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Debunking the Arguments of PseudoSkeptics and Debunkers
Argument # 30: The James Randi Million Dollar Psychic Challenge argument.
In case you don’t know, James Randi (www.randi.org)
is the most celebrated of the organized skeptics who founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Skilled and versed in the art of stage magic,
Mr. Randi claims to be better able to detect fraud and trickery from psychics
and mediums better than scientists can.
He gives speeches attempting to “educate” (or brainwash rather, in my
view) the public about psychics and paranormal phenomena, which he claims is
all deception or self-delusion. He has
written books such as An
Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural and Flim-Flam!
Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions, made a PBS documentary called “Secrets of
the Psychics”, caused damage to the reputation of psychics and healers such as
Israeli-born spoon bender Uri Geller (www.urigeller.com),
been on CNN’s Larry King Live a few times to debate psychic Sylvia Browne (www.sylviabrowne.com) (you can read the
transcript of the debate at www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/05/lkl.00.html),
etc.
In the original version of
this treatise back in 2001, I decided not to address this argument because I
didn’t like to create whole arguments against specific individuals. However, at this point the infamous James
Randi and his supporters have made it practically unavoidable. He is so deeply publicly involved in
debunking parapsychology in the media, that to ignore him would be tantamount
to ignoring Darth Vader in Star Wars. Paranormal
debunkers now commonly use Randi’s psychic challenge to argue that there are no
genuine paranormal or psychic abilities, else they would apply for the
challenge and win. Therefore, in this
new edition of this treatise, I’ve had to add a section on it as it is one of
the most often mentioned arguments by organized skeptics.
There are many obvious
problems with this argument of course, since one magician with an axe to grind
and hosting a publicity stunt does not debunk all the paranormal experiences in
the world. They still happen everyday to
people all over the world. Randi’s critics claim is mostly a
publicity stunt for his career due to the fact that 1) Randi is extremely
selective in who he tests, preferring to only test famous names to boost his
own career, and that 2) there are many applicants who received no response
after applying. Plus, based on numerous
testimonials from challenge applicants and para-researchers, there is much
circumstantial evidence that Randi is not that honest, for he has used plenty
of deceptive and dishonest tactics in the past.
There are many reports and analyses of him that indicate this and damage
his credibility. I’ve provided a list of
them below so you can research them yourself.
A cursory look at Randi’s
articles on his website www.randi.org will
reveal to any objective observer that although this man is very good at playing
intellectual gymnastics in his commentaries and debates. He will do whatever it takes to win, even
committing foul play. There is no
question that his mind is made up and that he has an axe to grind.
In addition, Randi seems to
have a tendency to distort facts for his purposes. For instance, Harold Puthoff, a researcher at
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) which is famous for conducting experiments on
remote viewing and Uri Geller’s psychic abilities, told me in an email:
“<< All the skeptics I've debated said that the
SRI tests were totally discredited and debunked already. Is this true?
>>
Not true at all.
They just quote Randi and his pronouncements, e.g., in his book Flim
Flam. In Flim Flam, he gives something
like 28 debunking points, if my memory serves me correctly. I had the opportunity to confront Randi at a
Parapsychology Association conference with proof in hand, and in tape-recorded
interaction he admitted he was wrong on all the points. He even said he would correct them for the
upcoming paperback being published by the CSICOP
group. (He did not.)
In case one thinks that it was just a case of our
opinions vs. his opinions, we chose for the list of incorrect points only those
that could be independently verified.
Examples: He said that in our Nature paper we verified Geller's
metal-bending. Go to the paper, and you
see that we said we were not able to obtain evidence for this. He said that a film of the Geller experiment
made at SRI by famed photographer Zev Pressman was not made by him, but by us
and we just put his name on it. We
showed up with an affidavit by Pressman saying that indeed he did make the
film. Etc., etc.
Hal Puthoff”
And animal telepathy
researcher Rupert Sheldrake caught Randi lying on several instances about him:
http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/randi.html
“James Randi - a
Conjurer Attempts to Debunk Research on Animals
The January 2000 issue
of Dog World magazine included an article on a possible sixth sense in dogs,
which discussed some of my research. In this article Randi was quoted as saying
that in relation to canine ESP, "We at the JREF [James Randi Educational
Foundation] have tested these claims. They fail." No details were given of
these tests.
