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.'"
scient....[blocked by lawsuit] (Score:5, Funny)
[blocked by lawsuit]
Unfortunately, people will still believe (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with exposing religious frauds is that True Believers will ignore the evidence and carry on believing in them and sending money anyway. They will see it as a chance to "strengthen their faith" and ignore the evidence even harder.
Re:Unfortunately, people will still believe (Score:5, Funny)
ignore the evidence even harder.
I'm confused, are you talking about Democrats or Republicans here?
Re:Unfortunately, science agrees (Score:5, Interesting)
Science says the same thing. Facts make people believe even more, especially when they contradict belief.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/ [boston.com]
Sorry if it seems I have posted this before, you'd think more people would just let it go implied at this point, as common knowledge.
Lot's of possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
Randi has gone after a lot of pseudo-religious organizations and they're still lots more to go before you can narrow it down to Co$.
http://www.vediccity.net/ [vediccity.net] - An entire city and school bought and controlled by Maharishi Mahesh's Transcendental Meditation organization
The Mormon Church - Self explanatory
Raëlism - Wacked out UFO cult founded by a Frenchman in 1974 with anywhere from 2000-5000 followers globally
Moonies - Sun Myung Moons private church where he claims to be Christ (and about every other major religious character) that owns The Washington Times, Kahr Firearms, and many other companies. Personal audience has been given to a few POTUS
Harold Camping's Family Radio - The guy who predicted the rapture a few times in the past couple of years
Lots and lots of possibilities. Co$ would be interesting for Randi to take on but it would be cool to see him deal with any of the above as well
Re:Lot's of possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
You've left out patriotism.
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And Christianity.
Actually, what's the difference between a pseudo-Religion and a Religion?
A sudo religion doesn't have root. (Score:5, Funny)
A sudo religion doesn't have root.
Re:Lot's of possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, what's the difference between a pseudo-Religion and a Religion?
Number of adherents, especially relative to overall population size.
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I should've explained that. Excluding the Mormon Church (I could be wrong about it since I've just really started learning about it in the past few months) the others on the list aren't really a religion, a buisness, or anything really. Maybe you could apply religious movement to one or two but the rest are just kinda these groups that mix god/aliens with their lifestyle and recruit others into it.
Where as a RELIGION I would state has a dogma, a leader, followers, and have no requirements to join other than
Re:Lot's of possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
Where as a RELIGION I would state has a dogma, a leader, followers, and have no requirements to join other than maybe a ritual.
Many religions are like that, probably all the real ones. In a real Christian church (and Bhuddists and Hindus are probably the same) you can walk right in, be greeted with a smile, maybe get a free cup of coffee and donuts, watch the show (music and sermon, a good preacher will have you laughing), and not be required to contribute a penny or do anything else. When they pass the collection bag you're not required to put anything in at all. Even the rituals are voluntary (baptism and communion).
If you have to pay to get in, it isn't a church. If it doesn't give almost all the money that's donated to it away it probably isn't, either.
BTW, don't worry about the meds, you're perfectly lucid.
Re:Lot's of possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
Meh. Randi has a couple of youtube videos attacking the Bible, and as a trained professional in the field (Ph.D. in New Testament from University of Virginia) i was not impressed. His opening attack in one of the youtube videos I watched is to attack the location of Nazareth, with lots of chuckles about the tourist industry there and the implication that the town didn't exist. What this really demonstrates is that Randi doesn't have any understanding about the ancient world or the challenges presented by the paucity of evidence for things in the first century. The funny thing is that skeptical claims regarding the New Testament keep being disproven by subsequent archaeological evidence. For example, 100 years ago skeptics told us that Quirinius was never governor of Judaea (or was it Licenius? Can't remember and too lazy to look it up) because there was no extra-Biblical attestation. When extra-Biblical attestation was found, they switched up and started attacking something else. What skeptics generally ignore is that the books of the New Testament are themselves first-century documents, offering compelling evidence for many elements of the first-century, from people enormously better prepared to separate "truth" from "fiction" than we are 2000 years later. They want to dismiss the evidence offered by the New Testament out of hand, because the documents are "religious" and therefore not trustworthy even in very ordinary claims (there was a town called Nazareth, for example) without external verification. If questioning the existence and location of Nazareth is the best Randi's got, I'm not at all impressed.
