[extropy-chat] Bayes, crackpots and psi

[Damien Broderick]

At 07:39 PM 12/20/2004 -0500, Eliezer wrote:

>Why *isn't* it straightforward, given a couple of thousand Ss, to produce 
>winning lottery numbers?

I believe it would be. But wait. How would you propose to get hold of a 
couple of thousand *pre-screened, high-scoring* Ss? Some sort of glitzy TV 
show trawl, maybe. (Ever tried to set one of those up?) I used to have high 
hopes for the web, but plinking away from one link to the next while 
babbling instant messages (as most people seem to do on-line) is probably 
not the optimal environment for psi, or for writing great music or great 
code. I tried to cut through all this by looking at millions of votes 
actually cast by punters, moderately motivated; the very largest deviations 
from chance were remarkably associated with winning numbers, but by and 
large my expectation was falsified. If I'd been permitted to have access to 
many more weekly draw results I'd have gone further, using my first results 
as a probe, but the lottery owners came to their senses and shut me down. 
Too bad, so sad. When someone well-placed and with heaps of grant money 
finally does it, I might get a small footnote.

Damien Broderick