psychics
- Thread starter leopold
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Seriously, to give a good answer to those, I would have to look up a few things. I have read astrology books that seem to give some really interesting insights into the characters of people born under the different signs, seemingly with deadly accuracy. How do you work that double-blind so that you can eliminate a confirmation bias?
Pyramid power is something that people have tested and found marked results. I can barely remember what I read about it more than 20 years ago. I think that preservation of meat and other foods was an established fact.
Alien abductions? Show me where it has been proven that people are good liars under hypnosis. I accept the idea in principle that the interviewer might plant ideas but I would hope they are good enough by now to avoid that. That could slide into another area of false memories, but let's not do that here.
To just wave away and dismiss all of the evidence that is out there is to call a lot of people liars, fools, and scoundrels. Any person who is qualified to do that should at least be able to write good essays that criticize ideas without calling people names or describing them in negative terms. Martin Gardner was good with math and entirely unable, apparently, to criticize others in any fair manner. James Randi, forget it. It also seems like anyone who uses a fair mind and writes in a truly discerning manner seems to sound sympathetic. Trouble is that there is always some good evidence that can't be easily dismissed. Reading the debunkers sheds no light even on the nature of the evidence being dismissed. But any story that tells just the facts, just what was seen and heard and all that, begins to be believable, but the shouting and funny talk that the debunkers employ isn't what intelligent people would use as a matter of criticism. It is just as bad as psychic investigators who seem to fudge the results. But the debunkers would work themselves out of their jobs if they did them effectively, so it's just as well.
Pyramid power is something that people have tested and found marked results. I can barely remember what I read about it more than 20 years ago. I think that preservation of meat and other foods was an established fact.
Alien abductions? Show me where it has been proven that people are good liars under hypnosis. I accept the idea in principle that the interviewer might plant ideas but I would hope they are good enough by now to avoid that. That could slide into another area of false memories, but let's not do that here.
To just wave away and dismiss all of the evidence that is out there is to call a lot of people liars, fools, and scoundrels. Any person who is qualified to do that should at least be able to write good essays that criticize ideas without calling people names or describing them in negative terms. Martin Gardner was good with math and entirely unable, apparently, to criticize others in any fair manner. James Randi, forget it. It also seems like anyone who uses a fair mind and writes in a truly discerning manner seems to sound sympathetic. Trouble is that there is always some good evidence that can't be easily dismissed. Reading the debunkers sheds no light even on the nature of the evidence being dismissed. But any story that tells just the facts, just what was seen and heard and all that, begins to be believable, but the shouting and funny talk that the debunkers employ isn't what intelligent people would use as a matter of criticism. It is just as bad as psychic investigators who seem to fudge the results. But the debunkers would work themselves out of their jobs if they did them effectively, so it's just as well.
MetaKron:
A wise man once said "It's good to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."
You seem to think there is something to psychic powers, astrology, pyramid power, and alien visitations. You have a very open mind, for sure. But have you ever considered that maybe you give just a little too much credence to these things? The evidence for all of them is very flimsy, to say the least.
Some specific comments:
An easy test is to get a small group of people (say 5) and have a professional astrologer prepare a horoscope for each of them. Then, ask the people to choose which horoscope applies to them, out of the five. (Obviously, the astrologer can't include specific identifying information.)
Alternatively, get one astrologer to prepare the horoscopes and another one to choose which ones go with which people.
If this can be done with a better than chance accuracy, perhaps there is something to astrology. However, whenever this kind of thing has actually been done, it has been found that the horoscopes are essentially random. More worrying is that horoscopes prepared for the same person by different astrologers are different and sometimes even contradictory.
Pick up a collection of different newspapers and read the horoscopes for one star sign. You will often find they are different. Why would that be?
No. Most recently, Mythbusters tested the preservation of food, the sharpening of razor blades etc. and found no effect. Other people have also done such tests, and there's nothing special about pyramids.
Again, it has been found that in most cases of abduction memories "recovered" by hypnosis, the person doing the hypnotising has suggested certain explanations and the hypnotised person's imagination has done the rest. Hypnotised people are in very suggestible states, and their imaginations run wild. And they've all seen movies and read books about alien abductions.
Not necessarily. Many people sincerely believe they have psychic powers, or that pyramids can sharpen razor blades. They aren't lying about their beliefs. But their beliefs invariably turn out not to have a solid foundation. People make honest mistakes about what they observe all the time. And sometimes people believe things on the flimsiest evidence.
