Quote:
Originally Posted by old-fart
Randi just asks you to prove it, with certain controls in place to ensure no cheating. All he asks Sylvia Browne to do is 10 readings for 10 people that actually believe in her. Give him (Randi) the readings, and he'll shuffle them up then give them to the 10 people. His point is that the 10 people should be easily able to pick out which of the 10 readings are for them, but if they are so generic that they could apply to anyone (and they will be), they'll be wrong more than they are right.
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I saw a show a few years ago with Randi (I think it was him) debunking these things.
One of the things he did was go into a University class posing as a psychic and provided all of the students with a "personalized" psychic reading.
He gave every student a sealed envelope with their name on it and their reading inside. He asked them all to review their readings, and when they were done, he asked them raise their hand if they felt their reading was accurate. The majority of the class raised their hands.
Then, he asked them all to trade their "personalized" reading with another student in the class and read the other student's reading. It didn't take long for the entire class to be laughing as they realized that he just gave everyone the exact same "personalized" reading.