Skeptical Inquirer/Bad Psychics article on Sylvia Browne

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

The Skeptical Inquirer has an article out about Sylvia Browne's track record. It isn't available on their site yet but might be in the next few days. In the meanwhile, you can check it out at Barnes and Nobles.

However, Bad Psychics reprinted it so you can all read it online there.

The most extensive research study ever written on Browne:

http://badpsychics.co.uk/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1192

Well, what do you think ? :)

[Hokulele Mom]

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the title of this thread. The beat was restored when I saw the thread content. I read the article last weekend and thought it was very good. I misread your title as "a bad article on psychics" rather than "an article on bad psychic".

breathe, breathe, breathe

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

That's so funny! :D Glad you liked the article!

Are you familiar with the site BadPsychics. com? If you aren't, I don't blame you for misreading it.

It's a pleasure to meet Hokulele's Mom! :)

[sadhatter]

That's so funny! :D Glad you liked the article!

Are you familiar with the site BadPsychics. com? If you aren't, I don't blame you for misreading it.

It's a pleasure to meet Hokulele's Mom! :)

I wish my mom was cool enough to be on the jref site, lol.

At least she has taken to hiding her sylvia browne books so i don't comment on them. I love her to death though.

[rjh01]

The 115 cases prove devastating to Browne’s claims of helping police and families. It is hard to understand how someone with such a dismal record of accomplishments is able to continually top the best-seller lists and maintain a following.


The cost of a consultation is not large compared to the outcome if it worked. Talking to Browne costs only a few hundred dollars. Less if you get on the show. However the benefits you will get if you find your missing child are huge.

[HumanityBlues]

That's so funny! :D Glad you liked the article!

Are you familiar with the site BadPsychics. com? If you aren't, I don't blame you for misreading it.

It's a pleasure to meet Hokulele's Mom! :)

I wasn't familiar with this site before. Pretty good stuff. Thanks.

[ExMinister]

Great article, well written and the research very well presented. Fantastic job!

Reading the case studies at the bottom, one after another, I felt my blood pressure rising. It must have been hard to go through case after case where not only was Browne wrong but she did such damage along the way (as in the case of Chris Mineer). I've followed the cases here as they've been posted individually, but to see them all listed out like that in one place, complete with the details of Browne's involvement and what actually has happened... Well, suffice to say my heart goes out to the families.

May this put a bigger dent in whatever remaining fan base she still has.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

There were a few times I actually had to stop my work and step away from the computer as I was researching this and find something else to do for 15 minutes or go outside for a while, I was so angry and depressed. And felt very helpless against her.

I think I actually hit something two or three or four times.

[FramerDave]

I just picked it up a couple days ago. I haven't had a chance to read the article, but I did thumb through it. I really loved the list titled "Cases Sylvia Browne Was Wrong About" with 25 cases summarized. Then the second list "Cases Sylvia Browne Made Predictions About That Have Non-confirmed Outcomes," with 90 listed.

So, if she is right about 88% of the time as she claims, and giving her the benefit of the doubt about the 90 in the second list, there should be at least 183 cases where she was right. Wonder if she could list them?

[RSLancastr]

Great article, very much what I hoped the Scorecard article on SSB would grow into!

Speaking of the site, I can't help but be sad that this info did not first appear there, but I am very happy that it got out there, period.

And extremely pleased and proud that others are taking over where I left off.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Thank you so much, Robert! :) That's very gracious of you!

However, I have to point out that you did have first dibs on it for a long, long time :P. We started putting the list together solely for you and for your site (being your de facto research assistant, I always intended all of it to be for the site and always lobbied hard to have it put up) and we had the list available on the forum for you for about three years and you never used the vast majority of it. And I tried telling you about Robert Hayes and the "missing" transcript many, many times. Years ago, as a matter of fact. Long, long before you even had the stroke. Even in 2006, I think. Maybe 2007.

I realize you had an enormous amount of work on the site besides the missing persons/murder/other crimes cases- and a job, and a life- and that you haven't worked for more than a year but you really could have used the list of 100 plus names at any time for the Scorecard.

All you had to do was copy and paste our work, really, since we had the summaries of the cases next to almost all the names and almost all of the broadcast dates when we put all this up on the forum. Let's face it, we had already done all of the heavy lifting for you- had actually long since done the vast majority of it- and it was just sitting there, unused, with no audience, no readership, for no one to see but the members of the JREF forum...to the point that it was generating complaints that we were flooding General Skepticism and The Paranormal with Sylvia Browne threads that no one had anything to add to and didn't reply to anymore.

Well, you are still very much welcome to it. I'd be very proud and happy to finally see it on StopSylvia.com, as was the original plan and exactly why I started doing this in the first place. The more places it appears on the web and in print, the better.

[RSLancastr]

Thank you so much, Robert! :) That's very gracious of you!

However, I have to point out that you did have first dibs on it for a long, long time :P.Yes Eeney, I dropped the ball. And I am very happy that you guys picked it back up, ran with it, and scored a touchdown!

Understand that it was one of literally dozens of articles - in various stages of readiness - that I had on my plate. I got around to those I could in the time I had.

All you had to do was copy and paste our work, really, since we had the summaries of the cases next to almost all the names and almost all of the broadcast dates when we put all this up on the forum.Eeney, you really have very little idea of what it takes for me to format an article on the site. I assure you that even if the article was already verbatim how I would want it on the site, it would take far more than simply cutting and pasting it to make it ready.

Let's face it, we had already done all of the heavy lifting for you- had actually long since done the vast majority of it- and it was just sitting there, unused, with no audience, no readership, for no one to see but the members of the JREF forum...to the point that it was generating complaints that we were flooding General Skepticism and The Paranormal with Sylvia Browne threads that no one had anything to add to and didn't reply to anymore.
Welcome to my world.

