Lorrenzo is my psychology prof.
Observation
Lorrenzo held up an envelope. He then said someone’s name. He made a comment in response to whatever said person had written on the recipe card inside the envelope.
Hypothesis
Lorrenzo has some level of Extra Sensory Perception.
Research
The Rhine Experiments:
It was the first card guessing game (in 1930) which consisted of five cards with five different designs. These experiments faced numerous criticisms like seeing the symbol through the back of the card, the subject being told what the symbol was, only favourable results were published, etc.
The Ganzfield Experiments:
Test subjects were made to wear halves of ping-pong balls over their eyes and headphones playing white noise over their ears depriving them of those two senses. A sender was made to physically communicate a random thought to the subject, and they were supposed to match their perception to the target later. It failed to prove that ESP exists.
My Experiment:
I played a coin toss game with my neighbour’s four year old. I guaranteed that I would win five times out of five. The conditions were as follows: Heads - I win. Tails - she loses. I proved to her that I have psychokinesis.
Conclusion
After thinking about the demonstration in class, I have gone back to my first sceptical feeling, that there is a part of the demonstration that I wasn’t paying attention to. Lorrenzo does not have ESP.
Theory
Lorrenzo read the first recipe card, then held up the second envelope making the class believe it was the first one, and used the information from the first recipe card to let the students think that it was the card in the envelope he was telepathically reading, and he did so for the next several envelopes.