Can intention, attention or expectation affect random physical events?

In this episode we’re going to be exploring the subtleties of an odd phenomenon: the Experimenter Effect, where the expectations of the scientist doing an experiment appear to affect the results measured. This is hugely important for the right practice of science, and for understanding why some experiments that seem watertight methodologically can only be reproduced by scientists who expect the same results and not by sceptics of the hypothesis.

Who better to discuss this with than a scientist who ran into this while trying to disprove the the influence of consciousness in a physical system, Professor Garret Moddel; Dr. Moddel is Professor of Electrical and Quantum engineering at Colorado University, specialising in Solar cells, metal-insulator technology and geometric diodes, and optoelectronics among other extraordinary technologies. He also runs a separate psi phenomena lab. He is also one of the former presidents of the groundbreaking research organisation the Society of Scientific Exploration.

PART 1

01:04 The Experimenter effect explained

01:06 The difference between the effect in Psychology and in Physics

19:00 RNGs: Helmut Schmitt and atomic decay Random Number Generator experiments

25:00 1000’s of scientists in a data driven, peer reviewed field of science, in underground labs at top universities; totally unacknowledged by the rest of science

27:30 Garrett didn’t believe it till he read the literature

55:55 Standford Research Institute’s 1970’s-1990’s military psychic spy Remote Viewing experiments

01:03:30 Jessica Utts: The statistical analysis of SRI’s remote viewing research

PART 2

01:08:00 The Observer Effect: simply observing interacts with quantum systems

01:11:00 Wigner Von Neumann and the ‘collapse of the wave function’

01:15:00 Our intention does affect random phenomena, incontrovertibly in the literature

References:

(please note the reported bias towards criticism over support on the wiki entries; the supporters of this science try constantly to re-edit these entries to represent credible support as well as criticism, only for moderators to edit back. Why the need for such disproportional criticism?)

Schmidt, Helmut. Paper "Collapse of the state vector and psychokinetic effect." Foundations of Physics 12.6 (1982): 565-581. 

The Society for Scientific Exploration

Dean Radin at IONS

Radin, Dean, et al. paper "Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern: Exploratory evidence of a causal influence." Physics Essays 34.1 (2021): 79-88.

Robert Jahn, Dean of Engineering at Princeton and founder of PEAR Labs Princeton

Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne paper, ”On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena." Foundations of Physics 16.8 (1986): 721-772.

Roger Nelson, Director of PEAR Labs Princeton

Bernie Haisch’s and Garret Moddel’s Zero point energy patent

Garret Moddel et al, paper on Zero-point research