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James Randi's Latest Debunking Operation
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.'"
Teh religion and magick is real, it is James Randi whois FAKE!!11!!
enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=randi+debunks
Have any evidence to backup your defamatory statement?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
[blocked by lawsuit]
Would he not be risking becoming a suppressive person perhaps? And then he might even become fair game...?
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.
Ooo, defamation. Off to the High Court!
If someone says, "I've made a career out of debunking loads of widely believed things!" then they're going to need to try pretty fucking hard to prove it.
They deliberately attract those "in it for the money" by huge cash reward (while biasing the audience to those impressed by money), seem to filter to select a high number of high profile fraudsters, and choose their own tests rather than involving independent third parties.
I am more skeptic than the average man - I have been convinced in no way by any supernatural claims; I consider almost every conspiracy theory to simply be "people with common interests vaguely agreeing with each other without needing to say it"; I favour biology over absurd quasi-philosophical claims about the truth of particular moral or market systems, free or authoritarian. But I know when justice is done and seen to be done, and with Randi it isn't.
OP says title is "An Honest Man", but TFA says it is "An Honest Liar".
Watching the trailer, I could not help notice how old he's become, even compared to the TED video (2007). Dear Randi, please stay with us for a lot longer!
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.
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$.
http://www.vediccity.net/ - An entire city and school bought and controlled by Maharishi Mahesh's Transcendental Meditation organization
The Mormon Church - Self explanatory
Raëlism - Wacked out UFO cult founded by a Frenchman in 1974 with anywhere from 2000-5000 followers globally
Moonies - Sun Myung Moons private church where he claims to be Christ (and about every other major religious character) that owns The Washington Times, Kahr Firearms, and many other companies. Personal audience has been given to a few POTUS
Harold Camping's Family Radio - The guy who predicted the rapture a few times in the past couple of years
Lots and lots of possibilities. Co$ would be interesting for Randi to take on but it would be cool to see him deal with any of the above as well
I hope you die painfully and alone.
As opposed to all the non-fraudulent religious organizations?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
Randi has debunked numerous frauds, either directly such as Peter Popoff or by revealing how a common con trick is done, e.g. cold reading, spoon bending etc. I can understand his continuing existence serves as a constant nuisance to some people, especially those who prey off the gullible, or those so gullible and weak minded themselves that they leap to the defence of these transparent frauds.
Are you telling me or Randi?
Just as it's up to the conspiracy theorists and the religious fanatics to prove the conspiracy and the deity, not up to me to disprove both, it's up to Randi to prove that his methodology is sound.
Note carefully what I'm asking: not for proof that the spirits don't exist, but that Randi selects a representative set of practitioners and that he applies scientific tests to their abilities.
True but he does debunk the prominent ones and does extend an offer a million dollars if they wish to demonstrate their powers in a transparent and obvious manner which eliminates winning by cheating or luck.
I bet you're one of those sons of bitches at an engineers meeting that talks the contractor into bringing in a dowser for water, oil, or whatever. I've seen weeks wasted on a contract because of dumb motherfuckers like you running the gamut of dowsers, psychics, and other flim flam just to attempt to make a point. I wish I could say it's a US thing only but having worked now in Asia and the EU, it appears your brand of stupidity is global
People like you should be smacked across the face and put in menial jobs where we can minimize the money you waste on quackery.
He's already exposed loads. His methodology is perfectly sound.
"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.
I bet you're one of those sons of bitches at an engineers meeting that talks the contractor into bringing in a dowser for water, oil, or whatever. I've seen weeks wasted on a contract because of dumb motherfuckers like you running the gamut of dowsers, psychics, and other flim flam just to attempt to make a point. I wish I could say it's a US thing only but having worked now in Asia and the EU, it appears your brand of stupidity is global
People like you should be smacked across the face and put in menial jobs where we can minimize the money you waste on quackery.
Funny I never thought the use of dousing would work with my scripts, or software/hardware issues.
That is being a Computer engineer and all.
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
LOL!!!!! that is the most fucking stupid thing I read in a long time, kudos.
you clearly are projecting, thanks for the laugh :D
otherwise, I'll simply skip your blah-blah for that's what it is; feel free to offer any of the aforementioned evidence once you found even just a single thing, or figured out how to decide WHAT of the mountain of evidence to post. (here's a tip, you don't have to be exhaustive -- just one would suffice to make you seem like less of a liar).
Wasting resources is wasting resources whether it's at a desk or in the field.
"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.
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.
Extraordinary proof requires extraordinary evidence. Arghh I hate making typos like this which I spot 3 seconds after submitting. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Since his minions have been astroturfing it on completely unrelated forums for the last week. It's still relatively harmless charlatanism compared to what he investigates, but don't mistake that Randi the corporate entity is all about the money.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Let me repeat what I said:
They deliberately attract those "in it for the money" by huge cash reward (while biasing the audience to those impressed by money), seem to filter to select a high number of high profile fraudsters, and choose their own tests rather than involving independent third parties.
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?
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.
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.
Nor are the experiments repeated independently (especially not with a representative sample).
IOW, Randi adheres to few of the practices of modern scientific scholarship. He catches out the occasional deliberate fraudster (as anyone could, with half a brain!) but his "no-one's claimed my $1,000,000!" has nothing to do with the strength of his underlying claim.
Have any evidence to backup your defamatory statement?
Why yes I do and there are way too many to jot down here.
Just check everything out he does claiming to be a skeptic.
Too many to jot down, yet all I see is conjecture and not a single example. Some examples would be most helpful.
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)
If those events could be done another way, then anyone who is able to provide evidence of that could grab a million dollar reward from the James Randi Educational Foundation. Not a single person has been able to provide any evidence of phenomena in the almost 50 years since it started. Many have tried, and all have failed. Thousands upon thousands of people make massive profits off of the marks who believe, but not a single one can provide evidence. Now that is unbelievable.
If you are trying to say that your field is immune to it then you're wrong. There are devices for lay people to "dowse" hardware issues in a PC (look in the ads section of some of your lower level tech rags and mags). There has been in the past fraud reports on local news of people scamming the non-technical by holding a small box up to a PC till it emits a whistling sound. The dowser then diagnoses the issue and would sell the victim a very cheap/broken PC or parts as a replacement. Then plug a cable from machine to machine with the idea that the "information will migrate over on its own in a few days" This was in Buffalo area around the late 90s and all it would take is one moron executive to bring it back into the server closet.