Re:Lot's of possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
Ph.D. in New Testament
This is both the funniest and saddest thing I've seen on the web in a while.
Re:Lot's of possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on what you mean by the terms. If you're talking about destructive sham cults vs. non-destructive, non-sham cults ("legitimate religions"), a few of the notable differences are:
The above looks almost like a point-by-point rebuttal of Scientology, but that's just an odd coincidence; Scientology is far from the first or only destructive cult to fit that definition. You can find mainline Christian churches that fit into both categories, although I think you'll find that most of them don't.
By "pseudo-religion" you could also mean something that has all the trappings of religion but claims to be anti-religion, e.g. Maoism in China.
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I'd be impressed when somebody did that too. Call me when you have proof somebody did (no, there is no proof Jesus did all that).
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Really, there should be no special religious exemption. Churches should be able to apply as a non profit, and get those benefits, but if they are not doing non profit work, they should not be able to have any special dispensatio
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Do you actually know any Mormans? Their religion in strange, but so is all of Christianity. They are no more "pseudo" religion than any other religion I've encountered, and the vast majority a better people than the average asshole.
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I'm not sure how your viewpoint is particularly pertinent to sceptics and religious fanatics. Civilised debate and courtesy is a universal requirement for productive discussion. There will always be idiots on the Internet and on your local radio station.
Your examples amount to very little without links.
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I should have emphasised the word particularly in my last comment. What fermion stated applies universally to just about any discussion between polarised parties.
I believe that there's also a big difference between atheism and antitheism. I'm also not convinced that a lack of belief in the irrational necessarily makes your position itself irrational. That's .. irrational :)
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You're forgetting this is /. -- they aren't simply not interested in accepting that Science has Faith and will cry out heresy the instant you show them they worship Pseudo-Skeptics.
Actually the whole point of science is you don't take anything on faith. All that matters is evidence.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can not be created nor destroyed, only change its form.
There is vast amount of evidence to support that theory. Experimental, observational and mathematical. Of course we don't know everything and there may yet be some case we don't know about where it isn't true, but the available body of evidence is pretty convincing. No faith is required, no belief in a higher power. You can examine it all yourself.
This is currently a problem because scientists have no way to measure anything smaller then the Planck Scale nor measure anything that travels faster then the Speed of Light.
I guess you missed the story about particles from the LHC apparently exceeding the speed of light. Presumably someone measured their speed. It is actually rather obvious that you can measure things moving faster - if you see it at point (a) and then again at point (b) and then you can measure the objects speed, faster than light or not.
I can't be bothered with the rest of your bullshit, I think I made my point.
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Arrg, your ASCII arrow broke my quotes... Try again.
You're forgetting this is /. -- they aren't simply not interested in accepting that Science has Faith and will cry out heresy the instant you show them they worship Pseudo-Skeptics.
Actually the whole point of science is you don't take anything on faith. All that matters is evidence.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can not be created nor destroyed, only change its form. -- This right here is the "God" of Science.
There is vast amount of evidence to support that theory. Experimental, observational and mathematical. Of course we don't know everything and there may yet be some case we don't know about where it isn't true, but the available body of evidence is pretty convincing. No faith is required, no belief in a higher power. You can examine it all yourself.
This is currently a problem because scientists have no way to measure anything smaller then the Planck Scale nor measure anything that travels faster then the Speed of Light.
I guess
"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to all the non-fraudulent religious organizations?
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Funny)
As opposed to all the non-fraudulent religious organizations?
They're out there. I have faith that even you, too, shall one day be Touched by His Noodly Appendage.
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Touched by His Noodly Appendage.
That would be appropriate, but Pastafarians can't keep playing catch up to other religions. At some point you're either full of noodles, or you're not.
