The recent mailbag column on government research into psychic abilities reminded me of stuff I’ve read from time to time about police departments turning to psychics in cases involving missing kids. Does anyone know if this ever really happens, or is it just a good story? What’s the success rate? I wish I could remember specifics but it’s just the sort of thing that pops up now and then, and I admit it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything about it.
The predictions tend to be vague. Also, I suspect that they (the police and psycics) don’t talk about it unless there is some positive result. (Have you ever heard some <strike>psycho</strike> psychic say, “Darn, I sure missed that one!”? Or the police say “Maybe we could have saved the victim if we hadn’t wasted our time with that nutty psycic.”?)
Oh yeah, the Link to the related Mailbag Item is: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpsychicfed.html
Virtually yours,
DrMatrix
Yes, the police do it – more than they admit, in all probability. The proven success rate is exactly 0%. The claimed success rate is somewhat higher.
The only time I’ve seen a report of “psychics” failing in a prediction was a very small blurb near the back of the paper saying two “psychics” took police to an abandoned farmhouse where they said there would be a body the police had been looking for. It wasn’t there. The article didn’t even name the two “psychics” – but you can bet their names would have been there if they could have claimed any sort of success from it.
I’ve posted this link around the message board before, but here is one look I took at a woman who claimed to be a psychic and to have helped police:
http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n07/index.html
Cops use psychics, and it doesn’t work.
About six or seven years ago, the “Skeptical
Enquirer” did a survey of police from
all over the U.S., and found that most had
tried psychics, and the success rate was
no better than random chance, and that
psychics took a lot of $$.
Their back issues page has it -
Winter '93.
My site has no useful knowledge, but is often damned with faint praise
Skeptical Inquirer talks about this frequently.
See also James Randi at the James Randi Education Foundation ( www.jref.org ). He’s offering over $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate any paranormal abilities under proper observing conditions. He’s been doing this for a number of years, and so far no takers. Relatively few even trying for the cash. Psychics (true believers) claim it works for them, they aren’t interested in proving it to the skeptics or to science. They’re happy demonstrating how it works to all their clients and validating it in their own lives. Validation consists of “It seems like it works.”
There’s lots of research into psychic abilities, none stand up to objective studies. There’s also plenty of ways to simulate psychic powers - magicians use them all the time. And there are good explanations for why people can seem to be psychic, why it’s easy for people to believe.
DrMatrix: How’d you make that overstrike line through “psycho”? What’s the code?
–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
<strike>Let’s see if this works.</strike>
I used html code - the word ‘strike’ between
a ‘less than’ and a ‘greater than’. To
stop the effect, of course, I did the same but with ‘/strike.’
I read the article in the link. You gotta wonder why the Religious Right, the Christian Coalition and the like didn’t protest the government using their tax dollars in the service of Satan. After all, those folks think there really are psychic powers and that they come from Satan.
I guess it’s because we were trying to find a way to fight those God-less Commies.
>< DARWIN >
__L___L
Not all of them think that psychic powers come from Satan (though some certainly do). In fact, you will see a lot of psychics referring to a power granted from God these days. Go into a Gypsy fortune teller’s den and you’ll likely see all manner of crosses and Christian paraphenalia.
As though that meant anything nowadays!
However, it is true that the Rroma have no special religion, and many of them are Christians.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Well, no, it doesn’t actually mean anything to them – except as a prop to get more victims…
John W. Kennedy posted:
David B replied:
I think John’s point was there are many cults/ sects/ divisions/ etc that use the christian symbology but have very little in common with each other regarding beliefs.
Some years ago I remember hearing a story about a psychic who had undergone a CAT scan or MRI.
She claimed that it damaged her psychic ability, and sued.
The jury awarded her thousands of dollars–don’t remember how much.
I remember hearing the story as well. If it was true, the jury should be sued for malpractice. (Yeah, I know, you can’t really do that, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could?)
As basically a Religious Right sort of guy myself, I thought I should respond to this. (All the others voted me their spokesman at our last Vast Conspiracy meeting. Really they did.)
For the most part, the Religious Right would view money spent by the government on psychics in much the same way most people on the Atheistic Left (and in between) would: wow, what an inappropriate waste of money.
The Bible does say to stay away from “fortune tellers” and “witches” and such, but I would say that the primary reason is not because they’re thought to “really” be using some sort of demonic powers, but quite the opposite - it’s because they’re charlatans. They’re generally ridiculed.
Worse yet, in the eyes of Christians, the fraud often includes claims of special access to God, or to Satan. The former might be laudable if it were true, but is a detestable claim when it’s false. (The Bible doesn’t go easy on “false prophets”.) The latter is detestable regardless.
I would say that just about the only point where Christians would part company with the non-religious on this is that Christians accept the POSSIBILITY of prophecy from God, and of all sorts of unpleasant supernatural mucking about by Satan. But real God-inspired prophecy is relatively rare, and unlikely to be available for $4.95/minute on a 900 number, or at Madame Rosa’s Palmistry and Aromatherapy no matter how many crucifixes she has on the walls. Similarly, Satanic influence is typically subtle, and worse than useless for determining which stocks to buy to get rich this week, or whether your spouse is cheating on you.
Deuteronomy 18:22 (NIV) says:
That is, the test is whether the predictions come true or not. Hey! What do you know! It’s the same test non-Christian skeptics use!
Gullibility knows few bounds, of course - there are certainly plenty of misguided atheists and Christians checking their horoscopes every day.
-Steven SittserSSitter ssays: << The Bible does say to stay away from “fortune tellers” and “witches” and such, but I would say that the primary reason is not because they’re thought to “really” be using some sort of demonic powers, but quite the opposite - it’s because they’re charlatans. They’re generally ridiculed.>>
Look, I agree that that such folks are charlatans, don’t get me wrong. But that’s not what the Bible says. The Biblical text is fairly clear that these people have power, used the wrong way. The magicians at Pharoah’s court can cast down their staffs and turn them into serpents, and can sort of vaguely imitate the first plague or two. Saul calls upon the witch at Endor who is, indeed, able to raise the spirit of the prophet Samuel.
The Biblical text says that such monkeying with the supernatural is forbidden; not that it doesn’t work.
Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it does work. But I don’t like to see the Bible being used to “prove” stuff that the text just doesn’t justify.