Anti-Materialist

Here is a link to the PEAR institute...


http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/



When I searched both PEAR and the last name of its founder "Jahn" on the CSICOP website I didn't find much. A few condescending comments - but no serious reviews of the work of the PEAR institute.


Could you guys go to the PEAR homepage, then come back and give it serious critique? This would be a very useful debate. I will, of course, be glad to play the role of disputing your disagreements. Just bear in mind that, if presented with a truly logical refutation of their work, I will be willing to change my mind about them. Currently, I am impressed with their work.

Lobstrosity

Hmm, such procedures seem to beg the question: why do every one of their experiments seemingly deal with devices calibrated to produce random outputs, especially when one notes that they are in reality only pseudo-random? Let's look at this logically for a moment. Their conclusion is that human consciousness is physically influencing the behavior of mechanical apparati. This is hence a measurable effect. Why not simply directly measure it, then? Could they not just get a force-measuring device such as this and tell people to concentrate on applying a force? The effect should be instantly detectable and undeniable. If a human can affect the outcome of a random mechanical ball cascade with his mind, he is obviously able to produce a force at a given location just by thinking about it. Why not just measure that? Or similarly, why don't they take a voltmeter with a sensitivity on the order of nanovolts and ask subjects to concentrate on producing a potential difference across the leads? Also, one would expect that such a telekinetic effect would be linear--two subjects' concentrating on producing the same desired effect should reasonably be expected to result in an outcome that is twice as strong as if one person were performing the experiment alone. An entire room of people should be able to combine their efforts to produce unquestionable results. That this is not observed makes one wonder as to the validity of their results.

Here's some more food for thought (I'm not sure if this specific experiment has been conducted by PEAR, but the image on their introduction page labeled "cumulative deviation graphs from a random event generator experiment" leads me to believe they have): I have heard of an experiment in which a computer is made to spit out random numbers. A subject is told to sit at the computer and try to concentrate on producing high numbers (or low numbers, or whatever, so long as it skews the average away from what random chance would dictate). The experiment seems good on its face, but is laughably ridiculous if you actually think about it. First note that the experiment is conducted under the hypothesis that the human mind can influence physical objects outside the body (telekinesis). Now let's consider what physical objects need to be influenced in order for a computer program spitting out random numbers to be overrun. Somehow, somewhere, one must mess with transistors within the computer circuitry in just the right way so as to not crash the program, not lock up the computer, but to make the random number generator spit out, say, greater numbers than normal. How does the mind know how to do this? How can anyone reasonably assume that simply thinking "bigger numbers" results in the mind's reaching into the heart of a computer to futz with transistors in some convoluted way? Where would your subconscious (or whatever it is) even get the knowledge to know what to physically influence?

Neglecting this absurdity for a moment, let's assume you conclude that you observe a real telekinetic effect using the experiment detailed above. Well it seems to me that the next experiment you must conduct is quite obvious. Sit the subject down in front of a computer running the program

while (true) print "1"

and tell him to try to make it print "6." Obviously, if you can affect the output of a program running a random number, you can more generally affect the output of a computer; it shouldn't matter what algorithm is running. Now, if you ever see a "6" appear on the screen, you have some rather convincing proof that telekinesis does indeed exist. Count the number of sixes per hour to measure how strong the effect is.


A final red flag should arise when you note that their experiments seem to make no distinctions as to what the human mind can and cannot accomplish. Isn't it odd that it can influence electrical circuits just as easily as mechanical systems?

Wounded King

Jahn's own theory, such as it is, is that what these experiments show is not psychokinesis as such but an ability to manipulate the laws of chance, hence the significance of the random factor.

A more recent set of experiments between PEAR and a couple of other institutes found no significant effect, but then they monkeyed around with the stats and got one or two anomalies out of it. This was published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the article is available online here.

ps418

I remember a thread on this a long time ago. The one conclusion that everyone agreed upon was that if there was any telekinetic effect at all on the 'random systems,' the effect was really, really, really small, and you had to do lots and lots and lots of trials to produce a statistically significant result.

Patrick

Wounded King

So I shouldn't be expecting to use PK to save finding the remote control any time soon?

ps418

No. But, if you get a billion people and a billion remotes and lose them a billion times . . . maybe you can come up with an anamoly?

Patrick

Secular Pinoy

Ah yes, the law of truly large numbers. There is bound to be a few hits with such a large pool.

echidna

Just over half their publication list is restricted to J. Scientific Exploration & judging by the remainder PEARS doesn't seem to have much broad support in the wider scientific community.

Have they applied for Randi's million dollars ?

echidna

Additionally, I don’t see any statements regarding their REG device which their results are based on. What is the sensitivity of such a device to :

Temperature ?
EM fields ?
Supply voltage ?

I see no documentation that a) the REG has been tested for these variables (or others), or that b) these variables are controlled in their tests.

Further, I note that the REG is still subject to some operator input. It doesn’t detail exactly how or why an operator should select variable run lengths under different circumstances, but automatically the risk of operator bias is introduced.

Wounded King

I thought that set run lengths were part of the experimental design, specifically to avoid any bias introduced by selecting when to stop a run.