How much stuff of theirs have you actually read?
I know that Randi is somewhat belligerent in that he doesn't suffer fools gladly. But then, he has been fighting the bullshit for years. And his approach doesn't mean he is wrong. And he has put his money where his mouth is, by offering $1 million to anybody who can demonstrate paranormal powers. The test conditions are mutually agreed in advance, not just set by Randi. And yet, every person who has ever taken an agreed test has failed to demonstrate powers beyond the bounds of chance. Now, are you going to claim Randi somehow rigs the tests? Or don't psychic powers work in the presence of skeptics? Or what?
Pick up a copy of "Skeptic" magazine, or "Skeptical Enquirer" at your local news stand. Read it. Then tell me that it sheds no light on the nature of the evidence.
A wise man once said "It's good to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."
You seem to think there is something to psychic powers, astrology, pyramid power, and alien visitations. You have a very open mind, for sure. But have you ever considered that maybe you give just a little too much credence to these things? The evidence for all of them is very flimsy, to say the least.
Some specific comments:
An easy test is to get a small group of people (say 5) and have a professional astrologer prepare a horoscope for each of them. Then, ask the people to choose which horoscope applies to them, out of the five. (Obviously, the astrologer can't include specific identifying information.)
Alternatively, get one astrologer to prepare the horoscopes and another one to choose which ones go with which people.
If this can be done with a better than chance accuracy, perhaps there is something to astrology. However, whenever this kind of thing has actually been done, it has been found that the horoscopes are essentially random. More worrying is that horoscopes prepared for the same person by different astrologers are different and sometimes even contradictory.
Pick up a collection of different newspapers and read the horoscopes for one star sign. You will often find they are different. Why would that be?
No. Most recently, Mythbusters tested the preservation of food, the sharpening of razor blades etc. and found no effect. Other people have also done such tests, and there's nothing special about pyramids.
Again, it has been found that in most cases of abduction memories "recovered" by hypnosis, the person doing the hypnotising has suggested certain explanations and the hypnotised person's imagination has done the rest. Hypnotised people are in very suggestible states, and their imaginations run wild. And they've all seen movies and read books about alien abductions.
Not necessarily. Many people sincerely believe they have psychic powers, or that pyramids can sharpen razor blades. They aren't lying about their beliefs. But their beliefs invariably turn out not to have a solid foundation. People make honest mistakes about what they observe all the time. And sometimes people believe things on the flimsiest evidence.
How much stuff of theirs have you actually read?
I know that Randi is somewhat belligerent in that he doesn't suffer fools gladly. But then, he has been fighting the bullshit for years. And his approach doesn't mean he is wrong. And he has put his money where his mouth is, by offering $1 million to anybody who can demonstrate paranormal powers. The test conditions are mutually agreed in advance, not just set by Randi. And yet, every person who has ever taken an agreed test has failed to demonstrate powers beyond the bounds of chance. Now, are you going to claim Randi somehow rigs the tests? Or don't psychic powers work in the presence of skeptics? Or what?
Pick up a copy of "Skeptic" magazine, or "Skeptical Enquirer" at your local news stand. Read it. Then tell me that it sheds no light on the nature of the evidence.
Deadly accuracy? .. Or vague, subjective terms that you fit into the situatuion while ignoring the misses.MetaKron said:
Astrology has been tested before...
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/02/what_do_you_mea.html
Established fact? No you are mistaken.MetaKron said:
If you find studies that prove me wrong I am happy to read them.
Lying has nothing to do with it. The problem with retrieving memories using hypnosis is that created memories are indistinguishable from real ones. The process is flawed. It is not a matter of the interviewer deceptively or carelessly planting memories. The ones retrieved are not reliable.MetaKron said:
**Edit. I see James R responded before I finished. Will leave the post here anyway.
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MetaKron said:
It's actually the opposite Metakron, you need to demonstrate that Hypnosis provides reliable results;
The Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (Kaplan & Sadlock,1985) said
"Hypnosis not only fails to produce more accurate memories but also increases the patient's willingness to report unclear memories as facts. Confabulations, distortions, fantasies and cued responses all add to the potential unreliability of such memories."
c7ityi_ said:
Geller is a stage magician. His own stooges have outed him. Give up.
