Criticism
Skeptics such as Paul Kurtz and Ray Hyman say that DuBois does not have psychic powers. Skeptic James Randi says that people such as DuBois give the appearance of psychic powers through cold reading techniques. For example, DuBois, when doing her first reading of Schwartz, told him that his deceased friend was telling her, "I don't walk alone," which Schwartz understood to be a reference to his friend's confinement to a wheelchair, which DuBois could not have known about. Randi says that Schwartz leapt to an unsupportable conclusion, since the notion of "not walking alone" can mean any number of things, and "certainly does not describe being in a wheelchair." Randi also asserts that experiments that allegedly yield positive results of psychic powers, such as the ones done with DuBois, are not conducted using proper scientific controls. In light of Schwartz's assertion that "some" of his experiments with DuBois were performed under such conditions, Randi questions why the rest of them were not, and points to a report demonstrating that a few of Schwartz's experiments were not performed according to standard scientific protocol. Dr. Schwartz's point-by-point response to Randi's criticisms was published in 2005.
In 2005, Randi offered to have DuBois tested for his One Million Dollar Challenge. According to Randi, DuBois declined his invitation to the challenge. In 2011, the JREF again issued the million dollar challenge to James Van Praagh, Allison DuBois, Sylvia Browne, Carla Baron, John Edward, and others if they can prove their abilities in controlled experiments." through ABC News, Time.com and AOL News. Ben Radford with CSICOP quotes Magician James Randi who challenges "James Van Praagh and Allison DuBois have turned the huckster art of ‘cold reading' into a multi-million-dollar industry, preying on families' deepest fears and regrets,” he says in a statement announcing the challenge. “They should be embarrassed by the transparent performances.”
Former FBI profiler, behavioral science expert and MSNBC analyst Clint Van Zandt challenges statements about psychics helping law enforcement arguing, "If psychics were truly successful and if their results were not simply the consequence of trickery (at worse ) or good interviewing skills (at best), then why don't law enforcement agencies have psychic detective squads, a real X-Files Unit, or other ways to integrate these paranormal investigative capabilities?"
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“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
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—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
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