# Does the Buffet Challenge debunk psychic powers once and for all? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244 "2014-03-21T20:14:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/81 "2014-03-22T22:04:31Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Unless they encounter unforeseen circumstances > > [Psychic cancels live show due to 'unforeseen circumstances' | The Independent | The Independent](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/psychic-cancels-live-show-due-to-unforeseen-circumstances-9204812.html) > … Wait a minute. > > 😃 Love that it was at the Darwin Center 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/82 "2014-03-22T22:15:34Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I thought [he was dead.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_%28god%29#The_.22Death.22_of_Pan) It was in all the papers. Pan, I knew him well Pan is dead, Long Live Pan > [@](#): > > How would God’s child know without trying? If he succeeds and some good comes of it, wouldn’t that mean that God has blessed the endeavor? It’s not like He has spelt out every contingency in that book of His. It’s long, but a lot (Lot?) of it is just filler. It is a learning process, it is also very different then what we as humans know as a learning process. The best way I can describe it is learning to use one’s heart, but it’s just not that, but learning that your heart can connect with other hearts and you heart can read the other person’s heart, so it is just not acting blindly, just not giving money to any homeless person with a sob story, but very coordinated effort where you know the condition of their heart, you know if they are just selling you a bill of goods or are genuinely in need of your specific help. It is very targeted love. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/83 "2014-03-22T23:51:33Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > My real-deal answer, that ability for you to find the ‘real-deal’ name is inside of you. > > I can not tell you, not because I am hiding it from you, but because it doesn’t work that way. If I was able to tell you, then I have become a go between, getting in the way of God and you. I have become a priest, and that is not the way. > > That is not to say you are without human help, and humans are God’s children with God powers, so in fact you do get human help. But it is God who determines who and what they do. > > So it short it’s not you calling the shots here, it will not happen your way, no matter how much you want it to, you will need to get over this, because God is the one in control, we are the child, God is the parent. > > Once you find the way (hint, it will be someone like Jesus in your life regardless of their religion/non-religion, they will just care about you for reasons you can’t understand), it will bring you to the real deal. What a steaming pile of manure. The next time you want to make incredibly unscientific woo claims, either back them up or have the guts to back off. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/84 "2014-03-22T23:56:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What a steaming pile of manure. The next time you want to make incredibly unscientific woo claims, either back them up or have the guts to back off. Did you sleep well last night? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/85 "2014-03-23T00:06:32Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Did you sleep well last night? I’m not talking for him, but, just to be clear; I do think that anyone claiming that they have physic powers is just creating a lot of bull crap. And it is worse when they claim that they got their “powers” from god IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/86 "2014-03-23T00:10:05Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I’m not talking for him, but, just to be clear; I do think that anyone claiming that they have physic powers is just creating a lot of bull crap. And it is worse when they claim that they got their “powers” from god IMHO. I have no issue with you, go in peace. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/87 "2014-03-23T03:02:09Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I’m not talking for him, but, just to be clear; I do think that anyone claiming that they have physic powers is just creating a lot of bull crap. Even Neil DeGrasse Tyson? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/88 "2014-03-23T03:14:24Z")
:smack: 🙂 Stupid spelling tool, I meant \*Psychic \*powers. I got curious and wondered what Mr. Tyson thought about the issue: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/pQW741jI07M/hqdefault.jpg "Neil deGrasse Tyson: Are Psychics & the Paranormal Legit?") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQW741jI07M) > [@](#): > > “[Paranormal believers] fail in the laboratory”, “If you think you got something, bring it to the lab. If you can duplicate we’ll call it science; until then, it is people exploiting the ignorance of other people” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/89 "2014-03-23T03:23:03Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Did you sleep well last night? I don’t think that is any of your business, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you repeatly making claims then refusing to back them up. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/90 "2014-03-23T03:51:15Z")
This doesn’t have anything to do with Psychic powers … It’s gambling and that is the plain truth and should not be allowed at the college level. Just plain numbers with a sharp mind of Buffet knowing full well the numbers were on his side. Lots of free publicity for his investment company is all. Even Las Vegas knows that zero or double zero will come up every so often. Buffet should be punished for his fan flare … (whoops no smiley’s in quick reply) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/91 "2014-03-23T03:53:05Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > … If you understand math, you knew what I meant, and if you don’t, you didn’t notice, … I know some math and was about to post something similar to, but less thorough than, yours. As a minor arithmetic point, note that _conditional_ probabilities should be used for 2nd and subsequent rounds. It would be interesting to know what premium was paid for the insurance policy. Was it written by Buffett personally, or by one of his companies? