America's Psychic Challenge?

Question

Here's a link to one review of the TV show on Lifetime called America's Psychic Challenge.
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/Americas-Psychic-Challenge.html

The show puts proported psychics in test situations and records the results. If you've seen this show, I'm interested in hearing your opinions about the techniques that are used to test the participants. Do you feel they are stringent enough? Are they too tough? Does repeated success in the tests give an indication or proof of psychic ability?

Finally, for those who are more aligned with parapsychological research, which skills do you feel are being tested? Does the presence of the testing moderators give an advantage to specific psychic abilities in the tests?

This question is posed to both skeptics and believers who have seen the show, so please be respectful in your answers. Thanks!

Thank you all for the interesting answers! I hoped that more of you might have seen the show and that we could have more discussions on their testing techniques (which obviously aren't like rigorous experiments). There were a number of good answers from Psi, Denie, Hislady, and TR among others.

I can't pick a best, so I'll let it go to a vote. Thanks again for the answers!

Answer 1

I've watched it. When they all (I think all) went between the beds where Janis Joplin died...I thought that was pretty good. And they were right on a lot of things. It doesn't seem fair that psychics are never 100% accurate. Makes you doubt all of it. But that's just like saying..not all ufo sightings, crop circles, ghost sightings are true...but if just ONE is true...then that's something to think about.

Answer 2

The show does not put psychics in test situations but rather pits psychic against one another in a variety of situations that people consider part of psychic abilities.
In other words if a psychic scores 2 out of 10 they could win the challenge and be rewarded points if everyone else scores 1 or 0 even if chance would be 4 out of 10.

I agree with the suggestion that a control group (of claimed non psychics) could be used if one wanted to do more stringent testing.

Repeated positive performances that are significantly above chance is evidence of something (some say psychic ability) other than chance taking place. However, calculating chance for say events that happened at a murder site and what to count as a hit needs to be well defined in advance of any actual testing.

The moderators being present gives an advantage to anyone if he knows the information. People could pick up on his reactions and respond accordingly. Also, for instance on the marriage couple matching this was a problem. A better test would have used photographs but avoided the in person matching to avoid the same thing as above with the moderator.

Finally, this is a show and not a laboratory testing situation (that is boring for most participants so you can imagine how long it might hold the interest of an audience).

The show could be very instructive if people watching ask questions like you have and say "I wonder how they would do if ...."

Answer 3

I quite have a feeling that the united statesa.'s Psychic project could take out a restraining order of James Randi if he tried to take place there. they could under no circumstances invite him on there and quite permit him talk. Yikes. this is the final element that they could prefer, somebody who's quite intense of the psychics. I quite have under no circumstances heard of a psychic being able to pull off something that a magician could desire to no longer reproduction via non-psychic potential. nicely, i think if there's a psychic who can do it, then they could desire to start taking the numerous stressful circumstances from the numerous skeptic companies international huge. they could ultimately close the skeptics up and additionally make numerous funds. of path, no psychic could dare be examined in controlled circumstances. that could desire to wreck the scam.

Answer 4

Dang, wish I had seen the show -- because I'm psychic. People have different types of gifts and it's tough to pit one person against another. One kind of test may not jive with one person's abilities and they'll look like a fraud. BTW, I just watched James Van Praagh online (on Halloween) and he gets information SOOO fast and he's jotting things down on a clipboard. And if you want to see another perspective, similar topic, this Friday's Ghost Whisperer pits the lead Jennifer Love Hewitt against another psychic -- that she thinks is a fraud. Gotta love it...

Answer 5

If this show is real, I bet Randi is starting to squirm a bit about one of these guys getting up the confidence from test taking to attempt his challenge and to take his lump of money.

I do not know how in real life a lady can walk into a car lot and pick a guy hiding in a trunck of a car out of thirty cars. That is above the odds by about 29.
Either they are psychic or the show is a fix. I cannot tell from where I sit.

Answer 6

Again, psiexploration puts me in the uncomfortable position of having to agree with his answer :-) Just kidding. But yeah, I think psi's answer is pretty much my assessment too. In addition, it is a reality show, after all, and if there is one thing you can bank on, it's that reality shows aren't that real. I really wonder how many accidental "hints" the psychics are given by the producers. How can we know? It's entertainment, that's all.

Answer 7

I have not seen the show. my thing is that television shows can easily be scripted, and so it would be very hard to convince me any tv show based on psychics or ghost hunters would be real.
There's a show where supposedly people see ghosts and when there is one the people's eyes start glowing. that could easily be how the lighting is set up and things like that. so it would take a while to convince me it was real.

Answer 8

Just finished watching one. It seems to me that they're doing the best with what they have, but to me, it's not fair. Each person has different gifts, they each work differently, so some of them aren't going to do as well as others in certain tests. So I think it seems like more who can pass the tests, but I don't think it necesarily shows how good of a psychic you are. In that instance, of showing or not showing how good of a psychic you are, I think they failed.

Answer 9

You are asking some good questions here. I have not seen the show. I admit a bias in avoiding such shows because, historically, television producers do not have a very good record when it comes to things like this. They are usually fully aware of their audience and play directly to it. The idea seems to be that paranormal=viewers=$ from the sponsors.

Answer 10

Since psychic abilities are not real, I think they are just testing how good someone guesses things, or if they are convincing cold readers.
Obviously they could not be testing psychic abilities. They say that psychic abilities can not be proven to exist or to not exist, but until they are shown to exist, there is enough evidence that they don't exist to make a scientific statement, they don't exist until someone proves otherwise.

TV shows are more interested in ratings then truth.