Robin, Thanks for responding. I do appreciate it.
Garrette, I know John did not say specifically...you know 2 people were shot on Mayflower Ave.
That was the point of me adding that I knew 4 people who were shot on Mayflower Ave and it wouldn't have been close enough to be considered a hit. I was trying to make a point.
I do not doubt your sincerity in this statement, but I do doubt your accuracy. Your willingness to accept other non-specific statements as specific hits indicates that you would have accepted it as a hit.
But you have missed
my point: There are
many things that could be called a hit for what JE said, not just "2 people shot on Mayflower Avenue." Even if we exclude "4 people shot on Mayflower Avenue," there remains a long list of other possibilities, such as the example I gave about two people dying in separate car crashes and the family moving later.
Robin1 said:
The point is in that example John got close enough. HUGELY close enough. And yet, you will never see that.
You are right; I will not see it for this example because it isn't there, and that is something that you will not see. What John Edward got "hugely close" to was a myriad of things, any one of which could be supplied by the subject, and ta da any one of which
was supplied by the sitter.
If you ignore the rest of my post, Robin, please consider this part. It is this hit that encapsulates what we mean by confirmation bias and apparent specificity while actually lacking it.
Robin1 said:
As for some other huge repeated JE UUU hits...he says it exactly correctly.
Let's assume for the moment that you are correct and there are some things he says that are unequivocal uuu hits. By itself, it means nothing. Perhaps you remember my post from long ago in which I discussed my "Even If" analysis?
For those actual uuu hits (which you have not really established exist), you must first eliminate other possibilities, and by "eliminate" I mean something far more than your own common sense about what you think could possibly have happened.
But even if you eliminate everything involving actual cheating on John Edward's part, there is the bit that you seem to ignore most of all: The Law of Large Numbers.
In getting those actual, amazing, uuu hits, how many misses were there? What is John Edward's success rate? Does his rate of uuu hits actually exceed what is to be expected by chance of someone throwing out hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of statements every few minutes.
I could sit at my computer and type random names associated with random thoughts, and if I type enough of them you will find a few that are amazing uuu hits. A (very minor) form of it just happened with my two dead pets buried by the bush and femke's and slowvehicle's responses.
It is not me being dogmatic to insist on this; it is one of the many crucial elements in analyzing John Edward and his claims. Moreover, it is incumbent upon you, as the one making the claim, to show that his success rate with uuu hits exceeds that expected by chance. And that, Robin, is an exceedingly difficult task.
Robin1 said:
You say things like, well if I didn't know someone who drank milk straight from a cow (AND it even turned out to be the guy himself being read) I do have another cow connection...and John would have went for that.
No. I said you might have another cow connection, and if you didn't John had options on how to proceed. He could insist you were wrong and would find a cow connection later, or he could drop it completely and throw out another of his very many, rapid fire statements.
Robin1 said:
Or if I didn't just buy a new refrigerator, John would have perhaps tried another appliance.
Yes.
Robin1 said:
Point is he didn't HAVE to try anything else 'cause he got it from the get go.
Again, assuming for sake of argument that this version is correct, it still comes down to the Law of Large Numbers. How many people does John Edward say something to about just getting a refrigerator? How many are misses? How many total statements does he make, and what is his hit rate compared to his miss rate, taking into account that only things that are actually uuu count as hits?
Robin1 said:
See above. Also see long ago posts about the varying descriptions of the actual event along with posts about memory and such.
Robin1 said:
And he gets those UUU hits REPEATEDLY. And from the get go!
You have yet to establish this. You continue to claim it, but we have shown that what you and Prescott call those amazing hits really aren't, at least not most of them (I recall admitting that one or two were quite impressive).
Robin1 said:
Also, I have pointed out times where John refused to take the easy way out
Yes, because he's been at it long enough to know what works in the long run
Robin1 said:
..as a fake medium definitely would...
I am truly confused why you insist on this. Those who do it for a living come to find out what works in the long run. Do you think that a fake would not do this occasionally and that the fake doesn't know that this would be the response of some people?
Robin1 said:
in terms of Valerie Harper and him saying it would have to be significant not just you liked Rhoda for example.
. Yes, and what he said should not be regarded as significant is exactly what you and your brother chose to count as significant.
Robin1 said:
AND my fingerprint connection...he initially refused my acknowledgement because a white fridge would not show fingerprints...wasn't till I explained the story with my Mom and how it became a joke that he indeed accept his own big hit.
Did you know that in the mentalism community (and to a lesser extent the magical community) there is a minor controversy over the "too perfect" effect? Mentalists will very often offer an imperfect or even completely wrong prediction/mind-reading/whathaveyou simply because they know it will make the overall impact much better. I have done it myself. And on a couple of occasions when I have done it, much later on the person to whom I said something intended as imperfect, came back voluntarily and provided a connection that made me perfect again. I was a winner either way. If they didn't come back, I was human for making mistakes and therefore real (though I never ever ever sold myself as such); if they did come back I was even more real because I accepted a mistake which made me human but it turned out my mistake wasn't a mistake after all.
This is what JE did with you, but in a compressed timeframe.
Robin1 said:
AND tooth guy ( I know I never gave you this detail) but when he kept insisting someone on my side of the room had a big tooth in his pocket, one man said he sometimes wears a tooth necklace. John said no to that and kept insisting the big tooth was in a pocket and he feels like it could be pulled out right now.So, John let that huge hit go unvalidated rather than just taking what that man said as the validation.
See above.
Robin1 said:
And Garrette, where the heck did you grow up that you know so many people who drank milk directly from a cow?!
My parents are from rural Kentucky, so I have many relatives there whom I visited. I did not grow up on a farm myself, nor do I live in a rural area now, but they are all around, and people drinking from the cow is not uncommon, not just around Kentucky or the plains Dairy Farms or farms in the northeast or nearly anywhere in the deep south. Go to Korea and you will find similar things there. Try Greece or Ireland or Wales or Iraq (you should try cheese made from the milk of water buffaloes, spread onto Iraqi flat bread and drizzled with honey; marvelous). That this surprises you is another indication that you are insufficiently informed about demographics to decide what is uuu. Sorry about that, but it's painfully obvious.
Thanks again for responding, though.
to Raab. Loved your post.
