I don’t expect a lot out of the daytime TV show The View. After all, if one of your four hosts isn’t sure the Earth is round, and you don’t immediately replace her with someone who’s views are more up-to-date (like more recent than Eratosthenes), then maybe your standards are too lax.
So when my friend Al Janulaw sent me a note saying they had a psychic on the show, I wasn’t too shocked. When I watched a bit of the show, I was surprised that Joy Behar, one of the hosts, expressed not just skepticism, but actually employed targeted skepticism. She made fun of the fact that psychics will ask leading questions and use things that are almost certain to get a hit ("I sense you know someone who’s name starts with M").
Still, the actual segment with the psychic, Laurie Levin, was amazingly credulous. I don’t know if Ms. Levin actually believes what she says or not, but here we have a woman claiming to be a psychic who a) told a man his murdered son chose his death to shock him into caring about someone, b) told this man he was in an unhappy marriage, and then c) married him.
Um. Again, I don’t know this woman, or the man, or their circumstances, but every skeptic alarm bell in my head is ringing pretty loudly.
I don’t think psychics are real, obviously. I am not saying psychic powers are impossible — though that’s the way to bet — but I am saying that every single time they’ve been tested under controlled circumstances, they come up short (and are indistinguishable from random guessing). And if they do exist, I know where there’s a million bucks left as-yet unclaimed.
If psychic powers are really true, I have severe doubts that the possessor will be using them to wow daytime TV talk show hosts. My real problem here is that as long as things like this are treated unskeptically and swallowed whole by TV shows, as well as in other media, then they will never go away, and the public remains that much more gullible.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:50 am
OMGZ DIS NOT ASTTRONOMY WHY U POST DIS
Seriously, I will never understand how woo gets a free pass so often in the media.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:54 am
“My real problem here is that as long as things like this are treated unskeptically and swallowed whole by TV shows, as well as in other media, then they will never go away, and the public remains that much more gullible.”
And following this along is where the scary part resides: a functioning democracy requires a body of citizens who can and will think critically. This whole method of organizing humans doesn’t work if we habitually think poorly.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Wait, wait, wait. So, Ms. Levin said that the guy’s son chose to be murdered in order to shock the guy into loving someone? She told the guy that his marriage was not a happy one. And then Ms. Levin married the guy? [insert head-explodey noise here]
October 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Ouch with the Erasthothenes comment, implying that her mindset is over 2300 years behind present day.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Without forcing us to watch said program, can someone give more details on what Joy Behar said, and what the responses were?
I know the Mythbusters have touched briefly on psychic abilities, but I’d like to see a whole show on it. Actually, I’d like to see and hear MORE shows that challenge the claims of the woo-wooists.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
So, it was a swing and a miss for real skepticism to be shown on TV? Not surprising given the general viewership of The View. Wouldn’t want to rattle too many sensibilities, even if those sensibilites are non-sensical.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Reminds me of something I saw on TV last night. Flipping through channels, looking for something interesting, and caught a few seconds of Tyra Banks. An astrologer was apparantly claiming that you could use astrology to determine if your mate was cheating on you! Tyra gets this look of incredulity on her face and says, “Really!”
Naturally, I had to shout out, “No, not really, you dumb twit!” and change the channel. Woke my wife, pissed her off, and it’s all astrology’s fault!
October 20th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Heck I know where a telepath can make a lot more than a measly million,,,it’s called Las Vegas.
Gary 7
October 20th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Dude, if I had pyschic powers I’d at least have a better scam than talking to dead people or telling fortunes.
I’d be winning the lottery until they blacklisted me and then I’d start selling the numbers to people for a percent of the take.
Screw altruism. Show me the money.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Joy Behar is far and away the smartest and most intelligent member of the panel. She demonstrates it frequently. She holds back too often though. It appears to me that she wants to say something sometimes but then doesn’t. You also need to listen to her on other shows. She is very bright and very funny.
It seems to me that Whoopie ‘gets it’ sometimes, too.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I knew you were going to say that.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I agree that Joy Behar is the only worth watching, though watching her new show online, I see she’s hated by many commenters. I don’t get why, but it could be one more hint that she’s smart.
I used to have a good opinion of Whoopi Goldberg, but she’s become so moderate as to condone every craziness The View showcases.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Gadfly beat me to it.
