Sorry Randi, you won't be hearing much from Mr Saunders as you hopefully expect. You see it is 'The Word' that Saunders has 'sold his skeptical soul' for a possible 2nd series??.

Episode 5 Final

Pasted from James Randi Educational Foundation
SWIFT 8 AUGUST 2008
Written by James Randi
Thursday, 7 August 2008

“THE ONE” – ONE MORE TIME

At tinyurl.com/5u38rh, though he gets the laughs he’s looking for, Mr. Rove McManus – to be fair – has carefully selected items where the “psychics” on “The One” TV series in Australia looked very foolish by missing rather dramatically. I’m going to set Sean McCabe to run through all five episodes and make a score… I think that will be very interesting. Of course, we won’t have all the material to work with, since any such program is always selectively edited, but I suspect that even though they’re favored, the woo-woos will not survive the exposure of their errors. But, as always, I’m willing to be shown…

As expected, our friend Robert Matic regales us with his report on the last of this series:

The finale opened with host Andrew Daddo asking the two judges for their opinions on the performances over the series, specifically asking skeptic Richard Saunders whether he saw anything that impressed him. Richard agreed some performances were impressive, but he hadn’t seen anything “amazing or paranorma.” Witch Stacey Demarco thought many things the show had revealed “cannot be explained away.” It was nice to see Richard laugh at Demarco’s comment. The introduction then went on to show a long montage of hits from the previous four weeks of taping and brought the three remaining psychics on stage for Daddo to praise their remarkable “powers.”

The remaining psychics revealed their predictions – made at the start of the series – of who the final three contestants would be. Amanda Roussety got one hit – herself. Ezio De Angelis got two hits – himself and Charmaine. Charmaine Wilson got three hits. Host Daddo asked Richard Saunders what he thought of the predictions. Richard likened the predictions to betting on a horse race and getting a “box trifecta” – where order is unimportant – with seven horses in the race, which gives a 1 in 35 chance of winning. But we can do better than that! The final three psychics were guaranteed to have at least one hit by choosing themselves, which leaves two guesses for the remaining six psychics, giving a 1 in 15 chance of guessing correctly. And with three predictions being made, there is a 1 in 5 chance that at least one of the predictions would have been correct!

Test 1 – Paranormal freestyle (woo-talk for “cold reading”)

“The One” has included at least one cold reading segment every week leaving the vast majority of misses on the cutting room floor. However, this week was different. To ensure the winner of “The One” was convincing, all misses were edited out of the final cold readings! Not one miss made it into the final edit of the show. Thankfully, JREF forum poster “nettiemore” was in the live studio audience during taping and has revealed – at forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=115415&page=6 – that the psychics were given ten minutes each to perform, of which only one minute made it to television screens. Ninety per cent was edited out!

Forum poster “nettiemore” also reveals that each psychic actually read multiple audience members. However, only one audience member was shown per psychic.

Nevertheless, we continued to see audience members squeezing guesses into their lives any which way. An “E L name” was a hit with a grandmother named “Dell” – the audience member later recalled the psychic specifically getting the name “Dell.” An “A name” who is a “worry-wart” was a hit with an older brother named “Anthony” who had problems with his new-born child – the audience member later recalled the psychic knew about the ill child, which the psychic never mentioned. One audience member went back three generations to link a name with a great-grandparent!

Richard commented that what we were seeing were classic and well-known cold reading techniques which made it look like the psychics knew more than they did. He also identified the use of “motherhood statements” which flattered the audience members and made them feel all warm and fuzzy inside, adding to the feeling that something special was happening. Stacey highlighted some “strong hits” and defended the use of “motherhood statements” – because although they’re broad, “it doesn’t mean they’re not true.”

Test 2 – The search for the body of murdered backpacker Peter Falconio

The search for the body of Peter Falconio was a pathetic, pointless segment full of “feelings” and “vibes” that only revealed how useless psychic detectives really are. In case you hadn’t guessed – because, you’re not psychic, you see – Falconio’s body was not found. We saw a good half-hour of the psychics wandering around the outback touching the ground and exclaiming they had made contact with Falconio’s spirit. All three psychics thought they had made a break-through in the case, but failed to explain what the break-through was.

When probed by host Daddo, Richard Saunders said he would not send the police based on what a psychic felt, and there was no reason for the police to search the area again. Nevertheless, the “findings” of the psychics were passed on to the Northern Territory police. Oddly, four weeks after the finale was filmed, the police have not revealed any new leads in the Falconio case to the media. I wonder why.

And the winner is… Charmaine Wilson – now “Australia’s most gifted psychic” – who couldn’t find a boy lost in the woods in episode one, couldn’t find a cargo of barrels in a shipping container in episode two, failed to identify the location of Ned Kelly’s remains in episode three, couldn’t match a piece of luggage with a passenger in episode four and shed no light on the location of the body of Peter Falconio in episode five. How can we doubt these results?

Thank you, Mr. Matic, on behalf of our many readers who have been following the Adventures of Super Skeptic Richard Saunders with great interest. I’m sure we can expect a full behind-the-scenes report from Richard up ahead, now that he’s released from his contractual restrictions. We’ll all look forward to that...!

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary/swift/swift-august-8-2008.html

Anthony, do you have any idea of the volume of material that was cut from these shows? A simple calculation from episode three shows that somewhere around 80% of the cold readings were cut out.

Find the Youtubes (ParanormalRUS has some) and find Ezio's read from the segment where they had five minutes each and hits were recorded. You will see that around two minutes were shown - one minute with one woman (no hits) then one minute with a different woman where he got all the hits that were recorded - and most of those hits came because she told him the previous information fit her. In fact, he spent FOUR minutes on the first woman with not one hit recorded (he should have been booed off stage). He also got the highest score of all contestants. I cover the stats of this segment on my blog linked above.

In the final episode, Ezio actually did four different cold reads in the studio but we saw about one tightly edited minute of him reading just one person. Amanda read three people and Charmaine two. We saw a little bit of them reading one person each. Again, what we saw was not remotely representative of the actual situration. For whatever reason, Channel Seven chose to showe hits and hide misses.

If you're amazed by the hits then there's little point in further discussion as your mind is closed to evidence.

As for finding the boy, have you never gone to look for something and found it quickly? Have you never got a few numbers right in Lotto? Is your life seriously just one massive failure after another to the point where any success strikes you as miraculous rather than perfectly normal?

Here we go again. The know-nothing "skeptics" who have a lame and irrational explanation for everything they can't truly explain. After watching "The One" I was intrigued at how accurate many of the psychics were much of the time. I was also greatly amused by "skeptic" Richard Saunders' comments, such as, "if a random sample of people were to be chosen off the street, that's exactly the sort of configuration I'd expect to see". Many of this guy's explanations were far more IRRATIONAL and hard to believe than the hypothesis that some people do in fact possess an ability to see things most of us can't.

