In other words, it's something you would never expect to happen by chance.

In reality, of course, she won the jackpots over a 17-year period, and she likely plays several lotteries a week and possibly buys many tickets per lottery. My grasp of combinations and permutations has faded since high school, but clearly the real probability is far above 1 in 10^24.

How far above? How high do we have to raise to probability in order to dismiss Joan Ginther as a mere coincidence (keeping in mind that Joan Ginther is not a unique case)? Let me speculate. How many North Americans are enthusiastic lottery players as we assume Joan Ginther is? Say, 10 million (10^7), tops? So, if we were to calculate Joan Ginther's true probability at 1 in 10^10, one might say, "OK, there's a 1 in 1000 chance that this happened by sheer coincidence. That, to me, is a more likely explanation than the existence of psychic powers." But at some point (say, 1 in 10^11) even a hardened skeptic would have to concede the case for some psychic phenomenon.

Now, there's a big gap between 1 in 10^10 and 1 in 10^24. How much of this can we bridge using reasonable estimates of Ms. Ginther's ticket-buying habits? That's the question posed by Harley and Michael Duggan. The answer isn't obvious, to me, anyway. Anyone up on their combinations and permutations math?

This is an interesting blog by the way. I think this is my second comment over a couple of years reading it.

[sbu]

You can use the binomial distribution (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BinomialDistribution.html) to approximate the correct distribution for the Joan Ginther case. The probability for winning 4 lotteries (with an 1 to a million odds) in a lifetime out of thousands attempts is with this simple model 4.13758938095493E-14.

[sbu]

...and the probability for a "Joan Ginther" among 300000000 million americans playing a 1000 lotteries each is approx. 0,00126%

[Chris]

Thanks for the stats, sbu. So, on the first analysis, it looks like Joan Ginther-type cases are far more common than they ought to be assuming completely random lottery results.

Interesting.

[realpc]

It's interesting, and it can't be just chance. I don't think people say "I am going to use my psychic abilities to win the lottery." I don't think you can do this by conscious effort. But a person who tends to be psychically sensitive may have some very accurate hunches.

This is a very good answer to the "skeptics" who wonder why psychics aren't winning the lottery. Well maybe they are. And maybe there are lots of other things where psychic abilities give you an edge. Maybe everything.

Another interesting question might be whether successful people in general are more psychic.

And by the way, some recent research http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-thinker/201010/have-scientists-finally-discovered-evidence-psychic-phenomena seems to confirm precognition in ordinary people.

So if precognitive abilities really exist, then maybe these multiple lottery winners have better than average precognition.

[Roger Knights]

"Another interesting question might be whether successful people in general are more psychic."

There was a book touting the business-practicality of intuition by the president of a Kansas-based railway about 100 years ago. Intuition told him to terminate his railway in Port Arthur, not Galveston, where he'd already been building lines. He overrode his engineers and avoided huge damages when the Galveston hurricane hit. There was an article about him in Fate about five (?) years ago.

[elwarzio]

Recently, here in Portugal, the same store sold two first-prize Euromillion tickets to two different persons on the same week.

Chances of winning first prize are 1 in aproximately 72 million for the Euromillions lottery.

Chances of there being two winners in the same week who bought the ticket in the same place?

Just to say, it happens... I think its called very large numbers theory or something of the sort.

Implications are also quite interesting.

For instance, in an infinite universe there will be a number of "copies" of each and every living being, if for no other reason because while infinitesimal, chances for equal evolution are not zero (as can be determined from the simple fact that we exist) and since they are not zero, in an infinite universe they happen an infinite number of times. Same is true if the universe is somehow finite, but there are infinite multiverses.

It is mind boggling, and I certainly like your explanation better and find it more plausible, but it's not the only one.

[Bruce Siegel]

"For instance, in an infinite universe there will be a number of "copies" of each and every living being . . ."

Actually, if you buy that logic, wouldn't there have to be an infinite number of copies, since there is literally no end (that's what infinite means, after all) to the potential for replication?