Call a dowser ask them to prepare a code audit using their craft. Dollars to donuts you won't have to explain to much to him and he may already have a price quote available for you.
So you can take that sanctimonious attitude about your profession and stick it right back up your fat ass. Try not to vomit so much of your autism all over the story..
He debunked a lot of things, like that guy on tv pretending to do psychokinetic (he put small light stuff which would fly at any small wind to prove the guy was using his own breath) the group even recentely took part in the debunking of a drowsing mine detector, and he debunked with test some other drowser. You are full of shit.
Why is it their job to prove their abilities? If there are people out there gullible enough to be willing to give their money to someone who never proved any of his supposed skills, that's their problem.
And I disagree with you, I think it's his job and science's to prove these people wrong. There are people out there who are not skilled enough or critical enough to realize these psychics are liars, thieves and con artists. Someone has to help them, just like the police is here to protect us of general criminals (or should be).
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?
No, idiot. The Ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round.
Hello, I'm Mohammed. I'm not the son of god but just do everything I tell you to do anyway. Oh , and call all your kids after me - saves that tedious baby naming process that the chicks always win anyway.
"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
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.
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
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.
Dude what color is the sky in your world?
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
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.
Actually it *is* science's job to disprove it.
Science is a philosophy that starts from the premise that you can't prove anything, you can only disprove things. Then we tell ourselves stories to explain our observations (form a hypothesis or theory), make predictions based on the logical consequences of the hypothesis, and then come up with thests (design experiments) whose outcome would prove the story false.
When it comes to debunking, the principle in question is Occam's Razor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
The corollary is that sometimes we have stories that are simple and elegant and are found to be predictive in a subset of the observable univers (a problem domain), so we use them there, even though we know they don't fit the big picture. Newtonian mechanics is an example of this: for non-relativistic events, they give approximate answers that are good enough, unless you need too many decimal places.
This is also why "creationism" isn't a theory: it doesn't make predictions about future events, so it's impossible to design an experiment to falsify it as a theory: a theory must be falsifiable, or it isn't a theory.
So a story about Randi debunking a religion (:theory") is as relevant to Slashdot as a story about the LHC's search for the Higgs Boson, which is a set of experiments designed to falsify ("debunk") certain theories about the basic nature of the universe (many string theories, in particular).
-- Terry
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 to monotize their power AND do it in a highly ethical way. So why don't they? Even if you ain;t intrested in the money, you could donate it to a good cause. So why don't people who claim to have powers not claim 1 million dollars that is theirs by rights if they can proof it?
They don't, because they can't. There are no super natural powers. but fools like you can't accept that, you want your beard in the sky and hate anyone who dispels the delusion.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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?
Well, you could just mention a couple of the examples of fields that you feel he did not get a representative sample from, and the 'real deal' experts in that field that you are aware of that he left out on purpose...
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 see the connection... other than you have beef (your words) with randi so you brought it up :P
The trailer's worth the visit just to hear Orson Welles say, "Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery, fraud; about ... lies."
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Have any evidence to backup your defamatory statement?
Why yes I do and there are way too many to jot down here.
Just check everything out he does claiming to be a skeptic.
No, we're asking you to show the evidence!
It appears though you don't have any evidence...
makes unproven and sweeping claims about everyone else on his radar
[citation required]
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I share your emotion, but actually, superfragilisticexpialadocious claims still only require ordinary, humble, simple evidence... One instance.
Yeah, my favorite one was this guy who said he could telepathically flip the pages in a phone book. Randi figured the guy was just blowing the pages, so he put a bunch of packing peanuts around the book, and the magic suddenly disappeared.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
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.
Your church analogy fails since the burden of proof is on the one making the extraordinary claim. The Church makes some pretty "crazy" statements, it is up to them to prove that they are right, not up to everyone else to prove them wrong.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
"My belief is:" well, that sort of says it all
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
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.
Property for sale in Nice, France
cannot find a single half a day in their schedule to pick up the easiest million dollars they'll ever make?
Psssssh. we psychics, and faith healers all make significantly more than $2 million/day, so taking half a day to make only $1 million would be bad for business.
j/k. I completely agree with DrXym
>Standard protocol’s says water has memory Really, I think there is no point in discussing this. The concept that water has memory is laughable on its face. It's amazing what people are crawling out of the woodwork, here, with vitriolic attacks on James Randi because he has the audacity to dispute their claims of invisible flying space monkeys. If you guys aren't being paid for this, perhaps you should schedule a visit with a mental health professional.
A sudo religion doesn't have root.
Who says it's science? It's a challenge with a substantial cash prize for the person who succeeds.
Exactly. It's an unwinnable prize because it's not based on the only reasonable methodology for testing a hypothesis.
Wut? All they have to do is the thing which they claim to do in the way they claim to do it and which they claim to have done many times before. Do that once(/limited number of times) more, get the prize. Moreover, the test is designed carefully so that it is difficult for someone to cheat on it, and for it to be easy for anyone to say that this is indeed the case. Yes, if they pass it would then give conventional science like physics a bit of a headache, but that would be the scientists problem.
Of course, the real hypothesis is that the mystic is really just a cheat. But if that's not the case, if they really can do amazing things, let them show it; we'll change our understanding of reality to accommodate when the effect is shown to be real.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
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.
(just to add to the point) ...and also calculated the radius of the earth within a ridiculously close margin of the actual radius.
Spoken like someone who as no idea what he is talking about.
The problem with the pop skeptics like Randi is not how many low-hanging fruits in bad wigs he's able to expose. It's how far he and his followers are willing to extrapolate their findings. These extraordinary claims are false, he says, so all extraordinary claims must be false. He is willing to accept a lack of evidence from the biggest frauds in religion and politics and tip toe around these, but boy, he loves to find some store front bodega and say, "See! They sell "Win the Lottery" candles and you don't win the lottery!". Well, no shit Sherlock.
