Commentary: Intentional Observer Effects on Quantum Randomness: A Bayesian Analysis Reveals Evidence Against Micro-Psychokinesis

摘要

In the article Maier et al. (2018), the authors report on a mind-matter experiment comprising an impressive 12,571 subjects in a Micro-PK task. The main result of that study, testing the aggregate sum of the data against its expectation value, is reported as strong evidence against Micro-Psychokinesis (PK). Despite this conclusion, the authors interpret a post-hoc observed pattern in their data as possible evidence for PK, albeit of a different kind. The authors put forward the hypothesis that a higher frequency of slow data variations can be observed in their experiment data than in a single set of control data. This commentary analyses this claim and concludes that the variation in the data motivating this hypothesis would show up just by chance with a probability of p = 0.328 under a null hypothesis. This author concludes that there is no evidence for the hypothesis of faster data variations, and thus for this kind of suggested Micro-Psychokinesis in the reported experimental data.