It's as though they hired an agency like the one the Mark McKinney character hires in the second season of /Slings And Arrows/.

It's obviously an early-model Cylon made to infiltrate our dishwashing machines.

It's a shoe lock, for countries where it's traditional to leave your shoes at the office door when you go in to work. It disables the shoe, deterring theft, and stretches it at the same time, for after you've been standing all day and your feet are puffy around the edges.

The first thing I think is, did they check for poison on his mouth?

"Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends." This biases the results. Who is most likely to call you? A friend or relative. Who are you most likely to think will call you? A friend or relative. It's not unlikely at all for you to guess correctly. In fact, the odds are good that you will, not billions to one against.

Also, were callers and guessers alike told the purpose of the experiment before participating? If so, they all thought first of their friends who believe in telepathy, both the ones who gave names and phone numbers, and the ones who guessed who was calling.

This isn't experimental proof of telepathy. It's a magic trick dressed up as science, and, sadly, reported as science. But you knew that.