As for the complete idiot ("Scepdoll") saying that if all the psychics were truly psychic they would have gone straight for the "missing boy" -- that's just as stupid as saying that ALL people who are "smart" should be able to multiply two huge numbers together in an instant. There are different DEGREES of 'smartness', and so there will be different DEGREES of psychic ability. As for Scepdoll dismissing those psychics who came within several METRES of the boy but not quite getting there due to the time limit -- all I can say is that you are a close-minded, delusional fool. I'd like to see 7 randomly chosen people performing as well as those 7 psychics did. In fact I wish Channel 7 had done proper comparisons with a randomly chosen sample, because then it would have shown once and for all just how exceptional the psychics actually were. In Britain a television show actually asked James Randi to "cold read" as successfully as the psychics. He had miss after miss, to the point where he was literally booed off the stage. That PROVED that the psychics weren't just cold reading.

One last thing: to all you people who obviously have little in the way of intelligence since you seem to think Victor Zammit wants you to "prove the negative" -- you are either totally deceived by your skeptic mates who have fed you this disingenuous rubbish, or are yourselves completely delusional. Victor Zammit has NEVER said "prove that the afterlife is NOT real". He has NEVER said, "prove that mediums DON'T have special abilities". And he has NEVER said, "prove that apparitions and after death communication are NOT real". In other words, he is NOT asking you to prove that "fairies don't live at the bottom of your garden". If he was, then that would be disproving the negative. But he is asking you to DISPROVE HARD OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE which has been collected, such as the evidence of the cross correspondences or the evidence of materialisation mediumship. He is in fact asking you to DISPROVE THE POSITIVE!!! That NO ONE has been able to do this (and the challenge has been going for more than 7 years), just shows how GOOD the existing EVIDENCE actually is!

Correction: The sentence in the previous post should have read"

Closed-mindedness is the simple acceptance that psychic powers are real even after hundreds of years of testing in which psychic phenomena remain unproven and unevolved.

Victor, science is not a court of law where two sides are put and someone judges who was more convincing. (Nor is it men in white lab coats staring at bubbling beakers, as many seem to think it is).

If science worked like a court of law we'd still be living on a flat Earth.

In very simple terms, science is about testing a hypothesis and recording results. These tests need to be replicated for them to be of any use. Anecdotal evidence is useless. One-off tests that can't be repeated are useless. And, more importantly, biased tests with insufficient protocols to eliminate outside influences are useless.

The latter tends to be the sort of testing pseudo-psychics rely on to support their claims. Interestingly, although they call these tests "scientific" they also regularly claim their powers are not testable by current scientific methods.

And, for the record, skepticism is open-mindedness in action. It's about testing, observing and accepting results. It is science in action. Closed-mindedness is the simple acceptance that after hundrds of years of testing, psychic phenomena remain unproven and unevolved.

Today we talk on mobile phones, communicate via a massive, world-wide computer network and store huge amounts of data on a device that could easily get lost in an average pocket. We have satellites orbiting Earth and other vehicles traversing the solar system and landing on the Moon and Mars. We drive and fly. We use plastics for almost everything. Crops flourish as a result of advances in herbicides, pesticides and horticultural practices. We've discovered and mapped DNA, eradicated some diseases and controlled others and the list just goes on an on and on - and none of these advances required lawyers to approve or adjudicate on the "correctness" of the information that drove them.

Meanwhile, psychic powers have progressed to the point where "the worlds' best" can vaguely hear a "J name" and guess that the mother of an eighty year old woman might be dead. Amazing stuff really. I'm gobsmacked by the rate of progress in this area. It's like accelerating from zero to zero in two hundred years.

(Thanks to Skeptico's "Pretty Soon" for the seed of the above rant)

The very idea that people should have to disprove a claim is ridiculous and dangerous. If the world worked that way we'd be overrun with charlatans selling snake oil on every street corner because absolutely nothing, nothing, could ever be declared fraudulent simply because no one could ever prove it to be so.

Thinking is Real

An earlier poster asks that we fairly describe what occurs on the show for the benefit of those who haven't seen it. Well, here's a fact for you:

The editors have cut out up to 80% of the cold readings in this show and left in mostly the hits. In one challenge where contestants performed readings on the audience, as little as one minute of each five minute read was televised. The most we saw was two minutes for Ezio, who effectively cheated by shifting a bunch of previous guesses to a person who'd already said they fit her. Here's some more stats from episode three's readings:

# She: A total of 1.5 minutes televised. 3.5 minutes missing.
# Amanda: A total of ONE minute televised. Four minutes missing.
# Jason: About 1:20 televised. Almost four minutes missing.
# Charmaine: About 1:10 televised. Almost four minutes missing

Note that hits were recorded and we saw EVERY hit so the 80% that was edited out was all misses. Of course, misses were not recorded but we can easily extrapolate from what we saw that the ratio was around five misses to every one hit for the better performers (and some of the hits were so generic I thought they were reading me and my wife thought they were reading her).

The Falconio segment will be just another over-hyped, failed challenge that believers will promote as evidence of "something" we can't explain. I think we can explain it but not politely.

Pasted from James Randi Educational Foundation
SWIFT 31 July 2008
Written by James Randi
Thursday, 31 July 2008

“THE ONE”: EPISODE 4

At tinyurl.com/5lsfqr we have a YouTube contribution by William Brougham, one of the audience members whose “psychometry” item was chosen by “psychic” Shé [pronounced, “shay] D’Montford to be “read” on “The One” program on Channel 7, in Australia.

William found significance in the fact that Shé had looked directly at him, that – in his words – she

…was recognizing me from the audience… I did find that amazing.

Apparently he didn’t realize that he’d been moving about attempting to see what object she had held in her hand out of sight; those most interested in that information, will of course be those who contributed an object. Also, if he began smiling as soon as he saw the identity of the object that Shé was working on – though she was actually working more on the audience members! – that would decidedly have tended to give him away. William’s analysis dealing with the grooming habits of someone who would carry a comb, was rather weak, I would say.

He handled well her guess that he was a “gifted healer,” something he hadn’t claimed or even imagined, but this was a guess that might have served to demonstrate that the “psychic” knew something that even he didn’t know, though if it had turned out that he’d had any such notion previously, that would have been a great “hit” for her.

Our tireless and fearless Robert Matic of Melbourne, Australia, reports again, this time on episode 4:

The penultimate episode of Australian series “The One” had been advertised all week as the episode with the results that “even amazed Australia’s biggest skeptic,” saturating the viewer with a montage of images of Richard Saunders with furrowed brow and pen in mouth. The episode that aired on 29 July, 2008, contained nothing of the sort. In fact, Richard perhaps gave his most solid criticisms to date. Host Andrew Daddo opened the show reminding the audience how challenging the tests have been for the psychics, with some hits and some misses. I’m sure the true challenging nature of the tests would be far more revealing if the viewer had access to the footage on the cutting room floor. The reels of tape must be chest-high by now. Thanks to the trusty stop-watch of my fellow reviewer at tinyurl.com/5o6wup it can be revealed that an average of 72% of the “cold reading” segment from last week’s episode was cut from the final edit – all misses, no doubt!

