57. Psychic Detectives and Police (Podcast)

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

Ok, get to work... share the burden of proof... you think these cops are making it up, prove it... talk to the other detectives... talk to memory experts... find other physical evidence (like a copy of the ticket mentioned)... but DO something!

Alex - I like the arrangement where you do all the work and we just argue about it. You are very good at it.

[Mizzark]

Originally Posted by scomsjw

Fair enough but is this one of those cases? Surely its not unreasonable to be skeptical about the anecdotal evidence presented in this case? Are there no cases where dated transcripts of interviews held with the psychic are available to support the testimony? There is a big difference between accusing the cops of lying and simply saying that their evidence is inadequate. We don't know these people, we can't be sure how the story developed.

I don't know if this is one of the cases where we can verify any parts of the claims that are made by the people involved in this case. I will agree that without physical evidence to back up the statements and points that the people involved made you have to go through a lot of checking the points for logical consistency, analyzing what the points do and do not imply, evaluating the probability that the points are accurate given the details, logic, general probability, and other factors, etc., etc., etc. Even after all of this you may still come to the conclusion that certain points and statements have a truth value that is inconclusive. (this may even be the case most of the time) However, this case may be one of the ones that we can determine that the main points (or even all of the points) are correct and that all of the people involved are telling the truth. I will agree that without the transcript, audio, video, or some other sort of physical evidence the rigorous reasoning process to try to verify what these people say should begin, and that we should not just believe what they say without gaining good reason to believe what they say through this process. My main point was that it irritates me that so many skeptics, lacking some sort of physical evidence, want to simply throw out all anecdotes without even trying to determine whether or not these people are telling the truth.

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by Mizzark

My main point was that it irritates me that so many skeptics, lacking some sort of physical evidence, want to simply throw out all anecdotes without even trying to determine whether or not these people are telling the truth.

Fair enough. I was hoping that Alex might find a case with solid, physical evidence. If I could be persuaded by one such case that would cause me to regard anecdotal evidence in other cases more sympathetically. I'm certainly not a hard-line skeptic looking for reasons to dismiss the case but over the years I have heard many arguments from (for example) mormons that you can prove someone's testimony is true simply by thinking about the type of person they were and the circumstances under which they made their claim. These arguments can be very persuasive but you can't beat a solid piece of physical evidence.

[Vissud]

Originally Posted by Mizzark

I think that you're being disrespectful. All I was really saying is that there are some times when you can verify that a person is probably telling the truth even without physical evidence. I gave a few examples of that. Rather than trying to rebut those examples you just dismissed everything I said as being "a lot of blather about nothing." Just like you skeptics love to just dismiss all anecdotes as unable to verify anything without trying to rebut them...

Didn't mean to be disrespectful, but you went on an irrelevant tangent not pertinent to this case. All we have are recollections of 25 year old events, which are wholly inadequate. Also, you make a straw man argument about "truth". It's not about truth, it's about accuracy. I don't think the detectives are lying, I think they are mistaken and have subconsciously added to the tale over the years.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Vissud

We don't believe that memory is very malleable, we accept that it is.

Who is this 'we'? Which skeptic group do you belong to?

If you mean 'we' in the sense of skeptics as a group mind, do you guys share telepathy or what? How do you know you all agree?

Some savants/autisic/mentally handcapped people have astonishing memories ... so perhaps it is not that memories are stored inaccurately (somewhere), just not recalled . Therefore *if* accurate memory recall is the best modeller of physical reality, why wasn't this of more evolutionary advantage over imperfect memory recall? Any chance the brain is filtering long-term memories? And if so, why would a brain filter a brain to have imperfect memory?

[Vissud]

This is irrelevant to this case.

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Who is this 'we'? Which skeptic group do you belong to?

If you mean 'we' in the sense of skeptics as a group mind, do you guys share telepathy or what? How do you know you all agree?

Some savants/autisic/mentally handcapped people have astonishing memories ... so perhaps it is not that memories are stored inaccurately (somewhere), just not recalled . Therefore *if* accurate memory recall is the best modeller of physical reality, why wasn't this of more evolutionary advantage over imperfect memory recall? Any chance the brain is filtering long-term memories? And if so, why would a brain filter a brain to have imperfect memory?

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Vissud

This is irrelevant to this case.

Well, not entirely, it is better to discuss these matters clearly. Unless you have a poor grasp of English, belong to the Royal Family, or belong to a group of like minded individuals, you used the wrong word!

On the subject matter, I would suggest you start examining the case for psi by looking at experiments - not at these cases, interesting though they are.

David

[scomsjw]

Originally Posted by Vissud

I don't think the detectives are lying, I think they are mistaken and have subconsciously added to the tale over the years.

I think this possibility has to be taken very seriously. Lots of people, including me, have a number of stories to tell that are not accurate but aren't lies either. You start off with an astonishing coincidence that excites your imagination. You talk about it a lot - think about the possible implications and get even more excited. You tell and re-tell the story. Sometimes you tell people who are sceptical and you find yourself taking a slightly harder line. Slowly, or sometimes quite quickly, you have taken ownership of a version of the story that is not an accurate account of what happened but feels right to you. If you have never experienced this you might find it hard to believe but it's happened to me. I have told a number of stories over the years about ghost-sightings from my youth, the experience of being hypnotised, an out of body experience and various types of religious experience. I recognise now that most of these stories originated in my highly-stimulated imagination and the delight of having a fascinating anecdote to tell. I don't believe I was being deliberately deceitful at any time.

[pacificwhim]

This is getting really bloody irritating, so I'm going to step in and make some points that I feel need to be made. First of all, there's nothing wrong with being a skeptic and the folks posting here who are making valid, rational, skeptical points about written transcripts don't deserve to be piled upon. Remember, there's a difference between reasonable "show me the evidence" skepticism (which we should encourage) and "It's not possible, you're deluded" pseudoskepticism, which is dishonest and fraudulent. It's also not reasonable to be such a credulous believer that one says, "That's it! We have police interviews! Case closed! If you don't believe it's 100% proved, you're out of line!"

Now, to the interviews and evidence. I'm an investigative journalist, so I engage regularly in exactly the kind of investigations that Alex has been engaging in, mostly based on interviews with people whose memories are of varying quality. While I agree that transcripts would be quite desirable in this case, I also note that in my experience (and you could corroborate this with other journalists as well as attorneys) the memories of law enforcement officers tend to be excellent (that's one of the reasons they did well as officers). Cops tend to have great memories for detail and for important cases that happened even decades before. The fact that these gentlemen corroborate each other's stories about an incident that was so otherwise insignificant (not resulting in the solving of a major case) indicates to me that they would not likely have conspired to fabricate their stories.

Not ironclad evidence, and I certainly see that not having anything written gives the debunkers all the opening they need to give it a thumbs down, but I give the testimony a great deal of weight. Now, is there any chance of any written support at all? A police log? A newspaper article from the local paper?

[Edgar]

I find it "bloody irritating" taht you call me a "credulous believer". We have the testimony of TWO COPS and the PSYCHIC herself. And they agree on everything. What do you have? NOTHING!