Musicat it wouldn’t surprise me if Carl Sagan did say what Lekatt quoted. It’s pretty silly to be sceptical of everything just because you are a sceptic.
However, I very much doubt that Sagan had any problem with a reasonable level of scepticism, per se.
Before you start celebrating prematurely, all that says is that so far, psychic ability, wether true or false, does not seem to be verifiable. Further, it’s the same thing we’ve been saying for ten pages now.
Hey, that brings up another question… You always say psychic ability is not measureable in scientific terms. How exactly do you mean this? Because the only way I can see it possibly fitting is with a gross mis-understanding of science (Such as the results not having verifiable odds of success; Sorry, but if psychic abilities don’t have a verifiable reliability, and is based on pure chance, I don’t see much difference between that and guessing…) **
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ALTEA: What I would say to this lady and I know this – I know this happened on this show, you know. We tell people something and I would say to you, please go home and check with your family about this young girl because somehow she is connecting to you and sees you as a connection to someone in your family.
I don’t have a problem with this, she is making a request, she is not demanding anything, it is for the benefit of person being read.
This is often done, but certainly isn’t anything sinister.
You are trying to force me to check outside my knowledge, and I have no family to check with, so she wouldn’t have told me that in the first place.
As for the other things, you won’t see anything until you want too,
Wow. I know that posting in this thread has been compared to talking to a brick wall, but after reading that I felt like I had driven into a wall.
Lekatt, I suggest that, if you were getting a reading and this topic came up, she would say that to you, unless you made it clear from the beginning that you didn’t have any family, because she wouldn’t know that otherwise.
You’re right, it’s not sinister, exactly, just a cop out.
No, but I’m willing to bet she’d still claim it to be true. And I’m also willing to bet, if you were to get a reading from a psychic that said someone in your family had died of cancer, and you said that you didn’t know of anyone, I’m pretty sure she’d say it was from part of your family you don’t know about. And I’m also willing to bet, you’d take her word on it (After all, she’s psychic). Right? Or would you say she’s wrong? Hell, you say we all have psychic abilities, so for all you know, I could be unconciously chanelling that you have some ancient relative that died of cancer (After all, as you like to regularly claim of us “skeptics,” you don’t have any proof I’m not…).
WTF?? I’m sorry, I didn’t know that asking about something meant I didn’t want to know about it… In what way does that make any sense to you?? How do I express that I want to know about something, indifference? Eesh…
You are shifting around looking for something to argue with, when you should just be looking at the arguements on the table.
What you say may make sense to you, but not me.
As I said, you will see when you want to see. When you are willing to study psychic material in order to learn the whys and hows then you will see.
The first thing you will learn is Psychics know nothing about cold reading because they never use such things, they don’t need to.
On the James Van Praagh show today James gave a woman three things in quick sucession, she had cancer, she had just bought a horse, and another I can’t remember. She stood up and moved back telling James that he was scaring her. Three straight hits, no questions. No cold reading.
And you’re repeatedly avoiding answering any difficult questions.
I have looked at your arguments. Quite frankly, they’re lacking. Badly. And when I ask for clarification, you refuse to give any and say that what you’ve said already is enough. When I ask any questions that could cut to the heart of the matter, you dodge. When I suggest a test for you to display your “psychic powers,” you ignore it. Any of those options could very quickly show proof of psychic ability, IF you were right. But you avoid them. Why? (Mostly a rhetorical question; by now, I seriously doubt you’ll answer any important questions, since you seem to be sniping at what you can hit, instead. But I can always hope for a little intellectual honesty, every now and then…).
How the hell can someone be more willing to understand something than when they’re asking questions to understand it? I think you’re assuming a connection between “seeking” and “believing.” To prove something, you study it, then believe. It’s unreasonable to expect people to believe and then study. It’s flat-out backwards
Also an uncontrolled environment. He could have psychic abilities that told him that. Or he could have a staff that told him X audience member had cancer, bought a horse, and whatever else it was, because they checked the people attending and researched quickly before the show. Or it could have been staged. Or a multitude of other things. Now, if he did it in a controlled environment, that would be something.