But then I knew he would.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
The view actually did a whole show dedicated to Psychics during the summer and much to my surprise all of the co-hosts, with one exception, were quite skeptical. Even Sherri ‘is the earth round’ Sheppard didn’t buy into John Edward’s song and dance. When he was doing a reading with her and started out with his standard ‘who’s the G or the J name’ she came back with something like ‘that’s all you’ve got? Just a J?’. In that moment I was impressed with her. Joy had a past life regression done and it was clear that she didn’t believe for a second that she was remembering a past life. And Elizabeth didn’t buy into her astrology reading either. (one of the funniest things were the astrologer and the tarrot card reader disagreeing what sex Elizabeth’s baby was going to be).
Sadly it was Whoopi who bought into the psychics. She had a tarrot reading done (and was very friendly with and genuinely impressed by John Edwards) and declared that the reading was accurate, even after Elizabeth pointed out that the predictions were vague enough to have applied to any number of people (I’m not normally impressed with the things that come out of Elizabeth’s mouth but I’ve got to give her credit for that one).
And on this latest episode of the view when Barbara Walters directly asked Whoopi if she thought she was psychic herself (apparently because she played a psychic in Ghost*) Whoopi’s response was that she ‘didn’t want to say’. It saddens me that Whoopi, who I really like as an actor, is so into psychic woo nonsense.
*never mind the fact that she played a fake psychic in the movie who just happened to stumble upon a real ghost
October 20th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
9. Ray Says:
Dude, if I had pyschic powers I’d at least have a better scam than talking to dead people or telling fortunes.
I’d be winning the lottery until they blacklisted me and then I’d start selling the numbers to people for a percent of the take.
Screw altruism. Show me the money.
Stepping for a moment into the ‘woo’ side, how about the possibility that ‘psychic powers don’t work that way’ in that one cannot use them to enrich (monetarily) oneself? True, that would require some kind of “enforcement mechanism”, but there is still a chance that limitations could exist.
/woo
J/P=?
October 20th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Kuhnigget, and Gadfly beat me to it,
But then I knew Kuhnigget knew Gadfly would.
One of the reasons I think ‘psychics’ and ‘mediums’ are so popular is because people need to feel that there is something beyond our natural perceptions. I think it’s the same thing that drives people to believe in UFOs/extraterrestrial visitation. We want to be a part of something bigger, something greater. Really, isn’t that what religion is all about?
October 20th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
@John Paradox
To which the appropriate response is: “Well, there are certainly a lot of charities and needy individuals to whom you could donate all that money, instead of keeping it to benefit yourself. So, if you do that, your powers should still work.”
They usually don’t respond after that question.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I was a phone psychic. Am I psychic? Nope, not even a little. I took a 2 day class on how to read people and was then allowed to start answering calls. After a week, I felt terrible about taking people’s money when they called about how broke they were and asking when they would be able to find a job. My response to my last call was, “You will never find a job if you keep spending $4.99 a minute to talk to fake psychics like me.” I hung up, and never went back, not even for my final paycheck.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I got rid of my skeptic alarm bells decades ago; I couldn’t stand all that ringing in my head.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
14. HH
Ok, just an honesty disclaimer: I really love Whoopi. She is an amazing woman.
HH, you should have some idea where people are coming from before you decide they’re just woos. Note that at one time, Whoopi was living on the street with an infant to care for. She rose from that state of abject poverty to a funny, capricious, insightful and compassionate human who is a success by nearly anyones standards. I don’t know her personal beliefs, but she has a fine appreciation of evidence, including anecdotal(yes, I know quite well that, to an independent observer, that’s tantamount to no evidence however, it can be “real”. Remember how long we disavowed anecdotal evidence of rocks falling from the sky or balls of lightening floating across the land). There are a few people throughout history that have had a direct experience with,,,something,,,that they refer to as god like. It’s called a mystical experience and has been much sought after but seldom attained. I don’t know if Whoopi ever experienced that but SOMETHING significant happened to her to impel her change of status and I suspect it had something to do with the aforementioned(but about that I have nothing more than inference).
Anyway, she has mentioned once or twice having a belief in a higher intelligence. So do I for that matter. I just don’t call it God( to do so would imply I know what God is and that would just be hubris).
So, she believes there may be something to Tarot? I don’t but that’s just because I’ve never seen any replicable evidence. Maybe she has, or at least what appeared to be satisfactory evidence to her. My feeling toward ANYONE who claims to have special power gifted from on high is that they are con artists, but then, I’m a cantankerous old Frak who would be unlikely to believe anyone seeking to make other folk pay for the privilege of their “special” knowledge. You’ll note that Whoopi never tries to influence anyone into believing she is special in any way. She just makes me laugh and feel good things. THAT’S special enough.
Gary 7
October 20th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
John Paradox,
The limitations that *we do* see of psychics and astrologers is indistinguishable from cold reading and leading the client to fill in the predictions and the occasional lucky hit.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Boy, if someone really could talk to dead people they would have every law enforcement organization in the country beating down their door. Just think how many murders could be solved that way!
