NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/skeptic/19116

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-08 | 4.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Stan Brown)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.paranormal,alt.alien.visitors
Subject: Re: Jeane Dixon Predicts Bush Victory
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 6 Nov 92 13:32:52 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Oak Road Systems, Cleveland Ohio USA
Lines: 73

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark Meyer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>> Well, folks, it's official now. The Great Psychic has spoken: George
>> Bush is going to be re-elected. In the tabloid "The Star", Oct. 20, 1992,
>> she predicts that "George Bush ekes out a win."
>
>    For those of you scoring at home, she was WRONG.     [...]
>    Did she say anything else we could rip apart, er, check? :-)

Well over a decade ago, she predicted the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (now
named the Gov. William Preston Lane memorial bridge) in Maryland would
fall down within a couple of years.  I'm afraid I don't have the actual
dates but it was before the second span was built (to relieve congestion
of traffic).  Both spans are still standing, long after she said the
first one was to have collapsed.

Make enough predictions and you're bound to get a few right, just by
chance.  Why she goes on making such spectacular ones, given her string
of spectacular boo-boos, is beyond me.  But my amazement is exceeded by
my amazement that the media still consider her predictions newsworthy.
(Unless they reported her prediction of a Bush victory as a way of
reassuring us that Clinton was going to win.)

Here's a way (illegal I'm sure, unethical certainly, so I do not
recommend it) that she could have made some money if she had as much
smarts as chutzpah, and her wrong predictions would not count against
her.  The essential idea is to cover both sides of each prediction.  For
clarity I'll do it in historic terms, since we know how those contests
turned out..

In July 1968 send out 1024 letters to 1024 people.  In half you predict
a Humphrey victory, in half you predict a Nixon victory.  (Keep track of
who got which letter.)  After the election, purge from your database the
folks you sent the Humphrey predictions to.  But send letters to the
other 512 reminding them that you predicted the victory back in July.

Now in July 1972 send letters to those 512, half preicting a McGovern
victory and half a (shudder) Nixon re-election.  After the election,
send reminders to the 256 who got the Nixon prediction.

In 1976 send letters to the 256: 128 Ford and 128 Carter predictions.
After the election you've got 128 people who remember (because you
remind them) that you were right three times in a row.  Repeat in 1980
with 64 Reagan and 64 Carter letters; in 1984 with 32 Reagan and 32
Mondale; in 1988 with 16 Bush and 16 Dukakis.

Now you have 16 people who know you were right in 6 of the last 6
elections.  In 1992 you send them letters reminding them of your
infallible record, which they believe because they don't know about all
your failures.  You offer to sell them the 1992 election winner's name
for substantial money. I'd be surprised if you didn't get several
takers, because people don't understand the laws of chance.

This is not of course original with me.  But if you think about the
lesson, you'll realize that a lot of what seem to be successful
predictions based on foreknowledge are actually based on luck.

Psychologically, this scam would work better if the predictions were
more often than four years.  You could pick the original 1024 in states
where the governor's races are offset two years from the presidential
races, and cities where the mayoral elections are in odd years.  Thus
the scam would run four times as fast and you'd be in people's minds
that much more.  Of course, you'd want to spread things around, sending
no more than one or two letters to the residents of any one city, lest
they talk to each other and notice what's going on.  The whole scheme
collapses if the people who receive your successful predictions learn of
your unsuccessful predictions.  Or maybe it doesn't--being spectacularly
wrong hasn't seemed to hurt Jeane Dixon't newsworthiness any.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems                      [e-mail]
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
"Only the futility of the first flood prevents God from unleashing another."
            --Chamfort, as quoted in Claude Arnaud's {Chamfort: A Biography}