Psychics’ skills rely on lucky guesses, probability

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - 2:21 AM

Barry Belmont

At the beginning of every year, self-professed psychics make claims about what is going to occur in the upcoming year. These predictions range from the ridiculous (a major celebrity will be cloned) to the mundane (there will be new medical breakthroughs) to the vague-enough-to-always-be-true (Obama will have a harder time this year than last).

With nearly 20 percent of this year gone and nothing but the meekest of evidence supporting any number of the millions of predictions made, why does anyone in today’s society believe in psychic abilities?

There are two main reasons: confirmation bias and the Law of Large Numbers. These two pervasive forms of sloppy thinking in conjunction with “cold-reading” techniques lead many people to be deceived by psychic claims.

People tend to notice and look for evidence that supports their beliefs while ignoring and undervaluing all evidence held against that position. Conservative Republicans only reading conservative Republican blogs or watching conservative television (hence the joke of “Fixed News”) would be an example of a confirmation bias.

People also fail to realize how present coincidence is in our daily lives. Most of us are shocked to meet someone who has the same birthday as us, but in a football stadium of 50,000 fans, almost everyone is likely to share a birthday with roughly 135 other people. Even things with million-to-one odds should happen thousands of times a day on a planet of billions of people.

To test these claims, the magician James “The Amazing” Randi has a $1,000,000 prize for any person who can in any way prove the validity of their paranormal claims under controlled circumstances. Many psychics have tried and failed. But there are a few big name psychics such as John Edward, Rosemary Altea and Sylvia Browne who absolutely refuse to be tested in any way.

Many psychics claim they don’t need the money, which is about as weak as any excuse could be for not taking the test, passing it and taking the million dollars. If they don’t need the money, why don’t they just pass the test and give it all to charity?

The reason is clear, unless the above has been too subtle. All psychics are deluded, frauds, cheats or all of the above. There is no such thing as psychic abilities. There is no positive, scientific evidence whatsoever to prove the validity of psychic claims (even after the 20 million dollars worth of research conducted by the CIA in the ‘70s and ‘80s). There are no psychics, only liars.

For any of you who think you’re psychic and want to prove me wrong I pose to you Barry Belmont’s $100 challenge: I have a sealed envelope on my desk with a number written on it, large and legible. Use any psychic technique to figure out what it is. If you get it right, you get $100 cash, and I will admit I am wrong.

Barry Belmont will give you a hint and say that the number is between 1 and 100. He studies biology and mechanical engineering. Reach him at perspectives@nevadasagebrush.com.