JREF on ABC - does this end well?

[Hitch]

Has the damned college professor been discussed. "Oh, I was thinking of a dog, so that was probably for me." What an absolute shmuck. The fact that Primetime didn't pick up on that angered me more than anything else.

That may have been a stealth dig. The producer was probably under instructions to not make the charlatans look too bad, because they make for good television and they want to keep them coming back. But something that obvious can just hang there without mention and it's hard to imagine many people not spotting it.

 

[Almo]

That may have been a stealth dig. The producer was probably under instructions to not make the charlatans look too bad, because they make for good television and they want to keep them coming back. But something that obvious can just hang there without mention and it's hard to imagine many people not spotting it.

Believers would say, "Oh, right. Yeah, the other dog. Makes sense."

Which goes with my opinion that the show was designed to work either way, but with critical thinking it gave enough info to come to the right conclusion.

 

[Someclevernick]

is there any possibility to have this show on youtube? I live outside of US and cant't watch it on ABC webpage.

Thanks in advance.

 

[AdMan]

is there any possibility to have this show on youtube? I live outside of US and cant't watch it on ABC webpage.

Thanks in advance.

I don't think this is up to JREF, unfortunately.

 

[Brown]

I hope I'm over-explaining a joke here, but I would put the odds of a woman liking roses at closer to 9 out of 10 than one in a million.

As you have suggested, the chances are significantly better than one-in-a-million. For my part, I'm not sure that I have yet met a woman who didn't like roses. Books on cold reading (or mentalism) can identify hundreds of things that sound very specific but are true for almost everyone, and even non-mystical pedestrian publications list things seem to be very specific but actually have wide applicability to the population. Pretty much everything the ladies said about the interviewer's mom was true about my mom as well, except that my mom is still alive.

Something I would have liked to see is the psychics and medium trying for the million dollars listen carefully to an explanation of the test and agree that it's completely fair and expressing a high degree of confidence that they would pass. That makes their excuses later that much more telling. Although, I'm sure ABC wouldn't understand the significance of that and felt it would make the segment run long.

As I mentioned in the parallel thread, it is not necessary to say that a claimant gives up his right to complain after the test. Let him complain all he wants, provided that he is also given a fair chance to complain BEFORE the test, and he had no gripes. Chances are that he thought the test was fair, and he may have even suggested it himself!

There are few things more powerful than watching a person discredit himself. If he complains about unfairness after failing, then play the video of him before the test saying "Yeah, this looks fair; no, I have no suggestions for change."

 

[Someclevernick]

I don't think this is up to JREF, unfortunately.

Too bad, i like to watch how Randi exposes charlatans and explains what really is going on.

 

[Swagomatic]

As I said in the other thread, I just wish that the show would have wrapped up with the skeptical segment rather than with the psychic mom crap. Overall, though, it was good exposure for the skeptical community.

 

[Almo]

I thought it was great Banachek got to say how much he hated the frauds, AND that he didn't think they were all frauds (some are deluded).

 

[Merko]

It's sadly only available within the US apparently, but there it is apparently available online for those who missed it.

 

[Kopji]

More seriously...

I definitely liked the Banachek/skeptic segments. I like Mr Randi much, but a fresh face to the movement is a good thing. Unfortunately, being at the beginning of the show means skepticism is not the last word, but at least it is better than being edited out or not there at all. When I see skeptical ideas having the last word, that will be another milestone.

Maybe the blindfold trick was edited a bit too much, it seemed to jump in and out quickly, I wasn't sure what the point was.

There was an analogy emerging from the show, comparable to what has happened in the religious world. There were 'traditional' storefront psychics who read palms and futures, but a more new agey fuzzy kind where psychic work is part of a larger venue of 'healing' services. The latter is becoming more typical.

I don't think that otherwise skeptical people always realize that they can't attack this new type of 'holistic healing' that includes the psychic element, without questioning the values of religion itself. To my viewpoint, a modern psychic/energy healer is just a new kind of minister. I know plenty of skeptics are theists, and I think should always be welcome, but the episode showed the problem pretty well.

So, even my psychic-family members liked the skeptic parts, and see no conflict with any beliefs. Nobody likes taking advantage of suffering people. The media psychics who 'work' with police are not well liked. But the thinking is something like 'it's good to expose the frauds, so that these poor people can find real psychics'. Also, and I think this is important - psychics are sought out and are in great demand. In that sense, this is an emergent property of a decline in traditional religions.

