Psychic Detectives solve another case!

**Askthepizzaguy** · 09-01-2009, 09:45

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...lureofpsychics

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Jaycee Dugard, the woman who was abducted at the age of 11 in 1991, was recently discovered living in a virtual prison in the back yard of a couple's come in Antioch, Calif., as has been widely reported. She had been there for 18 years, confined and horrifically abused, even giving birth to her rapist's children. They were kept prisoner and isolated, never having attended school or seen a doctor.

Amazingly, a Reno psychic is now claiming the case proves the accuracy of her abilities.

Dayle Schear, who was paid by Jaycee's parents to help locate their daughter, says she told Jaycee's mother not to give up searching for her daughter: "I looked her in the eyes and I said... eventually she'll walk through the door, you're going to see her again."

Schear also claims that she correctly described the general area where Jaycee was being held. The psychic's "information" is typical of what happens when missing persons are eventually found, dead or alive. Psychics come forward years later after the person was found to make retroactive claims about how they "knew" certain pieces of information.

Yet the psychics conveniently ignore the fact that their information was either wrong or so general and vague that it was useless. If Shear's psychic powers told her that this poor girl was being kept in the most horrific conditions - being subjected to continual sexual and physical abuse for nearly two decades - then it's puzzling that Jaycee was not found 18 years ago.

What police and searchers need is not general, vague "I told you so" information after the missing person has been recovered through police work, but accurate, useful information that leads police to the victim.

One common trick psychics use to make themselves appear accurate is to give very vague information open to later interpretation (most missing persons are likely to be found "near water," even if it's a lake, puddle, river, drain, etc.). When bodies are found it is always through accident or police work. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there is not a single documented case of a missing person being found or recovered due solely to psychic information. In February 2004, Court TV launched a series about psychic detectives investigating cold cases "Haunting Evidence." The show was cancelled after three seasons, without having solved a single case.

The fact of the matter is that right now - as you are reading these words - it is virtually certain that somewhere in the world, one or more children are being held in exactly the same unimaginable conditions as Jaycee. Some may die in captivity and be disposed of like trash; others will eventually be freed after untold physical and psychological damage.

Yet there are thousands of self-proclaimed psychics and psychic detectives in the world who claim to be able to find missing persons. Some are rich and famous, such as Sylvia Browne, Allison DuBois (inspiration for the NBC show "Medium"), Noreen Renier, and Carla Baron; others are known only locally. If they have the powers they claim, perhaps they should take a break from their TV appearances and lucrative lecture circuits to actually help find these and other desperate missing persons.

Originally Posted by Article

Jaycee Dugard, the woman who was abducted at the age of 11 in 1991, was recently discovered living in a virtual prison in the back yard of a couple's come in Antioch, Calif., as has been widely reported. She had been there for 18 years, confined and horrifically abused, even giving birth to her rapist's children. They were kept prisoner and isolated, never having attended school or seen a doctor.

Amazingly, a Reno psychic is now claiming the case proves the accuracy of her abilities.

Sorry, couldn't resist...

I realize that being open minded about something ludicrous is politically correct, but why can't we celebrate and honor facts more than popular myths? Let's just talk about common sense for a moment. Never you mind the volumes upon volumes of books which are written by professional psychics which teach how you can pretend to be a psychic, which gives you a straight-from-the-source testimonial that it is all a bunch of bull, but let's play neutral for a second and pretend we don't know this already.

Each individual psychic would be making billions and billions of dollars if they really had abilities.

If I had psychic abilities, no murder case would ever go unsolved, and there would be a LOT less murders. Why? Because I'd be able to see the murder before it happens and... I dunno... prevent it. If I had psychic abilities, I would call your cell phone and warn you that a burglar was about to break into your house. You'd call 9-11 and there would NEVER BE ANY CRIME EVER AGAIN. Well, except for all the stupid criminals. But there aren't any of those, are there?

How about carbon monoxide poisoning? Well when your home is filling with a toxic, odorless gas and your entire family is in jeopardy, who are you going to call? No one. I'd call you and save your life, to do otherwise would make me a miserable human being. Eventually the government would pay me what they pay half the fire department just to keep me working to save lives.

If I were a psychic detective it wouldn't take me 18 years to "solve" a case when in this one instance out of a hundred or a thousand, the victim manages to stay alive and save herself. And if it did take me 18 years to "solve" the case, I wouldn't be proudly taking credit for it... that would go on a little pile of case files labeled "EPIC FAILURES". Man, having psychic powers and still not doing anything about 18 years of rape and abuse... what a sicko.

