Herald Column: There's the "Psychics" - Where's the Skepticism?

This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly looks at the failure on the part of "psychics" to contribute anything useful to the Tori Stafford investigation - part of a much broader track record of failure:

 

...Like many tragedies, there are many lesson to be learned here -- among them is the need for a great deal more skepticism toward self-professed "psychics" and "clairvoyants."

 

More than a week after Tori went missing, family members consulted a "clairvoyant"-- hardly surprising or discreditable that the family would exhaust every last conceivable avenue, as incredulous as some of them might seem. The motives are much less clear with regard to the other half of this equation. Without possessing any actual knowledge or information about Tori's whereabouts, a reasonable person would tell the family-- with a heavy heart, no doubt--that he or she has no idea where the child is.

 

That's not the case here. It's difficult to ascertain whether this "clairvoyant" actually believes she possesses such abilities or is merely a shameless fraud, but the evidence would indicate that it is one or the other. This "clairvoyant," after holding Tori's teddy bear, confidently told the family that the young girl was alive.

 

We know now, however, that Tori was not alive when those words were uttered. Police say the girl was murdered within 24 hours of her abduction. That no supernatural vision was able to provide any-- let alone all--of the details of this case to us is a revealing and indisputable fact.

 

Rather than providing comfort to the family, it could be said that all this "clairvoyant" delivered was false hope. But even if one concedes that it is at worst harmless for a worried or grieving family to seek out "psychics," there is clearly a downside to law enforcement doing so.

 

The evidence tells us that listening to such claims are a distraction, if not a counterproductive waste of police resources.

 

American author and researcher Joe Nickell has detailed many examples of police sent on wild goose chases after following such tips. Even worse, Nickell finds, are instances where "psychics" have wrongfully accused innocent people of committing crimes.

 

The totality of the evidence is overwhelming, a simple fact easily discerned from the mere existence of so many unsolved cases. Moreover, both the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children maintain that "psychics" have never helped solve a missing person case.

 

This topic was addressed previously at this blog here and here. Further background reading here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Watch this, too: 

 

Herald Column: Long Live the Human Rights Commissions!

This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly looks at the Alberta government's Bill 44 (and some social conservatives' embrace of it) and how defeat has been snatched from the jaws of victory in the campaign for freedom of speech and against Human Rights Commissions:

 

Just when it seemed that public demand and political will would finally result in a reining in of the province's much-maligned human rights regime, the Alberta government has fashioned a resurrection of almost Biblical proportions.

Through political incompetence and shameless pandering, new life has been bestowed on all that was rotten in Human Rights Land, and the mess has been compounded with a plan to drag education into this wretched realm.

The firestorm of criticism over Bill 44 would seem all-encompassing: the decisions to leave Section 3 -- the censorship clause -- and to enshrine a parental "opt-out" clause with regard to matters of sexuality or religion in education have left many alarmed.

However, some social conservatives--including Bishop Fred Henry and the Canada Family Action Coalition -- have taken a liking to the bill. Both the bishop and the CFAC are lamenting the survival of Section 3, but even the most flexible of political principles cannot straddle this divide. Bill 44 not only ensures the continued reign of the HRC censors, it further entrenches their legitimacy. Pro-Bill 44 "freespeechers" have indeed sold their souls.

And for what? Control over public education, it would seem. On these pages last week, Bishop Henry asked, "why should the faith of the atheist and agnostic be the only governing paradigm in public education?"

The bishop seems confused about the crucial distinction between "secular" and "atheist" -- yes, the public system is secular, as it should be. The bishop also overlooks the existence of an explicitly Catholic education system -- a rather strange thing for a man in his position to forget, I would think.

If parents are fearful of what sort of godless gobbledygook is to be rammed down the throats of their little lambs, then perhaps public schools are not the place for them. School choice exists in Alberta. But maybe that's the point--make the public system a little more religious and make the religious system a little less accountable to the public. The suggestion that the teaching of evolution could now be in the crosshairs would seem to confirm that suspicion.

The premier had stated that parents could pull their kids out of classes dealing with evolution, while other ministers claimed that Bill 44 dealt specifically with religion and therefore not evolution. True, evolution is science, not religion. However, perhaps someone could then explain why religious schools are so loath to teach it? Shouldn't the government demand that schools receiving public dollars adhere to the science curriculum?