[Harley]

The problem here is that those who believe in the paranormal work things out the wrong way around:

Premise: someone has won the lottery five times.

Conclusion: it is paranormal (psychic ability or synchronicity, etc...)

But that is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.

Given enough tries, someone, somewhere, will have these coincidental wins. When something startling like multiple lottery wins happen, it is always after the event that the psychic claims are made.

Probability theory predicts that there will be clusters of people who will have phenomenally lucky multiple wins in a lottery, in just the same way it predicts that there will be people who will never have a significant win as long as they live, however many tickets they buy for each draw. Do we therefore assume that someone who loses their life savings on the lottery is also experiencing something psychic? What probability theory does not predict are the names and/or addresses of those people, nor any other personal details about them. It is the psychics who claim to be able to do that (but they do so only after the event).

I wonder what we should make of the small number of people who have survived multiple lightning strikes? A handful of them have survived up to – I think the record is – eight, or thereabouts. The probability of being struck by lightning is very small (a bit like winning the lottery, but in reverse, if you see what I mean), but those cases are confirmed without anyone suggesting anything paranormal is going on (or do they?). If anything psychic is happening, then evidence is needed. It is just not good enough to say that because coincidences have happened then a paranormal explanation is necessary. The law of large numbers and a statistical analysis is adequate to explain it, unless someone can give a definitive (and testable) method of determining what is or is not paranormal in these circumstances.

I am a sceptic, of course, but my opinion can be changed if a multiple lottery winner can be identified before the event rather than speculation after the event. And can anyone tell me how to tell when a coincidence is, in fact, just a coincidence rather than paranormal?

Just a final note: no-one has a system rooted in mathematics for picking winning numbers. If it were possible, then it would be mathematicians winning. But they don’t – just the same as psychics. A game of chance really is just a game of chance.

[Chris]

Harley: "Given enough tries, someone, somewhere, will have these coincidental wins."

This is easy to say, but, really, you need to do the math.

In an earlier comment, sbu calculated that if 300 million Americans played the lottery 1000 times at a-million-to-one odds, the chances of ANYONE winning four jackpots was slightly greater than one in 100,000.

Now, maybe his/her calculations (or premises) are wrong - but that's the point you need to address. Mere hand-waving about probabilities is not persuasive.

[Michael Prescott]

"In an earlier comment, sbu calculated that if 300 million Americans played the lottery 1000 times at a-million-to-one odds, the chances of ANYONE winning four jackpots was slightly greater than one in 100,000."

Which, if I understand it correctly, means that this scenario (300 million people playing 1000 times at million-to-one odds) would have to be repeated 100,000 times in order to generate a four-time winner. That's 1000 plays X 100,000 iterations, or 100,000,000 total plays per person. Or have I misunderstood the principle?

This issue reminds me of an origin-of-life argument that used to be made - namely, that given enough time, it is statistically inevitable that all the constituents of a living cell would come together by chance. The argument sounded good until statisticians actually crunched the numbers. They found that there would not be enough time in the whole history of the universe (let alone the much shorter lifespan of the Earth) for this to happen. In fact, there wouldn't be enough time to create even a single protein. At first, the calculations were disputed, but eventually they were accepted. Today no one argues that the first cell could have come together by chance alone, which is why theories of "self-organizing systems" and similar ideas are being bruited about (though these theories have not solved the problem either).

In general, I think "believers" in the paranormal tend to underestimate the role of chance, but skeptics tend to overestimate it. Just my two cents, or to put it in the only math terms I can fathom: $0.02.

[Kris]

Oh charming Harley is around here now. I would advice everyone to go to paranormalia and read almost every blog just to see Harley get skinned again and again. He will misqoute you, attack you for arguments you never made and in general he enjoys the fallacy of the excluded middle.

[Harley]

Chris – I’m not merely “hand-waving” about probabilities; I had to spend three years at university learning and applying statistical analysis (which is really just probability theory put to practical use).

