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THE EXPERIMENTER EFFECT
The ‘experimenter effect’ – refers to
a situation where the experimenter, willfully, or on an
unconscious level influences the results he/she wants to
obtain.
In context of testing the paranormal (psi) and afterlife
evidence, it is critically important to fully understand
the very serious implications of the ‘experimenter
effect’ as so far it has shown that professional psi
experimenters have become victims of their unconscious (perhaps
even conscious) of their negative partiality when conducting
psi experiments.
The result is that the public around the world is being
misinformed, misguided and misdirected.
Why is it that a negatively entrenched experimenter always
gets negative results when investigating psychic phenomena
or psi as it is called? Very simple. Obtaining positive
results will make a skeptical debunking experimenter and
his supporting debunking organization look absolutely ridiculous,
irrelevant and utterly redundant.
So, someone who has been debunking psi and afterlife evidence
for over twenty years cannot be expected to oversee a psychic
experiment which produces results which show that the ‘debunker’
has been wrong for the last twenty years.
Whatever this ‘negative’ experimenter tries
to do, inevitably the results are going to be negative.
That is the history of these negative psi experimenters
recently outlined in an excellent article in the March 2002
Journal of Parapsychology by Caroline Watt and Claire Brady.
When confronted with the high probability of results not
consistent with the debunker’s expectations, the closed
minded debunker would feel enormous anxiety – and
go into denial and rejection and use all kinds of tricks
– including verbal and written ‘sleight of hand’
to produce results consistent with his/her own skeptical
partiality.
Without exaggerating the issue, the analogy I use is that
of a Ku Klux Klan Wizard trying to ‘objectively’
and empirically investigate whether ‘negroes’
are racially equal to ‘white’ people.
Imagine a situation which I myself – and others -
studied in the recent past involving a negatively minded
psi high flying experimenting psychologists - two British,
one American:
• they are psychologists deeply entrenched in materialism,
• they’ve been doing experiments for over twenty
years and have never found in favor of the paranormal,
• they have written articles against the validity
of the paranormal,
• they are a members of an American materialist organization
(CSICOP) which itself is anti-psychic, anti- paranormal,
anti-afterlife and anti-anything which cannot be produced
in a laboratory,
• the British psychologist is on record for manipulating
circumstances during experiments to ensure that the results
will never be in favor of psi,
• these negatively entrenched psychologists have each
been given the title of ‘Fellow’ by CSICOP for
their services against the paranormal, against the evidence
for the afterlife, against the possibility that psi has
any validity.
• In the past they have demonstrated expertise in
‘verbal sleight of hand’ (see below) to willfully
skew psi results against the validity of psi.
Now, would an informed level-headed non-committed, impartial
observer ever accept that these negative experimenters are
in a position to be ‘objective’ when conducting
psi experiments? Of course not!
Would an intelligent, informed empiricist – and others
familiar with ‘verbal sleight of hand’ accept
that these negative experimenters could actually cause errors
– perhaps unconsciously so that the results will be
consistent with their own negative bias? Of course he/she
would!
The classic experimenter effect was demonstrated by Professor
Marilyn Schlitz and Professor R Wiseman (1997 and 1999)
in collaborative studies into whether or not a person can
detect when someone is looking at them from behind.
Those informed will immediately predict that the more objective
Prof Marilyn Schlitz obtained positive results whereas negatively
inclined Prof. Richard Wiseman consistently obtained negative
results. That’s exactly what happened! This was true
even when they used the same experiment and the same subjects.
Four Publicized Experiments
Hereinafter I am citing just four cases (out of many other
cases by the same ‘negative’ experimenter) to
illustrate how ‘the experimenter effect’ played
a big part when a negatively entrenched experimenter tried
to conduct experiments thinking he was or that he can be
objective – and in all of them he inexorably, produced
negative results.
