Where is the evidence? Skeptics need to know.

I'm sick of all the crap on TV, and the media in general, pushing the idea that homeopaths, psychics, and other assorted new age whackos are actually a firm science with a basis in any sort of reality.
We had the TV show, "The One", which tried to find "Australias best psychic", if there is such a thing. The tests they showed were taken on using the tried and true methods of cold reading, deductive reasoning (finding a kid in the bush), and other simple, mundane methods.
Now I get pay TV hooked up, and start watching supposedly science based channels like Discovery and National Geographic, and what do I see? More psychic claptrap being treated unquestioningly...from specials on Nostradamus, to crap circles (yes, I spelt that right...), to what I hoped was a serious show on ancient Chinese ships which may have travelled around the world. Near the end of the show, they showed an "expert who has found what he believes is evidence of Chinese ships on the western US coastline". Expecting a scientist or at least an archeologist, but instead they showed some knob wandering around dowsing with a couple of wire rods for the ship wreck buried deep under the sand...he was touted as having found gold mines, oil, and other things, and when he bored down with a small drill, he found shreds of wood...and excitedly said it was from the "keel", and other areas...the thing is, they were little shreds of rotted wood...they looked very like, I don't know, bits of driftwood...just like you'd find on any beach anywhere in the world...

Homeopaths peddle water...sorry, very pure water...as medicine. They have even tried to peddle vaccines for serious illnesses! Homeopathy is based on a middle ages view that water somehow has a "memory"...it retains a sign of whatever has been mixed in with it. Seeing as how the supply of water on this planet is a constant, and always has been here in one form or another, I wonder if they realise that the molecules in a glass of water have come in contact with everything from the intestines of a Brontosaurus to every chemical you can think of?
It can be worked out that at the dilutions that homeopaths use, all you would have to do it drop one aspirin in the Pacific Ocean, and you would have a higher concentration of the medicine than in most homeopaths dilutions.

The thing is, if these dowsers, card readers, and associated psychics, ghost whisperers, and hangers-on, really and truly have powers of some sort, and can prove it, then go see James Randi...his organisation has a massive prize for anyone who can turn up and prove it in a controlled test, under conditions mutually agreed to by both parties. I believe the prize is up to a million bucks at present. The Australian Skeptics also have a prize, I think of $100,000, for anyone here who can prove it.

Now, any time anyone has done carefully controlled tests on these people, nothing happens beyond what would be expected to occur from chance. Dick Smith has organised water divining tests, and it has showed nothing, several times. Water divining is more about reading the land...go to a dry-looking property, and read the landscape...if there is a long depression running across the landscape (better if it has a line of trees along it), then try drilling around there for water. No need to wander around muttering with your two bent sticks, no need to take money off desperate farmers.

Psychics claim they have helped police departments look for lost people...Daniel Morcombe here in my home state of Queensland is a perfect example...the poor lost boy, taken several years ago from a bus stop, has been the target of a concerted police and public campaign. However, his family has also been set upon over the years by psychics, wasting police time and annoying the family. Police in missing person cases will follow any lead, no matter how small, and these self-styled experts waste police time by sending them down the wrong path time and time again. No police force in the world has used psychics, and none have ever proved successful when they have put forward thier ideas.
No, sorry...I will withdraw that...there was a case of one psychic who went to a police department in the USA, with details about a missing person...they had details of where the body was, what would be found nearby, and what had happened. The predictions proved 100% accurate...and then the psychic was arrested and charged with murder...nothing like making a correct prediction when you are the one who did it in the first place...

Psychics, tarot card readers, and other assorted gurus, if used for entertainment purposes, are a bit of fun..however, when they start preying on the gullible, the sick, and the desperate families of the missing, they stop being entertainment, and start being something much, much worse.

I will put a couple of links here to the Australian Skeptics and James Randi's website (hope they don't mind).

Do yourself a favor...visit these sites, spend a couple of hours there, and broaden your mind.

http://skeptics.com.au/
http://www.randi.org/