My yak thinks we should try this:

[mr blur]

Pet psychics unleash animal companions' thoughts

Cathy Stevens has always been a believer. That’s why she jumped at the chance for a rare phone consultation with pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick, a service that typically costs $300 for 30 minutes.

It’s not as if anything is really wrong with Stevens’ two rescue dogs, Roger and Henry; rather, these terriers are living the good life. Stevens just needed to know that her “boys” are happy.

“It’s just that validation,” she explained.

“I knew that my dogs understand me, but you really want to know, do they really or is it just in my head?”

Fitzpatrick, perhaps best known for starring in The Pet Psychic on Animal Planet earlier in the decade, assured Stevens it wasn’t.

“Darling, they are deliriously happy,” Fitzpatrick trilled in her trademark British accent as she spoke to Stevens on the phone while propped on the bed where she does her weekly call-in radio show on Sirius Satellite Network, surrounded by pillows and her dogs.

Roger, Fitzpatrick told Stevens, misses accompanying her to work. And Henry hates crates.

Both dogs, Fitzpatrick added, love the raw organic meals Stevens sometimes cooks for them and are looking forward to a visit from her childhood friend later this year.

When Stevens asks if Roger, whom she said acts like her boyfriend, has been with her in a past life, Fitzpatrick responded, “Darling, they both have been in past lives with you.”

At work a few days later, with Roger in tow, Stevens was visibly pleased. Fitzpatrick told her things about her life and her dogs that she “couldn’t have known.”

Stevens added, “I think if you’re looking for an answer, she’s pretty good.”

<snip>

More if you can stand it:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/6514598.html

[moggie]

1. Lady, your dogs aren't complicated!

If you need someone else to tell you that they're happy - someone who has never met them - then you're not paying attention. To quote a farkism:

Your dog wants steak

This was tacked on to the end of an article about a Japanese device that allows you to communicate with your dog. The joke being anyone who has had a dog can tell you that dogs are not incredibly complex creatures. You can tell what they want just by looking at them.

http://www.fark.com/farq/farkisms.shtml#Your_dog_wants_steak

In my trademark British accent: load of cobblers.

[TZ]

2. Umm I have a relative that has had a pet psychic

do a reading on her dogs. And she spoke quite highly of it..:eyes:

[trotsky]

3. Just substitute "sucker" for "believer" in the article's first sentence.

That puts it all in the proper context.

[realisticphish]

4. I work at a pet store

and there's a pet psychic who freaking spams us with lit. She will put up 10-20 business cards on our bulletin board, and give us lit to hand out. I throw all of it away, except one business card, like every other business. It KILLS me to leave it, but I don't have the right.

still fucking bullshit. we also sell homeopathic pet meds too :eyes:

[salvorhardin]

6. You might be encouraging her by throwing the others away

She might be thinking, "OMG! I'm sooo popular! I keep sending in scads of cards and lit and people keep taking it all."

[realisticphish]

8. good point

but frankly, she already offers a $500 dollar weekend on learning how to commune with the animals, bind your spirits, blah blah. I don't think my thrown away cards will encourage her more than people signing up for that :D

[frogmarch]

5. My sister regularly consults a pet psychic over the phone.

Recently, the psychic explained that my sister's pet sheep would like a new name, and that is why the sheep has been butting my sister lately. Apparently, the sheep didn't like her old name, Lambchop. The psychic says the sheep likes her new name, Anna, very much and will soon stop butting my sister.

My sister has always been very intelligent (she was considered a genius as a child) and has earned several college degrees, but for some reason, she really digs the occult. I don't get it. How can someone as intellectually gifted as she be so dumb?

[Heddi]

7. Screw that sheep

any sheep that doesn't like the name Lambchop deserves to be made into Donner Kabob

Just like every goat should be named Billy.

[frogmarch]

17. haha, right. What

sheep wouldn't like to be named Lambchop? I should change my name to Humanburger.

What a racket.

[Heddi]

22. Hell yeah.

Lambchop for ol Mutton, Billy for the GOat, and Hamburger for, uh, you... :-D

I'm changing my name to Crisco, because i'm fat in the can ha ha ha

[realisticphish]

9. man, that's a goddamn racket

think of the money you make using PURE BULLSHIT. I mean, this isn't even cold reading, it's flat out pulling it out of your ass!

Uh, your dog is humiliated by... uh... the drapes in your living room.

[frogmarch]

18. It astounds me

how gullible some people are. If I didn't care how I made my money, I might become a pet psychic too. :eyes:

[onager]

10. I was just thinking about your question recently.

How can someone as intellectually gifted as she be so dumb?

There doesn't seem to be any correlation between intelligence and the willingness to fall for woo. I have a hard time accepting that myself.

At least two astronauts...who BOTH walked on the moon...lent their credibility to wacko nonsense. Edgar Mitchell believed aliens had visited the earth and the U.S. government was suppressing the knowledge. The late James Irwin thought he would find Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat.

Last Sunday, Irwin was featured in the NatGeo show In Search of Noah's Ark. With that title, I expected a real woo-fest.

The show was actually very good. It did a fantastic job of showing the Creationists and Ark fans as the ignorant fools they are, without ever coming right out and saying that.

All the show did was let the believers talk, then rebutted them with actual geologists and other experts.

One of my favorites was a professional ship-builder in New England. When he heard the alleged measurements of the Ark, he said a ship of that size couldn't even survive the waves of a moderate storm - it would break in two from the sheer torque of the keel twisting. Let alone survive a monster storm that lasted 40 days and nights.

