Richard Saunders talks about Psychic Detectives

"Psychic" Barbara Mitchell with Richard Saunders talk about Psychic Detectives

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Richard
• Saunders
• Psychic
• Detectives
• skeptics

[BadPsychicsTV]

Why was this removed from your other account Richard?

[skepticzonepodcast]

@BadPsychicsTV The other account was lost about 6 months ago. I'm putting things back bit by bit.

[revjimbob]

"Psychics who make the media basically are doing it for the wrong reasons"

Says the psychic on the media.

[Josh111485]

Barbara gave the classic bullshit line "psychics do this for a service, not for money or glamor".

It proves that shallow cunts, like her, can't see passed motivations like that. Why not take the $100,000 challenge or James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge and donate it all to charity or to Haiti?

These supposed psychics, like Sylvia Browne, are disgusting. They make me sick.

[khakain]

"stood down" = fired?

Yeah, I guess I could google.

[EvanJCastle]

"We'll let you make up your own mind" says everyone who thinks this is an opinion. This is exactly why these people should not be "debated". I heard Brian Dunning say it and have agreed ever since. Debating is giving two ideas an equal platform. Paranormal phenomenen supporters should NEVER be given equal standing until they have equal proof.

[Robikus]

@revjimbob Exactly, and that's the sad thing, so many fakes out there, and what the fakes appear to do is so incredible it makes the real psi abilities seem lackluster. One thing I can say about Randi, he often points out that because he's revealed a person to be fake he has not dis-proven the phenomena, only that he's shown that individual to be a fake.

[revjimbob]

@Robikus

I hope I am a reasonably open-minded person. I do view psi and similar with an element of distrust though, as it does go against what we have discovered about the universe and my experience of the way the world works. If it is true, it should be able to prove itself. Maybe I am setting the bar for proof a bit higher than I would for other fields, mainly because of the history of fraud and delusion it has.

[revjimbob]

@Robikus

I agree wholeheartedly! Deepak Chopra and the like tend to bandy quantum jargon about in an attempt to cloak his ideas with a patina of scientific respectablility.

[Robikus]

@revjimbob But as someone who is interest in psi, it really bothers me when quantum mechanics is misrepresented to support mystical ideas. The double slit experiment often is used and the 'observer effect' is more about the testing mechanism and not the fact that a 'person' is observing. And don't even get me started on this quantum jumping garbage. I see some parallels between psi and quantum physics but contrary to popular new age thinking, they are mostly independent as far as we know.

[revjimbob]

@Robikus

I think it is one of those made-up quotes. It has been attributed to Richard Feynman, who did say "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.", and a few physicists have said similar things.

The point is, we do not need to completely understand it, any more than we needed to understand gravity pre-Newton to be able to utilise it for dropping rocks on invaders trying to storm your castle - we can use it to do useful work.

[Robikus]

@revjimbob "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." I forget who said that, Faraday maybe? Whoever said it was speaking the truth. Even though psi is idiosyncratic in certain places it can't hold a candle to quantum theory for weirdness.

[Robikus]

@revjimbob Actually I saw that, I also saw that trials were done where the caller was identified 'before' picking up the phone. In those trials there was a 5% increase in accuracy. I could be that by picking the phone up first a mental process interferes with the psi process. Not sure it is enough to be statistically valid but it is an interesting point. I like the way you examine all of the details, as well as how much you scrutinize, but I hope it comes from true skepticism an not bias.

[Robikus]

@revjimbob Actually most serious psi scientist meet your criteria and Radin for example strives to have skeptics examine his method for the purpose of improving it. And considering Sheldrake's results, they are repeatable and the results are 40%-45% where random results should show 25%. The exception is the 'Goat/Sheep' phenomena that is also repeatable in it's testing. Psi it's self has some idiosyncrasies.