Skeptic Can See Better Than the Psychics

Gene Emery makes one prediction at the beginning of every year and it’s almost always correct. Here’s his statement for 1999: All the psychics will be wrong.

In fact, that’s the same prediction Emery issues every year. As a science writer and regular contributor to the Skeptical Inquirer, he’s been tracking the predictions of supermarket tabloid psychics for more than two decades.

He’s not impressed.

Not only do they make incredibly vague or just plain wrong predictions, but it is also amazing what they don’t see coming, Emery said. While one supermarket tabloid psychic said that Frank Sinatra would have plenty of “zing left in his zodiac” in 1998, they also didn’t foresee the deaths of Sonny Bono or Michael Kennedy; the new home-run record for baseball; and the election of Jesse “the Body” Ventura to the Minnesota governorship.

“It was the same in 1997 when the psychics were predicting all kinds of things for Princess Diana,” Emery said, “except her death.”

The last time Emery gave anyone credit was in 1992 when a psychic for the National Enquirer forecast a devastating hurricane for that year. In August of that year, Hurricane Andrew ripped into the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Of course, Emery points out the same psychic also said Rush Limbaugh would save Ted Kennedy’s life after a car wreck.

“I conclude [the psychic] just got lucky,” Emery said.

Other blown predictions for 1998 included:

* Oprah Winfrey will buy CBS and make it the first major network to “turn its back on TV violence.”

* Elizabeth Taylor will marry Burt Reynolds.

* Kathie Lee Gifford will be straitjacketed and put in a mental institution after her morning show is canceled.

* Nighttime joggers and cyclists will begin drinking a liquid that makes their skin glow bright green in the dark.

* Fidel Castro will move to Beverly Hills following the overthrow of his government.

* Rising insurance costs will force the NFL to eliminate tackle football in favor of two-handed touch.

* Marv Albert will be seduced into posing for the Victoria’s Secret catalog--wearing lingerie.