So, all the geniuses who think Randi and Penn & Teller are just the greatest all end up stepping on their dicks by talking about things for which they have no clue. Acupuncture. "Hey, it comes from China, so it can't be real." Now, I don't know if acupuncture is real or not, but I know there are hundreds of millions of people for whom acupuncture is part of everyday medicine saying "What the fuck is he talking about?" Did these Randi wannabes look for any of the research, much of it which has now been translated and confirmed by followup studies? No, because they've already made up their minds. They don't need so-called "research" to tell them that something that sounds "woo" has to be "woo" because Randi said so. See, in a roundabout way, Randi empowers the people who say, "Where is the extraordinary evidence for global warming? Where are the double-blind studies for (global warming, evolution, etc). If there's no experiment with a control group, there's no "Science". They get a word, "double-blind" and all of a sudden they're experts in the Philosophy of Science and qualified to know global warming or evolution isn't real. Then they become easy pickings for the real hucksters.
Further,
Whoa there, trigger, a "fraudulent religious organization"? You mean as opposed to the Mormon Church? Or the Catholic Church? Or the Republican Party?
Randi and the pop skeptics love to holler about the bewigged cinder which is blinding some poor schlub who buys a lotto ticket, but tippy-toes around the sequoia that's in the eye of the world. "Fraudulent religion"? See what I said about low-hanging fruit?
Also, a remarkable number of these pop skeptics are big-L Libertarians, supporters of Ron Paul, and believers in the religion of "The Free Market" which does not exactly speak well for their ability to debunk bullshit, yes?
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you had just posted this first, it would've save you some trouble. I'm curious as to why you're pissed at this Randi guy, rather than the editor who brought him in. Seems to me he didn't "butted into a science lab experiment". He was invited, and did what someone asked him to do.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Just a small correction: cold reading is not paranormal, it is the actual technique fraudsters use to fake paranormal abilities.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This burden of proof argument is the greatest straw man argument that pseudoskeptics ever came up with. (Claim: A new statement of truth made about something, usually when the statement has yet to be verified. - wiktionary) Note that the definition is chronological, therefore the claim in the above example is indeed that god does not exist, as the churches claim came first. Alternate definitions sometimes mention consensus, ie the most popular view, which the church also had on their side. Who decides which side is claiming something and which side isn't? I might consider it an extraoridinary claim that god does't exist. In reality the burden of proof for two competing claims is on both parties to prove the superiority of their theory. Pseudoskeptics often use the negation as automatic support for their position, 'he claims god exists, that is a claim. Claiming god doesn't exist is simply the abscence of his theory and the default position'. But any claim can be formulated as the negation of another claim. You claim to exist. The negation of that is that you don't exist therefore you are making an extraordinary claim and I am not. So prove to me you exist...
Randi debunks indiviuals, not ideas. For this I commend him. There are too many charlatans, conmen and liars in the world and anyone who puts a few of them in their place deserves our respect. My problem is with those fanboys of his who keep claiming his 'findings' prove or disprove some scientific hypothesis. Stop it.
so your criticism is that he's not the messiah, or superman? oh boo-hoo. and why do you read "A fraudulent organization" as "any and all of them"?
fixed, sorry.
Yes sorry, that's my mind doing its usual and inserting or omitting words or mangling sentences and making sure I don't see the error until its too late.
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.
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.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
When James Randi started out debunking various "psychic" and other frauds he provided a very useful service. These frauds produced a result and said, "I have supernormal abilities, how else could I do this?" The average person watched what they did and could not imagine any way to do it without supernormal abilities. James Randi came along and said, "I have no supernormal abilities and I can do the same thing." When the frauds tried to claim he had supernormal abilities and just didn't know it, Randi showed people how he did it. He then challenged any one claiming psychic powers to perform their feats in a setting where he had ensured that they could not use any of the tricks he knew to accomplish their feat.
The only problem with James Randi (and it is not much of a problem) is that he started saying, "I don't believe in X and you shouldn't either" in areas where X is not so clearly debunked as in the areas where he made his fame. There is nothing wrong with him saying that. The problem is the people who take the position that because James Randi believes it is bunk only those who are gullible could possibly believe it. Or to say it another way, people who use an "appeal to authority" referencing James Randi to dismiss arguments made by those they disagree with.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If someone could truly use some form of telepathy or telekinesis, why the hell would they expose it for 1 million dollars when they can use it to make billions in investment, trading, or gambling? I am glad that he puts that million dollar barrier up for frauds, but I'm not sure he's ever going to find someone with demonstratable abilities to risk being exposed for a mere million bucks. I know if I had the ability to read minds or see through walls or see into the future or bend spoons with my mind, I'd be playing blackjack or poker, investing in high risk securities or playing roulette respectively.
i am so very tired....
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What. You start talking about "strawman" while building a strawman to knock down. Did "pseudoskeptics" bite you or something?
It's not "negation of claim", it's "negative claim", or claim of absence that is hard/impossible to prove.
For example:
You claim to exist. The negation of that is that you don't exist therefore you are making an extraordinary claim and I am not. So prove to me you exist...
Easily proven, I can come over to your house and knock you on the head.
Now to prove that I _don't_ exist you'd have to visit every single person on the Earth and ensure that he is not me -and you still won't get definite proof, because some people are hiding or missing. Most importanly, I'm actually right behind your shoulder all this time and quickly walk when you turn around.
Of course there are negative claims that are easy to prove, like "there are no million dollar bills in my pocket", but those have a) small enough search space, and b) specific test for positives.
Claims of some specific property in _some_ humans are not provable as negatives in general case just due to sheer number of humans on this planet, but easily provable as positives - just show at least one human with that property. That's what Randi does, looks for positive proof.
you bluster, dodge, evade, make excuses, prevaricate, and otherwise attempt to run away from an easy test
That's actually my favorite part of Randi debunkings. One of the best moments in Tonight Show history (aside from when they kicked Jay Leno's talentless ass to the curb briefly), was when Johnny Carson (who had secretly been working with Randi) confronted Uri Geller with a Randi test. Randi had figured our how Geller was bending spoons and had set up some spoons that Geller couldn't rig as part of the test. The look on Geller's face was priceless. Suddenly he was stumbling backwards over excuses why his "psychic" powers had suddenly failed him. I think the best he could do was some bullshit along the lines of "the auras aren't right" or some such crap. You could tell Carson was doing his best not to crack up. If only more journalists had done what a comic talk show host did that night, Geller would have never been able to defraud as many people as he had up to that point. It was a good thing.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Like, totally, like...
