Incorrect. Are you being deliberately dishonest, or did you simply miss the rest of the explanation?
StopSylvia email: "Hummmmmm"
- Thread starter RSLancastr
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- stop sylvia browne
Incorrect. Are you being deliberately dishonest, or did you simply miss the rest of the explanation?
RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
Please show me exactly where I said that was as far as my research went. Did I even mention "well-written" at all? I don't recall having done so, but will scroll back up after I post this and see.
I don't know that anyone here counts those emails as "proof" of anything. They are merely evidence. Not irrefutable, rock-solid evidence, as you rightly point out. But, again, until I posted them on my site, the chorus of "If she's a fake, where are all the complaints from dissatisfied customers?" was often heard. Since StopSylvia went up - not so much.
If you want to compare it to the legal system, I would consider the emails on my site to be roughly the equivalent of the testimony of witnesses in a trial. The jury (readers of the site) can decide how much credibility each witness has. Of course, I don't swear these people in, nor are they under threat of perjury, but, as a rough analogy, I think it stands up reasonably well.
Fortunately, the emails are not all the site has to offer. There is lots of solid evidence of her being wrong on readings and predictions time after time after time, despite her repeated claim to a high degree (85=90%) of accurcy.
Mushy makes one point that I'd like to see addressed. Is it true that you receive both emails that testify to her scamming and emails that testify to her accuracy, but selectively post only the former and fail to post the latter?
EDIT: Upon further review, this seems to address it.
EDIT: Upon further review, this seems to address it.
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RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
Good thing you censored the State. Otherwise I probably could have figured out who "Name" was!
I know, I know. but if someone who personally knows the correspondent reads this, leaving out the state may keep them from making the connection.
RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
Guess I missed that, but thanks. though it didn't address the "witness" analogy.
Perhaps you could list what you read his method of investigation to be and then comment if you believe its good enough?
No, the letters serve only as supportive evidence of the other evidence that is on his page.
Alien sightings and the like are only evidenced by the reports of the sighting.
RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
They would be evidence to be considered, yes. proof? No. "evidence" does not mean, nor even imply, that something is good or even meaningful evidence. just evidence. Something to be considered and weighed regarding the matter at hand. It may be convincing, it may be total crap, but it is all considered evidence.
Bram Kaandorp
Master Poster
If only this simple fact would be more commonly known among woo-spreaders...
RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
Yes. Do courts wait until a document is "good" evidence before they mark it as evidence?
shandyjan
Master Poster
I suggest the title critical thinker be taken away from Mushy, teenage tantrums come to mind. Kevin and Perry would welcome him aboard!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsj98uNsIBQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsj98uNsIBQ
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aggle-rithm
Ardent Formulist
And what way is that? Presenting accurate information about a public figure?
If she didn't want that to happen, then she needs to retire to a quiet farm somewhere and quit drawing attention to herself. THEN and only then could she complain that someone is putting publicly available information about her on the internet.
RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
I was thinking of saying much the same thing. Thanks for saying it better.
padego
Scholar
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AdMan
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2010
- Messages
- 10,293
I'm trying to figure out what's driving you to post in this way, and this is the closest I've come to your motivation.
You agree Sylvia is a fraud, who is taking advantage of people. Yet you disagree with someone who points this out--and presents evidence--to prevent others being taken advantage of, is that right?
If someone is a fraud and you have proof they are a fraud, how exactly are you supposed to treat them?
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RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
I am not clear to me whether you are asking about my posting emails here on the JREF forum, or on SSB, so I will address both.
Not only have I NEVER received an email which described any reading Browne has ever given regarding a missing or murdered person which later was shown to be meaningfully accurate, I have NEVER received a single email in which the sender even THOUGHT they knew of such a case (with one exception which I will describe below). I have mentioned in another thread here that I can only remember receiving emails from only three people who were pleased with a reading they had received from Browne.
1) ========== WASHINGTON DC ===============
From a woman initially furious with me for doubting Browne's "abilities" She said that Browne had, in a phone reading with this woman, told her that she (the woman) would move to Washington DC, which the woman later did. In my reply to this woman, I asked her if she still had the tape recording of the reading, and, if so, could I listen to it? I told her that perhaps she had inadvertently given Browne a clue about that.
She replied that she had NOT given Browne any such clue - how could she have done so when she herself did not know?
I asked again if I could listen to the tape, telling her that in my experience, sitters seldom realized it when they gave a cold reader a clue. She replied angrily that the first thing out of Browne's mouth in the reading was "What's this I'm seeing about you moving to Washington DC?" The woman told me that she had not said a word at that point, and so could not have given any "clue", but agreed to send me the tape of the reading.
I listened to the tape and the opening words, after greetings went like this (IIRC)
I transcribed those first lines and emailed them back to the woman. She was stunned.
