CASE 2
The psychologist Terence Hines wondered if psychics are real. They claim to be able to see the future before it happens. (You pay for a reading.) Hines then argued that gambling casinos provide a real-world test for the existence of psychic phenomena. Every spin of a roulette wheel is an opportunity to test precognition (seeing the future before it occurs). If psychics really possessed the supernatural ability of precognition (seeing he future before it occurs), Hines argues, then the earnings of casinos would be negatively affected. Any psychic would go any time and take cash, beating the odds and threatening any casino with bankruptcy. But audits of all Las Vegas and Indian casinos show they make in profit what probability calculations predict they should make (not one has ever been bankrupted by legal gambling activities). Fact: By foreseeing just 9 straight spins in roulette on an initial $20 bet (the odds are 35-1 on any correct call of a single number), a psychic would have amassed over $1.2 trillion in cash by simply letting the winnings from each correct call ride on the next spin, and then stopping after the 9th spin. No casino in the world could pay that (not even Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, could). But in fact, in the history of roulette, no one has ever predicted three straight spins.
More facts: On June 15, 1997 the horse race play called Triple Trio was won at Happy Valley Racecourse, under the auspices of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Thousands of tickets were purchased: The winner, if there was one, would have taken home $25.9 million if he/she only staked $1.39: The person had to successfully pick the first, second, and third horses, in order, in the second, third, and fifth races. Over one hundred thousand tickets were purchased, and not a single winning ticket emerged. (However, on July 28, 1974, at a horse racing event in Wilmington, Delaware, Charles Lamb, a writer for the Baltimore News American, picked all 10 winners of each of the 10 races. This has never been done before or since. (He said he was lucky and not a psychic.)
Some psychics have replied to Hines’ claims that casinos never losing money proves psychics are not real:
(a) “We can see the future whenever we wish to. Casino results do not prove we are frauds because our psychic powers cannot be used to make money.” Analyze this. How could you test it?
(b) “Casino results do not prove we are fake. We can foresee the future, but we just can’t foresee any future numbers, only future events.” Is this logical? How could you test it?
(c) To prove we are real, we foresaw the future and gave the last 3 Super Lotto winners the winning numbers. We told each of them if they ever revealed who gave them the winning numbers, we would have them killed. (We also foresaw they never would tell anyone who gave them the numbers, after we warned them not to.)
PROMPTS: Respond to (a), (b), and (c) using logic and critical reasoning.