I’m also very curious – and you seem to have avoided – since you say we all have psychic powers, how do you know I didn’t ‘psychicly’ determine you do have someone in your family that died of cancer, and you just don’t know it? Maybe some latent ability that happens subconciously? Hey, maybe I should try giving a reading (Since you don’t seem to be taking up the offer, despite claiming to be psychic): I already know you have a brother, so I’m not claiming that as part of the ‘reading.’ But let’s see… When you were younger, you and a sibling would sometimes have disagreements… Usually nothing too severe, but you might argue occasionally, or have other problems getting along. But now that’s mostly or entirely gone, you both grew out of it, and you get along more or less fine with eachother now… How’s that?
I would like you make up a cold reading, probably no more than 10 possible hits and then we can put that into a question form on my site or we can get a third party to test a hundred people what ever may seem fair to you. I want you to agree with the way it is presented. I have asked for this and also Randi’s complete method so we can test it also. I have asked several times but it is ignored.
Now as for my brother and I. He is five years older, so we hardly did anything together, his interests were not mine. I don’t remember any disagreements, because I never saw him much.
We have always got along well because of the age difference.
Love
Leroy
What you suggest is interesting, but I don’t think Phoenix Dragon ever claimed to be an expert in cold reading. How about this: Go to a live taping of Praagh (who I happened to see the other day-does the man have a neck??) or Edward and count how many times he gets a “hit” with a woman/man, and how many misses. Then have a non-psychic try to do the same thing to you, and if they have a similar amount of “hits” and “misses” then would you believe the phenomenon may not be as mystical as it’s proporting to be?
That won’t work because he will deny any “hits” the non-psychic may make.
Plus, he claims that there are no ‘non-psychics’.
You know, that might be true. I think though if Lekatt actually sat in the audience and kept a log book for “hits” and “misses”, his opinion of the matter would change considerably. I mean, now that I think about it, he doesn’t even have to have a “fake” psychic try to repeat the process. I think if he see’s Edward/Praagh in action, he will realize the deceptive nature of television.
“Being skeptical of everything because you are a skeptic is insanity.”
FWIW I can’t find it, and I never heard it before.
Why? Because they edit out the misses?
For the most part, yes. IIRC the tapings for those type of shows are up to 6 hours, for a 1 hour show.
So what ratio of hits to misses would convince you that a “psychic” was in contact with your dead relative?
If there was only one hit but that hit was something that was only known by you and the dead person, would that convince you?
I would say 100%, or at least 95% accuracy. Also, this wouldn’t necessarily convince me that the psychic was legit, it would however convince me that further scientific research was necessary.
It wouldn’t convince me that the experience was real-after all there could be a number of different explanations. It would would, however increase my interest in finding out if the phenomenon was real.
I suppose if I had come up with a hudini (sp?) type phrase or what not and the psychic said that, that would lend credibility to the psychic’s claims.
You could also use the 9/10/01 show with Larry King and John Edward . You have Edward insisting to callers that he’s right.
That show is full of 'em. JE just does not perform wellwhen talking to the dead live.
Suppose a psychic just says “Your father, named Arthur, died when you were 10” to every person he meets. 99.9 percent of people will be misses, but to the one person for whom it is a hit, the psychic will be considered infallible.
You need to determine statistically how likely each statement is to be true for a random selection of the population. What cold reading allows is for the reader to make statements that are very likely to be true for someone (or anyone) in a group and then make the mark, er, subject supply more detailed information under the guise of confirming.
To go with statistical analysis, you need some serious study of people and typical statements by cold readers.
Why don’t we try it right here?
Somebody go on over and do a reading on me to help me contact my grandfather.
Excellent. Now we’re making progress…
Has a study of this type ever been done?