I considered making it all an article - a lesson on how cold reading works, and on how memories of readings are so fallible. I don't recall if I decided not to publish it because I thought it would embarrass the woman, or if she declined to give me permission to use it.
2) ========== ROSANNA ================
The next woman also initially wrote to me angry over the site, and said that she'd had a satisfactory phone reading with Browne. She and I corresponded frequently throughout the year, me answering her questions, her growing more and more skeptical of Browne. I documented our correspondence in an article on SSB titled something like "Rosanna - an email collage" So, I guess I did publish one pro-Browne email, although by the end of the correspondence she was strongly anti-Browne.
3) ========== THE JUDGE================
This woman sent me an obscenity-laced and disjointed diatribe about the site, saying that she knew that Browne was "really psychic" because when the woman asked Browne where the woman's missing father was, Browne had told her that her father would be found in a bus station. The father was subsequently found wandering in a bus station, his memory gone.
When I replied, asking if she could supply anything to verify any part of her story - an article about her father being found, a police report, anything - she flew into an even more obscene rage, telling me that I should believe her, because she was a judge. Even ignoring the obscenities, her writing style did not strike me as that of a judge. I finally told her that I'd create an article from our correspondence, (though I feared that people would assume I was doing so in order to make Browne Supporters look bad), and asked her if she wanted me to publish her original email as she had sent it, or if she wanted to rewrite it in a calmer tone. She thanked me for the option and said she would rewrite it. I never heard from her again, despite my writing to remind her a few times.
These are the only Browne "testemonials" I ever received on the site. I have recently received two positive testemonials regarding Chris Dufresne, which I intend to use in an upcoming article about him.
Has this answered your question?
RSLancastr
www.StopSylvia.com
It is not clear to me whether you are asking about my posting emails here on the JREF forum, or on SSB, so I will address both.
Not only have I NEVER received an email which described any reading Browne has ever given regarding a missing or murdered person which later was shown to be meaningfully accurate, I have NEVER received a single email in which the sender even THOUGHT they knew of such a case (with one exception which I will describe below). I have mentioned in another thread here that I can only remember receiving emails from only three people who were pleased with a reading they had received from Browne.
1) ========== WASHINGTON DC ===============
From a woman initially furious with me for doubting Browne's "abilities" She said that Browne had, in a phone reading with this woman, told her that she (the woman) would move to Washington DC, which the woman later did. In my reply to this woman, I asked her if she still had the tape recording of the reading, and, if so, could I listen to it? I told her that perhaps she had inadvertently given Browne a clue about that.
She replied that she had NOT given Browne any such clue - how could she have done so when she herself did not know?
I asked again if I could listen to the tape, telling her that in my experience, sitters seldom realized it when they gave a cold reader a clue. She replied angrily that the first thing out of Browne's mouth in the reading was "What's this I'm seeing about you moving to Washington DC?" The woman told me that she had not said a word at that point, and so could not have given any "clue", but agreed to send me the tape of the reading.
I listened to the tape and the opening words, after greetings went like this (IIRC)
I transcribed those first lines and emailed them back to the woman. She was stunned.
I considered making it all an article - a lesson on how cold reading works, and on how memories of readings are so fallible. I don't recall if I decided not to publish it because I thought it would embarrass the woman, or if she declined to give me permission to use it.
2) ========== ROSANNA ================
The next woman also initially wrote to me angry over the site, and said that she'd had a satisfactory phone reading with Browne. She and I corresponded frequently throughout the year, me answering her questions, her growing more and more skeptical of Browne. I documented our correspondence in an article on SSB titled something like "Rosanna - an email collage" So, I guess I did publish one pro-Browne email, although by the end of the correspondence she was strongly anti-Browne.
3) ========== THE JUDGE================
This woman sent me an obscenity-laced and disjointed diatribe about the site, saying that she knew that Browne was "really psychic" because when the woman asked Browne where the woman's missing father was, Browne had told her that her father would be found in a bus station. The father was subsequently found wandering in a bus station, his memory gone.
When I replied, asking if she could supply anything to verify any part of her story - an article about her father being found, a police report, anything - she flew into an even more obscene rage, telling me that I should believe her, because she was a judge. Even ignoring the obscenities, her writing style did not strike me as that of a judge. I finally told her that I'd create an article from our correspondence, (though I feared that people would assume I was doing so in order to make Browne Supporters look bad), and asked her if she wanted me to publish her original email as she had sent it, or if she wanted to rewrite it in a calmer tone. She thanked me for the option and said she would rewrite it. I never heard from her again, despite my writing to remind her a few times.
These are the only Browne "testemonials" I ever received on the site. I have recently received two positive testemonials regarding Chris Dufresne, which I intend to use in an upcoming article about him.
Has this answered your question?