Thursday, September 07, 2006

Yesterday I came across this article about "telephone telepathy." I've certainly experienced this phenomenon, although finding any scientific proof of its existence seemed highly unlikely to me. But not to Rupert Sheldrake. The subjects of his study correctly guessed callers 45% of the time. Yet I wouldn't say that his results are foolproof... after all he says that the "odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one." Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 1,000 billion the same as a trillion? Would any smart person, let alone a research scientist, say 1,000 billion when they meant a trillion? Not only that, and I admit I'm not amathematiciann, but for a sample of a mere 63 people, the trillion-to-one odds seemsextraordinarilyy high. I don't even think I'd put the odds at that if the subjects had guessed correctly 99% of the time. There must be an equation to show I'm right about this. If I have any math whiz readers out there, can you please prove this for me?

On an unrelated note, here's a really creepy website my friend sent me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Me and all my scientist friends just call it 10^12