Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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]
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.
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.
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.
Spoken like a... nevermind.
Whoosh!
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.
"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.
OP says title is "An Honest Man", but TFA says it is "An Honest Liar".
Its a lie. Honestly.
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.
"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.
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.
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
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...
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.
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.
"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
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??
A sudo religion doesn't have root.
I had a friend who claimed to be able to drink glass of beer with his hands tied behind his back, i tested that claim and he failed. I have thereby debunked the theory that drinking beer is possible at all... wait what? He proved that those particular dousers claims were fraudulent. Any douser that claims to be able to find oil, gas, gold, gems (or explosives as the wiki page says) is automatically fraudulent. Scientists who support the idea that dousing may be something other than bunkum only support the theory for running water and ferromagnetic metals. Dousing is not the point however. Randi's methods are unscientific, his results are claimed to be scientific... = pseudoscience. I refer to such people as pseudoskeptics personally to separate them from the type of pseudoscientist who believes too much. Pseudoskeptics believe too little but use the same methodology to 'prove' their skepticism. You could use Randi's methods to prove that there is no such thing as cancer by finding ten people who claim to have cancer and showing that they actually don't. You could use this method to prove that there is no global warming by taking measurements in your own back yard and saying 'look the temperature is going down'
In short, Randi is a passable entertainer, if you watch his shows and are entertained, good for you. If you take anything he says or does as scientific evidence of anything whatsoever, you are as gullible as any scientologist astrologer.
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 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
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"?
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
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.
He claimed the latter, as you point out. Then 1001 Randi fanboys like billybob_jcv here claimed the former as being proven by the latter. If Randi ever claimed to be advancing scientific understanding of these theories then he is a charlatan too. But I don't think he claimed that. Just randoms on the internet.
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.
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
Oh my god, if Randi's last debunking were a major debunking of Scientology, I think I would just orgasm right there. That's like a lifelong bank robber pulling off a multi-billion dollar robbery of the Federal Reserve as his retirement heist.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
Pseudoskeptics believe too little but use the same methodology [pseudoscience] to 'prove' their skepticism.
You could claim Randi is a pseudoskeptic if you claimed that he believed too much (i.e. that dousing is false). But that claim highlights the error of your objection to Randi in the first place. As there is a difference between believing something is false and not believing it to be true. Cheers
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.
James Randi will always stay with the default position, the side that the requires proof.
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.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of "science".
No ones needs to "take anything he says or does as scientific evidence". Scientific evidence is evidence that has been collected though the scientific method. Your "take" is just a grammatically ugly synonym for "believe".
Randi, with the challenging party and third parties ranging from bankers to scientists whose livelihood is dependant on their reputation, apply the scientific method to the challenger's claims. Anything that comes out of that is inherently scientific evidence. Whether you "take" anything or not is meaningless.
Furthermore, if the challenger is correct, everyone is very rich; if the challenger fails, everyone loses. And I mean "everyone". The media don't care anymore; nobody's paying Randi or the observers; the bankers, I suppose, are protecting their right to "manage" the money.
Your argument, as your example, is ill thought out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
"You could use Randi's methods to prove that there is no such thing as cancer by finding ten people who claim to have cancer and showing that they actually don't.'
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"?
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 landscape and artificial/natural streams.
P.S.: Oh, and how repeatable/successful was that "seemed to work"? Did you always hit a spring or was it "close enough, let's try again"?
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."
"It's not science, ..."
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".
I had a look at the first link - an article from back in 2001 and states "If it's confirmed it will be groundbreaking.". Well, it's not confirmed yet, do you guys need some more time?
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 needs a bigger sample size.
It'd be cool if homeopathy was real as then then any ocean would act as universal cure (or maybe a universal poison, who can tell).
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
You know what they call homeopathic medicine that actually works? - Medicine.
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Find an example that isn't math.