If religious schools are free to "opt-out" on evolution, then why not religious parents, too? And once "advance notice" becomes too cumbersome, maybe avoidance will be a safer way of avoiding a date with the human rights commissars.

Someone Likes Bill 44

Can it be so? An admirer of this wretched piece of legislation? So it would seem - the Canada Family Action Coalition has given its thumbs up to Bill 44:

 

The head of a national Christian lobby group says parents, not educators, will decide when to apply new rights allowing them to pull kids from controversial classes if MLAs pass proposed changes to Alberta's human rights laws.

(...)

But Brian Rushfeldt, co-founder of the Calgary-based Canada Family Action Coalition, thinks the proposed human rights provision can be more widely interpreted.

"It's up to the parent to make (the legislation) as broad or as narrow as they want," said Rushfeldt, who welcomed the proposed changes.

"I don't know that the schools nor the government should be the ones to put parameters on it and say it's only sexuality classes or only evolution classes or only religion classes. That defeats the whole purpose of having parents have rights, because someone else is making the decision."

 

Well this would be the crowd the government was attempting to pander to, so I suppose its mission accomplished in that sense. Putting aside the redundancy of the parental-opt out clause and the potential can of worms this opens, keep in mind that Bill 44 makes no change whatsoever to Section 3 of the Human Rights legislation: the very section that enables human rights commissions to deal with matters of speech - the same section used to convict Rev. Steven Boissoin.  

 

Yet, the CFAC would have us believe they are a champion of free speech (Word format): 

 

If this clause remains in federal and provincial Acts – it is only a matter of time until anyone who speaks out (especially Christians) on controversial issues is persecuted and prosecuted under these anti - Charter laws. Our section 1 Charter guarantee has been violated numerous times by human rights “activists”. Basic human rights in Section 2 of your Charter: freedoms of thought, conscience, religion, belief, opinion and expression and press have all been ignored by the tyrants that run our tax paid human rights system.

If the CFAC really believes that last line then they ought to be stridently opposed to Bill 44 which offers nothing for freedom of speech and may end up drumming up more business for human rights commissions. How can one claim that "tyrants" are running the human rights system, but support the policing of classrooms by these same "tyrants"?

 

Someone, however, not on the Bill 44 bandwagon (someone I've criticized) is Calgary Bishop Fred Henry. The Bishop is less than impressed with the Bill:

 

Most significantly, the bill fails to amend Section 3. The government opted for a minimalist or housekeeping approach to the revision of the act, hiding behind statements like: "Alberta's human rights legislation will balance freedom of speech with our responsibility to others" and "jurisdictional issues are complex, but recognizing the responsibilities that come with freedom of expression is also important."

 

In the National Post, Kevin Libin has an interesting analysis of how the Alberta government handled this situation:

 

When earlier this year Alberta’s new culture minister Lindsay Blackett -- the boss in charge of the commissions -- called them “kangaroo courts,” and asserted “people have the right to say what they believe and Albertans strongly believe in that right”-- free-speechers here were sure that their province was ready to strike a sufficiently strong blow for liberty and against censorship to inspire a national trend.

And then Premier Ed Stelmach’s government finally unveiled its proposed reforms, spinning a golden political opportunity into dross. Under the proposed Bill 44, the section prohibiting expressing ideas “likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt” goes entirely untouched, shocking freethinking Albertans and chastening Blackett. Not surprisingly, given the Supreme Court rulings on the matter, the province will add to the HRC’s mandate protection for gays and lesbians. But in an entirely unexpected and rather woolly move, the province will add the right of parents to pull their kids out of classrooms should they dislike any sexual or religious messages being taught there. So, while you can’t write or speak anything critical about gays, even if you happen to be a cleric of a religion that has something to say on the matter, pulling your kids out of a classroom where there’s mere talk of the existence of gayness is now an Albertan human right.

What makes even less sense is why the Tories even made this an issue, while ignoring more pressing problems in their human rights commission. Unlike the Boisson and Levant cases, there was something approaching zero public pressure for Stelmach to strengthen parental rights at the school level.  

 

More from Father Raymond de Souza.