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Comment by abless | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone actually taking this _really_ seriously? I am still waiting for the prank to be revealed...

What do you mean?

Somebody read about an experiment with surprising results, found out that it would be possible to turn the experiment into a website and did just that. I think that’s great.

I am talking about the original experiment. I am wondering whether people actually give ESP a serious possibility.

I am all for running experiments and finding out new things, and if this really happens to be a ground-breaking new discovery, great! That being said, what's more likely? That someone just _revolutionized_ physics and completely changed our concept of time, OOOOOR that there is something wrong with the experimental methodology? I don't know about you, but my 23 years on Earth make me think that the latter is quite a bit more probable...

I think it’s rather unlikely that ESP is real. It’s a reality of statistics that scientists will from time to time get wrong results; that and possible methodological problems leave all scientific results (except maybe the most obvious ones) up in the air until they have been confirmed again and again and again. (Psychology could also pick a smaller alpha value like maybe physicists and avoid being wrong more often but it’s questionable how practical such a change would be.)

Still, this is a neat DIY experiment. There is quite a bit you can criticize about the methodology but that discussion was pretty fun. Oh, and this experiment doesn’t even seem to confirm ESP. (I think. I didn’t break out the calculator.)

Honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if it is actually an experiment in the extent to which the scientific community will accept or at least consider ludicrous claims because they come from an authority figure.

EDIT: And I'm not saying that these claims shouldn't be tested. But it would be interesting to see the way people react. Hesitation, for example.

You are more likely to quit after finding porn. That is the trick.

It is reminiscent of the Martingale gambling strategy.

That seems to be a plausible explanation. I am still puzzled how the work ended up being published, though. Surely, the reviewers must have thought the same?

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