# are psyhics like john edwards and sylvia brown for real?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-psyhics-like-john-edwards-and-sylvia-brown-for-real/98432>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 15, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-psyhics-like-john-edwards-and-sylvia-brown-for-real/98432 "2002-03-15T06:28:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-psyhics-like-john-edwards-and-sylvia-brown-for-real/98432/21 "2002-03-24T16:10:47Z")

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THey are as real as all other psychics, which is to say (in my opinion) not real at all.

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**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-psyhics-like-john-edwards-and-sylvia-brown-for-real/98432/22 "2002-03-24T17:21:42Z")

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Being somewhat unusal, I know five pairs of identical twins. None of them have any special abilities of gaining knowledge with regards to their other, uh, half.

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**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-psyhics-like-john-edwards-and-sylvia-brown-for-real/98432/23 "2002-04-04T00:08:27Z")

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Scott Kurtz of [POnline](http://www.pvponline.com/) fame is running a John Edwards strip this week !!!

Start [here](http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20020401)

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**Author:** ![Kamandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5daacb/32.png) [@Kamandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamandi)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-psyhics-like-john-edwards-and-sylvia-brown-for-real/98432/24 "2002-04-04T01:35:23Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by trishdish \*  
> **Actually, the one arena that has always given me a bit of the heebies is the so-called psychic connection of twins. One of my good friends is an identical twin and she has many tales of her and her sister knowing exactly what is going on with each other even they they have an entire continent separating them from each other. For her, it’s so normal, that she doesn’t even find it all the fascinating.**

Ah, that would be the fallacy of selective remembering.

Your twins remember the occasional times when they knew “exactly what is going on with each other”, but forget the **vastly** larger number of times when they there was no apparent psychic connection. How many times did one twin _not_ sense when the other was experiencing something significant? How many times did a twin think she was sensing something that turned out wrong? Those experiences tend to be forgotten or not considered at all, and the “connections” remembered and reinforced (in the person’s mind) over time.

It’s no mystery that they can occasionally predict each other’s behaviour - they were likely very close when growing up and thoroughly learned each others personalities and behaviours. I’d be surprised if there _wasn’t_ an occasional coincidence when one appeared to know exactly what was going on with the other.

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