First Twitter Experiment Probes Belief in the Paranormal

First Twitter Experiment Probes Belief in the Paranormal

abcnews.go.com

Last week I conducted the first scientific study to be carried out using the instant-messaging service Twitter, continuing a long tradition of using new communications technology to conduct mass-participation experiments.
The experiment examined remote viewing – the alleged psychic ability to "see" distant locations. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the US government spent millions of dollars researching this phenomenon, and some have claimed that the results supported its existence

(visit the link for the full news article)

In response people described grassy hills, concrete car parks and odd-shaped sculptures. Twenty minutes later, I sent a second tweet containing the address of a website that allowed everyone to view a photograph of the location (a weir). I also asked the participants to rate both their belief in the paranormal and the degree to which their thoughts matched the target

I found this odd but interesting enough...

abcnews.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Later on in the article;

When I analysed believers and sceptics separately, the results were the same, with no difference between the groups. So what did we learn? Well, the study didn't support the existence of remote viewing and suggests that those who believe in the paranormal are simply good at finding illusory correspondences between their thoughts and a target – which is, maybe, why they believe in the first place. No surprises there. So perhaps the most important outcome was to demonstrate that thousands of people are happy to take part in an instant Twitter study. Now it is up to scientists to find other interesting ways of harnessing this new research tool.

I think what cought my attention enough to post this thread was the fact that somebody actually took the time to do a study on twitter and remote viewing int he first place. Interesting...