James Randi, Magician and Stage Artist Devoted To Debunking the Paranormal, Dies At 92 (washingtonpost.com) 128
James Randi, a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims, has passed away Tuesday "due to age-related causes." He was 92. Slashdot reader trinarybit first shared the news. The Washington Post reports: An inveterate skeptic and bristly contrarian in his profession, Mr. Randi insisted that magic is based solely on earthly sleight of hand and visual trickery. He scorned fellow magicians who allowed or encouraged audiences to believe their work was rooted in extrasensory or paranormal powers. In contrast, the bearded, gnomish Mr. Randi cheerfully described himself as a "liar" and "cheat" in mock recognition of his magician's skills at duping people into thinking they had seen something inexplicable -- such as a person appearing to be cut in half with a saw -- when it was, in fact, the result of simple physical deception. He was equally dismissive of psychics, seers and soothsayers. Still, he was always careful to describe himself as an investigator, not a debunker, and insisted he was always open to the possibility of supernatural phenomena but simply found no evidence of it after decades of research.
To put his money where his mouth was, Mr. Randi and the research organization he helped found in 1976, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, offered payouts ranging up to $1 million to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal phenomenon under mutually agreed, scientifically controlled conditions. While he had many takers, he said, none of them earned a cent. Randi was featured in a handful of Slashdot stories over the years, including a two-part interview where he answered your questions.
To put his money where his mouth was, Mr. Randi and the research organization he helped found in 1976, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, offered payouts ranging up to $1 million to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal phenomenon under mutually agreed, scientifically controlled conditions. While he had many takers, he said, none of them earned a cent. Randi was featured in a handful of Slashdot stories over the years, including a two-part interview where he answered your questions.
80s TV show (Score:5, Informative)
I remember watching a TV show in the 80s where he would debunk various people with supernatural powers. I specifically remembering one guy who could turn pages in a phone book without touching it, or something similar. Randi spread those Styrofoam peanuts all around the phone book, and suddenly the guy couldn't turn the pages any more (he was using his breath in a very controlled way). Of course the guy had excuses about the Styrofoam static interfering with his energy or other nonsense.
Re:80s TV show (Score:5, Interesting)
There's the famous Tonight Show with Johnny Carson episode where he had been coached by Randi, and the so called psychic failed disastrously on national TV, with the intermission sign reading "We'll be right back" lasting a bit longer than normal. Carson was an amateur magician as well.
I am also a card carrying member of Randi's 2000 club, where I agreed to pay a sum to an psychic who wins the challenge. Seemed like a safe bet to me.
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Re:80s TV show (Score:4, Informative)
That money was on top of his one million, which was in an escrow account maintained by lawyers, so he could sue psychics who claimed it didn't exist, which a number of prominent psychics did, when hiding from the test.
Also they's say he woudn't pay, or the test would be unfair. Except they would design a test with clear rules that the psychic agrees to, adminostered by people who aren't Randi, and the results obviois to all. And do two rounds.
And the psychic is asked beforehand if conditions are ok (e.g. can they detect something under a sheet, knowing what it is ahead of time, so they can't balk the sheet blocked them after the test failure.)
Nobody has ever passed the first round. Fruads don't try, though some true believers do, and fail, and are amazed.
One other note, many psychics will say they won't take the test because they aren't in it for the money. Except they could donate it to charity, and it would shut up Randi real goodlike! And then after saying they aren't in it for the money, they returned to their $300/half hour phone sessions.
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Randi designed a bog-simple test for Carson to use: Bring out a tray with a number of small metal containers. (They were specifically metal canisters for 35mm film.) Some of them contained water, and others were empty. Ask the psychic to identify which containers were which, without touching them. And the rest is history.
Re:80s TV show (Score:5, Informative)
This video shows this [youtube.com]. The key part was the fraud Geller was not allowed to touch anything.
Needless to say, Geller had an excuse why he couldn't perform.
P.S. Note Johnny smoking on the set during the show.
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Actually I was thinking of James Hydrick also, which was the psychic in the grandparent, with James Randi and host was Bob Barker. Not sure what show it was. I was getting that episode confused with the Uri Geller episode with Carson.
The 70s were just full of so-called psychics and they had gone mainstream. I remember reading a library book in high school my dad had checked out that was Uri Geller's auto-biography. It was just so much amazing hooey I couldn't believe anyone believed this crap. He claim
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his auto radio went nuts and then he was visited by extraterrestrials.
Extraterrestrials were another thing that was big in the 1970s.
Boomers like to ridicule Millenials, but when Boomers were young, they were even stupider.
