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Response: Commentary: False-Positive Effect in the Radin Double-Slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined With the Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol

⚑ Contested β†—
Walleczek, Jan, von Stillfried, Nikolaus β€’ 2020 Current Era β€’ psychokinesis

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Plain English Summary

This paper is a pointed rebuttal after Radin and colleagues tried to defend their double-slit consciousness experiment. The authors lay out a damning case: when they ran a carefully controlled replication with encrypted data, they found a significant false alarm in the equipment but nothing where the "real" consciousness effect was supposed to show up. They also catch Radin's team engaging in HARKing β€” that's "Hypothesizing After Results are Known," basically changing your predictions after peeking at the answers, which is a big no-no in science. Two specific instances are documented: a statistical test falsely labeled as pre-planned and a last-minute switch to a different analysis strategy after unblinding. Perhaps most tellingly, three independent research groups all reached the same conclusion: this experiment is prone to producing false discoveries, especially when researchers go fishing through data after the fact.

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πŸ“‹ Cite this paper
APA
Walleczek, Jan, von Stillfried, Nikolaus (2020). Response: 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.2020.596125
BibTeX
@article{walleczek_2020_false_positive_radin,
  title = {Response: Commentary: False-Positive Effect in the Radin Double-Slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined With the Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol},
  author = {Walleczek, Jan and von Stillfried, Nikolaus},
  year = {2020},
  journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2020.596125},
}