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Psychic Detectives are real

polomontana:

You seem to misunderstand skepticism and critical thinking. For example, if someone says UFOs are being piloted by alien beings, you cannot just say that this is not an extraordinary claim, and therefore the burden of proof is on skeptics to disprove it.

Just by claiming that psychic ability is "natural" and therefore skeptics need to disprove it is not how presenting evidence works.

You also seem to have a problem with physics in regards to black holes and virtual particles. Sure, we can't test black holes directly, but we certainly can make predictions about them and gather evidence that leads us to believe they exist.

You have no evidence that psychic powers exist. So forget about whether or not it is supernatural. Just show evidence it exists.
 
polomontana said:
The whole you tube clip is designed to fail. First she see's two other psychics that don't help so they go in skeptical. Kay Rhea gave them information and they didn't investigate. If the piece was honest they would have hired a professional detective to look into the information and not just a couple of flunkies from the TV station. Like when she mentioned a fork in the road, they went out just looking for forks in the road just to debunk the psychic not to solve the case. What they should have looked for a fork in the road that was connected to the building she mentioned. An investigator has to investigate..
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Why don't you do it? Get a map of New Jersey. Draw a circle 30 miles in radius. Find all the forks in the road. Find all the signs with the letter S on them. Dig up the body.

Don't you think it would do a great service to that suffering woman in the video? You could solve the case, make yourself famous, and prove beyond all doubt that psychic powers are real.

Put up, or shut up, or hear "troll." Your choice. Don't you want to help that poor woman whose sister has vanished? What kind of a person are you?
 
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polomontana said:
Ladewig,

It's not about evaluating the evidence because we don't start from the same place.
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I really do think it is. From one of earlier posts:

polomontana said:
Some of them do cold reading like Sylvia Browne and John Edwards but some of them are real
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Again I ask: When you evaluated all evidence related to psychics, how did you determine that some are genuine and some are fake?

How do you determine which evidence is worth of credence and which is not?
 
IIG Look Into The Show Psychic Detectives

Hi there.

The Independent Investigations Group has examined psychic detectives in the past. The most prominent report can be found at www DOT iigwest DOT com. Go to the front page and look for the link about Carla Baron.

The IIG has been looking at the history of claims in the show "Psychic Detectives". I am not part of that committee and I don't know if this particular episode has been researched yet, but I will see if one of the committee members can comment on it.

-Derek
 
You guys are all stupid. Diana Troy was a psychic on Star Trek: The Next Generation, so psychics must be real. Why can't you see the truth in front of your eyes?
 
strathmeyer said:
You guys are all stupid. Diana Troy was a psychic on Star Trek: The Next Generation, so psychics must be real. Why can't you see the truth in front of your eyes?
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*Geek Alert*

Well, actually, it was "Deanna Troi" and she was an empath and not a psychic. In fact, her race were only telepaths and never psychics.
 
This bears repeating :).

We tried to contact Detective Shoemaker, which was a task in itself. After being redirected several times, We finally talked to a secratary who said that he was currently serving in Iraq. However, she gave me the number of his partner, Detective Gass.

We first asked Detective Gass if he believed in psychics, and he told us he did not. We asked him about how Kay could have easily rationalized that the suspect was "angry" while killing Rachel, due to the fact that he beat her to death with a boombox and a chair. He told us that "she could have easily guessed that he was angry, it wasn't something new to us."

However, the thing that stunned him was the sketch. When we asked him about the sketch, he said, "Damn, if it wasn't just so close." He said that it was "scary". He told us that he had no idea how Kay could have gotten that information so accuretly. He went on to talk about the purpose of sketches, that they were used to "eliminate everyone else." Kay's sketch wasn't used like that, it was a DIRECT HIT[emphasis added]. We finally asked him if they could have solved the case without Kay, and he told us that, "without using the psychic, we probably would have never solved the case."

This is from a skeptic.
 
Well, veterans of any description can be as irrational as anyone. And what is the word for when your moggy ascribes cat features to his human mates?

M.
 
polomontana said:
This bears repeating :).

We tried to contact Detective Shoemaker, which was a task in itself. After being redirected several times, We finally talked to a secratary who said that he was currently serving in Iraq. However, she gave me the number of his partner, Detective Gass.

We first asked Detective Gass if he believed in psychics, and he told us he did not. We asked him about how Kay could have easily rationalized that the suspect was "angry" while killing Rachel, due to the fact that he beat her to death with a boombox and a chair. He told us that "she could have easily guessed that he was angry, it wasn't something new to us."

However, the thing that stunned him was the sketch. When we asked him about the sketch, he said, "Damn, if it wasn't just so close." He said that it was "scary". He told us that he had no idea how Kay could have gotten that information so accuretly. He went on to talk about the purpose of sketches, that they were used to "eliminate everyone else." Kay's sketch wasn't used like that, it was a DIRECT HIT[emphasis added]. We finally asked him if they could have solved the case without Kay, and he told us that, "without using the psychic, we probably would have never solved the case."