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/92 "2014-03-23T12:47:00Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Yes, that particular psychic does. But you seem to be talking about a curse, rather than probability. Your Cassandra is doomed to always get 10% of her picks wrong each year. But in the real world, someone who averages 90% is going to have some years better than that, and some years worse. I don’t know if that’s true or not. No one is a 100% free throw shooter in the NBA, right? But even if we concede this point, does one go-around of Buffett’s challenge prove anything? Let’s assume there are psychics who have a 60% accuracy, a better-than-guessing performance. How likely one of those guys wins? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/93 "2014-03-23T12:49:49Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I don’t know if that’s true or not. No one is a 100% free throw shooter in the NBA, right? But even if we concede this point, does one go-around of Buffett’s challenge prove anything? Let’s assume there are psychics who have a 60% accuracy, a better-than-guessing performance. How likely one of those guys wins? It would depend on how many psychics there are, wouldn’t it? If there was just a thousand psychics out there with 60% accuracy, what are the chances of _all_ of them losing? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/94 "2014-03-23T13:10:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It would depend on how many psychics there are, wouldn’t it? If there was just a thousand psychics out there with 60% accuracy, what are the chances of _all_ of them losing? Yes, and I’ll rely on the prior math that says a 50% accuracy rate would be 1 in 9 quintillion. I haven’t done the math, but I suspect the existence of a 60% accuracy rate would suggest that one iteration of the Buffett challenge doesn’t disprove anything. Or make it 55%, some statistically significant percentage (relative to guessing). To reiterate, in case it got lost, I don’t believe there are psychics. I’m just responding to the OP’s asserting that the Buffett challenge proves that no psychics exist. I think it strongly suggests that no one exists with the psychic power to meet the Buffett challenge, assuming at least one such person was aware of it. That’s not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/95 "2014-03-23T13:29:11Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Let’s assume there are psychics who have a 60% accuracy, a better-than-guessing performance. How likely one of those guys wins? Anyone who can read the seeding numbers in the bracket can get a prediction rate over 60% (top seeds usually win). A 72% mean\* prediction rate will give you 1 chance in a billion of winning. (\* - geometric mean) ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/96 "2014-03-23T13:58:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Anyone who can read the seeding numbers in the bracket can get a prediction rate over 60% (top seeds usually win). A 72% mean\* prediction rate will give you 1 chance in a billion of winning. > > (\* - geometric mean) Okay. Then how about a consistent 65%, or whatever percentage that would cross the line from educated guessing? Or what if we constructed some random code for each team in the tourney, gave them to the psychic without their seeds, just a bunch of match-ups in random order (“Team A is playing Team B in the first round–who will win, Mr. Geller?”). The psychic picks the first round winners just based on the vibrations he detects in the ether, then continues through all the rounds, and he’s 75% accurate. Or what if psychic powers aren’t like free throw shooting, where a 75% shooter sometimes shoots 100% in a game, sometimes 50%. What if it’s more like reading a page, with no real skill required, but it’s always a hazy vision, never completely clear. The psychic can see about 75% of the words, never all of them. But he can’t try harder or get lucky and see everything, because psychic vision (the type I’m inventing, not the type the OP invented) is limited by the human brain and it just doesn’t work that way. You could run as many Buffett challenges as you’d like, and the psychics are still enormously likely to lose, just a bit less likely than we mere normals. My point is that the flavor of psychic power the OP conjured up may well not exist in any sufficient number, as evidenced by the results of the Buffett challenge. But you or I could just as easily conjure up a different type of power that we’d all likely agree was astounding and beyond mere chance, but that wouldn’t win the challenge either. The OP is wrong not because there are psychics in the world (I don’t think there are) but because the premise of his syllogism is false. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/97 "2014-03-23T14:26:01Z")
What if I were an anti-psychic, someone with a 0% chance of picking any winners? If I could prove it, would I be required to pay Warren Buffet a billion dollars? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/98 "2014-03-23T14:33:13Z")
I was only commenting on a matter of arithmetic. Many studies of ESP prediction powers have been conducted throughout the 20th century. I won’t link to a summary except to note that studies conducted by people who believe in ESP often contradict the beliefs of non-believers … and vice versa! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/99 "2014-03-23T14:59:41Z")
Kancibird’s argument can’t be refuted because it’s not even wrong. Nor is it intended to be. It’s religion, based on faith, and isn’t scientific. It’s simply a case where the OP’s hypothesis would be wrong. No doubt we can make up lots of similar cases (like, psychic powers only work when people believe in them … lol … but it’s a case in point.) It’s been pretty clearly demonstrated that there is no scientifically measurable basis for a belief in psychic powers. That leaves psychic powers to live in the margins where scientific measurement doesn’t apply. An omnipotent being bent on frustrating scientists about the truth is clearly a case in point, as are many other possibilities. You can’t disprove something that’s inherently immune to objective measurement. So, as someone mentioned early on, the Buffett bet proves that certain kinds of powers are proven wrong. Those in control of a higher power who dislikes such bets would not be one of those certain kinds of powers. Personally, I go with the evidence. People who don’t aren’t likely to convince those who do, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244/100 "2014-03-23T18:33:51Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Kancibird’s argument can’t be refuted because it’s not even wrong. Wait… **kanic** has an actual argument? I thought his posts were just a bunch of random words stitched together. 😕 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-buffet-challenge-debunk-psychic-powers-once-and-for-all/684244.md?page=6)