Test 1 – Medical Diagnoses

The judges were asked whether psychics might possibly be able to diagnose medical conditions with their sixth sense – “using their powers for good instead of rottenness,” as Maxwell Smart would say. Witch Stacey Demarco advocated the merging of conventional and unconventional medical treatments – pointing out that many unconventional treatments have now become accepted by society. Skeptic Richard Saunders thought it would be wonderful if psychics could immediately diagnose a person’s ailments, but when pressed by host Daddo to give his opinion on whether it were possible, Richard replied with an immediate “no.” I, personally, would have warned of the tragedies that could result from members of the public having complete faith in a psychic’s abilities when it came to health issues – if there were ever a time to be skeptical, surely, this is the time!

Random people from the streets were stopped and given a medical reading.

For the most part, the conditions predicted by the psychics were general and vague, with “pains on the left side,” something “viral” and “misalignment in the lower back.” Some psychics were courageous enough to make more specific – but highly likely – guesses. For example “loss of hearing” for a man in his sixties: “Statistics show that half of the population over the age of 60 can expect to have trouble with their hearing,” according to tinyurl.com/6bgk8t.

The test continued in the studio with five audience members with five different medical conditions being read by the psychics, in turn. The generalizations continued, but the biggest hit of the segment was the correct diagnosis that one of the five audience members had had a stroke – it was the man who was noticeably leaning to one side, had a crooked mouth, blinked with one eye only and slurred his speech! I don’t mean any disrespect, but how was this man allowed to take part in the test?

Meanwhile, none of the four remaining psychics noticed that one of the audience members was an amputee with a prosthetic leg!

The favorable editing of “The One” is becoming more evident with each passing week. Each of the four psychics was to read each of the five audience members – that should be a total of twenty readings, right? Wrong, Seven readings were completely cut from the show! With all the hits shown during the segment and a handful of misses, Richard Saunders’ comment that “with lots of guesses, you’re bound to get some of them right” looked very odd indeed, but received a favorable reaction from some audience members. When Richard added that the stroke victim may have “given it away,” Stacey Demarco became visibly frustrated, yelling out “Oh, that’s number four in the skeptics’ handbook.”

Test 2 – Matching a piece of luggage with a passenger

A group of twenty people disembarked an aircraft. The psychics were to match each of four pieces of luggage with a passenger. All four psychics failed this test miserably! Although the result was four misses, it’s important to note that this test was still fundamentally flawed in that it wasn’t double-blind; the twenty passengers were aware of the piece of luggage being “read” by the psychic. In fact, I expected at least one hit when each psychic began pacing back and forth, looking each passenger in the face – waiting for a smirk or a deep swallow or any form of subtle clue. With one episode to go, we still haven’t seen a truly double-blind test – and the psychics are still failing!

One of the psychics said that she had become overly confident, and her failure was merely her spirit guides humbling her – even spirit guides don’t like a big shot. Stacey Demarco defended the psychics’ poor performances, telling us that psychic powers work, but “we don’t understand them, yet – like acupuncture.” Stacey’s got one thing right, psychic powers and acupuncture are similar – neither of them work!

Surprisingly, host Andrew Daddo went in to bat for the skeptics, challenging Stacey to come up with a way to measure psychic abilities if these sorts of tests are unsuitable. Stacey’s reply: “Can you measure love?” In other words, you can’t measure psychic abilities – they just exist. We can now add Judge Stacey Demarco to the long list of this week’s failures.

Test 3 – Read a celebrity from behind a screen

In an attempt to give the psychics a helping hand in the final test of the week, the producers unwittingly provided a glaring example of how cold readings actually work. The psychics were to give a reading to a secret celebrity, hidden behind a screen. To signal the hits, the celebrities were to push a button which would light a giant screen behind the psychic and set off a loud victory siren. No longer would the psychic need to watch for those subtle clues that give direction to a reading, but would react to something the whole audience could see. The test was a double-edged sword – the feedback was stopping the psychics from going off on tangents, but the subtle clues that are usually noticed by the cold reader and missed by most viewers were suddenly replaced by a giant green light and siren.

When the screen was white, the psychics back-tracked and changed course and when the screen turned green the psychics developed their guesses. Only the “true believer” would believe that psychic abilities were being displayed during this third test. Cold reading at its rudimentary level!

A paraphrased example from the show:

You have two kids (Big green light, loud siren)

You’re on TV (No light, no siren)

No, hang on, I’m wrong. You’re a sports hero (Big green light, loud siren)

You play cricket (Trying to develop previous hit, but no light, no siren)

Or tennis (Still trying, but no light, no siren)

You have a daughter (Going back to develop the previous hit on “kids,” big green light, loud siren)

She likes dancing (Developing hit on “daughter”, big green light, loud siren)

Replace “Big green light, loud siren” with “subtle visual or audible clue” and you have psychic readings completely worked out! Use it wisely, kids.

Elimination: The Reiki practitioner – even though he was “2008 Australian Psychic of the Year” – was voted out, and the voting lines are open for the winner of “The One” to be revealed next week. Also, next week, the psychics will attempt to recover the lost body of Peter Falconio – British back-packer murdered in the Australian outback. It appears “The One” will close the same way most psychic readings close, asking for money with outstretched palms and taking advantage of those who have died for its own personal glory.

And, the upcoming finding-a-body test will provide – I’m sure – an endless series of unprovable hints, possibilities, guesses, and names, as well as generalized descriptions of outback scenarios... We await the announcement next week of Australia’s Least Failed Psychic – the Winner – with great interest!

http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/206/1/

Pasted from James Randi Educational Foundation
Episode 3
SWIFT 25 July 2008
Written by James Randi
Friday, 25 July 2008

NEXT EPISODE DOWN UNDER

Reader Robert Matic of Melbourne, Australia, gives us his perceptive review of Episode 3 of “The One” – the TV series that features our Richard Saunders as its resident skeptic. As we’ve mentioned, Richard is not able – due to contractual restraints – to keep us informed of behind-the-scenes material that would of course be of great interest to us; all that will come later, and we’ll look forward to it. Presently, we’ll benefit from the observations of Robert Matic, who of course sees all this from the viewer-at-home perspective, and has to make allowances for the very careful, selective, and often misleading editing process that might take place before each program is transmitted to the public. Here’s Robert’s “take” on Episode 3:

A short introduction of “hits” from the previous week opened the third episode of “The One” here in Australia. Once again, the “misses” were edited out of the introduction. However, a short preview of what would later be seen on the show was included. This showed a guess during a cold reading – “Your father had cancer?” – with a reply from an audience member – “Yes, he had three forms of cancer.” When the segment with this reading was later shown in its entirety, it was revealed that the question had been addressed to an audience member who replied “No” before the psychic moved the reading to another woman, who was no doubt nodding emphatically and confirming that the psychic’s guess applied to her. This raises the question: Why couldn’t at least the audience-reading segments of these episodes be aired live? The first test for the episode shows the segments are short enough for a live format.

