Lute, to expand on my most recent posts, and indeed that of Cisco, the Challenge website which is linked off the OP contains the exact rules of the Challenge, and a couple of FAQ’s. Extensive discussion of the rules and the FAQ’s and various possible criticisms of them and attempts at rebuttals of those criticisms can be found on Randi’s website forums and indeed here. But of course you know all this and no doubt you are quite familiar with the basic material. I’m sure a Doper of good standing on this facts-and-logic website of which we are fellow netizens wouldn’t express a strong opinion as you have done without taking care to know what they are talking about.
You appear to suggest that the problem is bias. The current Challenge purports to have rules to ensure this is not a problem. However, clearly you believe those rules to fail in that endeavour. How could the rules be changed to eliminate this bias problem?
Because the way Randi conducts his tests doesn’t make much sense.
I spoke earlier about the dowser who claims find gold in Californian creek beds. And how Randi offered to test his ability to find gold underneath a cup in his home, or in the JREF offices.
If his claim is genuine, then the guy would still probably fail under the test suggested by Randi.
And this is the ONLY test Randi is willing to give. He will not negotiate at all.
If the claim is genuine, why would he fail under the test suggested by Randi? It sems like if you can locate gold, you can locate gold. If you can only locate gold in a certain California creek bed, well, mayhap you had something to do with it being there?
I really wish you could step outside your own narrow viewpoint and see this objectively for a minute. What you don’t understand is that, while you attack Randi ad hominem, we are not supporting Randi. We are supporting science, skepticism, integrity in testing, and the exposure of frauds, quacks, and charlatans.
Thing is, the demand that Randi be “unbiased” is silly. The only reason he issued the challange is because he believes that all paranormal claimants are either frauds or deluded or a curious combination of both. So of course it’s a publicity stunt. Of course it’s a way to shut up paranormal claimants.
Randi doesn’t expect to find any paranormal activity in any of the tests he conducts. He expects to expose fraud and self-deception. And this is because of the history of how scientific research into paranormal claims was done.
The unbiased scientists like Rhine who started such research made many mistakes in their research. And the biggest mistake is not realizing that people cheat, and there are fairly well known but certainly not universally known methods of causing things to appear to happen that didn’t actually happen. So when someone like Uri Geller comes along who can make spoons bend with the power of his mind, lots of scientists were convinced that there must be some new interesting phenomenon at work, and that the phenomnenon was pretty important.
Except it has been shown that the phenomena that Uri Geller and his ilk were responsible for could be easily duplicated by people with advanced training in fooling an audience. Professional magicians. And the adversarial relation between Randi stems from the fact that he exposed Geller and others as obvious frauds, and he expects to expose every other such claimant as a fraud, because every claimant up to now has been a fraud. Maybe the sun will come up in the west tomorrow, but that’s not the way to bet. And when you see the sun rise in the west the first order of business isn’t to throw out the laws of physics but rather to look around for hidden turntables under the floorboards, or mirrors, or what have you. When David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear he does it with very simple tricks that would make you think that nobody could be fooled that way. Except they are and they can be and it happens all the time.
So there’s the adversarial relation between Randi and paranormal claimants. They think he’s rude and a cheater. He thinks they’re trying to trick him. And that’s because they ARE, and we know this just as surely as we know that David Copperfield doesn’t really make the Statue of Liberty disappear, he just makes it appear as though the Statue of Liberty disappeared.
Oh, I dunno. He may have become jaded by all the mush-headed incoherent claims he’s received over the years and finally decided enough was enough - either approach the JREF with a coherent claim with some description offered by a presumably neutral party (i.e. a reporter) or don’t bother. Seeing a guy fly would dispel the cynicism in heartbeat.
For someone with a genuine ability, I don’t see how the modification offers any serious burden, though I remember having this discussion at length in an earlier thread and the claim that psychic abilities didn’t work in the same manner as other mental or physical abilities was stoutly advanced. Since no explanation was forthcoming of how they did work or how they could work, the discussion went nowhere. Randi could easily have tired of the same impasse.