Yes, I can do the math, but I am not here to try to give math lessons. The reason I commented is not because I want to argue a point about the improbability or otherwise of coincidences; rather, I would like someone to give me a persuasive reason to think that a coincidence is anything more than just that. I mentioned the fact that some people have suffered multiple lightning strikes - which is as unlikely as multiple lottery wins – and I would be interested to know whether the same argument from improbability holds in that case too. What, exactly, is it about something improbable happening that implies psychic intervention?

Michael – your point about origin of life arguments is a different issue, I think. It is a staple of creationists who would like to dismiss evolution, but they are using a straw man argument – evolution is a theory about how organisms change over time, and has nothing to do with how the first life originated. But I agree with what you seem to be getting at – even a single cell will not come together by pure chance – there are many other factors involved.

Your last paragraph is interesting, and I am sure that “believers” do, indeed, underestimate the role of chance. But I disagree that skeptics (I’ll change here to the American spelling) overestimate it. I am a skeptic, and I have had a formal education that included the use of chance calculations. What I can say is that if, in the exams I had to take, I overestimated the role of chance, then I would have failed those exams.

But as I said earlier, I am not so much interested in calculating the exact probability of someone winning the lottery multiple times (or being struck by lightning just as often), but what it is that makes the difference between something being a coincidence and a similar event being put down to psychic intervention. It’s easy to make the claim, but the claim really has to be justified in a way that can be tested.

By the way, I don’t mind if anyone can prove the existence of the paranormal. If it is true, then it would become a scientific fact the same as any other. I think it would be pretty good to have a whole new branch of science opened up for study.

Kris – I’m not psychic (just like everyone else) but I just knew you would be here to poison the well. I’ve commented here because, like Robert McLuhan’s blog, there seem to be people here who can make a sensible contribution to the ongoing debate about the existence or otherwise of the paranormal. By all means, let everyone go over to Paranormalia: they will see you attack me in the same way you have managed to do in a single brief paragraph, but as usual without a single example or reference to support your claims. Personal attacks are not the same as evidence.

[no one]

Harley, "........then it would become a scientific fact the same as any other"

Funny. Much of what you would call accepted scientific fact is based not on some ultimate objective determination, but on probabilities that are actually not as small as those involved in the multiple lottery winners' situations.

Multiple lightening strikes may not be due to mere coincidence. How can you reasonably state that it is? There may be some physical as well as behavioral factors involved. Who knows, could even be a psi component.

[Michael Prescott]

"your point about origin of life arguments is a different issue, I think."

What I was getting at is that sometimes people assume that very unlikely outcomes become plausible given enough time and opportunities - but when the numbers are crunched, it turns out that these outcomes are statistically impossible.

Whether or not this is true of someone who's won four jackpots, I have no idea. Only sbu has done any actual number-crunching on this thread. If I understand him correctly (which I may not), it would appear that pure chance isn't a satisfactory explanation ...

[sbu]

The intention with my calculation was indeed to show that winning four jackpots is unlikely to happen by chance. To cite the article:

What are the total odds for four multi-million-dollar payoffs? Michael Starbird, a University of Texas at Austin math professor who has written a book on coincidence and other mathematical quirks, calculates the odds of a four-time winner to come up with this answer: "It's pretty astronomical...She should quit, incidentally."

[Kris]

And this is a perfect example of Harley screwing up, again.

It is not poisoning the well to factual report about you. Once again you do not get basic logical fallacies.

You misrepresent peoples arguments, you did that to about everyone who commented on paranormalia.

You will accuse people of misbehavior , for example when you accuse me of misqouting Wiseman and then you literally supplied the exact same quote. You said I used Radin's argument in support of my views and when I challenged you for evidence of this you refused to give it. I am sure Paul and The Major would have similar stories of your antics.

Seriously folks go to paranormalia and simply see Harley in action. He is a complete utter troll.

