{"id":40959,"date":"2015-11-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-proves-we-cant-walk-straight-line\/"},"modified":"2015-11-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T00:00:00","slug":"research-proves-we-cant-walk-straight-line","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-proves-we-cant-walk-straight-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Proves We Can&#8217;t Walk Straight Line"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2009, a German scientist named Jan Souman took a group of subjects out to empty parking lots and open fields, blindfolded them, and instructed them to walk in a straight line. Some of them managed to keep to a straight course for ten or twenty paces; a few lasted for 50 or a hundred. But in the end, all of them wound up circling back toward their points of origin. Not many of them. Not most of them. Every last one.<\/p>\n\n<p>&quot;And they have no idea,&quot; Dr. Souman told NPR. &quot;They were thinking that they were walking in a straight line all the time.&quot; Dr. Souman&#39;s research team explored every imaginable explanation. Some people turned to the right while others turned to the left, but the researchers could find no discernable pattern. As a group, neither left-handed nor right-handed subjects demonstrated any predisposition for turning one way more than the other; nor did subjects tested for either right- or left-brain dominance. The team even tried gluing a rubber soul to the bottom of one shoe to make one leg longer than the other.<\/p>\n\n<p>&quot;It didn&#39;t make any difference at all,&quot; explained Dr. Souman. &quot;So again, that is pretty random what people do.&quot; In fact, it isn&#39;t even limited to walking. Ask people to swim blindfolded or drive a car blindfolded and, no matter how determined they may be to go straight, they quickly begin to describe peculiar looping circles in one direction or the other.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3462,3549,3761,3802,3945,3996,4575,4772,4813,4913,4977,4978,5090,5273,5276],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-40959","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-avoidance-of-sin","tax_ctp_tags-carnality","tax_ctp_tags-dependence-on-god","tax_ctp_tags-disobedience","tax_ctp_tags-fall-of-humanity","tax_ctp_tags-flesh","tax_ctp_tags-original-sin","tax_ctp_tags-rebellion","tax_ctp_tags-resisting-sin","tax_ctp_tags-self-deception","tax_ctp_tags-sin","tax_ctp_tags-sin-nature","tax_ctp_tags-struggle-against-sin","tax_ctp_tags-wickedness","tax_ctp_tags-will"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Research Proves We Can&#039;t Walk Straight Line - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-proves-we-cant-walk-straight-line\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Research Proves We Can&#039;t Walk Straight Line - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 2009, a German scientist named Jan Souman took a group of subjects out to empty parking lots and open fields, blindfolded them, and instructed them to walk in a straight line. 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