Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@AOL.COM>]

CSICOP Online Feature: Psychic Predictions 2004

 

By Gene Emery

 

 

Time is running out.

Over the next few days, Osama bin Laden will die of kidney disease. Saddam Hussein will be shot to death. Fidel Castro will die. A live dinosaur thousands of years old will be captured. The Hoover Dam will collapse. And Rosie O'Donnell will adopt Siamese twin girls.

That's what the world's best psychics predicted for 2004. And with the year drawing to a close, the news is going to have to get pretty intense over the next few days if those forecasts are going to come true, according to Gene Emery, a contributor to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, who has been tracking tabloid forecasts for 26 years.

Actually, the truly unusual predictions of major news events almost never come true, and this year has been no exception, said Emery, who has been using the predictions to search for a psychic -- any psychic -- who can really predict the future.

Not only did the psychic forecasts fail to foretell what would happen in 2004, the psychics continued their tradition of missing the major events that did make the headlines.

To Read More of This Visit:  http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/predictions-2004.html

or visit www.csicop.org and click on "Special Articles"

 

2) Can You Really Name a Star

From Astronomer and CSICOP Fellow Andrew Fraknoi

Many years ago, when the International Star Registry
first reared its head, and I was Executive Director
of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (must have
been late 70's or early 80's), we issued what was
probably the first news release warning people to be
skeptical of offers to name stars (since astronomers
do not name stars in general, and certainly would
not do so for money.)

Although that old news release (long before the web
archived everything) is now lost in history, there are
a number of good web sites to help people understand
the situation, such as:

The International Astronomical Union
        http://www.iau.org/IAU/FAQ/starnames.html

The International Planetarium Society:
        http://www.ips-planetarium.org/pubs/ips-starnaming.html

Buying a Star Informal FAQ:
        http://www.enzerink.net/peter/astronomy/starfaq/

Brief Statement by the Royal Observatory, Greenwich:
        http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:singlecontent/contentTypeA/conWebDoc/contentId/309

Hope the above helps,
Andy

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