Psychic Nikki predicts the Golden Globe results

   I was clicking through some of the links on my AOL Canada welcome screen yesterday, and came across this one: Who Will Win This Year? A Psychic Predicts! (I don't know how long that link will stay active, but it was still working this morning at 9:30 when I started writing this article. Edited to add: As well, that link should work for everyone now. I still don't know how long it will stay up.)
   So, noted Toronto Psychic, Nikki, who's claim to fame right now is writing an advice column that appears in the daily news magazine distributed for free on the morning Go train, predicted the outcome of several categories at the Golden Globe awards. How did she do? What do you think? Really, this is like shooting fish in a barrel.

1) Helen Mirren will win Best Actress in a Drama, for The Queen. Yep, she got this one right, but really, did anyone, anywhere, pick anyone else? Further, says Nikki, Mirren will play Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming movie, and will also be in a romantic comedy along with a "young Hollywood starlet" within the next twenty-four months. Only if she can beat Meryl Streep two out of three pinfalls, I'm thinking.

2) Leonardo DiCaprio will win Best Actor in a Drama, for Blood Diamond. Uh, no. Does Nikki not read any entertainment news? Forrest Whittaker was pretty much a lock for this one. Has been for months. Nikki also adds that Leo needs to "be careful of a kidnapping within 24 to 36 months." Huh?

3) Johnny Depp will win Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for Pirates of the Caribbean II - Dead Man's Chest. Nope. That one went to Sasha Baron-Cohen, for Borat: Interminably Long And Grammatically Incorrect Movie Title For To Make People Laugh Before Movie Even Start. A surprise win, I thought, but I still wouldn't have picked Depp. I'm not impressed so far, Nikki.

4) Beyoncé will not win, but will win other awards over the next two years. Well, this was true, she did not win in either of the two categories in which she was nominated, but with five competitors in each category, it's notreally going against the odds to pick one person not to win, is it now? I don't see how I can even count this one as an official result. It's like flipping a card off the top of a deck, and predicting that it's not going to be a face card. You have better than a three in four chance of being right. Oh, and Nikki says Beyoncé needs to "be careful of robbery." Uh huh.

5) Best Picture, Drama: The Queen. Sorry, Nikki. Wrong again.

6) Best TV Drama: Grey's Anatomy. A hit! A palpable hit.

7) Best TV Musical or Comedy: Entourage. Oops. A miss.

8) Best Actress in a TV Musical or Comedy: America Ferrara, for Ugly Betty. Yes!

9) Best Actor in a TV Drama: Keifer Sutherland, for 24. No!!

10) Best Actor in a TV Musical or Comedy: Alec Baldwin, for 30 Rock. Yes!!!

11) Best Actress in a TV Drama: Ellen Pompeo, for Grey's Anatomy. No!!!!

   So, leaving out number four, because a psychic has to do more than simply play the obvious odds, Nikki's record on these predictions was 50%. For a woman who claims to have "the power to see objects or events that cannot be perceived by the senses," and "acute intuitive insight or perceptiveness," she has demonstrated neither with these predictions. Had she simply gone to her favourite gambling website, looked up the Golden Globe odds, and picked all the favourites, she would have had better results.

   Nonetheless, Psychic Nikki will shortly be trumpeting on her website the fact that she correctly predicted Golden Globe wins by Helen Mirren and America Ferrara, and making no mention of those predictions that were incorrect, and her gullible fans will eat it all up. Psychics are getting bolder and bolder with making these predictions openly, and not worrying about whether or not they get them correct. They are secure in the knowledge that it doesn't matter how many complete misses they throw out there, the believers will still believe.
   Jonathan Swift once said, "you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into," and popular belief in psychic phenomena is a classic example of this truism. People don't believe in psychics because they have seen any compelling evidence to suggest they are real. They believe because they think it would neato if it were true, and so they decide to believe, despite the fact that all available evidence suggests that these people cannot do what they claim to be able to do. So, when they see reports of psychics missing the boat, like this one, they engage in all kinds of mental gymnastics to allow them to discount the misses, only focus on the hits, and continue to believe. George Bernard Shaw once said, "the moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it."

   Speaking of quotations, I made reference to four in yesterday's post, and promised I would reveal their source today. I needn't have bothered, as Dawn was on the ball, and identified three of them right away.
   The first, "a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right," was indeed Thomas Paine, and could be used as another answer to the question, "why skepticism?" An outspoken skeptic, like myself, sees himself as providing a service to the public, in not allowing wrongs things to achieve a "superficial appearance of being right." By not speaking out against wrongs, one becomes the undesirable side of the "if you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem" equation.
   The second quote: "the first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool," was, as Dawn pointed out, Nobel prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman. His words were aimed at science students, and were intended to highlight a fundamental principal of the scientific method, that one's aim should be to attempt in every way possible to disprove one's own hypotheses. They do, however, fit in very well with the Swift quote I referred to above, in that people who believe in psychics have chosen to fool themselves, instead of critically examining the available evidence on the topic.
   Invoking Jon Swift brings us to the third skeptical quote, another of his own: "old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretenses to foretell events." What does that mean? Well, in Swift's time, men old enough to have long, white beards were almost as rare as comets. He refers to the fact that we seem to attribute special meanings to rare events, like the appearance of a comet, or the fact that a manlived long enough for his hair to turn white. In fact, old men may, or may not be wiser than anyone else, and comets are just little balls of ice that follow very long orbits. Neither are any more special, or important that any other person or event. we must learn to judge people on their own merits, not attribute certain things to them based on their appearance. Likewise, we must learn to judge events as they happen, not think they are somehow special because they coincide with a piece of clockwork astronomical ephemera.
   The last quotation from yesterday was, as I said, not so much a skeptical point of view, but a good piece of advice about life in general. It was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the author of Don Quixote, who said, "there's no taking trout with dry breeches." what he meant was, if you don't just wade in and start something, it's pretty unlikely to ever get done. Good advice. I should learn to take it.

Tags: psychic Nikki, Golden Globe Awards, skepticism,