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Magician & Investigator James Randi Talks Directly to You (Video)
Last week James Randi answered your questions. But that was text, and he's a performer ("The Amazing Randi"), so you need to hear the man talk to get his full flavor. He's a good talker, too. So Rob Rozeboom (samzenpus) got on Skype with The Amazing Randi to talk about his exploits, including his debunking of a whole bunch of (alleged) frauds, ranging from Uri Geller to Sylvia Browne. The resulting interview was so long and so strong that we cut it in half. Today you see Part One. Tomorrow you'll see Part Two. (The video's here now; sorry about the delay.)
Kind of pointless, since the events that happen in the book are taken for granted as "natural", and so anything which the author writes about would not be seen as anything other than normal to those characters, even though the author still actually wrote it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You claim the interview is "too long" to post in one go, so you cut in half (it's not even half an hour, but ok). Yet you didn't use these cutting abilities to edit out the bit where Randi had to go turn off his TV in the other room, making us watch at his empty chair for over a minute.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
One can, however, ask for proof for particular claims about a God who defies the apparent "natural" order. When claims are made that, e.g., God created the world 6,000 years ago, with all species as immutable types --- proof, please? God sent a hurricane New Orleans to punish the gays --- proof, please? God will cure your cancer if you pray hard enough --- proof, please? While a God who acts through creating the entirety of empirical and intelligible reality is an untestable proposition, many more specific claims (in which the "finger of God" comes out of the sky to nudge an off-track cosmos back onto course) are often made. I actually happen to believe in God; but, willingness to ask what is amenable to "hard proof" (and noting its consistent resulting lack) considerably refines/constrains my picture of how God operates in the world.
He says "I don't know" all the time. He also explicitly doesn't say he knows supernatural stuff doesn't exist. He just asks that if you say you have a supernatural ability, you have to be able to prove it. Many have tried, but so far nobody has ever been able to do so.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
If you watched the video, he specifically addressed this. He says that he's not claiming that supernatural events don't occur. His prize is up for grabs to someone who can prove that they do.
"I don't know" is, in fact a perfectly good answer, but it's not a valid explanation. It's certainly not proof of the contrary. More often than not, it is a cop-out to use "I don't know" as an excuse to not believe what evidence there is or do further research into the matter. This is where religion gets into trouble a lot. I've seen it a lot in the form of statements like, "Scientists don't know such-and-such, therefore God did it."
If you have what seemed to be supernatural occurrences happening in a house you lived in, the scientifically "correct" course of action isn't to simply chalk it up to ghosts and be done with it, it is to try to come up with plausible explanations for what was happening and testing them. Even if you settle on the ghosts answer, you need some way to prove that that's what it is. Who knows? Maybe you could have won Randi's prize.
And I'm not being facetious when I say that. A lot of advancements in science have happened when people didn't just accept seemingly supernatural phenomena at face value, but investigated it. Sometimes you even get really lucky and the actual explanation is more fantastical than any supernatural explanation.
I have the "ability" to affect *some* street lights. It's always the same ones *but* it doesn't always work.
*facepalm* Otherwise known as dodgy street lights which would be going on and off even if you weren't around, only then you're not around to see it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The problem with your statement is that militant theists don't recognize the existence of any other type of non-believer than atheists. That view is an epic fail.
That view doesn't cover things, and by a very long distance.
I do not believe in God. I am not an atheist though, I just don't care about the existence of God, or not. The reason is simple, as my tag line says, I have no need for that hypothesis. Other approaches to the problems posed by reality require simpler hypotheses, and hypothesis that are testable. God is not admissible as a hypothesis under these conditions.
When somebody is able to pose a problem that I think is reasonable to want an answer for and that answer requires the hypothesis of the existence of God, or alternatively the opposite, the hypothesis that God does not exist then I'll become more interested.
Right now though it's a waste of time. God, existence or not, is not a useful concept.
And, that, is completely indistinguishable from an atheistic opinion. Atheism just means not actively supporting bad hypotheses on religious grounds.
The problem with your statement is that militant theists don't recognize the existence of any other type of non-believer than atheists. That view is an epic fail.
Hell, most militant theists don't recognize the existence of other types of theists! For example, I submit Jihadist Muslims and the WBC - according to both groups, if you're not among their ranks, you're a filthy non-believer.
I do not believe in God. I am not an atheist though,
If the first part of that statement is true, then yes, you are an atheist by definition. However, the rest of that paragraph makes me think what you meant to say is something to the effect of, "I do not necessarily believe in a God, but I will not acknowledge nor deny the existence of such," which would technically make you an "agnostic atheist." At least, according to Wikipedia; personally, I hate labels.
Right now though it's a waste of time. God, existence or not, is not a useful concept.
Fuckin' A, man. We, as a species, have more important shit to do than waste our lives arguing about an unknowable.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
/.../, atheism is also a faith-based belief structure.
