and even the psychic on the CNN Larry King “debate” said this:
So we’re not the only people who think the words “cheats and charlatans” when it comes to psychics. (although she doesn’t label all psychics like that, neither does Randi)
I have said this many times before, we are NOT dealing with science here. Science deals with physical stuff, psychics deal with spritual stuff. I realize that if you believe there is no spiritual stuff then we have nothing to talk about. But this does not give you the right (according to law) to slander, bash and otherwise harm people who do. If your group of skeptics ignore the law and continue to do so, then you may find yourselves having to proof your case in court. Now, how much clearer can I get.
While religion and spirituality are way different, it is likely the courts will see spirituality as religion. There are thousands of spiritual churches in America, they honor God in their own way and part of this is psychic ability. They are protected by the constitution as well as everyone else. Science is NOT, repeat NOT, the only thing in the world and everything that is not science is not garbage, which skeptics would have you believe.
SO IF YOU INSIST ON SLANDERING AND HATING PSYCHICS THEN THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON YOU TO EXPLAIN WHY.
Love
Leroy
Testimonials are the only evidence in a court of law either. A good public defender/prosecuter would slaughter his/her opposition if all it relied on was testimonials.
Testimonials can fall prey to human error. Here’s a testimonial about a testimonial: I used to work at a bank. One of my co-workers was telling me about a time when the bank was robbed. She said that the police never caught the guy because all the eyewitness accounts of what the suspect looked like were different.
So, what’s new, I have been saying this all along.
But the skeptics in this thread have been saying ALL psychics are cheats and charlatans, and they are dead wrong.
Love
Leroy
What you are saying is purely supposition, opinion. So testimonials can be in error, nothing new here, so can physical evidence and any other kind of evidence.
Love
Leroy
Um, if you’re accusing me of slander, then I do not think that word means what you think it means.
And again, you’d better be able be able to prove that I made slanderous statements.
as to why I hate “psychics”? Because they are exploiting people’s pain for money.
Psychics deal in verifiable claims. As such, they have ALWAYS come up wanting. No psychic (none, zilch, nada) has ever shown in a controlled study that their claims were any better than chance or those results generated by cold reading.
BTW, your claim that cold reading doesn’t exist is easily dismissible. There are plenty of folks who do it for a living and are willing to demonstrate it. Heck, Penn and Teller are doing it on TV tonight.
So, ignoring how it is done, can you show anyone producing results that are better than chance or already demonstrated non-psychic techniques? Personal testimonials won’t work because they only show one instance, not a pattern necessary to demonstrate something different than chance.
For example, if you think about someone seconds before they call, that is a data point. But to prove anything you have to show all of the thoughts you have about people, and all the phone calls you receive, and show how many “hits” you would expect to get just by chance. Without the rest of the information, your testimonial is not a demonstration of anything. The plural of anecdote is not data.
yes, science currently IS the only thing in the world. Everything in the world that does not currently conform to science IS garbage.
It’s perfectly possible that non-energy-based and/or post-death phenomena exist. If so, they will also be subject to the laws of science, under the universe’s current metaphysical state.
That said, its also possible this state will change now, or some time in the past, and that at some time other than now the rules for causality will depend more on spirit or other phenomena other than energy interactions. Its simply not true now.
- Lekatt
Actually he didn’t. He acknowledged that it is possible that psychic ability may exist. At no time did he state that in fact it does.
- Lekatt
Perhaps some have, but I think most of would be quite willing to concede that some psychics are quite honest in their claims, but are deluding themselves.
- Lekatt
If Meatros commet was “purely supposition,” then so was your response. You merely repeated back what he said, then went on to make a correct statement. Any kind of evidence can be wrong, including your own, which isn’t even real evidence to begin with.
Pretty unconvincing. I’d like a transcript of the even, instead of a potentially biased article.
I’ll also note that a good portion of the argument is a logical falicy. They ask if Randi believes in the possibility of psychic phenominon, and then calls him a hypocrite for saying “Absolutely.” That’s not hypocritical, that’s logical; Psychic phenominon have not been proven to be true, and it’s normally impossible to prove a negative, so the only truthfull, logical answer would be that it is possible. Saying it’s possible doesn’t carry any indication that the person believes it to be true or false, though.
However, I’m glad to note someone provided an actual transcript of the event, instead of a (Now apparently heavily biased) review of it. And yes, the reading does seem like a cold reading. Most people in this country die old (And being a father of an adult caller would indicate this even more so), and are more likely to be under-weight than over-weight. Heart problems are one of the most common causes of death in the US (If not number 1 itself), making chest problems quite likely. Even on other causes of death, there are commonly chest and/or breathing problems. And the answers by the caller are inconsistant as well; First the family says it’s only a matter of time, and then they’re shocked when he does finally die? The rosebush is the only thing that seems like it would be a blind guess, but that’s pretty skimpy evidence. And she always had an easy “out” if she were wrong by saying she wasn’t exactly sure if this was the father she was talking to or not…
The second call is even worse. She says that some female person in the family died quickly of cancer. Gee, what’s the odds of that? If she was wrong about the mother, it could have applied to any female relative, and eventually you’re going to get a hit. The ‘moving’ bit was also a wide-area shot. People are moving all the time, and in a whole family/friends network, of course you’re going to find someone who fits the bill.
