Alex, down boy. Perihelion Xanateris isn't doing anywhere near well enough to warrant fuse blowing and all that will happen is you'll get a visit from a mod.
Now, back to the slanting:
the first test in particular showed only two of the contestants successfully completing the task in the allotted time
They showed only two successful contestants because only two succeeded. How do you propose they could have slanted this result in either direction? I guess if they were pro-psychic they could act all amazed about the successes and even pretty amazed by the near misses and point out the difficult conditions to explain away the other misses. Oh, hang on, that's exactly what they did. They even got the skeptic to say "well done".
How I would have done the first test: there would be the requisite control group, made up of army and/or civilian rescue personnel with sniffer dogs and GPS transponders. The second group would be skeptics, armed with only a map of the area. Then there would be the psychics, each acting individually, and actually having the camera on their person rather than having a cameraman nearby (eg a helmet cam).
But they didn't. They imposed no useful controls. It was a small area with two distinct tracks. The boy was in a blue sleeping bag on a tarpaulin in a fairly open area of bushland not far from the start line. Ask yourself why they didn't do anything to assure us the results were genuinely psychic - beyond doubt?
You may have been amazed but your own criteria above shows that you can accept the
possibility that luck or hinting played a big part here. We do have a couple of checks and balances though - the container test, the Ned Kelly test and the psychometric reading - and Shé (Shay) failed all three, as did Jason.
So, given three misses and one (possibly lucky) hit, do you remain amazed? If so, are you amazed by everything that isn't a painful struggle against failure or do you think coincidence, luck and learning can play a part in normal day to day life but not in things done by people who claim to be psychic? I've said before that I live on a block over 21,000 square metres in area and I regularly find tennis balls in the middle of nowhere - without even trying. Am I psychic or is it just not that remarkable to find things by accident occasionally?
The second test (paranormal freestyle): Get the skeptics up there to do some cold reading and see how they compare.
Again, they didn't. But in most cases it simply wasn't necessary because, as it turned out, the actual readings were awful if you assess them with an open mind and a
Skeptico Psychic Bingo Card! They are only convincing if you ignore the misses, the generics and the "bleeding obvious" (like guessing a seventy-something's mother was dead). Even so, why do you think Channel Seven imposed no controls - remember that Simon Turnbull, president of the Australian Psychics Association was a consultant to the show (and one website identifies him as "
the creator" of the show).
I agree that the whole Peter Falconio thing was unforgivably tacky and whoever came up with it deserves to be soundly bitchslapped.
Well, now you've either crossed to the skeptic side - or you don't want the Falconio murder solved. Which is it? If these people are as good as they claim, then why did they fail so miserably to find anything but the outback in the outback? Could it be they aren't what they claim to be? Do you even hold open the possibility that they aren't psychic?
Never mind that Shé D'Montford aced the first test (that woman absolutely blew me away), and successfully identified a man with a specific medical problem in an audience full of complete strangers.
Firstly, we can't know they were complete strangers. The show advertised for audience members. There were skeptics in the audience that Richard knew. The skeptics were apparently outnumbered by believers. We can't assume the psychics knew no one, in fact, we could rightly be surprised if they didn't invite some of their customers and friends along. Having said that, if she cheated then she's worse as a cheat than she is as a psychic. She failed, repeatedly.
However, I assume you refer to when Shé whispered to the man (and announced it to everyone watching because she apparently doesn't know that microphones pick up sound?!?!) that he had prostate issues? Let's revisit it shall we (quote taken from a transcript on Bad Psychics TV):
Shé: Okay well you've got prostate issues actually.
Sitter: Uh, no.
The sitter's first response to the comment was an unequivocal "
no". He clarified this by saying he "
WAS" told he "
COULD HAVE" prostate cancer but a biopsy had
cleared him. He admitted an "
enlarged prostate" but said there was "
nothing wrong".
Okay, so you're going to call it a hit because she only said "prostate issues" and an enlarged prostate is obviously not a normal prostate so clearly, it is an issue for this man and I'm just being pedantic and trying to pretend she didn't get a hit when she did. So okay, she got a hit with a specific medical issue.
Or did she? Let's check the statistics from
this website...
"A man's prostate gland usually starts to enlarge after he reaches 40 years of age."
"Prostate enlargement may be the most common health problem in men older than 60 years of age."
The man was over sixty so it wasn't a "
specific medical problem", as you suggest, it was quite literally a "
generic medical problem". If this is a good hit, then I can sense the old man has grey hair, reduced mobility and an increasingly grumpy intolerance to some things - as do most of his friends. But really, I'm going to have to take that hit back. I can't seriously credit a point for guessing an old man is an old man. What would have been impressive is if she'd found an old man who DIDN'T have an enlarged prostate. But she didn't.
Never mind that, let's all just ignore the evidence
Well, you can continue to do that if you wish but don't ask us to join in your game.
No wonder Stacey Demarco started yelling; the poor woman must have been at the end of her rope with you.
Well, let's just look back at Shé's prostate comment and the judges' responses. We know the "condition" was absolutely normal for a man of the sitter's age. What did the judges say?
Richard: Yes very interesting, that's what we call the win win game. You see you said there's something with the prostate but a gentleman of this, of his noble age would.....
Stacey: (interrupting) Oh hang on.
Richard: ...would have a prostate problem.
Stacey: (speaking over Richard) My dad's over your age and he's alright. (Mumbles)
So Demarco says her old dad is alright but we know that he can be alright AND have an enlarged prostate - and he probably has. But Richard's comment was correct and educational and didn't lead to people believing nonsense. Which one gained the higher ground here? The only way Demarco should be "at the end of her rope" is if they make selling credulity a hanging offence.
Now, back to the question of whether the show was slanted or not. Here's what Simon Turnbull says on his
MySpace page: (my bolding)
"The One' TV series was fantastic to make. All the psychics and crew were super aware about sending a positive message to the viewing public through the incredible energy they put into the show."
I would have hoped they'd work hard to send out an honest message.
.