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Elusive by Law · evidence ledger

Evidence

All 17 evidence records in this case's ledger. Every record carries an explicit direction, keeps what the source states separate from what we infer, and links its source and the claims it bears on. Supporting and undermining evidence get the same structure and the same seriousness.

Supports12Qualifies4Context1

Supports

12 records · strongest first

Records that favor a rung of the featured hypothesis.

Supports· strongMPI-E003

Nailing Jelly: two preregistered consensus-protocol replications fail

what the source states
Following a consensus protocol deposited on OSF before commencement, two independent replications of the 2020 experiment were run with the same equipment: 64 participants (post-hoc power 0.88) and 40 participants (power 0.69), analyzed by a nonparametric randomization test with 10,000 iterations. "Neither of the two experiments was significant." The authors conclude "that the matrix experiment in and of itself is not a replicable paradigm in PSI research."
what we infer
The proponents' own team, on the model's own chosen benchmark, under a protocol they froze in advance — the cleanest confirmation that the excess-correlation effect does not replicate on demand. Note the interpretive move that follows in the same abstract: the failure is read as "likely part of the systematic nature of such effects," which is the falsifiability crux (MPI-C010) in action.
limitations
  • Power for the second replication was low (0.69); the first was adequately powered.
  • Standard power analysis is itself contested under a model that denies stable effects — the authors provide theirs only post hoc.
Walach, H. (2021)AI-verified citationMPI-C002MPI-C003
Supports· strongMPI-E004

Grote 2021: full blind analysis of 200 participants finds nothing

what the source states
An independent conceptual replication built from scratch tested 200 participants under a blind-analysis protocol in which the complete analysis software was written and tested before the data were analyzed; the unblinding was performed live at the 2019 Parapsychological Association convention. "The main result was found to be not statistically significant and fell well within the expected random distribution of possible results." Two secondary/post-hoc analyses each yielded p = 0.06.
what we infer
The methodologically strictest test in the corpus, by an experimenter independent of Lucadou's group, on the model's nominated paradigm: null. Under the conventional account this is the expected result; under MPI it is absorbed as decline — which is why this record weighs more against MPI-C007 than any single positive weighs for it.
limitations
  • The two p = 0.06 secondary results are reported by the author as suggestive anecdota, not confirmations.
Grote, H. (2021)AI-verified citationMPI-C002
Supports· strongMPI-E009

The NT axiom and the decline derivation, in the theorists' own words

what the source states
"Entanglement correlations cannot be used for transmitting signals or controllable causal influences." From this the paper derives: an apparent causal effect "will be wiped out, if one tries to corroborate it by improving statistics through attempts at replicating the effect. This is the well known and often experienced decline effect. The decline effect will be faster, if the original effect was stronger: the reciprocity of effect strength and reproducibility is a further prediction of Generalized Quantum Theory." Correlations "may even change sign or disappear altogether, or else show up again in different observables and/or between different parts of the system."
what we infer
Establishes that the decline/displacement predictions are genuinely in print (2007) rather than retrofitted to the 2017–2021 failures. Note the strength–reproducibility reciprocity: a distinctive, testable piece of fine structure that no replication has yet targeted with a prespecified metric.
limitations
  • A theory paper: this record evidences what the model predicts, not that the predictions are true.
von Lucadou, W. (2007)AI-verified citationMPI-C005
Supports· strongMPI-E011

The matrix design's stated rationale: use evasion, don't fight it

what the source states
"In order to reduce the decline effect, one should make positive use of the evasion phenomenon. This can be done by simultaneous registration of as many different correlations as possible. Psi effects will then show up as transitory, jumping unexpected and statistically unlikely patterns in the correlation matrix. Clearly, by such measures it will never be possible to overcome the decline effect completely and to convince every sceptic."
what we infer
The design rationale concedes in advance that the paradigm will not produce skeptic-proof replication — a candor that reads either as theoretical consistency or as a pre-announced excuse, depending on the attribution rung. Either way, it binds MPI to the matrix record as its best available test.
limitations
  • Same source and authors as MPI-E009; not an independent attestation.
von Lucadou, W. (2007)AI-verified citationMPI-C006
Supports· strongMPI-E015

Bösch 2006: micro-PK meta-analysis — tiny effects, huge heterogeneity, publication bias

what the source states
A meta-analysis of 380 REG-intention studies found a very small but significant overall effect, extreme heterogeneity, and a strong small-study effect, concluding that publication bias appears to be the easiest and most encompassing explanation for the primary findings.
what we infer
The base-rate backdrop for the whole case: the broader literature the matrix experiments grew from is consistent with selection processes acting on null effects. Radin and colleagues' published rebuttal (same issue) contests the smallest-studies weighting — the dispute is noted, not resolved, here.
limitations
  • Targets classical hit-rate micro-PK, not the matrix paradigm itself.
  • A published comment (Radin et al. 2006) disputes the meta-analytic weighting choices.
Bösch, H. (2006)AI-verified citationMPI-C008
Supports· moderateMPI-E001

