Robbie Thomas Revisited

As you may know, a number of months ago Robbie Thomas claimed that he was in the process of suing me.  It comes with great surprise and regret that my opinion on psychic phenomenon took a direct hit when, this morning, I received a notice for a registered letter.

I picked up my registered letter and, guess what, it was my Nexus card.  Yes, my Nexus card.  No, it wasn't a letter from Robbie's lawyer.  It was at that point that I realized that predictions I made had actually come true.  My pretty firm belief in the non-existence of true psychic abilities was being put to the test.

A number of months ago, I predicted that, though many know me both as, well, me, and as "Sarnia Skeptic" Robbie Thomas would not be able to identify me (he isn't psychic after all) and, though I offered to identify myself to Robbie's supposed lawyer if there was a lawsuit to be filed against me, that Robbie was lying about a pending lawsuit.  Both of my predictions were true.  I had to question whether I, too, possessed psychic powers (I don't - nobody does).

I'm revisiting the "Robbie Thomas" crap on Small Town Skepticism (though http://www.stoprobbie.com/ would seem the more appropriate place for it) because 1.) it helps promote http://www.stoprobbie.com/ and 2.) his threats were to me specifically.

To reiterate something that we (myself and other skeptics as well as contributors to http://www.stoprobbie.com/) have said many times before - Robbie Thomas is not psychic and he has not solved a single missing persons or murder case using his claimed (but non-existent) psychic powers.  And Robbie claims he has been doing this for over 20 years now.  My apologies for the out-dated graphic on my blog - I leave it at 18 so that Robbie doesn't feel like the true failure that he is.  I mean, it is bad enough not having a single success in 18 years, let alone 20!

Now to the meat of this entry.  Robbie Thomas now claims to be a Psychic Criminal Profiler - which is almost self-contradictory in title alone.  (I think http://www.stoprobbie.com/ really does the Psychic Criminal Profiling.)

A criminal profiler, as described on HubPages, is "an individual with appropriate Education, experience and skill to thoroughly examine available physical evidence, crime scene characteristics and associated behavioural evidence to infer offender characteristics and render a criminal profile."

Criminal profiling can be a useful tool that is often employed by police agencies.  A profile, however, is not evidence.  Many cases that have involved "profiling" have been, in hindsight, pretty accurate in their description of a criminal's patterns, activities, history, etc.  They aren't, however, always accurate and in some cases have put focus on areas that distracted the case.  Much of profiling is based on disciplines of science but the predictions that are made are often very speculative and can be entirely off-base.

Adding the term "Psychic" to the title of Criminal Profiler makes the information that much more suspect.  At least in standard profiling, a person can review the deductions and inferences that were made to obtain the profile and, in the future, fine tune the process to provide more specific and accurate information.  When "and magic happens" is added to any equation, the answers or results are often less valid and not worth considering.  Since "psychic" phenomenon has never passed even the most basic of scientific investigations, the resulting products from a "Psychic Criminal Profiler" would not stand up to scrutiny.

Simply adding "Criminal Profiler" to "Psychic" almost infers, in itself, that psychic "skills" do not exist.  If psychics were truly able to communicate with the dead and/or "remote view", why would they need to build a "profile", could they not simply ask the deceased individual who killed them or could they not see the exact location that a missing person is being kept? 

A profile done in advance of catching the criminal - something that is often not admissible as evidence in court - is only 70% right 80% of the time (I couldn't find statistics but I am assured that it is better than 50% but not anywhere near 100% accurate) - combined with "psychic" (which many people will attribute psychic abilities to someone who has one hit in 10 guesses (10% accuracy!)).  In other words, possibly useful information made completely useless because it is based 100% on something that does not exist.

To sum up:
Robbie has not been able to identify me using his psychic powers (do you think he could find a murderer or a missing person?)
Robbie lied about suing me.
Robbie has not solved a single missing persons or murder case using psychic powers.
Robbie Thomas is not listed as an expert witness for profiling in any publically available court documents.

As The Skeptic's Dictionary so aptly states:
Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people. Psychics aren't overly worried about other psychics reading their minds and revealing their innermost secrets to the world. No casino has ever banned psychics from the gaming room because there is no need.