If this psychic was so sure that the victim was in the general area... why not start knocking on doors, you creep? Hmmm? Go find the source of the disturbance in the force, young padawan... when you single-handedly solve the case using your amazing psychic brain, you'll make freaking billions of dollars. Oh, that's on top of the billions you already made winning every lottery on earth and investing it wisely in the stock market.

Oh, and another thing... what's up with psychics dying before a ripe old age? Am I supposed to believe they are suicidal? Having ESP certainly doesn't help you diagnose your own freakin' brain cancer... you'd think seeing into the future would help you catch that stuff early.

Ok, ok, so not all psychics can see into the future. I, like the author of the above article, just have to laugh at the epic douchebaggery of someone who predicts something so entirely vague that they have a realistic chance of being correct just by dumb luck, and it still doesn't come true for 18 years. Never mind all the times they were way off the mark. We don't keep score for those psychics, do we? After all, they must not be "real" psychics if they keep guessing incorrectly. Only those out there who, out of sheer statistical probability, actually manage to predict something semi-correctly, are the "real" psychics.

But of course, after their one correct guess makes them famous... what then? Do they embark upon a career in crime solving? Have movies made about their awesome touched-by-God existence? Uh, no... they fade back into obscurity, making a living off of the poor saps who actually believe it is real, or the people who realize that at the bottom of the contract, the fine print even tells you that it is for entertainment purposes only.

I have no problem with people selling lies as entertainment. That's what politicians are for. The only thing that upsets me is when poor schmucks aren't in on the joke, and actually make life decisions based on the (expensive!) lies of other people. It upsets me when a couple of minutes aren't spent thinking critically, about how radically different the world would be if there were actual, real psychics. Or how differently the psychics would operate their business if it were real and serious stuff. Instead, you get a very expensive fortune cookie. Save a buck and get some take-out, at least then you sometimes get a tasty meal to go with your vague lie that applies to 80% of the population.

You might try calling up your local police department and asking them to connect you to the psychic detective department. Listen very carefully to the response. Ok, I lied, don't do that. You might waste someone's time who has real matters to attend to.

Let's toss another few examples on the pile...

If I were a real psychic, I would be able to prove where they are hiding the aliens that crash-landed in Nevada and conclusively prove TWO myths at the same time, thus making me the most famous human being ever to have existed. Instead of in the tabloids, it would be front-page on the New York Times: REAL PSYCHIC PROVES ALIENS EXIST!!!! SEE GRAPHIC FULL-COLOR PHOTOS INSIDE!!!

If I were a real psychic, I'd make a living finding coins that accidentally got buried, locate hidden treasure, deposits of gold in the mountains, and locate sunken Spanish galleons. I'd find the lost city of Atlantis. I'd be a psychic archaeologist! Nevermind the boring and thankless life of police detective work, I'd expand into a new field and become the world's leading archaeological expert, with a net worth of, once again, billions of dollars.

If I were a real psychic, I'd take those billions of dollars and invest them in that young man tinkering in his garage with the possibility of creating a fusion reactor, so we could convert trash, pig feces, and toxic waste into clean energy to power our homes and cars. Oh the things I would do if I were psychic.

I'd never demean myself or my abilities charging a dollar or even three or four dollars a minute for my advice. What the heck is wrong with these people? With actual, real psychic abilities I wouldn't be some nobody. No no no, you'd have HEARD about me before. Half of your family would already be aware of me. I would have my own television network, and I'd get more ratings than CNN. Why hear about news after it happens? I'd tell you when some **** was ABOUT to go down.

They'd even start some creepy cult religion devoted to me as the second coming or something, and it would blow all the other creepy cults away. I'd have more power than dictators, more money than CEO's, and I'd OWN the green revolution. Crime would cease to exist, everything that is lost would be found (yes, even that elusive sock you put in the clothes dryer) and I'd basically be immortal because I would work very hard to prevent my own death, not die like a sucker choking on a pretzel in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, gaining 400 pounds as I sit by the phone and wait for you to get drunk and call me for my psychic advice.

*whoooo*

I feel better now.

Now, it's your turn. I've said my piece. Feel free to wow me with your own personal testimonials about how a psychic saved your life, and now you call them every day to make sure something bad doesn't happen to you or your loved ones. Tell me what percentage of your disposable income is now devoted to psychics. If they are real, let's double down on that bet and make them part of our everyday life. No sense letting that money go to waste on smoke detectors, call a psychic and make sure a fire isn't going to happen this year in your house. Problem solved!

Then, on a lark, start a fire just to mess with them. I bet they didn't see it coming. The bottom line is, why on earth would you bother with any other religion when you've got a direct line to God just a phone call away? You'd think with all their real abilities, psychics would be more powerful than the Roman Catholic Church, and more dominant on this planet as a religion than Islam itself.

I predict that some of you will not find my skepticism amusing. I know this because... I'm actually psychic.