She has to be, to some degree famous, to apply for the prize. I notice that everyone assumes that the conditions could not possibly affect the results.
I notice that the skeptics assume they know what is really going on with Allison Dubois. Two have a hypothesis that 'cold reading' descriptions explain the mechanism of her skills. Without meeting her, without testing her, they are comfortable raising their hypothesis to the level of theory, because it seems to fit some % of the population and their ideas about what must be possible - given what scientific research has proven to date 2008. Their knowledge about the mechanism of her abilities is, well, practically psychic.
I don't have to meet her to know she's a fake. Just like I don't have to taste a steaming cup of coffee to know its hot. And it has nothing to do with my being a psychic myself - the fact that NONE of these charlatans have EVER been able to reproduce their "results" under controlled conditions - such as being placed in a room with someone they've never met before - should be proof enough of their quackery to anyone of at least average intelligence.
Most of these people have never gone and been tested. I was simply pointing out that these people, in this thread, including you, are stating not only skepticism about someone's ability, but that you know WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON. You state they are charlatans. The others, having probably more experience than you know that some of these people believe in their own skills, are making the claim that they get certain results due to processes involved in 'cold reading' (conscious or unconscious reading of body language, etc.). None of this guesswork passes for anything remotely scientific. You are simply spouting claims. 1) that NONE of them have skills hitherto unverified by science AND 2) that you know WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON. The mechanism: charlatism or cold reading. It is always fine for science and rationalism groupies to draw conclusions and assert as facts conclusions that are not grounding in anything empirical in these discussions. Why? Oh, because you are so sure you are right. And carefully read the above. I did not make the case that the woman in the OP has certain skills. I am simply pointing out that your post and many of the others here are just guesses. Which would be fine, but they are posing as something more. Given that they come off, yes, as psychic.
Not in the least. Several people who claim to have that gift HAVE been tested and not ONE of them ever passed the test. Therefore the "gift" does not exist and anyone - ANYONE - claiming to possess it is either a liar or delusional. And there are more of the former than the latter.
lol? no matter how its viewed? Obviously it makes sense to them.....otherwise they wouldn't believe it. YOU however will never believe it no matter how you view it. So for all these people who are so sure of exactly what reality is and how things work, I have a question? If at some point in your life you "felt" like you could sense and see other things outside your norm or frame of mind...would you commit yourself to a psychiatric ward? Would you pass everything off as insane, mental problems and be done with it? I don’t know what is more ridiculous honestly: -Someone who thinks they are so intelligent they know all and see all committing himself or herself to an insane asylum because all the sudden they don’t know all and see all. OR Someone who believes they can talk to the dead.
Sensing things outside your norm is one thing. Interpreting them with certainty as talking with the dead is a sign of insanity.
You are simply being silly here. At one time or another practically everyone has had a feeling like that - but we realize it's some external stimulus that is causing it. There are several perfectly valid psychological explanations for it and no extrasensory "ability" need be invoked. The ones who do NOT understand that, due to mental defect or some similar problem, are the ones who actually believe it's real. But the ones who do it for money are nothing but con artists.
She can became known/famous is she impresses enough people, gets on the Oprah show or whatever. As to the conditions. if you have seen Randi in action you will know that his conditions cannot affect the outcome of the experiment. His subject are asked to accept them before they take on the challenge. How is it that people seek to undermine rational explanations of psychic phenomena. I have heard mediums say: I sense a hostile presence, for some reason the spirits are not coming through and so on. This is a get-out if things are not going their way. You have just said that you notice that everyone assumes that the conditions could not affect the result. Well that cuts both ways . How about the possibility of the conditions improving the medium's performance ?
You are overlooking the obvious. Some of us would seek a rational explanation based on cast-iron evidence. You also make the mistake of assuming that those of us who believe talking to the dead is a lot of nonsense think we know everything. That is the province of the deluded
Or simply misinterpretation of something they are unfamiliar with. I will agree the vast majority of these self-proclaimed mediums are nothing more than lowlife con artists. However I don’t feel high and mighty enough to call someone delusional because they believe in something science cannot prove.