Randi comments: This is an often-used ploy by the “psychics,” a sudden switch to another person who believes that a missed guess applies to them. And, as you can imagine, it’s the delight of videotape editors, who can slant the content to the advantage of the woo-woo element. One correspondent – who told us that he accepted psychic powers as real – informed us that he had given a definite “no” head-shake to a guess made by “psychic” John Edward during a studio taping, only to subsequently see one of his energetic “yes” nods edited in as a response to that guess when the program was aired! “Creative Editing” is not a lost art...

Test 1: Speed-reading

The psychics had to speed-read members of the audience in five minutes, and only direct hits would be awarded, with a tally shown at the bottom right of the screen. Judge and skeptic Richard Saunders added an example where “Your boss’ name is David” would be counted as a hit, but “Who is David?” would not, with host Andrew Daddo replying, “So, no fishing?” That reply from Daddo caught my attention, because “fishing” is typically a word used by skeptics when discussing cold reading, and it may be an indication that Richard Saunders is providing a lot more input than is making it to the screen – as we expected was the case.

Randi comments: Robert next uses the term “shotgun” in his report. This may require some definition. It’s a technique used by “psychics” whereby they throw out a stream of quick guesses, names, words, initials, cities, situations, conditions, etc., and pause only when they see a reaction to any item, and zero in on that one to develop it, ignoring the misses. Here’s a hypothetical example of “shotgunning” I created to illustrate this technique:

I’m seeing a loud argument here, the name “Matthew,” some sort of contract, or a signed document, there’s a “J” or an “M” involved, perhaps something to do with Paris, maybe a financial condition, or a tightness here in the chest...

Robert continues:

During the speed-readings, the psychics showed how quickly they can “shotgun,” move the target, and make excuses for misses. Disappointingly, the psychic mentioned in my introduction was awarded hits after moving the target. The answers to her first five guesses provided one hit and four misses before she moved it to another audience member and was awarded hits for all five guesses! One poor performer was more interested in “helping people,” because “it’s not about scoring points.” One might ask: “Then why enter a psychic competition?” Oddly, the best cold reader from the previous week – who was credited with making “no misses” and a very specific hit with “Malta” – said, before making her reading, that speed-reading was new for her, and was very difficult. The Reiki practitioner said, “He sees colors and energy, but can’t always get specifics.” Without specifics, however, the colors are meaningless.

The judges’ comments: Richard said he thought the psychics were just making a whole bunch of guesses, with some getting hits. Witch Stacey Demarco denied that psychics merely guess, and said that the high number of misses was due to the pressure of the five-minute time restriction of the test.

Test 2: Finding the location of Ned Kelly’s remains
Kelly

Randi comments: The name Ned Kelly may not mean much to the average non-Australian reader. Kelly was perhaps the most famous outlaw in Australian history, a man who wore body-armor while astride his obviously overburdened horse. He’s well-known Down Under. Richard continues:

The possible remains of famous Australian bushranger Ned Kelly were recently unearthed at a former prison. They had been moved in the 1920s from their former resting place. The excavation site where the remains were found was approximately 4,500 square metres [50,000 square feet] according to Stacey Demarco, and the exact location of the find is not widely known – although the find itself received a considerable amount of media attention, as a quick Google search will reveal. The psychics were taken to the Old Melbourne Gaol [Jail] where Kelly was executed for his crimes, to make a “spiritual connection” before traveling to the excavated site to attempt to find the location of the remains.

The “readings” made by the psychics at the Old Melbourne Gaol were ridiculous. Ned Kelly – rightly or wrongly – has become an icon of Australian history. Making a reading of Ned Kelly would be like asking an American psychic to make a reading of Jesse James or Billy The Kid. All specific information provided by the psychics during this segment was widely known and useless in gauging psychic abilities.

Randi comments: Again, though I understand that the producers of “The One” want to provide color and depth to their program, it seems that the contestants are not doing that, so they’re being allowed to pad their performances with material that does not fit the requirements. They were required to locate the spot where the remains of outlaw Ned Kelly had been interred. Instead, they blathered on and on, giving material that Google does much better...

The excavation site, where the remains were found, hugged the walls of a section of the former prison giving the appearance of a backward L-shape with a small section coming off the end. Of the five psychics, three of them came to the general area of the correct location, but were still considerably far away from the exact spot.

Randi comments: I see no reference here to why there are suddenly only five out of the seven “psychics” being involved in this divination, but there are multiple mysteries to be found here in “The One”...

Judges’ comments: Although Richard Saunders said the choices made by the psychics seemed like pure guesswork and raised the likelihood of a group of non-psychics achieving similar results, Stacey Demarco predictably counted this as three amazing hits, triumphantly declaring, “Three people got to within twenty metres of the location on a 4,500 square metre site!”

Let’s have a closer look at what this means. If we were to draw a circle around the guessing psychic with a radius of twenty metres, the area of the circle would be 1,257 square metres or a whopping 28 per cent of the excavation site, giving the psychic half-way between a one-in-three and a one-in-four chance of being within twenty metres of the correct location! Also – thanks to poster “EoR” on the excellent “Thinking Is Real” blog at tinyurl.com/62bpbj which covers “The One” in more detail – the general location of the grave had been revealed back in March 2008 at tinyurl.com/3yvmgemas “near the eastern end of the old F Division.”

Test 3: Reading from personal items formerly owned by deceased rock stars

The psychics were able to touch – but, not see – items formerly owned by deceased rock stars, and then make a reading. Luckily, the psychics were blindfolded for this test – the items were a pair of pants, a music award statuette, a guitar, sweatband and jacket! As we know, many of these items feel alike, making the reading very difficult.

Generalizations that could apply to any rock star were thrown about willy-nilly. If the audience had not been shown which item – and former owner of the item – the psychics were reading, it would have been impossible to link the readings to the rock stars. In fact, if the psychics had to attempt to link the items to the owners after the readings – even with a one-in-five chance of choosing correctly, and knowing what the item was – I think the psychics would have struggled.

Randi comments: Again, the same problem presents itself. These “psychics” should have been instructed – specifically – to match the items to the owners, though it’s not clear from this description whether the “rock stars” had been identified in advance of the test. This is an old stunt known as “psychometry,” whereby the performers are supposed to pick up “vibrations” and “auras” that identify an object with an individual.

