One-Sided Article in TIME Newsfeed about JREF "Challenge"

[beckyfitz]

I wanted to share this blatently biased, one-sided article I found on TIME Magazine NewsFeed. It really drew me in when I saw the ridiculous comments being made by those with no prior knowledge on the background of Randi and his so-called challenge. The article and commenters are making him sound like some sort of truthseeking hero. In fact, the article is referring them only to pro-Randi links and there are those on the comment board stating that they did further "research" on the subject by going to randi.org! Ugh.

Here is the article below, I left out the comments section so visit
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Calling All Psychics: Prove Your Worth for $1 Million
By: Tim Newcomb

The $1 million treasure just sits there for the taking. Quite literally. The nonprofit organization The James Randi Educational Foundation has $1 million tucked in an escrow account for any celebrity psychic able to prove their “powers” in a controlled atmosphere. This seems about as safe as offering to fling money at any WWE wrestler who takes down an MMA fighter, or telling your local bar's karaoke star you'll pay them top dollar when they have a record top the Billboard charts.

Either way, your money is safe. And that's exactly what James Randi, a magician and founder of eponymous educational foundation, banks on by taking his challenge public and working to get the word out about a group of people he considers con artists.

(MORE: Psychics and Fortune Tellers Being Regulated to Reduce Fraud)

After a recent Nightline television program showcased psychic celebrities, Randi wanted to promote his own views. “James Van Praagh and Allison DuBois have turned the huckster art of ‘cold reading' into a multi-million-dollar industry, preying on families' deepest fears and regrets,” he says in a statement announcing the challenge. “They should be embarrassed by the transparent performances.”

Using cold readings—a technique that employs repeating back the answers of leading questions to make it appear the answers were discovered supernaturally—and “hot readings,” which is really what we all do nowadays anyway, using Google to find information out about an individual, these “psychic mediums” have made quite a name to some.

But to win $1 million, you better have the real deal psychic power in your back pocket. Participants must prove their worth on randomly chosen strangers in controlled environments, two conditions that take all the fun—and likelihood—out of pocketing people's money.

Without a single documented case of a psychic pulling through in a real-life situation, according to Discovery News, finding a taker for this $1 million challenge proves unlikely, at best.

But who knows? NewsFeed is no psychic, so maybe somebody will step up to the challenge.

Tim Newcomb is a contributor for TIME. Find him on Twitter at @tdnewcomb. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
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Read more and make comments at: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/24/cal ... /#comments

[Craig Browning]

Randi never met press exposure he didn't like. . . even the negative stuff "so long as they spell his name right"

[beckyfitz]

Yesterday I posted about this article "Calling All Psychics - Prove Your Worth For $1 Million Dollars" written by Tim Newcomb from Time. The article was so slanted and poorly researched, never once mentioning the controversy over this challenge. In the article, Randi states that there has never been one individual to pass his "simple scientific" test. Declaring all psychics and paranormal fraudulent and non-existent. Most readers are unfamilar with the topic and are, therefore, taking his word as gospel. Please visit that article's comments section and help get the WHOLE truth out there about this guy and his challenge!

[beckyfitz]

[Arouet]

Are you saying that someone should have been declared to have passed the test?

[beckyfitz]

[Arouet]

[beckyfitz]

Okay, thanks for clarifying your question. I wasn't referring to any specific individuals that won and weren't acknowledged. I was talking about the fact that he has simply refused to administer the test to a significant number of applicants. I'm not referring to "weeding out the crazies" as many have said, as these are very viable applicants that are being ignored. They are not even given the opportunity to get a pre-screen either. He simply refuses to respond to or acknowledge applications and attempts to accept his challenge. By doing this, the main claim of the challenge, -that no one can pass it and therefore psychic ability does not exist- is voided and any tenuous claims to being scientific are invalidated.

[Arouet]

I know that Randy has said that a lot of applications get rejected because they don't follow the application instructions. I also know that a few have gotten off the rails at times (like that big homepathy one which Randy apologised for saying he had misunderstood and thought they had dropped it). But maybe you have a particular example in mind that we can discuss.

[really?]

[ProfWag]

There are also a lot of applicants that can't come up with a protocol that eliminates all chance of cheating. Even more can't obtain the professional reference or media requirement.

[beckyfitz]

[Craig Browning]

I like this girl!

Becky, understand that taking on the role of "debunker" is what most half-wit failures in the Magic world do in order to feel important, show off and keep their name in the press. Unfortunately, it has likewise become an evangelic platform for the American & European Atheism movements as well; the majority of these folks ignoring the fact that 99% of the "science" they lean on came directly from people of faith as well as serious occultists. The "current" way of approaching things with such strong absolutes emerging in the early/mid 1800s as industry, innovation and science suddenly became a boon element for society, more or less freed from the cage fanatical religionists had kept them in for so long. Like any freed captive "they' have taken things to an extreme, ignoring the median factors that make it ALL work together as part of the ONE (so to speak) vs. being many separate entities and things.

There are many in the more skeptical/analytical side of science that seriously disagree with the Randi types as well as the Dawkinism such folks seem to have likewise embraced as some kind of Holy Grail. This includes more than a few Nobel Prize winners, one particular physicist in fact, was physically threatened by the illustrious leader of the Skeptic's cult -- James Randi. Then again, the man has always had his goon squad; one of the "prove it" points his followers love to challenge us on and yet, many are very much aware of it, some having experienced its menace first hand. As I've pointed out many times here and elsewhere, such factors, if only rumor, suggest that the character of the man and those that surround him, is a thing that needs to be questioned if not deeply investigated. "They" loathe this idea, constantly pushing any challenger in two chief directions; a.) the classic "prove it" challenge; and b.) ignore the character issues and focus on the fact that his tests have never been won. . . etc.

An odd dodge given how often this same group go out of their way to discredit any research or researchers that offer plausibility and "proofs" that sustain paranormal particulars. Just weed through the piles of propaganda produced by this sort but look at all angles on each story and notice how some individuals are applauded and sustained at one point in their work but the instant they offer feedback that does not support the skeptic's gospel, that person is almost instantly transformed into being an "idiot" and "airhead" with questionable credentials.

While I applaud you in this situation, I am compelled to likewise warn you over what you most likely know already; even with a mountain of undeniable fact, you cannot change the views of those that don't want to accept any kind of perspective that runs contrary to their own. They simply do not want to believe and they want the rest of the world to be as miserable as they are, by giving up on hope, affirmation and "Magick"

While most here already know my position on things I must point out to you Becky, that I'm not a pure believer. I am very much a skeptic but one that has priorities when it comes to what is and isn't important, which basically covers my getting venomous with any group, ideology or individuals that are abusive and predatory towards the general public (especially those that use the lie of religion and philosophic ideas to do so). This includes standing up for people of faith who deserve a paladin when it comes to how cynics paint things with a very broad brush rather than dealing with particulars; there are certainly criminals in the psychic world as well as egos and delusional souls but there are also things no skeptic or "debunker" can explain away. This is why I reserve 7% of my consciousness & conscience for faith and belief in the phenomenal -- the things "science" can't explain away and the cynics can replicate, and more.

[Arouet]

[Arouet]

Becky is this website yours: http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/rand ... challenge/


Because you seem to have clipped the entire Ziborov paragraph from it, without citing it.