Psychics fail test

[zebo-the-fat]

Psychics fail controled test..... still say they have powers!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20145664

[Angrboda]

My psychics, mediums & healers group is doing past life regression this Friday. I'm tempted to bone up on Scientology's past life dogma and spew, but the laugh probably isn't worth the investment.

She is right though, it doesn't prove a thing about psychic phenomena. That's the point. It was an opportunity for psychics to prove themselves under persuasive testing conditions. That they failed is not an indictment of psychic phenomena. To view it as an attempt to do so demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the nature of science, experimental design, falsification, and burden of proof. She's right, but for all the wrong reasons. Which, itself, is hardly a surprising result.

[Darth]

Not only did they fail the tests, but by showing up they failed to predict that they would fail the tests. Double fail.

[Tino]

My psychics, mediums & healers group is doing past life regression this Friday. I'm tempted to bone up on Scientology's past life dogma and spew, but the laugh probably isn't worth the investment.

She is right though, it doesn't prove a thing about psychic phenomena. That's the point. It was an opportunity for psychics to prove themselves under persuasive testing conditions. That they failed is not an indictment of psychic phenomena. To view it as an attempt to do so demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the nature of science, experimental design, falsification, and burden of proof. She's right, but for all the wrong reasons. Which, itself, is hardly a surprising result.

Apo, have you found any psychic abilities to be real?

[popeyespappy]

My psychics, mediums & healers group is doing past life regression this Friday.

Way back when, I had a history of religion class while I was an undergrad. The professor claimed to be able to guide people on past life regressions. Instead of a final she offered to take anyone who bothered to show up on the final day of class on a past life regression. I didn’t go and don’t know if anyone else did. The fact that she told us most people experienced memories of a painful death didn’t do much for anyone as far as motivation. According to her she most often experienced death in child birth.

[Angrboda]

Apo, have you found any psychic abilities to be real?

No, but then I haven't really looked. I'm more interested in just how people think about things like psychic phenomena rather than the claims or the subject itself.

[downbeatplumb]

There appears to be no method that science knows of that could come up with the results psychics claim.
As all the testing points to there being no actual psychic ability then I think you have to say that the odds are against it being a real thing.

[Minimalist]

Why don't psychics play the stock market? Or bet on horses?

[Brunitski]

There appears to be no method that science knows of that could come up with the results psychics claim.
As all the testing points to there being no actual psychic ability then I think you have to say that the odds are against it being a real thing.

You mean the results that Psychics actually come up with? The no-better-than-random-chance results? Do psychics actually claim a hard number result ever? I have only heard the apocryphal tales that such and such predicted this actual event, etc, and the sort of whack-jobs who consistently claim they can take Randi's money, but somehow never do....

[Creed of Heresy]

Ohh psychics. You will never fail to make me bust a nut laughing my ass off at your silly antics. May they never go away so that they may, for the rest of my life, provide me with endless amusement, and for the rest of everyone else with both feet planted in reason for the rest of the time humanity has in the universe the same mirth and joy.

I look at psychics as nothing more than fools of society, jesters of the modern age, who sometimes play their merry tricks on the dim-witted and unsuspecting.

Psychics are not real. Psychic phenomena is nothing more than tricks of the mind. Quite often people who claim to experience it end up being shown to have Fantasy-Prone Personality; big surprise there.

I keep hearing people say "well it COULD be real." Yeah, of course, but given that the hundreds of studies and attempts to prove it have always, consistently, without a doubt shown no such thing to exist I'm pretty sure I can safely say "no. No it cannot." When someone makes a claim a hundred times and a hundred times each it is proven to be, beyond a doubt, not true, I, for some reason, get the distinct impression the person making the claim is a balls-out liar. Just saying.