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Interviews: Ask James Randi About Investigating the Truth
Better known by his stage name "The Amazing Randi", James Randi has made it his quest to "debunk psychic nonsense, disprove paranormal fakers, and squash claims of pseudoscience in order to bring the truth to the forefront." Randi worked as a popular magician most of his life and earned international fame in 1972 when he accused the famous psychic Uri Geller of being a fraud and challenged him to prove otherwise. In 1996 Randi founded The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) a non-profit organization whose mission includes "educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions." He began offering $1000 in 1964 to anyone who could demonstrate proof of the paranormal. That amount has grown over the years, and the foundation's prize for such proof is now $1M. Around 1000 people have tried to claim the prize so far without success. Randi has agreed to take a break from busting ghostbusters and giving psychic healers a taste of their own medicine in order to answer your questions. As usual, you're invited to ask as many questions as you'd like, but please divide them, one question per post.
What's your favorite magic trick?
Learn something new.
What's the most dangerous lie perpetuated by the people you bust?
END OF LINE.
Mr. Amazing,
Of the various people who've tried for the prize, which one do you think would have made the best entertainer / carnie / whatever had he or she not been so serious about the reality of the trick?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
What do you think is the root cause of humans' obsession with believing in supernatural powers, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Most people know you for your work laying bare the schemes of fraudsters, and not enough people realize that you really are as good as your stage name. What's the best show you've ever performed that's been recorded and how can we see it?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Through your years of research on faith healing, homeopathy and other "magical" cures...have you found some of them more "effective" than others due to the Placebo Effect? Many people have superstitions, charms and other things they personally believe bring them good luck...and I wonder how much of this magical healing and luck bringing is real due to the Placebo Effect. Of course it is not "magic", but the power of a Placebo is still statistically valid in certain cases it seems.
While we all hope you will live as long as possible and continue your work, do you think that somebody will pick up your legacy and continue to debunk the fraudsters when you are not longer able to? Do you have trusted people to whom you are willing to hand over the responsibility, both financially and skill-wise?
Sometimes when I see tabloids and crap at grocery stores I wonder if humanity is really making progress in the skepticism department. I think there are more people today that are skeptical of all things paranormal than there were years ago but I believe that only because the population has been increasing. Percentage-wise, I fear we may still be at the level humanity has been at throughout history. You can find writings dating way back of people who were "in the know" about what was fake and what was real. As science has increased our realm of knowledge, it seems that paranormal seekers have just found it in other mediums. So what is your opinion on humanity's track record for belief in the paranormal versus skepticism? Have we made progress? Are we forever doomed to deal with a percentage of the population who want to believe?
My work here is dung.
Have you ever had significant repercussions from debunking what is essentially garbage? Have people ever actually threatened you for supposedly crushing any livelihoods, which were then based on fraud?
Have you ever encountered any unusual phenomena you can't explain?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It greatly saddens me that in the 21st century, there is still this spate of "ghost hunter" and paranormal reality shows, even on once respectable networks like the History Channel and other cable network channels. But has there ever been talk of doing a James Randi or skeptic-based reality show (akin to Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t)?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
You chose to devote a big chunk of your life to debunking rather than just ignoring those people. You must feel that they do a lot of harm to make it worth your efforts.
Aside from the obvious, stealing money, please elaborate on the kinds of harm these fraudsters cause.
Do you accept the following definition of the word 'paranormal' from wikipedia?:
paranormal
Adjective
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure
I ask all the "computer programmer" interview types for their proudest chunk of code, in your case I'm just asking for the coolest anecdote / story / bust / event. Not a one liner and not a novel, just a paragraph or so about the coolest most interesting single incident / anecdote you were involved in. Here's one paragraph on your coolest/favorite single incident.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
That's it.
BlameBillCosby.com
Ever work with others in the popular science / journalism community like the "bad astronomy" guy or bill nye (the science guy) or semi-famous real scientists and if so drop some commentary. Not reality show trash talking (unless you really want to, I guess) but do you have any interesting stories?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Couldn't this be construed as an attempt to prevent any potentially legitimate applicants from being considered for the prize?
Is there any way you can prove that your organization is not falsely debunking claims during the "Preliminary Tests," in order to prevent the prize from being claimed?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
So in your world, the truth and the search for it are a waste of time?