There is definitely a lesson to take away from the last segment. It seemed easy to undermine an entire segment of skeptical examples with some of the more modern techniques.

 

[Minarvia]

I watched all the segments online and was not surprised that all the contestants for the million dollars who failed all had "reasons" that they failed. Not one said that they do not believe themselves to be psychic any more. They didn't even seem to open their minds to the possibility that they are self-deluded.

 

[Frying Dutchmen]

Aussie here so I can't watch it So this will be a big stab in the dark.

The reporter is a self professed Skeptic that falls for the psychic tricks and s/he or/and the show white washes the skeptical explanation?

 

[Tricky]

James van Praugh sure came out looking like a total cheat. They only had a short segment on Sylvia Browne (showing her spectacular failure). She obviously did not consent to being on the show and they had to use publicly available footage. But like so many shows of this type, they ended with a bunch of as-yet undebunked things and a "Is it real? It's up to you to decide," type of closing. All-in-all though, much less supportive of psychic BS than other shows. I liked the part where they asked the real estate agent who was having the house "psychically clensed" if he believed it. He said, "I just want to sell the house". And they showed that the house still hadn't sold.

 

[ohms]

I was able to watch it from the UK here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline?cid=showsitelinks_search

Scroll down in the middle section and it list 5 parts.

 

[ohms]

I was able to watch it from the UK here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline?cid=showsitelinks_search

Scroll down in the middle section and it list 5 parts.

 

[Brown]

I liked the part where they asked the real estate agent who was having the house "psychically clensed" if he believed it. He said, "I just want to sell the house". And they showed that the house still hadn't sold.

Although I do not want to put all real estate agents into this category, there seem to be several who have their own little superstitions OR pander to people who have superstitions (after all, their money is just as green as the money of rational people, and if some mumbo-jumbo phony-baloney assurances--none of which would ever be enforceable in court, by the way--helps make the sale, then why not give it a whirl?). The "psychic" treatment of real estate is just one of those superstitions.

 

[Brown]

Maybe the blindfold trick was edited a bit too much, it seemed to jump in and out quickly, I wasn't sure what the point was.

Yeah, the blindfold trick--being able to see while blindfolded--typically requires more of a set-up than what was shown. Apparently Banachek does a blindfold-over-blindfold version, and some of the effectiveness comes from spectator participation and examination of the apparatus. We saw virtually none of that.

The set-up sells the trick. It cements in the mind of the spectator that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the performer to see anything. Thereafter, the performer can demonstrate an ability to see all sorts of things while blindfolded. The performer can also perform feats in which being able to see is unnecessary; in other words, he literally could do the tricks completely blindfolded, and one of the effects shown on TV might have been one of those.

Anyway, blindfold tricks have been around a long time, and they have an extremely powerful effect on an audience.

 

[Nate Whilk]

"Warning: the reporting that follows may or may not be factual."

Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938):

...it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies - unless one counts journalists.

 

[JohnG]

And wasn't that the same reporter who did such a wonderful job with von Praagh at the beginning of the show? Suddenly now he's a dupe.

I don't think it was the same reporter. First guy was tall and had dark hair.

They were two completely different reporters who looked nothing alike.

 

[Kopji]

Yeah, the blindfold trick--being able to see while blindfolded--typically requires more of a set-up than what was shown. Apparently Banachek does a blindfold-over-blindfold version, and some of the effectiveness comes from spectator participation and examination of the apparatus. We saw virtually none of that.

The set-up sells the trick. It cements in the mind of the spectator that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the performer to see anything. Thereafter, the performer can demonstrate an ability to see all sorts of things while blindfolded. The performer can also perform feats in which being able to see is unnecessary; in other words, he literally could do the tricks completely blindfolded, and one of the effects shown on TV might have been one of those.

Anyway, blindfold tricks have been around a long time, and they have an extremely powerful effect on an audience.

Yeah, I love the subtle art of a great magic trick and felt a little cheated by the TV producers. I don't expect a whole lot from TV though.

I thought the highlight of the skeptical segment was when the incorrect biographies were dropped to the floor. Everyone in the room chuckled at that.

Van Praugh not my favorite guy, but he said something "on target" I've heard before that I don't like to go unanswered. The idea that somehow believers are more open or broadminded, that they "think out of the box" and therefore enjoy an advantage in creative thinking (I'm probably paraphrasing Van Praugh here).

This is just not so. I'd almost class it as a "big lie".