The "Process" of John Edward

[Instig8R]

Mmmm.....Not quite your own reading like O'Neill got, g8r. Sorry. But you ARE the acknowledged "Queen of the 'Me-Toos"!

Very true, Clancie-- My title is very important to me!

Seriously, though, when JE gave the live reading of Deborah (of "Malibu Shrimp" fame), she wasn't able to validate much of what JE said. Neither was I.

Thereafter, when the edited reading appeared on television, it was rearranged. In the edited version, Deborah was shown validating lots of things. How odd that I, too, was able to validate lots of things in the edited reading.

It was the editing that accounted for the differences when the reading went from "live" to "edited". I was thereby able to observe, firsthand, that the reading was edited for content.

 

[SteveGrenard]

inst8r: Thereafter, when the edited reading appeared on television, it was rearranged. In the edited version, Deborah was shown validating lots of things. .

So in the above you are saying the things JE said which were wrong were being shown as being acknowledged as true by this Deborah person? You are saying they took her no answers and somehow turned them into yes answers?

How odd that I, too, was able to validate lots of things in the edited reading

This I have a harder time understanding. Now you are saying not only the above but somehow whatever JE said as information given live and was rejected by you somehow made sense to you when you saw it recorded. Are you suggesting they not only edited the reading but that from the JE side, they substituted or put in new material as well? Can you explain perhaps in more detail how this was possible? Or perhaps there was a more parsimonious and mundane explanation like the fallibility of your memory?

 

[BillHoyt]

Actually, I used O'Neill's comments about hot reading in support of my point (and the total absence of any comments from O'Neill criticizing the evidential information that JE gave him).[/b]

I see. So your standard for evidence that he had a bias going in is his comments coming out? So anybody unhappy or suspicious coming out was, ipso facto, biased? Do you know what the post hoc fallacies are all about? Do you know you just committed one?

For your part, you keep mentioning....Jaroff (a man who never even talked with O'Neill) claiming....stating as a fact (without a shred of support)....that O'Neill had --in Jaroff's words--"no preconceived ideas".

No, dear. I did not state that O'Neill had no predisposition was a fact. I stated that Jaroff's reportage was a fact. You have now committed a post hoc fallacy and entered it as your sole "fact".

And what makes you think Jaroff was qualified to claim such a thing about a man he'd never even communicated with, Bill? You keep stating it as if it's supposed to show us something. It shows, in your words to me, ....squat.

You seem to be forgetting that YOU made the claim. Standard rules apply. Support your claim that O'Neill was biased going in. Your post hoc is fallacious reasoning.

 

[Clancie]

Bill,

You seem to have a hard time understanding reasoning that doesn't match your memorized paradigms. Let me try it another way....

O'Neill went to CO. He was suspicious to notice people arriving together. He apparently lies about cards being handed out so "aides" could give JE information about the audience in advance. Also after his reading, he speculates extensively...about hidden microphones, "ringers"..."info cards"...all this as a way of accomplishing one thing...impugning JE's reading and saying CO was researched and staged. (Which a more rigorous critic--Underdown--disputes, btw).

Other than one editing example (which O'Neill oddly gives no details of) he does not say that JE's reading of him was incorrect in any way. Do you acknowledge that? If JE's reading was bad, why (with all his OTHER criticisms) wouldn't O'Neill mention that one?

From the point of view of someone criticizing JE it seems odd not to criticize the reading itself. Unless, of course, the information given O'Neill was good.

In fact, so it would seem...that it was good...since he doesn't say it wasn't (while criticizing everything else about CO he can imagine--mikes, ringers, aides "scurrying" with cards, etc.)

If you get a good reading from a medium....usually people feel pleased. O'Neill seems to take his reading and need to "explain it away" by attributing it to hot reading. Why? Because he probably went in already thinking JE was a fake. Hot reading is the only other explanation for fraud if you can't attribute it to cold reading.

As for Jaroff....you keep quoting Jaroff saying that "O'Neill had no preconceived ideas". Yet he never TALKED with O'Neill at all, Bill!!!

WHY, then, do you keep on quoting Jaroff if your intention is NOT to give his remark about O'Neill some weight. Bill? Seriously, what's your point, then?

 

[BillHoyt]

Somebody start another scorecard for this poor misguided woman.

O'Neill went to CO.

A hit! Yes, a hit for Clancie! Knocked it clean out of the park. He went to CO!

He was suspicious to notice people arriving together.

Uh, before he saw the edited show? Please cite the evidence, Clancie. We need a ref here. Ref?

He apparently lies about cards being handed out so "aides" could give JE information about the audience in advance.

Were you there at this show's taping? Please cite the evidence, Clancie. We need a ref here.