Randi came up with a new chemistry protocol where...
Funny, RationalWiki doesn't mention any of this. Do you have a link that doesn't go to a kook site, and preferably describes the process without making the writer come across as illiterate?
Standard protocol’s says water has memory
So if you assume water as memory then you can prove water as memory. This doesn't sound circular at all.
So my beef with Randi is that he butted in to a science lab experiment...
Randi didn't butt in. The editor of Nature asked him to participate. He also didn't act unilaterally, he was part of a four man team, one of whom expressed disappointment that they didn't find anything.
"a carefully orchestrated exposure of a fraudulent religious organization".
Aren't all religions fraudulent? Show me the evidence.
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.
Spoken like a true close-minded willfully ignorant troll.
You have it backwards. The Church is in the position of the psychics. They have not put forward any evidence that Yahweh exists. Not in 2,000 years. So what does that mean we should do with the claims of the existence of Yahweh?
Thats why you need to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster...
Skeptics have not said the earth is flat. And the people who do (did?) say the earth is flat don't use the shape of maps as evidence.
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".
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And you're just dead wrong. People that make these kinds of extraordinary/supernatural claims have the burden of positive proof. It is not for anyone to disprove them since they are the ones making the claim in the first place. If I tell people I can do a backflip and dunk the basketball on a regulation 10' basketball goal, no one is required to try and disprove this claim; I have to put up or shut up. What is claimed must be repeatable and if it cannot be repeated in a timely manner then it is debunked. Simple as that.
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/
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.
If I give you the money, you fail to do the back flip, and after all that I still don't ask you for the money back, what's wrong with you taking the money (other than your conscience)?
These people don't have to burden of proof because morons believe them nonetheless. They have to prove nothing because there are those who are gullible to believe them without any consistent evidence that they can do what they claim.
If things were as simple as you put them, they would all be put out of business by the second week of "work". It would be clear they are doing nothing and people would move on. Science should debunk them because no one else will. It would be good if we lived in a world where these people had to prove their skills, but we don't. We live in a world where these psychics are making more money than scientists. Simple as that!
You and lots of others failed logic 101, as is evidenced by your complete lack of it.
James Randi never said that because those particular dousers could not find water under those particular conditions that all dousers could not find water under those particular conditions or any other conditions ever. He has never laid these out as rules. But you would know that if you actually bothered to understand what exactly Randi has been doing for more than 50 years.
I agree with one exception. The person who believes is in the realm of faith, and has no burden to, nor even reason to deal in, the realm of fact.
This may look like an argument where one side is accusing the other side of bad science. It's not. The giveaway is here: The side accusing the other side of using bad science is using bad science.
Let me rephrase. If I don't understand science enough to change my beliefs to match observation, and it is clear in my argument that I don't, then my argument is most likely an emotional one with phrases pulled from critics of my belief. Not science.
And when you argue against science with faith, there is no win. On either side. Neither side has the tools to change understanding in the opposite domain. It is impossible, and only someone who already leans in the opposite direction will be pulled across to the other domain. And in some cases, people will retain both understandings (cognitive dissonance) because they cannot change their understanding.
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
Which is precisely what you do in real science when experimenter or subject bias may skew the results.
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.
Which proves Randi's point: The positive results are due to experimenter bias, and to provide valid data those studies must be blinded.
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.
"Randi's protocol", as you call it, is universally applied to medical trials.
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.
We know that. If you apply an additional control to your experiment and your positive results consistently disappear, then your positive results were due to the factor you controlled for. In this case, experimenter bias.
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
Subjective, yes. Not real.
You're using logic to counter belief. It's not going to work.
Also, Randi is not an impassive man of science and logic. He is trolling the believers, and trolling them hard. It is a thing of beauty, because people who tend toward logic will be on his side without even needing to see someone refuse. People who believe will get all frothy in the mouth and argue any shred of evidence that his methods are not "fair" or "real science".
When someone claims psychic powers, implicit in their claim is that they can do this only in their own way, and not by some artificial method corrupted by some contest and its rules. If I can give you a cold reading after sending people to mingle with you n the lobby and feeding me details, then that is what I claim. Only, since I have no reason to state what should be obvious (I repeated on stage exactly what you told someone in the lobby), I only claim the supernatural part, that I can cold read you.
Make no mistake, Randi is most definitely being a showman with this claim, and it *is* set up so that anyone who accepts the challenge will fail. Not because he sabotages their performance, but because he removes the air of mystery. Mistakes can't be glossed over, preparation work will be revealed, and all opportunities for trickery are eliminated.
Once you prove something, there is no room for belief. Make no mistake - even if someone were psychic to maybe 75% certainty on a coin toss (50% better than expected) they would not be rigorously tested. Because with belief, you can get that number up to "almost 100%" because people stop counting. With logic, the counting never stops. This is why I believe no one will ever claim his prize, *even if they are legit*.
Randi knows this, he is a zealot on the other side, and he is trolling hard.
Doesn't make him any less right, it just puts him clearly in the realm of logic, not belief.
Water Memory? I remember that stuff. It was pretty much instantly laughed out of the room, because of two things: the main fact behind water memory - that water retains some sort of knowledge of a compound it has been exposed to - runs counter every known law of physics and chemistry, and water memory doesn't work in any setup other than that of homeopathy. For example, if water memory is true, the gulf oil spill should have had a near permanent effect on the environment.
In other words, the claims of water memory are so unbelievable that they require evidence that goes far, far beyond "Hey, we're getting some weird effects here - Water Memory!" For that reason alone, Randi's debunking is good enough.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I look forward to Randi debunking that vile fraudulent religion of AGW.
Yes. This is trolling. I am confident that the troll will be well-fed.
So think of him as a guy that creates a device on paper that looks like it would logically work, and then sells it to people without ever knowing if it will really work or not. (A coder that never tests his code)
You have no idea what the scientific method is, how it is used in science, or what the difference between a claim and a test is.
