I know nothing of this man and I have seen a lot of shows that busted medical frauds. But I prefer to remain an open-minded skeptic and at least watch the show first.
“Quiñones comes face-to-face with “John of God,” who claims that, through him, God heals believers through “visible” surgeries, using some startling and unorthodox techniques — including sticking long forceps up the nostrils and twisting them violently.”
No wonder his followers are complacent believers - they’ve been given lobotomies. :rolleyes:
Ahh, c’mon that million dollars is as big of a fraud as the the frauds it is dangled before. Randi ain’t serious, his offer is a rigged deal and not in the interest of science or progress.
His is a prejudiced standard. I can’t understand how anybody could see him as a voice of reason and rationale. He’s just the polar extreme. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
On one side of the spectrum you have fantasy, on the other side you have reality, and you think the truth is somewhere in the middle?!?
BTW, if you have any evidence that the deal is rigged, would you mind sharing it with us?
John of God is a fraud. The man with the tumor could easily have had some spontaneous shrinkage–check back with him in two years. The woman who could start to “walk” has been working towards that goal for ten or fifteen years and her progress, while nice, is about what you could expect after that time when the spinal cord has not been completely severed (you’ll remember that they mentioned it wasn’t at the top of the show). The man with ALS and the woman with breast cancer are worse than they were before. the only person whose condition improved markedly was the one I predicted (my wife is my witness) would be the one with marked improvement because her complaints were “chronic fatigue syndrome” and “severe allergies.” In both cases the patient’s symptoms and progress can only be gauged by what the patient says she is experiencing and, I hate to say, the first, especially, is often psychosomatic.
What I found disturbing is that the only options anybody gave were that John is a miracle worker or is a “madman,” to use their word. The possibility of fraud was scarcely raised.
devilsknew, several people here, including you, have insisted on Randi’s sleaziness before and have been told repeatedly that they are deluded and/or ignorant. There is a reason for that.
To borrow a cruel and despicable practice of this board, in deathpool fashion, I will predict that James Randi will pass of natural causes in late 2006. I also predict that I will be denied this clear demonstration of predictive ability and not be awarded $1 million dollars. They will require something that is beyond all reasonable standards and every excuse will be intellectualized and brought forward to obfuscate.
Does this mean you have formally applied for the prize using the form provided on the website, and worked out the exact details of your prediction with JREF? If not, it won’t take much “intellectualization” to figure out why you ain’t getting that million, bucky.
And that is not a reply to Diogenes’s question. How, specifically, does Randi rig the contest?
As for the Death Pool, an old man like Randi ain’t gonna get you many points. Tell me he will live another fifty years and, if he does, I’ll be impressed with your predictive powers.
If the truth lies in the middle, then I guess you can be just a little bit pregnant. :dubious:
It appears you have missed all of our regular threads on the Million Dollar Challenge,Devilsknew, perhaps you haven’t actually read it, or perhaps you fell asleep during our last discussion. I don’t want to risk hijacking this thread, so if you feel the need to start another on this topic, please do so. It has been at least a week since the last one, and I feel a void coming on.
Meanwhile, I suspect a claim such as yours would be in the minority in these parts, podner, as I see upon preview. I really must learn to type faster.
Yes. They left out the most distasteful (and most obviously true) part of the trilemma- LIAR.
Who was it that predicted the skeptic (James Randi in this case) would only get one token sound byte? You were right. He got one sentence and it was about the self-delusion of the marks. They decided we didn’t want to listen to JR explain in excruciating detail exactly how Mr “of God” does every single trick. That might actually amount to a critical examination.
How about J of G’s tactic of providing his “patients” with a list of crap they can’t do or their “treatments” won’t take? The 20/20 dude got “no alcohol. no sex, no pork and no pepper” (among others I don’t remember). Obviously, this is stuff that most people are going to cheat on one way or the other (I would not be able to stick to the requirements and it’s not because I have any great craving for pork…or pepper or alcohol). This gives JOG a nice out when the victims…er, “patients,” don’t get better. It’s not his fault, it’s their fault. You can’t expect God to be a miracle worker, you know.
I think the pepper is especially clever becauseeven if you get a saint who sticks to the list, you can always just say he must have eaten some pepper accidentally (you can even make a big show of examining his ears or something to determine it).
id anyone else see him totally feel up that one woman’s breasts? the one who got the tweezers up her nose?
Well, you can’t say his job is without perks. Not only do you get to grab some titties, you get to mutilate some noses, and people thank you for it. Doesn’t get much better than that.
