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The JREF on ABC's Primetime Nightline!

Banacek's statements on the scumbaggery of psychic detectives are excellent. Hopefully those few moments will help people from being manipulated and having their grief exploited.
 
Regarding that silly last segment with the incredulous reporter, I tried googling "abc news david wright". The very first link that pops up is his ABC News online bio which was last updated in 2008. I'd post the URL but apparently I cannot without having made 15 posts here first, but you can google it like I did.

The last line in that bio is "He and his wife, Victoria, live in Washington, D.C., with their daughter, Deanna."

Isn't it interesting that the psychic mentioned that he had a daughter, and the reporter responded that actually he had 3. If ABC News hadn't been so lax in keeping these bios updated, that poor psychic may have been able to divine the correct number of daughters.
 
zuma said:
Regarding that silly last segment with the incredulous reporter, I tried googling "abc news david wright". The very first link that pops up is his ABC News online bio which was last updated in 2008. I'd post the URL but apparently I cannot without having made 15 posts here first, but you can google it like I did.

The last line in that bio is "He and his wife, Victoria, live in Washington, D.C., with their daughter, Deanna."

Isn't it interesting that the psychic mentioned that he had a daughter, and the reporter responded that actually he had 3. If ABC News hadn't been so lax in keeping these bios updated, that poor psychic may have been able to divine the correct number of daughters.
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Here is the link referred to in this post http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=127805
 
Three questions:

1. Am I right that Jamy Ian Swiss, though plainly present at some of the tests, was not identified in the show by name or by vocation?

2. Was it a coincidence that ABC used its commercial space to promote its own upcoming show, "The Sixth Sense?"

3. Can anyone independently confirm the probabilities? In particular, if you are given twelve independent chances to make a selection of a target from twelve possible selections, what are the chances you will select the target at least nine times? According to ABC, "The odds of winning by luck are about 1 in a billion" (although when I first saw the show, I thought the reporter said "1 in 5 billion"). Basically, if you had one chance to make a guess, you'd be expected to be right one out of twelve times (1/12). If you had to be right two times in a row, you'd be right (on average) one out of 144 times ((1/12)^2). If you had to be right nine times in a row, that would be about 1 out of about 5.16 billion times ((1/12)^9). But the contestant doesn't need to be right nine times in a row. He gets twelve chances, so up to three misses are allowed. Also, the contestant doesn't need to guess right exactly nine times; ten, eleven and twelve correct picks also count as successes.
 
Brown said:
Three questions:

1. Am I right that Jamy Ian Swiss, though plainly present at some of the tests, was not identified in the show by name or by vocation?
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Correct. He was never identified.

I think I caught a brief glimpse of DJ in one shot, although I could be wrong. I was watching in a hotel room, so I couldn't pause it. I can't live without Tivo!
 
Brown said:
3. Can anyone independently confirm the probabilities? In particular, if you are given twelve independent chances to make a selection of a target from twelve possible selections, what are the chances you will select the target at least nine times? According to ABC, "The odds of winning by luck are about 1 in a billion" (although when I first saw the show, I thought the reporter said "1 in 5 billion"). Basically, if you had one chance to make a guess, you'd be expected to be right one out of twelve times (1/12). If you had to be right two times in a row, you'd be right (on average) one out of 144 times ((1/12)^2). If you had to be right nine times in a row, that would be about 1 out of about 5.16 billion times ((1/12)^9). But the contestant doesn't need to be right nine times in a row. He gets twelve chances, so up to three misses are allowed. Also, the contestant doesn't need to guess right exactly nine times; ten, eleven and twelve correct picks also count as successes.
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Yes, the probability is actually much higher, since you're actually looking at 12C9 rather than just (1/12)9. I make it about 1 in 30 million. You can use an online calculator like this one to calculate probabilities for problems like this (which incidentally seems to have a free online textbook attached to it for those who want to learn how it works).

You're right that allowing more than 9 correct picks could in principle increase his chances, but in this case the probabilities for 10, 11 or 12 correct are so low that they actually make very little difference to the overall result - 1 in 30.449 million for exactly 9 compared to 1 in 29.628 million for 9 or more.
 
Cuddles said:
Yes, the probability is actually much higher, since you're actually looking at 12C9 rather than just (1/12)9. I make it about 1 in 30 million. You can use an online calculator like this one to calculate probabilities for problems like this (which incidentally seems to have a free online textbook attached to it for those who want to learn how it works).

You're right that allowing more than 9 correct picks could in principle increase his chances, but in this case the probabilities for 10, 11 or 12 correct are so low that they actually make very little difference to the overall result - 1 in 30.449 million for exactly 9 compared to 1 in 29.628 million for 9 or more.
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I like that calculator! It appears that ABC was quite a bit off in its estimate of the contestants' chances of success by sheer luck... making me think that it did not get its information on this point from JREF.
 
Brown said:
In the past, test subjects have been asked: Can you do this? If we give you pictures of hands rather than the hands themselves, and cover the targets' hands with mittens, can you still do it? Can you to find a picture of one deceased person from among a random collection of a dozen pictures in folders and envelopes?
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Also, in the past, subjects are given a chance to try to perform the feat, already knowing where the target is. It would not surprise me, for example, if the guy who tried to find the photograph of Elvis was, at some time prior to the test, shown a set of envelopes in which he saw or was told the envelope in which Elvis's picture rested. He may then have been asked whether he could detect that picture.

As a general rule, when people know where the target is, they report that their special abilities are working quite well, thank you, and the special abilities can indeed find the object they are looking for, whether it be water, a coin, or a picture of Elvis ... if they already know where it is. But perhaps this does not make for very interesting TV viewing. Practices that don't "count" for the million dollar challenge: who cares about them??

The interesting part, of course, is whether those special abilities can find the McGuffin if the contestant DOESN'T know where it is. So far, no one has been able to do it.
 
Brown said:
The interesting part, of course, is whether those special abilities can find the McGuffin if the contestant DOESN'T know where it is. So far, no one has been able to do it.
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...beyond what you would expect purely by chance. :)
 
AdMan said:
...beyond what you would expect purely by chance. :)
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I could have predicted you'd say that!

News Flash: Huffington Post headline (along with an unflattering photo) says: "James Van Praagh Gets $1 Million Offer To Prove Mental Powers." Unfortunately, the link to the story doesn't work. I wonder who out there has a million bucks to test supposed psychic abilities...?
 
AdMan said:
This also made the Time magazine website:
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The caption of the photo says: "Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, star of the CBS drama series 'Ghost Whisperer,' listens to famed medium James Van Praagh, whose work inspired the series."

There must be a meaning of the word "work" with which I am unfamiliar.
 
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