You must be a homeopath's wet dream.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Of course, the homeopathically correct way to take the sleeping medicine is to throw almost all of it away, put the remainder into a swimming pool then dip in a finger and touch it to the tongue.
Note that the definition is chronological, therefore the claim in the above example is indeed that god does not exist, as the churches claim came first.
It did? That doesn't seem possible. At some point there had to have been somebody who came along and said "There is a god!". Before them, there was no concept of god. Therefore the lack of god is the null hypothesis; god's existence is the alternative, which must be proven. This is only logical; as one of the tenets of the null is that one can never prove it. This is clear, since it is impossible to prove that there is no god. It is certainly possible, on the other hand, to prove that there IS a god (say, by god appearing and performing some miracle).
To date, no evidence has been presented which disproves the null hypothesis (of there being no god).
One is free to believe in their alternative hypothesis of choice, but they must understand that, by definition, theirs cannot be the null, and therefore the burden of proof is on them, rather then on those who stick to the null hypothesis (which again, by definition, CANNOT be proved).
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
There is a difference between a fraudulent religion and a normal religion. Fraudulent doesn't mean that it isn't absolutely true. Fraud is intentional deception. The Pope believes in Catholicism. The Mormons leaders probably believe it too. The Republicans DEFINITELY believe it.
You also cannot prove any of these people wrong. Their main claim is a belief. An untestable and non-verifiable belief. You might find them to be incredibly WRONG, but that doesn't make them fraudulent.
Also, on the topic of things like acupuncture and others(homeopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine). The main crux of the argument against these isn't if they provide any good or "help people". The main argument against them by skeptics is that they are FULL OF CRAP as to how they work. Acupuncture claims it messes with one's qi. Qi doesn't exist. Zinc may actually help with some things, but not because it mimics the symptoms of a cold(which is what homeopathy claims).
Now, I think we could afford to be a bit more empirical with our medicine. If acupuncture does do some real and noticeable good, then we should use it. However, I think it is important to be clear that the previous notion of why it works is wrong. Why? So that it isn't misused.
Your taking offense means absolutely nothing for the validity or non-validity of an argument. You seem to be a sensible person, but please don't use the "that's offensive!" defense. It doesn't belong in any civilised debate.
You say that as if you think that somehow makes it a fifty-fifty proposition.
Lack of evidence of a god when that evidence should be there is in fact evidence that there isn't a god. So I'd say it's overwhelmingly likely that your belief is false. (Of course there are no absolutes, but it seems strange to take the overwhelmingly unlikely position rather than the overwhelmingly likely one when living one's life.)
Unless of course you're worshipping a malicious or trickster god who deliberately hides from you and makes himself/herself/itself immune to evidence. In which case... I'm not sure anyone would wish to worship such a god.
There's also the inconvenient fact that lots of people believe just as fervently in a different god from yours. How do you know that they're wrong and you're not?
HAND.
Yeah, he's being a little harsh on you TeTalon. He's missed your point completely, just ignore him and he'll go away. I personally think the statement "Because in science you should have both an open curious mind and a skeptical questioning mind too." is spot on. How can someone have a closed mind and still explore the mysteries of the world?
No, idiot. The Ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round.
And they were close but not exactly right.
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....
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.
Here's a better link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory
The only difference is Pseudo-Religion and Clut are used to describe Religions that I/you don't like and won't accept. Suicide-Cluts are just Religions that encourage their followers to commit suicide and sense I cannot accept Suicide under those conditions I feel free to use Cult to describe their Religion. In general I don't like the word Cult or Pseudo-Religion being used to describe someone. Catholics used to call all Christians who weren't Catholic members of a Cult. It's just a way of demeaning another persons beliefs just like the Atheist Cult of Randi.
I thought homeopathic medicine gets more powerful the more diluted the dose is? In which case of course taking a massive overdose isn't going to have any effect.
If he was serious, he'd be taking a tiny fraction of one pill, which would doubtless put him to sleep almost immediately.
Islam.
The (cough, cough) religion of (sic) peace.
Arguably the most violent one ever in the history of mankind... even more violent than the medieval Christians.
...next he can take on the members of atheist cult.
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.
Tantric yoga: do these exercises and meditations and eventually you will have a kundalini rising (enlightenment). So if you do them, and you don't have a kundalini rising, then you know tantra is worthless (either that or your teacher sucks). The Bible: Those who believe shall be able to do miracles, such as drink poison and not get hurt, or heal the sick (Mark 16:17). So if you follow Christ and you can't do those things, then......yeah, you've just falsified it. Daoism: 99% of the battle of daoism is figuring out what you are supposed to do. That is an ancient Chinese way of teaching.....but, if you ever do figure out what it is you're supposed to do, then you will be able to tap into the mysterious power of the Dao. If you figure out what you are supposed to do, and do it, and still can't tap into that power, then you've just falsified Daoism. Mormonism: fast and pray oft, grow in humility, and you will be filled with joy and consolation. Mormonism tends to be more explicit in its claims than some others, it says all over the place things like, "if you have faith, God will give you anything that is good." It gives examples of people who became good enough that God gave them anything they asked for, and it says that you can do it too. It even directly gives an example of how to test these claims, and verify/falsify them. I like it because the more clear the promises, the more easily it is falsifiable.
Not that I disagree with your main point. Randi is teaching people to look at the evidence and test things, so even if he were wrong 80% of the time, I would still support him, because he's got the biggest, most important point right.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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!"
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Every scientific fact starts with some kind of belief (yes, I did just call evolution a 'scientific fact'. If you disagree, I'll ram the evidence down your throat, since there's so much of it).
In the case of the GP, what he meant by "I believe" was "I have a hypothesis that....." His hypothesis is that with better scientific techniques, we could learn more. Richard Feynman said something similar, in fact almost the exact same thing, although he was talking more about psychology
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
$1M is a pretty good incentive.
You would think so, but you have to look at it from the point of view of a psychic. When you've won the lottery with your predictive powers so many times, sometimes it's just not worth the effort to grab that extra million. Who really cares?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Randi came up with a new chemistry protocol where no one person knew what they were doing with what samples."
It wasn't a new methodology. He simply said that the results could be explained by confirmation and observer bias, than added controls for them.
Why would he need to investigate the differences in results? The differences were expected once these sources of errors were eliminated.