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The seventies were big on psychics, aliens, ESP. Watching some of the TV shows about this is almost painful now.
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Also, accidentally bumping the table could let them shift differently depending on weight or water sloshing.
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I don't know who modded this "Troll". This is unfettered brilliance in a Poe's Law kind of way. Well done, sir or madam!
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There is nothing Poe about it if you look up that idiot's comment history.
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People simply expect too much from quantum conscious capabilities. They simply need to change their thinking. A thought is an actual living thing, alive, inside your head, that cyclic pulsing of various kinds of neurons, ten of thousands of times a second and that field flow expressed in normal space, as a living biological thought, and in quantum space as a quite substantive in quantum terms field flow.
Now the abilities, think of your thoughts as board full of pins and the ball bearing dropping through them generating that relatively random output. Now instead of round, due to quantum affects, think of them as oval shaped and the pattern can be influenced by other similar patterns, drift to math. Genetically some are more influence than others and of course for example believers are VERY rigid in their thoughts, genetics.
The more influence able and the nearer they are to sharing the same thought, the more likely quantum alignment will occur in that living thought structure, it is a living thing inside your brain and very influence able some more than others, but all living things inherently.
Now because quantum space is faster than normal space, the quantum projections of normal space interactions will go in both directions from the present and back to the present (mathematically speaking because the present location can only exist in one location at one time and relative to that everything else is either in the past or the future in terms of actual physical interactions. You normal space thoughts should be able to ZONE in on the future projected outcome that you prefer and you track in on that solution dependent upon how far you can influenced by near time future events already projected out in quantum space, drift away from the many misses to the singular hit.
The more readily they get in the zone the more time influenced they are. Randi's problem is and of course all the other idiot believers, they were wanting and expecting some super power and only looking for that. Rather than a more LIKELY reality, that it is simply quantum particle field influence. Do the math take ALL the credit filthy little believers.
Randi would say before explaining a phenomenon, first demonstrate it exists. Nobody gets that far.
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I'm wondering if Randi and Feynman ever met? I can almost imagine Randi doing the magic show with Feynman on bongos and chatting up the woman in the skimpy suit.
Re:80s TV show (Score:4, Informative)
Since it's the future, you can watch it once again. While waiting for pizza to arrive by jetpack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:80s TV show (Score:5, Interesting)
One of his classic demonstrations was broadcast on a PBS special many years back. He attended a college class and told a group of students that he had created custom horoscopes for each of them, which he passed out one by one as he called their names.
Randi then told everyone to silently read their horoscopes without making any comments. He then asked the class, "How many of you feel that the horoscope created for you is very accurate? Raise your hand if you think so." Almost all of the class did.
Randi then told everyone to swap his horoscope with the person next to them. And of course, the horoscopes were all identical.
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Re:80s TV show (Score:4, Informative)
What annoys me is that the psychics (Score:2)
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[Citation needed]
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Uri, is that you?
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Magically uncovered the psychic in this thread!
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Randi was a magician who knew all the tricks. All he did was watch closely to make sure they didn't use any. Suddenly their psychcic abilities failed.
Gee, I wonder why.
My favorite explanation was "Randi's negative vibes made it fail!"
Still have my JREF card. (Score:5, Interesting)
He had an awesome get-together yearly, the Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas (because it's cheapest for everyone to get flights there, and cheap big conference ballrooms) - but it was legit awesome to have a skeptics society meeting in a town based on irrational betting.
You'd get random folks like Robin Leech just randomly showing up, with an 'escort' on each arm, and of course, fascinating scientists from all around the world, and magicians like Banachek and Penn and Teller.
But the best part was definitely Randi - dude was superb at balancing skepticism, humor, and humanity in his presentation.
Not unexpected - but a definite loss for the world.
Ryan Fenton
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All he did was watch psychics to make sure they didn't use known sleight of hand tricks.
He wasn't the scammer. And he had no problems with magicians. He was a professional one himeslf!
He had problems with people being magicians who claimed their powers were real, taking advantage of desperate folk.
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You sound like you really, really want psychic powers to be real. Why is it so important to you? What would it mean about the universe, if psychic powers were not, in fact, real at all?
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What about my post would lead you to that conclusion? I guess you woo-woo's can't help yourselves.
Randi is a fraud. This is beyond doubt. It is well-established that, for example, he stole the identity of Jose Alvarez and used it to obtain a U.S. passport. It is also well-established that he perpetrated that fraud for decades.
The real Jose Alvarez even missed his daughter's wedding, to say nothing about the years of trouble it caused with the IRS! The fraud would have been caught almost instantly, but
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None of those things are true though. You have no proof for them, and yet you believe them. Because you want them to be true. And why is that? I can only assume it is because you do not like people like James Randi. You seem to have a thing against skeptics, and critical thinking in general.