Elimination: The psychic who found the lost boy in under three minutes in the first episode was the next psychic to be eliminated from the show. It appears that the three-minute wonder was just a lucky guess after all, since her performance in episodes two and three was very ordinary – or, at least, even more ordinary than the other four contestants. We must remember – these contestants were chosen as Australia’s best. With only two episodes to go, I think the JREF million dollars and Australian Skeptics’ $100,000 are both safe.

Robert, neither I nor Richard Saunders had any doubt of that last comment, believe me. If things continue to go in this way, we’ll simply have another example of how “psychics” fail when actually tested. There must be some panicking going on in “The One” offices, and that could lead to desperate measures designed to save a semblance of a win... I’m happy that Richard is in place, but I cannot see him becoming too much in demand on future test-the-psychic productions!

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary/swift/swift-july-25-2008.html

Don't be silly Vince: you swallowed hook, line and sinker the pernicious propaganda of that closed minded materialst skeptic Randi who said the same thing as you did! In professional debate, the plaintiff lawyer presents the evidence - and I presented 23 different areas of afterlife evidence - then the technical onus shifts on to the defendant, ie the skeptic to show where, when, how and why the repeatable objective evidence ought not to be admitted in evidence. That, no reductionist scientist, no closed minded skeptic, no materialist has done in EIGHT years I had the million dollar challenge on the internet. Go to a litigatino lawyer for advice to explain to you the rules of professional debate before you show us you know nothing on how to technically rebut substantive objective and repeatable afterlife evidence.
Victor Zammit

Your million dollar challenge is completely flawed. I will give you a million dollars if you can disprove the experience of unicorns. The burden of proof is on you to prove the existence of what it is you are claiming to exist. I don't have to prove fairies don't exist; you have to prove that they do.

You're spouting typical closed minded rubbish. So you want to use scurrilous, dirty language to try to impress - the fact of the matter is that no dum dum skeptic has been able to rebut the objective and repeatable paranormal evidence I have on my website for ONE MILLION DOLLARS. My challenge is the ONLY genuine paranormal challenge- and you can scream, dip your head in the sewer, you can act like a maniac - hard core objective paranormal gives closed minded skeptics like you huge anxiety. Wake up to the real world - take on my ONE MILLION CHALLENGE - put up or shut up!!!
Victor www.victorzammit.com

Episode 2
Pasted from James Randi Educational Foundation

SWIFT 18 July 2008
Written by James Randi
Thursday, 17 July 2008

A FOLLOW-UP
Richard Saunders

The Australian TV series with which our friend and colleague Richard Saunders is involved appears to be the sort of thing that should be more often seen in every country, thus we are giving it close attention and coverage. Reader Robert Matic – see last week’s lead item at tinyurl.com/6ljk4c – has provided us with another penetrating analysis. He reports:

The second episode of “The One” screened on Australian prime-time television last night (Tuesday, 15 July 2008). Following is my review of the episode:

The second episode opened with a highlight reel of all the “hits” from the first episode – and none of the misses! – before introducing the judges to the viewing audience. Skeptic Richard Saunders was jokingly introduced as the judge who is “ruining everyone’s fun” and Witch Stacey Demarco was “hoping Richard can be converted tonight.” It was difficult not to notice that Richard was often jumped on by the host when the psychics made hits, while Stacey was never asked to comment on any of the misses – although, to her credit, she did acknowledge some of them in her judging. Regardless, it seems the host, editors and viewing audience are as adept at remembering the hits and forgetting the misses as any true believer.

Randi comments: This indicates a degree of alarm aroused in the minds of the producers, I think. Though it’s standard procedure to emphasize the successes, we might have thought that “The One” would also display at least some of the misses; it remains to be seen whether this selective editing will become the operating principle for the series. Mr. Matic continues:

Test 1: Twenty-one personal items chosen at random from the audience were displayed on a table. The psychics were to choose from the selection, make a reading and attempt to return each item to the rightful owner. This segment was – from start to end – pure cold reading classics littered with Barnum statements and generalizations and lots of shotgunning. The owners of the items were described as “run down and exhausted,” had “pain in the back or neck,” there was “something about a picture,” someone “owns or owned a dog,” had “relationship problems,” there was “something about ice-cream,” someone was “creative,” had “stillness inside, but was living a hectic lifestyle,” “would like to develop more,” “is reading more” and someone was told “it is your time now” – whatever that means. In addition to the Barnum statements and generalisations, the psychics made some guesses relating to dead relatives, hair color and/or sex of the owner, marital status, number of children and names and letters – Terry, Tony, Troy – all techniques familiar to the skeptic.

Randi comments: Here, in raw form, is the major design flaw with all such programs. The stated task was to “choose from the selection, make a reading and attempt to return each item to the rightful owner.” But that was not done; the psychics chose to bypass that direct, simple, task, and went into cold reading – as Robert points out – by throwing out generalizations and clouding the issue with blather. They were required to examine each object and them take it to the person they’d guessed to be the owner, without making guesses that might evoke useful and indicative reactions from the subjects.

If I had designed this test, I’d have followed the protocol I designed for my “Exploring Psychic Powers – Live!” back in 1989. I had 12 persons – each with a different astrological "sign" – questioned in advance of the live program by a professional astrologer, who then handed each one of them a sealed envelope bearing what he believed was their correct horoscope sign, based on their answers to the questions he'd asked. I'll add that he was not allowed to ask them their birthdates! When the program went "live" all of the subjects were asked to look at the horoscope sign they been given, go to the corresponding astrology symbol displayed on the set, and then change over to the correct astrology symbol if the one they'd been given – by the astrologer – was incorrect. As I'd fully expected, 11 of the subjects moved to the right spots. Robert continues:

The item being read by the psychic who mentioned “something about a picture” was a locket. When the audience member said that there was a picture inside the locket – when isn’t there a picture in a locket? – the psychic said he didn’t realize it was a locket! Please.

Tellingly, only one of the psychics attempted to return the item to the rightful owner! According to the introduction, this was part of the test and yet none of the psychics were brought to task. The six psychics who simply ignored this vital aspect of the test were forgiven – although some of them attempted to identify the owner by hair color or general direction in the live studio audience. Very disappointing! The one psychic who did attempt to find the owner of the item chose two people from the audience – which Richard Saunders identified as a break of the rules, but he was again shrugged off.

If I'd been there, I would have had the owners of the items already selected out and identified for the "psychics" so that the target pool would have been more limited, the statistics easier to see, and the chances of the performers a little better. I don't know the size of the audience, but if it was large, such a test would seem a little unfair. In any case, I rather prefer a "forced-choice" test, since the rest of the audience – and the folks at home – can participate by making their own guesses.

What followed is further evidence of the efficacy of Barnum statements:

Psychic (paraphrasing): “I feel it’s either this woman at the front here, or the woman up there” – possibly choosing the two audience members who were giving visual clues – e.g. nodding, smiling, etc. – to her reading.

