Psychics and cops

[broberfett]

What do you think of psychics? I normally think they are full of shit. They cold read people and feed them a load of BS. I'm watching this show on the ID channel. It is called Psychic Witness. The cops are talking about how a psychic helped them solve the case. One cop told how this lady picked out their top 3 suspects from ten pictures with the pictures being face down. There was no writing on the pictures. An informant later told how the 3 made plans to rob the couple that were murdered, but he refused because they were going to use a gun.

I've seen the show before and these cops don't seem like big fruit loop nut balls like the men that stare at goats. What do you think is going on with these cases?

 

[Miss Chicken]

Does the show show the cases which the psychics get wrong?

Back in 1966, when the three Beaumont children went missing in South Australia a very famous psychic, Gerard Croiset, was called in. He told police that the missing children were buried under a recently constructed warehouse. The warehouse was demolished after 40,000 was raised to compensate the owner but no trace of the children were found. Croiset son, Gerald jr, who also claimed to be a psychic, was contacted by the families of the young men whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. The information he gave didn't locate the survivors, and it was several weeks beforetwo of the survivors walked out.


How many books or shows on psychic detective shows these sorts of failures?

 

[Jadzia]

I'm open to all possibilities. But in all the years that psychics have been about doing their thing, there hasn't been any consistent success stories - just infrequent but over celebrated tales of some uncannily accurate detail amid mountains of vagueness. It isn't enough to convince me (and most other people) that they have any real ability.

Most certainly, I wouldn't take their word as sole reason to have an arrest warrant made against somebody during the course of enquiry into a crime.

How psychics describe their work, doesn't sound much different to how I can sometimes have thoughts. There's a great deal of intuition at work: that some collection of objects/information/evidence just has a feeling about it, and one can form subtle impressions about where it comes from or the owner or whatever. Sometimes it works well, other times it doesn't. Sometimes the intuition doesn't react strongly enough to give me confidence in those formed impressions.

When these psychics move beyond intuition and start saying "This felon's name started with a S. He lives in a smallish house with broken wheelbarrow/cart in the yard. There are two green budgies in the living room as well as a 50 inch television. "...
Well that just sounds ridiculous to me. And as I said at the beginning, these kinds of details are not accurate frequently enough to convince me it is anything other than just one's imagination.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't believe in psychics. I think they are all frauds.

 

[The Badger]

I have a tendency to go on about this matter, so I'll reign myself in and merely point you in this direction.
http://skepdic.com/psychdet.html

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Nostradmus is full of shit!

 

[Geckothan]

The Psi Corps is gonna get you.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I'm skeptic to the bone and I think they are full of shit.

The only one I would trust is Shawn from Psych.

 

[cultcross]

As long as you apply the ABC of investigation, no source is inherently good or inherently bad.
Assume nothing
Believe nobody
Corroborate everything (/'challenge' everything in some schools of thought )

 

[Pingfah]

I don't believe anybody can obtain knowledge of an event or person they have no connection to via anything other than tangible physical investigation.

I'm open to the possibility that there may be an extra-sensory element to intuition and instinct that we don't fully understand, but I have seen no hard evidence that would convince me of this. And I have seen plenty of evidence that these entertainment "mind readers" are frauds, manipulators and liars.

 

[cultcross]

Well what I was basically saying is not that I buy psychic investigation per sé, but if they produce information that is corroborated, checks out, and is sound, sure, that's fine by me. Whether they got it by "psychic powers" or just being intuitive and good at psychology, which is usualyl what is true of the more 'successful' psychics doesn't really matter, if it checks out.

 

[sojourner]

I don't believe in psychics. I think they are all frauds.

I knew you were going to say that!

 

[Pingfah]

Well what I was basically saying is not that I buy psychic investigation per sé, but if they produce information that is corroborated, checks out, and is sound, sure, that's fine by me. Whether they got it by "psychic powers" or just being intuitive and good at psychology, which is usualyl what is true of the more 'successful' psychics doesn't really matter, if it checks out.

Very true, and my comment wasn't directed at yours, I was just expressing my general opinion.

However, these "stick a pin in a map" kind of psychics, if that panned out, i'd be more inclined to slap the cuffs on them than anything else

 

[cultcross]

yes, I can't disagree there. "I knew where the murderer put the bodies... through psychic powers!!"

 

[Amaris]

I consider "Psychics" to be nothing more than charlatans and frauds.


J.

 

[Small White Car]

Psychics that try to involve themselves in police work are dangerous and there should be specific laws banning them.

Read that article. If it doesn't make you very, very angry you're a calmer person than I am.

I enjoy the TV show 'Medium' but I feel guilty because it glorifies a real person who is guilty of many of these things. Even when psychics aren't causing trouble (as in that first article) they're playing with people's emotions and giving them false hope during the most painful moments of their lives. They also waste police resources following leads that are based on nothing. They're horrible people.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Psychics that try to involve themselves in police work are dangerous and there should be specific laws banning them.

Read that article. If it doesn't make you very, very angry you're a calmer person than I am.

I enjoy the TV show 'Medium' but I feel guilty because it glorifies a real person who is guilty of many of these things. Even when psychics aren't causing trouble (as in that first article) they're playing with people's emotions and giving them false hope during the most painful moments of their lives. They also waste police resources following leads that are based on nothing. They're horrible people.

One woman I know was asked to travel to America as a carer for a friend with MS. The friend, who was American by birth but had lived in Australia for more than 20 years, wanted to visit his family for one last time. Without a carer he couldn't go. He was willing to pay for my friend's airfare and accomodation but he couldn't afford to pay a professional carer. At first my friend was very eager to go on the trip.

My friend went to a psychic and the psychic mentioned a 'long trip'. My friend automatically assumed that this meant the trip to America. The psychic advised her not to go. For this reason, and this reason alone, my friend refused to go on the trip. I tried to convince my friend about 'cold readings' and tricks that these psychics use but my friend refused to listen.

 

[The Badger]

As long as you apply the ABC of investigation, no source is inherently good or inherently bad.
Assume nothing
Believe nobody
Corroborate everything (/'challenge' everything in some schools of thought )

The trouble is, corroborating the claims can take up valuable time and resources.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...inquiry-after-bogus-tip-off-from-mystics.html

 

[broberfett]

Well what I was basically saying is not that I buy psychic investigation per sé, but if they produce information that is corroborated, checks out, and is sound, sure, that's fine by me. Whether they got it by "psychic powers" or just being intuitive and good at psychology, which is usualyl what is true of the more 'successful' psychics doesn't really matter, if it checks out.

Very true, and my comment wasn't directed at yours, I was just expressing my general opinion.

However, these "stick a pin in a map" kind of psychics, if that panned out, i'd be more inclined to slap the cuffs on them than anything else

One of the shows had the psychic get arrested. She was in jail for sometime before they realized she wasn't the killer.

 

[Shatmandu]

Psychics are frauds.

They're as bad as Baptists.

Joe, real