From: Pam A. 9/12/99 8:54:28 Subject: Psychics post id: 14653 Psychics who do you approach the topic of criminal psychics? They are a fact, the police use them pay them and catch criminals with them they work, so how do you approach this? What is your answer for them? From: bart 9/12/99 9:16:59 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14656 Psychics may provide lateral thinking to a criminal investigation. From: steve(primus) 9/12/99 9:17:35 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14657 They are a fact, the police use them pay them and catch criminals with them they work, so how do you approach this? Could you show me some evidence that any psychic, anywhere, has helped police to catch a criminal using information other than that already available to the general public? There are self-proclaimed psychics that claim to have helped police and there are some that have written to police with information but there is no evidence that I know of that they were using any form of psychic ability. The claims by one psychic, I think it was Doris Stokes but I could be wrong, that she helped police catch the Yorkshire Ripper were totally untrue. There has never been any evidence that anyone has psychic ability. It is unfortunate because it would be great if people could develop a power like this. Every single psychic that has ever been tested has been shown to be unable to reproduce their claims under test conditions. Many quite genuinely believe they have a special gift but whatever they have - super sensitive hearing or good deductive ability or whatever - is not pshychic ability. The vast majority, however, of so-called psychics are charlatans preying on the gullible. From: Pam A. 9/12/99 9:51:39 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14671 I have see a lot of programs on TV about this they do use them in the U.S.A., there were interviews with a large number of seemingly credible people in law enforcement. But I'll look around on the net and see what I can find. "The vast majority, however, of so-called psychics are charlatans preying on the gullible." This I agree with a hundred percent but its the small minority that causes interest here, life is strange and complex in my eyes and just blowing off every thing does not cut it for me. From: bernee 9/12/99 9:54:45 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14672 The vast majority, however, of so-called psychics are charlatans preying on the gullible. surely this cannot be true - they advertise on TV and I'm sure the newworks would not take their money if they were fakes! B {;-)} From: bart 9/12/99 10:08:11 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14676 Pam: lets take a different viewpoint. if you were a commercial television station, what type of programs would you show to get people to watch your show and intrigue them? How seemingly credible would you need to make them? From: brad 9/12/99 11:33:33 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14691 Doris Stokes rhymes with Hoax. Coincidence? I think not... brad From: Dr. Ed G (Avatar) 10/12/99 6:56:26 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 14971 I wouldn't treat the claims of American TV popumentaries too seriously. For example, every couple of years they come out with "The Shocking Revelations of Nostradamus" type programs which spell out categorically what devastating things are predicted to happen in the very near future, though the only events which actually eventuate is the making of further programs on the shocking revelations of Nostradamus (if Nostradamus had any predictive power whatsoever, human civilisation would have been demolished several times over in just the last two decades alone (the period over which I have been consciously watching Nostradamus documentaries)). Or then there's the UFO documentaries which feign objectivity, and then show photographic evidence which they claim cannot be explained or duplicated by special effects experts, most of which I could duplicate in an afternoon using flashlights, tilted panes of glass, cardboard, and double sided sticky tape. As has been mentioned if these program makers truely approached their subjects critically and objectively it is unlikely they would be program makers for long... facts simply aren't as exciting or intriguing as mysteries (which, ironically, is why I pursued a career in science - the mysteries of measureable physical Universe are much more concrete and not so easily dismissed as UFO sightings, or supernatural phenomena). With respect to so called "psychic detectives", there is a very good article on how they don't work href="http://www.parascope.com/en/articles/psychicSleuths.htm . Soupie twist, Ed G. From: steve(primus) 10/12/99 16:31:32 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 15190 Sorry to go off track a bit, but the mention of N has triggered a memory. Remember those Nostradamus specials hosted by John Waters? I do, and for one reason. I saw one of these in the late eighties. Now, if it was the late eighties and I had been asked to draw up some predictions about the future, I would probably have put in something about war between Iran and the USA. It would have seemed like a pretty good bet. The US (and their allies in Iraq) had a pretty unpleasant relationship with "Persia" during this period. The N team went a bit overboard, and claimed there would be a 20-years war that would damage the world, but it was a fair enough guess. It could, of course, have been made by anyone who had never even heard of Nostradamus, but let's give them a break for trying. Unfortunately, in the following conflict, Iran and the US became allies for the first time in over a decade! There was a war (when is there not?) but it lasted more like twenty days than twenty years. The prospects for peace in the world at large improved markedly during this period. After the Gulf War, there was another N special hosted by Waters. A reasonable person would think that this special would have to consist mainly of Waters saying, "Look, it has turned out to be a load of nonsense. We're sorry for wasting everyone's time. I don't know what happened. I must have spent too many years on Playschool." In fact, no mention was made of the debacle. What I don't understand is the fact that not everyone remembered this. Have the psychic league perfected doublethink? From: steve(primus) 10/12/99 16:39:12 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 15193 Have the psychic league perfected doublethink? They just tell you about their hits and ignore their misses. I'm going to start a new thread with a challenge for the psychics on SSS - which is goint to be all of us. From: Kothos 10/12/99 16:40:09 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 15194 No, the media and politicians have perfected doublethink in the form of politispeak, soundbites, sensationalist headlines and no actual substance ever given to the masses. We've been encouraged to develop short-term memories and people like those of the psychic league can take advantage of that. I mean, people still believe in the Patriot missile, even though it's magical 100% strike rate was later reduced to a single direct hit out of 50. Nobody cares about anything after the fact anymore. Newspaper retractions occupy a tenth of the space and position priority that the original article had. It's no longer an issue of whether we have too much or too little information presented to us, but in what form it's presented, what's hyped and what's not. Sucks I reckon. Sorry for the long ranty post. From: Alanē 10/12/99 16:41:48 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 15195 what was the Patriot missile? From: Kothos 10/12/99 16:50:43 Subject: re: Psychics post id: 15203 Alan, that was a crappy missile used by the US forces circa the Gulf War. It was just about to go out of production because it was (a) crap and (b) had no practical use - it's an anti-missile-missile. During the Gulf War it was used to shoot down Iraqi scud missiles headed for Israel. Out of 50+ scuds, the Patriot scored one direct hit. Granted it's purpose was for a proximal detonation meant to explode a missile early or deflect it from its target, but considering the scuds didn't care where they landed anyway, and considering it had scarcely a dozen proximal detonations, it failed even in this. My point is, the US propaganda machine threw out the outright lie that the Patriot was 100% effective. As independant sources slowly proved this to be untrue, the official stance on it's strike rate became lower and lower. When the actual truth came out no one cared anymore and foreign countries started buying the Patriot like crazy, generating income for the USA. The false Patriot strike rate also generated support for the war itself. This was just one of the numerous lies that painted the Gulf War to be a lot more magically beautiful than it real was. Now this post really was long and ranty. Sorry. This forum is un-moderated. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual poster and not the ABC. The ABC reserves the right to remove offensive or inappropriate messages.