<< I challenge all the dowsers in a similar way. Since 94 percent of the Earth’s surface has water within drillable distance my challenge is to find a dry spot! They don’t want to do it. Why? Because theyonly have a six percent chance of success. >>
See, all I’m doing is accepting a challenge that he has made to many dowsers before me.
Actually, I’d like an answer to this and to a follow-up question.
If, prior to acceptance of the challenge, it turns out that you and Randi disagree on something you said that’s relevant to the challenge (e.g., let’s say that Randi believes you’re claiming you can find an underground river 24% of the time by drilling down 10 feet into the earth), who do you think will be the definitive authority on what you actually mean–you, Randi, or Arthur C. Clarke? If Clarke sides with Randi on the meaning of your own words, will you be willing to let those words fundamentally change what you believe you intended the challenge to be?
And one more question in this series. I can understand a mechanism by which Randi is the definitive authority on what he meant when he said something: his brain formulated his words, transmitting them via motor neurons to his fingers, which typed them out. His brain remembers what it was thinking when it thought the ideas that were translated into words. What mechanism do you propose by which Arthur C. Clarke would be a better authority for Randi’s meaning than Randi himself?
You are correct. But i’m not asking whether you *know * - whether you can look into the future and tell - but what you guess, what you predict. You’ve had a correspondance with Randi, you’re familiar with his normal operating methods and his writing, and you know your own claim. So; do you believe that Randi will act discreditably or honourably?
You have hit upon the crux of the matter.
Clearly you believe that all of us, who disagree with the method as being reasonable, as having flawed judgements. So when Randi replies, and you spread news of whatever his reply was, we’re all going to jump to your side and vilify/praise Randi for what he’s done!
Except that no, we’re not. If we’re right, and your method is unreasonable, then the results are likely not reasonable too. On the other hand, if you are right, and your methods are totally reasonable, that does not mean that we think so. You have to care about our opinions, because without us saying “Yes, that method seems reasonable”, you can write up your web page telling us all about the truth with Randi and we’re going to go “And? You used a bad method!”.
Whether the fault is on our end or yours - doesn’t matter one jot. You have to convince us you’re correct. You’ve got to correct our bad judgement. Because if we don’t, then the only one who’ll believe the results is you; and that ain’t publicity, mon ami.
Randi will not reply. He cut off correspondence with Peter over two years ago, for reasons that I suspect are obvious to everyone, including Peter himself. Note these lines from his second email:
Apparently Peter believes that Randi is incorrect as to the meaning of his words. It is therefore incumbent on Peter to obtain correspondence from Arthur C. Clarke in which Mr. Clarke sides with one or the other of them–i.e., either says that Randi knows when he’s speaking figuratively, or that Randi does not know when he is speaking figuratively.
Until Peter has contacted Mr. Clarke and obtained an opinion agreeing with him, he’s dead in the water.
I dare say Randi will be talking about it in his commentry soon enough.
This is my only formal application. I don’t claim to have any psychic powers.
I welcome the serious questions. However, silly nit-picking the matter of “theory” and “fact” is just pointless.
Hardly, this is a central theme of Randi’s. Almost every time he talks about dowsing he waffles on about underground rivers or dry spots or both. He has been talking about it over and over for 25 years, repeatedly issueing the challenge.
Take a look at : http://www.proverandiwrong.net/claims.aspx
Far from being a loophole, this is a central part of Randi’s talks.
No, but before I applied I consulted several people that do have relevent degrees. I adjusted my claim according to what they told me.
Maybe I misunderstood them. It’s a possibility I had considered, and am prepared to accept. If you believe I’m wrong, write to Randi and ask him to conduct the test, prove I’m wrong and hold me up to public ridicule as “delusional.”
Have you spoken with any linguists or cognitive psychologists? That’s not a slam against you; rather, I think the problem with your challenge is that it hinges on a linguistic misinterpretation, by which you believe Randi disbelieves in something patently obvious, when in reality he holds no such disbelief. It might behoove you to talk with someone who has an advanced degree in figuring out what people are thinking.
Wow. That was a ansty and deceptive bit of deceptive selective quoting you just pulled off. Here, let me post it all for you again:
Given the level of dishonestly you just replied with, I feel confindent in saying that Randi is well witin his rights to refuse all communication with you.
Sorry, no question. Just pointing out your intellectual dishonesty.
Peter, earlier you dismissed the word ‘vast’ in the phrase ‘vast rivers of fresh water’ as essentially meaningless.
I believe that you did so incorrectly. The phrase appears to be stating many large rivers underground of fresh water, not simply that they exist, but that they are common.
Which ‘psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability’ (as per the terms of the challenge) are you claiming to demonstrate?
Showing underground rivers exist is a paranormal ability?
Have you considered the chain of logic that led you to this conclusion?
This is on a par with you entering a messageboard devoted to fighting ignorance and setting conditions on what you will discuss and how. :rolleyes:
Well it proves you have an animus with Randi and are prepared to mangle logic to try to prove your ‘case’.
You’re not interested in testing a paranormal theory, just obsessed with the meaning of a couple of phrases used by Randi.
And is it listed anywhere on the Randi website?
Don’t you realise that there is a paranormal claim here?
Unlike yours.
Thank you for actually asking a serious, sensible and relevent question, Roland.
Just for future reference, you can make statements as part of your questions, provided they are serious questions. The thing I object to is people offering their opinions, and trying to start an argument over whose point of view is correct. I’m not going to respond to that.
Roland, it’s a sensible question, but requires a long answer. I don’t wan’t to be writing any long essays, (see my ground rules in the OP) so I can’t answer every one of your points individually. I’ll comment about the matter briefly.
I tried to discuss the matter sensibly with James Randi. I made every reasonable effort to establish a mutually satisfactory definition of the term “dry spot.” Randi was hostile and unresponsive from the first moment.During the course of our discussion, he made several contradictory and mutually exclusive statements. Consider his earlier demand “You tell me what you can do, and you define the parameters. That’s required of everyone” and when I gave him my parameters he responded “That’s YOUR term, not mine.” Bit of a contradiction there.
Another contradiction: he first defined a dry spot as** “water is not to be found in a practical sense”** then later changed it to ** “Water is not usable water.”**
He was generally evasive during the discussion, and refused toactually give me a proper definition of the term which he would find acceptable, thus leaving me free to choose my own definition. I’ve based my definition on what he said. And where he has contradicted himself, I feel morally entitled to choose the one most advantagous to me.
Also, note that the definition in my application is not written in stone. It is a starting point for negotiations. I am willing to discuss the matter with Randi to come to a mutually agreeable definition. Provided, of course, that he is willing to talk sensibly about it.
A question is not a strawman, it is a question. Apparently I was wrong, and I can accept that; that’s, after all, why I asked: to clarify.
What, then, is the answer to my previous question:
The answer should, I think, consist of nothing other than a name. If you cannot give a single name as an answer to this question, the follow-up question is, why not?
