Psychics used to find missing children

[jclalor 12]

Police searching for a missing 8 year old Tracy CA girl are now investigating leads provided by psychics. What a complete waste of time that could be spent on other stronger leads.

There is nothing more pathedic than when a child goes missing and these parasites come out of thier holes and give false hope to families and interfere with the police.

It's hard to beleive that in 2009 parts of this country tolerate middle age thinking.





http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_12055833?source=most_viewed

[shropshire 0]

If these people had real 'powers' they would be winning the lotto every weekend and spending all their time in Las Vagas... It's all bunkum.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[jakee 1,255]

Egotistical, self-serving, publicity seeking, fraudulent, lying cunt bastards.

The only thing this idiotic nonsense ever achieves is to waste resources and get in the way of the real investigation. Fucking psychics and mediums are bad enough when they're just leaching a living off other people's grief like low-life emotional parasites but this shit is unforgiveable.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[shropshire 0]

Haaa Jakee.... don't sit on the fence on this one mate

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[NovaTTT 1]

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Egotistical, self-serving, publicity seeking,
fraudulent, lying cunt bastards.

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I knew you were going to say that.

"Even in a world where perfection is unattainable, there's still a difference between excellence and mediocrity." Gary73

[Andy9o8 0]

From the article, it doesn't appear that the police are "using psychics"; they are simply following-up on all leads, including those supplied by so-called psychics. The only specific mention of psychics in the article is this sentence: "Tracy police Lt. Jeremy Watney said that each tip — 'from videotapes to psychics' — is being followed up by investigators."

I agree that so-called psychics coming out of the woodwork are assholes. Unfortunately, the police have no choice but to follow up those "leads", too, not because the police have some hope that the psychics really can mentally divine the truth, but because someone with genuine information (or even a perp) may be providing clues under the guise of being a psychic.

[jclalor 12]

The article states they are following leads from psychics, a pol;icy that the vast majority of law enforcment do not do. Law enforcement realize psychics are a complete waste of resourses. Police do have a choice in ignoring leads from people deemed unreliable, they do it every day.

[Andy9o8 0]

Well, to avoid getting bogged down parsing the word "choice", of course police exercise investigative judgment on a case-by-case, item-by-item basis all the time. I think when police choose to follow up on a "psychic's" lead, they do so principally out of practical, and not supernatural, considerations.

[georgerussia 0]

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Police searching for a missing 8 year old Tracy CA girl are now investigating leads provided by psychics. What a complete waste of time that could be spent on other stronger leads.

I usually say all psychics should be licensed, and the licensing process should include a simple test. Each psychic should win a state lottery three times in a row - guessing numbers should definitely be much simpler than find a missing human body. And a license would cost 1M a year, which obviously shouldn't be a problem for someone who could just sit on a blackjack table and make this money in ten minutes using his psychic power.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[philh 0]

Whilst I think all pyshics are full of shit , probably not all are liars. It wouldnt suprise me if many of them end believing their own nonsense via confirmation bias. They remember their hits and forget their misses, they mistake their ability to cold read people for genuine pyshic powers and they end up convincing themselves of their powers.

I think those of us whoa re skeptics need to be a bit more understanding of these people. if we call them all liars, those that go to see them and feel they are trust worthy will not pay attention to us. The problem is often that pyshics are too trustworthy, they trust in their powers without skeptically examining why they often do get hits . Critical thinking education is our only hope hear. Skeptics guide top 20 logical fallacies and similar issues should be taught in schools everywhere:

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx

My favourite pyshcic incident by the way was when Sylvia Brown told worreid parents that their child was dead , she went with the odds becuase he had been mising for many years, he turned up alive but that didnt dent her blief in hher own nonsense.

[shropshire 0]

Now I see the problem, there was a typo in the title
I feel a lot better now.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Skyrad 0]

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What a complete waste of time that could be spent on other stronger leads.

If they have other leads, if not....Straw floats

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[JackC 0]

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Whilst I think all pyshics are full of shit , probably not all are liars. It wouldnt suprise me if many of them end believing their own nonsense via confirmation bias. They remember their hits and forget their misses, they mistake their ability to cold read people for genuine pyshic powers and they end up convincing themselves of their powers.

I know a couple of psychics very well and I don't think they knowingly lie about their abilities, or at least they genuinely believe their powers are real. But I have noticed that psychics are generally quite nosey and have a gift for getting people to open up to them. In fact, they'll do all of the classic cold reading techniques without even noticing that they're doing it. But when they come up against someone who clams up and doesn't give them any feedback, their powers usually come to a shuddering halt. They rely on feedback, spoken and unspoken to confirm their readings so cutting them off or redirecting them is pretty easy. Stage magicians who have studied and perfected cold reading techniques usually out-perform the real psychics by a wide margin simply because they understand this mechanism.

[pirana 0]

Everyone that believes in psychokinesis, please raise my hand.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[Hipwrddude 0]

To date, there hasn't been a single documented case of a psychic finding a child or solving a murder. They have created reasonable hunches that lead to nowhere, but never has a psychic produced information directly or indirectly solving a kidnapping or murder. When it comes to those crimes, why leave a stone unturned?

You're always the starter in your own life!

[MagicGuy 0]

Being someone who has a reasonable background in cold-reading techniques and other various methods that 'psychics', mentalists and magicians alike use, I think it's a bunch of horse shit that any type of law enforcement would waste their time going along with it.

It's understandable that they would want to follow and look into any leads that they come across, but there's got to be a line drawn somewhere.

There is a phenomenon out there that has happened to a few people who believe that they are psychics. They start by getting a few simple things right, usually by the means of cold-reading while not even realizing that they are doing it, and it ends up confirming to themselves that they are indeed, psychics. Thus begins the shitshow...

It's a very touchy subject. I am entertained when I watch people like Lisa Williams. She is good at what she does, but it sucks to see these people that believe in it, or I guess want to believe in it, so much.. it's kind of sad. The fact that some families are out there possibly getting there hopes up so high that Ms. Psychic Lady is going to find their missing child is a really unfortunate circumstance.