Legal and epistemological minefield predicted
After a long hard week, here’s the kind of story that makes life sweet:
The United Kingdom’s fortune-tellers, mediums and spiritual healers will march on Downing Street to protest against new laws they fear will lead to them being “persecuted and prosecuted”.
Organisers say that replacing the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 with new consumer protection rules will remove key legal protection for “genuine” mediums.
They think sceptics might bring malicious prosecutions to force spiritualists to prove in court that they can heal people, see into the future or talk to the dead.
Psychics also fear they will have to give disclaimers describing their services as entertainment or as scientific experiments with unpredictable results.
In my humble opinion those “genuine” guys should be seizing this opportunity to prove, once and for all, that their’s is a legitimate field of scientific endeavour. As a bonus, they could tip the bucket on those malicious sceptics.
Labels: culture, religion, society, useless information
posted by Jacob A. Stam at 4/18/2008 10:30:00 PM
4 Comments:
I agree Jarcob. After all if they are genuine what do they have to fear.. Hmmmm..
Hard week eh?
Time for a little liquid refreshment, no ?
BTW where is Mike?
Yeah Kath, I don't want to stomp all over anyone's religion or anything, but these guys... well, what you said.
Liquid refreshment is indeed in order, and on tap.
Good question re Mike. Maybe he's pothosisising, which is as worthwhile as anything else one could be doing on the 'Net...
I rather fancy the idea of having fine print to explain that the recipient of these services is paying for "entertainment".
Imagine the prerecorded disclaimers for those call a psychic telephone services?
Consumer protection for these "services" is long overdue.
I've been saying for a long time now, those guys need more of a customer focus.
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