Ladewig
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There were four hundred people in the audience. Ian Rowland asked us to each think of a very specific question. I figured he'd never get my question because I wondered if my new house will require foundation repairs. The first thing that Mr. Rowland said was, who has a question about their new house? I was surprised and somewhat impressed even though I knew it was an act. One or two other people raised their hands and Mr. Rowland chose the person closest to the stage. He then asked the volunteer some more questions but the answers quickly turned into a series of negative responses, so he moved on to another topic with a different person.
Clancie,
Just wondering if you have ever been to a JE performance yourself? You said you think there may be more to him than just cold reading but are you only judging from edited shows you've seen on TV?
Also have you ever been to a cold reading show where the performer admitted his/her methods were trickery? (or not supernatural)
I'd be interested if you had seen both and whether you thought there were any difference between the two performances.
I saw a performance by a mentalist not too long ago that I found to be quite impressive myself. Much better than any cold reading kind of act.
Just wondering if you have ever been to a JE performance yourself? You said you think there may be more to him than just cold reading but are you only judging from edited shows you've seen on TV?
Also have you ever been to a cold reading show where the performer admitted his/her methods were trickery? (or not supernatural)
I'd be interested if you had seen both and whether you thought there were any difference between the two performances.
I saw a performance by a mentalist not too long ago that I found to be quite impressive myself. Much better than any cold reading kind of act.
Hi Neko,
Yes, I have. And I've been to other mediums as well--some indistinguishable from cold reading, others, imo, not.
I saw Ian Rowland live at Cal Tech and also have the video of Mark Edward at Cal Tech (I am not under the impression from his comments though that he thinks its all "cold reading").
But...hope you don't mind
...but I'd like to beg off this topic in this thread. Mainly, I'm really interested to know more about the cold reading demos in LV and what people thought of them. And, Laedwig, thanks for sharing an example. I'm sure you aren't surprised that I'm not impressed by it.
In an audience of 400, surely someone would have recently moved...or be purchasing a house...and might have had a question of some sort. Throwing a topic open to the entire audience...then getting a string of "no's" for the "sitter"...is pretty consistent with the admitted cold reading demos that I've seen. Not very impressive....
Clancie said:And, Laedwig, thanks for sharing an example. I'm sure you aren't surprised that I'm not impressed by it.
Not surprised at all. I'm afriad I don't think you'll ever be impressed by a cold reading. To do so would be to admit that there may be nothing to this stuff at all.
Furthermore, you go into cold readings knowing that they're tricks. You're biased from the get-go.
Clancie said:
You always display excellent critical thinking when the subject is not Edward. Why? Where is this comment when reviewing Edward seminars?
Ladewig
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You are right. In a group of 400, it is not that impressive. My point is that even though I knew the numbers involved and even though I knew that nothing paranormal was taking place, I still had a strong emotional response. I can now see how easy it is to get caught up in the things mentalists say.
Seems that Ian hasn't been bold enough in his attempt to replicate mediumship. This whole "think of a question and I'll guess it" isn't anything like JE's schtick. It's like a left over from an old routine. And throwing out a guess to an entire audience. That's no good at all. Too timid. If you hone in on an area of audience, you'll get their attention and they'll be much more receptive than if you just talk to everyone.
So are we being told then that he made ONE attempt at a cold-reading and then quit and talked about something else? I find it a little hard to believe he only made one attempt and then moved on. Was cold-reading the crux of his presentation, or was he just killing time? While I've seen nothing that convinces me that JE is anything but a cold reader, he does do a somewhat decent job of it, or rather, at least has a consistent and thought out schtick. If mentalists don't put in a solid effort to perform well when given the chance, then it just lends JE that much more unworthy (in my opinion) credit.
Well, the schedule says
8:30-10:00 Ian Rowland, Cold Reading . A lot can happen in an hour and a half--which is why I'm curious to hear what he did and how it went.