In exactly the same way that avoiding playing football is a sport.
So, in other words, your qualifications are no more "science" than a baker's or a doctor's.
And the reason these phenomenon are frequently discounted is because they almost inevitably do not stand up to scrutiny. How many times do researchers have to waste their time on claims of spirits moving dishes before finally researchers throw up their hands and decide their time would be much better spent in areas where fruitful results are likely,.
I'll be blunt, the paranormal "field of research" is populated by a long list of quacks and frauds, with maybe a very very very very very small number of researchers who actually are willing to apply appropriate methodologies. The reason that guys like James Randi, Penn and Teller and the Mythbusters are so successful at what they do is because they are experts in what one might call the illusionary arts, and thus are uniquely qualified to recognize when some spoon bender type is playing a con.
And as a final note, it amazes me how, after a century and a half of pretty deep research into how the human mind functions, and all too often malfunctions, that people are so willing to absolutely trust their senses when objects or environment seem to function in a counter-intuitive fashion. There have been no lack of studies that demonstrate just how fallible our senses and our cognitive abilities can be under extreme and sometimes even normal circumstances, and yet those rational explanations are rejected out of hand in favor of wild ass claims of ghosts, spirits, UFOs, the Hand of God, the Holy Spirit, mystery electro-magnetic (or insert your favorite quasi-scientific phrase; quantum seems quite popular these days) and yes, sometimes just being plain conned.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No... under any objective burden of legal proof, even under the notion of "beyond a reasonable doubt", there is no assessment made about whether or not god exists one way or the other, any more than under a notion of legal proof, you could somehow come to any conclusion about whether or not the events of today either would or would not ever actually happen.
There simply is no data... either way.
Yes there is. There is a tremendous amount of data supporting the fact that gods (where properly defined so as to be a coherent concept) are made up by humans. There is especially more evidence when a god is spoken of in an incoherent manner that it is simply imagination. There is no evidence of the existence of these god-concepts -- either coherent or incoherent -- outside of imagination.
This isn't a 50-50 kinda deal and it's a mistake to think it is.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
No one has ever taken the official challenge.
Because no one has ever passed the preliminaries.
The JREF is also suspiciously silent on the number of preliminary tests conducted every year.
No they're not. Nobody has taken the preliminary since they introduced the "you must have reasonable documentation of something worth testing" requirement a while back. There are plenty of ways to provide documentation: letters from a local college or university, passing the tests offered by many smaller skeptic groups (which will give you some cash to continue your efforts), or even mainstream media news coverage. I only looked into it briefly out of curiousity, and I was able to find that out with just a little bit of investigation. The fact that you think it's some great mystery doesn't speak well to your investigative powers.
They do, however, try to run at least one informal test each year at TAM.
He's already shown that he's willing to defraud the federal government (example: Jose Alvarez).
A publicity stunt designed to show that people are still too gullible, perpetrated on Australian media somehow magically becomes "defrauding" the "federal government"? Not only are your facts wrong, but your butt-hurtedness is showing. Which sacred cow of yours did he gore?
That they're completely silent on the activities related to their most well-known and well publicized function speaks volumes.
A) They're not completely silent on it, and B) however well-known the million-dollar-challenge, it's still nothing but a publicity stunt that has little or nothing to do with the Randi Foundation's primary purpose of educating the public. It serves its purpose quite well just by sitting there, unchallenged. The Randi Foundation's actual activities are well-documented and publicized. If they weren't, the Foundation would be in serious legal hot water.
I've had that happen to me. Think of it this way, if a street light goes out once in a while and takes a few seconds to turn back on, every night a dozen people could pass under it close enough for it to seem like they caused it. Hundreds of other people would just see a normal light.
Similar to the 9/11/2001 plane crashes, all the sudden hundreds of people claimed to have had premonitions of it. In a country with 300,000,000 people, how many dream of a plane crash on a given night? A few thousand? Now if a plane crash happens in the next week... month? They'll feel like it was connected. Otherwise they'd just forget it as a random dream.
That is what another poster calls confirmation bias. We tend to remember the times things match up, and not notice the hundreds of other times that they didn't.
Those particular lights you seem to have an effect on, keep an eye on them. Try watching from a distance, count how often they flicker or turn off. See if you can make some kind of statistics on it... does it change with your distance from the light? If it seems to happen more on a particular night than others... write down your mood. Also write down the temperature and humidity. Sooner or later a clear pattern will emerge. If it's confirmation bias, then things will pretty much seem random or show a direct connection to the weather. If it seems you having an effect on it, what is the factor behind it? Your distance? Your emotional intensity? What you had for breakfast? You need to get it to where it's repeatable and controllable. At that point you call Randi up and perhaps become a millionaire. Well worth the effort either way.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
This is a great guest, especially relevant to the view of the greater Slashdot community. But this is a horrible interview. Please listen to NPR to understand how real interviews are done. A real interviewer knows how draw out the "goods" from their guest. For example, this guy has a pretty even-keeled vocal delivery of information, so a questions that help connect to his passions might be a good idea. "Why are you writing that book", why did you feel debunking was important to do", "what is the most tragic con you know about", etc. I don't wish to be cruel, but this guy asking the questions does not sound like he has a natural gift for talking. Can I do the rest of the interview?
