Are you referring to psychics or body language reading?

There's a lot of angry and irrational posts in this thread.

I'd say it's one of the more rational and less angry threads out there as it stands.

I wouldn't.

I knew that before you even wrote this post.

I should state for the record that I have no psychic ability.

We'll just disagree with each other's opinion then.

I'm just reading my coffee dregs (dont drink tea) and they are telling me that Mark went in with a To Do List -:

1 - Have pretend psychic abilitys for the cameras (it will be funny)
2 - Pretend to be manic over appearance (eyebrows will be funny)
3 - Adopt an exaggerated accent (public will love it)
4 - Latch onto a 'weaker' HM and engineer funny spats (always popular with GBP)
5 - Always keepin mind what will look great on my 'best bits'
5 - Keep my real personality under wraps (public don't like nasty HM's) ...oh bugger

I've always wondered if there are any legitimate psychics out there why none of them have won this prize that's been hanging about for 40 years.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/...c-changes.html
They've even relaxed the rules. Then again I doubt they have questions like think of a number between 1 and 4.

What's irrational about backing things up with evidence?

There's no evidence that psychic abilities exist. There's no point speculating about a potential mechanism by which they work before it's been established that they do work.

Besides which, there is no evidence of any "signals", and no room in quantum field theory which allows for them to exist. There would have to be a lot of evidence for their existence to overturn quantum field theory, yet there is none whatsoever.


Sollog claims to actually be God. If you're going to believe his predictions, do you also have to believe that he's God? If you're going to bring up people and expect to be taken seriously, then you should aim a little higher than the total loonbag that is Sollog.

But, if you do want to look at that particular prediction, the prediction, in full, is this:


No mention of New York. No mention of what kind of emergency. No mention that it will happen in 3 years time. And Sollog says this kind of vague thing all the time. You would totally expect him to get a hit by pure chance, given a long enough time scale.

So, no, that "prediction" in and of itself is not evidence of anything other, perhaps, than that people don't really understand probability.

If you believed that you were psychic and that your abilities worked best by guessing a number between 1 and 4, then the JREF absolutely would design a test protocol around that. It doesn't matter that you'd expect to be right by chance around a quarter of the time, because all you need do is repeat the test enough times to make individual results insignificant when compared to the aggregate. Test significantly better than chance (and, let's face it, a genuine psychic should be right 100% of the time) and you'd win.

6. Cultivate a laugh which sounds like a toddler's giggle. That will endear me to the maternal types.

7. Manufacture "relationship" with other available housemate but stop it going anywhere other than a kiss as the public love a romance but dislike a lovey-dovey smutfest (Steven? Kim?)

Sheesh hi Mr Attenborough I didn't know you watched bb

You're not a physicist, are you?

Exactly. They don't have to see anything spectacular. Just any one single bit of evidence that any form of psychic ability exists and a nice big sum of money is there for the taking.

If anyone in the world had any kind of genuine paranormal or psychic ability, you'd think they would snap up the chance to grab what should be 'easy money'.

Many have of course tried (but as we both know that prize remains unclaimed...

(ps anyone who hasn't seem some of the attempts should check it out on youtube- they are hilarious and Randi is a bit of a legend).

But the scepticism in this thread could in fact be rational, and what you characterize as biased mocking could in fact be a rational discussion.

Says you! I've had some experiences that prove it is in fact not nonesense but it depends on your experiences really and your willingness to open your mind.

Exactly.

Rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason. Not my definition - the dictionaries.

So those who say psychic powers are unproven are employing rational thinking.

I agree with zx50,though: There is definitely a lot of irrationality in this thread. I expect where we differ in opinion is what the source of that irrationality is!

No, it depends on the evidence. The evidence thus far says that people have cognitive biases and gaps in perception which allow them easily to believe that they have experienced something extraordinary when they have in fact experienced something mundane, and it also says that no psychic has been able to perform better than chance when tested under controlled conditions which eliminate those cognitive biases and gaps in perception, as well as which exclude the possibility of fraud.

But, as has been said, there's a million dollars waiting for anybody who can demonstrate any paranormal ability.

There is a big difference between saying you have had experiences that you believe prove it and claiming that they actually DO prove it.

I have a very open mind. I also believe it is a logical mind that looks at facts, evidence, probability etc before making a decision on how plausible or not something may be.

I am not outright dismissing the possibility of something paranormal or psychic existing in the universe but to date there has been not one single shred of actual evidence or proof that anything like this exists.

Not one.

No, you really haven't. You might think you have, but you haven't.

You seem to think it was a fail even though he got both the date and location right. Remember, the Pentagon was also attacked on that day so it was also in Washington that the attacks happened. The probability of getting both date and location right is extremely low.

Let's hope they have Russell Grant on next week for a bit of balance.

And Derek Acorah the week after.

They do, and it's an amazing show.