For entertainment purposes only, must be 18 IQ points or fewer to call

This is slightly stale but I've been busy lately.

I read this article about the mother of an autistic child accused by a psychic of sexual abuse on the Bad Astronomy Blog. You have to read it to believe it but in a nutshell a mother nearly lost her child to Children's Aid because a psychic determined that a child (whom she never met) was being abused. The psychic's client, a teaching assistant, reported this to the teacher, who reported this to the principal, who called Children's Aid.

You read that correctly: a random person told someone that a child was being abused, based on no information, and this report was taken seriously.

The Children's Aid is required to investigate all "credible" reports and thus, when a principal called them, had to investigate. Thankfully they had the wit to understand that there was no chance this child had been abused. But what would have happened if the mother didn't already track her daughter with a GPS device that records audio? This woman could have easily lost her child to the authorities and been branded a monster. The psychic in this story is guilty of causing real harm to this innocent mother and her child. Yet because our society tolerates psychics under the guise of "entertainment" the true monster is allowed to continue to spread dissent and lies to gullible people.

Frankly I think it's also frightening that someone who believes in psychics is helping to teach at schools and raise children. But given our society's poor ability to train and hire competent teachers, that isn't surprising.