So what's the deal with Randi?

[Craig Browning]

[craig weiler]

Hi everyone,

I thought it might be nice to bring this thread back onto a more scientific footing. Whether Randi is a pedophile or not is not really relevant to the MDC anyway. The main problem with Randi and his challenge is that it is the scientific equivalent of Fox News. The truth matters, and it matters a lot. Just as Fox News muddies the political debate and it can be argued, does considerable harm to ordinary people in doing so, the same applies to Randi and his MDC. It is not just the prominent psychics, or the hapless souls who are naive enough to apply for his challenge that are harmed, it is also hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who are psychic who get subjected cruel behavior, and due to the psychology of psychic people, they are the least able to cope with it. Many develop mental health issues, including depression, as a result. As I said, the truth matters.

Randi makes his living as a professional speaker attacking and making fun of psychic people and treating them as frauds. His speaking fee ranges from $5,000 to $10,000 per event, so it is highly unlikely that he would allow anything to interrupt that cash cow. It also means that he has to stay in the public eye in order to keep the value of his services high. It's business.

The challenge itself is a joke and even the most cursory Google search will reveal this. Beating odds of a million to one to win the main challenge is not possible for any psychic, no matter how talented. The people who apply for the challenge are not aware of just how hard that is. In testing, the effects will never be particularly large, which means that it would require an enormous amount of trials to build up that kind of statistical significance. (In the thousands). Psychic ability also declines as people get bored, frustrated and/or tired. It is not a machine like talent.

So why can't people pass the preliminary challenge? Easy. He relies on the fact that just about everyone, including psychics are ignorant of the science of parapsychology and the odds that people can normally beat. He can also play statistical games by limiting the number of trials; he can introduce extreme negativity into the process; he can break people's concentration with distractions or he can simply rely on the enormous stress of being tested to kill any chance of significant results. As I said, it is not a machine like talent. Try coming up with the funniest original jokes of your life while facing stress and criticism and you'll understand the problem.

Since Randi blows off anyone who can create scientific trials with groups of people to achieve this goal, his prize remains safe.

Science is about openness and honesty, and this is something that the challenge lacks. The real reasons for dropping out of the challenge are never revealed except by poring through thousands of forum posts, which is ridiculous. There is no list of applicants who have actually taken the challenge, no formal, transparent documentation of their testing process to evaluate and no reasons given for picking one applicant over another. Without these things, the challenge cannot be evaluated properly and thus, has no credibility.

[Arouet]

Randi is quite open that the primarily goal of the challenge is publicity to promote the JREF. He is quite open by saying that it's not actual science, but draws on scientific principles. Not every claim depends on statistics, but those that do do not unreasonably require a pretty high standard deviation from chance to rule out variance.

At the end of the day its his million.

I like the challenge. But I also disagree with people who make the argument: is psi is real, why has no-one won. Whether or not psi is real has nothing to do with the challenge.

[craig weiler]

Hi Arouet,
The trouble with Randi's challenge for me is that I am a psychic person. Not a professional, just an average Joe who also happens to have the ability. What he is doing is insanely insulting and hurtful; it's bigotry. The people he is attacking are gentle, sensitive people who are amazingly selfless and kind; tremendous empathy is part of being psychic.

You have no idea how bad the psychological damage is to some of these people. I do, they write to me.

[Arouet]

I'm on record that I'm not a fan of Randi's approach even if I may agree with some of his views.

That said: the MDC itself is not bigotry, nor insulting. The things Randi says about people he considers "woo" are often insulting and I do wish he'd cut it out.

I'm with Phil Plait in the "Don't be a Dick" camp of the skeptical movement!

[craig weiler]

The MDC is indeed insulting because it's a charade. Randi cherry picks a few no-hopers to test and finds a way to blow off the rest. There is an evidence trail a mile long of this crap. If you don't see this, it's because you're not paying attention to his critics. It's indefensible.

What you don't realize is that any implication that I'm not psychic is an insult to me. It implies that I am feeble minded, gullible or crazy.

Would you tell a gay person that he can be "cured?" It's not like it's any different for me. It's not as if I woke up one day and decided to be psychic; I was born this way; it wasn't a choice and I have to deal with it whether I like it or not.

[Jayhawker30]

So this challenge is less of an absolute truth... and more of a reassurement?

[Arouet]

[craig weiler]

We're not on the same page and I don't think that there is much chance of it. Rather than argue pointlessly about the emotional side of this, I'll just back off. You're obviously a decent person and this is not really part of the overall discussion anyway.

[Craig Browning]

[Jayhawker30]

What if pseudoskeptics know that the supernatural is real... and are just trying to protect everyone else?



My God.