Also after his reading, he speculates extensively...about hidden microphones, "ringers"..."info cards"...all this as a way of accomplishing one thing...impugning JE's reading and saying CO was researched and staged. (Which a more rigorous critic--Underdown--disputes, btw).

Subject/Motive shift, Clancie. This is fallacious. Strike!

Other than one editing example (which O'Neill oddly gives no details of) he does not say that JE's reading of him was incorrect in any way. Do you acknowledge that? If JE's reading was bad, why (with all his OTHER criticisms) wouldn't O'Neill mention that one?

Strike Two! "O'Neill attended a performance and was singled out by Edward, who received what he claimed were communications sent directly from the dead grandfather.

While many of those messages seemed to O'Neill to be clearly off base, Edward made a few correct "hits," mystifying everyone by dropping family names and facts he could not possibly have known."

I have given this to you before, Clancie. Please keep up with the evidence.

From the point of view of someone criticizing JE it seems odd not to criticize the reading itself. Unless, of course, the information given O'Neill was good.

In fact, so it would seem...that it was good...since he doesn't say it wasn't (while criticizing everything else about CO he can imagine--mikes, ringers, aides "scurrying" with cards, etc.)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I won't bother corresponding with you if you won't bother reading it! I've posted this CLEAR REFUTATION of your balderdash twice. From here on out, I will simply link you to my previous posts.

If you get a good reading from a medium....usually people feel pleased.

And this appeal to popularity is what? Oh, strike THREE. Another fallacy! The crowd goes wild, but wait, they're sending Clancie back up! Boos and hisses from the crowd.

O'Neill seems to take his reading and need to "explain it away" by attributing it to hot reading. Why? Because he probably went in already thinking JE was a fake. Hot reading is the only other explanation for fraud if you can't attribute it to cold reading.

Oh, another strike for Clancie's second time at bat. This is a continuation of your post hoc reasoning. You don't have any evidence to support your smears, do you? Where have you yet given any legitimate evidence for the claim that O'Neill came in with this "bias"?

As for Jaroff....you keep quoting Jaroff saying that "O'Neill had no preconceived ideas". Yet he never TALKED with O'Neill at all, Bill!!!

What is this? A twisted appeal to authority! Because someone didn't have a firsthand conversation doesn't mean they are reporting the facts incorrectly. Another fallacy. And Clancies gets strike two for her second at-bat.

WHY, then, do you keep on quoting Jaroff if your intention is NOT to give his remark about O'Neill some weight. Bill? Seriously, what's your point, then?

Strike three! A horrid attempt to turn the onus around. The onus is on you. That's with an "o", dear, although with an "a" it is also an apt description of one who's reasoning is this primitive. You have one of the finest minds of the Precambrian era, dear.

Now try to stay with the facts. Read what I wrote. Read what Jaroff wrote. Stop arguing in circles. Remove the illogic and start again.

Find a single shred of valid evidence to support your smear of O'Neill. Something he wrote prior to the CO show. Something he said prior to the CO show. This post hoc pap may work with your koffe klatch buds, but it won't fly here. This attempt to put the onus on us when it is your specious claim, backed by squat that has you whirling like a Dervish. When your room stops spinning, give it another go.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Clancie

WHY, then, do you keep on quoting Jaroff if your intention is NOT to give his remark about O'Neill some weight. Bill? Seriously, what's your point, then?

And what is your response to this question, Bill?

Posted by Bill Hoyt

Strike three! A horrid attempt to turn the onus around. The onus is on you. That's with an "o", dear, although with an "a" it is also an apt description of one who's reasoning is this primitive. You have one of the finest minds of the Precambrian era, dear.

Now try to stay with the facts. Read what I wrote. Read what Jaroff wrote. Stop arguing in circles. Remove the illogic and start again.

No surprises here (except for a change in the insulting tone). Its the typical non-responsive kind of "answer" to questions that you specialize in, Bill, regardless of the topic.

Same old, same old.

(And by continuing to invoke Jaroff you show you really have no concept of proper journalistic procedure whatsoever. "Checking sources", Bill. That's what responsible journalists do.... FYI).

 

[SteveGrenard]

Bill.......forget about Jaroff for a moment. He was third-hand.
Randi got it first (his column is not, unfortunately online from the Skeptic), Shermer next (which is online below) and then Jaroff:

Go to the following website:

http://www.skeptic.com/


Scroll down to the article that starts out "Deconstructing the Dead....." and Cick on the MORE button

Scroll down about 3 paragraphs to the bit about O'Neill.
hopefully this will answer your questions..........................

As anyone can plainly deduce after reading Shermer and Randi's original column, Jaroff's piece was a rehash, paraphrased and contained assumptions that were not in the original reports.
He sources Randi for O'Neill and clearly never spoke with him himself or he would've quoted O'Neill directly. However, even though Jaroff cites Randi, he leaves out several of the items both Randi and Shermer included. This may be due to the tight space requirements imposed by TIME magazine.

