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How to Get Conjurer James Randi to Give You $1 Million (Video)
This is the second of our two-part interview (part one ran yesterday) with Conjurer and Investigator (his words) James Randi, whose organization, the James Randi Education Foundation, has a long-standing offer: prove you have paranormal abilities and they'll give you $1 Million. They say they've recently made this award easier than ever to win. Note that, lower bar or no, Randi claims the last time a conjurer's illusion fooled him was many years ago, when he was very young. It was one done by the famous Chan Canasta -- and Randi claims that in the end he figured it out, anyway. So forget the $1 Million, relax, and enjoy James Randi. He's a great raconteur, so we can all be jealous of interviewer Rob Rozeboom (samzenpus) for having made this great video even as we enjoy watching it.
In the early 80's, I recall seeing "An Element of the Divine" on Arthur C. Clarke's Strange World I think it was called. Randi and Clarke were testing dowsers. Randi predictably declared all the dowsers bogus after a small experiment. Clarke disagreed, saying that there were two experiments, one to find water and the other to find metals. The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers. Randi didn't even raise his eyebrows. Not saying he is a fraud or doesn't believe in what he is doing, but his objectivity seems highly suspect to me. His convictions seem to get in the way of his thinking, and I am pretty sure that the money will never be awarded no matter how well the subject matter may be demonstrated.