Just don't forget to win small prises in many different lotteries, or else you'll get people suspicious with all the jackpots you grab.
Someone should get all the results of all the lotteries, do some statistics and find them psychics who get ahead with unfair advantage.
There's no solid evidence of any of that. There's even considerable scholarly debate about whether this Jesus character was even an actual person.
Because those of faith use the same sentence as you "my faith teach me to do good things" and they hide behind it (without showing that they indeed learned gfrom those teaching) and then spout some bigoted non sense. How often those good people suddenly are adamant that a mariage is between a man and a woman (hint : it was not that way in the past, not even in christian community, and at a time it was more akin using the kids to merge property, and long time ago it was frgging SECULAR before the priest coopted it). And then they will say their bible somehow with a lotn of contorsion gay are bad people (nevermind that they eat shellfish), that the message is good (nevermind Jesus being agaisnt slavery, or even him cursing a figue tree, yeah yeah I know it can be itnerpreted figuratively, but hey, anything c an be itnerpreted figuratively then, you know that gay condemnation ? it was god figuratively pointing the finger at priest diddling children in the choir). And then the ever attempt of reversing secular decision because they don#t like it, the ever whining of "we are persecuted because of our religion" but so soon a kid make a prayer be removed from a secular building, the outpouring of hate starts.
So yeah. Not all christian are like that, but enough are like that , that every single of us know a few of such example personally. And since msot geek are educated people, and educated people are least religious, you can see why slashdot as a whole is warry of the god bunch.
Now if only they were prqactising the religion the christ preached, instead of being the "church of paulinism"....
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm seriously curious. Why is it hard to believe Romney did that? That statement seems to clash with your "blatant, unabashed partisanship" quip.
"Atheist" simply means "not theist", i.e. does not believe. It does not imply logical proof that there is no god.
That's a nonsense. If god intervenes in the world (as all Christians must believe) there should be evidence -- there is absolutely none. This is consistent with the atheist view. It is not consistent with the Christian view.
HAND.
In the face of all historical evidence,I find those who those who have faith in man are just as questionable as those who have faith in god.
Faith in man? I'm pretty sure there are other people. Now wheteher people are good or not is another matter.
I just announced an offer for people who practice Muscle Testing/Pendulum Dowsing or any other technique claimed to be able to tell the difference between MSG and Vitamin C in amber glass vials. I'll pay $500, help publish the results in a scientific journal, and then split the James Randi Million Dollars with you, or expose his Prize as fake. I doubt anyone will get my $500, but I have sufficient motivation to lose $500 so I can get $500,000. Read more here: http://ancientway.com/blog/?p=796
Well, there goes the credibility. Never was there such a conceited buffoon with such thin credentials. There's a reason he used to be relegated to teaching science to kids; but some idiot had to give him a soapbox.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlfMsZwr8rc
The editor in charge of the magazine wanted the experiments rerun with Randi controlling the protocols.
So my beef with Randi is that he butted in to a science lab experiment [...]
It's not "butting in" if you've been invited.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
+1 "So true it's funny".
No, my criticism is that he is not the messiah or superman he believes himself to be.
One thing you will never hear from these pop skeptics like Randi: "I don't know, I'll have to look into that". They are able to divide everything into "true" and "false" without admitting any grey area that requires further study.
If you ask a real scientist, a real skeptic, "Hey, is acupuncture real?" he's going to say, "I don't know" or, "I haven't seen any evidence". You don't hear real scientists, real skeptics, call stuff "woo". They have made their minds up and are as closed-minded as any religious zealot.
Let's count the times Randi and Co have changed their mind about something, OK? Certainty is not really a by-product of the scientific method.
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you didnt even get the name right! "An Honest Liar"
Actually, there is something else they have in common: Absolute certainty, which is something real skeptics don't have.
What was the last time you heard Randi and Co admit to not being sure about their findings or that their investigation was inconclusive? They divide the world into the things of which they are certain, and "woo". They are zealots as surely as the followers of the faith healer.
Ask a scientist if psychokinesis is real, and he will say, "I don't know" or "I haven't seen any evidence". Ask a pop skeptic and it's "Absolutely not! It's "woo"." Never, ever an admission that they haven't really examined the literature or even looked into the question. Just an answer, with certainty, based on how it sounds to them.
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Agreed. If people just used some critical thinking they wouldn't be cleaning out computer viruses as often, or sticking magnets in their shoes to get more energy, or believing that the real estate bubble can never burst. Same principle.
The more something cannot be true, the stronger your faith must be to believe in it. Also, believing in something that's obviously not true is better proof that you're committed to the group than believing in something that is true.
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Isn't testing all those people "I'll have to look into that"?
So far there is no proof of water memory. It was not James Randi's job to disprove water memory, and he was called in by others because he was most familiar with how to detect frauds (scientists unfortunately aren't so good at this).
However the results were inconclusive. The result remains then: no proof or evidence or even hints that Water Memory exists. No further testing necessary. The advocates of Water Memory have it in their court to provide the evidence, it is not up to scientists to disprove it 100%. It's an absurd idea and it's a waste of time to expend effort disproving it.
There is nothing whatsoever to do with quantum mechanics, that is only brought up because Water Memory true believers seek some explanation to justify their faith. That is the implicitly believe that Water Memory must be true (despite lack of evidence) because that belief is necessary for homeopathy to be true. So this leads to people coming up with ideas to explain Water Memory, and there are several. Quantum mechanics is just one of those things that most people don't understand but that the lay public likes to misuse in many contexts without ever doing the math and understanding it (string theory is catching up as the cocktail party bullshit topic of choice). So some wave some hands around and say "water memory occurs as the quantum level" and your gullible customers will keep buying your distilled water.
And this is why the true believers mention quantum mechanics. They don't understand the math, but that's ok because their customers don't understand the math either. Just say "it's quantum mechanics" and people start nodding sagely. Seriously, quantum mechanics is something that the vast majority of people know nothing about while still talking about it anyway. People see all sorts of metaphysical concepts in it despite never having read an actual scientific paper on it, but they'll blather on about cats being alive and dead simultaneously and multiple universes.