[Roger Knights]

State lottery departments could perform studies (perhaps spurred by a grant) to locate multiple winners and quiz them on their purchasing frequency. This would give some idea of how outlandish their outliers are.

But not entirely, because residents move so much among states that many multiple winners would not show up as such on any one state's records. There should be a study, once one-shot intrastate winners' names have been determined, to see if they've been winners in another state.

Then we'd have adequate data to get a good ballpark figure on this possible anomaly.

[Harley]

no one – like everyone else, I talk about “scientific facts.” Perhaps I was too glib, but it depends on how precise you want the terminology to be.

You are right, though: all science is based on probability, it’s just that some things are more probable than others; in fact there are some things (gravity, say) that are so consistently reliable that it would be perverse to lose sleep over the possibility that it might fail and we would find ourselves floating into space tomorrow.

Lightning strikes may, indeed, have another component, but psi is unlikely. A documentary I saw recently featured an Oklahoma farm worker who had been struck six times in the last thirty years. But because he works outdoors in all weathers, he is, by the very nature of his job, exposed to a greater risk of lightning strikes than the rest of us, particularly because Oklahoma suffers about a million lightning strikes per year. There are a number of factors that can skew the probabilities.

Michael – I am wondering what you mean by “statistically impossible” If a probability can be calculated, then you have a figure that states a probability, however remote it might be. If I tell you that an event has a probability of one in ten to the power of sixty eight, would you tell me that that event will never happen? (That is a mind-bogglingly large number, by the way.)

In fact, if you deal a full pack of well-shuffled playing cards (all of them, one by one), there are almost 10^68 possible combinations that could be dealt. Is anyone prepared to say that any combination dealt to them could not have happened? My point, again, is that if a psychic can predict such a hand in advance, then I will accept that precognition is real.

It is pointless to try to do any number crunching with regard to the person who won the lottery five times; there is not enough information available. The farm worker I mentioned earlier was increasing his chances of being hit just by virtue of the fact that his job puts him at higher risk anyway, in a state that has probably the highest rate of lightning strikes. If someone (and it happens) spends every spare money they have buying lottery tickets, then that person has a better chance of winning than someone who buys one ticket once or twice a year just on a whim. But suppose a lottery winner can now afford to buy hundreds of tickets at a time, which increases his or her chances of a further win. And if it happens, then that person might start buying tickets by the thousands or even tens of thousands. We just don’t know what has happened in those individual cases. It isn’t too difficult to work out “static” probabilities, but all variables have to be accounted for before one can have the confidence to say that a certain outcome is more likely to be due to psychic intervention than just pure dumb luck.

I think that if the lottery operators have any qualms about someone winning several times, they are more likely to suspect a glitch in the system or even the possibility of outright fraud before they go for the psychic hypothesis.

sbu – As you say, “The intention with my calculation was indeed to show that winning four jackpots is unlikely to happen by chance.”

I would put it another way: a genuine psychic who predicts the winning numbers in a lottery is unlikely to do so by chance. But I maintain that when anyone wins the lottery (even multiple times) it is the fact of prediction BEFORE the event that would make the difference, and convince me that there is something psychic going on.

Roger Knights – I alluded to your comment earlier, and I agree: without the full facts and information, which is unlikely to be discovered, the exact probabilities cannot be calculated.

Kris – I respect Paul and The Major. They are two commenters who have had something sensible to contribute to this ongoing debate about the paranormal, even though they and I disagree – sometimes strongly. Perhaps, like you, they dislike me for daring to disagree with them, but they have had the good manners not to make personal attacks against me, and nor have I made personal attacks against them, or anyone else. If you think that insults are a valid substitute for rational argument then you make yourself into a caricature of the woo proponents so beloved of those skeptics who are rather less charitable than me. And will you stop blathering on about “the law of the excluded middle?” It is a term that tends to be used in formal academic texts; if you mean a false dichotomy, just say it. There are educated people who regard those who use big words they don’t understand as intellectually stunted poseurs. And you wouldn’t want that.