I was touched a few months ago. The message that fell in my lap told about the gradual downfall of all spaghetti on Earth by 711 AP (After Pasta). Of course it's confusing how many years we have left - due to floating point error or something. Because as we know, pasta is the origin of all math symbols, so the years start counting erratically towards the end.
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Funny)
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Tim Minchin doing his song about Jesus [youtube.com]
They cut this from the programme before broadcast... apparently someone near the top of the chain of command must be a churchgoer who doesn't share the British sense of humour..
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:4, Funny)
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It's even crazier than that. It's not symbolic. They really believe that the wafer really becomes the body of Christ [wftv.com].
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>>The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie
Oh, for fuck's sake, I wish this meme would die.
Animate Dead is a 3rd level Cleric spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/animate-dead)
Resurrection is a 7th level spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/resurrection)
Please stop confusing the two.
Thanks,
A Concerned Christian
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly there are a lot of other organisations which are more interested in lining their own pockets or pushing Jesus and less in the whole helping people part. Scientology seems to specialize in such rackets.
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:5, Insightful)
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. My faith teaches me to do nothing but good things, I may not always live my faith very well though.
I also strongly disapprove of religions whose teachings include holy wars or science hating or things like that.
In the absence of that though, I really feel we should all just live and let live. If you don't believe in God? Fine. I don't hate you for it. My best friend is an Atheist. He doesn't hate me because I do though, he realises that it makes me happy, and he's happy with that.
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]
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I don't see why it's so popular on Slashdot to hate people who believe in some sort of God.
Because most people on /. have taken Logic 101 and know that a false assumption is incredibly dangerous. From it, you can conclude whatever you want in a seemingly consistent way. Everything that follows from a false assumption is worse than false, it is meaningless.
If your core assumption about the world is wrong, then everything you say is suspect, until shown to be free from that particular taint. That is not hatred, that is applied logic.
And we don't hate you. We despise your faith. Big difference.
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Dude, did you even bother to read the rest of the stuff that I wrote? What has my faith done to you? What reason do you have to hate it?
Frankly, I find your assertion that the original premise is false to be offensive. (No, I'm not new here, I know that's par for the course on /.) I believe in God, and I can accept that you don't. What I can't accept is your assertion that my belief is false, when there is in fact no scientific evidence to support either viewpoint.
Don't come with big bang and evolution
Re:"a fraudulent religious organization" (Score:4, Insightful)
Your "faith" is no problem. Faith is a firm belief in something for which you have no proof either way. Fine, no problem there. You are obviously correct in saying that there is no proof that there is no god. But neither is there proof that there is a god. If we knew for sure either way, then your "faith" and my "scepticism" would be redundant - this would be a 'fact' that we could all subscribe to.
The problem is that if you start believing in things for which there is no proof (which is what your "faith" is) then there are an infinite number of things that you might choose to have faith in. Why (for example) do you have no faith that there are ten blue piano-playing aardvarks living on the dark side of the moon? There is exactly as much evidence for that idea as there is for your god idea. Why one and not the other? If you had started with a blank slate - why would you have picked on this particular random idea of a "god" to believe in?
I think the problem here is that the sceptics and atheists here find it irrational (at best) to base your life on one particular unfounded belief when there are a literal infinity of other possibilities. You could never have come up with this god idea on your own - the only possible reason to believe in it is because someone else suggested it to you. Where did they get the idea from? Essentially, this "god" concept is nothing more than a self-perpetuating meme which has passed down the generations as it infects one human mind after another.
Sceptics (mostly) hate this stuff because it adversely affects our lives. If your randomly-chosen un-provable (and un-falsifiable) belief were just yours and did not impact us - then we'd be OK with it. The problem is that people who are infected with the same meme as you have done unspeakably terrible things. The loony religious wing of our society are behind things like the rejection of evolution - the attempt to suppress valid medical treatments such as stem cell research - the outright rejection of the threat of global warming. Religion is responsible for terrorism - most wars have some kind of religious undertones. Many, many evils can be laid at the feet of religion.
