Thursday, February 28, 2019

Psychic debunking discussed

For some reason, I've come across a few different places discussing the debunking of psychics:

* the New York Times Magazine section has a feature article describing the ways groups have "stung" celebrity psychics, mainly by setting up detailed, fake Facebook accounts and then "registering" as audience members at psychic shows.  All very interesting, and well worth cleaning your cache to read!

Michael Prescott looked at an old 1995 book by James Randi and finds it underwhelming.  (I've always been a bit leery of Randi, even though he's probably right 95% of the time.)

*  John Oliver has also devoted a large part of his show to debunking psychics.  Unfortunately, HBO geoblocks it to Australia, but I have found a low res version of the episode that someone has put up.  Haven't watched it yet, but he is always pretty good (I just wish he swore less):






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