Examples of Skeptics Cold Reading?

Kerberos said:
OK, I did consider that possibility since I heard of it before, but Ian said that he managed to win most of the games, and you can't really be sure to win more than half your games that way. Incidentially if he played against 11 opponents, wouldn't he have to play against one of them himself?
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He did indeed. He arranged that the last guy would be the poorest player, and he did beat him. The others were wins, draws and losses, as you would expect. It wasn't actually just a demonstration of his playing prowess, though.

At the start of the performance he gave one of the players an envelope with a long series of digits in it. When the games were completed the number was revealed and it turned out to be a prediction of the number of pieces remaining on each of the boards (10,6,5,9 etc)

It wasn't perfect (one error as I recall), but it was really a display of how he could influence the games, and encourage draws or resignations when HE wanted them to occur.

I don't know if it was a trick. He is a magician, after all.
 
HenDralux said:


lol, yes, but that wasn't quite my point.

The total failure of the alleged cold reading medium followed seemingly usual protocol.

A screen was adopted, and upon total failure, he blamed it on the possibility of another spirit connected to the rest of the audience.

My question is, why couldn't the spirit say 'hey, pal....btw, the bloke behind the screen? Never seen him in m life'

But what 'seems' to happen is..they wave some kinda mystic symbol around which is supposed to mean 'see that bloke behind the screen? Well I may or may not know him..I may or may not have a name that begins with T...and I *think* I died of a heart attack'.

It just seems a shame that spirits lose all their faculties in the afterlife.

Like your snake for example...who was showing her a snake?
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That wasn't the only reading.

BTW I certainly disagree that spirits lose all their faculties in the afterlife. Why do you imagine that communication must be perfect?
 
Clancie said:

If you mean Mark Edward...he's a skeptic in general, but a believer that there's something unexplainable at work in his psychic readings. :) He describes himself as "skeptic and believer". :)
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Really? I just watched back that segment of the show. Mark Edwards (for it is he) says:

"It's all showbiz. It's all carnival knowledge. What made me turn around was when I saw how easy it was to manipulate and control people's whole life and the structure of the way they think and react by doing the simplest magic trick. "

Doesn't sound like much of a believer to me.
 
Interesting Ian said:


BTW I certainly disagree that spirits lose all their faculties in the afterlife. Why do you imagine that communication must be perfect?
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Not perfect communication with respect to the 'connection'...communication with respect to what they actually are saying.

I could go along with the possibility that you may not get a great 'connection' along the lines of tuning into a crackly radio...but from what mediums state, that just doesn't seem to be the case.

What the actual supposed deceased seem to say is basically bizarre. They get many things wrong, they don't seem to always know their own name...they give you really naff information - and not forgetting, many spirits are totally aware of the whole 'skeptic/believer' issue and whether the afterlife really exists or not.

So WHY do they tell you 'I know you wanted to be there at the end but couldn't...'

Why is it never .. 'Wow!!...I still exist!..Dave...man..you wanna see this...right...it's all red, and I'm floating around here....you get to play badminton all day and the chicks are so hot. You're gonna love it.'

I'm pretty sure I'd try and get some better info across than all the usual stuff they come out with...
 
Posted by The Boy Paj

Really? I just watched back that segment of the show. Mark Edwards (for it is he) says:

"It's all showbiz. It's all carnival knowledge. What made me turn around was when I saw how easy it was to manipulate and control people's whole life and the structure of the way they think and react by doing the simplest magic trick. "

Doesn't sound like much of a believer to me.
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Well, I don't know if P&T edited him, or if it was originally qualified in some way.

But the videotape of his lecture/demonstration at Cal Tech (for Shermer's Skeptic Society) makes clear he describes himself as "a skeptic and a believer" and does -not- think everything he does can be explained away as showbiz or carnival knowledge (or even psychologixal manipulation).

If anyone has the tape, you can check for yourselves. (It's called, "The Psychology of the Psychic and the Believer").
 
CFLarsen said:


Interesting how wrong you can remember, even though it happened last night:





4 wins, 3 losses and 2 draws.

Not "most of them". And he told how it was done. So much for your "sheer raw intelligence", Ian....
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Huh? Well yeah, so there was 2 draws. I meant the score he got beat his opponents scores. Let's not be boringly pedantic. I was simply putting the point across that I worked out how he did it. The fact he said how he did it is neither her nor there since I worked it out before he said.
 
Clancie said:

Well, I don't know if P&T edited him, or if it was originally qualified in some way.
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Well, he personally debunks a medium on the show so I think he knew the agenda. He says "these techniques have been around for hundreds of years. All they've done is get rid of the velvet drapes and darkness of the seance room, and the goofy rubber hands, and they're doing it on stage".

But maybe he was tricked into saying these things. Can you find a quote of him retracting these comments?
 
