Randi Strikes Back

For those who have been with this blog since the beginning, I always thought it kind of an honor to those whom The Amazingly Fraudulent Randi took the time to single out and ridicule. It was actually a bit of a stated goal of mine to make it onto the News of the Scientific Woo Woo at some point, and I'm here to tell you all that I believe that is about to be recognized. Apparently I have made enough waves in the paranormal community at this point that Randi himself feels like I need to be knocked down a peg.

Yes, Randi himself sent me some hate mail a couple of days ago, and after going back and forth with him for a couple of days I've been informed that our e-mails(or his altered versions) are going up on his website and I shall be one of the features of his "newsletter". He even sent a couple of his minions after me when he got too tired to continue our discussion.

More on this to come as the day of my "calling out" by Randi approaches.

Someone else has jumped on the "Randi is a fraud" bandwagon. Add to the ever growing list Adam Blake, CEO and co-founder of Pear Cable.

For whatever reason Randi decided to take a shot at him and try to "debunk" his $7,000 stereo cables. I'm not exactly lining up to buy $7,000 cables, but it seems as though there's a market for them, and Pear Cable has published frequency response plots detailing exactly how their cables work and why they think they're worth that price. Why Randi feels the need to try to make him prove it in his bogus million (non-existent) dollar challenge I just don't know. However, I found parts of the response from Pear Cable amusing, and, of course, right on:

Yes, by now we have heard about this challenge (although we were never contacted directly). Unfortunately, like most offers of $1 million this one is a hoax. While James Randi is claiming to offer a $1 million dollar prize to differentiate between these speaker cables, by reading the official rules of the challenge, it becomes immediately clear that the offer is not valid. One must be able to "demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability" in order to qualify. Since there is a wealth of scientific information explaining the differences between speaker cables, the offer is not a valid one (and James Randi knows it).

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In addition, according to the editor of Stereophile magazine John Atkinson, James Randi has completely fabricated the statements about Atkinson made in this "challenge". Furthermore, another audiophile who goes by the moniker "Wellfed" on the AudioAsylum forums, says he tried to take the challenge twice for what I consider a more dubious audio tweak (the GSIC chip), but was denied the opportunity and was lied to by the Randi Foundation. Finally, according to these forum posts: http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/...es/719041.html at least one person has tried to take the "challenge" previously to show that they could differentiate between loudspeaker cables and they were denied by Randi who said "Wire is not wire. I accept that".

So, at the end of the day we have claims made by a high school educated retired magician, which are refuted by independent studies and publications conducted by experts. Most importantly, James Randi's "challenge" is backed by nothing.

At times I think it would be nice if Randi just gave up on his completely fake crusade, but, then who would I get to make fun of on a regular basis? The fact of the matter is, I've known more people who didn't believe in the paranormal to begin with who decided to give it an open minded look after watching Randi make an ass of himself than there will ever be people who are convinced by his new magic act.

Recently I posted an article about Randi's Million Dollar Challenge and how the money might not even be real and got a comment from JaneDoughnut(who has a pretty cool blog) which mirrors something that I've heard countless times over the years. Namely, that the JREF challenge does a good job helping prove that most paranormal phenomena are definitively not real.

So, I thought I'd post a link to, and some excerpts from, a multiple part, quite thorough, investigation into the challenge and how it's virtually impossible to even enter, much less win the(possibly non-existent) million dollar prize from author Michael Prescott. All of the quoted material below comes directly from Randi's own FAQ on the challenge, and are some of my personal favorites from a pretty ridiculous piece of writing, in my humble opinion.

Possibly the main reason that no one has even managed to win the prize is that you can't enter if your phenomenon is among many of the most common types of paranormal phenomenon:

There are some claims that are far too implausible to warrant any serious examination, such as the "Breatharian" claims in which the applicant states that he can survive without food or water. Science conclusively tells us all we need to know about such matters, and the JREF feels no obligation to engage applicants in such delusions....

Other claims, such as "Crop Circles" and UFO's are rejected because they have been definitively proven to be the result of hoaxes or mass hysteria. Claims involving "Cloud-Busting", for example, are rejected because Science (along with keen observation) tells us conclusively that clouds will move and disperse despite the efforts of humankind to move them according to their wishes. The phenomenon behind Oujia boards, for example, is attributed to ideomotor reflexes, and not to anything paranormal.

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Claims of psychic healing border on the miraculous, and the JREF declines to investigate them...

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Of course, when confronted with a particularly incredible claim like "remote viewing" (the current version of "clairvoyance") we can easily stop short and ask ourselves just why we are involved with such obvious nonsense.

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The JREF will also not waste its time (or jeopardize the applicant's safety and well being) with claims from applicants who exhibit clear signs of paranoid delusions, schizophrenia or other mental illness, feeling strongly that it is their moral responsibility to avoid the furthering of such delusions in the minds of those who may be in need of immediate psychiatric attention. What this means is that it is OK for you to be deluded, as the JREF feels many applicants may well be, but it is not OK for the JREF to support your illness.

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While you may be neither mistaken nor a cheater, the JREF will always assume that you are one or the other.

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Many people who claim to have paranormal powers are, sadly, suffering from an advanced state of delusion. That isn't to say that you are, but it's a hypothesis that may be raised during the application process. So, be prepared for this in advance, especially if your claim is extremely remote by reasonable standards.

It goes on and on from there. It's not hard to pull amusing quotes from it. Until I read his FAQ last year I would have never thought that a former magician was qualified to diagnose people with schizophrenia, for instance, but, apparently he is. I think what this investigation, the lack of a real, tangible prize, and the quotes above from Randi's own FAQ prove is that the challenge is, in fact, just an excuse to debunk phenomena which may or may not be real without even raising so much as a finger.

It seems to me, in the end, all of the time and energy spent investigating Randi is far more than he's put into investigating the paranormal...and one of those certainly seems to be fake to me. Given a choice between Randi and his challenge and the paranormal, guess which one I think is more real?

PsiPog's Sean Connelly, aka. peebrain, did a little bit of an investigation into Randi and his JREF million dollar challenge into the paranormal. Of course, just about anyone involved in the paranormal in any form has heard of his challenge, and feels that it's total bunk. Randi has eluded many challenges over the years, and continues to carry out his vendetta on a few people in the paranormal world.

However, the latest news is that his "million dollars" might be worthless anyway. Not only that, but him and his henchmen faked some e-mails along the way during this check into their money, as well. Having corresponded with Mr. Connelly a couple of times a while back, I'll take his word over Randi's any time.

This investigation is about six months old, back from when PsiPog was still maintained, but was recently picked up on The Anomalist.