Pseudoscience Mini-lab Are you psychic?

Paperwork You will do a modified lab write-up for this mini-lab Include the following: Objective: To determine if one or more people in our group is psychic Hypothesis: N/A Experiment: This is where you will write the steps of the experiment that you did Data: You will need to complete the requirements listed in this PowerPoint Conclusion: Answer the three questions at the end

“I have a sixth sense about these things” Traditionally, it was recognized that people have 5 primary senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling – `More recently, the scientific community has identified other physical senses Psychic phenomena are based on extra senses that exist from someone’s mind (Extra Sensory Perception, or E.S.P. for short)

Examples of E.S.P. Telepathy – communicating using only your mind Telekinesis – moving things using only your mind Precognition – knowing about future events Clairvoyance – “seeing” things with your mind that is impossible with your eyes Pyrokinesis – manipulating fire with just your mind

“To legit to quit” There are legitimate scientific tests for each type of proposed E.S.P. – Designed by real scientists at recognized universities It may be interesting to note that both the United States (well, the CIA and DOD) and the Soviet Union researched E.S.P. heavily to try to gain an edge in the Cold War – [For those interested, look up the Stargate Project]

“It’s from the Devil”…well, Blue Devils In this mini-lab, you will conduct a classic test to see if you are possibly either clairvoyant or precognitive You will most likely want to first look up information on tests created for each of these types This lab may use Zener cards – Named after the co-creator, Karl Zener who developed them at Duke University

Zenar Cards

“Do you see what I see?....” The idea (for clairvoyance) is, a researcher would hold up a card that the test subject cannot see The test subject tries to see the hidden image with his/her mind The researcher continues through the entire deck of 25 cards recording the number of correct and incorrect answers

“The un-forseen The idea (for precognition) is, the test subject would tell the researcher what the next card will be. The researcher then picks up a card and records the correctness The researcher continues through the entire deck of 25 cards recording the number of correct and incorrect answers

What you need to do Each person will go to the following website: – – (For clairvoyance) Select the Clairvoyance test, Open Deck, Cards Seen, and 25 cards – (For precognition) Select the Clairvoyance test, Open Deck, Cards Unseen, and 25 cards – Alternatively, I do have a few decks of mini-cards if you prefer to be hands-on instead of digital

The “Swithcheroo” When you are testing someone, they will tell you what the next card will be. – Click that card – Repeat until you are through the “deck” – When they are done, the website will tell you how many correct answers they had. – Record this number on the data table – Repeat until three complete trials have been done Switch from being the tester to the testee

“Three times like that” Each person in your group needs to be tested 3 complete times (3 times through the deck) Each time, record the number of correct answers Your data table will have everyone’s names and results in your group

Data table Name Number Correct Trial #1Trial #2Trial #3Average% Average Standard Deviation

Data, part 2 Make a bar graph – For each person, show a bar for each trial and for the average (ie 4 bars per person) Show your work on how you determined the percentages

Conclusion Using standard deviation? – How precise was your data Based on the precision of your data: – Do you think that this test is a valid way to check for clairvoyance or precognition? – How could this test be improved?