When offerring a $1 million reward to anyone who successfully demonstrates proof of the paranormal you risk failing to debunk some paranormal claims, not because paranormal activity actually exists, but because the ruse is either so technologically advanced or clever that investigators fail to identify the means of deception. How concerned were you about this possibility and have you ever had any "close calls" where you almost failed to discover the trick?
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
What's the closest you've come to giving out the $1M prize?
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
Ultra short version: In your experience, whats the approximate crooks to nuts ratio? 50/50 or 10/90 or 90/10 ...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
That's a bit naive. Chi, prana, chakras, et. al. were models of perceptions using different epistemological assumptions. For example, I feel something "flowing" in my arm when I do a Chi Kung or Yoga exercise and afterwards, my arm feels better. Absent of any more sophisticated data, you theorize some stuff that accounts for the changes. When 20 others do the same thing and get the same result, you have inter-subjective confirmation. Today, we use instrument based confirmation. Of course, you have to assume that the instruments tell you something useful.
Mental modeling is a funny thing. We used to think of electricity as a liquid. You could substitute voltage for pressure, amperes for gallons, do the math and come up with the right answer. The theory had remarkable predictive power. Was it "wrong?" Well, we have better models today. Tomorrow, presumably we'll have better neurophysiological models of what happens with acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, meditation, dreams, color perception, consciousness, and so on.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
When I think of skeptics, the first thing that comes to mind is a little story that Dilbert came up with years ago of Ratbert's psychic powers: Ratbert started off by predicting coin flips (as landing on the edge!), and the skeptic debunks him by arguing that Ratbert's description of a hidden drawing, while remarkably similar to what it actually was, was not quite correct.
So what do you to handle people who disbelieve a claim even in the face of positive evidence of that claim, arguing that their position is one simply of skepticism? Or do you not consider that a problem?
I am officially gone from
but if you actually read the reports, [surgeongeneral.gov] you'll notice a distinct lack of defining words like "definitely causes" or "is a factor;" instead, they use 'weasel words' such as "may cause" and "estimated" or "could be a factor" to create an illusion of fact, when in reality it's all pure speculation.
It would be scientifically incorrect of me to say that jumping from the 10th floor of a building will definitely result in death. That doesn't mean I don't have a pretty good grasp on how dangerous it would be to try. This is how scientists talk. Anyway, I only had to go as far as halfway through page 4 of the linked report to find this:
It is harmful and hazardous to the health of the general public and particularly dangerous to children. It increases the risk of serious respiratory problems in children, such as a greater number and severity of asthma attacks and lower respiratory tract infections, and increases the risk for middle ear infections. It is also a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent). Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease in nonsmoking adults.
Not a single weasel-word. Shall I continue?
Secondhand smoke is a major case of disease, including lung cancer and coronary heart disease, in healthy nonsmokers.
Exposure to secondhand smoke causes excess deaths in the U.S. population from lung cancer and cardiac related illnesses.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The default state of the human brain does not include the scientific method, nor the critical think needed to recognize (let alone challenge) unproven assumptions, nor the collection of life-experiences that gives us good intuitions about what is and is not realistic.
The default state DOES, however, include intuitions about every effect having a cause, and a readiness to believe whatever an adult says (this has obvious survival benefits, given the above-mentioned lacks). Also, there is a perchance for fantasy and the surreal, largely because that is more interesting.
Belief in magic is a natural enough consequence of this state. The correction of this belief requires a combination of:
1) Inculcation of the scientific method.
2) Evocation of critical thinking skills.
3) Provision of facts and life-experiences that reinforce sound intuitions about how reality works.
These things do not happen automatically. A very directed education is necessary to instill these, and without them, most people are very ill-equipped to protect themselves against nonsense. Old superstitions and charismatic charlatans can therefore easily keep belief in magic alive.
I ask this because I used to regard myself as a Christian skeptic. While I support what you do and much of the work of the skeptical movement, I now no longer make that claim because current skepticism seems joined at the hip with atheism. I am sure you know, one of the early leaders of the skeptic movement, Martin Gardner, was a theist and a self professed liberal Christian. Are people like Martin Gardner welcome in the movement today?
And, as a Christian I thank you for exposing the televangelist faith healing frauds.
Have you ever succeeded in changing someone's beliefs in pseudoscience? Do you think that it is possible to do so in a large scale, to move humanity towards a more rational way of thinking?