[RSL's better half]

I would like to point out that there is an awful lot of material on Sylvia Browne. Robert had many articles going at the same time which he was constantly prioritising. Because of the other articles, he didn't choose to put this particular article on the website. And, Eeney, you will remember, I'm sure, that you were constantly bombarding him then (and have continued to do so since he came back to the forum after his stroke) with things you wanted to see on the site. While you and Questioning Geller (and some ex-ministers of Sylvia's church) were providing him with a lot of research, Stop Sylvia is not your site. Although I know for a fact he was grateful for it, digging up info on her was perhaps 25% of the job.

During the period of time that I was updating this forum on Robert's progress, and a bit before then, I was encouraging others to start their own websites about Sylvia Browne and other celebs people here have been clamoring to see websites erected against. The problem was that, until now, NO ONE would do any more than talk (with the exception of Tim Farley and his "What's the Harm" site).

Robert doesn't mind sharing information or spotlight (as he has done on various tv, radio and podcast shows, as well as with an author writing a book about charlatans). What he has cared about from the very begining is getting the information out there.

One more thing: This is not Robert's vocation, he makes no money (as a matter of fact it costs us money) doing it, and he has a wife and family he needs to make time for. I don't think some of you have ever understood that.

[Lisa Simpson]

Is this:

More recently, she predicted a 9/11 firefighter was alive, but his body was found in the World Trade Center rubble two weeks later.

a different case than the one on Montel when Sylvia claimed a guy drowned but then the fiance said he was a firefighter on 9/11?

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Is this:

a different case than the one on Montel when Sylvia claimed a guy drowned but then the fiance said he was a firefighter on 9/11?


Yes, it's a different one. Here's the article:

http://stopsylvia.com/articles/terrencefarrell.shtml



During the period of time that I was updating this forum on Robert's progress, and a bit before then, I was encouraging others to start their own websites about Sylvia Browne and other celebs people here have been clamoring to see websites erected against. The problem was that, until now, NO ONE would do any more than talk (with the exception of Tim Farley and his "What's the Harm" site).


Well, the problem is that I have no experience whatsoever with web publishing and have never run a website. I would have started my own site about Browne or someone else but I'd barely know how to even start. My area of expertise is research.

Like Hermione to Harry Potter, I have to depend on someone else or enter into a partnership with them to get any material out there (and speaking of Tim Farley, I also did a large amount of research for him when he was working on his site. When I heard about What's the Harm, I offered to lend my research skills to him. I sent him a good deal of material before Robert's stroke. Later on, as Robert was out of commission and I was out of a job, I turned all my efforts to What's the Harm and helped Tim literally gather a mountain of material for many months (right up until he stopped working on the site in February of 2009 and even afterward, when I still hoped he'd return to it), also from Lexis Nexis and other newspaper databases. So I wasn't sitting and complaining and doing nothing. I was What the Harm's de facto research assistant, too.)

I'm a behind the scenes person. That's my "skeptical skill".

[RSLancastr]

So, I'm Harry Potter then? No "wand" jokes, please.

[Orphia Nay]

It's a great article, EMM. Excellent research and well thought-out. You've learned well from Robert and put your own skills to good use. Congrats!

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Penn Jillette tweeted about it:

http://twitter.com/PENNJILLETTE

So did Jon Donnis-

http://twitter.com/JonDonnis

Radio host Paul Harris blogged about it:

http://paulharrisonline.blogspot.com/2010/03/sylvia-browne-100-wrong.html

And it appeared here:

http://www.bayridgetalk.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=17484

And here:

http://friendfeed.com/scienceworld/b3debbec/are-psychic-detectives-real-sylvia-brownes

And here:

http://luketheatheist.blogspot.com/2010/03/are-psychic-detectives-real-sylvia.html

[rjh01]

<snip>
During the period of time that I was updating this forum on Robert's progress, and a bit before then, I was encouraging others to start their own websites about Sylvia Browne and other celebs people here have been clamoring to see websites erected against. The problem was that, until now, NO ONE couldwould do any more than talk (with the exception of Tim Farley and his "What's the Harm" site).
<snip>

Fixed an error in the post:). People like Robert are rare. Think about what it takes to run a website

1. Time. Lots of it. Both now and in the future (as in years).
2. High level of communication skills. Need to be able to write articles and other web content. Then the press might ask for an interview. Or you might want to tell the press about something. Then there will be the correspondence from Joe public to deal with.
3. Web and computer skills. Everything from how to get an URL to what software to use and how to use it.
4. Support. It is hard to do everything on your own.
5. Reputation. If I started a stop<some big woo> it would be highly risky for someone else to do a lot of unpaid work for me as I might reject it for no or poor reasons. Robert started to build up his from his stopkas days.
6. Succession planning. If you fall ill then someone should be able to carry on updating the website.
7. Money. Enough said.

These are just some of the most obvious and general things. I am sure there are heaps more.


Edit. It would be valid to compare Harry Potter with RSLancastr. They both share many traits. I leave it up to other people to list these.

[RSLancastr]

the main trait I share with Harry: we both have a ton of wonderful friends.

And we both have wise, white-bearded wizards we look up to.

[Orphia Nay]

the main trait I share with Harry: we both have a ton of wonderful friends.

And we both have wise, white-bearded wizards we look up to.

:)

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Donnis also mentioned it here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/b9yyh/

It got posted about here:

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2010_03_06.html

It even ended up in what looks like someone's college newspaper article:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:2077gJ_iBhEJ:westernfrontonline.net/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26i d%3D11889+sylvia+browne+115+cases&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbRz5rkB0nvNVq3Q-fg06pKItnSG8Q

[AndyD]

Someone needs to tell Paul Harris he's got the wrong StopSylvia link.