Woman 1: “Everything you said was true about me.”

Psychic: (To this woman) “Is this yours?”

Woman 1: “No.”

Psychic: (To second woman) “Is it yours?”

Woman 2: “Yes.”

Psychic: “See! I was reading this woman, but I knew the item was the other woman’s.”

Woman 2: “What you said applied to me very much as well.”

Psychic: “Yes. I knew it was you.”

Again, a well-known technique used by these performers. This is similar to moving the dart on the dart-board after it's hit the wrong spot. This isn't allowed in dart games, nor in any other games I know of. Also, the performer himself established that he was using generalities, since both subjects found that his guesses applied to them!

Judging: Stacey acknowledged there were some misses, but said the hits were huge. I’m not sure she was watching the same show. Richard said there were some hits, but a lot of generalizations. Stacey then said one of the psychics made no misses, which surprisingly, Richard acknowledged.

Remember, please, that Richard might have been the victim of "creative editing" in post-production. We'll have to await his comments after "The One" has run its course.

Here is the reading with “no misses” – according to the judges:

Red sports car – miss

Something with trains or tunnels – hit (owner worked with trains – I assume anyone who travels by train or lives near a train line would award a hit here)

Mary – hit (mother’s name – a common name)

or Catherine – miss

Pain in hands – hit (drummer sometimes gets sore wrists – although, I assume the psychic specifically meant hands, based on her next prediction)

Arthritis – miss

Some link to Malta – hit (children are half-Maltese)

Something about take-away food – hit (children eat take-away food – there aren’t many who don’t)

Has trouble with communication – unknown

Gets sore throats – unknown

This was the best performance during this segment!

Again, none of this should have been included! It's all extraneous material, and not any part of the original task assigned to the "psychics" who participated. This is a really cheesy way of earning points illegally. My count shows 5 hits, 3 misses, and two indeterminate – hardly “no misses.”

Once again, cold reading techniques were not mentioned on the show, which was predictable, but unfortunate. I have no doubt that an example by a competent and non-psychic cold reader and a five-minute explanation of cold reading prior to the psychics’ performances would be the strongest card the skeptical community could play on a show of this kind. If this were allowed, it would be difficult to ignore the similarities between the psychic and non-psychic. Ignorance of cold reading techniques – like any magic – is what makes cold readings seem so magical. Of course, I doubt any producer would allow for such a demonstration or explanation to appear on the show. After all, psi sells.

Test 2: One of seventy shipping containers held a cargo of barrels.

The psychics had fifteen minutes to find the container. The test was introduced as “strictly controlled” and “supervised” by Richard Saunders. This test was considerably more difficult for the psychics than the previous week. Even if the camera crew could unknowingly give clues as to the general direction of the bounty, the shipping containers were stacked in such a way as to make filming of correct and incorrect choices difficult to differentiate – there are only so many ways to film a psychic touching the door of a shipping container. Still not strictly double-blind, but better. The result: all misses.

In a poor attempt to sway the viewer, a map with a red dot at the location of the correct container and the yellow arrow showing the psychic, was only shown when the psychic was close! The psychics were also shown questioning themselves near the container with the bounty in the shot. I was surprised that someone didn’t choose correctly based on this footage, but perhaps there was just as much footage of the psychics questioning themselves in front of other containers. But that just doesn’t make interesting viewing, does it?

Judging: Richard was very happy with the result of this test, highlighting that the psychics performed no better than chance. This, of course, didn’t mean they weren’t psychic, but only that their psychic powers let them down on this occasion. Stacey emphasised the performance of one of the psychics who almost chose the correct container, but said that he didn’t trust his feelings.

Test 3: Similar to the first test, the psychics were to make readings of a selection of Olympic heroes based on objects owned by the Olympians. It seems they left the worst performances till last. Answers became even more general than those made in the first test, even though they knew they were reading former Olympians. “I see arms moving,” “the person is in the public eye,” “great personality,” “has had their wisdom teeth taken out,” “has a sibling,” etc. Very general, very vague statements abounded.

Randi comments: This would be called “psychometry,” and it’s simply the “20 Questions” technique of “cold reading,” done with a veneer of importance attached to the status of those for whom the guesses were being made. Not a double-blind procedure, so useless.

Judging: Richard pointed out that people remember the hits and forget the misses, while Stacey listed the hits of one of the psychics. One of the Olympians said the psychic was 85% correct. Interestingly, the average score given to Bertram R. Forer on his list of identical Barnum statements given to a group of students in 1948 was 4.26 on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent). A similar test was performed by James Randi decades later, with likewise similar results.

The show ended with two psychics being eliminated by the judges based on “accuracy, consistency and specific hits.” The eliminated psychics then showed their predictions – made last week – of the final three contestants. Each psychic obviously included themselves in the final three. With three episodes to go, tune in next week – same woo time, same woo channel!

Thank you again, Robert. We look forward to a future report – if "The One" has a third episode, that is...

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary/swift/swift-july-18-2007-2.html#i1

To Zammmmmittt: You Freak!!! what the hell are you doing here you're a liar, fraud, con man, deceptor, dip stick, filth mouth criminal!!!!

Your disgusting lies lead people down a path of sorrow and delusion. just like the rest of your scum mates. Next time you speak to the DEAD ask them if 'mental illness' disqualifies you from sending messages back to the living!!!! Puke!!!

Why bring uninformed outsiders to try to oversee what is happening in psychic phenomena in Australia? That Randi is on record for being a closed minded skeptical cheat and he does NOT deny that. He's not qualified. He knows nothing about scientific method or what intervening variables to contorl what is admissible evidence. He comes up with the usual nonsense, "I have a sneaking suspicion that the camera crew filming the psychics was aware of the location of the boy all along"- blaming it on the crew when psychics are deadly accurrate. The fact is that some of the contestants proved their psychic skills. They are proving it every week the show's been on. This man Randi is like the Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan investigating the skills of a black negro. Forget the negatively prejudiced and only allow assesors who can perceive the paranoraml with true empirical equanimity.
Victor Zammit, www.victorzammit.com

Posted from another website
Referring to the second episode this week
Andy D writes,

Well, the ads have started for this week’s show and nothing’s improved. Again the promotion is pro-psychic “He’s obviously feeling a force” (or words to that effect). No hint of skepticism.

It’s intriguing that format and promotion of this show is so different to other, similar, talent quest shows. There’s no hard-as-nails judges tearing strips off the contestants when they don’t perform well so there’s no promotion of these “controversial” moments in the ads.

I can’t believe TV stations thinks it’s okay to tear-up the hopes of young kids who want to entertain people or community choirs who want to entertain people but tread carefully when dealing with people who sell fraud for a living. I can only assume (and the show suggests it is so) that the producers are such strong believers that they fear what might happen if they upset a psychic.

