From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tim Newsgroups: net.misc Title: psi-missing Article-I.D.: unc.4767 Posted: Sun Mar 13 18:11:12 1983 Received: Mon Mar 14 02:28:08 1983 A recent article on dowsing mentioned "the `psi-missing' ploy". This is something that was also mentioned in James Randi's excellent book "The Magic of Uri Geller" (in which he tells us how Geller does each of the things he does). Both sources mentioned it in a derogatory light. Psi-missing refers to results in psi experiments in which the results are significantly worse than those expected by pure chance. Misguessing all cards from a 50 card deck of 5 different cards would be an extreme example. Randi says that most people have a name for that -- "we call it losing". This is sheer emotionalism. If the results differ from chance significantly, then *something* is going on. I'm not trying to be an apologist. I know of no cases where psi-missing has been shown in a large enough number of trials to be significant. What I am trying to do is get people to approach things rationally. Tim Maroney