Sure, YOUR take on this stuff may not be directly evil - but in general, this meme has an evil overall effect and your continued support for it is certainly not helping. The more people who believe in this stuff - the more it'll be passed on to the next generation and the more evil will ultimately stem from it.
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Ok, fair enough. I see your point.
My faith teaches me to be kind and respectful to people, to be obedient to the law, to work hard and support my family, not to get into too much debt, to spend time with my wife, and in turn with my children, to be honest and have integrity, and to live a healthy lifestyle.
I think these are good things?
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You have a problem that his personal faith doesn't include fundamentalist teaching?
The reason why we object to religion is BECAUSE such absolutist dogma!
I am an atheist, but the way i see it, that alot of people have from the vaugness and mess in their theology, instead followed a worldview that include kindess to all people.
Yes you may bring up AQ, Westbro and fuckers who kills their kids with "exorcisms".
But why are you embracing the same logic fundamentlist follows and try to call Christians who dosent f
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A point I made elsewhere is that often the lowest class of believers is compared directly to the most sophisticated of unbelievers. This is very unfair. I wouldn't compare the sophisticated believers with whom I associate with gangsters and thugs who are unbelievers and say look what problems atheism causes.
While I personally believe that abortion is morally wrong, I would never dream of trying to enforce that particular view through legislation. I believe people should be free to make their own choices.
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I'm really tired of this generalisation. Yes, I will concede that some (maybe even many) practitioners of so-called religions do so only to increase their own personal wealth or something.
Jesus himself warned about these people in many scriptures; the wolf in sheep's clothing, the pot clean outside but filthy inside, etc. The trouble is that people see these folks who pretend to be Christians who are preying on them and say "see? Your religion is BS." That's what the fool who responded to you sees, the wolv
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:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Interesting)
enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=randi+debunks [youtube.com]
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".
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When was the last time a major religion made a debunkable claim?
Every serious religion does (and even some non-serious ones, like Scientology). In some ways, religion was a lot like Toastmasters, or the "Getting Things Done" 'cult': you would go to your religion for advice on how to live life. In any case, here is a list of some religions, in terms of "if you do X, then Y will happen:"
Buddhism: if you follow the eight-fold path, your suffering will end. Extremely testable. If you follow the eight-fold path, and you are still suffering, then man, they led you astray.
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fraudulent religious organization"? [like] the Republican Party?.....big-L Libertarians, supporters of Ron Paul, and believers in the religion of "The Free Market"?
lol your blatant, unabashed partisanship leads one to think that you are just another brainwashed [insert political persuasion]. You might as well have come out and said, "the other side can't possibly have any good ideas! On any topic!"
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Have any evidence to backup your defamatory statement?
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why not simply say "no, I don't have any evidence to back up that statement" -- ? It's shorter to read and makes you seem like less of a tool, too.
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.
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: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:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
All he does is recreate an event or phenomena and then make an unsubstantiated claim that it was done that way without actually proving it was done that way. (Sorry I want the smoking gun)
Well it's like this. One person demonstrates spoon bending powers which they say were bestowed by space aliens. Another person says "you bend the spoon when people are not looking" and demonstrates exactly the same effect by such means. So who is the burden of proof on? And then this second person offers the first person a million dollars to demonstrate their powers in a way that detects cheating (e.g. putting soot on the ends of the spoon) and the first person blusters, whines, prevaricates and ultimately refuses So who is making the unsubstantiated claim?
The simple fact is that Randi has satisfactorily debunked all manner of so called paranomal feats (spoon bending, cold reading, dowsing, miracle smoke, psychic healing etc.) and in some cases exposed outright fraud such as with Popoff. The burden of proof is squarely in the court of those who accept such things to demonstrate it. Extraordinary proof requires extraordinary evidence. Given that there is a million dollars on the table for a very simple demonstration of their powers you'd think Randi would have a queue going round the block.
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Re:Just another Con Man (Score:4, Informative)
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The same guy could also spin a pencil WITH HIS MIND. When I saw the whole thing I thought that this guy has the most pathetic telekinectic powers ever.