This is from a skeptic.
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She copied her sketch from an existing sketch. You claim that the two sketches were entirely different and that Rhea's was closer, yet the only evidence you provide is that the TV held up a picture of the suspect and the two sketches and you agreed with what the TV told you.

A test I might take seriously would be to show a series of photographs of the suspect to people along with the two sketches, and not tell them what they were. Then I'd ask them to rate the sketches relative to the photographs. If the Rhea sketch scored much higher than the original sketch, I'd take the claim seriously.

You should be able to do a test like this yourself. Put up or shut up or be called troll.
 
polomontana said:
Boy oh boy, this case has people stumped. Why don't you get James Randi to go and interview the police officers. I'm sure he will not because he would rather go after easy targets like Sylvia Browne. The skeptic better stick with people like her and Miss Cleo so they can stay in denial.

Kay Rhea is right, it's not her job to do the leg work. It's the job of the invesigator to investigate the crime. The psychic will tell you they are an investigative tool that the detectives can use.
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Please read what you just wrote.

You want the skeptics - Randi - to do the leg work, but the psychics - who are the ones who make the claims - you give a carte blanche?

polomontana said:
Also, the show talked about "Psychic powers" and when you associate psychic ability to supernatural powers then your wrong. Psychic ability occurs naturally and the only supernatural thing about it is that we don't fully understand it yet. We are still testing some of Einsteins theories. So because we have not reached a technological point to test these things doesn't mean there is no evidence and the evidence for psychic ability is overwhelming. We can't test black holes or virtual particles either, should every physicist just throw them out the window? That's how illogical some sound.

Psychics will not be 100% correct because psychic ability occurs naturally and that means it's subject to human error. All doctors will not cure 100% of their patients, all lawyers will not win 100% of their trials and all detectives will not solve 100% of their cases.

This is why the skeptic tries to tie the words supernatural powers to psychics. This way they can say the psychic needs to be correct everytime. That's not the case at all. Psychic ability is subject to human error and they will not be right 100% of the time because psychic ability occurs naturally and we survive death naturally.
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Okie doke. Let's go with that for a moment.

Let's say the psychics are, say, 80% correct. Or whatever it may be. Not 0%, of course, and not 100%. But somewhere inbetween.

You need to tell us just which parts of the psychic's messages are correct, and which are not. How do we find out?

polomontana said:
Also, we could look into these thing more if the money was there for research. Dr. Michio Kaku says you shouldn't look into these things until you reach tenure. This is the enviroment of dogmatic skepticism not the domain of a freethinker.

You have some places doing the research but it's not enough. Check out the Veritas Project, they are located at the University of Arizona and they look into mediums and life after death. If your a freethinker you will not be scared to browse the sight.
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We have already examined Schwartz's experiments in extenso on this forum. You can also read the following articles about Schwartz:

All the Afterworld's a Stage

Pseudoscientists vs. Paranormalists

Tell me what you think about Schwartz' use of a "departed hypothesized co-investigator" in his experiments.

Any chance of you answering my earlier questions?
 
polomontana said:
Ladewig,

It's not about evaluating the evidence because we don't start from the same place. I start with the Police Chief, the cold case detective and the skeptical detective who vouch for the psychic and the skeptic starts with just his or her opinion. The police involved will say the psychic told them a,b and c and it helped the investigation but the skeptic will say it didn't help the detective based on his or her skeptical belief. The skeptic has to bring something else to the table beside their opinion. So I'm not going to suspend reason and believe the skeptic. They start with zero evidence and I start with the words of the men and women who were investigating the crimes.
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Out of curosity, have you actually contacted the police chief/police department in question and asked them about the psychic's involvement?

I ask this because I did some looking into a claim by Allison Dubois (of TV's "Medium" fame) that she had worked with the Texas Rangers on the Opal Jo Jennings case. Turns out that no one by the name she gave as her TR contact had ever worked with the Rangers -- and the phone number she gave was a weather hotline. On the phone number, I'm not too surprised, because this was very old information. But the info from the Texas Rangers was very interesting. Also, she claimed to have worked with a prosecutor's office on cases. This would, in my mind, imply that she used her psychic powers to do so in a detecting capacity. But no: she was an intern assisting with jury selection, which I found out after contacting the people in charge.

This was all in follow-up to a news article, for what it's worth, so you can't always count on journalists to dig very deeply. Which is why I ask whether you've actually dug into this any further, by contacting the police department and asking what information they are willing to provide. You may be very surprised by what you find out (or they may corroborate the story, which is important in and of itself).
 
CFlarson,

It's Randi and the skeptics job to support their claims. If you want to show this is false, go and talk to the detectives involved. This will not happen because Randi would rather be preoccupied with Sylvia Browne and Uri Gellar. It's easier to stay in denial rather than face the truth.

How do they find out which parts of the psychics message is correct? You do the leg work and investigate like Kay Rhea said. When the detectives found the suspect that matched the psychics sketch they found out he moved to San Diego like the psychic told them and the psychic said he worked in a factory and they found out they worked in a factory together. It's called investigation.

