Police "resort" to psychics

I'm sure most people by now have seen the article Police turn to psychics in Kaye Stewart mystery, wherein the police turn to the "psychics" from Sensing Murder for help. And indeed, there was information from one of the psychics, and "[her] revelation "could go down in New Zealand policing history"."

However... "But Detective Senior Sergeant Ross Levy said police who interviewed Webber and fellow psychic Kelvin Cruickshank had already discounted that person, and other publicly unknown information revealed by the pair had failed to produce any fresh leads."

Yeah, once again the psychics have come through with information no-one could know...

Of interest are the comments. Most of them are skeptical, and some claim "I'm open" and "you can't talk about it until you've experienced it" (a line which is used in many places and bugs me... but I might blog that later...). Also claims that psychics have solved cases, although details are not forthcoming.

There was also a poll, about the use of psychics and TV shows. Me, I voted for the "publicity" angle, and while "Yes (useful)" is winning in absolute terms, the rest of the items are all negative to actual ability and so overall that's 70% saying 'no' to psychic ability. We seem to be a largely skeptical country...

EDIT: NZ Skeptics chair entity, Vicky Hyde, speaks up about Sensing Murder's stunning record... of no successes. (Thanks Alden!)

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