Even if you couldn’t pick and choose the people you contacted, I can imagine you would still be the most sought after person on the planet — historians, for one, would be chomping at the bit to get some quality face-to-soul time with anyone who had died more than a few decades ago.
Archaeologists, treasure hunters, sociologists, cultists, clergy, genealogists would happily pay you hundreds of dollars an hour for a chance to talk to the dead. You would be set of life.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
21. tacitus
Great story idea. Unfortunately, I have a vague memory of a prior story that touched on that. Can’t recall the name, however.
Gary 7
October 20th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Ugh, this reminds me…Sylvia Browne is coming to my area soon.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Ouch!
Re 1), 2) and 3) – if that had been a psychiatrist or a doctor for that matter, wouldn’t they have been struck off immediately?
Good to know that psychics don’t need guvmint interference. (Actually, yes, as the recent story of Hypno Cat in the UK shows, registration of woo is bollocks.)
October 20th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
@Victor Prime:
Woo sells! Ask any purveyor of religion.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
[...] 3) Sylvia Browne just got a book deal with Harper Collins, which includes a series of books by other authors about the supernatural and spirituality, called The Sylvia Browne Collection. Barf. The cool thing is, the linked article mentions Randi, who has been tireless in holding Browne’s feet to the fire when it comes to her claims of the paranormal. Maybe a debate can be set up on The View…? [...]
October 20th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I’ve never watched The View before. That was just awful.
I tried to endure it, I think I lasted about four minutes. Once my frontal lobe threatened to crawl away so as to die in peace, I had to stop.
It sounds like verbal dysentery.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Psychics, hmm! I am very sceptical (I’m from England we spell words a little differently) of all paranormal phenomenon, everything from super powers to little aliens leaving nice pictures in farmers fields. Psychics really get me angry, well maybe not angry annoyed is probably a better word, here in super intelligent (ha ha ha) England/Britain we have some awful psychic, Dennis McKenzie, claiming he helped the police solve an awful, Goddamn terrible crime, that of the murder of two young girls. The man is so obviously lying, the account of his involvement deluded, his ability to communicate with the dead a fabrication (there’s not such thing as life after death, because, well you’re dead) yet a publisher has released his book which makes outrageous claims of him solving crimes both here in the UK (it gets confusing living here, we have so many different titles for our Queen’s nation) and in the United States of A. A popular British newspaper (I use that term very loosely) recently contained a news article of this buffoon. Why do people have to be so stupid? I always thought the human race was supposed to be intelligent, boy was I wrong!
October 21st, 2009 at 1:06 am
Gary@20, hard to love Whoopi when she say that Polanski really “didn’t rape rape” a 13 year old girl after he drugged, raped, and sodomized her. But aside from that.
In the last few days I have been re-reading Farmer’s Riverworld, where everyone who has ever lived is resurrected on a terraformed world that is a single million mile long river. Virtually every lives a stone age existence, even those who died in the 20th Century.
It got me to thinking about how few people really live at more than a stone age intellectual level. It doesn’t take more than stone age skills to drive a car, run a microwave, watch TV. The only people who really NEED logical, advanced thinking skills are folks like the engineers, designers, scientists and programmers. Our education system gives the smart ones the chance to learn the great things. But for the rest, critical thinking skills aren’t really needed. Superstition lives in the primitive mind. Our society is primarily composed of primitives. I don’t see astrology and psychics going away any time soon.
Hairy
October 21st, 2009 at 1:56 am
I predict with my psychic predilections that Phil enjoys wasting our time with honest-to-god articles scrutinizing daytime television.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:38 am
If psychics existed surely we’d all be psychic due to the evolutionary advantage of being able to predict the future, read people’s thoughts, etc.
Unless psychic abilities are a very recent mutation of course.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:37 am
I hope there no psychic powers because if I had them I would abuse them case in point when I was in high school I was picked on and I like the Steven King film Carie and the book I wished I had Caries powers so I do to bullys what she did at the prom . The good thing is I don’t have psychic powers as for talking to the dead you can’t and I would not even want to (If any one who I went to high school with is worried after reading this do’nt be one of the reasons I am a Catholic is because I beleve in forgiving others )
October 21st, 2009 at 8:33 am
@Brian Wood: that wouldn’t happen to be at Treasure Island (or Grand Casino?) would it?
@Stephanie M: the last advice you gave appears to have hit the nail on the head!
October 21st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
No references yet about how Guinan could tell if the timeline slipped?