Baloney Detection 1

Jessica Olsen
Cinnamon Jensen
SLCC Phil 1000-023
Spring, 2016

Psychic Investigators Season 2.

Episode 12: Tunnel Vision.
Introduction:
The police have called on a psychic Investigator in this episode to show a conclusion of why
involvement in supernatural phenomena works. The story first begins by the police having
several leads, an almost conviction but without substantial evidence, no suspects remained
detained. No clues and nowhere to turn after two teen girls are murdered by the same killer. A
town fueled with rage is pushing the police in this city in Canada to find the person responsible.
An officer hears of stories of Americans having ties with psychics to help them with their
criminal cases. Americans seem to have influence from this, so an officer figures to try it out
shaping new paths by calling on a psychic named Noreen Reiner, who specializes in homicides.
From there, to show the police she is credible, she describes victims with details along with
giving a sketch of the killer she created by what we do not see in reality. By impressions from
her thoughts to help find the murderer. The police do not find a match up at the current time, so
this case closes as a cold case. 13 years later it reopens with the new fingerprint technology,
and a matchup occurs with a man by the same time frame who was taken in for driving under the
influence of alcohol but overlooked as a suspect. The psychics sketch 13 years earlier also
matches up with this man. Because of this coincidence, the police are convinced Reiners abilities
are justifiable to catch criminals by using psychic powers.
Critique:
Now while I respect both parties and am empathetic in their searching for criminals behind
these murders. This theory relies on a hypothesis that cannot be tested, a fallacy if you will.
While person A, Noreen Reiner states she is a psychic that has the authority just to know
homicides by her abilities is not testable by any human. That Michael Shermer, a man who is a
wit at finding arguments, would agree with because he tells us to ask ourselves, "Is this really
how the world works?" He explains additionally to look at Ad hoc reasoning; this happens when
a person defends their original argument with further explanations, even after they have seen

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evidence that would show their case is not reliable." Since science knows humans cant look into
another person's actualities, future or the past, this argument becomes logically fallacious.
Shermer (2012) Explained...
How we look at why this is fallacious is because, 13 years ago before the police in this small
town in Canada called on a psychic. There were several people already questioned as shown
above, and the police had an almost conviction. A sentence that made the news and newspapers
with a photo identity. Reiner could have empirically made this sketch off of an impression she
had already previously seen by the photo being in the media. Even if we see a tie that the
drawing is looking similar to the murderer who is the DUI man. Doesnt dismiss the fact that it
also correlates with the almost convicted person whose impression was also in the media. By
seeing this, you can begin to question whether its valuable information.
To give you a more in-depth ad hoc reasoning from explaining it from Shermer's view, in
this show, is where the cops protected their reasoning behind calling the psychic in the first
place. So they could back themselves up for wasting time and measures where they could have
been looking for the murderer by realistic data, by further questioning more suspects who were
taken in for crimes around the same time frame. Instead of relying on Reiner. At the time if they
looked more into Dui man they would have found the murderer sooner.
Nonetheless, since we know psychic investigators cant be a part of the criminal justice
system either because it goes against the Fifth Amendment, which would go against our rights as
individual people. The Constitution cannot rely on supernatural data under The Due Process
clause; this requires the government not to act on random accusations. They cannot make choices
towards arbitrary to deny life, liberty or property outside the sanction of law. We have to have
straightforward (real) evidence, things that are physically feasible to place an individual up for a
fair-trialed-sentence. So with that, the conclusion looks like, Reiner became a tool to protect their
jobs as police officers since working under the law doesnt favor this and sounds like a waste in
being proactive towards these two individuals who lost their life. No attorney could use this in
the court of law. So the officers went with reasoning with a psychic to protect their job.

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Bibliography
Buck, K. (Producer). (2007). Psychic Investigators Tunnel Vision: [The Second Season].
In Cineflix. Canada: Netflix.
R. (2012). Michael Shermer: Baloney Detection Kit. Retrieved May 04, 2016, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSHZG9blQQ