I emailed James Randi
to ask for details of this JREF research. He did not reply. He ignored a second
request for information too.
I then asked members
of the JREF Scientific Advisory Board to help me find out more about this
claim. They did indeed help by advising Randi to reply. In an email sent on
Februaury 6, 2000 he told me that the tests he referred to were not done at the
JREF, but took place "years ago" and were "informal". They
involved two dogs belonging to a friend of his that he observed over a two-week
period. All records had been lost. He wrote: "I overstated my case for
doubting the reality of dog ESP based on the small amount of data I obtained.
It was rash and improper of me to do so."
Randi also claimed to
have debunked one of my experiments with the dog Jaytee, a part of which was
shown on television. Jaytee went to the window to wait for his owner when she
set off to come home, but did not do so before she set off. In Dog World, Randi
stated: "Viewing the entire tape, we see that the dog responded to every
car that drove by, and to every person who walked by." This is simply not true,
and Randi now admits that he has never seen the tape.”
So, if he lies, then why
should anyone trust him in playing fairly in a million dollar challenge?
In his article CSICOP and the Skeptics: An Overview
George Hansen cites in his footnotes a damaging admission from Randi:
“25 Randi’s antics should have come as no surprise to
members of CSICOP because he has engaged in similar behavior in relation to psi
research. Krippner (1977), Rao (1984), Targ and Puthoff (1977, pp. 182-186),
and Tart (1982b) have all documented glaring errors of Randi. Dennis Stillings
has demonstrated that “Randi is capable of gross distortion of facts” (Truzzi,
1987, p. 89). Randi has been quoted as saying, “I always have an out”
with regard to his $10,000 challenge (Rawlins, 1981, p. 89). Puthoff and Targ
(1977) documented a number of mistakes. In a published, handwritten, signed
letter, Randi replied offering $1,000 if any claimed error could be
demonstrated (see Fuller, 1979). Fuller proved Randi wrong. In a rejoinder to
Puthoff and Targ (1977), Randi reversed himself (for a clear example, see point
number 15 in Randi, 1982, p. 223). Randi should have paid the $1,000, but he
never did.”
In response to Mr. Randi’s
million dollar psychic challenge charade, Dr. Zammit has issued a million
dollar counter-challenge to skeptics to disprove the afterlife evidence
detailed in his book A Lawyer Presents the Case for the
Afterlife. You can read the details of
this challenge at: http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html
In any case, I would say in
conclusion that regardless of whether Randi’s psychic challenge is legit, I do
not believe the fact that it is officially unwon to constitute proof that
paranormal and psychic phenomena don’t exist, as some debunkers claim. Simply put, there are a variety of reasons
why it would still be unwon, ranging from Randi’s own dishonesty and less than
sincere motives, raising the bar to impossible standards as the Daily
Grail article reported, to the simple spiritual principle that psychic
abilities used for selfish motives or profit disconnect one from the higher
source, higher self, God, or cosmic consciousness. In light of that, if you also pit the
argument of the unwon challenge against the overwhelming anecdotal (majority
population) and scientific evidence for psychic phenomena, it’s nothing in
comparison. One unwon public challenge by a debunking organization does NOT
invalidate the countless millions of paranormal experiences throughout world
history, nor does it refute the years of replicable psi research done by
Ganzfeld or PEAR experiments, among others.
Finally, in regard to CSICOP
(Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) www.csicop.org, one revealing thing needs to
be said. Former CSICOP
staff member Dennis Rawlins resigned after finding hard evidence of CSICOP
intentionally suppressing its own findings which supported astrology (known as
the "file drawer effect") during one of their initial investigations
of Michel Gauquelin’s statistical research, thus proving the organization's
true agenda was simply to discredit/debunk in any way possible rather than to
find the truth, in order to appease its subscribers. You can read Rawlins' report “sTARBABY” at http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html. CSICOP has maintained of course, that it was all just a big
misunderstanding. But what else do you
expect them to say? Mr. Rawlins’
findings after all, seem to be very sincere and unambiguous.
Also, for an in-depth analysis of CSICOP,
see this article: http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/CSICOPoverview.htm
And speaking of astrology, skeptic and debunker
Michael Shermer set up a double blind test for Astrologer Jeffrey Armstrong,
who passed with flying colors, scoring a major victory for the validity of
astrology. You can see the video clip of
this test here, which includes a surprise twist at the end: http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=3N1dIUTbZTo
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