Monday, July 21, 2008
Credibility of The Amazing Randi
Skeptics love to bring up the Amazing Randi and his offer to give one million dollars to anyone who can prove psychic ability to him. I don't see how anyone could accept any of his results as scientific. 1, He is not a scientist 2. He is world renowned for his trickery- one of the best magicians in the world 3. He has a huge vested interest in having the results turn out one way, rather than another. A scientist being paid by a tobacco company to prove that smoking doesn't cause cancer has no credibility at all, so why should the Amazing Randi? Being a magician he may say he buried a ring in a field, and it may look like he buried the ring in the field and he could even “prove” it using a metal detector, but how could we possibly be sure he actually did it or not? Everyone's worried about the psychic tricking Randi- but not about the Amazing Randi tricking Them! Yet trickery is his livelihood! That's what magic IS! So I don't trust his results at all.
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3 comments:
Hello Carmen,
1. Respectfully, a little bit of research on your part would have been useful. James Randi does *not* run the tests, and to suggest he may be involved in trickery is outrageous. Furthermore they are not “his results”, they are run by an independent 3rd party. Let's say you claim to be able to sense water. Randi suggests a protocol. When necessary Randi will consults with an appropriate scientific expert to develop the protocol. If an agreement on the protocol can be reached with the person making the claim, the test is then conducted by an independent party.
2. You are seriously comparing Randi’s bias to a scientist that works for a tobacco company? As for why he should have credibility, the answer is that his credibility reflects a lifetime of work. Credibility is *earned*. It does not come just from a degree. Warren Buffett has credibility. So does James Randi.
3. “I don't see how anyone could accept any of his results as scientific. He is not a scientist .” See point 1 above, the tests are conducted by a 3rd party. The protocol is published for anyone to analyze. It is science at its best.
Also, just because someone is not a scientist does not mean they cannot employ the scientific method. Randi may not be a scientist but he could go toe to toe with plenty of them. He’s an incredibly intelligent man who has maintained friendships with some of the most brilliant scientists to have ever lived (Richard Feynman to name one).
David
Sorry but I still don't trust him. He has a vested interest in the results of the experiments he commissions.
Perhaps you've heard of the book called The Golem? It's how scientific results don't necessarily reflect the data especially when people know what they want the outcome to be so they dismiss outliers and anything else that seems to be abnormal and attribute it to scientific error. Since the paranormal is all about abnormal, well....
Hello Carmen,
In your response to David you wrote: "Sorry but I still don't trust him....scientific results don't necessarily reflect the data especially when people know what they want the outcome to be so they dismiss outliers and anything else...."
Can you confirm that, for the same reasons, you also don't trust Phil Jones?
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