One of the lab’s major scientific projects was to have people sit in front of a computer that generated random numbers that produced either a one or a zero. A truly random sample would have 50% ones and 50% zeroes. Subjects were asked to use their minds to try to influence the machine to choose ones or zeroes.

Skepdic sums up the results

In 1987, Dean Radin and Nelson did a meta-analysis of all RNG experiments done between 1959 and 1987 and found that they produced odds against chance beyond a trillion to one (Radin 1997: 140). This sounds impressive, but as Radin says “in terms of a 50% hit rate, the overall experimental effect, calculated per study, was about 51 percent, where 50 percent would be expected by chance”. A couple of sentences later, Radin gives a more precise rendering of “about 51 percent” by noting that the overall effect was “just under 51 percent.”

In a similar experiment,

a person sat in front of an electric box that flashed numbers just above or below 100 and would be told to ‘think high’ or ‘think low’ as they watched the display. Researchers concluded that people could alter the results about two or three times out of 10,000.

Yeah, that small, but still interesting, nonetheless.

The lab will transfer to a nearby nonprofit, the International Consciousness Research Laboratories, which PEAR founded in the early 1990s.