Skepticblog

A subject that has fascinated me since attending a lecture on ESP back in the 70’s is the use of Random Number Generators (RNG’s) in paranormal investigation. Back then, they were crude mechanical boxes that were alledgedly susceptible to interference by people who possessed “psychic powers.”  I was initially impressed by the enthusiasm towards the paranormal Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff expressed at a two day seminar I attended back then. My magician mind immediately went to work thinking up ways I could exploit all the hoopla these two eminent scientific guys were apparently demonstrating. Both had studied people like Uri Geller and Ingo Swann at their Stanford Research Institute program and were convinced they were on to something big. They both touted their long lists of accomplishments including research contracts with the CIA and grant projects that seemed to be on the verge of something far-reaching and decidedly surreal. They seemed reasonable, came across eloquent and forceful in their beliefs and at that tender age in my life, I had no reason to suspect anything questionable.  In those days I was totally new to psychic fraud, easily impressed, prone to wanting to believe in anything weird and searching out my place in the world of mentalism at a time when the new age movement hadn’t even entered the Shirley MacLaine era. Geller was hot and getting a lot of press. I was totally sucked into the scene and with a university as big and prestigious as Stanford getting involved with ESP, I was intrigued to say the least. 

The subject of RNG’s came up as a “laboratory science”  being influenced by psychics and I remember thinking that sure, a machine could be influenced by any number of things. Being familiar with magic and magicians, even then I didn’t trust anybody or anything. I still don’t. Magnets, pulling the plug or just having someone in collusion who knew how to “rig the numbers” came immediately to mind. I had read all about Rhine and his exploits. And what about the people who made these machines? Certainly they knew how to finagle the workings. As a magician who occasionally had to deal with electronic or complicated mechanical gaffs and trickery, I had learned early on that anything elaborate, beyond my own control or out of arm’s length was sure to fail – and always at a critical moment in the act. If I believed in anything, it was Murphy’s law. Surely, a machine made by man could be influenced by man and common sense told me there probably wasn’t a chance in hell it was due to any supernatural forces. I was assured that RNG’s were an iron-clad no nonsense technological breakthrough in ESP research and impossible to mess with. One of my first thoughts was that a simple shuffled pack of regulation playing cards should be sufficient to generate a series of random numbers, despite the fact that I had seen countless magicians and mentalists predict with uncanny swiftness large runs of cards in their acts. If it was a brand new unopened pack of cards that I myself brought to the show and shuffled, and the shuffled cards never left my hands, I seriously doubted there was much of a chance anyone could get past three or four cards or numbers in a row. I knew the difference between a stage show and “laboratory conditions.” Still, I admit I paid my ticket and bought into the woolgathering.

Little did I know that at that time Uri and other people like Randi and his Alpha Kids Project were busy pulling the wool over the eyes of “trained observers” and other professorial types across the country and in Russia. The crop of teenage girls who worked wonders there were beginning to make their debuts here and it seemed like a surge of unlikely paranormal events was really taking hold of the American scientific community. I listened to Targ and Puthoff with cautious optimism tinged with a budding skepticism. All these scenarios floated around my mind and eventually out of desperation, I linked up with the California Skeptic Society and began to see the light. I soon found out through performances and lecture demos that scientists are some of the easiest people to fool. Apologies to the scientists reading this in advance, but I’m sure most would agree that, given a simple piece of information, they will usually follow that piece of information straight down the garden path like a bloodhound. As Sherlock opined, they may observe, but they do not always see. Yes, they analyze carefully and investigate, but the simplest sleight of hand, red herring or verbal deception can throw them off their path or distract them. Geller’s early success is living proof of that. He was brilliant. Before people like Randi and Johnny Carson threw a monkey wrench into Uri’s box of tricks, he was praised as a demigod. Fortunately, it takes thief to catch a thief. Machines are no better and as we all know, a computer is only as good as its programmer.

So now we have, like so many psychic wonders that disappear for a few decades then seem to magically resurface like Nessie, a new RNG mystery:

Notwithstanding the whole Diebold voting machine debacle, which defies reason on so many levels it would be a whole other tangent best left for a non-paranormal rant, we now have another “machine conspiracy” that made the pages of major newspapers a few years back and is still making the rounds. According to a book I have in front of me, the admittedly risky “Are You Psychic?” by Robert Damon Schneck, the incredible has once again been made credible for all those willing to ask themselves that loaded question. In Mr. Schenk’s book we are told that RNG’s “may also provide evidence for collective or global consciousness.” That’s a pretty big “may.” According to Mr. Schneck:

“Collective consciousness is a hypothetical group “mind” made up of all the individual minds on earth. It is believed to have psychic powers that can effect the physical world in ways that show up in RNGs.”

Oh really? Thanks for the qualifiers “hypothetical” and “believed.” Where’s the hard science to back this up please. As usual, no information, footnotes or referential material is offered. That would be too much to expect. It gets better:

“The best known example of this  phenomena was seen the day terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. When airplanes crashed into the twin towers on the morning of September 11^th, 2001, RNGs around the world produced numbers that were less random than normal. It’s believed this was the result of hundreds of millions of minds reacting to the same event and somehow influencing reality.”

Just what is “less random” and who exactly “believes” this? This is like the common practice we hear constantly in television advertisments that shout out. “nine out of ten doctors recommend” or “surveys have shown.” Which nine doctors? What surveys?  And the “somehow influencing reality” bit is really pushing it. I remember hearing vague rumblings about this “reaction” somewhere, but I think it was on Art Bell’s Coast to Coast and not in the pages of Scientific American.

Once again, thanks to the publishers, station managers and media moguls, we get the sensational hype without any facts. Like so many other books on the shelves, Mr. Schenk’s book is not promoted as a book of fiction. That’s okay with me. I enjoy reading stuff like this for the pure fantasy elements that run rampant in them. They give me plenty of ideas for seance plots, show themes and patter for my act, but I’m not betting my life on whether or not I’m going to find out by reading it if I’m actually psychic or not. As with the usual bottom line: if I was really psychic, I wouldn’t need to read Schenk’s or any other book. I would already know. As mentioned in my previous posts, I would also be one very dangerous and harassed individual.

Random number generators have applications in gambling, statistical sampling, computer simulation and cryptography and are no longer the clunky primitive metal contraptions I saw demonstrated back in the 70’s. Science has now worked out numerous new methods for generating random numbers like radioactive decay, cameras pointed at the sky on a cloudy day and even lava lamps. The “influence” of psychics, group minds or anybody else who can come forward and demonstrate solid evidence in this area is a subject worth pursuing. What about if I merely sit down and think of a series of random numbers in my mind? Isn’t that the ultimate RNG?