I know you've had neofight say this as well, but a good cold reading demonstration could go a long way toward discrediting mediums. I've yet to see cold readers give an evidential mediumship reading, but if one could, imo, it would definitely be a great educational tool for skeptics in arguing against this.
I agree. But he was bolder in the cold reading/mediumship demo at Cal Tech and it didn't work out.
It sounds like he was working on the premise many here have about JE--that he throws out a guess, gets a "taker", then narrows the reading down to that one person.
The fact that, after that, the process doesn't seem to work the way people here assume it will, doesn't seem to matter!
Clancie said:
Ian did not focus on cold reading. He touched on many subjects, e.g. spoon bending and creating an impossible object out of a newpaper page.
Don't focus on a headline and claim that he failed. You had to be there. You weren't. Your criticism is uninformed and biased. As well as wrong.
Clancie said:
You have yet to admit that you have seen cold readers give readings that were comparable to what JE does.
There is a difference between seeing something and admitting that you see it.
Clancie said:
Very disingenious of you. You know damn well that the audience has to believe that the performer can actually talk to dead people, before the trick works.
You, who claim so great knowledge of cold reading as well as mediumship (you sure seem to chastise others for not knowing as much as you do), should be the first to acknowledge this. Alas, you don't, because if you did, you would be in serious trouble.
Clancie said:It sounds like he was working on the premise many here have about JE--that he throws out a guess, gets a "taker", then narrows the reading down to that one person.
The fact that, after that, the process doesn't seem to work the way people here assume it will, doesn't seem to matter!
Really? You are saying that JE starts as a cold reader, and then works his way "up" to being a real psychic medium? Why start as a cold reader? Why not just throw out those "special hits" that you consider the best evidence of psychic mediumship?
You still need to answer what the difference between a cold reader and a psychic (as opposed to a psychic medium) is. I seriously doubt that you will ever find the courage to answer.
NoZed Avenger
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Ersby said:
Well, yes and no.
The "think of a question" idea actually limits the cold reading, because many general statements that might fit me, for example, would not fit the "one" question that I had pre-formed.
On the other hand, what Ian did was very similar to JE -- he did go to "areas" within the audience and ask "Who in this section had the question about X"?
I thought that his readings -- only a small part of his lecture/demonstration -- were so-so. A few decent hits, a few expected general ones, a few misses. He was actually demonstrating more about his techniques for turning "misses" into "hits" than straight cold-reading. He did have (IMO) two solid hits in the brief time that he did readings -- by that, I mean items that were not general-type guesses that were accurate. A number of other items would be hits if we were looking over the readings, but were more common and therefore less impressive.
Mr. Rowland, however, was looking a number of disadvantages in his readings that I consider significant:
(1) He was doing a cold-reading demonstration, and was not thought to be a "genuine" medium by the audience.
(2) This was a conference of skeptics, who are more close-mouthed than your typical audience.
(3) Likewise, many persons in the audience are more familiar with cold-reading techniques and are less likely to supply extra information -- I was one of the people read, for example, and I have a fair number of books on the subject -- including Mr. Rowland's.
(4) There was not -- as in the case of television shows, for example -- an opportunity to edit the readings in any way.
N/A
And as far as readings from admitted cold-readers go, I will still place my admittedly amateur, first try reading up against the vast majority of similar-length readings from any psychic medium.
Place it before anyone neutral in a list like ersby's from a few months back -- with no clues regarding whether it is from a professed cold reader or professed medium -- and I will give odds that it is not outed as one of the cold readings 7 times out of 10.
Ipecac said:Clancie, I can help you!
Watch the Sci Fi channel. They have this cold reader on every night. He gives a decent "evidential mediumship reading". If he doesn't convince you that mediumship is fake, nothing will.
Very true. I have yet to see anyone point out the differences (and not just appeal to personal beliefs) between John Edward and a cold reader.
Anyone.
Any takers? I'd really like to know. I really would. Don't tell me that I am not "really" interested, because I am. My involvement in the skeptic movement should tell anyone that I really, really, really am interested in finding the answer.
