James Randi's Latest Debunking Operation 498
An anonymous reader writes "The pair of documentarians behind An Honest Man — The Story of the Amazing James Randi will not only talk to the likes of like Adam Savage, Bill Nye, Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Penn and Teller about the life of the famous magician/skeptic, but they'll also follow Randi's latest operation as he assembles 'an Ocean's Eleven-type team for a carefully orchestrated exposure of a fraudulent religious organization.'"
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Informative)
"it's up to Randi to prove that his methodology is sound."
lolwhut? what "methodology" are you talking about? you just string words together... take how he exposed popoff for example, by tuning into the frequency of his earpiece with a radio scanner. what fault do you find with that "methodology" --- ? it's different in every case. he exposes specific frauds, and offered challenges with either have been ignored, or failed -- nothing more, nothing less.
and what is a "scientific test" in that context? all you do is blubber and try to smear the man, and you still haven't pointed out a single flaw. you ask for proof that is impossible to bring, and I guess you do so deliberately. "a representative set" of what, exactly? I note very carefully that you make no sense, but seem to be personally offended because some spirits or other. well, good for you.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Informative)
I have to agree with you there. I know nearly nothing about Scientology, but I agree with you on principle.
I don't see why it's so popular on Slashdot to hate people who believe in some sort of God.
Scientologists do not believe in a god or God (or Gods), they believe in Aliens in space ships who's souls lay dormant in earths volcanoes, put there by Xenu long ago during the great space battle. These souls infecting us humans are the reason for our misery and pain.
(No, I am *NOT* kidding or making that up!)
They do not believe in helping others. They believe that if you pay them very large 5-digit sums of money every couple of months, that they will remove these souls from your body, thus ridding you of pain and misery.
That is why most slashdotters hate and despise scientologists.
That and their well documented crimes such as kidnapping, torture, and murder.
If you would like to fix the first line I quoted from you and put in bold, I highly recommend the second link here, or the first to "dip your toes" in this frightening subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology [wikipedia.org]
http://www.xenu.net/ [xenu.net]
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:4, Informative)
Along with Harry Houdini (Score:5, Informative)
James Randi is in the best of company in his late career. Harry Houdin became furious with people who claimed his feats of escape and stage magic were done with mystical powers such as teleportation. Harry devoted a great deal of effort to debunking the horrible and clumsy stage magicians who were conning people with seances and mystical powers. In the midst of the industrial revolution, this fascination with the miraculous was infuriating to someone like Houdine, and now to people like James Randi, who've mastered their crafts and see clumsy charlatans using them against innocent people.
This kind of debunking is in the very best scientific tradition: providing an alternative explanation that requires no violation of previous experiment or understood principles is at the basis of how science works, and helps teach us how to verify new claims properly. I genuinely wish more engineers had the time, or made the time, to study debunking to understand better how their own inattention or deceit by other people can confuse their results.
Re:Not news to me (Score:5, Informative)
Have you reviewed any of Randi's debunking efforts, such as his class on how people interpret astrological predictions? Or the intercepted radio transmissions of the faith healer, Peter Popov, who was listening to radio messages from his wife to provide the "miraculous" informaiton about his audience members and whom he would "heal" even of entirely fictitious diseases? Or looked into his debunking of Uri Geller's use of stage magic tricks to claim mind over matter powers, bending spoons and keys?
It's science at its best, providing a testable hypothesis, and works extremely well.
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Informative)
Randi obtains results on the various fields he's interested in debunking not by collecting a representative sample through the offer of independent testing but by dangling the offer of $1,000,000 under the assumption that any opponents he selects will be misguided or fraudsters. This creates an obviously biased self-selecting sample and provides that justice is not seen to be done. Do you deny this?
Would you like to substantiate this by pointing out cases of people with genuine psychic powers that Randi has refused to test? And he is doing better than testing a representative sample, he has made the offer open to every single person on the planet.