Worth watching, just ignore the title...

[frogmarch]

19. I saw the program listed, but

I thought, No way am I gonna watch that garbage! I'm pleased to know it was worth watching, and the next time it's on, I'll try to catch it.

Thanks for the interesting info. :thumbsup:

[realisticphish]

23. huh

I'm often surprised by stuff like this. I might check it out

[realisticphish]

11. Here's the thing

There's a significant correlation between college education and belief in woo (don't have the link, but I recall reading a study to that effect). So education isn't the important issue. SCIENCE education is the important aspect, and learning to think critically.

[salvorhardin]

12. I think you mean the one in the Janauary 2006 issue of Skeptical Inquirer

Unfortunately the article isn't online so here's an excerpt from LiveScience talking about it.

Higher Education Fuels Stronger Belief in Ghosts
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 20 January 2006 08:06 am ET

Believe it or not, higher education is linked to a greater tendency to believe in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena, according to a new study.

Contrary to researchers' expectations, a poll of 439 college students found seniors and grad students were more likely than freshmen to believe in haunted houses, psychics, telepathy, channeling and a host of other questionable ideas.

The results are detailed in the January-February issue of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
More: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060121_paranormal_poll.html

I wish the researchers had also collected and analyzed the data by subject of major.

[realisticphish]

13. yeah

i would think psychology would be at the low end of that, but then I think of all the quacks and woomeisters who have my major.

[salvorhardin]

14. I'd think general psychology attracts wooists at the undergrad level

However, if they can stick out the program, and the program requires some biological based components (sensation and perception, animal learning, cog. psych, neurosci) and a solid grounding in stats (not just Math For Psych Majors) then by the time they graduate they should be disabused of at least a fair share of their woo.

If I were a betting man, I'd go with humanities and arts as primary attractors of woo, followed by business majors, psychology, biology, physics an chemistry. Not sure where engineering would fall along the continuum. Perhaps between biology and physics. Just personal observation, nothing to suggest this is a correct perception, or that there's even much of a difference between majors.

[realisticphish]

15. i don't know, engineers can be woo-y as hell

my psych undergrad experience had two fantastic classes: Psychology of Extraordinary Beliefs, and Clinical Psychological Science, which was basically "how to call bullshit on psych treatments." Both had phenomenal teachers, and in fact my Ex. Beliefs prof recommended Respectful Insolence to us.

Those classes led directly to skepticism, and indirectly to atheism/agnosticism.

[salvorhardin]

16. I think I remember you talking about the Psych Extraordinary Beliefs class before

I really wish my undergrad had classes like that, but my school's psych dept. was still in the throes of behaviorism well in the mid-1980s (when I was there). I really envy kids going into psych programs today. The field has come so far in 25 years. And I don't think there was a neuroscience program in the whole country when I was a college student.

BTW: On Twitter, Noah William Gray (an editor with Nature I'm Twitter-friends with) mentioned to me that he doubted the students in that survey were being honest. He has a point. College students have been known to pull a fast one on experimenters. I think there's also a question of the students wanting to seem open-minded by checking "I don't know". And it was a small sample size so I would question whether or not it's representative. Also, I don't think the research was ever formally published outside of Skeptical Inquirer so I think the results while interesting should probably be taken with a grain of a salt.

Oh, and one last thing while I think of it... It might have been more interesting to survey new college graduates rather than just college students.

[realisticphish]

21. that's a good point

SO many studies are questionable because the only available subjects were undergrads

[onager]

25. Absolutely right on the engineers.

I've worked with engineers for my whole...uh...career? Or whatever that thing is that gets me out of bed early most days of the week.

They can not only be woo-y as hell, but incredibly close-minded, rigid thinkers.

At least in my limited and anecdotal experience, engineers are often suckers for Intelligent Design. It's easy to see how they arrive at that mindset: they apply engineering principles to the whole universe. "I design circuits, so Something had to design Everything."

I worked with one who fell for the "copper bracelet cures arthritis" scam, and went around trying to peddle bracelets to all his co-workers.

Another engineer was obsessed with getting prayer back into schools, and decorated the doorway of his office with offensive propaganda about that subject. I think HR finally made him take it all down, after numerous complaints.

Then there was aerospace engineer Richard Butler, definitely an Epic Fail at critical thinking. He founded Aryan Nations.

[realisticphish]

26. from my experience

engineers tend to have the attitude that: "I'm an engineer. I'm smart. Therefore whatever I believe is scientific fact"

granted, this is true of other scientific professions as well, but I've seen this a lot with engineers

not to say that ALL engineers have this tendency, I think it just goes with the territory

[frogmarch]

20. Aha, that's the key.

You must be right. It's SCIENCE education and learning to think critically that help protect against woo.

My sister was 7 when our dad died, and 14 when our mom died. These traumatic events affected her deeply, and I think she has been trying ever since to make sense of why things like this happen.

[CanSocDem]

24. My "science" is Sociology.

Albeit, a minor course of study in an undergraduate degree. I focused on the sociology of institutions, including education, medicine and religion.

In my work experience, before and after school, I worked in sales and in the advertising industry.

All of this has led me to conclude that people would rather get along with their particular group than think for themselves. The emergence of new age thinking is a sign that people are beginning to think for themselves.

Thinking for yourself....that's a good thing, right?

.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. $300 for 30 minutes? A dollar every 6 seconds ...

How long does it take to burn a dollar bill? If you set light to the individually, would it cost you more or less than $300 in 30 minutes?

I couldn't really read past those figures. Shit, the nerve of some people ... have they no business scruples at all?