"The static from the peanuts, you see, the peanuts are creating static electricity, and that's keeping the pages down." LOL, he also had the most pathetic excuses.
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Just a small correction: cold reading is not paranormal, it is the actual technique fraudsters use to fake paranormal abilities.
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Then again “skeptics” thought the earth was flat because maps were flat and that is all the proof they needed.
And this is why people are demanding that you give specifics, because you are wrong here. There was never a time in recorded history where a significant fraction of the educated populace thought that the earth was flat (it seems unlikely that even a significant fraction of the uneducated populace thought so either, but there is no way to test that). You have accepted an argument that was made up in an attempt to win a scientific argument with propaganda rather than with facts as true.
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
"the one time he stumbled in to something interesting with the case against Water Memory he created a perfectly blind study without taking in the error factor.
Then did not follow up to find out why the two studies differed and were both repeatable getting the same data along the two different testing technics."
uhm, link? I'm sure that's described in parseable english somewhere. I like to read actually, very much so -- I just don't have much patience for empty words.
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Funny)
"the one time he stumbled in to something interesting with the case against Water Memory he created a perfectly blind study without taking in the error factor.
Then did not follow up to find out why the two studies differed and were both repeatable getting the same data along the two different testing technics."
uhm, link? I'm sure that's described in parseable english somewhere. I like to read actually, very much so -- I just don't have much patience for empty words.
Here is a good place to start but it is incomplete:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Water_memory [rationalwiki.org]
It does not really recount everything or consider all the repeated experiments since then.
In a nutshell.
A paper was published around 1980 in the Journal Nature using the standard chemistry testing protocols still in use today that suggested that water had some form of memory.
The experiments were meant to disprove homeopathy, but suggested that it may in fact be the real deal. (I have no opinions on homeopathy)
The experiment had been recreated around the world resulting in the same data.
The editor in charge of the magazine wanted the experiments rerun with Randi controlling the protocols.
Remember Randi is not a PHD or a chemist.
Randi came up with a new chemistry protocol where no one person knew what they were doing with what samples. Basically it was a completely blind testing protocol, and there have been a few TV shows on this and it was on 60 minutes and NOVA too.
Now they never ran Statistical error analysis on the new protocol so no knew what the error ratereally was.
The experiment came up inconclusive and could not prove that water had memory.
But the cool thing is this that both experiments have been recreated using both protocols several times and came up with the same data results.
Standard protocol’s says water has memory, and Randi’s protocol was inconclusive suggesting that water does not have memory.
Also Randi’s protocol has only been used to recreate this experiment.
So all other chemistry experiments still use the standard protocols today.
So my beef with Randi is that he butted in to a science lab experiment and never followed up with why the data was different and repeatable.
Although these experiments have been repeated a lot since then research in to why was dropped because of the journal bringing in Randi.
My belief is:
The data would suggest that test results are subjective much like the physic experiments done in Princeton Engineering Labs and may give us additional clues towards solving some Quantum Mechanics and M theory unresolved issues.
Then again it could just bring up more interesting questions.
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at best that would show he might have gotten that thing wrong. but how does that apply to anything else? (and that guy has been kicking ass before I was even born, so that's a lot of other stuff). I'd salute him just for exposing popoff, even if that was all he ever did other than doing magic tricks, and this advertisement suspense slashdot article (well, video), says he'll go for something that will be in the religious arena as well -- so while that is all very interesting about the water memory, I fail to
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:4, Insightful)
Homeopathy? The fact that he takes a whole box of sleeping "medicine" before each presentation and never, ever, did they work?
It might not be scientific method, but it's enough for me.
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If water had memory, I would get high from hundreds of different chemicals in tap water.
If homeopathy were true, the humidity in the air I breathe should be lethal.
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Interesting)
As a fellow computer engineer, I point you toward the field of registry cleaners, fake antivirus, and far too many consulting firms. Just enough of a success rate to make people swear there's an improvement, until a competent admin comes in and finds that swapping was disabled, and that's why everything runs so much faster until it locks up.
