54. Skeptic Ben Radford, Police & Psychic Detectives (Podcast)

[Im a Hedge]

Originally Posted by Solar

So which is it, the police result or the quality of the information that's important? he can't have it both ways...

I think he can have it both ways, as the two things are not mutually exclusive. I understand him to be saying two things.
1. The information provider by Renier was not very impressive.
2. The information provided by Renier did not help the police find the body.

I can understand differences of opinion on point 1. I fail to see how there can be any disagreement about point 2. Consider:

A. Noreen Renier provided information to the police.
B. The police did not find the body.
Therefore,
C. The information provided by Noreen Renier did not help the police find the body.

If someone can point out the flaw in that logic, please do. I don't see it. In order for something to have helped police find the body, it would be necessary for the police to have found the body.

I don't know precisely what claim Ben Radford was challenging. If the claim was "Noreen Renier helped the police find the body of Charles Capel", then I would say that claim has been debunked. If the claim is more general, along the lines of "Noreen Renier provided accurate information", or "Noreen Renier assisted police in the search", then I would agree that these claims have not necessarily been debunked.

As I commented in the other thread on this topic, I don't think psi proponents should feel the need to go to the wall for this case. This was selected by Ben Radford as a poor example, not selected by Alex as a good example. I think it would be reasonable for psi proponents to acknowledge that the case is not very good, and try to point out more compelling cases, rather than try to defend this one. If you must defend this case, I think the strongest argument you could make would be that Renier's information could have helped solve the case. It seems to be indisputable, as a simple factual matter, that the information did not actually help solve the case.


(I also commented in the other thread that I wasn't getting involved in this issue, but here I am...)

I am a Hedge

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Im a Hedge

I think he can have it both ways, as the two things are not mutually exclusive.

I think Solar is making a different point than the one you are responding to... he says:

... whether or not the police found the body...has no real bearing on Renier's information... [results] can't be focused on the police's ability to utilize the information, as this is totally independent of the psychic... I'm sure he doesn't use this police based argument in cases where the body IS found

In other words, if the police find the body with poor clues from the psychic detective Skeptics would not judge the psychic more accurate.

And, come on... you know that's totally true.

[Im a Hedge]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

I think Solar is making a different point than the one you are responding to... he says:

... whether or not the police found the body...has no real bearing on Renier's information... [results] can't be focused on the police's ability to utilize the information, as this is totally independent of the psychic... I'm sure he doesn't use this police based argument in cases where the body IS found

In other words, if the police find the body with poor clues from the psychic detective Skeptics would not judge the psychic more accurate.

And, come on... you know that's totally true.

Having re-read Solar's post, I still think (s)he's claiming that Radford cannot consider both the quality of the information and the police result. (S)He seems to imply that Radford must choose one or the other of these. (Solar, please correct me if I have misunderstood your point.) I think (s)he also is making the point that you cite.

I think you're both right that Radford wouldn't be more convinced of Renier's capabilities if the police had found the body. He would have had to focus all of his criticism on the quality of the information provided. I don't agree that this would be an example of moving the goalposts, as he does include such criticisms in addition to the fact that the body was not found by the police. I think the fact that the police didn't find the body is not necessarily relevant to the question of Renier's abilities. It could be possible to explain this simply by assuming incompetence by the police.

Radford seems to have been initially responding to a claim that Renier helped the police find the body. If this is the case, it is legitimate for him to argue that she did not help. I would agree with him on this point, for the reasons I gave in my post above.

I am a Hedge

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Im a Hedge

Radford seems to have been initially responding to a claim that Renier helped the police find the body. If this is the case, it is legitimate for him to argue that she did not help.

Thanks for the post... I think Ben has created a straw man here... Renier never made this claim.

[TrentV74]

Hi everyone, nice to be here. I hope this isn't too intense for a first post, but here I go....

As an actual Police Detective, I feel the need to speak up here and tell something of what is actually useful to Detective conducting an investigation.

