The Psychic Chemist

[bindeweede]

I'm sure some people will have seen this before, as it is quite old, but it is an example of how fairly simple chemistry - the CO2 you breathe out, in this case - can convince some people about psychic power.

http://badpsychics.com/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=519

[John Jackson]

Yes, a rather simple trick being passed off as psychic ability.

It's the same principle as Litmus paper (as an indicator) we used at school - red for acid and blue for alkali.

All they do is make a solution that is slightly alkali and the indicator they use (blue= alkali, yellow=acid) turns blue. Then when the 'psychic' is breathing on the solution, the CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in his breath slowly dissolves in the solution which turns it acidic; hence the colour change.

What surprises me is that they think they can get away with fooling people with tricks like this! ;D

[Mojo]

What surprises me is that they think they can get away with fooling people with tricks like this!
Doesn't really surprise me that they think they can get away with it, because they actually can get away with it.

[bindeweede]

It occurred to me that the PhD woman in question may have discovered that doing stuff like thing in front of a gullible audience was actually more lucrative than lecturing, publishing books, etc. I seem to remember times were hard in Russia just after the fall of Communism.

Personally, I'd have been more impressed if, instead of the water just going from light blue, through green to yellow, it had gone a nice tartan colour, or deep purple with pink spheres evenly distributed in the beaker.:cheesy:

Even better, they could have turned the liquid into something really useful, like a nice malt whisky!

[Mojo]

It occurred to me that the PhD woman in question may have discovered that doing stuff like thing in front of a gullible audience was actually more lucrative than lecturing, publishing books, etc. I seem to remember times were hard in Russia just after the fall of Communism.


In the case of Natasha Demkina ("the girl with X-ray eyes"), she was charging about $13 for a consultation at a time when, apparently (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1374072#post1374072), a consultation with a doctor in Moscow cost $2.

She gave around 50 consultations per day, giving her more than forty times the average monthly income of government workers in Saransk.

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/demkina.html

[bindeweede]

In the case of Natasha Demkina ("the girl with X-ray eyes"), she was charging about $13 for a consultation at a time when, apparently (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1374072#post1374072), a consultation with a doctor in Moscow cost $2.

She gave around 50 consultations per day, giving her more than forty times the average monthly income of government workers in Saransk.

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/demkina.html

Thanks for the interesting link. So appendixes CAN grow back, in Russia if nowhere else???. I think the article must be about 3 years old. I wonder if the programme has yet been shown in the US or Canada - no idea how hard or otherwise it would be to find out, but they wouldn't want their delusional beliefs being scientifically questioned, would they?

Something else that struck me recently was from the - lost the page - the American anti-quackery site - just how many of the people who had been identified as quacks had "MD"or "PhD" after their names. Of course, some of these might have come from "prestigious non-accredited universities", I believe they are called. It's a pity you can't buy them in this country - quite like the look of "PhD" after my name;). And I'd be prepared to spend up to £19.99 on it.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

In the case of Natasha Demkina ("the girl with X-ray eyes"), she was charging about $13 for a consultation at a time when, apparently (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1374072#post1374072), a consultation with a doctor in Moscow cost $2.

She gave around 50 consultations per day, giving her more than forty times the average monthly income of government workers in Saransk.

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/demkina.html

In 1998 I met a Russian doctor on holiday in Spain. She was working in a radio station as she earned far more than she could as a doctor.

It's hard to comprehend the mess a country must be in when key skilled workers such as doctors can't earn a living wage.

[bindeweede]

OK, I suppose it should have been "appendices". But it's not like there are any pedantic folk here;).

Years ago, I found a definition of a pedant - "someone who takes an unhealthy interest in little words."