Crapologist

Crapshooting was under solemn investigation last week by Psychologist Joseph Banks Rhine of Duke University. Dr. Rhine's theory that man has Extra-Sensory Perception, and his game of naming hidden cards, became a prewar fad. It seemed possible that Rhine's work with craps might add to that sport's already numerous fascinations.

For the last nine years Rhine has kept a small group of followers shooting craps to prove "the dominance of mind over matter." Convinced that mind can at least dominate dice, he has given his theory a scientific name, PK (psychokinesis), and published his evidence in the Journal of Parapsychology, a Rhine house organ for E.S.P.

Rhine's experiments attempted to discover whether a crapshooter's "Come seven, come eleven!" and other cabalistic cries really have any effect. Rhine's assistants eagerly concentrated on trying to throw high numbers (eight or above) or low numbers (six or below) at will. Results were recorded in "runs" of twelve throws each; the object was to get better than five hits (par according to chance) in a run.

Bewildering Bones. The results, reports Rhine, "were strange and startling." One group of 25 crapshooters, in 562 runs (6,744 throws), got 3,110 hits, or 300 better than par; according to Rhine, the odds against such a result happening by chance are trillions to one. In another test, a woman threw nearly a thousand runs, wound up with 382 hits above par. In still another, a woman performing under the supervision of her husband scored 77 hits above chance in 3,600 tries. The result which put the biggest crimp in Rhine's theory (and which he makes no attempt to explain) is that, though his crapshooters did not try to throw sevens, sevens also came up more often than could be accounted for by chance.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.