If Randi wants a membership here, I’ll pay for it, incidentally. Same for Martin Gardner and Michael Shermer.
Well, the guy in question says that electronics such as the JREF office photocopier interfere with his ability, and he needs to do it in the open air some distance from any building.
He also says that the ability only works if the gold is in the sand of the creek.
gold + sand = success
gold on its own = failure.
Note that he suggested a test using jars, one contains sand+gold, the others just sand. Randi rejected it.
Instead, I’ll just let you consider the rules of the challenge. Randi requires that all applicants specify three things :
No.
I’ve only ventured into the pit on three occasions previously. The filth that lies there made me sick to the pit of my stomache. I’m not going there again. Ever.
OK, here’s the polite version: please stop posting on the subject of which of Randi fans and detractors are the more virulently obsessed. It is not relevant to the OP and the mods have already given a warning about the danger of this thread being locked if bickering continues. I don’t want this thread to be locked because I am interested in the subject of the OP. If you post on the subject again I will report the post.
If anything, the club is more powerful, because now it no longer needs to deal with a population of mostly diagnosably mentally ill cranks and there are no pre-lims to worry about: just a straight shot at the money.
People claiming to be able to do something paranormal still have a fairly low bar to meet, and every single one of the current crop of paranormal celebres can easily meet that new bar, and has 1 million waiting for them if they can pass some simple, quite logical tests that isolate their claims from potential fakery.
It’s a challenge that so far they cannot meet, and most probably know they cannot meet.
Your particular beef with Randi is both nonsensical and has nothing to do with the challenge even if it were a valid complaint.
I WANT to have frauds and quacks exposed.
But James Randi has zero integrity in his testing, he IS a fraud and a quack, and I want to see him exposed as such.
James Randi lies and cheats. He tells tales of how he defeated paranormalists. Mosat of the tales he tells are distorted. Some of them are totally fictional. He spreads wrong information, that sounds like proper science but isn’t. A lot of the stuff he comes out with is total pseudoscience, which any genuine sceptic ought to oppose.
The Straight Dope is all about fighting ignorance. Randiis a deeply ignorant SOB who should be fought.
Well, I can’t speak for others, but I’ll need some evidence of this beyond your word. Do you have specifics on your anti-Randi domain? If so, I’ll check 'em out.
But you can’t see through your own strange obsession with Randi, or even admit it. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
Cite?
Let me count . . . cite, cite, cite, cite, and cite?
You’re right - the Straight Dope is about fighting ignorance. Do you not find it strange - or can you not at least acknowledge the fact - that out of all the extremely intelligent, highly skeptical members here, not one of the agrees with you?
The first is media profile. Obviously any celebres meet that bar easily. What about the common or garden variety dowser? Aren’t they going to say that dowsing is pretty dull and uninteresting and that they are locked out because they can’t get media attention for doing the boring old “finding water with a stick” thing (which many many people not only believe is possible but don’t even understand to be controversial)?
The second is academic recognition. I am a little doubtful of the proposition that absolutely all celebre paranormalists would have no difficulty getting someone academic to confirm their abilities. While I may be wrong about that, I am very doubtful that Joe Astrologist could. I suppose it depends on Randi’s definition of what constitutes an acceptable academic.
I think that the Challenge will end up being much diminished as a universal tool for disputing Average Joe Paranormalist’s abilities.
Joe Paranormalist is a fraud and he knows it. It is not the responsibility of the JREF to waste time, money, and other resources individually and publically debunking the lies of every liar on Earth. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Should every 4th grader who played “light as a feather, stiff as a board” and claims that their best friend floated 6 inches above their hands be eligible to go after the million bucks? If their claim was real it would not be hard to stir up some fervor behind it with a few reputable people before bringing it to the big game.
Of all of the time and effort JREF wasted trying to get all of those minor applicants to follow simple instructions, and
The bigger fish would falsely claim that JREF was only interested in taking on the small fry because they were afraid to go after them.
I think that going directly after the more popular “psychics” is a great way to bring the battle to the forefront. While the popular press will ignore a test involving a shmo they never heard of, they might be interested in a million dollar being refused by someone who is in the news regularly.