First case: Wiseman’s involvement in allegedly ‘testing’
of psychic, medical intuitive Natasha Demkina is considered
by a number of professionally informed people to be one
of the most blatant injustices done to a gifted psychic
in history. Why? Because the whole conduct shows that there
were too many fundamental irregularities which were not
consistent with scientific method. Whether consciously or
unconsciously he skewed positive results which otherwise
had the potential to destroy his reputation, severely weaken
his career, lead to the loss of funding and more likely
than not end his involvement in psi research. Two most fundamental
‘transgressions’ which appear to be consistent
with Wiseman’s prior conduct are that he changed the
experimental protocol without notice and misinterpreted
the results. Blind Freddie could have predicted negative
results in the important Demkina case. Read more …
http://snipurl.com/qnnr
Second case: Chris Robinson, author of The Psychic Detective,
http://www.dream-detective.com/ complained to me that when
Wiseman tried to test Robinson’s psychic skills, Wiseman
'tricked' him, 'fooled' him by changing the agreed protocol
without notice – a most heinous violation by any empiricist
during empirical testing. Inevitably and unfairly the results
were presented to the public as being negative. Chris Robinson
was and is still very angry the way Wiseman was able to
publish the experimental results as Chris having failed
to show legitimate paranormal activity – especially
when Chris Robinson insists that Wiseman changed protocol
without notice and willfully misreported the psi results.
Mick O’Neil, in an article to the “Paranormal
Review”: the Magazine of the Society for Psychical
Research (SPR) in 2001 gives more instances of how Wiseman
has used his skills as a magician to confuse the public
in a series of high profile tests aimed at debunking the
areas of psychic research considered by former skeptic Carl
Sagan in 1995 to have produced impressive results.
Third case: Wiseman’s ‘Mind Machine’
experiment, launched with a great media fanfare in 1999,
was an attempt at predicting or influencing a random number
generated (RNG) coin toss. However, O’Neil points
out that it employed pseudo, not true RNGs whereas in 1997
Jahn et al, the leading exponents of Sagan’s recommended
study, had reported significance of one in a trillion using
true RNGs but no effect with pseudo RNGs. O’Neil makes
the point that “most journalists can’t be expected
to be aware of the importance of such subtle differences.”
Fourth case - the “World’s Largest ESP Experiment
Ever” at London’s Museum of the Unknown’
Wiseman announced to the media of the world that he was
going to set up an experiment to test telepathy. The experiment
involved 10 trials where groups of ‘senders’
tried to telepathically transmit an image to a distant ‘receiver’.
The receiver then had to try to choose the correct image
from a set of four. Carl Sagan was impressed that numerous
researchers around the world have found evidence that it
really does work. However, as O’Neil points out, statistically
it usually requires at least 100 trials to reveal itself.
Mick O’Neill, suspicious of Wiseman, taped the event
and claims that with only 10 trials “the experiment
could hardly have been better designed to fail” whether
ESP exists or not.
Even then, according to O’Neil, Wiseman had to engage
in either deliberate or unconscious manipulation.
“At the most crucial moment of the day, just after
the crowd succeeded on the first and just before the other
large outdoor trial, Wiseman committed five serious irregularities,
including inconsistencies and breaches of the protocols
& precedents laid down by previous experimenters to
prevent undue influence.
Again, Wiseman doesn’t dispute that any of the five
irregularities took place. The most blatant irregularity
was that at 7 p.m. he described some 1971 experiment results
as “one was not bad and the other was absolutely dreadful”
whereas at the 4 p.m. trial, he had said of exactly the
same results “one was fairly successful, one wasn’t”.
No fair scientist could describe these results using Wiseman’s
7 p.m. descriptors. Worse still, he omitted to mention that
the ‘absolutely dreadful’ result was a ‘control’.
The irregularities dramatically show the subtle ways Wiseman
seems to have subconsciously undermined the crowd’s
confidence. If he influences a large public gathering like
this, heaven help any individual who manifests ESP in the
privacy of his laboratory”.
Experts tell us that the negativity the debunkers go into
to produce negative psi results is mostly sourced on an
‘unconscious level’. When confronted with positive
results supporting the paranormal debunkers go into ‘cognitive
dissonance’ and what exponents of NLP call ‘deletions’;
they unconsciously - or consciously - delete critical evidence
to maintain their own internal consistency and produce negative
results.
Can you really give credibility to any experimenter in
highly publicized media supported paranormal testing when
they are highly placed members of the debunking and negatively
entrenched CSICOP group AND - these same negative debunkers
- have been obtaining negative results for the last twenty/thirty
years? Who are they kidding?