But he adds but does not actually quote other things. You need to compare all three accounts. Sorry I cannot give you an online version of Randi's column. I checked Skeptic's online archives and it isnt there.

 

[BillHoyt]

Grenard / Clancie / Woos of all ages,

Who gives a flying pig whether Jaroff's article was firsthand or derived from another article? That is not bad journalism, Clancie.

Grenard / Clancie - cough up some evidence for Clancie's outlandish claims that O'Neill went in biased. Cough up some evidence that O'Neill did not comment on the bad parts of the reading. Cough up some evidence that O'Neill did not comment on the good parts of the reading.

I am fed up with these smear tactics, and drive-by assertions. You have not offered one shred of evidence in support of them. Neither one of you has. And, Grenard, your post is over the top. "Oh, go here, you'll see what Clancie is talking about, but you really need to compare all three accounts. I can't get them for you, though." That is lame-brained, and bordering on the McCarthyesque.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Bill Hoyt

"You really need to compare all three accounts. I can't get them for you, though."

That is lame-brained, and bordering on the McCarthyesque.

...invective galore, but still no response.....

 

[SteveGrenard]

Okay, I'll help you out even though I dont understand how McCarthy is related to this. Here ix what Jaroff said about
O'Neill, all of it in his TIME piece:

"Michael O'Neill, a New York City marketing manager, had no preconceived notions about Edward but experienced what he is convinced was a "hot reading"--a variation on the cold reading in which the medium takes advantage of information surreptitiously gathered in advance. Given an extra ticket by family members hoping to hear from his deceased grandfather, O'Neill attended a performance and was singled out by Edward, who received what he claimed were communications sent directly from the dead grandfather. While many of those messages seemed to O'Neill to be clearly off base, Edward made a few correct "hits," mystifying everyone by dropping family names and facts he could not possibly have known. It was not until weeks after the performance, when O'Neill saw the show on TV, that he began to suspect chicanery. Clips of him nodding yes had been spliced into the videotape after statements with which he remembers disagreeing. In addition, says O'Neill, most of Edward's "misses," both on him and other audience members, had been edited out of the final tape. Now suspicious, O'Neill recalled that while the audience was waiting to be seated, Edward's aides were scurrying about, striking up conversations and getting people to fill out cards with their name, family tree and other facts. Once inside the auditorium, where each family was directed to preassigned seats, more than an hour passed before show time while "technical difficulties" backstage were corrected. And what did most of the audience--drawn by the prospect of communicating with their departed relatives--talk about during the delays? Those departed relatives, of course. These conversations, O'Neill suspects, may have been picked up by the microphones strategically placed around the auditorium and then passed on to the medium. (A spokesperson for Crossing Over would say only that Edward does not respond to criticism.)

And here is what Shermer said about the same subject, all of it in his article. I compared it with my copy of The Skeptic with Randi's artice and it is identical. It should be since Shermer is the Editor of The Skeptic. Compare Jaroff with what Shermer and Randi wrote.It is the same direct O'Neill quote which Jaroff does NOT use.

"I was on the John Edward show. He even had a multiple guess "hit" on me that was featured on the show. However, it was edited so that my answer to another question was edited in after one of his questions. In other words, his question and my answer were deliberately mismatched. Only a fraction of what went on in the studio was actually seen in the final 30 minute show. He was wrong about a lot and was very aggressive when somebody failed to acknowledge something he said. Also, his "production assistants" were always around while we waited to get into the studio. They told us to keep very quiet, and they overheard a lot. I think that the whole place is bugged somehow. Also, once in the studio we had to wait around for almost two hours before the show began. Throughout that time everybody was talking about what dead relative of theirs might pop up. Remember that all this occurred under microphones and with cameras already set up. My guess is that he was backstage listening and looking at us all and noting certain readings. When he finally appeared, he looked at the audience as if he were trying to spot people he recognized. He also had ringers in the audience. I can tell because about fifteen people arrived in a chartered van, and once inside they did not sit together."

 

[Clancie]

Thanks for posting that, Steve. I always get a laugh from this:

From Michael O'Neill

They told us to keep very quiet, and they overheard a lot.

 

[Clancie]

And, g8r (re: Malibu Shrimp, etc.)....

What I always find most interesting about it is how you and neo went together, sat through the same reading, saw the same version of CO later on....and have such completely different impressions of the entire experience.

I don't personally have an explanation for it. But, yes, I do find it extremely interesting....

 

[CFLarsen]

Clancie,

I see you are back to moving the ol' goal posts again. Now, a person has to get a reading. Now, a reading has to be "quite like" O'Neill's. You don't specify how it must be "quite like", though.

