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Randi runs away
Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2006 (CST) by Thoth
 "Randi is a non-scientist who has announced that -- by some undisclosed but non-scientific means -- he knows that such anomalous claims are farcical and 'absurd', and should be 'tossed on the trash heap.'
The real facts are that Randi is doing exactly what he has accused some scientists of: he has conducted no properly designed experiments, has published no empirical results (reproducible or otherwise) and has not submitted himself to any peer-review process. Yet he expects us to accept his conclusions as having some scientific significance and meriting attention.
Randi says, "There seems to be a certain quality of the human mind that requires the owner to get silly from time to time. Sometimes the condition becomes permanent, a part of the victim's personality."
Here, at least, are words that no-one can disagree with.
James Randi's "$1 million challenge"
Most people have heard of the challenge by James Randi offering $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate psychic powers.
On the face of it, Randi's
challenge must be a good thing mustn't it? There's a million dollars
just sitting there waiting to be picked up, and all anyone has to do to
win it is perform under controlled conditions the kind of claim we read
about every day in the newspapers -- spoon bending, mind-reading,
remote viewing.
So doesn’t the mere fact
that no-one has won Randi's challenge prove that such things are
impossible? As usual in the murky world of "skepticism", things are not
exactly what they appear to be.
Randi's $1M challenge was
unveiled on 1st April 1996. You can read its terms in full at the
website of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) the
organisation administering the challenge.*
A quick glance through the
provisions seems to show an eminently reasonable and fair challenge.
But now go back and look again a little more carefully, this time with
the kind of critical eye that Randi brings to exposing cheats and
frauds. What you find are some ambiguities that are likely to make any
serious claimant uneasy to say the least.
The first such ambiguity is
contained in the preamble where it says, "Since claims vary greatly in
character and scope, specific rules must be formulated for each
applicant."
This means, quite
reasonably, that the rules for any particular attempt cannot be
finalised until a claimant steps forward and announces what he or she
is going to do -- bend spoons, read minds or walk on fire. But it also
means that Randi will fomulate the rules for each individual attempt at
his challenge on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, the claimant has to
agree to these ad hoc rules. If he or she does not agree, the contest
will not take place at all.
The second ambiguity is in
Clause 4, which says that "Tests will be designed in such a way that no
"judging" procedure is required. Results will be self-evident to any
observer, in accordance with the rules which will be agreed upon by all
parties in advance of any formal testing procedure taking place."
This means, quite
reasonably, that there will be no interminable arguments by 'experts'
over statistical measurements. Either the spoon bends or it doesn't:
either the claimant reads minds or he doesn't. The written rules,
agreed up front, will decide.
But it also means that
there will be no objective, independent judging or adjudication, by
scientific criteria, carried out by qualified professional scientists.
Randi alone will say whether the terms of the challenge have been met
-- whether the metal was bent psychically, or the electronic instrument
deflected by mental power, or the remote image was correctly
reproduced. In the event that the claimant insists the written terms
have been met, but Randi disagrees, then it will be Randi's decision
that prevails.
Not only will Randi be the
sole judge of whether the claimant is successful, but even if a
claimant appeals on scientific grounds that he has met the agreed terms
of the challenge, Randi will be the sole arbiter of any appeal as well.
Randi says there will be "no judging". In reality, he is both judge and
jury -- not only of the claimant's cause but of his own cause as well.
With these two major
ambiguities in the rules it would not be surprising if Randi never
found a serious claimant to accept his challenge. Any potential
claimant who reads the rules carefully will be concerned about two
things.
First that the terms enable
Randi to draw up specific rules that are unwinnable -- and hence that
no claimant would agree to -- and then enable him to claim that "no-one
has won the prize".
Second there is Randi's own objectivity. His position can be understood from his own writings such as this.
"The scientific community,
too, must bear the blame. When a Mississippi inventor obtained the
signatures of some thirty Ph.D.'s (most of them physicists) on a
document attesting that he had discovered a genuine "free-energy"
machine (essentially a perpetual motion device), and when the U.S.
Patent office issued a patent in 1979 to another inventor of a
"permanent magnet motor" that required no power input, there was little
reaction from the scientific community. The "cold fusion" farce should
have been tossed onto the trash heap long ago, but justifiable fear of
legal actions by offended supporters has stifled opponents." [Click
here for the real scientific facts].
