69. Psychic Detective Smackdown, Ben Radford (Podcast)

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by B Radford

As I stated before, I am not interested in discussing or debating anything about Ray Hyman, Randi, CSICOP, Project Stargate, Richard Wiseman, Pakistani curry recipes, NASCAR trivia, golf tips, or anything else with you.

Readers should take this smokescreen reply to mean the editor of Skeptical Inquirer, Ben Radford cannot justify his prior comments on Stargate remote viewing project and is unwilling to correct errors.

Of course if Ben accepts there was decent evidence for trained Stargate remote viewers beating chance expectation under strict controls, then he has to question his lack of skepticism/doubt that psychic detectives never provide useful information...... but he is unwilling to go there .... it is not his job to there ... it is his job to oppose psi claims.

[Ersby]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Readers should take this smokescreen reply to mean the editor of Skeptical Inquirer, Ben Radford cannot justify his prior comments on Stargate remote viewing project and is unwilling to correct errors.

I think we can take it to mean in a thread about psychic detectives, he wants to talk about psychic detectives.

OM, you've been on the internet long enough to know how frustrating it is when someone derails a thread. If you want to talk about Stargate, you can start a new thread.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by B Radford

Nancy Weber claimed to have psychically "known" accurate information about Amie Hoffman's murder that wasn't reported in the newspapers. In fact, she made this claim on at least three different occasions, including on the Psychic Investigators TV show:

1) In her book Psychic Detective, Weber states, “The next day I went out to my driveway to pick up my newspaper, and read, ‘Body of Amy [sic] Hoffman found in a water tank in a wooded area of Randolph.’ As I read the account it went on to say the body was fully clothed and there was no indication of rape or any marks on the body.”

2) Weber repeated the statement in my interview with her: “I read the local newspaper because it happened to a local event where they said her body was found and they could not determine the cause. And I thought, that is a pack of lies.”

3) In an interview on the Skeptiko podcast (episode 77), Weber told Alex Tsakiris, “I knew the newspapers reported Amie’s body was found clothed and they couldn’t determine death. That’s the truth.”


Actually, that’s not the truth.

In my research of newspaper archives, I found that the day after Hoffman’s body was found, November 26, the press did indeed report that she had obvious wounds that caused her death: The New York Times quoted a Detective Lieut. James McLagan as saying “She was stabbed to death,” adding that Hoffman had several wounds; and the front page of the Daily Record (a newspaper Weber read and which she reprints in her book) stated that Hoffman had “been stabbed several times in the chest and other parts of the body."

So why did Weber claim that the newspapers reported that there were no marks on Amie's body and the cause of death was unknown?

Weber was reporting details about Hoffman's murder that she had read on the front page of the local newspaper and/or in The New York Times, and then presented it to Moore and Hughes (and Alex) as information that she only could have known about using her psychic abilities. This is a fact provable to anyone who looks at the newspapers for that date. Here are the complete references, check for yourselves:

Orlandi, Lorraine. 1982. “Missing cheerleader found dead.” Daily Record, November 26, A-1.

“Missing Jersey cheerleader is found stabbed to death.” 1982. The New York Times, November 26.

You're off the mark again, Ben. If you go back and listen to the interviews with Nancy and with Lt. Hughes you'll remember that the salient point here was the brutal sexual assault. This was not reported in the newspaper, or known by police (according to Hughes).

Also, can you please provide the full text from the article in the local NJ paper.

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

You're off the mark again, Ben. If you go back and listen to the interviews with Nancy and with Lt. Hughes you'll remember that the salient point here was the brutal sexual assault. This was not reported in the newspaper, or known by police (according to Hughes).

Also, can you please provide the full text from the article in the local NJ paper.

Are you suggesting that Ben is deliberately misquoting the content of the episode of Skeptiko? More to the point, did you go back and listen to the episodes to see if the audio as quoted is actually there?

[B Radford]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

the salient point here was the brutal sexual assault.

If the sexual assault was "the salient point," then why did Nancy Weber repeatedly emphasize that newspapers reported that there were no marks on Hoffman's body, and that the cause of death was undetermined? You are selectively and arbitrarily choosing which pieces of Weber's information you want to look at, making the classic and basic mistake of counting the hits and ignoring the misses.

