I missed the Laryr King today which had James Randi and a psychic. Did anyone see it, how did he do? etc.
No comment from Peter Morris?
It’s on as I type. There seems to be a lot of yelling and interrupting. I cannot generate enough interest in it to report further. I’m about to surf for something more interesting. Maybe an infomercial.
You can watch on Randi’s website: JREF - Home
Great segment, thanks. I do wish the skeptical community had a better spokesperson, though. Randi’s cause is noble, but his execution is awkward, in my opinion.
In my opinion, Randi comes across better in written format than live on camera. In person, he is too abrasive. A viewer without preconceptions who sees him for the first time will likely find him too hostile to be sympathetic to his arguments.
Of course, he also comes across as abrasive in his writing, but there he has the time to gather all his evidence and develop his arguments thoroughly, so even someone who finds him distasteful will still have to concede that he has a point. Television just doesn’t provide him with the opportunity to really develop his arguments, so the viewer likely won’t be convinced that his incredibly hostile behavior towards the professional psychics is justified.
Well, not everyone. 
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it funny that they used Rosemary Althea for the pro-side of the psychic con?
Obviously Larry King has never watched P&T’s: Bull$hit!.
That would be a given, I think. 
Some would say they have, in Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society. He handles many media engagements, and handles them very well. I can’t really say one is better than the other, as they are both friends of mine. But they have different styles, and Liberal might prefer Michael’s style.
No fooling :). After reading your first sentence, I was wondering if on camera he was actually whipping people with scourges; I was glad to see that you also find his writing abrasive. I like the work he does, but he irritates the hell out of me whenever I read something he’s written.
Daniel
Also Robert Lancaster, the guy behind http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/.
I think he comes across as someone who is sick and tired of the crap that people spout so much that he can’t react calmly anymore. He wants to laugh at it, but instead, for him who is on the front lines of this fight, can’t help but be cynical and frustrated at its endless onslaught.
He probably needs to find a successor who can take over his fight for him, so he can retire.
He doesn’t appear to me to have the media training he needs, at least from that clip. It doesn’t work on a segment like that. He just asks and answers questions bluntly and simply and then loses the mike.
This just allows Althea to grab the spotlight again and keep talking. Althea knows that if she just keeps talking without hesitation so she can’t be interrupted, she can control the segment and get her explanations across. The segment has only so much time, and if she hogs it, no one else (and particularly Randi) gets to say very much.
He needed to use any opening to launch into his own talking points and get them out and said.
He should have responded to Althea’s opening drone about “psychics who go too far” and having a “limited gift” by expanding on the theme of how they may be psychics, but her comments sure as heck precisely match what you’d expect if she and Sylvia and others are just guessing. There’s a whole raft of stuff to talk about in that vein.
Again, later on Althea talks about how you need an hour long session with someone to really find out about them and build a rapport and 20 minutes isn’t long enough (blah blah use up time use up time blah blah blah) and Randi just calls it “Hogwash”. No doubt it is hogwash but what he should have done is expand on the theme of how Althea may be psychic, but her comments sure as heck precisely match what you’d expect if she just guesses given that the longer she has to talk to someone the more she could learn about them to make better guesses.
I realise that I probably couldn’t think quick enough to do this and how dare I criticise Randi for failing to come up with this stuff on the spot, but heck he’s a professional.
I saw part of the show and was annoyed. The woman was professing that Randi should not attack her because they have a common goal. That is to get people who really can not communicate with the dead or ghosts off the air . She of course can and he should recognize that. He kept lumping her with the frauds and she kept resisting. Much spinning of wheels with no traction ensued.
Moderator growls: Turtledove, I’m getting to this late, but… gimme a break. This is baiting, which is basically a form of jerkish behavior. Cut it out.
I nominate Penn Gillette. Along with the hostility toward hokum, there is a certain fair-minded attractiveness about his righteous indignation. The Showtime series Bullshit! skewered many a psychic, but Penn’s arrogant affability shone even when he was openly contemptuous of some of the “guests.”
Why does skepticism have to come with hostility and arrogance? The BS certainly doesn’t, more often than not it’s sugary sweet and feel-good. That’s why it sells.
Being right isn’t enough. You also have to be liked.
I can’t comment on his style, but I’ve read some of Shermer’s work in Scientific American, and his sloppy handling of facts was one of the reasons I decided to discontinue my subscription. I’d much rather have a rude, abrasive guy who’s right than a smooth, polished guy who’s wrong.
Out of curiosity, what facts did he get so egregiously wrong?