I bent a key for someone once - with my "mind". I told the person in advance that it was a trick. And yet the person was shocked and amazed and said "are you sure you're not really psychic?" So gullible that they she was fooled even when I told her I was lying! And I fumbled the trick anyway so that anyone should have seen instantly how it was done.
As for the million dollars. Some have said that the true psychics aren't tempted by mundane things like cash. However you would think someone of them would accept so that they could give the reward money to a charity...
This is one of the basic tenants of science. Proper blinding is required to eliminate researcher bias. Rarely is this evident in "hard sciences", but with noisy edge effects, researcher bias can be powerful. Researchers fool themselves this way all the time. "Cherry Picking" data is another way to fool yourself (often called 'data mining'). Many of the "healing foods" claims fall into this category, like the recent acai berry craze. Test 100 samples of different foods and you'll get 5 false positives to a p>.05. This is simple math, but most researchers overlook this on their first tour through. Followup tests will show the effect evaporate.
This set of experiments confirms human fallibility rather than pointing to quantum effects.
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.
As well as having enough experience to formulate his own tests, both parties have to agree to the terms of the test before the test goes ahead. Sometimes he will go back and forth a number of times with a subject with modifications to the test before they agree on the terms. What would be the point of an independent 3rd party when both parties have agreed on the terms?
Actually it is Z terms...
I myself once contacted a similar outfit to Randy's. I made very specific claims about what I could do (essentially reducing the strength of another person with my [mind/chi]). I, in fact, have no idea how it really works, but when I think about the other person in a specific way, I can weaken them. I have not done extensive testing, but it seems to work on mostly everyone I try (significant and repeated). The hitch, it seems, is that they (my targets) only weaken in relation to myself. So I must achieve contact with the subject during the strength test (such as pushing down their arms, or arm wrestling). I understand the inherent flaw in the design that I must rate their strength subjectively so I suggested that both of us (me and the person who I am weakening) could stand on pressure plates that gauge how must downward pressure each person is exerting. Then, when I push down the arms (first without the weakening and then with the weakening), a difference in pressure needed to push down their arms could be objectively recorded.
They flat out rejected this. They said I would have to be in another room where A) I could not see them B) they could not see me C) no communication could go between us (I have no problem with this one), D) I would 'do my thing' (not knowing if anyone was even in the room next door), E) they would be tested with ridiculously low weights before and after, and if they COULD lift them the second time, it would 'prove' that I had no abilities. Such an ability was never my claim, but for them, a paranormal ability must do the miraculous. No room for the scientifically unexplained, but somewhat mediocre abilities--‘Supernatural’ or not, they gotta be BIG.
I say all this being a hard core atheist and firm skeptic. I understand there has to be objective measurements but their terms were completely unrelated to whether my ability was ‘supernatural’ or ‘paranormal’. I also understand the idea behind getting people to think critically, but they themselves were going against that very idea. They were unable to conceive of a ‘supernatural ability’ that required the ‘weakener’ and the ‘weakenee’ to be in close proximity. I guess if I could actually read a person’s mind, but only if I was within 6 feet and could see them; it would not pass their paranormal test. In part, I myself wanted to find out what was going on. As I said, I don’t know why I can do this, and I would like to know whether A) I actually do have an ability or B) How I it works (as it could be autohypnosis which would not count as paranormal). I do not have the funds to set up a proper test that can show me this and this seemed like a possible venue. But their completely rigid stance on what must happen during the test was beyond what even I believe I can do, so there would have been no point.
They were most certainly Z terms and I think they have their own agenda that DOES include keeping the money, even if it requires going against their stated mission, ignoring the claims as stated, or biasedly deciding what constitutes paranormal.
What was the last time you heard Randi and Co admit to not being sure about their findings or that their investigation was inconclusive?
When was the last time that their experiment actually gave inconclusive data? Do you have a specific instance in mind where they were intellectually dishonest? Can you provide an example, or is this just a general feeling you have about a group you dislike?
They divide the world into the things of which they are certain, and "woo".
No, they divide the world into things for which there is evidence, and things for which there is not yet. As Hitchens said, that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. If you want your claim to be taken seriously, provide some evidence. If you can't, or won't, do that, why should anyone be anything but dismissive of your claim?
Never, ever an admission that they haven't really examined the literature or even looked into the question. Just an answer, with certainty, based on how it sounds to them.
The number of potentially true, but unverifiable propositions is so enormous that one cannot examine the evidence for every single one of them. If I ask you "Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster exist?", what are you going to say? Are you really going to withhold judgment until you see all the evidence, or are you going to apply some common sense?
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That statement seems to clash with your "blatant, unabashed partisanship" quip.
lol not at all, I have a negative preconception of all politicians, no matter their party.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
you win by teaching people to follow a rational method of analysis and allowing them to be open-minded
Funny thing is, one of Randi's books in the early 80's did exactly this for me, whereas a decade or so of formal schooling had utterly failed to impart those simple but effective teachings. What you are doing wrong for someone who is trying to appear skeptical of skeptics, is you're giving equal credence to the teachings of both sides when rationality dictates only one side deserves it. In other words you're are being open-minded to the point where your brains fall out (or has religion pushed them out and is refusing to let atheist thoughts enter your head?).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"Common sense"? What is common sense but conventional wisdom through your own filter of supposition and bias and cultural attractors.
The best test I've found for separating real skeptics from pop skeptics is as follows: "Is acupuncture real?" The answer allows a very precise classification, and not necessarily in the way you might think.
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Sadly, no.
Randi is teaching people to assume they can determine truth based on how it sounds. Science teaches people how to look at evidence and test things. Randi teaches people to jump to his approved conclusions.
You are welcome on my lawn.
you win by teaching people to follow a rational method of analysis and allowing them to be open-minded.
Which is exactly why Randi won me over more than thirty years ago. Not for religion, I've been an atheist for all my 50 odd years, but in the 70's I was a naive young man and a big believer in woo-woo physics, I had stacks of books and magazine written in a literary style that I now know is called false document . A single Randi book debunking Uri Geller taught me more about bullshit detection than a decade or so of formal schooling. It made me realised I had been conned but I could have just as easily have joined you in shooting the messenger. I'm embarrassed to say it now, but I at one time I believed that someone (a blind guy in France) could turn a tennis ball inside out with their mind. This old fart is very grateful to Randi for teaching him how to fish. Of course I could have learnt to fish from a myriad of other admirable teacher's, such as Sagan, Bronowski, Hitchen's, Asimov, etc It was just happen-stance that Randi led me to them.