Jose Alvarez was James Randi's PARTNER. They worked together. I don't know where in the world you are getting so badly misinformed. See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"In February 1988, Randi tested the g
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No, I'm a rational human being that knows a conman when I see one. It's Amaz!ng that so many of Randi's acolytes can't spot a ordinary fraudster when they follow one.
You should as the real Jose Alvarez what he thinks of Randi's decades of fraud -- and about what it has cost him personally.
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Why don't you just tell us, maybe provide us a link, so we don't have to go hunting through thousands of articles to find such?
Irony will be him coming back to haunt someone. (Score:5, Funny)
Then that haunting is what is used to prove once and for all the existence of ghosts....
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Well, if any ghost were going to figure out a way to unambiguously prove its existance, it would be James Randi's...
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I dunno.
Houdini has been trying for nearly a century and I'd guess if HE couldn't do it, neither can Randi.
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Alice Cooper's Guillotine (Score:5, Informative)
Randi even helped spice up the theatricality of rock star Alice Cooper, advising on the creation of the guillotine stage prop Cooper used and touring with him in the ’70s.
Source: James Randi, Magician and Paranormal Debunker, Dies at 92 [yahoo.com]
The Unbelievable Skepticism of the Amazing Randi (Score:2)
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Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thoughts and prayers, a haiku (Score:4)
Give thoughts and prayers
So said by the Lord's sayers
We, the rest, say "bye"
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"I think that a belief in a deity is ... an unprovable claim ... and a rather ridiculous claim. It is an easy way out to explain things to which we have no answer."
"A belief in a god is one of the most damaging things that infests humanity at this particular moment in history."
- James Randi 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I think you will find there is a strong correlation between religious believers and capitalism supporters.
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As opposed to the atheist communists, who never did anything wrong.
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The purpose of troll posts is for AI or other analysis to build up profiles of pseudo-anonymous responders.
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Communism is far more damaging the capitalism has ever been. The worst that can honestly be said about capitalism is that it allows inequality and faills to prevent various things individual people don't like, because it actually allows freedom of choice and the consequences thereof. The best that can be said about communism is that it spreads the misery widely, except for the nomenklatura. Communism is incompatible with freedom of choice.
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Religion isn't about having new / innovative things to say, because God doesn't change, and neither do humans to a large degree any more.
Religion is about warning of the delusional reality of this life, it's about why we live, it's about teaching us ethics and learning from history... in Islam anyway.
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Religion isn't about having new / innovative things to say, because God doesn't change
Sure, nothing that doesn't exist changes.
Of course, people who make that shit up do occasionally find a new angle. But wishing magical sky friends into existence doesn't change anything.
I spent a delightful two hours with him in 1990s (Score:5, Interesting)
In the Air Canada lounge at Pearson Airport here in Toronto - we were both flying to San Francisco, the plane was delayed and we retreated to the lounge.
I was reading Penn & Teller's "How to play in traffic" and he came over and asked me what I thought about the book. We talked about stage magic and Houdini primarily and it was just amazing to hear about his heroes and inspirations. He thanked me for talking about illusions (not "magic") as he could forget about charlatans for a few hours.
We met once afterwards here in Toronto (he signed my copy of his book "Flim Flam" but I'll be damned if I can find it) at David Ben's show of Nineteenth Century Magic, "The Conjuror". We and emailed back and forth for a bit about books about illusionists.
Really sorry to hear he passed. A great inspiration for people who want to make a difference in the world.
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Randi would know, he's a fraud and charlatan himself. Did you know that he stole the identity of Jose Alvarez and used it for ~30 years, even obtaining a fraudulent U.S. passport? The REAL Jose Alvarez, in addition to all the trouble he had with the IRS, missed his daughter's wedding because of Randi's criminal activity.
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I knew I would find another comment from you that had gone unanswered, which I guess you were hoping for. So, others have already stated that you are a liar and none of your accusations are true, but in unswerving "lie until they can't tell the lie from the truth" fashion you continue at it, hoping vainly that someone, anyone, will believe your lies.
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Godspeed, Randi (Score:5, Funny)
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My next door neighbour assures me that she's just had a chat with Randi and he's confirmed to her that there's no heaven.
Re:Godspeed, Randi (Score:5, Funny)
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Poe's law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.[1][2][3] The original statement, by Nathan Poe, read:[1]
Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that s
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Great magician, great man. (Score:2)
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Your link yabbers about historical political problems and wonders why they don't talk about it, as if it is a flaw.