What a Detective looks for is a strange thing called 'evidence'. an individual piece of evidence can be used to prove an individual fact like that a person was at a certain location (Fingerprints, DNA, etc) or that the person saw or did a certain thing (Statement, records of interview).

All of the individual pieces of evidence are put together in an investigation, and it (hopefully) shows parts of a sequence of events that comprise the circumstances of the crime. If the evidence fits a version that supports a reasonable belief that a specific person committed the crime, a decision to charge that person with a crime may be made. There are a lot of legal rules and case law to decide if the belief is reasonable, and after that a jury decides if there is any reasonable doubt at all about the version of events leading to the charges.

Note that the Detective's own individual belief plays no part of this process, only what is legally considered to be a reasonable believe (by the mythical reasonable, ordinary person).

For a psychic to be actually useful to a police investigation, they would need to provide information to locate a useful clue that provides a part of the picture that can be used before the truth is known.

When it comes to skepticism, police are no different to any other person out there. Some of us believe in psychics, tarot, ESP, ghosts, etc, and are just as vulnerable to self delusion and the various other ways that people believe in nonsense. We can even be tricked by magicians and mentalist... (not me of course)

As to whether or not Noreen Reiner's information about a missing and deceased man was remarkable - Here's what she says from the Transcript

“She said he went out the driveway and turned left and walked down a lane with a fence line,” he said. “She said there was a tower with an antenna on top of it.”

Renier had also mentioned a large stone, a creek and a wooded area.

She states she knew nothing but whether the case was a missing person or homicide, the person's first name and only had an opportunity to handle a few objects: When the police spoke to her about asking about her services, they had to have announced their particular department and location. What's more reasonable to believe - She used psychic information to find out details about the man including his name, the fact that he suffered from Autism, and his previous profession; or a quick sly google search to locate several of numerous news reports indicating these details and that that particular department had been desperately looking for for so long?

Given this information (either psychic obtained or mundanely obtained), I need no special powers to deduce that an missing elderly alzheimers patient will have gotten no further than walking distance - say 8-10 minutes - before falling or other suffering a mortal injury.

Likewise, no special power is needed to deduce that a person not located after months of frantic searching will be found in an area of vegetation, rather than an open area that may or may not exist nearby.

Throw in a few generic landmarks, say a tower with an antenna (notice she doesn't specify a cell phone tower, or Radio broadcast tower, Radio Telescope), a unspecifiably large rock (a Fist sized rock seems big among pebbles, or does she mean a man sized boulder, Ayers Rock even?) that would be just so unusual amongst undergrowth, a lane with a fence (again how strange to find a fenced lane within walking distance of a house?)Add the ever present body of water, and you've got a story that might convince a Sergeant, fitting these pieces of information to the situation after the facts are really known, and not thinking terribly critically, that this information describes the bodies location with remarkable accuracy.

As a matter of fact down the end of my street there are a few sandstone rocks about the size of basketballs near a driveway. Nearby is a power line tower with a few antenna looking appendages. There's even a bit of bushland around a creek - her information would justify a search of my street in the completely wrong country of Australia.

I choose to think a Google search (I know that Google exists) is a far more likely source of the her information than any psychic power (Something that may or may not exist, despite my desire to find a real example)

Reiner claims to have worked on many investigations, yet she doesn't identify any of them or how her info 'cracked the case'. Maybe if she offered some supernaturally obtained information during these that actually helped the police find a clue before knowing the truth or something after the fact that can't be so easily and mundanely found or deduced I'll start to think she may have something special to see.

Trent

[Open Mind]

Welcome Trent,

I suggest you look upon 'psychics' just like psychological profilers that the police already use to try and increase the odds of solving a case, particularly cases that have ran out of the 'normal' type of leads.

The psychics may often be wrong, just like psychological profiler will often be wrong. Even if a psychic is only beating the odds say 10% above chance expectation, surely that in combination could increase the odds of a difficult case being solved?

Of course there are many organized skeptic groups that are telling the media and public that there is no evidence for psychic phenomena, ever ... lets just say that if the controlled lab evidence (or field report evidence by multiple esteemed witnesses) over the past 80 years were taken to court, the skeptical revisionists would almost certainly lose the court case.