[Kris]

Harley

I for one hope you act much more seriously on here then you did on paranormalia. However, from what I am reading I doubt you will do that. I am already seeing the pettiness that tends to be typical of your arguments. For example it does not matter if I call it the excluded middle or a false dichotomy, it is the same thing. Your attempt to critique me on that is typical of your style, attack everything but the point of your opposition. You use red herrings to attempt to distract from serious discussion. That is why I call you a troll.

I have on numerous occasions pointed out your poor knowledge of what you seek to critique and your blatant fallacies , your favorite by far being the excluded middle ( I see no need to pander to you by calling it a false dichotomy), but certainly it is not your only fallacy of choice. (special pleading is certainly another one you like)

Seriously everyone in here I am putting the troll alert on Harley. Go to paranormalia and read the following posts and see Harley's behavior.

'Horizon' on dogs

Dawkins on Haiti

Infinity

The Twin Thing

If you read his responses to myself, the Major and Paul you will see a man who deliberately misrepresents people to make a point.

[Michael Prescott]

"Michael – I am wondering what you mean by 'statistically impossible'"

Consider a fairly well-known calculation made by information theorist Hubert Yockey. He determined that, given a quantity of 10 to the power of 44 amino acids combining and recombining in solution, it would take 10 to the power of 23 years to produce (by chance) a particular protein, cytochrome C, which is one of the building blocks of a cell. Since the universe is believed to be only 14 billion years old (one trillionth of the time period required), there would not be enough time in all of history to produce this protein by chance. And since a cell requires many proteins, the origin of a cell by chance becomes so unlikely as to be, for all practical purposes, impossible.

Of course, it's possible to challenge Yockey's assumptions. For instance, there may be other paths to a protein that would be functionally equivalent to cytochrome C. This web page makes that argument:

tiny.cc/5pd0b

Regardless of the merits of Yockey's conclusion, the point is that some events are so extraordinarily unlikely to occur by chance that chance is effectively ruled out. I would say these events are "statistically impossible" (by chance).

Whether or not this is true of multiple lottery winners, I have no idea.

[Art]

Ya'll's banter about biochemistry reminds me of this quote by James Jeans,

"Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties."

I'm an "everything is a miracle" kind of guy.

[Harley]

Michael – I’m not an evolutionary biologist, nor am I familiar with Hubert Yockey, but I don’t actually disagree with what you report he says. And there is also the standard tornado-in-a-junkyard-creating-a-jumbo-jet argument. Even if the junkyard contained only standard parts for a 747 rather than assorted rusting cars and trucks, I don’t think there is a reasonable chance that an airliner of any type (or anything else you can think of) is going to come together within the lifetime of a million universes. With evolution, it seems that something more than just chance is at work, but I would go with the fact of KNOWN chemical reactions building upon each other over billions of years rather than the intervention of a deity or “intelligent designer,” for which there is no objective evidence.

With regard to the multiple lottery winners, I remember something similar in my home town quite a few years ago. It involved bingo rather than the lottery, though. It turned out that a couple of winners in the biggest games (where many bingo halls link together to pool the winnings in one huge pot) had an extraordinary run of big wins. As I suggested in my earlier post, the bingo companies noted the fantastic odds involved, but did not assume psychic intervention; the odds against such a win were, obviously, astronomical; the company instituted an investigation because their hypothesis was that fraud was a possible factor. And that, indeed, turned out to be the case. Several people were jailed for a fraud that was simple in its application, but ingenious in its conception (essentially, someone spotted a loophole in the system, and had the nerve to exploit it in full view of everyone, none of whom had even thought of it).

Is it possible to defraud the lottery, with all of its security procedures? It would be difficult, to be sure, but I don’t think the possibility can be discounted. It’s unlikely, but the possibility that a lucky winner then goes on to spend a fortune on more and more tickets is also a possibility. A few people I know seem to have very good luck with raffles and other games of chance, but I know they also buy many entries to those games, and probably end up out of pocket by the time the value of their winnings is balanced against the money they have spent to be able to win.