You pick your battles, and his were against psychic and magician frauds. Others in his group tackled UFOs, Bigfeet, Nessie, snake oil, intelligent design, and they even had an entire forum devoted to 9/11 conspiracy theories.
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Ignoring the fact that he was a LIAR doesn't make it go away.
There were MANY problems [dailygrail.com] with his Million Dollar "Test".
His "test" was even broken not once, but TWICE [wired.com] by cryptoanalysts.
JREF is ignorant about many things due to their false ego and hubris. Of all the conspiracies, less than a handful are true.
i.e. First Contact is tentatively scheduled for 2030.
JREF never disproved the paranormal -- only that certain individuals failed to produce it. This isn't Science; it was Sensationalism.
Even Richard Dawkin
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While using the same ISBN number twice and with such a simple algorithm was sloppy it in no way was breaking the test. It just meant that this particular test could have been passed by cryptoanalysis instead of psychic powers. And that test wasn't to get the 1 million dollars, that was the test to be invited to the test to begin with.
And for all the people that claim to have broken the test, still so far not a single individual have managed to break it in reality.
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Don't forget about his identity theft and fraudulently obtained passport! Jose Alvarez missed his daughter's wedding, and had a very difficult time with the IRS due to Randi's fraud.
Randi was a common criminal.
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Indeed.
There were many problems [dailygrail.com] with his Million Dollar "Test" / scam.
I love how even Richard Dawkins made a comment about perinormal vs paranormal:
His "test" was even broken not once, but twi [wired.com]
The million dollar challenge (Score:3)
But Randi offered a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal powers in a simple, self-evident test that precluded cheating or chance along similar lines. The difference from riding a bike was that each claim was different, so the protocol had to be agreed up front by all parties. But otherwise it was the same thing - agree to perform your power in a manner that is simple and self-evident and eliminates subjective interpretation, chance and cheating. Do that and you win. e.g. if your spirit guide can read letters inside envelopes, then the test might be to state which letters are in each of 10 envelopes with a pass rate of 7 of 10 but the test would also have rules to prevent somebody peeking in the envelopes, shining a light through them or whatever.
So how did charlatans and the deluded respond to this easy million for doing what they do any way? They pissed their pants and ran away. Excuses would flow left and right - he didn't have the money (his foundation could prove it did), he wouldn't pay up (pass first and then worry about that), that the test was rigged / unfair (despite both parties agreeing to the format & protocol), that the fame would overwhelm them (many were already media whores), that Randi had a negative psychic aura (well surely then the test could be of that claim?) and so on.
Unsurprising really, but it had the added bonus of making fools of famous "psychics", the likes of Sylvia Browne, Uri Geller, John Edward who were too gutless to take even it with the added bonus of financially ruining and humiliating their nemesis. The only reasonable conclusion is none of them had any powers to begin with and that was the point.
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Someone once offered a million dollars to anyone who could prove data could be recovered from a zeroed-hard-drive via "magnetic history". We're not talking "I took it apart and found a replaced sector on an unerased portion" but "overwriting with zeroes is more than good enough to render that data portion unreadable forever more, and DoD-style multiple overwrites are unnecessary".
Nobody ever managed to claim it. Because it's just not possible. And what an advert that would have been for, say, a rival dat
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Anyone can offer a million dollar prize and claim no one has yet met the challenge.
I've had a million dollar prize for anyone who can eat an entire bowl of kimchi. I've had a lot of people try, but they invariably give up long before the end. A lot of them claim that they "had a big lunch" or "don't want to over-eat".
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Said prize was publicly advertised across the Internet (early 00's?), and nobody ever claimed to have tried it and been refused, and it was very much a selling point of the technical knowledge of the (probably now defunct) data recovery company offering it.
Any of their competitors or even hard drive manufacturers who thought it was true could have claimed $1m overnight and made a name for themselves, or openly called it a scam or said they were refused entry. It was open for YEARS.
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Sure. Where's the evidence?
Oh, you don't have any? Just hearsay? Figures.
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Surprise, surprise, surprise.
What do you normally say about beliefs without evidence?
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As for "psychics", apparently they can perform on demand on TV or over the phone, and yet they reel out pathetic excuses why a morning's work is too much. And yes JREF had the million (it was a non-profit too so this was all public) and had the documentation to prove it upon request. Secondly, even if we were to assume they didn't have the million for some reason, the
Ghost Randi (Score:5, Insightful)
He should come back as a ghost and win his own prize.
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That was his plan all along. Except the prize money he put aside back in the 80s has now accumulated so much interest it's in the millions - however, ghosts can't be taxed. Man that guy is smart.
