On the latest episode of the Skeptics Guide podcast they were reviewing all of the psychic predictions that were made for 2007 (the hit rate was terribly low) and making their own predictions for 2008.
I thought i'd have a go as well, so here's my predictions for 2008:
1. A cyclone will narrowly miss an Australian city potentially saving the lives of millions.
2. A prominent Australian involved in the world of sport will die unexpectedly
3. Tobey Maguire will father a child.
4. Lindsay Lohan will do jail time.
5 (and a vague Nostradamus-esque one) In the place where many have died before, there will be a great thunder, 3 will make themselves notorious, and a city will burn.
What are your 'psychic' predictions for 2008?
Monday, January 7, 2008
My 'psychic' predictions for 2008
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13 comments:
Love that gypsy!
1. Australia will get fewer Olympic medals than in 2004 and the media will call for a Royal Commission.
2. Collingwood will not be in the Grand Final.
I watched that crime show with psychics last night. There is no doubt in my mind that we have these abilities and i dont see why people can be wholly sceptical just because of some charlatans. We are quick to acknowledge the savant's impossible talents, the difference being that there are not savant hotlines out there that will calculate the square root of 4.3221 while you wait.
Ok my predictions are -
Rome will once again conquer the world, except this time it will be in the form of a boy band who will knock the Beatles off the top post.
We will get higher than average rain fall in the second half of the year.
Upskirt photography will be seen as a legitimate art.
A great spiritual leader will be born (hah, try disprove this one)
Nice predictions Lee and Ganesha
On the savant's impossible talents, just like huckabee's bumble bee, if somebody can demonstrate a talent then by definition that talent can't be impossible...
in the case of a savant with extrodinary abilities, no one denies that the savant has the extraordinary ability, the mystery is over how it is that they can actually do it (what brain mechanisms etc)...
in the case of psychics, however, the doubt is whether they can actually do what it is that they say they can do (i.e., predict things that they have no direct knowledge of at a rate better than chance)...i'm really hoping that one day that someone will actually be able to demonstrate the psychic ability that they say they have under controlled conditions and win James Randi's 1 million dollars...it would be very cool...
but when claim after claim evaporates when put to any decent kind of test (and testing these things isn't that hard, there's many ways to do it...you just need some time and a wee bit of statistical knowledge), every time a new one comes along, it's like the boy who cried wolf...and so from here on, i've gotta assume that a new claim of psychic powers is false until there's a bit of (good) evidence that it's true.
oh, and i think it's also important to note that with psychic claims there's 3 possibilities:
1 - the person can actually has the ability
2 - the person is purposely fraudulent
3 - the person doesn't have the ability but for various reasons genuinely believes they do.
and that third category is probably a big one.
Watching this show last night and having two different people provide a LOT of detail and both be saying the same things is evidence enough. On top of that they were both able to find the house this girl was abducted from on their own, provide details of the abductor, initials, car type,where the car was, drug links back to the mother, method of murder, where and how she was abducted, his age, his features, the list goes on. As far as i can see there needs to be a reason for applying these skills and because of this you cannot simply set up test conditions and guauge success by statistics because it does not fit the situation. If you have any trust in this you must take into consideration that the dead person may not want to play along. I believe timing and karma are a major factor in psychics. I believe psychics are conduits and are therefore not the people you should be testing. The problem is how do you test the dead person! They are the initiators.
Its like using a funnel that gets fuel into a tank. If a car is out of fuel, you go buy the fuel and use the funnel to pour in the petrol. If the car does not start you do not blame the funnel, you look at the fuel or the car. The funnel was the least important player in this scenario. The exact same thing applies to psychics and people dont get that. This is why all these tests can disprove their ability so often with real honest to God psychics. Its the testers who have it all wrong and apply the wrong conditions for success and failure.
a) i guess i'll have to watch the show, what's it called
b) the test doesn't have to be an artifical situation....in the case of psychic investigators it can be as simple as keeping track of all their predictions and seeing how many turn out to be correct...we tend to focus on the few hits that could happen by chance and ignore all the missess
c) you can't disprove and ability, because one can never prove a negative... infact, really, in science there is no proof of anything, the best one can hope for is very strong evidence... even moderately good evidence is lacking for psychic abilities
d) i agree that tests should be flexible... a person shouldn't have to have a 100% success rate, just a rate better than chance... in the James Randi tests the applicant has to agree that the testing procedure is fair...there are many many ways to test these kinds of claims...i reckon that there's always a way to find a testing procedure that everyone can agree on before hand
Oh, and something else i just thought of...e) when testing a psychic, it's not so much about testing the person themselves, or testing the dead person who is giving them the information, it's about testing the HYPOTHESIS - the hypothesis that person x can sometimes provide information about something that they have no worldy way of knowing... I think that's an important distinction to make...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0vgZ2UNS54
LOL. I love that video! I'd not seen it before...
...and I think I understand the subtext re: this discussion....i think...
;-)
My predictions:
* Britney to end the year in a box
* John Howard to end the year in a box
* The worthless talentless host from Idol to end up in a box (a bloke can dream, right?)
* There will be a new name for global warming
* There will be outrage when Smelstra turn off CDMA
* There is only one way for petrol prices to go (up!) but not as high as the oil companies predict
* Australian and US troops to still be in Iraq at the end of the year
* Lots of people get married on 08/08/08 and the media makes a big deal about it
* Erk doesn't give a rat's arse about Nicole Kidman's impending baby
* The Olympics will not be "the Best Olympics ever" unless you watch them on TV.
Nice predictions erk. But is #9 really a prediction? ;-)
The Terrorgraph and sister papers are turning into the "Baby Herald". Who cares about half of these simpletons who are famous for doing f**k all!
I should also chuck Amy Winehouse's name into the mix with JWH and Britney.
Something catastrophic is going to happen today.
And for bonus points can you tell me where, how, and to whom?
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