James Randi's tests are based on the assumption that supernatural powers are consistent, or at least repeatable upon demand. This is an acknowledged shortcoming. However, Randi's goal is not to disprove all possibility of supernatural phenomena. Rather, it is to promote critical thinking, to protect people from fraud. He thus attracts con men, and designs tests to directly measure their professed abilities. The test conditions are agreed upon by the participants, except of course for those high-profile frauds that are already actively scamming people.
Again, the point is to promote critical thinking. Even if supernatural phenomena are real, there are still hucksters out there who will use sleight-of-hand and cognitive bias to take advantage of the general public. James Randi uses his own knowledge of these tricks to highlight the techniques used in fraud, and show them to the public.
Similarly, competent system admins can disprove many of the scam software tricks, too. Make several junk entries in the registry, and see if the cleaner program finds them. Stick some viruses in a folder, and see if they're caught. As with James Randi, that's not the real fight, though. The real goal is to convince the public/managers to think critically about any promised easy fix.
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You think that's bad, I once sat in on a police meeting where one of the more idiotic participants wanted to bring in a psychic to help with the investigation. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and we bought in more search dogs and volunteers instead.
Did the psychic have an African American buddy with a super-sniffer? If so, you should have brought them in....
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It's not his job (or sciences) to disprove the extraordinary things people claim. It is their job to prove it. That's just a basic concept.
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Of course he does, it is so basic (Score:3)
The paranormal and other frauds claim amazing things that just don't fit in our universe. The most obvious is the capacity for prediction of the future. If you can predict the future, why are you not rolling in money from winning every lottery? Or made it big on the stock market?
The defence against this simple method of proofing your supernatural powers is either that your power can't be monotized OR that you don't think it is ethical.
Randi breaks that defence wide open by given these fraudsters a clear way
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the fact of the matter. Randi and cohorts have more than an adequately exposed the tricks behind all kinds of so called psychic phenomena. Why isn't there a queue stretching down the road to take the million off him by demonstrating such phenomena are real? How is it that all these psychics, faith healers and all the rest who are clearly not shy of publicity or averse to making money cannot find a single half a day in their schedule to pick up the easiest million dollars they'll ever make?
Re:Just another Con Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct, but Randi has nothing to do with this. He hasn't shown anything general - e.g. cold-reading techniques - which hasn't already been shown by others before him, and where he's identified individual fraudsters he's used no more technological or detective skill than isn't employed, say, by an enthusiastic radio amateur. All Randi offers is a marketing machine plus...
Randi has very publicly debunked Uri Geller, Peter Popoff, Sai Baba, Sylvia Brown, John Edward, John of God and various others specifically as well as various other less prominent faith healers, psychics etc. He has also contributed enormously to the skeptical movement by his participation in CSI/CSICOP, the annual Amazing Meeting and so forth. To pretend he's done nothing or that his efforts are meaningless is complete nonsense. Even this documentary features interviews from some of the major speakers from the skeptic movement and they all acknowledge him for his efforts and as a leading figure. Even Carl Sagan when he was alive.
...the nonsense that argument X against person Y is any stronger just because Y cannot or will not disprove X under Z's terms after being offered $1,000,000 by Z.
Sorry but it's not under Z's terms. It's under mutually agreed terms. If I claim I can see pictures inside envelopes then I propose a test along those lines. This other person | has a million dollars riding on the result, so their interest is in ensuring that I cannot cheat but also ensuring the result is transparently obvious so there is no doubt which way it fell. So might require the contents cannot be picked up, held to the light, that a particular grade of paper be used etc. They might also suggest that the test is over 20 envelopes with a particular and obvious criteria for pass or fail. They might also provide me with the actual pictures to place over each envelope to relieve me of the ambiguity caused by drawing what I see. I might also have requirements of my own which can be reasonably accommodated (e.g. skeptics stay 50 meters back because of their negative brainwaves) or the colour of the room or distance that each envelope is space from the next or whatever. Eventually the terms of the test are defined and then mutually agreed upon. Then I perform what I say. Or don't.
