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JREF on ABC - does this end well?

paiute

Graduate Poster
paiute
Joined
Mar 8, 2004
Messages
1,394
I just saw that ABC's Primetime Nightline will be airing a one-hour special on psychic abilities tomorrow featuring lots of familiar (to us) faces:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php...rimetime-nightline-weds-10pm-9pm-central.html

As I said in my comment on that page, am I the only one who has the bad feeling that the host will summarize the hour thusly: "So are psychic abilities real? The truth is - we just don't know. Goodnight, everyone."
 
Even on their nightly news show, ABC has been hyping woo lately. I say a story about the mythical psychic link between twins. Most of the story was objective and reasonable, but, they ended it by showing a little girl with a black eye and claimed that the black eye just appeared without explanation after her sister's eye was hurt. Then, of course, they gave a plug for their upcoming TV show on the subject of "Psychic Twins."

The laugh-out-loud funny part is that the black eye on the little girl was obviously makeup or something else she, or someone else, had rubbed on her face. She may have innocently done it to look like her sister ... or ... the news crew might have done it to fabricate the story.

Okay, maybe it wasn't "laugh out loud funny." Actually, it was quite sad .....

-- Roger
 
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As long as they keep any conclusions vague, they can keep producing more of these shows.

And since it's ABC, they don't want to come right out and say that Psychic Abilities don't exist, because they'll upset too many of their regular viewers.
 
Moon-Spinner said:
As long as they keep any conclusions vague, they can keep producing more of these shows.

And since it's ABC, they don't want to come right out and say that Psychic Abilities don't exist, because they'll upset too many of their regular viewers.
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Hard to say. ABC (US) has done some skeptical stuff and ABC has done some promotion of psuedo-scientific garbage as well. There have even been some shows in which the human interest comes in the form of people being so incredibly desperate that they give up all rationality (and usually a lot of cash) to pursue pseudo-scientific cures, promotions, fixes or get-rich-quick schemes, only to be either horribly disappointed or even loopier than before (and almost always financially worse off as well).

I note that the preview shows Banachek doing a version of a blindfold test (similar to--and perhaps identical to--Richard Osterlind's metal blindfold test) that will absolutely stun you if you don't know how it's done. (Hint: The performer CANNOT see through the metal blindfold, but the effect is such that you would swear that the perfomer can indeed do such a thing.) On the one hand, I hope that Banachek does not reveal the secret, because this secret is a professional money-maker; but on the other hand, it is going to be difficult to convince people that "it's just a trick" after showing them the effects.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
"Warning: the reporting that follows may or may not be factual."
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"What you're about to see is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is, no."
 
Quinn said:
"What you're about to see is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is, no."
Click to expand...

Can't we all be friends, avoid confrontations and sink together in a gentle warm pool of woo.
 
paiute said:
I just saw that ABC's Primetime Nightline will be airing a one-hour special on psychic abilities tomorrow featuring lots of familiar (to us) faces:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php...rimetime-nightline-weds-10pm-9pm-central.html

As I said in my comment on that page, am I the only one who has the bad feeling that the host will summarize the hour thusly: "So are psychic abilities real? The truth is - we just don't know. Goodnight, everyone."
Click to expand...

Why not UFC battles to decide the truth instead?
 
For what it's worth, the little squib about the show (provided by the satellite company) gives no hint that it has anything to do with skepticism. Rather, the squib says that the show deals with people who won't make a move without consulting [someone who claims to be] a psychic.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Longer clip...
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I watched one of the clips (there may be more than one). It looks interesting in at least two respects. First, this clip is respectful in the presentation of skepticism. Banachek (Steve Shaw, although he goes by his stage name) is presented respectfully and not just as a token scoffer. There have been some supposed "news" shows in which a skeptic--Randi or Shermer or Penn--boorishly brands the whole business as a load of crap. Token scoffers usually don't get very much time to say their bit (and they never deserve "equal time," however that may be defined), so about all they can do is rudely say that the effects are twaddle. (The implication is often that the token scoffer has arrogantly declared that the millions who believe are all liars, fools or imbeciles.)

Second, the story seems to have an angle in that people have been hurt by the phonies. In some cases, people hurt once (e.g., by losing a loved one) get hurt again by windbag charlatans that offer falsity and wild-ass guesses as some sort of bona fide knowledge.
 
Aaaand the last segment is a load of hooey, with the schmuck of a "reporter" falling for every cold reading trick in the book.
 
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