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None of that is true.
You want it to be true so don't look for fraud (Score:4, Insightful)
One of my favorite stories was when Randi was on the Barbara Walters show, opposite a psychic.
At one point the psychic guesses some very unlikely things about an audience member. Babs, a well-known credophile, squeaks, "There! How do you explain that???"
Randi says, "I couldn't, except for the most incredible coincidence. This morning, I got into a taxi to come to the show, and shared the taxi with that woman, and she said she had talked to [the psychic or producer or someone, forget], telling them the things the psychic just said."
Mountebanks world over rejoice (Score:2)
My friend the psychic (Score:2)
A friend of mine does all sorts of astrology and magic crystals and other spiritual stuff. I am pretty sure it is all total bollocks. I am not actually sure it is harmful, though. I refrain from direct criticism, but I like to put forward what I call kind-hearted rational views. I think my new-age friend is actually quite a canny businesswoman, but basically well-intentioned, otherwise I would not talk to her.
James Randi will be seriously missed (Score:3)
Contact (Score:2)
On the radio (Score:2)
I used to listen to him on the radio, wide ranging subject matter, not just debunking:
"Randi was a frequent guest on the Long John Nebel program on New York City radio station WOR, and did character voices for commercials. After Nebel moved to WNBC in 1962, Randi was given Nebel's time slot on WOR, where he hosted The Amazing Randi Show from 1967 to 1968."
Randi not skeptical enough of mainstream medicine (Score:2)
As I mention here: "An Open Letter to James Randi on Skepticism about Mainstream Science "
https://www.pdfernhout.net/to-... [pdfernhout.net]
"A page on you says in Wikipedia currently that: "In February 2006, Randi underwent coronary artery bypass surgery." If you look into the nutritional medicine that Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD practices -- and you can also find several others who say the same -- you will find that most bypasses are unnecessary and blocked arteries can be unblocked and brought back to health in about two years
The great skeptic... (Score:2)
...is now experiencing the great experiment.
He may, at this moment, know more about the paranormal than anyone who ever sought to prove it to him.
Or he might just be gone. Dead in all but memory.
Only one way to try to find out. Hope to see you all on the other side! LOL!
Few good men (Score:2)
RIP Sir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:The term magic (Score:4)
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I was just about to say this, so I'll just add this:
“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”
-Epictitus
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From the first line of your first link:
And yet he did question his own beliefs, to the point of offering a million dollar prize to anybody who could demonstrate that his beliefs were wrong. He literally spent his professional career challenging his own beliefs.
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He never provided evidence there was a million dollars in a trust. This is despite him claiming he would provide documents proving it to anyone who would ask. Naturally, many people asked, including skeptics friendly to Randi -- he or his staff tossed insults and refused to back their claim every single time.
Like most of Randi's life, the challenge was just another scam. Surprising too, as JRef did essentially nothing but raise millions of dollars every year. They could have easily setup a trust. I gu
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The only person not providing proof is you. You have failed to show any evidence of what you say, as others have pointed out. And as for the prize money, not that it matters...
"Rosemary Altea suggested the one million dollar prize fund does not exist, or is in the form of pledges or promissory notes. The JREF stated that the million dollars was in the form of negotiable bonds within a "James Randi Educational Foundation Prize Account" and that validation of the account and the prize amount could be suppli
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It was Randi's assistant [sun-sentinel.com] and husband [fastcompany.com], Jose Alvarez aka Deyvi Pena, who committed identity theft (stolen name, date of birth, and SSN) which was used to fraudulently obtain an US Passport.
"Funny" how Randi never brought that skeleton in the closet up for someone "dedicated" to exposing liars.
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I love how this story is exposing all the "true believers" who just really, really want to live in a world with magical powers.
It must hurt that you, personally, don't have them, huh?
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Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the FACTS that he was an outright liar [dailygrail.com], that his scam had many problems [dailygrail.com] and poorly designed [wired.com], he never had a degree, his assistant and husband Jose Alvarez aka Deyvi Pena committed identity theft [sun-sentinel.com] to fraudulently obtain an U.S. Passport passport, doesn't change the fact that he exploited sensationalism whos is rather ironic for someone who exposed hoaxes.
Someone who is dedicated to Truth and Science doesn't make a big deal about it. They go about it quietly and dis
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Idiot. I'm laughing at you and your superstitions. If your silly pretend magic were useful, like science is, it would have made a measurable difference in the world, like science does.
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Which superstitions?
You are the one constantly bringing them up.
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The belief that Meta Physics is a real thing, you loon. That's a superstition. There is only physics. Meta physics is a pseudo science.