The sites you linked about Gary Schwartz is laughable. This is from one of the sites:

Veronica Keen (VK) is the "absent sitter" who does not even know when the readings are scheduled. Julie Beischel (JB) is to sit in the presence of the medium as a proxy representative of Veronica Keen, for whatever reason. JB knows who the deceased is and who she is sitting for. One can't help but wonder, since it was mediums who initiated this whole thing, if the mediums also know who the "absent sitter" and the departed are.

His whole article is suspect after this. He's making the claim that the mediums in Schwartz's studies know about the sitter and the deceased. He has zero evidence that this is the case and this is very illogical on his part. I can say this about any study. I can say the participants are not blind and they know about the study. Without any evidence I would be seen as a nutcase and you actually quote this guy?
 
polomontana said:
It's Randi and the skeptics job to support their claims. If you want to show this is false, go and talk to the detectives involved.
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Jackalgirl said:
Out of curosity, have you actually contacted the police chief/police department in question and asked them about the psychic's involvement?

I ask this because I did some looking into a claim by Allison Dubois (of TV's "Medium" fame) that she had worked with the Texas Rangers on the Opal Jo Jennings case. Turns out that no one by the name she gave as her TR contact had ever worked with the Rangers -- and the phone number she gave was a weather hotline. On the phone number, I'm not too surprised, because this was very old information. But the info from the Texas Rangers was very interesting. Also, she claimed to have worked with a prosecutor's office on cases. This would, in my mind, imply that she used her psychic powers to do so in a detecting capacity. But no: she was an intern assisting with jury selection, which I found out after contacting the people in charge.
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Oopsie. v:)v
 
polomontana said:
CFlarson,

It's Randi and the skeptics job to support their claims. If you want to show this is false, go and talk to the detectives involved. This will not happen because Randi would rather be preoccupied with Sylvia Browne and Uri Gellar. It's easier to stay in denial rather than face the truth.
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Do you realize the consequences of what you are saying?

You want a society, where psychics can make any claim they want, but it is up to other people to prove them wrong. Psychics can accuse anyone of murder, without any repercussions. If those accused want to defend themselves, they have to do the legwork, not the psychic.

Sorry, but that is simply bogus. It is the psychics who make the claims, and it must be the psychics who must support the claims.

polomontana said:
How do they find out which parts of the psychics message is correct? You do the leg work and investigate like Kay Rhea said. When the detectives found the suspect that matched the psychics sketch they found out he moved to San Diego like the psychic told them and the psychic said he worked in a factory and they found out they worked in a factory together. It's called investigation.
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I am asking you: How do you find out just which parts of the psychic's messages are correct, and which are not?

polomontana said:
The sites you linked about Gary Schwartz is laughable. This is from one of the sites:

Veronica Keen (VK) is the "absent sitter" who does not even know when the readings are scheduled. Julie Beischel (JB) is to sit in the presence of the medium as a proxy representative of Veronica Keen, for whatever reason. JB knows who the deceased is and who she is sitting for. One can't help but wonder, since it was mediums who initiated this whole thing, if the mediums also know who the "absent sitter" and the departed are.

His whole article is suspect after this. He's making the claim that the mediums in Schwartz's studies know about the sitter and the deceased. He has zero evidence that this is the case and this is very illogical on his part. I can say this about any study. I can say the participants are not blind and they know about the study. Without any evidence I would be seen as a nutcase and you actually quote this guy?
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You miss the point: Schwartz is using a spirit to prove the existence of spirits! He lets a spirit answer "yes" to the question "Do spirits exist?"

Don't you see the problem here?

I take it you refuse to answer my previous questions?
 
When a person dies, does the waveform associated with the subatomic particles that make up your body die as well? The answer is no. We no from the double slit experiment that the fullness of the wave function is hidden when decoherence occurs. The energy associated with the paricles in your body doesn't die. Energy can't be created nor destroyed. This energy could also be associated with dark energy or dark matter which we don't know exactly what it is or it's properties but it makes up over 90% of our universe.

We know that there's a zero point energy associated with every subatomic particle in your body. This energy is always present. So when you die, does this energy die as well? Absolutely not.
 
polomontana said:
When a person dies, does the waveform associated with the subatomic particles that make up your body die as well? The answer is no. We no from the double slit experiment that the fullness of the wave function is hidden when decoherence occurs. The energy associated with the paricles in your body doesn't die. Energy can't be created nor destroyed. This energy could also be associated with dark energy or dark matter which we don't know exactly what it is or it's properties but it makes up over 90% of our universe.

We know that there's a zero point energy associated with every subatomic particle in your body. This energy is always present. So when you die, does this energy die as well? Absolutely not.
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What on earth does this have to do with fraudulent psychics?

What you are saying in effect is that after death you leave a body.
 
Polomontana,

You are not able to provide any information on this case that was not created by the Psycic Detectives. We all know that you won't contact police officials that will contradict you.

Let this case go and try another.

Give us a case you have information on that the psychic detectives didn't create for their show. Preferably one that has been well documented.
 
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