Please see the updated analysis at the bottom of this post for any corrections and notes.

Below is a list of predictions that famed psychic superhero Sylvia Browne made at the beginning of 2006. Let’s see how well she did.

Weather and Natural Disaster Predictions for 2006:

The weather this year will be worse than last year.

Miss. Sylvia had a 50% chance of getting this one right, but she just guessed wrong. Of course, she didn’t do any worse than professionals at the National Hurricane Center.

Hits: 0, Misses: 1, Percent Correct: 0%

Hurricanes will hit in the north east US.

Miss. The 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season was milder than expected, and no hurricanes made landfall. Even though Tropical Storm Beryl did hit the north east US, this still qualifies as a miss since she predicted that more than one hurricane would hit the northeast (which, incidentally, was the claim that the NHC made for 2006 as well.).

Hits: 0, Misses: 2, Percent Correct: 0%

Two more earthquakes in Asia.

Miss. According to the US Geological Survey there were a total of 28,828 earthquakes worldwide in 2006, many of which were undoubtedly in Asia . Since 1990, the annual average number of earthquakes worldwide is 23055.6. While the numbers appear to be increasing since the 1990s, the USGS attributes this to an increase in the number of seismic monitoring stations around the world, and a resultant increase in our ability to detect earthquakes.

Hits: 0, Misses: 3, Percent Correct: 0%

Small quakes in Washington and California.

Miss. In 2006 there were approximately 123 earthquakes in California. You might think this is a hit, until you consider that there are over 100 small quakes in California alone each year. In addition, there are roughly 9 small earthquakes per year in Washington every year since 2000.

Hits: 0, Misses: 4, Percent Correct: 0%

Floods in the midwest as usual.

Miss. There were several flood events in the midwest in 2006, but these were hardly usual. In June and September, several states recorded some of their wettest months on record. If Sylvia had predicted that, “The entire state of Kentucky would have it’s 2nd wettest September on record”, then we might have handed it to her.

Hits: 0, Misses: 5, Percent Correct: 0%

Floods in the south east in the spring.

Miss. The National Climate Data Center tracked no significant flooding events in the south east US at any time in 2006.

Hits: 0, Misses: 6, Percent Correct: 0%

Health Predictions for 2006:

There will be no pandemic with the Bird Flu. Asia will be hit with it, but the rest of the world it will be contained.

Miss. True, there is no global pandemic yet, but the potential of a pandemic seems unlikely anyway since there have been only 263 cases of Avian Influenza (H5N1) reported to the World Health Organization between 2003 and 2006. The numbers are climbing on an annual basis, and 2006 was the first year that saw confirmed cases of H5N1 infection outside of Asia. Up until 2005, when Sylvia made these predictions, ALL cases had been contained. 2006 saw that containment broken, contrary to her prediction.

Hits: 0, Misses: 7, Percent Correct: 0%

A new replacement for insulin.

Miss. In 2000, it was reported that a promising molecule was discovered that may act as an insulin replacement. Now, Sylvia may have meant a new way to take insulin. Indeed, 2006 saw the FDA approve a new inhaled insulin product called Exubera. I would give her this hit if there was not previously published information in 2005 that the FDA was planning to review Exubera in January 2006, and that one FDA Panel had already approved it in 2005.

Hits: 0, Misses: 8, Percent Correct: 0%

There will be some kind of vaccination for certain types of cancer. Stomach and colon.

Miss. There was promising news about colon cancer vaccines way back in 1999 here and here and 2001.
Predicting that there will be “some kind of vaccination for certain types of cancers” sounds impressive, until you consider that researchers have been working on cancer vaccines since at least the 20th century.

Hits: 0, Misses: 9, Percent Correct: 0%

There will be advancements in treatments for plaque in the heart valves.

Miss. I cannot find any documented reports of advancements in treatments for plaque in the heart valves. A search of the FDA site for heart valve only returns results concerning prosthetic heart valve information from 2004.

Hits: 0, Misses: 10, Percent Correct: 0%

A breakthrough in MS involving the hypothalamus gland.

Miss. A search of PubMed reveals that the hypothalamus is involved in some MS cases, and this was known as early as 1998. Interestingly, 2004 saw several reports on MS cases with hypothalamic involvement, but there were none since then.

Hits: 0, Misses: 11, Percent Correct: 0%

A vaccine that blocks the need for nicotine.

Miss. The National Drug Administration reported in October, 2000 that a nicotine vaccine was heading toward clinical trials. In 2003, Science Daily also reported on a nicotine vaccine. Interestingly, in Nov. 2005, roughly a month or so before Sylvia’s 2006 predictions came out, some bloggers were reporting about favorable results of nicotine vaccine trials.

Hits: 0, Misses: 12, Percent Correct: 0%

Celebrity Predictions for 2006:

Britney Spears will divorce. She finds her husband not what she thought he was.

Miss. While Spears and Federline indeed filed for divorce in 2006, this was widely blogged about in late 2005.

