Excellent post, and you didn’t even mention the cancer research that was all infected with mislabeled cancer cells, The old people that have to buy their pills in foreign countries due to the greed, and the estimated 100,000+ deaths in our hospitals every year due to incompetence in the medical profession.
The point of this debate is about PSYCHIC “phenomenon”. Mistakes and incompetence are factors in the failings of medical science, but they’re not intentional. There’s the big difference. They’re not intentionally misleading people to believe that their science is perfect, it’s a job. I’ve screwed up on my job before but I’d confess that I didn’t know what I was doing or was absent minded at the time. I didn’t lie and tell people that I knew what I was doing and continued to do it just for a buck.
Quoting statistics derived from the Harvard Medical Practice Study (HMPS), Dr Leape and colleagues1 remark upon "The epidemiologic finding that . . . nearly 100 000 [hospital] deaths occur in the United States annually as a result of mistakes in medical care. . . . "1 I believe that authors need to stop perpetuating this number of “100 000 hospital deaths,” a statistic for which there is no valid epidemiologic evidence.2-4 This dramatic statistic is largely the by-product of bias introduced by a combination of outlier opinion and the low reliability of physician-implicit review (the method used to produce almost all published estimates of deaths and injuries due to medical errors).2-4
To calculate a valid estimate from the HMPS we would need to know the proportion of cases rated as definitely vs probably vs possibly preventable and the interrater reliability of these ratings. This information has never been made public and our attempts to obtain this information have been unsuccessful.4 In light of recent research on this topic, the appropriate conclusion is that medical errors are common and result in serious and preventable adverse events, but there is no evidence to support the “100 000 hospital deaths” conclusion. Recent research3 also sugests that the statistics used to estimate the number of injuries due to medical errors1 are similarly unsupportable.
Skeptics aren’t *required[/i to prove their assumptions, lekatt. Sketicism is only the rational default position. As we skeptics keep swaying over and over and over again in these threads, the burden of proof is on the one making the assertion. If I tell you that God told me that he wants you to give me all your money, will you try to prove that I am lying, or would you expect me to prove I was telling the truth?
(btw, if you’d be willing to take me at my word, just let me say this:
How I wish what you said was true. I have not seen any proof yet. There is nothing rational about skepticism, as least not in this thread that I can detect. It is the skeptics that are asserting psychics are frauds, fine. now let them prove it.
In your example, I would not expect you to prove God told you I should give you money, nor would I try to prove you wrong. I would just simply say no to God.
You once again fail to understand where the burden of proof lies. If I claim I am Superman, it is not your responsibility to prove that I am not Superman, it is up to me to prove that I am.
Psychics playing “20 questions” with the audience is not proof of mediumship.
The spirit world is not limited, but James is, he can concentrate on only one or two spirits at a time, and there may be 10 or 15 trying to come through. He has to deal with symbolism that means different things to the spirits than to him. There is no talking done in the spirit world, thoughts are transferred from one spirit to another. This eliminates the language barrier, in spirit everyone understands everyone else. But James has to figure out what they mean by the symbols. Some spirits may be able to convey the english language to him, but not many. When someone asks you the name of a movie star, at times you can see his face, but not remember the name, or only remember the first letter, etc. Psychics do the same thing. James often says he feels a father figure, but may not know who the figure is with in a large audience. That’s why he moves them away from the audience to see if the father figure comes with them. It is not a science, obviously, it is an art. Even atmospheric conditions affect communication. James does an outstanding job and is a caring individual, often expressing his love to others. These are only a few of the main problems with spiritual communication. Skeptics will never understand this unless they get readings for themselves from top psychics like James.
That post makes me picture a person with an opening on their forehead with a bird that comes out hourly and chirps “Cuckoo, cuckoo”.
In other words, if you want proof of something, you don’t show the proof. Why? Because the proof was lacking in the first place.
lekatt, he did not insult you or your family. He suggested alternative explanations for the event you noted that, so far, you’ve yet to rule out or even discuss. Only someone who thought they were omniscient could be insulted by the suggestion that there might be factors of which they are unaware.
Nor have you even made a ghost of a stab at taking on the probability issue of PETWHACs and other such calculations showing the inevitability of at least some improbable coincidences.
Greg.You are probably right about her being able to read how surprised I was about her bringing up my brother.I’m doing my best to remember if she actually said the word pin or injury…That one is questionable,however,So many of the other things she said remains to be remarkable to me. There are many things that were completely right on.I will say that the death thing was done by tarot cards.I was made to cut the cards and the Ace of spades came up. I know this is where the negative opinions will happen.The experience was extremely spooky and I haven’t been back.To add to more negative opinions the house was white glove clean,not a speck of dust or dirt anywhere ,but CATS were everywhere!!
Firebat, you go right ahead and enjoy your illusion. After all, you may be right. I know what I believe, but I also know what I don’t know.
That’s not at all surprising to me. The old cases are the most difficult to either verify or disprove, because they’re old. Any evidence has very likely disappeared, the people involved are dead and in any case, the techniques used to determined whether or not the case had any merit are more than likely obsolete, if they were even any good to begin with.
Lekatt, I posted a link earlier to the Skeptic’s Dictionary article on cold reading. Did you by any chance look at it? Will you, please?