Can you give us a few specific examples?

As for horse race results, I know how to “predict” the winners of all but one race at a race meeting, and possibly all of them…

Agitprop like in the video would work better as a visible public event, rather than presented to a small and already-convinced group of people.

I have a sense of humour RobT (#43), I just didn’t think it was funny. I work in the entertainment industry and I just found it a bit … high school-ish. As a PR stunt it might work on a local/small level; as entertainment it’s amateur night. I’ve seen plenty of great satire on science/educational topics that is more fun than this. (Maybe I have high standards, but then I’ve seen a lot of crap being passed off as ‘good’ entertainment.)

JB #51,

I have dispaired of “Gem”. This is the channel where psychic shows, paranormal crap, and other such things, continue to live on. It’s like Channel Nine is deliberately putting all the woo in one place. If you look at the rest of the content, it’s clear their target audience is young women, which says a lot about why they’d put the woo there.

Oddly enough, a recent Green Guide had a review of “The One” which certainly poked fun at the whole idea; although also making it sound like it came with a “for entertainment purposes” disclaimer like astrology.

What is the official skeptics’ answer to Edgar Caycee? I know that his Doomsday predictions were wrong, but how is the channeling part, in which he describes surgical procedures, and how they should be performed explained? And predict horse race results?
Not a believer, just wonderin’ about that one thing…or two.

just stare at them next for awhile. When they ask “May I help you?” Just tell them “Wow, some psychics you are.” and storm off.

There are no words in the English language to adequately convey how much I love this idea.

What kind of sick greedy bastard preys on grieving parents? For MONEY!

Psychics do not exist. No “probably” about it.

Personally, while it would obviously be the correct way to validate/invalidate psychic claims scientifically, I don’t think that trying to get psychics to subject themselves to study is the best way to demonstrate their fraudulence. As James Randi himself has said, the non-delusional “psychics” who know they are frauds — who are also the most successful at convincing others of their “power” — will never go anywhere near his foundation. And their refusal doesn’t really do anything to help, since a lot of these charlatans don’t need the money and can make whatever claims they want about why it wouldn’t work anyway (Randi’s a gay atheist which everyone knows nullifies psychic powers).

To me, the best way to demonstrate what frauds these people are is for people who have the same real-life skills, like James Randi or Penn & Teller, to demonstrate “psychic” powers to people and then explain how they did it. While some people will always believe that sure maybe Penn isn’t really psychic but James van Praagh is, others are really just being bamboozled by something amazing with no other apparent explanation than what the psychic is claiming — something highly improbable, but maybe not impossible. But when I saw Penn in a live show perform an amazing act of “mind reading”, which he then explained away as some simple cold reading tricks and the improbable but mundane ability to memorize the contents of about a dozen joke books, I thought this has to convince some people. It’s a trick, maybe a complicated and cunning one, but a trick anyway. It only seems like magic if you don’t know that.

Maybe I’m overestimating the number of people who respond, but I’m sure it’s going to get to more people than an unanswered challenge.

I am not sure if “fun” is the ultimate reason that the video was made. As I sit here and think about my neighbors and my family and society in general and about what they truly believe to be part of reality I think the JREF probably thinks the same thing. . . its sad, truly truly sad.
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I think when up against such fraud one has to become creative. Creative to stay sane and creative to reach the target audience, everyone who believes JVP is for real. Whether the video “is” good for that cause I cannot say but I believe it is.

For the ones who think its not a good way to fight insanity; what the video does do is bring attention, whether good or bad again I cannot say, but I can say that in this world today bad/good attention sometimes does not matter, it is purely the attention which matters.

They would’ve had to have some gumption to go in there. It looked like there was a room full of people expecting something supernatural and possibly looking for some sort of closure that must be paid for with cash. That’s a tough tough room & even if JREF was there for JVP you cant tell me that they weren’t trying to get a point across to more than just him.

I don’t know how much money JVP makes, if any, but fraud needs to be challenged on all fronts in a myriad of ways. There is no “one perfect way” to persuade the masses. After all the people skeptics are trying to convince of the truth are not particularly scientific, and this method might appeal to them as crazy and therefore maybe understandable.

I think a good serious challenge and debunking should come first, but after awhile if the people are still being tricked. . . anything is game and in this case helpfully so IMO.

btw, Gore didn’t claim he invented the internet–that’s an urban legend.

“If it’s a “Psychic Fair”, why do you need to advertise? Wouldn’t everyone just “know”?

The Psychics know, but they want non-psychics to know—there aren’t enough psychics to fill the coffers so they need ‘norms’ (or should that read ‘suckers’?). Besides, there are many flavours of psychics, most of them can’t foresee events. That deer-in-the-headlights look you get is probably the type of look biologists get when someone asks them, If man evolved from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?

‘Ghettimonster, but I can imagine how that will go.

JVP: “James says ‘banana’.”

JREF: “Nope.”

JVP: “No, I mean, er, ‘password’.”

JREF: “Not even close.”

JVP: “Er, I mean, ‘Rumplestiltskin’. Yeah, that’s what he’s saying.”

JREF: “We’ll be going now.”

JVP: “password01?”

You have my sympathies.

My wife and I lost a son at 37 weeks gestation. Does Mr van Praagh claim to be able to talk to such people? What about at earlier stages of gestation?

Because with all dead, there’s usually only one thing that you can do.

…

Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

Also, as someone who has lost a child, these %$#&!s really piss me off. Had any approached me after losing my son I most certainly would have gone to jail.

Or not.