Commentary: False-Positive Effect in the Radin Double-Slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined With the Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol
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Plain English Summary
This paper is a statistical showdown in one of parapsychology's hottest debates: can human consciousness actually affect quantum experiments? Walleczek's group claimed they found a false positive in a double-slit experiment (where light passes through two tiny openings), suggesting the pro-consciousness result was just a statistical fluke. Radin fires back, pointing out that with eight separate tests at once, you'd expect at least one false hit about a third of the time — that's just how probability works. Once you correct for running so many tests, the original means wash out, but a pre-planned test looking at variance (how spread out the data is) actually survives the stricter standard. The real headline-grabber: pooling 28 double-slit experiments from four independent labs, 11 came back significant, with combined odds against chance of less than one in ten million. That's a remarkably strong cumulative signal, whatever you think is causing it.
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Related Papers
Same Research Program
- Consciousness and the Double-Slit Interference Pattern: Six Experiments — Radin, Dean (2012)
- Psychophysical Modulation of Fringe Visibility in a Distant Double-Slit Optical System — Radin, Dean (2016)
- Psychophysical Interactions with a Double-Slit Interference Pattern: Exploratory Evidence of a Causal Influence — Radin, D.I (2021)
- Psychophysical Effects on an Interference Pattern in a Double-Slit Optical System: An Exploratory Analysis of Variance — Radin, Dean (2022)
- Observer Influence on Quantum Interference: Testing the von Neumann-Wigner Consciousness-Collapse Theory — Radin, Dean (2025)
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📋 Cite this paper
Radin, Dean, Wahbeh, Helané, Michel, Leena, Delorme, Arnaud (2020). Commentary: False-Positive Effect in the Radin Double-Slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined With the Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00726
@article{radin_2020_commentary_ds_false_positive,
title = {Commentary: False-Positive Effect in the Radin Double-Slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined With the Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol},
author = {Radin, Dean and Wahbeh, Helané and Michel, Leena and Delorme, Arnaud},
year = {2020},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00726},
}