John's predictions: revealing the trick behind Brian's predictions.

[Admin]

Have a look at this page: http://www.ukskeptics.com/johns_predictions.htm

This page was created today 30th May 2007. Anyone can check the header info (last modified header) and it will show that the page was uploaded at exactly: Wed, 30 May 2007 11:53:03 GMT

Yet amazingly, through the predictive power of my dreams, tomorrow's main news headline will appear on the page yet the header info will be the same. ???

Psychic power surely?

No - I'm just using the same trick that Brian Ladd of http://www.briansprediction.com/ uses.

I'll get the main news headline in the morning and add it to the image on page and just upload the changed image. The page's last modified headers will still say 30th May as it's only the image that's changed.

That's how it's done.

Of course, you don't normally tip your audience off as to the page's existence until after you've changed the image with your 'prediction' on it.

[Admin]

Spooky


This morning's headline on a page that was created yesterday. ???

Why I do believe I'm as psychic as Brian Ladd!!!

[flatliner]

John,

Let me start off by saying that I am not convinced by psychics although one has to confess that Brian is pretty convincing.

The case against Brian:

Your point about editing images is absolutely plausable. I haven't subscribed to Brian's lottery picks or indeed parted with any money so I haven't the opportunity to check your claim about image editing for the picks. Obviously this approach also works with the main search engines since they only cache the html code and not referenced images.
However this image idea isn't some blindingly new revelation. Every spam email asking for customer details is based on an image which shows a genuine looking textual link but the <a> link itself is to a bogus site. Pretty easy to spot and far from orginal. It's the old image/text swap trick.

One point that doesn't quite match up with your specific suggestion on images is that he actually summaries the image textual content of his dreams in the html and not just in the image. Unfortunately I couldn't access a sufficiently old cached version of the page to check any of this.

The case for Brian:

If I wanted to really con people I would make sure that the image dates tied up as well. I'm sure we agree that its not hard to do e.g. shift system clock, binary edit file system etc. So why hasn't Brian done it? After all he knows the world is full of sharp IT people that aren't easily conned. The reality is that virtual any digital record can be faked in some way and actually the only way to prove dates is using a reliable independent authority.

OK that said. Why has Brian been 'stupid' enough to have dates of 5th May on his first dream?
The answer isn't a technical one. If you read around his site enough you will note that he unquestionably reserves every Friday as a family day. That means any dreams from overnight on Thursday (3rd May) would not be posted until the Saturday (5th May).

I would go further and say that Brian has posted all his dreams and remote views without payment. If he were to be correct then the MacCanns would have all the information they need without parting with a penny. Brian would of course, benefit from google ad income and his increased fame by new members.

So whats the conclusion of all this?

Well the natural assumption is probably still con con con. Afterall, I don't have this skill so he mustn't either, right?

What makes me a little less quick to come to the 'con' conclusion is the set of predicted hints that he has posted. Many of them are suprisingly specific. This leaves him very exposed. Many of these can't simply be based on media reports - I have followed the media reports on this case very closely as have many others. In short he genuinely has dream't a lot of these 'facts' up.

But are they accurate?

I think you, me and the rest of the world will just have to wait for the outcome of this case. In the meantime, just to be sure, can I suggest that people don't rush to subscribe to his lottery picks.

For the record:

I am the JB that emailed Brian the combined image of the Estrela building and Brian's sketch with the text highlighting the key points. The email was posted unchanged. The similarity of Brian's sketch and the buidling is as I said "dramatic". The building image I found took a little searching to find so one thing is for sure -there is no middle ground, either Brian spent time researching for the same image and deliberately copied the key features or he is genuine.

As a final comment:

I wish the McCanns well in their search. They are bright people and I'm sure they can make their own minds up. At least Brian's specific approach makes him easy to check out. Just because some media have rented apartments in this area/building doesn't mean that Madeleine is not there or hasn't been there. Maybe the "man seen carrying a child" either didn't have far to go, or maybe he didn't have land transport or maybe he is another red herring. One thing I am skeptical of is the ability of the PJ to find Madeleine.

[Araneus]

If I wanted to really con people I would make sure that the image dates tied up as well. I'm sure we agree that its not hard to do e.g. shift system clock, binary edit file system etc. So why hasn't Brian done it? After all he knows the world is full of sharp IT people that aren't easily conned.