Lucadou's original matrix experiments report excess correlations

what the source states
The 2006 proceedings paper presents the Model of Pragmatic Information and Lucadou's correlation-matrix experiments, reported by the author and his co-workers as producing more significant psychological–physical correlations in experimental sessions than expected by chance or seen in control matrices.
what we infer
This is the founding evidence line of the whole program. Its weight depends entirely on whether the significance counting survives the dependence critique (MPI-C009), which had not been formulated when these analyses were run.
limitations
  • Full text not examined for this import; results characterization follows the descriptions in Walach et al. (2020, 2021) and Grote (2021).
  • Author's own experiments, pre-preregistration era; the original 1986–1987 series was published mainly in German-language venues.
  • Original raw data have not been published for independent reanalysis.
von Lucadou, W. (2006)AI-verified citationMPI-C001
Supports· moderateMPI-E002

Walach et al. 2020: a large two-lab replication reports a significant surplus

what the source states
A two-laboratory replication with rebuilt hardware and software and a 45×45-variable matrix (2,025 cells) reported evidence for anomalistic correlations between human behavior and a random event generator, evaluated against 10,000 simulated experiments.
what we infer
The strongest positive result in the modern record — and qualified by its own authors a year later, who described it as "a significant but fragile effect, as significance broke down in reasonably improved methods of analysis" (Walach et al. 2021). Both halves belong in the ledger.
limitations
  • Co-authored by the model's originator.
  • Significance was not robust across analysis variants, per the authors' own successor paper.
Walach, H. (2020)AI-verified citationMPI-C001MPI-C007
Supports· moderateMPI-E006

Grote 2017: preplanned analyses null; a post-hoc variant significant

what the source states
Twenty participants, 720,000 bits, three analyses defined and tested before looking at the data — including a conceptual replication of the correlation-matrix method. Results: p = 0.438, p = 0.703, and p = 0.0949 for the three preplanned analyses (combined p = 0.315). "While none of the pre-defined analysis results is found significant, a post-hoc variant of analysis 3 that includes the control data is significant with p = 0.012."
what we infer
One study, both lessons: the preplanned nulls extend the failed replication record (MPI-C002), and the significant post-hoc variant is a live demonstration of how analytic flexibility can conjure a positive from the same data (MPI-C008). The synthesis document that seeded this case cited the post-hoc figure as a replication success — an error this import corrects.
limitations
  • Small sample (20 participants) limits what the preplanned nulls can exclude.
Grote, H. (2017)AI-verified citationMPI-C002MPI-C008
Supports· moderateMPI-E010

GQT: the formal framework in a physics-foundations venue

what the source states
The paper axiomatizes a "weak" quantum theory retaining complementarity and entanglement for arbitrary systems while dropping Hilbert-space structure and Planck's constant, explicitly anticipating macroscopic, non-physical applications.
what we infer
The formalism is real and published where physicists could object to it. What it purchases in generality it pays for in predictive force: without quantified probabilities, GQT cannot say how big a matrix surplus should be — only that unexploitable correlations may exist.
limitations
  • Framework, not evidence: no empirical result in this record bears on whether psychophysical entanglement exists.
Atmanspacher, H. (2002)AI-verified citationMPI-C004
Supports· moderateMPI-E014

Kennedy 2003: the elusiveness pattern documented field-wide

what the source states
Kennedy's review argues from the field's own record that psi effects are "capricious, actively evasive, and unsustainable": initially significant paradigms decline, effects shift between variables and experimenters, and no protocol has ever produced sustained, exploitable results.
what we infer
Confirms that the explanandum MPI targets is real as a sociological and statistical pattern in the literature. It does not favor MPI's explanation of the pattern over the null-plus-selection explanation — Kennedy himself canvasses both directions.
limitations
  • Narrative review by a single author; the pattern description is not itself a quantitative meta-analysis.
Kennedy, J. E. (2003)AI-verified citationMPI-C003MPI-C502
Supports· moderateMPI-E017

Maier & Dechamps 2022: a celebrated micro-PK effect traced to a coding error

what the source states
In a preregistered replication program of a correlational micro-PK effect, the authors report discovering a coding error in their earlier work that had produced a false-positive result, and analyze what the corrected record implies about their previous conclusions.
what we infer
A documented instance, inside the modern correlational micro-PK literature, of an ordinary software mistake manufacturing an "anomalous" effect that survived until a replication forced the audit — exactly the class of mundane mechanism the conventional steelman says the founding matrix results need to be screened against. Credit where due: the authors found and published the error themselves.
limitations
  • Concerns the Maier/Dechamps experimental line, not Lucadou's matrix datasets; its force here is as a documented failure mode, not a direct audit.
Maier, M. A. (2022)AI-verified citationMPI-C008
Supports· weakMPI-E005

Grote 2015: initial study reports a significant distribution result

what the source states
Grote's first correlation study between human intention and a binary random event generator was published in JSE 29(2). Per his own later description, "a former study of this kind had found a significant result" for the distribution-of-hit-rates analysis (Grote 2017, abstract).
what we infer
The first step of a textbook decline arc within a single careful experimenter's series: 2015 significant, 2017 null on all preplanned analyses, 2021 null under full blinding.
limitations
  • Full 2015 text not examined; the result is characterized via the author's own 2017 abstract.
  • Not a matrix experiment in the strict Lucadou design; part of the broader micro-PK correlation family.
Grote, H. (2015)AI-verified citationMPI-C003

Qualifies

4 records · strongest first

Records that narrow, complicate, or bound what another record can carry.