Randi does not bring independent third parties to establish the tests but finalises his own terms for the tests. After all, this isn't an exercise is proving what's correct but in protecting his own money.
He has enough experience to formuate his own tests. What makes you think a third party would establish any better ones? If they can I am sure Randi would be happy to adopt it.
Even though Randi chooses his own terms, there is no peer review process for his work - e.g. through stringent analysis before publication in some third party journal with a reputation for adherence to academic standards.
What's that got to do with anything? He's exposing frauds, not proposing a theory on the origins of the universe.
Nor are the experiments repeated independently (especially not with a representative sample).
??? Anybody is able to repeat the test independently. Any why would anybody want to test somebody exposed as a fraud. The only time worth testing independently is if Randi can't expose them.
his "no-one's claimed my $1,000,000!" has nothing to do with the strength of his underlying claim
Er I think the general public would disagree. $1M is a pretty good incentive.
Phillip.
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Informative)
They set up a double blind test. Not only does the douser not know where the water is, neither does the observer. This is to prevent the douser from picking up any subconciously displayed non-verbal cues from the observer.
As billybob said, if the dousers' claims are true then a 15' airgap will not prevent them from finding the water.
Your false equivocation fails. The example would be valid if the person you were testing said they could set a piece of paper sealing on fire in a vacuum with a match. Of course, if you were to test such a claim you would find that it doesn't hold up.
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Informative)
They deliberately attract those "in it for the money" by huge cash reward (while biasing the audience to those impressed by money),
Randi has stated that if someone does win the money, they can designate a charity to recieve it instead. He explicitly made this offer to Sylvia Browne when she backed out of the challenge, after saying she would accept it, by saying that she's not in it for the money (despite all evidence to the contrary).
seem to filter to select a high number of high profile fraudsters
How does he know the fakes from the "real" psychics before he tests them? He only makes an explicit offer to high profile people like Sylvia Brown and John Edward, but anyone is free to contact him if they think they can prove their claims.
choose their own tests rather than involving independent third parties.
The exact nature of each test is proposed ahead of time to each claimant. The test doesn't go forward until there is complete agreement on both sides. This is to prevent an exposed psychic from saying things like "these lights were interfering". If the lights are going to interfere with your gift then you have the chance to have them switched out with lights that won't.
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Informative)
tl;dr: It's nearly impossible to prove that something "does not exist" or "can never work", so James Randi never phrases the question that way. He asks people to prove that their supposed tricks actually work, in whatever way they claim.
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:4, Informative)
These extraordinary claims are false, he says, so all extraordinary claims must be false
The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. Until someone making extraordinary claims presents extraordinary evidence there's no reason to give them much consideration.
He is willing to accept a lack of evidence from the biggest frauds in religion and politics and tip toe around these
When was the last time a major religion made a debunkable claim? They talk about what happened 2000 years ago, which we can't repeat, or even confirm happened. And they talk about what happens after death, which can't be tested either. When religions make extraordinary, positive, testable claims, e.g. faith healing, Randi does debunk them. But that doesn't happen as often as you might think.
The rest of your post is tilting at windmills. If the people you describe exist, it's not Randi's fault they didn't get the message. And for that matter, I really doubt they do exist. The only thing global warming skeptics and Randi style skeptics have in common is the word "skeptic".
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Informative)
James Randi will always stay with the default position, the side that the requires proof.
That's not what he said. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Informative)
Horseshit. Cancer is a known and extensively documented phenomenon. That would simply prove those ten people had delusions of some nature
"He proved that those particular dousers claims were fraudulent."
Please name the energy that the dousers are using to 'feel' these things. I don't even need to know how the human mind picks it up, just what it is and where it originates and how it can transmit the desired information.
"Randi's methods are unscientific."
Disproving claims is the foundation of science.
"Pseudoskeptics believe too little..."
How does this phrase jibe in any way with the concept of "scientific"?