Take a look at the Randi tests. When you stop feeding the cold reader information, the hit rates drop like a stone.
I have sat in the audience of more psychics than you know. Fifteen years of working with them and watching them and even being one of them.
They do not do cold readings and don’t even know the term. It is used only by skeptics.
As for how they do, it varies according to skill, some are very accurate 90 to 99% accurate and others less than 50%. I think if the reading drops to less than 50% they need to practice more, but considering the odds they are up against it is still not bad.
Love
Leroy
I was in the ad business and publishing for years, I do know a lot about the process of TV shows, I still have some good friends doing the news shows on a local channel.
I realize that they do many readings and pick the best for viewing, they do not edit the individual readings, if they did it would be easy to notice. James and John are basically employees of the show, it is the producer who says what to show and what not. To blame the psychics for the editing is ridiculous.
Love
Leroy
These kind of posts are the ones I seldom answer and the reason is obvious. You take a one minute segment out of an hour show and then say the whole show was like that. BS.
Wiser heads will want to read the whole show for themselves and make up their own minds on the total evidence.
Love
Leroy
Very well said, only a little bit of thinking will show that a cold reading of say 10 possible hits would have an astronomically small chance of finding anyone it would fit. I would say the chance that it fit 10% of the people surveyed would still be astronomically small. This points out the ignorance of the theory of cold reading very well.
Love
Leroy
Do you even pay attention to your fingers when you’re typing? I can understand you being skeptical (ha!) of the second link, since it was from a site called SkepticNet or something. But the first link is a transcript of the entire segment with John Edwards, from CNN, who surely doesn’t have a dog in this fight. Yes, wiser heads will make up their minds on the total evidence. However, you show no signs of being one of them.
I looked it over. You had about 50% hits and then only by stretching to help the readings.
Some of the questions could easily be determine by voice, appearance, attitude and other observable things. But mostly psychics not give such general statements.
Your mother has two arms. Did I get a hit.
Love
Leroy
I have been suggesting this for some time. No, but maybe it will be to show some real light on skeptics.
Love
Leroy
The point is that of those ten hits, chances are at least some of them will apply to most people. Example (I’m cribbing many of these):
- Your parents/grandparents or some of their siblings were older when they died.
- Someone in your family has died of cancer (even if you specifically don’t know of anyone, the vast majority of people do)
- Someone in your family had breathing problems before they died.
- Someone in your family wore a uniform at some point in their lives.
- Someone in your family has been in a car accident.
- Someone in your family has held a grudge against someone else in your family at some point in time.
- Someone in your family has the letter ‘B’ somewhere in their name.
- Someone in your family has had high blood pressure at some point in their lives.
- Someone who loved you is dead now.
- Some female in your family left behind a jewelry box.
I don’t know if everyone here can match those 10 for 10, but most people match at least a few of them. Like the horoscopes in the newspaper, they are so broad as to be meaningless.
(my rating for this cold reading: 9 at least. Probably 10, but I don’t know about the jewelry box thing.)
I, nor any other person would believe any of Randi’s statistics until he puts the truth on the table on what he does and how he does it. Remember he is a master of deception. And he has proved that over and over again.
However, Lekatt, if the 10 hits include statements such as:
“I’m seeing a man, father or grandfather, possibly uncle.”
“There’s an 8 connection, eighth month, or eighth day of the month or the number 8.”
“He’s wearing a uniform (doesn’t specify what type of uniform).”
“There was a chest problem.”
“He died suddenly.”
“He’s pointing to your heart.”
“There’s also a woman, middle aged.”
“What does a bicycle mean to you?”
“She had a special nickname for you.”
“She says to remember Christmas. Does that mean something?”
The odds of getting a hit improve ASTRONOMICALLY. These are the sorts of statements and questions that come up every time.
You miss the point.
Why thank you, and neither do you.
You have got to be kidding, if you are offering this as a reading a psychic might do. They would be laughed out of the theatre.
Your father had two legs, did I get a hit.
Somehow I missed SuperGnats list when I put in mine. Sorry.
This is just a bunch of questions and not a reading, you are taking a few pieces from here and a few from there, like the bible thumpers do, and trying to make your case. It doesn’t work. Yes, psychics do ask questions, for the reasons that I explanned earlier, they also make statements. Direct statements about what they see and hear the deceased doing and saying. Let’s get down to real reading and understanding.
The thread is going somewhere, it is showing more and more the phoniness of cold readings.
Love
Leroy
I got the point very well.
An wiser minds will note that I was being extremely kind. Edward flopped massively, I just quoted the first failure before he started getting flustered.
Demonstrations are already on the table. Look at the Nova program featuring Randi or his book Flim-Flam. He’s shown the lack of feedback to be devastating to these cold readers alleging to be psychics.
You keep complaining that Randi is hiding something when nothing could be further from the truth. Give us a real example, not useless platitudes spoon fed to you by Zammit.