Qualifies· moderateMPI-E007

Flores 2021: five in-house replications, three significant under permutation tests

what the source states
A doctoral thesis under Watt and Walach ran five replication studies, the first two exact replications using Lucadou's own RNG, software, and protocol, with new control and analysis methods introduced and compared against the originals. Per the successor preprint's summary, Flores "still reports significant results in three out of five studies," while her Monte Carlo work found that high intercorrelations among psychological variables had inflated the original studies' significance.
what we infer
The most double-edged record in the case: partial positive results that survive her own dependence-aware analyses, produced inside the same project that sharpened the strongest statistical critique of the founding experiments. It qualifies both the clean-null narrative and the founding results at once.
limitations
  • Thesis examination rather than journal peer review; the five studies share equipment, personnel, and analytic choices, so they are not five independent confirmations.
Flores, A. B. (2021)AI-verified citationMPI-C007MPI-C009
Qualifies· moderateMPI-E016

Bierman 2016: QRP simulation explains much — not all — of a flagship psi effect

what the source states
Simulating questionable research practices at empirically observed frequencies against the ganzfeld meta-analytic database, the authors conclude "that QRPs are capable of explaining about 60% of the effect size reported in the GF meta-analysis," that the reported significance "is likely inflated by QRPs, though results are still significant (p = 0.003) with QRPs," and that a good fit with no anomalous effect required unrealistic QRP parameter values.
what we infer
Cuts both ways, and is filed that way: it quantifies how far QRPs really go (a long way), and it documents that in the best-studied neighboring database they did not, under this model, cover the whole distance. Applying either lesson to the much smaller matrix corpus is an extrapolation.
limitations
  • Ganzfeld telepathy data, not matrix experiments; QRP frequencies were borrowed from psychology surveys under an untested assumption of comparability.
Bierman, D. J. (2016)AI-verified citationMPI-C008
Qualifies· weakMPI-E008

Flores & Rapazote-Flores 2023: large online replication splits by RNG type

what the source states
An online-game implementation with 726 participants and ~10,900 sessions found a significant experimental–control difference for the 64×64 matrix with the Random.org true-random source (Welch's t = 3.811, p = 0.00013, power 94%) but not with the Mersenne Twister pseudo-random generator (t = 1.813, p = 0.070, power 67%).
what we infer
Directionally interesting for quantum-flavored theories, which want genuine indeterminacy to matter (see MPI-C503) — but an unreviewed preprint with an uneven power split between the two arms, and the gamified online protocol departs far from the laboratory paradigm.
limitations
  • Preprint; not peer reviewed.
  • The pseudo-RNG arm had lower achieved power, so the split is weaker evidence than the headline p-values suggest.
Flores, A. B. (2023)AI-verified citationMPI-C007
Qualifies· weakMPI-E013

Watt & Tierney 2013: MPI's first field test returns null, underpowered

what the source states
A three-year, sixteen-country collaborative study — described by its authors as the first systematic test of the MPI — used a waiting-list design on spontaneous RSPK-type cases, predicting that cases viewed and documented in detail would show reduced anomalous experiences relative to undocumented cases. Of 43 referrals, 14 cases completed the study (6 documented). "Analysis of the two formal study hypotheses did not provide support for the predictions of the MPI, and it was concluded that this aspect of the research was of limited success due to low statistical power."
what we infer
The only attempt to test MPI's documentation-suppresses-phenomena prediction outside the laboratory. As evidence it is nearly mute — 14 cases cannot decide anything — but it demonstrates that the model's field predictions are operationalizable, which matters for MPI-C010.
limitations
  • Severely underpowered (14 completed cases against the planned sample).
  • Referral flow collapsed for documented sociological reasons (rise of amateur ghost-hunting groups), confounding the recruitment base.
Watt, C. (2013)AI-verified citationMPI-C007

Context

1 record · strongest first

Background that informs the case without pushing either way.

Context· weakMPI-E012

The 2015 Praeger chapter: MPI presented as the answer to the repeatability problem

what the source states
Lucadou's chapter in the May & Marwaha theory volume presents the Model of Pragmatic Information among the field's principal theoretical frameworks; reference lists cite the volume's treatment of the correlation-matrix method as "a new light upon the repeatability problem of parapsychology."
what we infer
Marks the model's arrival in the field's canonical theory anthology — context for its standing among psi theories, not evidence for its truth.
limitations
  • Full text not examined; chapter title varies across citations (see source verificationNote).
von Lucadou, W. (2015)AI-verified citationMPI-C006