You have to understand that in order for your argument to hold water, you have to state beforehand what the criteria are. You cannot say "Condition X" and then, when condition X is met, say "But Condition Y also!"

I know why you don't want to do this. You won't have "outs" anymore. But that's the way things are.

Now, to get back to your claim: Please provide your evidence that O'Neill had preconceived notions before going to the taping.

Whatever happened at the taping is not admissible. Before, Clancie. Not during or after. It doesn't matter what O'Neill discovered. It doesn't matter what he told Randi, et al.

Before, Clancie.

That was your claim. Now, put up or shut up. And work on your understanding of logical fallacies.

 

[CFLarsen]

Steve,

How do you expect people to compare all three accounts if you can't even get them yourself?

You very often refer to data, which you have, which proves your point, but nobody else can get.

It doesn't work here. Present your data or retract. Put up or shut up.

 

[BillHoyt]

...invective galore, but still no response..... [/B]

You can't read, can you? I'm sorry to hear that. I'll make it bigger for you:

<marquee>Writing an article that reports on another report is not bad journalism. </marquee>

If you look at it a bit, it will march by many times and the message may sink in.

 

[Lucianarchy]

<marquee>Writing an article that reports on another report is not bad journalism. </marquee>

<marquee>That's right, it far worse than that, it is extremely sloppy, anecdotal journalism. </marquee>

 

[BillHoyt]

Idiotic response he will soon regret

So glad you decided to play, Luci! Please cite references in support of your claim that writing an article about another report is "extremely sloppy" journalism.

Good luck.

 

[Clancie]

Good journalists check their sources at least twice, Bill.

Beyond that, what I object to most is that in his article Jaroff never represents his source accurately. He never says, "In an email to James Randi, a man named Michael O'Neill claimed....." etc.

He just presents O'Neill's points as if Jaroff himself had first hand knowledge of O'Neill, giving the false impression that O'Neill's comments were produced by Jaroff's own research.

But they weren't, Bill. And Jaroff didn't even properly note the source, while essentially basing his entire article on the second hand account of someone he'd never talked with! After all, email accounts can be easily fabricated--this wasn't, but Jaroff took that part on faith, without checking his source at all, while still basing his criticism on what O'Neill had supposedly told Randi via the Internet.

If TIME had, instead, based the article on the unexamined comments of a believer who attended a taping, it would have been equally irresponsible.

Sloppy, sloppy.

 

[CFLarsen]

Clancie,

You may think that it was sloppy journalism. That's fine. Now, back to your claim:

Please provide your evidence that O'Neill had preconceived notions before going to the taping.

Whatever happened at the taping is not admissible. Before, Clancie. Not during or after. It doesn't matter what O'Neill discovered. It doesn't matter what he told Randi, et al.

Before, Clancie.

That was your claim. Now, put up or shut up.

Oh, I just saw your sig:

From CFLarsen: "Better include my name (in your sig line), just to drive your point home."

Per your above request, Claus, you're now back on my "Ignore" list (of one).

I have honestly lost count of the times you have put me on ignore, but I have to smile when you complain about me making personal attacks on you. If that sig is not a personal attack on me, then I don't know what is! The only one you ignore (repeatedly) is me. You want to talk to me, but I can't talk to you. Awww, Clancie...that's sweet.....dumb, but sweet....

 

[BillHoyt]

Good journalists check their sources at least twice, Bill.

Beyond that, what I object to most is that in his article Jaroff never represents his source accurately. He never says, "In an email to James Randi, a man named Michael O'Neill claimed....." etc.

His source was Randi. He says so, here:
"Meanwhile, O'Neill e-mailed his suspicions to the James Randi Educational Foundation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the Amazing Randi, a magician and skeptic, had been tracking Edward's career. Some of what Randi has learned is scheduled to be aired this week on Inside Edition, in what will probably be the first nationally televised show to take a skeptical look at the Edward phenomenon."

If you see this article as claiming he spoke directly with O'Neill, that is your inference, not Jaroff's implication. There is an immense difference.

He just presents O'Neill's points as if Jaroff himself had first hand knowledge of O'Neill, giving the false impression that O'Neill's comments were produced by Jaroff's own research.

But they weren't, Bill. And Jaroff didn't even properly note the source, while essentially basing his entire article on the second hand account of someone he'd never talked with! After all, email accounts can be easily fabricated--this wasn't, but Jaroff took that part on faith, without checking his source at all, while still basing his criticism on what O'Neill had supposedly told Randi via the Internet.

If TIME had, instead, based the article on the unexamined comments of a believer who attended a taping, it would have been equally irresponsible.

Sloppy, sloppy.

Your thinking is the only sloppy thing I see here. All you present is inuendo and insinuation. You simply cannot tell fact from your own fiction. That is immensely sad.