(Un)scientific psychic testing, V2.0!

Ever since Flimsy and I decided to roll some dice and try to see if we could guess the numbers, we've been curious about the results. Here were the results out of 40 rolls:

Me: 11 correct guesses - I guessed correctly 1: 3.63 times (Chance is 1:6)
Flimsy: 3 correct guesses. He guessed correctly 1:13 times.
Combined: Combined, we guessed correctly 1:6.15 (pretty much chance)

We've been playing Confrontation and Warhammer (I prefer Confrontation...) and seriously, Flimsy rolls TONS of ones. Last time we played Confrontation, I had the last man standing only because he was rolling ones like one out of every three rolls. I rolled maybe 3 ones during the entire 5 hour game. We always just grab random dice so I don't think it's the particular dice we use. Or is it?

Neither of us believe we can intuit where the dice will roll or influence dice rolls psychically or psychokinetically. But science is not about what you believe or don't believe - ever. Science is about where evidence, observation and rational thinking lead. So we've decided to extend our dice rolling experiment. We're going to perform two experiments:

1. Hypothesis: When attempting to guess where a die will fall when rolled, we will guess correctly 1:6 times, consistent with chance.
Subjects: Myself and Flimsy
Equipment: Random die chosen out of a bag of 100 6-sided dice, my kitchen table, and this computer to record our results
Method: Each subject will pick a die out of a bag of 100 dice. The subject will sit at the table, hold the die in his or her hand, and attempt to guess which number will land facing up on the table. The subject will call out the number they think the die will land on. The subject will cup the die between two hands and shake the die for five seconds. The subject will then drop the die on the table from a height of 6 inches. The subject will do this 50-100 times each night until the number of rolled die reaches 1,000. The number of times the die is rolled will be determined before die rolling begins.
Data collection: Either Flimsy or I will record the number of dice thrown, The number the subject guessed, the number facing up when the die stops rolling, and whether or not the subject correctly guessed the number rolled on the die.
Weaknesses: Obviously, Flimsy and I could lie about the number of hits or misses. The dice, being gaming dice and not perfectly weighted dice, could roll some numbers more often than others.



2. Hypothesis: When attempting to influence the number facing up on a die when rolled psychokinetically, subjects will roll a number corresponding to the number they attempted to influence 1:6 times, consistent with chance.
Subjects: Myself and Flimsy
Equipment: Random die chosen out of a bag of 100 6-sided dice, my kitchen table, and this computer to record our results
Method: Each subject will pick a die out of a bag of 100 dice. The subject will sit at the table, hold the die in his or her hand, and attempt to influence the number that rolls psychokinetically. The subject will try to influence the way a die rolls in consecutive order, I.E. Attempting to get the die to roll a 1, then a 2, then a 3, then a 4, then a 5, then a 6 then a 1 and so on. The researcher will tell the subject which number he or she is attempting to roll. The subject will cup the die between two hands and shake the die for five seconds. The subject will then drop the die on the table from a height of 6 inches.The subject will do this 50-100 times each night until the number of rolled die reaches 1,000. The number of times the die is rolled will be determined before die rolling begins.
Data collection: Either Flimsy or I will record the number of dice thrown, The number the subject attempted to roll, the number facing up when the die stops rolling, and whether or not the number the subject was attempting to influence was the number rolled.
Weaknesses: Obviously, Flimsy and I could lie about the number of hits or misses. The dice, being gaming dice and not perfectly weighted dice, could roll some numbers more often than others.

Our guess (which you should have gathered from the hypotheses) is that our individual and combined results will be consistent with chance. So what do we do if our results are far above or below chance? What does that mean? It will be interesting to discuss flukes, coincidences, poor methodology, etc. Should we record video of each test for analysis?

I will keep you updated on the nightly numbers by posting them with my 8:00 AM post. They will appear at the bottom of the post in this format:

(Un)scientific psychic test update:
Ziztur: correct guesses out of the number of dice rolled, and ratio from the previous night and overall total.
Flimsy: correct guesses out of the number of dice rolled, and ratio from the previous night and overall total.