Lets hear it for the good guys!!!!!
In the same way that Robert Lancaster has a dislike of the practices of so-called psychic Sylvia Brown, I have a dislike of claims made by one fellow Scot, Derek Ogilvie. Derek has shot to fame as “The Baby Mind Reader” on Channel 5, conducted a tour of Scotland, has tried to break
through in the states and has recently and is working on a series called “Baby’s Wil Is Wet”
(translation from Dutch: “What Baby Wants Is Law”) in the Netherlands.
As I have previously stated, I am not a fan of what Mr Ogilvie does, I have watched his show and apart from the fact that he clearly cold reads the parents in his shows, he clearly has no shame in exploiting vulnerable people for his gain and the entertainment of others. His belief in his powers is so great that he applied for the great James Randi’s £1,000,000 challenge. Even though this challenge has been running since 1964 and never has been claimed, Mr Ogilvie fancied his chances. I was concerned about this and did email the JREF with my concerns, and got a reply from the great Randi himself, here is a transcript of the email:
“Dear all at the JREF
It has been really great reading all the articles on your site, I have really enjoyed it and it even convinced me to pick up a copy of Flim-Flam. It has come to my attention that a charlatan from my Hometown of Paisley in Scotland has applied to do Randi’s challenge. The so called baby reader “Derek Ogilvie”
I have no doubt in thinking that he will fail miserably to demonstrate anything other than being able to insert his head up his own ass, but where my concern is that he has applied to do the challenge at a time where he is launching a new tour and I can’t help but thinking he wants to do the challenge in order to gain some publicity in your shores as well as over here, the whole “there is no such thing as bad publicity” approach.
People that we (myself and my skeptical minded friends) have spoken to that are a tad narrow minded and believe that Ogilvie has “weegie waggie powers” say that even if (I actually mean when) he fails the challenge, it will not change their opinion of him.”
Yours sincerely
The Cognitive Grenade
…… and the great Randi’s reply…………
Have no fear….
James Randi.
And Randi was right, Ogilvie sat the challenge in May (although Randi agreed not to release the details of the test until the TV production company behind “Baby’s Wil Is Wet” gave him permission. As expected by yours truly and any other rational thinking Skeptic, Ogilvie failed to win the money. He had agreed to the test conditions and controls set by the JREF, but in his Psychic readings of 20 children/parents, he got 1 prediction right, which Randi states is an excellent example of the proof of the laws of chance, and of permutations and combinations.
On Ogilvie’s website he states “Until I prove my abilities scientifically then I realize that many Skeptics will undoubtedly dismiss my claims and try to wind me up by constantly going on and on about me “cold reading” or using trickery”
Well unfortunately you did fail to prove your abilities scientifically and the fact that you stated that that the JREF test “can’t be scientific, because Randi is an illusionist.” Seems to reek of sour grapes, I wonder what would have been said in the unlikely event of you passing the test
I salute Mr Randi, the JREF and all their work at exposing these fakers, the sad thing is though that there are those out there that will discount the results of this test and continue to be amazed by Ogilvie and his work.
You can read all of the article here.