Aug 27 2006
B.S. Patrol
(This piece isn’t intended to give anymore unworthy attention to the JonBenet case, it’s more to point out how easily people are swayed by bullshit, especially when it involves a ‘psychic’.Since I started writing this piece, it turns out the Karr guy wasn’t the killer after all, which just bolsters the case I make even more.)
Now, although I don’t have a T.V., the impression I’ve been getting is that this JonBenet horseshit is dominating the airwaves, keeping the country even dumber. Unfortunately, we’re in a time in our nation when critical thinking and focus on the real issues are more important than ever. Oh well.
Anyways, like most sane people, I couldn’t give a rat’s patoot about the DeadChildBeautyQueenDiversion. I’ve been ignoring it as much as possible, but one thing that caught my attention was how a psychic supposedly aided in an accurate police sketch. Now, not to get into a rant, but I’m not really a believer in psychics. I know all about cold reading/ignoring misses and remembering hits, and all the other tricks of the trade. So of course, my B.S. meter went off when hearing about it, but soon forgot about it.
So, it turns out that that so called ‘accurate police sketch’ is hardly accurate at all. Joe Nickell, a skeptic over at CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal) deconstructs the falsehood, and by doing a serious analysis and comparison of the figures, shows hardly any resemblace at all, in his ‘Shame on Shamus Sham’. If you check out the piece, you’ll first off see that the police sketch really doesn’t resemble Karr at all, it just looks like yet another generic white guy. Here’s more from Nickell:
“In addition to the envisioned portrait, Allison predicted the killer would have “connections” to Germany and Georgia, and gave additional details. However, just as a New Jersey police captain had said of her other “cases,” Allison’s predictions “were difficult to verify when initially given.” Allison followed the formula utilized by other reputed psychic sleuths: take advantage of the publicity engendered by a high-profile case, and make numerous pronouncements, such that-when the true facts are subsequently established-the statements can be interpreted accordingly. (For example, “water” can later be identified with a nearby stream, lake, water tower, etc.) This clever technique of after-the-fact matching is called retrofitting, and it has fooled even seasoned detectives.”
It also makes me wonder of the power of the media and suggestion. They tell us it looks like the guy, it obviously doesn’t, yet because it plants the nugget that it does in our minds, we tend to believe it anyways (kind of like the idea that Dubya is just another cowboy). I didn’t use the images because of permissions, but if you look at the site, you can see in Nickell’s ‘forensic caricaturing’, that the suspect and the drawing look nothing like each other.
As I noted, turns out he wasn’t the guy. More importantly Aravosis points out all of the things the press neglected while covering this oh-so-not important story.
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