Soon it’s going to be ille­gal to see into the future; con­tact the deceased; and find out what’s inside closed envelopes. Well, probably…

New laws are about to crim­i­nalise clair­voy­ants who fail to note on their adver­tise­ments that their ser­vices ‘are not sub­ject to sci­en­tific proof’.

Obvi­ously, I’d like to think that the more intel­li­gent among us realise that most of this “clair­voy­ance” is just a com­bi­na­tion of Forer effects, con­fir­ma­tion bias and self-delusion, but I’m a pos­i­tivist.

I can’t wait to see my first case:

“Madame Arcati, you have been con­victed of prey­ing upon stu­pid and gullible peo­ple by pur­port­ing to see into the future, and to com­mu­ni­cate with the dead, with­out warn­ing them in writ­ing that your art is tosh”.
“But Sir, that’s what we of the spir­i­tual trade have been doing for cen­turies. Surely the stu­pid and gullible should be allowed their illu­sions?“
“And another thing, Sir: If I am to be pun­ished for this, what about the Vicar? He can’t prove his claims any more then poor lit­tle I can. What about wrin­kle cream makers?”

This has also been in the news pre­vi­ously. I do won­der, though, if it will be stretched to cover the many instances of pop­u­lar pseu­do­science.

via The Magistrate’s Blog