Sorry for the down tone, but I have plenty of experience in failing to convince people of the falsehood in astrology, homeopathy, acupunture, etc., and very little in succeeding.
entropy happens
Mental modeling is a funny thing. We used to think of electricity as a liquid. You could substitute voltage for pressure, amperes for gallons, do the math and come up with the right answer. The theory had remarkable predictive power. Was it "wrong?"
That's some of the most ridiculous mumbo-jumbo I've ever read. Electricity as a liquid? Preposterous.
Electricity is a gas. After all, a circuit stops working after the magic smoke escapes. There is no magic liquid.
Of all the fakes you've seen, which was the most impressive and why?
Is it true that your organisation is a front to attract the mystically endowed and drain them of their powers to feed the unholy appetites of a cabal of dark theurgists and further their quest to challenge the illuminati for control of the mortal world, leading ultimately to human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria?
I was wondering what axioms you hold to be true? Any rational system has a set of axioms that are the unprovable foundation of that rational system. What do you believe on faith?
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
That's because the liquid electricity has evaporated and become a gas (smoke). Ha!
Do you have any idea the pressures required at room temperature to condense magic smoke in to a liquid?
Hmmm, that might explain exploding capacitors.
Would it be possible to publish a set of criteria that would prove beyond reasonable doubts that an effect is unexplained. As far as I know, nobody has passed the preliminary selection for the challenge and there is no set of rules or document. One set of rule for example. Selection of participants: The phenomena must be repeatable with more than 99% confidence and be demonstrated by at least 3 independent scientists. The work must have been published in peer review journal. Test: The test must be performed on a TV stage with more than 99% confidence with 10 skeptics and/or expert magicians present. Or something similar. There is nothing right now. For me the current challenge is more like propaganda than wanting to actually know the truth. A faculty scientist and radical empiricist at the University of California San Diego
I've read several of your books, used to have a subscription to "Skeptical Inquirer", and generally support your activities and those of other skeptics. (I sometimes point out that the emperor has no clothes on this very site :-)
Your books, and transcripts and stories of skeptic investigations, hold a generally belittling attitude towards the people you're investigating. Not at all the dispassionate, "here's the evidence, here's our conclusions" type of prose that is customary in scientific literature.
Regarding this tone of voice, what advice can you give to someone who does public writing? Has this attitude helped your cause, or served to impede it? If you were given the chance to start over, would you take the same attitude?
Basically, is "snark" a good writing style?
Nota Bene: For those who think this is a troll (it's not), I grabbed "Flim Flam" by James Randy off of my bookshelf (the first of his books I could find). Opening at random and starting from chapter 6 (Erich von Daniken &c) reads sentences/fragments such as: "The only facts in his four books [named] that I depend on are the page numbers", "perpetrated ... a literary diddle of enormous scope", [Chapter 8] "Along with Freudian psychiatry, this madness has persisted to the present day".
I found the book informative and interesting, but the tone, sometimes nuanced and sometimes explicit, fairly screams "prejudice!" to the reader. To my mind, the style detracts from the credibility.
Online, tone of voice is everything. We have an opportunity to find out whether snark writing is more effective than dispassionate, and perhaps that will inform online writing.
Why are some people so willing to accept a supernatural explanation when trickery or fakery is involved and easly proved?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
What epiphany led you to your current role in debunking false claims?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Most people have seen spoon bending on TV or in stage acts - I've seen it done right before my eyes, in a completely improvised setting, with an ordinary spoon taken from the kitchen. There was no sleight of hand involved - the spoon was bending while in this man's hand, being visible all of the time. The handle remained rigid in his hand while the spoon's bowl actually rotated with no apparent force being exerted on it, so that the spoon basically twisted by about 120 degrees. (I've kept the spoon as a souvenir. It remains twisted, not cracked, and will not bend in any direction with any amount of force I can apply with my hands.)
My question to you is: if this is no more than a magic trick, how was it done? The various trick methods described here could not have been employed.
And you've figured out how to descend to an ad hominem.
The phrases I've quoted are from the one report you linked to apparently in order to demonstrate how the government is, apparently, only just evil enough to dish out prevaricative hints that smoking might not be good, but apparently not so evil that they can bring themselves to outright lie about it. I've given three quotes from that same report which contradict your argument. That will have to do, because I haven't got time to personally do fifty years of scientific research into the dangers of smoking just now.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.