Presumably because most smart IT people aren't dumb enough to be fooled by media psychics. There is no point in playing to an audience who aren't listening to you in the first place.

[Admin]

As I've pointed out previously all I did was replicate this trick as Brian did it. So, until he works out how to do it properly, he can always be caught out.

Yes, of course we'll have to wait for the case to be solved before we can score the hits and misses of these psychics - and I'll certainly be doing that.

[Cuddles]

There's some discussion about the date changing thing here: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=74308

There's also an interesting endorsement of his lottery predictions that someone found on his site mentioned here: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=75174

I WON California megamillions! Hi Brian,

I had never been a big lottery player. However, I recently sent you
my local megamillions form and after playing your numbers only 3
times ($15 dollars total), I just won $11 yesterday! Not a bad
return!

[flatliner]

The smart IT people do enjoy picking holes and very quickly write up bad stuff on Brian for the benefit of those with less IT know how. Brian very quickly ends up with a zero audience?

Sorry to be pedantic John, but you talked about his lottery picks and then used a Thursday night dream posting as "proof". That doesn't prove Brian is fake based on the explanation I gave. By the same token you aren't necssarily wrong either.

$11 back from $15 stake plus the cost of Brian's picks doesn't sound like a good return to me. Mind you its better than I usually do....

[Admin]

Sorry to be pedantic John, but you talked about his lottery picks and then used a Thursday night dream posting as "proof".

No. I showed that his trick could be replicated.

That doesn't prove Brian is fake based on the explanation I gave. By the same token you aren't necssarily wrong either.

You're simply making the old classic fallacy: Argument to Ignorance.

You may think it's smart to assume that he may be genuine until someone proves he isn't, but such an argument isn't going to convince anyone here.

[Jocky]

Welcome to UKS, Flatliner.

You may think it's smart to assume that he may be genuine until someone proves he isn't, but such an argument isn't going to convince anyone here

Just in case it occurs to you to ask "Well, what would convince you then?", allow me to supply an answer.

It would be easy for anybody who genuinely possessed psychic powers to demonstrate that they existed. All they need to do is make a clear, falsifiable claim of an ability (something simple would do just fine, it doesn't have to be remotely as difficult as finding abducted children), and then demonstrate that the ability does in fact function as claimed, to a statistically significant level under controlled conditions.

BTW, posting vague predictions on websites with dodgy headers does not constitute "controlled conditions"

[flatliner]

The index page to this site contains the following headline:

2nd June 2007 Skeptic predicts lottery numbers!Is it possible to predict the lottery numbers in advance of the draw? Well, no. But, it is possible to make it look as if it can be done. OK, it can be faked but what's the point of doing it?

Well, the current case of missing girl Madeleine McCann is in the headlines and such cases usually attract 'psychics' hoping to gain publicity by claiming to be 'helping the police'. This case is no exception - the longer it's going on the more psychics are coming forward hoping to cash in on other people's tragedy.

One such 'psychic' who's managed to get himself a lot of free publicity is Brian Ladd (brianspredtcion.com). He claims the ability to see the future in his dreams. One of his 'predictions' was foreseeing the UK lottery draw back in Feb. 2007.

This page: http://www.ukskeptics.com/prediction.htm shows how Brian Ladd does his 'predictions' by replicating it and revealing how it's done.

This is Brian's modus operandi for his predictions. There will be those who think it's harmless, he's only trying to help, etc., but they should take a look at the real purpose behind his ruse: his payment page.

It looks quite certain that his 'prediction' of the Madeleine McCann case was done in the same way - none of his images (which he uses to draw his 'predictions') date to before 5th May. Madeleine went missing on 3rd May.

which in a nutshell says this is how Brian does all his 'predictions' and he's fake.

It isn't about what approach we could use to prove or disprove Brian. It isn't about "Argument to Ignorance" and burden of proof shifting (this site has elected to take on that task, so I'm not the one falling for anything). Its about what evidence is presented here and what conclusions are made here.

My point, which is well made, is that the basis for this headline is the presentation of very circumstantial evidence ie. a technique that Brian could use. The "could" about lottery picks has suddenly become "does" based on the date of a Madeleine dream sketch/image for which I have proposed an equally fair explanation to simply question the conclusion.

Its absolutely fine to be skeptical about issues like this, but one has to take care that eagerness doesn't take over and allow one to jump to conclusions which aren't justified.