Sure, you can dismiss me for not being really interested, but that doesn't really hold water, does it?
While I think it would be a handy thing to have in our backpocket to counter "mediumship" examples I don't think its strictly necessary. However if skeptics or mentalists are going to use cold-reading demonstrations as a counter to mediums, they'd best do a bang-up job of it or it just gives the mediumship crowd free ammunition. It would seem to appear that despite the title of the session it was not an in depth demonstration of cold-reading which is what I suspected after reading the initial response to your question. Me being me I'll reserve all judgements until there's a transcript, or in this case even better, a DVD for TAM2 with the session included.Clancie said:
NoZed as usual makes many good points in his post regarding this and I basically agree, I've in my opinion seen transcripts of people doing cold-reading that are quite comparable in many senses to what JE does, especially if you take his LKL readings into account. I think if a cold-reader spent the necessary time to polish up a solid cold-reading act and added a schtick and gloss to it, that a cold-reader could very much do exactly what JE does. There's been many examples where different cold-reading samples show hints of many different tactics used by JE, if someone could just roll them all together and practice them up, I think we could have a JE clone without that much trouble.
Lucianarchy
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CFLarsen said:
Easy.
John will, and a cold reader won't, get tested under the same conditions, controls and protocols of the University of Arizona's (Gary Schwartz's) research department.
Lucianarchy said:
Really?
Which cold reader has turned Schwartz down?
Can you point out why Schwartz' experiments were scientifically solid?
Please answer the questions. Don't obfuscate, don't divert, don't stall. Just answer the questions.
NZA,
We disagree about the "reasons" there's no good cold reading demo. I don't see any reason why an honest audience of skeptics answering "yes" or "no" should be inhibiting whatsoever. Many people JE reads limit their responses, too, in just that way.
Its just as possible there could be an advantage to Ian in that situation, since the audience -knows- what he's doing and wants him to be successful. (Isn't that what people say about JE's audience?)
Nevertheless, cold reader or medium...the key is whether or not the validations are honestly given. JE often gets misses and people often say "no". The audience, really, should make no difference. But can the cold reader get convincing hits?
Editing makes a difference for JE--but like most admitted cold readers, most mediums don't have that same advantage. So...I think the editing is a non-issue.
).
We disagree about the "reasons" there's no good cold reading demo. I don't see any reason why an honest audience of skeptics answering "yes" or "no" should be inhibiting whatsoever. Many people JE reads limit their responses, too, in just that way.
Its just as possible there could be an advantage to Ian in that situation, since the audience -knows- what he's doing and wants him to be successful. (Isn't that what people say about JE's audience?)
Nevertheless, cold reader or medium...the key is whether or not the validations are honestly given. JE often gets misses and people often say "no". The audience, really, should make no difference. But can the cold reader get convincing hits?
Editing makes a difference for JE--but like most admitted cold readers, most mediums don't have that same advantage. So...I think the editing is a non-issue.
Yes, I almost mentioned your reading in my post. However, let's not forget it was not pure cold reading--there was hot reading involved as well. And only the first part was good (quite good
).Another interesting experiment.....for Ersby?
I predict it will not be on the TAM2 DVD, just as Jamy Ian Swiss's demo (of confirmation bias, imo) wasn't included in the TAM1 DVD.
Just curious. You mean ersby and NoZed? Or...who?
So they keep saying....
Well, there's a difference between a good patter and a good validation. But maybe some day.....
Given the marked drop in quality of JE's own performances on LKL(unedited as far as we know) compared to CO (knowingly edited, to what degree remains debateable) I'd have to quite strongly disagree with you here. How much could editing have improved Ian's performance? Hard to say, but its a certainty that the editing could only IMPROVE his performance. I think its been pretty clearly shown that JE's performance improves under an edited environment. One would also have to assume the same for any medium or cold reader as well.Clancie said: