In a welcome break from some of the usual credulousness that seems to permeate the modern media landscape regarding all things paranormal, recently ABC News did an episode of “Beyond Belief” on the topic of psychics and mediums. Titled “Can Psychics Really Talk to the Dead?”, the episode focused upon famed dead-talker James Van Praagh. The interview of Van Praagh by Josh Elliot is excellent, as Elliot is respectful but appropriately skeptical of Van Praagh’s claims, especially when he conducts a bit of a deeper investigation beyond simply swallowing Van Praagh’s parlor act whole. In the interview, Elliot even nails Van Praagh for using time-tested tricks such as cold reading…
Another well-done segment in the show focused on the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Million Dollar Challenge to anyone who can display, under a properly controlled setting, evidence of supernatural or paranormal abilities. It is important to note that in the following video, all of the claimants agreed to the conditions of the tests they underwent before the tests took place. After agreeing to these conditions, it is telling that upon seeing their obvious failure, the psychics still insisted they had legitimate psychic powers and also complained about how the test “wasn’t fair” (even though they agreed it was fair before they failed). Take a look at this segment at this link (it’s the video at the bottom of the article).
So, even though they agreed to the test ahead of time, were fully informed of the conditions of the test and what was required to declare success and the million dollars, and the fact they were predicting (quite confidently in some cases) that they were “sure to win the money”, they all failed – and failed spectacularly. But then they turn around and blame the skeptics for not making the test fair; I’m sure that if they had won the million dollars they’d be saying the test was fair!
To read more about the entire show and get a skeptical perspective on how it went, check out the JREF’s blog post on the matter.
The Skeptical Teacher 