Pasted from James Randi Educational Foundation

SWIFT 11 July 2008
Written by James Randi
Thursday, 10 July 2008

A PREMIERE REPORT

Reader Robert Matic of Melbourne, Australia, reports to us on the Tuesday, 8 July, 2008, premiere of what has been advertised there as “a search for Australia’s most gifted psychic.” That’s much like saying, “a search for the least incompetent guesser,” in my opinion. It’s titled “The One,” and has now emerged on prime-time commercial television. This is the show we mentioned at tinyurl.com/5uuq52. Robert writes:

We were promised from the outset, by host Andrew Daddo, to receive a balanced program with one of the two judges being a believer (Stacey Demarco – Witch) and the other a skeptic (Richard Saunders – Australian Skeptics). Although the judges were given equal time to comment on the results of the tests – approximately ten seconds each per test! – the editing of the show heavily and predictably leaned towards the believer’s point of view. After introducing the seven psychics competing for the title – with loads of anecdotal evidence from clients, of course – the first episode went through one “controlled” test and, later, an open display of the psychics’ powers in front of the live studio audience.

Randi comments: Robert correctly emphasizes the strangely short commentary time given the judges; one would expect that two experts included for purposes of valaidation, could be able to express their expertise my thoroughly. Though I’d like to have a more accurate figure than “approximately ten seconds,” it is evident that the editors have a simple task to perform if they wish to slant the responses to their desired effect, in that short period of time. Robert continues:

The test: Host Andrew Daddo explained that the “controlled test” was devised by Richard Saunders and involved a young boy lying down in a forested area covered in a blanket. It took the psychics approximately six or seven minutes to walk from one end of the forested area to the other and they each had fifteen minutes to find the lost boy. Of the seven psychics, two found the boy: one psychic found the boy only a few minutes before the fifteen-minute time limit ran out and another found the boy in an impressive three minutes. Three of the other psychics came quite close to the boy, but ran out of time and the other two were way off.

Randi comments: I see a glaring weakness here, one of which I’m sure Saunders would be aware, and that Robert spotted: the process of concealing the target would have been already videoed, so the camera operator would be aware of that detail. When Andrew Harter and I did a test of the “Quadro Locator” dowsing rod here in Fort Lauderdale, the process was recorded by a local TV station, and the cameraman – well aware of the target location – kept positioning himself so that when the “discovery” was made, he would have a good shot to take. When we had the procedure properly double-blinded, the tests failed. And, note, the item was not broadcast because it was what TV editors call, a “non-event,” while it actually was an event which showed that the claims of the Quadro Locator device were not supported. Robert again:

Unfortunately, the controls for the test were not revealed to the viewer, making it very difficult to identify any possible loopholes in the protocol or whether Richard Saunders was limited in the controls he could impose. I have a sneaking suspicion that the camera crew filming the psychics was aware of the location of the boy all along. If this were the case, the test would not be double-blind and the camera crew could unknowingly provide subtle clues to the psychics by the style of filming or reactions to the psychics’ movements. For example, although I may be data-searching, it seemed to me that when the psychics were way off the mark the camera would circle them frequently and quite often film them from the front, however when they came close to the location of the boy, the camera would be focused on the psychic with the area of the boy in shot – almost pointing the way. However, not knowing the controls of the test means all of this is mere supposition.

Randi comments: Hallelujah! Robert spotted the flaw, and analyzed it properly!

Secondly, the psychics were shown looking for the boy and discussing their thoughts out loud and then we would be shown a map with a red spot at the location of the boy and an arrow showing the location of the psychic and the direction he or she was headed. The area had a forked path, giving the psychics the choice of heading slightly to the left or sharply to the right. The psychic who found the boy in just over three minutes was the only one of the seven who chose the right path. The other six chose the left path heading almost all the way to the end of the forested area before having a sudden “psychic flash” and heading back down towards the boy. Unfortunately, the map did not include a line behind the arrow showing all the places the psychic had been before approaching the boy. If the line had been super-imposed onto the map, it would, no doubt, be evident that the psychics merely looked everywhere and one of the six happened to come across the boy’s location.

Randi comments: And remember that there were seven guesses being made here. Chances are that at least one guess would be impressive. As we’ll see, those who missed were allowed to make excuses. And bear in mind that a camera operator – knowing this was going in the right direction – would be hot to cover this one and ignore the others. All these factors lead to the psychics’ apparent success...

Thirdly, the psychics were able to comment on their thought processes after their results were revealed, which was then edited together with the footage of them searching for the boy. Obviously, the psychics who went the wrong way for a good seven or eight minutes before coming back towards the boy and coming fairly close in the last few minutes talked of “psychic flashes” and “knowing they were close” or “knowing they had to turn around.” One psychic came out with the win-win situation: “My head said the left path and my heart said the right path, I should have listened to my heart instead of my head.” I can tell her what she would have heard if she listened to her heart. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom – approximately sixty to seventy times per second, when at rest.

Finally, it would have been interesting to have had a control group involved in the test. Seven non-psychics who could also be given the test and the results could be compared. Would one of the non-psychics find the boy almost immediately? Would another find the boy after searching almost everywhere for fifteen minutes? Would some of the others get close – perhaps reading the actions and reactions of the camera crew?

Exactly, Robert! Good analysis! Go to the head of the class!

In the end, the one impressive result was the psychic who found the boy in three minutes. Having described her actions afterwards as being immediately drawn to the boy through a “psychic string” attached to her chest, it would be interesting to repeat the experiment with the boy in a different location and see if the three-minute wonder could be repeated. I doubt it.

For the open display of powers, each psychic was brought out and formally introduced and the viewers were given some background information. Most of the psychics performed in front of the audience while others relied on anecdotal evidence from clients to get them through this segment. We were shown the work of a Reiki healer on one of his patients. We heard calls pronouncing the accuracy of a radio psychic: “You said I’d get a green car and I got a green car,” “You said we’d have twins and we had twins,” etc. I can’t imagine too many people would have called in and said, “You said we’d have a boy and we had a girl.” Interestingly, the radio psychic did not perform in front of the live studio audience.

The psychics who did perform in front of the audience used the same old cold reading methods familiar to the skeptic. “I feel trouble around the chest area,” “You get headaches,” “I’m getting the number two,” etc. The most remarkable rewarding of a “hit” was when one of the psychics – after getting several hits with an audience member – said, “You’re on fire!” That audience member later said, “He knew there was a fire in our house!” What?!?

There were some indications of “hot reading” taking place as well, which would not be impossible, of course. Did the psychics spend any time with the audience before filming? Obviously, members of the audience would have bought tickets for the show. Did some of the psychics’ previous clients – or current clients – come to the filming of the show? Who knows?

