ShowMe
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2001
- Messages
- 1,350
I’ve been reading the blog linked by Randi in this weeks swift, the one detailing Sylvia Browne’s “predictions” for 2006.
Please don’t take this message as anything even slightly resembling a belief in Sylvia Browne’s self-proclaimed abilities. It’s more of a criticism of the author’s methodology. Most of these “predications” weren’t predictions at all. I’m really not going out on a limb if I say there’s going to be snow on the ground in Ohio in January, and that’s the category most of this fall into.
Naturally the writer is going to be biased but I think he’s gone out of his way to twist some of them into “misses”.
For instance:
Two more earthquakes in Asia. Miss.
Apparently his reasoning is that there were MORE than two quakes in Asia. And this is a normal occurrence so can’t really be a prediction.
Floods in the Midwest as usual: Miss
Scored as a miss because it was more than “usual” flooding?
“There will be some kind of vaccination for certain types of cancer” scored as a miss.
The FDA approved Gardasi, a vaccination against HPV back in June. The author missed that one. Even if he hadn’t this would probably also be scored as a miss since the prediction stated “types” instead of “a type”.
Instead of removing them as predictions, or creating a different category, the author decides to list them as “misses”. This is a dishonest way of scoring. Even something that is hit dead on:
“Britney Spears will divorce. She finds her husband not what she thought he was.”
Is counted as a “miss” because it was widely blogged about earlier. Again, this should have been put into its own category or discarded & a reason given why it was discarded. To claim this as a “miss” is, to me, intellectually dishonest.
My point: If you’re going categorize things only as “missed predications” and “correct predictions” then it’s unfair to score it as a “miss”, even when it’s correct, because you don’t consider it a prediction.
I think it would have been far more accurate, and telling, to create a third category along the lines of “not truly predictions” or some such and explain why they’re more guesses than predictions. Even running the numbers that way Sylvia’s record doesn’t even make it up to the “pathetic” category. But I think it would be closer to a critical way of thinking.
Please don’t take this message as anything even slightly resembling a belief in Sylvia Browne’s self-proclaimed abilities. It’s more of a criticism of the author’s methodology. Most of these “predications” weren’t predictions at all. I’m really not going out on a limb if I say there’s going to be snow on the ground in Ohio in January, and that’s the category most of this fall into.
Naturally the writer is going to be biased but I think he’s gone out of his way to twist some of them into “misses”.
For instance:
Two more earthquakes in Asia. Miss.
Apparently his reasoning is that there were MORE than two quakes in Asia. And this is a normal occurrence so can’t really be a prediction.
Floods in the Midwest as usual: Miss
Scored as a miss because it was more than “usual” flooding?
“There will be some kind of vaccination for certain types of cancer” scored as a miss.
The FDA approved Gardasi, a vaccination against HPV back in June. The author missed that one. Even if he hadn’t this would probably also be scored as a miss since the prediction stated “types” instead of “a type”.
Instead of removing them as predictions, or creating a different category, the author decides to list them as “misses”. This is a dishonest way of scoring. Even something that is hit dead on:
“Britney Spears will divorce. She finds her husband not what she thought he was.”
Is counted as a “miss” because it was widely blogged about earlier. Again, this should have been put into its own category or discarded & a reason given why it was discarded. To claim this as a “miss” is, to me, intellectually dishonest.
My point: If you’re going categorize things only as “missed predications” and “correct predictions” then it’s unfair to score it as a “miss”, even when it’s correct, because you don’t consider it a prediction.
I think it would have been far more accurate, and telling, to create a third category along the lines of “not truly predictions” or some such and explain why they’re more guesses than predictions. Even running the numbers that way Sylvia’s record doesn’t even make it up to the “pathetic” category. But I think it would be closer to a critical way of thinking.