The bottom line here for me, though, is this: when something highly improbable happens, why should a psychic component be invoked rather than just chance or even outright fraud? [Note to Kris: have I violated Aristotle’s Law of the Excluded Middle there?] Any of those three possibilities might be true (and there might even be other possibilities [take note, Kris] that I have not thought of). A hypothesis of fraud (as I have just mentioned in the bingo example) was investigated and proven to be true. If a hypothesis of psychic intervention can be investigated and be proven to be true, then I will go along with it. Do I sound unreasonable with that?

[Michael Prescott]

No, Harley, you don't sound unreasonable. As I said, I threw out this idea as a fun piece of speculation. I don't imagine it would convince anyone of the reality of psi. But if psi is a reality (as I think it is, for reasons having nothing to do with lotteries), then we might expect it to play a role in some games of chance.

With regard to the origin of life, one thing to keep in mind is that, if life originated on Earth and did not arrive here on a meteorite, then there weren't billions of years available for the first living cell to develop. The time period between the cooling of the Earth and the first appearance of one-celled lifeforms was less than a billion years - possibly a lot less, depending on exactly when Earth cooled sufficiently (between 4.4 and 4.1 billion years ago) and exactly when the first life arose (3.5 billion years ago at the latest, but possibly 3.85 billion years ago or earlier).

My personal view is that there are three levels of reality: 1) physical reality, 2) an informational substrate that generates physical reality more or less the way a computer's information processing generates images on a computer screen, and 3) a universal consciousness or Mind, which "wrote the program" that is being executed on level 2. If there is any truth in this, then it might not come as a surprise that living cells are based on encoded information (DNA, RNA). After all, in this model everything physical develops out of information.

[sbu]

Hi Harley, I agree with you that the case with multiple lottery winners can't be used as an argument for or against psi, even though the a priori probability for winning the 4 lotteries are approx. zero.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this article below - where a scientist have used standard statistical methodology to prove a psi effect. As being trained in statistical analysis you will have to accept the mathematical significance of the study.

As being a completely new experiment it's not possible to accuse the author for publication bias as the file drawer effect isn't in play as with conventional psi research. (but ofcourse you can accuse the author of outright fraud).

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-thinker/201010/have-scientists-finally-discovered-evidence-psychic-phenomena

[Harley]

Michael – speculation is fine by me. I imagine the greatest scientific discoveries must have started as speculation.

No-one knows exactly how life originated, but some biologists “speculate” that it could have started with a simple self-replicating molecule; but although I am not a biologist, I don’t think evolution is just about billions of years, but how many generations are involved. Simple chemical reactions can happen very quickly, so I suppose there could be millions of generations per hour right at the very beginning. But that is just my own speculation. I look at the work of people like Craig Venter with some optimism.

I agree with your first idea of reality, i.e. that there is an objective reality out there (notwithstanding unproven Cartesian demons); but your points 2 and 3 really are speculative. I’ll have to think about that.

sbu – thanks for the link. I’m following the story and looking at other websites and blogs that are taking an interest.

I would be cautious, though. It’s OK by me that this new research is going to be published (proving, perhaps, that there is not really an institutionalised suppression of this kind of research). There are further hurdles, not least the fact that replication is a necessary part of the process before it is going to be accepted.

I would say this, however: even if there is something remarkable going on, Bem has not proven the existence of psi. It is ONE possibility among many. And as far as the statistical significance goes, it is not huge, and could be due to chance variation; we will have to see what happens when attempts at replication get into full swing (attempts have started, but it’s too early yet to know what will happen).

I’m not going to accuse the author of fraud, although the history of psi research has its fair share of it. I’m happy to regard this as genuine research, but, like all scientific research, it will take some time before a conclusion can be reached. As you will know, scientific points are never settled on the basis of a single study or experiment. Personally, I don’t think this is going to be the big breakthrough, but time will tell.