Same with the third call. I mean, the person has to go back over ONE HUNDRED YEARS to get a possitive hit, when he was asking about someone close and personal to himself? That’s a clear and simple miss, there.
Call four doesn’t even get a single hit. A complete wash. Call five doesn’t even involve any calls, just a goody-goody “I’m sure they’re together and okay.”
Gee, catching on, are we? :rolleyes:
You love to keep bringing the courts into this, but you seem to absolutely hate actually following that example through. To repeat yet again, the courts disregard eye-witness accounts that contradict the physical evidence.
And how, exactly, can physical evidence be wrong? It can be interpreted wrongly, I’m sure, but it doesn’t seem that physical evidence can be wrong; It just is.
I challenge you to find one place where he says he does believe, because all I’ve seen him say is that it’s possible. Possible means it may or may not be true.
Sure, why not. I completely buy into the saying by Socrates.
“The only true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing.” – Socrates
Wish everybody did, we could start to learn from that position.
I agree and have said so many times, However a great many posters on this board have repeatedly said ALL psychics are charlatans and frauds. A statement that is wrong.
Why is that wrong? So far, you have offered no concrete evidence to the contrary.
There is a difference between starting out an argument without a priori* biases and utter gullibility.
OK, let’s say that it’s possible for psychic powers to exist. Let’s see some evidence. The trouble with you, Lekatt is that you have an inability to sort fact from fiction. Even if true communication with the dead were possible, Praasgh and John Edward aren’t doing it. They are performing an old carny trick. That you cannot see that just shows that you are way too trusting. All those two do is throw out guesses as bait for the audience to fill in the blanks.
Fair enough, I retract my statement that ALL psychics are charlatans and frauds. I replace it with: I think a good majority of psychics are charlatans, frauds, and deluding themselves. The rest may believe they are, in fact, psychic, but in reality they are victim to statistical success. I do not believe psychic phenomenon is real, I have seen no evidence of it, either in the flesh or on paper.
I see no difference between an exposed fraudulent psychic (Miss Cleo) and a genuine one (John Edward), besides their business practices.
Some information.
“Cold readings” are to skeptics as “demons” are to religious folks. They just don’t exist in the real world.
Randi’s definition of a cold reading is anything that comes from a psychic’s mouth. He claims there is such a thing as psychic ability and then can show no example of it. Then when asked about the statistics part of his “test” he claims he knows nothing about statistics. He continues to be vague and ambilivate about the questions Larry King asks. He is confronted with research data from Duke University and again is vague and defensive.
Larry connected the caller to the psychic, no personal information was exchanged, the psychic asked no questions, and proceeded to give a number of items to the caller. Larry asked how she did and found out she was 100% accurate. Larry asked Randi and he said cold reading. Enough said.
The psychic clearly provided proof of her ability.
Some in this thread following their leader said cold reading.
Well I will bet if you presented this transcript to a large group of people at a restaurant (mixed beliefs) not one in a hundred would say cold reading. They, being unbiased, would be able to see the facts as they became apparent.
You can continue to ignore the evidence and material, but it is contining to grow and in a few years will be so overwhelming even skeptics may have to take another look.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0106/05/lkl.00.html
Now in the transcript (above) are good examples of what a psychic does.
Yes, I understand, you retracted your statement and then retracted your retraction. Thanks.
Excuse me. I have to take issue with this. First off, this doesn’t prove anything; if you put a random sampling of people in front of a magician and neglect to tell them that the guy is a magician, I’d be willing to bet that they would think the magician had magic powers.
I didn’t retract my retraction. I retracted that ALL psychics were charlatans and frauds .
No, the definition of a cold reading is an often vague statement that can easily be interpreted in a wide variety of situations, and stands a very good statistical chance of being true. For example, breathing problems in an older person that died, or being very vague on what relative they’re talking about.
He claims it’s possible, and that he doesn’t know if it’s true or not. Big difference.
You ignored my post, didn’t you?
The call doesn’t seem to be 100% accurate, and is actually contradictory at some points (Like as I pointed out, first the caller says everyone knew it was just a matter of time, and then were shocked when it actually did happen??), and are all very statistically high-probability calls. The only one that didn’t come off as a cold-reading was the bit about the rose bush, which could be a guess, for all we know.
The other calls fared significantly worse; One was “linked” to a relative vastly removed from the one the caller asked for. Another failed to score any “hits” at all. Read my previous post for those…
Argumentum ad numerum. The popularity of an idea is in no way relavant to the accuracy of that idea. If you went to a resturaunt 3000 years ago and asked 100 people if the earth were flat or round, they’d all answer “flat.” Just because people believe it, doesn’t make it so.
And I kind of doubt it would get anywhere near that much support, but that’s irrelavant.
The reason you can’t see what happened is the complex obfuscation you surround a simple straightforward event with.
Also, the spirit world doesn’t work like the physical, the psychic was very real in showing her ability, and the great majority of people will not need Randi’s statistical data to know what they see with their own eyes, and hear with their own ears.
Skeptics are going to have to come up with a great deal more than the words “cold reading” to convince the rest of the world they are right.
Love
Leroy