Science can prove it wrong easily by showing that no medium has ever revealed something that only the dead person would know. They never guessed Houdini's memorized code word, for instance. ALL of them are con artists.
It has nothing at all to do with being "high and mighty" to know these people are delusional. Nor does it have anything to do with being "all-knowing" either. Those people are exactly in the same class as the psychic detectives. If THEY were for real why does not every police force in the country have at least ONE on their staff? It would save them TONS on money currently spent on conventional investigations! Care to guess how many police departments in the U.S. have at least one? Answer: NONE.
If its possible to be a psychic or medium... I don't think they would go around announcing it to everyone because they would just be made fun of or laughed at. And I don't think those abilities (if they truly exist) would be able to produce themselves on demand. They sort of come and go, you can't force them to work. Have you ever seen "Thats So Raven"? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Back in the 80s there was a little girl who lived across the street from me and was my daughter's friend. One day she told us that she had a dream that there was an earthquake and it destroyed her house. I asked if it was a horrible nightmareand she said yes. She said that in her dream she saw her father underneath the broken piano and he had died because the leg closest to the door had snapped. She said that she couldn't wait to wake up. I didn't think anything of it until we had a bad earthquake later that same week. I brushed it off as coincidence until my daughter told me that the girls father had died because he was crushed by their piano. I don't know if that counts as physic or not but it still creeps out even to this very day. :fright:
Every act has an audience. Not eveyone is like you. People have varied interests, some you may not like. When I was young I hated ballet and squaredancing but there are people who live for it. Accept that part of life and things get much easier. This is how I can say I really think mediums are cool. Not because they go around picking next week's lottery numbers but because thay can command the attention and respect of so many, along with their wallets. The many represent those referred to in a famous PT Barnum quote. What a fantastic job if you can live with yourself.
Ever heard of Derren Brown? I suggest you look him up and see what he is capable of. One review he had was that he is the closest thing we (in the UK) have to a Jedi. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Just a couple of his tricks (and they are tricks - he openly admits he is more a psychological illusionist than anything else)... 10 people in each of 3 cities around the world were called into a room and told that Derren Brown could give them an accurate "reading" from just a personal item and an outline-drawing of their hand on a piece of paper. He took the item and the hand-outline and, an hour later in each case, came back and handed the person a 2 or 3 page reading. Of the 30 people, i think 1 said that the reading was only about 20% accurate. All the others said 80 to 90% accurate - and some claimed the level of the detail he got right was remarkable. They then swapped papers (so read what he had written about someone else) and realised they were all identical!! This was cold-reading to the extreme. In another series of programmes he went round the US and did things like convert a room full of atheists to a religion in about 2 hours. All went in non-believers and all came out as firm believers (he deprogrammed them afterwards, though). And he also held a "psychic reading" with an American audience - where he supposedly conversed with the dead with astonishing accuracy that I have never seen anyone else manage - identifying things like bad dreams of elevators, and precise detail of the person. But none of it was psychic. None of it was any more than using his knowledge of people in general and in reading body language, and in word-play to extract information without the person realising - and in some cases to implant ideas and thoughts. If you think psychics are real, give him a viewing and watch him debunk the lot as mere parlour tricks (albeit often extraordinary tricks).
Myself and a few friends have done some serious research for self-understanding during my college days using our state of the art electronic laboratory. Conclusions: A medium can not tell you what you or your companions do not know in a group setting. That means they somehow hack in to your mind or read your body language without consciously aware of it. Faith healing works in some cases... I have done it to my own surprise....I think it is a placebo effect. While hands do produce an electric field that can be tested using a high-gain amplifier (that is how EEG is recorded) and a scope, I doubt if we can send healing signals through body contact. To find out for sure, one needs several volunteers and recording and analyzing the faith healer's signal vs. control group plus thermal and electrical activity in the affected area.