Math is all definitions that we have agreed on that have some logical basis. It's easy to prove a negative when it's built into the very definitions you're working with.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
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 you're wrong about 'crazy' things. For example, thinking someone is following you every time you leave your house is not delusional. That could, in fact, be true. However, if you hire people and set up cameras and whatnot to check on that, find no trace of them, and conclude that they're just very very good at hiding, or they're manipulating the cameras and people, at a certain point that belief crosses over into delusional. Non-delusional people would change their belief, or at least assert the people spying on them stopped.
Likewise, hypochondriacs tend to skip from disease to disease as their older self-diagnosis become implausible. They believed something specific is wrong, but when presented with evidence otherwise, changed their belief. Thus they are not delusional. (Hypochondria is a real mental problem, but it's not 'delusions'.)
It's only a 'delusion' when the facts, as presented to the belief holder, say one thing, but the belief holder continues to come up with increasing implausible ways their belief might be true. Not only does someone have to be wrong, they have to know enough that a reasonable person would admit they are wrong, and yet insist otherwise.
Please note the 'Martha Mitchell effect', which is when a mental health professional misjudges when a belief is absurd or disproven, and note that there are some beliefs that are explicitly prohibited from being considered 'delusional', like beliefs that contain value judgements. I.e., if someone thinks that the President hates them, that cannot be considered delusional, no matter how much evidence there is the President does not know who they are. 'Hates' is an opinion. The belief that the president is conspiring against them, however, can be delusional.
As for water dousing and other pseudo-science, it is entirely possible to make the case that the case that such a belief should be delusional if we actually taught people correctly in schools...however, we do not, so it is not. I.e, our 'reasonable person' test is broken, as it is 'reasonable' to believe in complete nonsense.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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.
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 around my body merits entirely adequate proof of that negative.
One might conclude that what I think is my physical may not be, or perhaps redefining concrete to refer to some insubstantial material that cannot be directly perceived, but owing to the lack of scientific evidence in such regards, this is arbitrarily changing the scope of the original premise.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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 institutions, require licensing of beauticians, there's just a whole lot of scrutiny out there to protect the public and consumers. But when it comes to these pseudo-scientific claims too often people just believe the "trust me" lines without any verification.
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 wrenches and an assortment of sheets, blankets, towels and cardboard boxes. It was really cool to see James Randi doing the same experiment on TV a few years later.
As others have said, if you can detect any water, running or not, under controlled, blinded conditions using dowsing, you'll be a wealthy dude. Well, small 'w' wealthy, but a million bucks is nothing to sneeze at. Just head on over to JREF and set up the test to pick up your check.
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 things out, mostly for fun and he went in with a bit of skepticism. He said "I think there should be water under that dry creek bed" and sure enough as he crossed the creek bed the rods indicated water; tried with the witching branch and it twisted. As he said "it felt like it was trying to pull itself out of my hands". Of course this had nothing to do with supernatural power to detect water; but the unconscious movements of the hands. As you cross that creek bed it's essentially impossible to remain impassive, you're going to be thinking "the rods should cross now if there's water here" and sure enough it happens. I tried the same thing, but I could make that branch twist and buckle anywhere I wanted; the rods and branches are extremely sensitive to any slight change in how you hold your hands. It's the equivalent of telling someone "don't think about elephants for the next minute".
So we tried it with some opaque buckets of water. Sure enough those rods absolutely picked one bucket over the other, rods crossing over one bucket and not flinching over the other. Except it was the wrong bucket.
So ultimately the well was dug, where my grandfather thought it was a good place. But I think we'd have gotten water anywhere at all on that property, it's not like wells have to be in just one spot to hit the water table. Plus there were a few places that were obviously better for water.
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.
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.
'It's nearly impossible to prove that something "does not exist" or "can never work"'
No, it is impossible. That is why those are the defaults until the positive has been proven. It doesn't exist until there is proof it exists; it doesn't work until there is proof it works.
Great Intellect...
You can't prove a negative. There's always a chance that the leprechaun is really under the next rock.
Find an example that isn't math.
Look, all you have to do is consider every leprechaun-shaped region of spacetime and compare its contents to our agreed-upon template for leprechauns. Given that the observable universe is finite and the volume of a leprechaun is nonzero, we can show that this would take a finite amount of time. QED.