The Producers - Ninox Television.

Ninox have been invited to reply to our (and others') criticism of the show.

So far, they have declined and all we have to go on is an e mail to the writers of an entertainment blog.

We would make the following points to David Baldock: (David's e mail in white)

The psychics are often approached by extremist sceptics with outlandish schemes to try and expose them as frauds. In one case the psychics were asked to pay $1000 to a sceptic for the privilege of attempting to locate a needle in a paddock! The sceptic claimed he would then pay them $100,000 if they located the needle....

Given that nobody has asked for psychics to pay anything, or find needles in haystacks, in this, David Baldock is indulging in a logical fallacy known as "poisoning the well". He is attempting to smear sceptics by associating one (totally unconfirmed by actual evidence) instance of unreasonable scepticism. The $2 Million Challenge contains no such silly fish-hooks and no payment is required to undertake the challenge. All that is required is for a psychic to turn up and do his or her stuff.

From our perspective, why should the psychics have to prove themselves with these pathetic parlour tricks?

Well, gosh! So, asking a psychic to show that their powers are real is a "silly parlour trick"? When they appear on your show and indulge in hot reading, it isn't a parlour trick, though? Yep, sounds fair to me.

Another reason why they might consider doing parlour tricks is the $2M award tag that comes with it, maybe?

Their abilities have been proved time and time again by the fact police are now actively following up many of their leads generated through Sensing Murder.

This is what's know as false association. Certainly, as covered in the Police pages of this site, the NZ Police are delighted that these dead cases are getting fresh publicity. It no more proves psychic ability than it proves the psychic can fly to the moon, but nice wordplay. We have already exploded the myth that the police are following any psychically-obtained leads.

In the case of murdered 91 year old George Engelbrect, for example, the police are now actively pursuing the psychic theory that 2 people were involved. The psychics provided a clear description of the possible accomplice. Police have located someone fitting this description and are currently investigating. The fact that they are dedicating police resources to this a real criminal investigation is, in our opinion, a much more valid testimony to the psychics' ability than some silly test devised by a group of radical atheists.

Unsubstantiated rumour at this stage. Given the investigator involved in the series, it would be no surprise if he turned up some relevant evidence, but again, it will have no bearing on whether the psychics are real or not. Again with the poisoning of the well, though. What's so silly about two million bucks, David? And who's to say the test is silly, given that you refuse to correspond with us? If the evidence was obtained through purely psychic means, a smart producer would have ring-fenced that evidence from everything, since proving a psychic to be real would mean a Nobel Prize and immediate, worldwide fame. I guess those little thoughts never occurred to them?

Update 2008. Note that this "lead" amounted to exactly the same as all other "leads" provided by psychics - nothing at all. Ho hum....

Dear me, David. You'll have to think up a new ploy for the third series.

Regardless of whether this group has the money or not, Ninox Television does not believe that they are objective enough to conduct an independent test. By labelling the psychics "liars" they have clearly stated their position. Who could trust them to conduct a fair trial of the psychic's abilities?

This could be a fair point - but unfortunately for David Baldock, Ninox and their psychics, we have advised Ninox and the psychics that we would take no active part in the testing, being quite happy to leave the testing to independent parties. Of all people, we would be the last to allow bias, so we won't. Independence is critical to testing. That's why psychics won't do it. Nobody's asking anyone to trust us. More pointless poisoning of the well.

Respected clinical psychologist Nigel Latta observed a full psychic reading and did not believe that psychic Deb Webber had cheated or was recounting previously learnt facts. The fact that extremist sceptics are now challenging Nigel's credibility, when he has 17 years experience interviewing some of NZ's worst criminals, is surely a sign that nothing will convince these die-hard non-believers. When Nigel asked to observe a reading, we agreed because he has proven experience detecting deception - far more experience, I would suggest, than these armchair critics with blatant agendas of trying to disprove life after death. In a future episode, you will see that the former detective in charge of a case also sits in on the psychic readings. Surely if it was all a hoax, he would have something to say about it???

Nice try, but utter rubbish. Latta has shown his true colours by refusing to answer questions about what he did and didn't see. Does it really need to be re-stated that if Latta thinks he can tell when someone is lying, then we should do away with the justice system in this country and let Latta train people up to decide guilt and innocence. Latta may well be respected as a clinical psychologist, but he has exactly no experience in debunking psychics. As to why we'd have an agenda to disprove life after death, that is an odd comment. Apparently, it's our blatant agenda, yet nobody on this site, or connected with it any way has ever attacked the Buddhist faith, or has any plans to do so at any stage.

What we want to disprove is the notion that dead people's spirits talk to psychics who then charge people for the privilege of hearing it. Tell me, David. Don't you think dead people might value their wisdom a little more than that? That they can't be bothered speaking personally to live people, but instead choose to let some psychic charge $3-99 a minute for it?

Detective, psychologist, whatever. If you genuinely care about ensuring that the psychics are not given any assistance, I suggest you pick a small child to help you develop protocols for it, because your current policy is completely open to abuse and you're really only convincing yourself. Again, we refer you to the Alpha Project.  Without suitable protocols, cheating is easy.

If we make a third series of Sensing Murder, we may indeed devise other tests for the psychics. However, the need for objective and impartial adjudicators to preside over these tests is paramount.

Great! Then, instead of using detectives and psychologists, hire a magician to ensure that no trickery is used. I'm very confident that Jon Zealando will join your show. I'm equally-confident that you wouldn't use him, because Jon has a 40-year history of exposing psychic frauds. Your use of the words "impartial" and "objective" are quite laughable in the context of a show which won an award for: (in a direct quote from the QANTAS TV Awards)

essentially scripted programmes in which the premise, circumstances or situations are constructed or manipulated for the purpose of realising the format

Manipulated and objective; impartial and constructed. Okey-dokey.

Incidentally, the psychics do not believe this 'atheist' outfit have the funds to back up their challenge. I'd have to say I'd go with the psychic's instincts on that one...

Kind regards,
David Harry Baldock
Managing Director
Ninox Television

Newsflash: Psychics wrong again!

David, since you're so sure we're full of crap, why don't you reply to the e mails and show the world just how full of crap we are?

Scared it might backfire?