What Randi and Dawkins and all his followers have wrong...
The mistake you are making when trying to be "oh so cleverly" skeptical of skeptics is that you are so open minded your brains have fallen out. It's clearly a mistake in rational thinking to automatically give equal credence and motivations to both sides. For example; Randi's motivation for exposing charlatans can be traced to his early teens when his father died prematurely due to taking the advise of an 'alternative medicine' charlatan who convinced him to avoid real doctors. I disagree with your premise that Randi, or Dawkins for that matter, are "frothing at the mouth" about anything*, but in Randi's case he certainly has a valid reason to do so.
* - I will concede my concept of "assertively delivered blunt truth" maybe equivalent to your concept of "frothing at the mouth". And maybe this is why I got so much from Randi et-al's teachings, whereas you clearly don't even recognise his entire organisation was set up to promote and implement the same educational strategy that you espoused in the "you win" quote above.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I really don't see anything wrong with the religious quote from Randi? Too blunt for your tastes? Or just too close to home?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It is not science's job to disprove a supernatural claim made by someone. We need positive proof; repeatable positive proof. That is how science works. We know water boils at 100 degrees Celsius(~at sea level, of course) . And we know it because it has been positively proven countless times by people trying to figure out at exactly what temperature water boils.
OK, let's talk Science witha big "S".
You can only demand the ability to falsify. We have a theory that water boils at 100C at standard pressure. It has yet to be falsified, but it's still a theory, just like the theory that when you let go of things they will fall. If you have a repeatable disproof, present it.
Scientists are the clever bastards who figure out the implications of a theory and then devise a test to decide whether or not the implications follow through. If they do, the theory lives another day, otherwise, it's discredited, and we spend a lot of time to think up a new story to tell ourselves.
PhD = Doctorate of Philosophy. This isn't a mistake, this is an intentional conjoin between observable phenomena and the theories that result (or don't) in additional observable phenomena given a set of initial conditions.
Science is all about prediction of future events based on initial conditions, and if your idea isn't predictive, it isn't scientific, it's faith, or to use scientific terminology to coat it in a respectability it probably doesn't deserve, "conjecture".
Experiments are all about setting up initial conditions, and pressing the "go" button.
Interpretation of experimental results is all about deciding what the conditions do or don't say about the theories: "were the predictions wrong?" Not "were they right?", no one gives a damn about that; a broken clock is "right" twice a day.
Correct predictions only argue about utility of theories under particular conditions. They do not argue for correctness of the theories themselves. The broken clock is "right" at 6:16 every day, and we can't know we haven't accidentally looked at just the right time.
I really think that classrooms should concentrate on experiments with surprising results to teach this to students, but to teach that would be to teach questioning all sources of information, including your teachers, and that ends with ... the people who are going to die before you die losing power over you,
Oops... meant to say "chaos"...
-- Terry
Indeed, Colombus was considered insane not because anyone thought he would fall off of the world, but because they knew he would starve. Colombus was very insistent that the world is quite a bit smaller than it actually is, and calculated out the supplies he would need based on a distance everyone knew was about half of what he would actually need to travel. His original destination was India, and by the time he hit the Caribbean they were pretty much out of food and fresh water, and not far from mutiny. Everyone else was pretty much right, they were just unaware that he would run into an unknown continent.
Spain only took him up on the proposal because they were extremely desperate and he wouldn't stop bugging them... so they gave him 3 leaky, obsolete, undersized ships crewed by criminals, foreigners and other undesirables, gambling that either he would find *something* of value or that nothing of value would be lost. It worked out well for them, but it was never a good bet, and they never believed it was.
While it is possible some groups without any access to large areas of flat land or open water *might* have believed the world to be flat, no seafaring culture ever labored for long under such a misconception, because spotting the curvature of the Earth at sea is trivially easy even with the naked eye.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
When has Randi ever said you can determine the veracity of a claim based on how it "sounds"? I don't know where you're getting this from.
You seem to be angry that Randi isn't conducting double-blind medical trials. But there is more to science than just that. Randi has done a great job in exposing poor science methodology, particularly in the psi research field.
Actually, there is something else they have in common: Absolute certainty, which is something real skeptics don't have.
Most "real skeptics" claim that there is no evidence for [insert claim here]. As far as I know, that's all Randi has ever said. If you have a relevant quote that shows otherwise, please share with us. It shouldn't be too difficult if what you're claiming is true.
What was the last time you heard Randi and Co admit to not being sure about their findings or that their investigation was inconclusive?
Randi, for the most part, does two things: testing peoples' claims of extraordinary ability, and debunking folks who claim extraordinary ability on a large stage. Neither of these scientific tasks lends itself to the type of ambiguous statistical data that medical trials and the like often lead to. And there may be cases where Randi has said "I don't know how this person does this" that I'm not aware of.
Ask a scientist if psychokinesis is real, and he will say, "I don't know" or "I haven't seen any evidence". Ask a pop skeptic and it's "Absolutely not! It's "woo"."
You're stating that "pop skeptics" generally make claims without evidence. So where's your evidence that this characterization is fair? Shouldn't you hold yourself to the same standard?
Your posts mostly consist of unsubstantiated allegations about the character of groups of people and, for what it's worth, that's not been my experince with scientists and skeptics. But I'm not going to make the same kind of sweeping generalizations that you're making.
Do not apologise! Many thanks for that link. I like the way it ties in with the "overestimation of one's own level of skill/knowledge" studies so closely - but pushes the scope of them even further (for example unwillingness, or even refusal, to learn).
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
"Common sense"? What is common sense but conventional wisdom through your own filter of supposition and bias and cultural attractors.
That's absolutely true, and still you can't get through life without it. The best you can do is be aware of your biases, and challenge them when you need to.
The best test I've found for separating real skeptics from pop skeptics is as follows: "Is acupuncture real?" The answer allows a very precise classification, and not necessarily in the way you might think.
Does it produce statistically significant effects in placebo controlled studies? If not, then it's unlikely.
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