Richard Wiseman has been doing a bit of debunking:
Well, yesterday was quite a day. As many of you may know, theJames Randi Educational Foundation has a standing offer of $1 million to anyone who can prove that they have psychic or mediumistic abilities.
A few months ago the JREF asked if Chris French (Goldsmith University) and I would carry out an initial test of a medium named Patricia Putt. We went back and forth about the protocol, and eventually settled on an experimental design. Basically, Patricia would carry out readings for 10 strangers, and then all of the participants would be presented with all 10 readings and have to select the one that best described them.
None of the participants were able to correctly identify their reading, and so the results do not support Patricia’s claim. However, to her credit, she took it on the chin and said that she felt that the test had been a fair examination of her abilities.
More info about it all on Randi’s site here.
Original post via Richard Wiseman Blog
i wonder if there really are any genuine mediums out there?
LOL! There are tons of people who don’t have a clue who they theirselves really are, so it is not proven that her abilities are not correct. Not meaning that she is psychic, but just that this test is not a good test. Haven’t heard a more dumb test than this one before when it comes to psychics. And also, whatever proof they have that the participants were honest ….. human nature is not about honesty way more often, even if they are not aware of it.
Testing psychics is hardly ever possible when you want to be 100% sure.
Besides, in this so called world of reason there is no such thing of reason, not in economy, not in politics, not in science (way more often than people wished). Or should you say .. there are different ways of reason nowadays … fear runs economy and politics which .. quite often does not contain cold reason .. clear observation .. they lack knowledge quite often of the things that are the most important, especially when you want to built something strong, long term.
The way they built their test procedure is not always correct or thorough enough either.
Being psychic can never be proven in my opinion, it’s not a stable thing if it exists. As it is connected to human. And it’s not so normal processor up there. Telepathy, logging on to eachother .. that’s a thing they could check a bit more thorough .. which is a complete different thing than being psychic. It’s just another way of communicating. Sending, receiving .. we all do it, but it goes out more and more with reason .. We did not learn to speak without reason probably. Ehehehe … But some prefer to speak still via the other way. It’s more easy that way at times, allow someone else to tell them what they theirselves really knew already (the other self in their brain knows so much more …. it at times makes you wonder … were we all psychic regarding our own life .. or did we sense extremely well what we should not get into with other people .. are we preprogrammed .. or are we, the we’s we think we are, not who we think we are .. are the other selves of us steering us … and if so, for what reason and why wont they come out … If you try, you will know that we probably entered like that once … and were forced out of it .. )
That test wasn’t stupid at all – they were checking to see if the perceived accuracy of her readings was down to her (probably unknowingly) making Barnum statements.
You guys need to read the comments on the Randi article, looks like it was barely up before somone gave the Chuck Norris of mentalists a mention:
Must agree with Jim Shaver, if her “ability” is to be able to tell you personal information about individuals simply by being near them and hearing their voices, I think there is room for error.
“Imagine if it was Derren Brown, telling you he could tell you personal information about individuals simply by being near them and hearing their voices. You wouldn`t let him near the challenge, because he uses manupilation, magic, psychology and misdirection. They have most likely thought of this and know how to control the test, just didnt really seem much of an ability to me.”
I can totally see Randi all red-faced and cursing: “Damn your mixture of magic, psychology, showmanship (or manipulation) and misdirection!! Foiled again!”
maybe the energies werent right for her that day. loffle.
Is suspect Patricia Putt works to the rule that there is no such thing as bad publicity. This is not the first time she has failed spectacularly when put to the test: http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/east/series6/mediums_exorcism.shtml
Also not surprising is the fact that her website ‘In the news’ section only mentions items which she has managed to interpret as positive to her. It turns out not to be her first encounter with Prof Wiseman http://www.ankhara.com/inthenews.htm
Good on her for trying
xXx
the truth is out there!!!
I am very into this stuff but havent found a psychic that i can 100% believe in
But if we could find such a person then we wouldnt bother using or own brains would we!
Plus you skeptics would have no one to have a go at!
Though in saying that Gary Minnion, i mean Mannion still sits uncomfortably within my mind…
I would like to see him put to the test properly…
HUGZ to all you Browners
Good catch, KatM! Is she knowingly faking all of it or just acting subject to reporting bias, do you think?
Maybe our evolution will get to a point where we really will grow these abilities inside ourselves. We can adapt somewhat to the mood of a dinner party and seem to catch onto what’s being talked about without actually hearing about it. Maybe we are touching on it there?
…or have I been watching Heroes too much?
Sigh… everyone knows that the spirits won’t respond in controlled conditions, thats why we can never test the Mediums… tricksy ghosts
@Ms G…thats very intruiging what you said…
This still proves nothing, a lot of mediums are fakes. I have had a 100% spot on medium who doesnt get paid ONE PENNY for their readings- they are the ones IMHO who I trust more, this particular medium was not general AT ALL, and told me things that only I could know- it was something so “out there” there is no way on earth it could be a lucky guess etc
IMO there is something out there, more than we will ever find out- I dont think we are meant to find out to be honest- and to me that is fine, we all will find out soon enough if there is an afterlife or not, why not wait and see? lol
I think the whole point is that a controlled environment eliminates the ability to use various techniques to mimic psychic ability. If someone claims there are abilities or phenomena that only work in an environment in which they can also be faked, I think that is just cause for a large amount of scepticism.
I suppose one possible test, albeit a slightly subjective one, would be to compare the accuracy of a \’psychic\’ and a self-confessed cold-reader in a variety of environments, to see if there\’s ever a point at which the psychic is significantly more accurate than the cold-reader. You\’d have to pick a psychic and a cold-reader that had equal accuracies in a completely uncontrolled environment, and then gradually increase the controls to see if there\’s a point at which the psychic’s ability cannot be accounted for purely through cold-reading.
You\’d need a fairly large sample size to get reliable results, I suspect. And the counter-argument that mediums cannot work in controlled conditions will remain impossible to completely refute, as it is by definition undisproveable (but also unproveable).
“mary Says:
maybe the energies werent right for her that day. loffle.”
Oh, that’s wonderful. You predicted that excuse two days in advance.
Take a look – http://skeptic.org.uk/news/2009/1513
Goddamn. Mary needs to take that challenge.
@ MsG
> Being psychic can never be proven in my opinion, it’s not a stable thing if it exists.
Why is that? Is our sense of smell unstable? Is our sense of touch unstable? Only to the extent that they’re reproducable, verifiable senses.
There are ways telepathy could work: if humans evolved (or invented) internal radio transmitters and receivers, or other complex non-verbal communications mechanisms (pheremones, etc.). However, they would all be natural phenomena.
And that’s kind of the point of the Randi challenge: any controlled test will only yield natural events because, you know, a supernatural event that happens in this universe is not a supernatural event: it’s natural by definition, in the same way that alternative medicine that is proven to work becomes just “medicine”.