Hits: 0, Misses: 13, Percent Correct: 0%

Bruce Willis will marry a very young dark haired woman.

Miss. Bruce is still single, and was single throughout 2006.

Hits: 0, Misses: 14, Percent Correct: 0%

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will marry.

Miss. Brangelina are not yet married, though it was widely reported in late 2005 that they were having an affair on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Indeed, the government of Vietnam reports that the couple cannot adopt a Vietnamese child if they remain unmarried.

Hits: 0, Misses: 15, Percent Correct: 0%

Jennifer Aniston will also marry.

Miss. Jennifer is unmarried.

Hits: 0, Misses: 16, Percent Correct: 0%

Russell Crowe will get into more trouble. He needs anger management.

Miss. Russell Crowe certainly has a history of being temperamental, but he managed to avoid anger management issues in 2006, unless you count smoking inside a no-smoking zone during a concert.

Hits: 0, Misses: 17, Percent Correct: 0%

Jennifer Lopez should be careful with her health. She will also become pregnant.

Miss. J-Lo is in great health, though it was rumored in late 2005 that she might want to have a baby. To date, she has not.

Hits: 0, Misses: 18, Percent Correct: 0%

Nicole Kidman will marry a producer and she have a baby girl.

Miss. Nicole married Country Music Star Keith Urban on June 25, 2006, and it was rumored, again in late 2005, that she might be pregnant. She was not.

Hits: 0, Misses: 19, Percent Correct: 0%

Economics Predictions for 2006:

Gold and property remain good investments.

Miss. It was widely reported in late 2005 that investors should put money into real estate as well as gold and silver. Parroting the advice of experts is not a superpower.

Hits: 0, Misses: 20, Percent Correct: 0%

The LA property bubble will not burst, not for about three or four years, and then it will just level off.

Miss. According to Wikipedia,

Unlike a stock market crash following a bubble, a real-estate “crash” is usually a slower process, because sellers just decide not to sell. Historically due to inflation, prices do not fall in nominal terms, rather they stay “flat” for a period of 3-5 years. In select markets though, housing prices have fallen in real and nominal dollars, such as Los Angeles during the early to mid 1990s. Due to low inflation in most countries, future corrections may result in a fall in both real and nominal house values.

Based on this, it doesn’t take superpowers to claim that a real-estate bubble would not “burst”.

Hits: 0, Misses: 21, Percent Correct: 0%

Interest rates will go up a bit.

Miss. Interest rates fluctuate on a daily basis, but the historical trend has been downward. Bankrate.com reports that the fed began raising interest rates in 2004 (and continued through 2005) due to a strengthening economy, but and stopped in 2006. The prediction of most professionals was that rates would rise through 2006.

Hits: 0, Misses: 22, Percent Correct: 0%

Gov. Schwarzenegger will lose popularity. He will run again because his ego will make him. He will be defeated if he runs.

Miss. Gov Schwarzenegger’s popularity started falling in 2005, and surprisingly rose in 2006 due to some well placed pandering.

Hits: 0, Misses: 23, Percent Correct: 0%

President Bush’s popularity will continue to decline. He will become embroiled in more scandals.

Hit. OK - this one is a gift, but Sylvia’s doing so poorly now, that I had to throw her a bone.

Hits: 1, Misses: 23, Percent Correct: 4.2%

Bush has some neurological problems.

Miss. Unless you count a double-digit IQ as a neurological problem. Most people don’t.

Hits: 1, Misses: 24, Percent Correct: 4.0%

The 2008 election will be between Kerry and McCain, and Kerry will win in a close vote.

Unknown. It’s not 2008 yet, though Kerry doesn’t look like he’s going to be in the race.

(Edit: The day after I posted this, Kerry announced that he would not join the 2008 presidential race. It’s possible that he’ll still “flip-flop” on this decision, just as President Bush did on his attitude about nation building. Since such flip-flopping is seen as completely endearing in John Kerry - especially among republican voters, this may be the only way that he would be able to overtake the rest of the Democratic field and defeat McCain in 2008. Yeah, right. This is most likely another miss.)

Hits: 1, Misses: 24, Percent Correct: 4.0%

There will not be a woman President in her [Sylvia's] lifetime.

Unknown. Sylvia’s still alive, and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that there would be a woman elected president in 2008. Of course, it’s possible that Sylvia is predicting her own demise prior to the 2008 election.

Hits: 1, Misses: 24, Percent Correct: 4.0%

By the end of 2006 troops will begin returning from Iraq.

Miss. Troop levels were reduced from 160,000 to 138,000 in early 2006, though the president wants to “surge” troop levels back up.

Hits: 1, Misses: 25, Percent Correct: 3.8%

Trains and trucks continue to concern her as far as safety and terrorism.

Unknown. This isn’t really a prediction.

Hits: 1, Misses: 25, Percent Correct: 3.8%

A caller asked about a serial rapist in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sylvia said his first name was Benand his second was Halle or Hally. He works as a line painter on the roads. That’s why he can get around so much. He will be caught within the next month or two.