Sorry, but you are confusing two things.
In a world where the religious have seeped into every aspect of politics, life, government, and law and where people who do not believe in a religion (or, sometimes, just believe in a different one) are persecuted and mistreated (death threats, problems at work if someone discovers you don't believe, problems if your significant other's family finds out you don't believe, etc) and religious beliefs and assertions are imposed upon everyone else in the form of laws and policies (hello, gay marriage rights like any other "all men are created equal" fairness?). . . . do you really think that the side that is guilty of nothing more than simply not believing should just shut the fuck up and eat it?
Your comment sounds an awfully lot like when people used to refer to "uppity negroes" or talk about how women asserting their rights and marching and boycotting and organizing were so "militant" and "aggressive". It's the same kind of shit we hear all the time when someone calls a group on their intolerance and their response is "oh ho ho ho! so the one complaining about intolerance is intolerance of intolerance! How ironic durp durp durp!".
There really are not a lot of people out there trying to convince you that there is no god. Guess what? Nobody really cares. However, there are a lot of angry and "militant" people out there who are pissed off that they have to walk on egg-shells and worry that someone might discover that they're an atheist, because it will be held against them in potential relationships, friendships, employment, community standing, and so forth. I know that religious people think those people should just "shut up and not care", but that's bullshit. When there are people going around wishing that people would be killed for simply not having a believe that they have, I'm pretty god damn glad there are some guys out there who make it their living to be "militant" about combating that.
Guess what? I don't believe in anything. I don't care if you do or not. I only care that you not impose your shit on me. I don't mean "don't show up at my door and give me a Watch Tower magazine", because I don't mind that and am kind tot hose people. I mean, don't make me worry about how I'm going to be treated in various aspects of life simply because I don't share some weird subscription to various mythologies and don't make the rest of the world who doesn't agree with you submit to your narrow views, despite their protection as an equal by our constitution. Everyone should be allowed to believe (or not believe) in whatever the fuck they like. They also should not have to be subjected to the results of other people's beliefs.
By definition, you are an atheist if you do not believe in a god or a religion. I used to be an agnostic, because "I can't prove anything and don't care", but then I realized an "agnostic" is just what you call yourself when you want other people to be less judgmental of you. I've had people wish me dead, simply because they found out I don't believe. I've been harangued by family. I've been judged by parents of girlfriends. This is why I keep that shit close to the vest as much as possible in real life. But I'm not going to call myself an agnostic, anymore, because that's just sort of catering to people who are so angry and obsessed with what I do or do not think.
I spend about 0.0000000001% of my life giving the slightest fuck about religion or lack thereof, except when it is foisted upon me. The fact that I'm not out there telling other people "you should stop believing in crazy shit!" doesn't mean I'm not an atheist. You know, that's the whole "a" part of the word. I'm also not an astronomer or a race-car driver, but I guess they don't have a word for not being one of those things.
I do, however, find it kind of pathetic how religious people often act like you should keep being poked with the stick of religion and then act like you're somehow "militant" when you finally get tired of that stick and turn around and knock the person holding it across the head. As if not believing in their religion means you should not care about anything ever involving it, even when it directly impacts you. It's about as transparent and disingenuous as you can get.
If standing up for things like, you know, not being discriminated based on lack of religion or standing up for the right of people to be married since "all men are created equal" under our form of government and the only reason we disallow it is on the grounds of "the bible durp durp!" makes one "militant", then I guess I'm militant. I would just suggest that I'm a human being that doesn't believe in a thing and also doesn't stand by and let that thing disrupt other people's lives.
I do not believe in God. I am not an atheist though
Yes, you are.
An agnostic could say "I am unable to decide whether God exists or not" but it is illogical to say "I do not believe in God even though He exists".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Of course, the whole conversation ends up being kind of dumb, because who gives a fuck?
As an atheist, I give a fuck for the very simple reason that theists do not simply sit in their rooms reading their holy books and being nice and cool.
They influence laws and wars in places like the USA, Russia, Iran and Afghanistan. Their representatives appear on TV criticising couples who want to have sex without producing babies, women who want to control their own bodies, people who want to have relationships outside marriage, gay people and so on. Here in the UK, Bishops get a place in the House of Lords and I am restricted from doing certain things on a Sunday.
Their authority comes from the fact that they are taken seriously as somehow representing the word of god, so it is a pretty big deal if their whole house of cards is built on sand (as it were).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it