You appear to think this is somehow unreasonable.
Please just spend a moment imagining what real science would be like if it were based on 1 and 2.
Who says it's science? It's a challenge with a substantial cash prize for the person who succeeds. The science can come later. Scientists would be falling over themselves to test the successful applicant.
Re:Title: An Honest Man or Honest Liar? (Score:4, Funny)
OP says title is "An Honest Man", but TFA says it is "An Honest Liar".
Its a lie. Honestly.
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.
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Dousers claim to be able to find water, oil, gas, gold and precious gems buried hundreds of feet below ground. Why would an air gap of 15 feet be unreasonable??
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Did he declare result to be "Dowsing is a fraud" or "The dowser's a fraud, come and get the prize if you can do better"?
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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:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Informative)
James Randi will always stay with the default position, the side that the requires proof.
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it is. Disproving bogus test results is the foundation of science. Falsifiability.
Just because he entertains at the same time isn't relevant. Each time he disproves a claim, the pile of bullshit that claim rests on is lessened and knowledge of our reality is made a bit more clear. That is indeed science. Just not in a "lab".
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The other article was a little light on details, but indicated that homeopathic water initially worsened the patients conditions and then produced improved results compared with the placebo. As the placebo was chemically the same as the homeopathic water (as far as can be measured), I'd hazard a guess that the experiment need
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't prove a negative. There's always a chance that the leprechaun is really under the next rock. Randi knows this, and his audience knows this. There's nothing unscientific about acknowledging that you can't test every possibility in the world. If that was what science was, scientists would spend all their time repeating the negative results from the past hoping for a positive result. We have better things to do.
The fact that you can't prove a negative is why the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim. That is, the person claiming that dousing exists. If you claim cancer exists, you should have no problem finding people with cancer and demonstrating it. If you claim dousing exists, you should have no problem finding people who can douse and demonstrate that. If you can't, why should I care what your opinion of Randi is?
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is false. Quite provably so, in fact.
For example, take the premise of trying to find two positive numbers whose sum is less than either number. It can trivially be proven that no such pair of positive numbers exist, effectively proving a negative.
When the domain of what you are trying to find is restricted enough, you can indeed disprove the existence of something. It does not disprove the existence outside of that domain, of course... but then that is, even at best, an entirely different supposition.
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You might find that there is much in the world that we have agreed upon and have a logical basis...
For example, I can prove that what one must scientifically conclude is my own physical body is not, at least at the moment in time as I type this, encased in concrete. No math involved in that whatsoever.
Because what science concludes is a person's physical body is reasonably well defined, as is is the concept of a moment in time, and what "encased in concrete" would entail, the absence of concrete aro
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Of course if someone does dowsing for free or for fun, then no big deal. However when dowsers start charging people, or even governments, then it makes a lot of sense to test those claims. Even if dowsing does actually work(!) you would want to test the self professed expert anyway. Even if dowsing actually works(!) there would still be frauds out there and you'd want to make sure you weren't taken in by a fraud.
We have the government test doctors and food, they gather documentation from financial insti
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course if someone does dowsing for free or for fun, then no big deal.
No, No, No, A thousand times No! Doing something for free does not mean doing it without harm. To take your example, imagine someone offers to locate all the buried pipes and wires in your yard for free before you begin construction, you let him, and he gets it all wrong. Now when the backhoe cuts the gas line and there is a very real possibility of property damage, injury, or even death, was it "no big deal". The harm isn't if they charge for the locate, the harm is if they don't do it right and you believed that they would.
The harm being done is not by the charging of money for the service (thought I'll admit that too is slightly harmful) The REAL harm in the vast majority of pseudo-scientific cases is either damage caused by the procedure, or the procedure being used instead of a real and proven procedure. Neither of which has anything to do with the cost charged by the pseudo-science practitioner.
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"?
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Horseshit. Cancer is a known and extensively documented phenomenon. That would simply prove those ten people had delusions of some nature
Incorrect beliefs are not 'delusions'.