Have any of you looked up Bob Cracknell? He has accurately predicted such events as the arrest of the Yorkshire Ripper. There are records of this at the Oxford Society of Psychical Research. He even passed th empty chair test with 80% accuracy. Not sure what Randi's standards are, but that seems to mean something to me.
Or the psychic can lead them to physical evidence that they seem to overlook. Some people really have a natural capacity for finding things. You've got to figure that the better minds, that are of enough of a higher calibre that they are a different class altogether, are not going to go for police work anyway. People who can use their brains to "read" a setup well aren't necessarily going to be college graduates, either. The new series "Psych" gives good examples of the actual kind of mental progress. Even when you are talking putting together the clues that most people miss, you are still talking about a different set of mental capacities from those that most people use.
I may be wrong but it seems you are making some strange claims here. A natural capacity for finding things implies a better mind of a higher calibre? Police work is too boring for these people? However they are not college graduates either? Is an education a sign that someone is not psychic? Are we still talking about psychics or someone will excellent observation and deduction skills.MetaKron said:
Police are trained to investigate a crime. Sure they miss things occasionally but they are in a much better position to find something useful, particularly those with some experience.
If I was abducted I would prefer that the police were looking for me using their proven methods rather than following leads from someone who had a dream and said I was near water, a church or a field.
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There's a lot of talk about how police use psychics, but this talk almost always originates from the so-called "psychics." Police are not in the habit of turning away those that volunteer information on a case, and will take a "psychic's" statement, but this in no way implies that the police actually employ psychics or psychic information.
In the cases where police have followed up on psychic "leads," they usually do so at the behest of the families of the victims. To put it the way a detective I know told me, "how do you turn down the mother of a five-year old that's been missing for a week when she begs you in tears to follow up on a psychic's lead?" Not only that, but when coincidence or intention validates the psychic's information and the police haven't followed up on it, they'll get bad press. It also has to be considered that there are those that will claim to have "premonitions" or clairvoyant experiences about a case as a means to avoid giving up their true source of information. There was a famous case where a woman overheard thugs in her neighborhood bragging about what they did and where they hid a girl's body. The woman pretended to be psychic to offer the information.
With regard to Candy's comment about police having to choose real vs. fake psychics, this is about like trying to figure out if the Star Wars nerd at a convention is a real or fake Jedi in his bath robe.
There simply is no data to support the contention that any psychics have genuinely provided any useful information to solve any crimes. There are plenty who are willing to *say* there is, but any self-proclaimed "psychic" that claims he/she has aided police in solving a real crime is either lying, deluded, or complicit in the crime itself.
In the cases where police have followed up on psychic "leads," they usually do so at the behest of the families of the victims. To put it the way a detective I know told me, "how do you turn down the mother of a five-year old that's been missing for a week when she begs you in tears to follow up on a psychic's lead?" Not only that, but when coincidence or intention validates the psychic's information and the police haven't followed up on it, they'll get bad press. It also has to be considered that there are those that will claim to have "premonitions" or clairvoyant experiences about a case as a means to avoid giving up their true source of information. There was a famous case where a woman overheard thugs in her neighborhood bragging about what they did and where they hid a girl's body. The woman pretended to be psychic to offer the information.
With regard to Candy's comment about police having to choose real vs. fake psychics, this is about like trying to figure out if the Star Wars nerd at a convention is a real or fake Jedi in his bath robe.
There simply is no data to support the contention that any psychics have genuinely provided any useful information to solve any crimes. There are plenty who are willing to *say* there is, but any self-proclaimed "psychic" that claims he/she has aided police in solving a real crime is either lying, deluded, or complicit in the crime itself.
Oniw17 said:
Peter Sutcliffe was arrested and questioned several times by the Police over the case, but released because at the time, they, and everyone else believed quite strongly that the cassette tapes sent by a man with a Geordie accent was the Ripper. Cracknell made no prediction confirming or denying the veracity of these tapes.
That the Ripper would be arrested in a car is quite likely. The Ripper was obviously mobile, his crimes being spread around, and as he largely targetted prostitutes, who get picked up in cars. He was caught because he had a false number plate, and Cracknell made no specific mention of that.
Cracknell's predictions are all vague, and have never led directly to an arrest as far as I know. In fact, some of his stories get basic details incorrect, so I am dubious as to their truthfulness.