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Volume 17: Number 4: Article 5
Commentary: Comments on Freedman, Jeffers, Saeger, Binns, and Black: "Effects of Frontal Lobe Lesions on Intentionality and Random Physical Phenomena"
York H. Dobyns, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR),
C-131 Engineering Quad, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544-5263
Freedman, et al. present research results, one portion of which
they claim to constitute a failed replication of the experimental work
of Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) on the effects of
human intentionality on physical processes, and which they suggest shows
no effect due to improved experimental controls. It is shown here that
the methodology used and recommended by Freedman et al. in fact
weakens the experimental controls, rather than improving them. For all
classes of potential artifactual influences, their methodology either
is no better controlled, or is more susceptible to contamination, than
the methodology used at PEAR. Moreoever, their experimental design differs
in important theoretical and operational ways from that of PEAR, and
therefore does not provide a replication study. Furthermore, the statistical
power of their experiment is far too small to sustain the claims they
derive from it. Nevertheless, the intentional effect size generated
by normal subjects, which is the only part of their experiment relevant
to the PEAR work, is actually larger than that seen at PEAR, so that
if their experiment qualified as a replication, it should be considered
to have reproduced the claimed effect. In addition, their own replication
of a significant anomalous result by one of their brain-damaged subjects
clearly strengthens the argument for some correlation of the random
event generator (REG) output with the neurophysiological status of the
operator. One curious omission from their report is the lack of any
quantitative index of the degree of brain damage presented by their
disadvantaged subjects that might be compared with their respective
experimental performances.
FULL TEXT:
Commentary: Comments on Freedman, Jeffers, Saeger, Binns, and Black: "Effects of Frontal Lobe Lesions on Intentionality and Random Physical Phenomena"
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