"These absurd claims, along
with the claims of the dowsers, the homeopaths, the colored-light
quacks and the psychic spoon-benders, can be directly, definitively,
and economically tested and then disposed of if they fail the tests."
It doesn't seem to have
occurred to Randi that the thirty Ph.D.'s who attested to the new
machine might know a little more about physics than he does.
Given uninformed and
prejudiced views such as these, the concern will be that Randi, as sole
judge of success, will never accept that paranormal phenomena have been
demonstrated because his position is that he knows on a priori grounds
that the paranormal is impossible and hence whatever the claimant has
demonstrated must be merely an unexplained trick of some kind.
I put these ambiguities in
the rules to James Randi. He dismissed them, saying only that I should
"read the rules", and suggesting that I am a "nitpicker" and "pedant".
Randi is a non-scientist
who has announced that -- by some undisclosed but non-scientific means
-- he knows that such anomalous claims are farcical and 'absurd', and
should be 'tossed on the trash heap.'
The real facts are that
Randi is doing exactly what he has accused some scientists of: he has
conducted no properly designed experiments, has published no empirical
results (reproducible or otherwise) and has not submitted himself to
any peer-review process. Yet he expects us to accept his conclusions as
having some scientific significance and meriting attention.
Randi says, "There seems to
be a certain quality of the human mind that requires the owner to get
silly from time to time. Sometimes the condition becomes permanent, a
part of the victim's personality."
Here, at least, are words that no-one can disagree with.
Find out what happened when a serious challenger applied to take Randi's "challenge":
Randi runs away
In June 1999, a Mr Rico
Kolodzey of Germany wrote to James Randi and challenged for the reputed
$1 million prize. Mr Kolodzey is one of several thousand people who
believe and claim that they can live on water alone, absorbing 'prana'
or life energy from space around them.
Now this claim is, to say
the least, extraordinary. It is perhaps even more extraordinary that an
individual should offer to prove this claim by submitting himself to a
controlled test.
The claim is one that most
people would treat with great skepticism, and might well run a mile
from. But James Randi is not most people -- he is the person who has
publicly claimed that he has $1 million on offer to all comers who
challenge him and are willing to submit to rigorous testing, as Mr
Kolodzey has offered to do.
It should not be very
difficult to arrange a test of Mr Kolodzey's claim. All that is needed
is to lock him in a police cell, under CCTV observation, with only
water to drink. If he experiences significant measurable weight loss,
or asks for food, then his claim is false. If, on the other hand, he
does somehow survive on water alone, then Randi is wrong, conventional
science is wrong, and Mr Kolodzey has won $1 million.
It ought therefore to have
been a very simple matter for Randi to offer to lock Mr Kolodzey up for
a week or two. But that is not what Randi did. Instead he ignored Mr
Kolodzey entirely. When Mr Kolodzey wrote again to Randi asking about
his challenge, he received the following email from Randi (later
confirmed with a hard copy):-
Date: 6/18/99 12:03 PM
Mr. Kolodzey:
Don't treat us like children. We only respond to responsible claims.
Are you actually claiming
that you have not consumed any food products except water, since the
end of 1998? If this is what you are saying, did you think for one
moment that we would believe it?
If this is actually your
claim, you're a liar and a fraud. We are not interested in pursuing
this further, nor will we exchange correspondence with you on the
matter.
Signed, James Randi.
(A hard-copy of this letter will be sent by post to you, today.)
James Randi Educational Foundation
201 S.E. 12th Street (Davie Blvd.)
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316-1815
So, now we know exactly how
much confidence can be placed in James Randi's "challenge" and exactly
how Randi behaves when confronted by a real challenger, willing to
submit to rigorous scientific testing of his claims - Randi runs away.
To see Randi's original letter click here.
Article Source
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Re: Randi runs away
by terry on Thursday, January 19, 2006 (CST)
(User Info | Send a Message) http://na | randi is a puffed up fool, Victor zammit has offered him a £Million if he can prove the supernatural is all fraud, and Randi runs away,
dont get me wrong- i agree that frauds should be exposed and randi is a fraud, he ties up his offer in so much red tape it is impossible to collect.
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T Stokes
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Re: Randi runs away (Score: 1)
by on Monday, January 23, 2006 (CST)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Randi is being asked to prove a negetive. That is not possible. |
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