Sylvia Browne in deep

You might have heard of Sylvia Browne, a psychic medium, who has had been on Randi's commentary newsletter more than once. She even accepted Randi's paranormal challenge, but that was 222 weeks ago. Yet to appear.

January 3, she was on a radio show (Coast to Coast) during the mining disaster in West Virginia. Early in the rescue operation, they reported that at least twelve of the thirteen trapped miners were known to be alive. This was, unfortunately, a wrong announcement, and that really twelve of the thirteen had died. For some reason, his horrible news stayed quite for three to four hours. During the radio show, Browne was heard saying that she psychically knew the miners were alright. But this was after the rescuers had found that truly, the majority of the miners had perished. After the bad news finally broke, she quickly reversed her story. Source: Fox.

As an aside, Sylvia Browne's website (I loath putting a link to it here) has a note to the Skeptic Society posted front and center. The thrust of the note is that she doesn't find it important to prove that she really is psychic. At least, not empirically.

"Somehow, in my willingness to enter into public discussions with you, I’ve mistakenly led you to believe that I have a stake of some sort in your approval, when nothing could be further from the truth."

Which is more outrageous: 1) Sylvia Browne really is psychic, which throws half of modern science to the wind, and she doesn't find it important enough to prove this; or perhaps 2) she is yet another fraud and gets away with it by preying on those who want while refusing to give rational explanations? Her second paragraph is a wash and I'll explain why in respect to her third paragraph...

"...please, please do what I would have done with it and donate it to a worthy, legitimate charity."

She is speaking about her reneged application for the JREF Million Dollar Prize. Being that Browne is relatively high profile in the psychic world, Randi would no doubt fast-track the testing procedure. Her acceptance (mov) of the test was on Larry King Live, after all. So with little effort she could go win the prize money herself. She claims she has no interest, and that Randi should donate the cash. Winning the money would do so much for her. Firstly, it would shut Randi up for a good while and that would make many, many people happy; they would clearly donate lots of money to whichever charity Browne wanted. She would prove psychic ability, she would change the face of modern science, and she could look awesome by donating the money herself. But, none of these things will ever happen. If pyschic powers do exists, show the world! Prove it using natural science! Sylvia Browne won't take the test of course, because I dare say, she knows she can not prove her psychic powers, precisely because she has none.

PS: Wednesday's post wasn't up for very long, because of my lateness. So be sure to check it out if you haven't. Skeptics Society Letter.