All in all, I was disappointed in the editing of the show leaning so strongly towards belief and would have liked to have heard more than ten-second snippets from the judges. Cold reading techniques were not even discussed, or may have been edited out. How many misses were edited out of the second segment of the show? I will keep watching to see where the show eventually heads, but I’m not holding much hope.

Folks, Robert Matic has shown us a remarkably good understanding of how to analyze events of this nature, video records that may have been subject to editing, selection, and bias. While Richard Saunders has been restrained – by contractual limitations – from expressing his concerns, I can assure you that he is aware of these problems as much as Mr. Matic is. We await further analysis of programs in this series, with great interest!

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary/swift/swift-july-11-2008-2.html

You should check your facts.
2 found him, 4 others ended up close.
Only one was way off track.

Yes the 4 'failed', but they were very close.
Stick to what the show presented and don't bend it for the readers here whom have not seen the show.
Please see the show for your self if you are uncertain whom to believe in this forum.

The above are the results, it is for you to create your own conclusions - or not!

Don't worry Marcus I certainly have never wished nor would I wish to be confused with you.
You may stay confused alone.

one contestant found the boy quickly (hit). One came within sight of him but did not reach him in time (not a hit). All the others failed, some just more spectacularly than others (no hits). If they are truly psychic, why did they not all go straight to the boy? 'Nuff said.

To All,

Please do not confuse Markus with me.

Another trick of the believers in woo.

I beg your pardon: one found him in 3 minutes, one got close but ran out of time, and at least 4 went in the wrong direction, and ended up far from their target. Check your facts. Also revise what these folk muttered, especially the lady whose spirit guide told her the boy would be by a creek.
I'll bet you the one lady who got it right won't be nearly so lucky next week. Yep, luck, kiddo; that's it.

The show was on last night.
There was a boy well hidden in the bush, laying down.

The 7 contestants had 15 minutes to find the boy.
2 contestants found the boy, one going straight to him in 3 minutes.
4 of the other 7 contestants ended up in positions within 'meters' of the boy at the end of the 15 minutes they had.

So 6 out of the 7 did well, 2 very well.

It would be interesting to see what the results would have been had there been 18 minutes to find the boy.

It appears that this slimey show has sunk even lower into the slime. Talk is that they took these morons up to Alice Springs to look for Peter Falconio!!!!

Anyone hitching their star to this bucket of puke should be ashamed.

In 10years of of following skeptical thinking I've never seen such a divide.
I hope the price of 'fame'is worth it..

oh Marcus, you've seen the promo and you're jumping to conclusions about the skills of Saunders? I think perhaps you need to wait to see the entire show before you pass judgement on his contribution. Of course seven are going to edit the *&^! out of it - it's a show designed for entertainment and ratings. We do not expect much, we are lucky the sceptics got a shoe in at all.

For anyone without a bee in their bonnet about Saunders, go here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18382283750 to join his Facebook Fan Club.

Well I've seen the promo. Oh dear!!!. Looks like the editing we all thought. Wonder who had the final say in post production. Not looking good. A Skeptic who is not sure.. Why not? Maybe he doesn't have the necessary skills?

Your PHD is worthless. Sounds like something that you would buy from a diploma mill.

Hi all,

I am all for scientific exposure and research toward the unknown, I am a full believer that knows not thinks that there is other life out there in the universe perhaps even smarter than we are, perhaps enough to be able to visit us from lightyears away or other dimensions. This is all scientifically probable just beyond our understanding and physical technologies. I also believe in the possibility that not all of use go straight to heaven ( or hell ) as soon as we die so in these 2 beliefs alone I can quietly say I am intrigued by the possibility of esp and other skills of the mind.

In saying this though, although this show seems like a interesting one, My mum and a friend of hers attended a live recording of the show, what they told me they viewed leaves me to believe that this may well be another " lets spoof the believers " type show. They viewed the filming of a missing boy ( behind a rock ) where the gifted group had to try and find the boy with only a map and compass. This had to be done within a few minutes of being dropped off at a random starting point. Some of them after a minute or 2 headed towards the rock, although being yelled at by the camera crew to come back the other way or they were heading the wrong way, most moved away from the actual area where the boy behind the rock was. The only one they didnt heckle, was a woman, with really tight clothing, dressed to the 9's started her go, within about 1 min she was at the rock, no heckling at all from the crew. Later in the show ( live part ) it came out that she had a map she drew and gave it to one of the crew ( I am sure this will be edited out ). So as such, I feel that this show will not show anything but a already well know personality in this field who writes books and does radio etc. The real true promising talent will all one by one be removed. There was one girl, who has had a gift since childhood who does really well, a housewife, a unknown person, never made a big thing out of her gift but decided to enter this show. She practically found the boy in just under 2 mins even with the heckling of the crew refusing to move away. I think this person although eventually made out to be a loser, is probably one of the few legit gifted people whether you believe in psychic powers or just really good Intuition / gut feeling.

Just my thoughts

Friend of Occam and others in the discussion,

It's great to see an active discussion taking place. I enjoyed reading Friend of Occam's "all of this makes for interesting reading" post. Well said.

As for the industry being unregulated, that is a concern and has been for some time. There are various reasons behind this, perhaps some of you would like to bring those to light.

Quantum Physics and other breakthrough scientific studies are very interesting.

Double-blind testing and scientific procedure is very important in the study of psy phenonmena, 'paranormal' and other similar areas.

The more research that is done in the area of paranormal, psychics and mediums, the better. That which is unknown is often feared or completely misunderstood. On the flipside, it is also easily discounted. The world was not flat after all. Go far enough, study enough, stretch the human mind enough, and the answers will not just come to light, but be scientifically proven.

The potential of the human mind is incredible. Exploring that potential in an educated manner, through research and properly conducted experiments is a great cause.

If this ability really does exist, then it can be harnessed in more humans, whether they think they are psychic or not. If it does not, then we'll all know it's a load of hoopla and go back to the drawing board to focus on something else.

What I see as important here, is that the show is encouraging discussions such as the one on this forum. It is also lifting the bar on psychics. The improvements in any profession have growing pains. Like it or not, psychics and mediums and the new age is host to many workers. The work is a profession of sorts. The more the industry is pushed to improve the accepted standards the better, in my view.

As for James Randi's challenge. I had a good look at some of the contestants and wasn't particularly impressed. Surely there are some psychics or mediums out there who can take this challenge? A spoon bender somewhere or perhaps someone who can without doubt, prove that the X-Men are not that far off the horizon?

Brian, Just because some people are hoaxes does not mean that all mediums are. That is as silly as saying because one found a hoax Doctor all Doctors must be hoaxes! I think it is wonderful that more and more people are finding out about the good research that has been going into to this issue and that they are leaving the closed minded debunkers behind, where they belong.

As to this coming TV show, I can't say and I don't believe it would be that scientific but I will wait and see.

For those with an open mind keep reading and keep thinking!