Miss. Miss. Hit. There was a serial rapist in Tulsa from around 2003 until 2006, and a suspect was arrested within 2 months after Sylvia’s prediction (hit). His name was Gary Graham (not Bernard Hally) (miss), and he worked as a security guard (miss). As far as I know, he is still awaiting trial.

Again this hit is a gift - the Tulsa police credit their suspects arrest to, “a massive team effort, volunteers who canvassed the city with flyers, officers who questioned hundreds of people, detectives who culled through thousands of tips, lab scientists who worked overtime and a task force that gave up time with their own families to help protect ours”.

Hits: 2, Misses: 27, Percent Correct: 6.9%

Nothing will happen over Iran, it’s all a lot of talk.

Miss. In January, 2006 Iran broke the IAEA seals on it’s nuclear reactor and began enriching uranium. The IAEA brought Iran before the UN Security council, which voted in December to impose sanctions.

Hits: 2, Misses: 28, Percent Correct: 6.67%

North Korea and China is more concerning, but not anytime soon.

Unknown. This is not a prediction, although North Korea did test a nuclear device, which would make this a miss.

Hits: 2, Misses: 28, Percent Correct: 6.67%

The US will not move into Syria.

Hit. The US did not invade Syria.

Hits: 3, Misses: 28, Percent Correct: 9.7%

She feels the terrorists will hit European countries other than the US.

Miss. There was a major terrorist plot in London in August 2006 that was foiled (the targets were jetliners bound for the US). In addition, the US State Department announced that, “The September 2006 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Syria and the March 2006 bombing near the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, illustrate the continuing desire of extremists to strike American targets.”

Hits: 3, Misses: 29, Percent Correct: 9.4%

Analysis:

Here we see 32 testable predictions for 2006, of which which Sylvia Browne got 3 correct, for a raw percentage of 9.4% correct (3 out of 32). Notice, however, calculating her accuracy isn’t this simple. We also need to consider the positive and negative predictions she made, and determine if the events that were predicted to occur (or to NOT occur) did or did not occur.

In addition, we need to consider the situations in which events occurred that Sylvia did not predict. Of the 32 predictions, 30 of them were positive predictions, meaning that she predicted something would happen, and the remaining 2 predictions were negative, meaning that she predicted that something would not happen (the US would Not invade Syria, for example). If you examine each of the 30 positive predictions, you will see that, in 29 of those cases, something other than what Sylvia predicted occurred. So. to really examine her superpower, we have to look at her positive and negative predictions against their respective positive and negative outcomes.

To do this, we break the data out into a 2X2 contingency table:

  Event Observed Event Not Observed Totals
Event Predicted 1 29 30
Event Not Predicted 29 2 31
Totals 30 31 61

Using the Key below, we can calculate some verification statistics:

(a+d)/n Percent Correct (PC) = 4.9%

This one is very simple - what percentage of positively predicted events actually occurred and predicted non-events that actually didn’t occur. Here’s Sylvia’s batting roughly one in twenty.

a/(a+c) Hit rate = true positive fraction = sensitivity = 3.3%

As a superhero, Sylvia Browne’s psychic sensitivity actually limps in at an impotent 3.3%. This number represents the percent of times that she positively predicted an event that actually occurred.

b/(b+d) False alarm rate = 1- specificity = 96.7%

The false alarm rate represents the percentage of phony predictions. This has the same meaning as a false alarm in the real world - someone who trips a false fire alarm is claiming there’s an emergency when one doesn’t actually exist. For Sylvia Browne’s 2006 predictions, the term false alarm should stick in your mind.

Key:

  Event Observed Event Not Observed Totals
Event Predicted A B A+B
Event Not Predicted C D C+D
Totals A+C B+D N

Update and Corrections:

One perceptive reader was kind enough to check my math and point out some errors that I made above. The main error was that I doubled up the number of predictions so the total N was 61. This should have been 32. Also, some of the calculations are incorrect. Below is what I think is the correct picture:

Sylvia Browne’s 2006 Predictions Analysis

No. of In-Fact Events
1
31
Event Type
Event Occurred
Event Did Not Occur
Prediction Type    
Event Predicted to Occur
1
29
Event Not Predicted to Occur
0
2
 
 
 
p(Hit) = 0.50
p(FA) = 0.935
P(correct)
0.094

Notes:

This analysis was conducted using the data I referenced above and a signal detection calculator found here, which includes a correction for extreme values of hits and false alarms (0 or 1.0).

The adjusted P(Hit) value of .5 (that’s 50%) hits is artificially high due to the very small number (1) of events that were both predicted and actually occurred. Note that over 90% of the time in this set of predictions, Sylvia predicted something that did not actually come to pass - which is reflected in the high false alarm rate.

As stated before, the term false alarm should stick in your mind when considering Sylvia Browne’s predictions.

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