Because we have it in Weber's own words, you cannot deny that Weber claimed that she "knew" this accurate information that had not been reported. Because we have two published newspaper accounts that contain that information, you cannot deny that what Weber said was not true (she either lied, or badly misremembered what happened). Instead you are choosing to ignore and dismiss it. You and Weber want to have it both ways: If the information turns out to be correct, it's another important, amazing example of her psychic abilities. If the information turns out to be wrong, well, that information wasn't really salient or relevant, so we should all just ignore it and focus on other things.


It is true that Hoffman had been sexually assaulted, and that that fact had not been reported in the newspapers. I will deal with that issue later; one topic at a time.

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

Also, can you please provide the full text from the article in the local NJ paper.

My copy of the Nov. 26 Daily Record is from microfiche; it is not in electronic version, and I'm not going to take 45 minutes to re-type the "full text" from the article. The first two paragraphs contain the relevant information: "An 18-year-old Parsippany Hills High School cheerleader, missing since Tuesday, was found dead yesterday, floating face down in a concrete water tank in the Mendham Borough Reservoir. Amie Hoffman, who was to have cheered at yesterday's homecoming game against Mount Olive, was stabbed several times in the chest and other parts of the body with a sharp instrument. She died some time Tuesday night, Randolph Township police said."

I have scanned and e-mailed a copy of the article to Alex. Perhaps he will post it on the site so that everyone else can see it and decide for themselves if Weber was correct when she told me, "the local newspaper... said her body was found and they could not determine the cause," and when she told Alex, “I knew the newspapers reported Amie’s body was found clothed and they couldn’t determine death."

[DoctorAtlantis]

Alex - would you mind linking in your show notes to the additional audio transcripts I helped Ben compile ? I notice you didn't mention them in the July 4th podcast rebuttal.

Psychic Detective Audio Evidence

Should we be moving this discussion over to the new episode thread? Or keep it here?

[hoggworks]

Originally Posted by DoctorAtlantis

Alex - would you mind linking in your show notes to the additional audio transcripts I helped Ben compile ? I notice you didn't mention them in the July 4th podcast rebuttal.

Psychic Detective Audio Evidence

Should we be moving this discussion over to the new episode thread? Or keep it here?

That's a good bit of organizational work, the way you've lined up the audio. Very nice.

[B Radford]

Originally Posted by hoggworks

That's a good bit of organizational work, the way you've lined up the audio. Very nice.

Yes, thanks to Dr. Atlantis for that. It was a lot of editing work, but it is an excellent resource, so people can hear the different stories from the different people in their own words.

[Open Mind]

Ben,

One cannot claim any mismatching of memory between accounts favours your viewpoint ... for example if the matching of accounts was better years ago than in recent interviews that would contradict your viewpoint, not help it.

You seem to think the two homicide detectives were gullible and that they would be impressed by Nancy knowing information they already knew (e.g. stabbing) ....they didn't know about the sexual assault at that point.

Also I think it is wrong of you to imply Nancy is a liar ... unless you want others to imply you are a liar for not recalling properly Stargate case in which you wrongly claimed the results were no better than chance expectation. People's memories become less accurate over time .... it happens, it doesn't automatically support your argument in this case.

[B Radford]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

One cannot claim any mismatching of memory between accounts favours your viewpoint

Actually, this has nothing to do with any "mismatching of memories." The comparison at hand is between what Nancy Weber claims and what details are contained in two newspaper stories published on Nov. 26, 1982. Weber claims that she psychically knew a specific detail about Hoffman's murder that had not been made public. I have proven that that detail was published on the front page of the local newspaper.

Originally Posted by Open Mind

the two homicide detectives...didn't know about the sexual assault at that point.

Oh, come on, that's an easy one to explain. You really want me to spell it out for you and Alex?

Originally Posted by Open Mind

it is wrong of you to imply Nancy is a liar

I did not say that Nancy is a liar, nor do I necessarily think she is. She strikes me as a nice, sincere person. But the fact is that she said something (on TV, to Moore, Hughes, and Alex) that I have proven to be untrue. If Weber said something she knew was false, then she lied. If Weber was mistaken about whether she got that detail about Hoffman's murder from her psychic powers or the front page of the newspaper, then that clearly calls her credibility and/or memory into doubt.

Either way, it does not help Weber's credibility, she would be considered an unreliable witness. If the New York Times contradicts her claims, and Moore and Hughes can't confirm many of her claims, what credibility does she have left?