Paul Knight

> I've noticed an interesting connection between psychology and
> psychics. Both psychologists and psychics purport to be able to read
> people's minds, but for some reason they are never able to use their
> superior mental powers to gain an advantage over others, and their
> income is derived from a steady stream of clients who pay them for
> advice.
>
> One would think that a psychologist who really could read minds could
> tell if a CEO was lying about his company's finances and use that
> information to trade stock and become fabulously rich instead of
> having to prostitute himself by charging $500 an hour to listen to
> losers whine about their personal problems or conducting seminars on
> how to use psychology to get rich.

Psychologists do not claim to be able to read minds. Any who do are
lying. Top psychologists can loosely understand the motives behind the
actions of people. Excellent psychologists may be able to loosely
predict actions. However, consistently predicting actions accurately is
basically impossible.

On your second point, no one can accurately identify lies over a long
period of time, especially if the liar is quite experienced.

Of course the ability to predict actions and tell when someone is lying
is in no way limited to psychologists. Ask any successful poker player.

But, unfortunately, psychologists just have to suffer with
"prostituting" themselves for a mere $500/hour ($1,000,000 per year)
instead of getting rich. Life is so tough.