[Michael Prescott]

Bem's experiments are not the first ones of this type. Dean Radin performed similar tests, which he discusses in his book "Entangled Minds." The results he obtained were mixed, but in his first series of tests he did find that the "presentiment effect" occurred "with odds against chance of 500 to 1." (p. 166) He conducted several such experiments. One participant is quoted:

"It's spooky. You sit there and watch this little trace, and about three seconds, on average, before the picture comes on, you have a little response in your skin conductivity which is in the same direction that a large response occurs after you see the picture.... He's done that over and over again with people." (p. 170)

So although the story is new to the media, it's not really new in psi circles.

Radin comments on Bem's paper here (see the comments thread):

tiny.cc/1q41m

[Bruce Siegel]

"I’m not going to accuse the author of fraud, although the history of psi research has its fair share of it."

Harley, did you mean to imply that psi research has historically had a greater problem with fraud than mainstream scientific research? If you did—and it's hard to tell from the way you phrased it—I don't think that's accurate.

[no one]

Harley, I have several issues with the idea of lab controlled, replicable psi research.

First, to me, psi is more like the weather. It is probably, at least in part, the result of a host of random (or chaotic) variables coming together in just the right way at just the right time; though there may be some involvement of conscious intent as well.

No one doubts that Hurricane Katrina occurred, but go ahead and try to replicate it. Try to even accurately predict another occurence within the range of probabilities that you consider to be suggestive of proof.

But, more practically, the whole notion of random selection of subjects in psi experiments smacks of being ill-conceived. It seems reasonable to think that some people (a minority) are going to be better at psi than others (the majority?) and that even those who tend to be better at psi will have off days.

There may even be people who block their psi abilities due to some prejudice and/or fear. The unskilled and the "blockers" would drag the statistical significance down, right?

I would prefer to see studies where a large pool of subjects is started and tested and the pool is whittled down to a meaningful sample that has demonstrated the highest psi rates. In other words, ultimately only study only subjects who are proven adepts. I think this just might increase the statistical significance of the results. And I think it is scientifically reasonable.

The psi experiments I read about are somewhat analogous to this; I claim men can benchpress 600 hundred pounds. You've never seen this before and are skeptical (probably citing all sorts of bio-mechanical authorities).

To test the claim, we randomly select a groups of men from college psychology classes......well you can guess that your null hypothesis will stand.

However, if we were to select from the population of men working out at Muscle Beach (in Venice, CA) I'm pretty sure we would see a statistically significant effect in favor of my claim.

Hopefully you get the point. I'm surprised that serious experimenters like Dean Radon don't take this into consideration as well.

[no one]

Oooooops... I spoke too quickly......apparently Dean Radon has considered increasing effect by using skilled subjects.

http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2007/06/quantum-observation-experiment.html

[Bruce Siegel]

"I would prefer to see studies where a large pool of subjects is started and tested and the pool is whittled down to a meaningful sample that has demonstrated the highest psi rates."

It's a good point, no one, but isn't it true that many psi studies are, in effect, carried out in such a way that scientists end up focusing on those who seem to be the most gifted? I'm thinking, for example, of Targ and Puthoff's remote viewers, Stephan Schwartz's experiments in the same area, Gary Schwartz's mediums, even Sheldrake's work with Jaytee, the psychic dog.

[no one]

Yes, Bruce, you're right. There is a little of that here and there, but, overwhelmingly, the studies and meta-analyses that are cited as proof of psi (and that are debated by skeptics) typically involve ordinary subjects.

This is unfortunate because the resulting psi effects - though real - are typically very small.

Some of Targ's subjects made remarkable "hits" in the remote viewing experiments. So remarkable that one pretty much has to either accept the reality of psi or call Targ a liar.

I think the whole problem with identifying a group of adepts and running them through the experiment is that replication becomes, practically speaking, difficult. In order to replicate one would either have to bring back together the same group of subjects (very difficult and expensive; especially if the experiment is to be replicated in a different geographic location) or go through the process of finding a whole new group of adepts; a process that would greatly increase the time and resources involved in the study.