Note well, this doesn't mean Brian isn't fake or that I believe him. Right know I have no proof either way. Putting it in UKSkeptic "Argument to Ignorance" terms I could simply say "I don't believe either of you".

OMG, I really hope this site isn't trying to sell extra T-shirts on the back of this?

[Admin]

which in a nutshell says this is how Brian does all his 'predictions' and he's fake.

That may be how you perceive it but it's not what it actually says (!)

The conclusion states: "It looks quite certain that his 'prediction' of the Madeleine McCann case was done in the same way"

Its absolutely fine to be skeptical about issues like this, but one has to take care that eagerness doesn't take over and allow one to jump to conclusions which aren't justified.

• Predicting the future, of a random event (like predicting the lottery numbers), is considered to be impossible;
• If it's impossible then someone doing it has to be faking it;
• Brian has been caught in the act of faking his lottery prediction: see here;
• Brian claims to have predicted the future with Madeleine McCann's (presumed) abduction;
• None of the images from the Madeleine prediction date to before the 5th May, Madeleine went missing on the 3rd;
• His prediction has exactly the same characteristics as his faked lottery prediction.

Therefore, a valid, deductive argument can be made that Brian most likely faked the Madeleine prediction too. In other words: a justified conclusion.

The whole point of skepticism is to combine rationalism (logical thought) with empirical evidence as much as possible to come to justified conclusions on issues without relying on logical fallacies.

So flatliner, if you insist that the above doesn't prove he's fake then you're making the Argument to Ignorance fallacy; but, if you have a better way of interpreting the situation and coming to a valid, but different, conclusion to mine then I'm only too glad to hear it.

[Araneus]

• Predicting the future, of a random event (like predicting the lottery numbers), is considered to be impossible;

The problem is that this is begging the question. You cannot prove that psychics are fake by starting from the premise "Making psychic predictions is impossible".

I tend to agree with Flatliner here, in so far as stating as fact the Brian "is using" this particular technique is jumping the gun, when this has not actually been proven. It is possible that there is another trick that can be used, or even that he really does have psychic powers.

In my opinion it would be better to simply describe the technique as a trivial means of replicating Brian's predictions, and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

[Admin]

The problem is that this is begging the question. You cannot prove that psychics are fake by starting from the premise "Making psychic predictions is impossible".

I said, "Predicting the future, of a random event (like predicting the lottery numbers), is considered to be impossible"

That's a perfectly valid premise to this argument - because it's true as I stated it.

I tend to agree with Flatliner here, in so far as stating as fact the Brian "is using" this particular technique is jumping the gun, when this has not actually been proven. It is possible that there is another trick that can be used, or even that he really does have psychic powers.

I've never claimed to have "proven" that this was how it was done. I've said that he "most likely" repeated what he'd done before.

In my opinion it would be better to simply describe the technique as a trivial means of replicating Brian's predictions, and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

That's exactly what I did (!)

[Mongrel]

It isn't about what approach we could use to prove or disprove Brian. It isn't about "Argument to Ignorance" and burden of proof shifting (this site has elected to take on that task, so I'm not the one falling for anything). Its about what evidence is presented here and what conclusions are made here.

If I may interject - I'd regard this as "An argument to Occam"

• [#]There is virtually no reliable evidence for the existence of psychic powers.
  [#] He has dated 'predictions' on his website which seem remarkably accurate
  [#] John can produce the same results with a 2 minutes of HTML jiggery pokery
  [#] Using Occams' Raxor we pare away the unnecessary assumptions (he's psychic)
  [#] It's up to him to prove that he's not cheating

[flatliner]

Araneus: thank you for correct input on this.

John

Introducing phrases "like most likely" and new links for additional evidence which seek to support the headline conclusion don't alter the fact that the evidence presented on this site doesn't actually justify the headline. Doing this simply attempts to soften the headline conclusion to make it more acceptable and seek to validate the conclusion (and not the method).

Telling me I'm making the Argument to Ignorance fallacy doesn't help either. Whilst it has its place and its not a bad mandate for making quick assessments of everyday risks, to a scientist it just looks like a softening of basic proving rules to allow someone to continue believing in whatever they first thought of. Good, if you don't have time to prove something and need to make a hurried judgement call, but bad in probably all other circumstances. Old sayings such as "If its too good to be true then it probably is" are simplier ways of saying the same thing.

I have already stated my VALID conclusion which is that your article on this site does not prove the headline on this site.