Discovery Channel "Documentary" is Shameful

[luchog]

But, yeah, I can understand someone drawing a distinction between fakes like John Edwards and a fake documentary that includes a (brief, nigh invisible but still extant) disclaimer. The former is a con artist, fleecing the stupid. The latter is a simple hoax, along the lines of the War of the Worlds broadcast, but somewhat more intentionally deceptive.

Except, as has been pointed out repeatedly, the "disclaimer" did not, in fact, point out that the program was a hoax, but presented it as factually supported, if not actually proven. It was, at best, untenably vague as to the factual nature of the program; and came about as close to saying "this is established fact" as they could without coming out and stating so unambiguously.

The only difference between this programs presentation of pseudoscience, and someone like John Edwards' or Sylvia Browne' presentation of supposed psychic powers is that TDC still maintains a paper-thin pretense of ambiguity in their claims that the psychics do not.