Impossible or absurd beliefs (Like the belief you're Abraham Lincoln), or continual beliefs in things that have been disproved to a level that any rational person would change their belief (Like if they thought they had cancer, and doctors tested and said they did not.) are delusions.
Simply being wrong is not a delusion. Even if
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Insightful)
The default position on the existence of ghosts is, ghosts do not exist, because there is no empirical evidence to support the contrary. Therefore if one is making a positive claim, like ghosts do exist, then the burden of proof is on them. If they are unable to provide sufficient evidence to support their claim then the scientific community will stay with the default position.
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Then grab your rod and go get that megabuck, incidentally giving credibility to dowsing and a new question for biologists to solve. Words are cheap.
Oh, and if you missed that, the dowser mention that started this thread is of "(unable to) detect running water 15 feet below " variety.
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Yeah, I used the 2 metal coat hanger dowsing rods as a kid too. The ideomotor effect is amazingly powerful. They worked with 100% accuracy detecting metal objects and wires hidden under sheets and towels, or finding buried wires. After playing with it for a few hours I figured out that it only worked if I could guess where the object was hidden. Better blinding eliminated their effectiveness. The magic was gone. I was able to debunk dowsing as a 10 year old kid using my family members, a box of wrenc
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.
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Dowsing is one of those weird things, it very often works just because there's more to actually deciding where the water or oil is other than the dowsing itself. The dowser will be using clues from the environment, knowledge of where water most likely will be, etc. Plus very often if you drill just about anywhere in a certain area you'll hit what you're looking for.
For example when my grandfather moved he needed to dig a well. My father was out there with a dowsing rod and witching branch just checking t
That's not what he said. (Score:4, Informative)
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Solid rocket fuels are the most immediately obvious example of materials with their oxidiser bound up in them which will burn in a vacuum. Perchlorate candles will burn in a vaccum and produce breathable oxygen. There are plenty of things that carry their own oxygen or other oxidiser that will burn in a vacuum.
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AFAIK, the test conditions are negotiated, which means that dowser thought he can find running water in those conditions.
And if dowsers indeed just follow the landscape clues - there is no need to research deeper, those clues are already in all survival guides. Teaching dowsing then would be no more useful than teaching to cross roads as "flip a coin, if it's tails and no cars are close - run across" instead of teaching to look at traffic lights.
The only useful form of dowsing would find water regardless of
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a controlled test environment.
The dousers, from what I know of this particular case, did not mind the test conditions and claimed they could easily get their claimed results under those conditions. At least prior to the test.
Watch the video of him debunking James Hydrik. Where he asks multiple times if this material is ok, if that method is acceptable, if this would interfere in any way with the claimed psychic power.
Or the one where he debunks the aura seer. Where he explicitly asks him if he can clearly see the auras through the screens he put up, and the poor deluded fool says "yes, I can see them quite clearly".
If anything, Randi make really sure that he doesn't leave them a way out. And that means doing the tests according to whatever they claim to be the limits of their abilities. If the dousers had said that there can be 50 feet of rock inbetween, but somehow 5 feet of air block their sensing, I am sure Randi would've set the experiment up so it fits.
Re:James Randi is a fake! (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is, many of these psychics and others absolutely believe in their own abilities. They accept the test conditions because they don't believe they will fail. Not all of them are consciously frauds, but many actually fool themselves.
This is especially true with the sort of psychics-as-therapists type of people; astrologers, palm readers, etc. All day long they get positive reinforcement from their customers who say "wow, that's amazing" or "you're really helping me out". No one ever comes in and pays for an astrological reading while being skeptical.
One interesting story I heard was the palm reader who was asked to give the opposite readings from what he actually saw for one day. He said he was amazed to discover that the customers were still responding to the opposite readings exactly as they normally did with the correct readings. He'd use the opposite readings to suggest things about the customer's personality or life and the customer would agree and say it was accurate (you know, those typical psychic things like "I sense some sorrow in the recent past", "oh ya, I just broke up with my boyfriend, how did you know!"). So this palm reader now believes it was all fake and that he never was psychic after all.