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Poll: Should psychics undergo mandatory testing?

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First topic, took me a while. This is an issue that I've wondered about for quite some time.

I trust I will not meet with much opposition when I say that at the very least, a lot of psychics(/mystics/faith healers/anything similar) are frauds and employ known methods of generalisation, hot and cold reading, etc. to give the impression they have supernatural help. Although I personally believe this to be true of all psychics, whether or not they know it themselves, unfortunately I can't simply say "All psychics are frauds and should be banned" because one or two might be legitimate. So I propose that in every country, people claiming to have supernatural abilities and who offer services pertaining to those, must be tested by an impartial regulatory body, and any without certification must make it clear to customers that their claims are unsupported and that they may not possess the powers they suggest they do. The tests would of course be conducted fairly and scientifically.

Now you might wonder why I even care, it's clear I would not be using these services. It is because these sorts of people prey on the vulnerabilities of people who are at difficult times in their lives, whether a relative has passed away, they are considering a career change, or otherwise open to bad advice. But mostly I just don't like the idea of people making money from services they aren't supplying. :D

The best arguments I've heard so far against this are: There are countries or areas where a local testing institution may not meet proper standards and thus validate fraud (I cannot, for example, imagine that somewhere like India would conduct impartial tests considering they've supported an example of someone living without food or water for months and suggested sunlight as fuel), the people who use these services think they're legitimate so what skin is it off my nose, there are countries and cultures whose whole experience would be ruined by having to explicitly say there is no effect (like Japan, where there are all sorts of little mystical things and superstitions that you go along with anyway despite knowing that it's probably a regular fountain with no special properties), some forms of psychic (like pet psychics or people who predict a general theme of the future rather than specifics) would be difficult to test and would have to be exempt, and it would cost a lot of money for little benefit, especially if psychics did not have to pay for their own testing. Basically it's not worth while.

tl;dr: Mandatory testing for psychics, thoughts?


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