James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
No. I'm not talking about Dick Cheney's metric for how probable a threat must be before taking it seriously (that would be 1 %). Instead we have this bizarre statement in Newsday from a researcher of the paranorma identified only as "Wendy":
"Only one-tenth of 1 percent of all those who claim to be psychic are," she said, basing her conclusion on 15 years of research.
The story, by Newsday reporter Tania Padgett, ran on Friday. Although it started out well enough, with a headline of "Psychic or quack? Skeptics cry foul," the piece immediately ran into problems. Critics of psychic power are labelled "shrill" in the lead paragraph. And Wendy's estimate in the fifth paragraph goes unchallenged.
What I want to know is, where does the 0.1 % figure come from, other than 15 years of research? What kind of research? And if that means Wendy has verified the pyschic abilities of at least a few claimants, then why haven't we heard about it before. After all, her self-published book was written in 2000.
Actually, what I really want to know is, why are Newsday, the Seattle Times and who knows what other paper wasting space with such drivel?
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