By generally not investing in identifying and focussing research on adepts, psi researchers have shot themselves in the foot and have retarded the field of study.

[Art]

I've had quite a few mystical experiences, precognitive dreams, telepathy with my wife, synchronicities, etc. I even heard a voice one time that told me what my wife was fixing to do a minute later but I've never been able to control it. They just happen when they happen. It's definitely not me making it happen because if it was I'd do it all the time because I like it when it happens. When it does happen to me I'm like "WOW" that was amazing but I've never been able to make it happen. The other side doesn't seem too keen on being anybody's servant or being at anybody's beck and call.

[sbu]

There is a little of that here and there, but, overwhelmingly, the studies and meta-analyses that are cited as proof of psi (and that are debated by skeptics) typically involve ordinary subjects.

There is quite a "who came first - the chicken or the egg" issue to your proposal. Imagine a paper issued to a scientific journal with an abstract saying "In order to prove psi we use subjects with proven psi ability....hmmm"

[Michael Prescott]

I think researchers gravitated toward ordinary subjects to address concerns about cheating. If you test, say, Uri Geller and get good results, critics will inevitably say that Geller fooled you with sleight of hand or other tricks. The same is true if you test a professional medium, who can be accused of being a mentalist. But a person off the street is unlikely to have either the motivation or the skills to successfully cheat, and a random sample of hundreds of people reduces the risk of cheating even more.

The trade-off, though, is that ordinary folks are unlikely to have robust psi abilities, so the results will show only statistical significance at best.

Personally I think both approaches have value, but perhaps more emphasis should be put on people with exceptional psi abilities, as was done in the early years of psychical research.

"In order to prove psi we use subjects with proven psi ability....hmmm"

Suppose it was phrased this way: "In order to prove robust psi ability in exceptional individuals, we first identified subjects who appeared to demonstrate this level of ability in more informal tests, and then subjected them to a series of increasingly refined tests ..."

[Harley]

Michael – one very good thing about Bem’s experiment is that he has provided open access to his data and the software he used, so he is not going to be accused of hiding anything. That is how good science should be. On the other hand, there has been at least one failed attempt at replication, and his scoring method has been criticised. It’s still early, though, so I’m not going to go on the offensive, as it were.

Bruce Siegel – mainstream science also has its “fair” share of fraud, and I would not try to defend any scientist who has engaged in any kind of dishonesty. On the contrary, when a scientist has been caught in fraud or any kind of dishonesty, then that person should be dealt with severely. A recent and very high profile example is the case of Dr Andrew Wakefield, who has now been struck off the UK medical register. He gets no sympathy from me, or anyone else for whom the integrity of science is a top priority.

no one – not everything in science is done in the same way. Geology cannot be subjected to randomised double blind control group experiments, and nor can a lot of other areas of science, but they are still science, investigated by other methodologies.

With regard to hurricanes, the study of them is replicated every time one occurs. Obviously, Katrina itself is now finished, but all hurricanes follow a predictable development and the study of each new one is, in essence, a replication of the previous study. Although no-one is going to be able to predict the date, time and location of a particular hurricane in the future, the mechanisms are fairly well understood (but that’s not to say that there aren’t things yet to be discovered about them). In fact, science has a predictive power that is simply unmatched by any proclaimed psychic. When a hurricane starts to form, I think people consult the weather forecast rather than a psychic.

I agree that those who claim psychic abilities are those who should be tested. I especially agree if they would allow themselves to be tested in the same open manner as Bem has done with this latest research.

Michael – you implied in the earlier part of this thread that some lottery winners, for example, might have psychic abilities they are not aware of. If so, then I would go along with the idea of testing randomised samples of the population. It would be interesting to see if, over a very large sample, there are those who appear to have psychic abilities they don’t know of, who also happen to be the people who have an unusually high winning rate in games of chance.

But I would also refer to your opening remarks, “...it just doesn’t work like that.” No, alas, it never does.