Hello guys,
I fell down a proper rabbit hole this week and decided to make you a part of it :)

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Here's the story..

Back in the 1980s, a French researcher named René Peoc'h (would never be able to pronounce his name) ran this weird experiment. He had newly-hatched chicks "imprint" on a small robot that moved around a pen completely at random. 🐥 Baby chicks bond to the first moving thing they see - so they decided this robot was mum, and wanted to be near it. René then caged them on one side where they could see the robot but not reach it… and reported the robot started drifting toward their side more than random chance should allow. As if their wanting was pulling on the randomness.

So.. our beliefs bend reality?

Here's the part that got me: this wasn't one oddball study. It inspired a lab at Princeton (founded by the dean of their engineering school!) to spend nearly 30 years testing whether human intention could nudge random machines.

So this is usually the stuff people point at when they say "science proved intention bends reality!" 🙂 FYI: I read about this study in a book by Joe Dispenza who had kindly forgotten to mention all the details that I'm about to tell you.

So, I decided to check the lab's own final paper..

Over millions of trials, the team concluded people could shift the machine's output .. very slightly - about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000. That's the whole effect. And their last robot study ran on two people, while they were literally dismantling the lab, and timing the robot by hand after their tracking gear broke. One run even came out backwards, and they counted it as a hit anyway. And for 30 years, this work was published mostly in the field's own in-house journals - the wider scientific community was never able to independently reproduce it.

So why am I telling you this?

Not to inform you that lying on your bed and staring at the ceiling might not be enough to get you a Ferrari :)

I'm telling you because I'm working on a video called "According to Neuroscience" - about the nonsense all over the internet right now. Claims that neuroscience "explains" something the cited research never actually measured. Or that a brain scan can diagnose ADHD (it can't - there's no brain scan that diagnoses ADHD, not at this moment at least, full stop).

The chicks are the perfect example of how this happens. These weren't cranks. Credentialed, published, intelligent people gave thirty years of real research time to an idea - largely because they wanted it to be true.

And I get it. It would have been nice. It also would have been easy.

Moral of the Story

That's the part that actually interests me - not "chicks move robots with their mind," but how easily smart, careful people keep believing something the evidence never quite delivers, because they want to.

Sometimes wanting something badly bends what you're willing to see. The chicks didn't nudge the randomness - the researchers' hope nudged the researchers. Desire is a pattern-finder, and a strong enough desire will find patterns whether or not they're there.

And honestly, who could blame any of us for wanting a little magic? :)

But here's the one thing I've learned from my coaching practice: people very often go looking for the magic wand - the thing that gives the highest benefit for the lowest time and energy.

If that's what you're after, my coaching isn't for you. Truly.

But if you want to do some real work - the unglamorous, actually-moves-the-needle kind - then have a look at the link below. The site's still under construction, but I've added more info there already.

Given that at least half of you reading this are diagnosed with ADHD (and many of us are especially quick to spot patterns and chase the interesting ones) I thought this robots-and-chicks story was worth sharing :)

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Talk to you soon,

Evie

EvieRan MSc in Psychology · University-trained coach · Author