[Mizzark]

Originally Posted by TrentV74

Note that the Detective's own individual belief plays no part of this process, only what is legally considered to be a reasonable believe (by the mythical reasonable, ordinary person).

I don't believe this. The beliefs of the individuals running the system always influence how someone runs the system - in any system. Hell, the United States has an unconstitutional monetary system but since no one running the government wants to abide by the United States Constitution, in this respect, the unconstitutional monetary system keeps on flowing. What's written down on a piece of paper doesn't mean a damn if the people running the system don't believe in that which is written on that paper.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by TrentV74

Hi everyone, nice to be here. I hope this isn't too intense for a first post, but here I go....

As an actual Police Detective, I feel the need to speak up here and tell something of what is actually useful to Detective conducting an investigation...
Trent

I have to side with the cops who were on the scene dealing with the situation from day 1. I just don't accept the inference that these guys couldn't tell whether the clues matched the specifics of the case.

It seems like your falling into the everyone-but-the-skeptic-is-an-idiot trap.

I mean, come on, how hard is it to tell if the clues were just general kinda info about the area, versus useful information... it just ain't that hard... you could do it... I could do it... and the Oxford police did it!

[TrentV74]

Thank you for the welcome everyone.

Originally Posted by Mizzark

I don't believe this. The beliefs of the individuals running the system always influence how someone runs the system - in any system. Hell, the United States has an unconstitutional monetary system but since no one running the government wants to abide by the United States Constitution, in this respect, the unconstitutional monetary system keeps on flowing. What's written down on a piece of paper doesn't mean a damn if the people running the system don't believe in that which is written on that paper.

I can believe anything I want in an investigation, but unless that belief can be backed up by evidence that solidly backs up my belief, it's useless to successfully prosecuting an offender at the end of an investigation.

What poor and unreasonable beliefs can do is cause investigations to follow useless and time wasting paths. This is what I believe to be the biggest problem with psychic 'detectives' assisting police, especially during the critical first few days of an investigation.

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

I have to side with the cops who were on the scene dealing with the situation from day 1. I just don't accept the inference that these guys couldn't tell whether the clues matched the specifics of the case.

It seems like your falling into the everyone-but-the-skeptic-is-an-idiot trap.

I mean, come on, how hard is it to tell if the clues were just general kinda info about the area, versus useful information... it just ain't that hard... you could do it... I could do it... and the Oxford police did it!

Alex, I agree that the information she provided did match the area where the body was found. The problem I have is that it also matches the description of so many other areas, the end of my street included.

Was it useful? You seem to justify that it was, on the strength that police conducted further (and unsuccessful) searches of the local area around the man's address.

I'm sorry, but I don't really agree with you on this point. The basic facts of the case establish that the most likely scenario is that he wandered off, and died in a hidden place within walking distance. First they searched this nearby area where he was most likely to be found, but difficult to locate. Then they started looking at the less likely scenarios that he was further away, had returned to old places, etc.

After months of fruitless searches, no luck - then they decide to try the psychic. Her information provided no unique and specific information to allow the police to cut the search area down any more than the most likely area. It just gave them an excuse to conduct yet another search.

She may have been provided her information by a psychic source, but it did nothing more than give them a suggestion to search the most likely and difficult to search area one more time. She provided no information about a distinctive or specific landmark. Nor was she even able to be specific with distances from, or more unique descriptions of the generic landmarks that she did describe.

I really don't believe that people who believe in supernatural things are idiots, I would find a psychic partner welcome and a great help in my investigations. I am just trying to show that, whether her source of information was magical or mundane, it was really useless to the police desperately searching for the missing man.

Trent

[Mizzark]

Originally Posted by TrentV74

I can believe anything I want in an investigation, but unless that belief can be backed up by evidence that solidly backs up my belief, it's useless to successfully prosecuting an offender at the end of an investigation.

Not if you have a prosecutor and judge that believe the same thing that you believe and are willing to supercede those laws that were written down.