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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.'"
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]
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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
A sudo religion doesn't have root.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
"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"?
"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".
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.