Clancie said:

To be honest, I've lived in Ca. all my life and I've never seen a snake on a road trip. And seeing one while driving to SLO would, in my opinion, be highly unlikely and unusual.
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But someone else have certainly seen snakes in CA though, here is a list of snakes in California:

http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/snakes.html

Am I wrong in saying that rattlesnakes and gartersnakes are quite common in the San Luis Obispo area?


/thomas
 
Posted by The Boy Paj

But maybe he was tricked into saying these things. Can you find a quote of him retracting these comments?
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He doesn't have to retract them. I'm sure he thinks -some- people use tricks. But if you look at him speaking about it, unedited, on this video, he makes his feelings about his own ability quite clear (i.e. he doesn't understand it, anc considers himself, based on what he does, "both a skeptic and a believer").
 
Clancie said:
Well, I don't know if P&T edited him, or if it was originally qualified in some way.
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While we know that John Edward is heavily edited, with the occasional cheat thrown in for good measure...

Clancie said:
But the videotape of his lecture/demonstration at Cal Tech (for Shermer's Skeptic Society) makes clear he describes himself as "a skeptic and a believer" and does -not- think everything he does can be explained away as showbiz or carnival knowledge (or even psychologixal manipulation).
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Really? At TAM2, he was extremely clear about it: He called psychics "scum" in a rather non-stiff upper lip way.

In his book, "The Full Facts of Cold Reading", he is equally direct. Under the headling "Do psychic powers really exist?" (p.11), he writes:

"In the unlikely event that anyone wants my opinion, based on over twenty years dabbling in the subject, I would say that in purely rational terms there is currently no good reason to believe in psychic ability."
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He goes on:

"However, the other answer I often give is that 'psychic powers are as real as you want them to be', which I think is true. To a person who wants to believe in psychic power, or any other chimera, the 'evidence' is whatever supports the belief, and anything else is deemed irrelevant."
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He described you to a dot.
 
TheBoyPaj said:


He did indeed. He arranged that the last guy would be the poorest player, and he did beat him. The others were wins, draws and losses, as you would expect. It wasn't actually just a demonstration of his playing prowess, though.

At the start of the performance he gave one of the players an envelope with a long series of digits in it. When the games were completed the number was revealed and it turned out to be a prediction of the number of pieces remaining on each of the boards (10,6,5,9 etc)

It wasn't perfect (one error as I recall), but it was really a display of how he could influence the games, and encourage draws or resignations when HE wanted them to occur.

I don't know if it was a trick. He is a magician, after all.
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I was only paying a little bit of attention to the programme actually cos on Internet as always. So not sure how he did that. But he can engineer the correct results by doing what you suggested and also, if he just apparently randomly asked the various chess players how many pieces they had left on their boards, this completes the explanation (because it won't actually have been random).
 
Posted by Thomas

Am I wrong in saying that rattlesnakes and gartersnakes are quite common in the San Luis Obispo area?
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Well, there are lots of snakes throughout California (a big state with lots of mountains and deserts). That doesn't mean you normally see them when driving between LA and San Francisco (we weren't on a camping trip)--or while walking around a city.
 
Clancie said:

Well, there are lots of snakes throughout California, Thomas. That doesn't mean you normally see them when driving between LA and San Francisco (we weren't on a camping trip)--or while walking around a city.
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There's a higher possibility of seeing a snake on a road trip through Cali than many other states though, right?
 
Interesting Ian said:
Huh? Well yeah, so there was 2 draws. I meant the score he got beat his opponents scores. Let's not be boringly pedantic. I was simply putting the point across that I worked out how he did it. The fact he said how he did it is neither her nor there since I worked it out before he said.
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Riiiiiiiight. You can't remember much from last night, yet you want us to believe that your "raw sheer intelligence" found out.

Riiiiiiiight.

You may think it is "pedantic", I think it is pivotal. You really want to discuss using inaccurate data?
 
TheBoyPaj said:


Really? I just watched back that segment of the show. Mark Edwards (for it is he) says:

"It's all showbiz. It's all carnival knowledge. What made me turn around was when I saw how easy it was to manipulate and control people's whole life and the structure of the way they think and react by doing the simplest magic trick. "

Doesn't sound like much of a believer to me.
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I agree. But one needs to see the context of his remark.
 
I used to do the Rubik Cube in less than a minute. If Ian gets a prize I want one too!
 
CFLarsen said:


Riiiiiiiight. You can't remember much from last night, yet you want us to believe that your "raw sheer intelligence" found out.

Riiiiiiiight.

You may think it is "pedantic", I think it is pivotal. You really want to discuss using inaccurate data?
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LOL :) Well, you can believe it or not. But have you ever known me to lie about anything? Anyone ever known me to lie about anything?

I very rarely lie.
 
TheBoyPaj said:
I used to do the Rubik Cube in less than a minute. If Ian gets a prize I want one too!
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I used to be only to do 1 side in 5 mins. Never could get 2 sides though, although I only tried on a handful of occasions with a friends cube.
 
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