James Randi is an idiot!!

Originally posted by jclmavg
Plus, saying that ESP needs to function all the time would exclude anomalous abilities that can predict the future with 99.9%
accuracy, or with extreme statistical significance.

100% accuracy is not a reasonable standard, considering there's not much if anything that can be known with 100% precision. Only pseudo-skeptics bent on sustaining their metaphysical views would insist otherwise.

The folks posting in this thread seem to know more about James Randi than I do, so I'm not an expert on Randi.

However I do know something about statistics. I believe Randi's threshold for proving a psychic event did not occur by random chance is that the odds of that happening need to be 1 in a million or less.

Making the odds of guessing correctly less than 1 in million doesn't require 100% accuracy. Look at an example: let's say I tell Randi I have a psychic ability that I can influence a coin toss using psychokinesis such that there will be more heads than by just random chance alone. Now if I go to Randi and propose a series of 4 coin tosses, (maybe tossed by a machine to take the human variability out of it) and if the result is 3 heads out of 4, that's not a convincing display of psychokinesis. People can get 3 out of 4 heads by just random chance. What are the odds? Try this calculator to find out:

faculty.vassar.edu...

Enter n=4 k=3 p=0.5 and q=0.5 and press calculate

The odds of getting this 75% accurate result are 25% or about one in four. This means one out of every four people that tried this would win the million if he accepted this level of probability, and they would have absolutely no abilities at all! This would happen just due to random chance. How do we get around this? Increase the number of trials.

What are the odds of getting 15 out of 20 heads by chance?

using the calculator the same way, we find that getting 15 or more heads out of 20 coin tosses by random chance is about 2%. OK that's pretty good to impress your friends but not enough to meet the one in a million odds Randi requires. Every 50th person would win the million if this were the standard, just by random chance and no ability.

Getting 60 or more out of 80 is a probability of 4.3 out of a million. Still not good enough for Randi. This means if a million people came to Randi to do this coin toss test, and he accepted these odds, 4 of them would claim the money with no abilities whatsoever, that would happen just by random chance!

Getting 75 or more out of 100 just by random chance would finally meet the less than 1 in a million odds. Now let's say that instead of psychokinesis, my ability was mind reading another person looking at the cards and guessing if they looked at a black or a white card, or something that had a 50% chance of success per trial.

In this case again I should not have to get every card right to beat Randi's 1 in a million odds, I could be right only 75% of the time and if we did enough trials, the odds of that would be less than 1 in a million. Now whether Randi would actually agree to this I don't know. He probably wouldn't for me because my name isn't Uri Geller, I think he was really targeting celebrities with famous abilities with his million dollar challenge, and he doesn't want to mess with unknowns like me who have no reputation to destroy. But that's just an impression I have from the little research I've done on the subject.

I did feel it important though to point out that 100% accuracy should not be required for psychic ability. A 75% success rate would be plenty good on such a mind reading experiment as long as enough trials were conducted to make the odds of the 75% success rate by random chance less than one in a million per Randi's requirement.

[edit on 15-10-2009 by Arbitrageur]

Originally posted by Total Package
What could you possibly like about James Randi. He is one of my most despised people on the planet. The man is a fraud and a con artist.

And what is this crap about "Most of the time he's right". James Randi has hardly ever been right. He's already been caught out when he was part of CSCIOP deliberately hiding data about a paranormal investigation into the Mars Effect that would have proven the skeptics wrong. Instead CSICOP hid the evidence and allowed the scientific community to believe the skeptics were right.

Even when Randi was questioned about it... he said "We just hoped it would go away and nobody would notice". What a disgraceful excuse for a human.

Here we go again. Yet another person to hop in and make accusations without backing them up. Perhaps you can make a nice chart showing how Randi was wrong more times than not, with adequate data to back up such analysis. As far as the whole Mars Effect debacle you can read up for yourself. Other researchers have even looked into the Mars Effect and cannot reproduce Gauquelin's results. If you want to believe in astrology then please by all means do so but to attempt to validate it using such bad science is a step too far for more rational thinkers.

reply to post by Baklava


You bring up some really great points! Thank you

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Bravo, Arbitrageur! Fantastic explanation

Originally posted by 1llum1n471

Originally posted by Total Package
What could you possibly like about James Randi. He is one of my most despised people on the planet. The man is a fraud and a con artist.

And what is this crap about "Most of the time he's right". James Randi has hardly ever been right. He's already been caught out when he was part of CSCIOP deliberately hiding data about a paranormal investigation into the Mars Effect that would have proven the skeptics wrong. Instead CSICOP hid the evidence and allowed the scientific community to believe the skeptics were right.

Even when Randi was questioned about it... he said "We just hoped it would go away and nobody would notice". What a disgraceful excuse for a human.

Here we go again. Yet another person to hop in and make accusations without backing them up. Perhaps you can make a nice chart showing how Randi was wrong more times than not, with adequate data to back up such analysis. As far as the whole Mars Effect debacle you can read up for yourself. Other researchers have even looked into the Mars Effect and cannot reproduce Gauquelin's results. If you want to believe in astrology then please by all means do so but to attempt to validate it using such bad science is a step too far for more rational thinkers.

Perhaps this will help you.

cura.free.fr...

Is that enough "backing up" for my "accusations".

Let me guess... you think psychics are all bunk because they can't urinate in a test tube and prove to you via science that they are real? You're just another one of the closed minded scientific community.... that are too busy looking after their own ass.

Here is another video for you.... called Science and the Taboo of PSI. Rather scathing of your "scientific community" you seem to so much adore.

www.youtube.com...

[edit on 15-10-2009 by Total Package]

I was unfamiliar with the Mars Effect hypothesis until you mentioned, but I will assume this is the case you're referring to. I couldn't find the Randi quote you referenced, but I did find this interview which seems contrary to your entire claim against James Randi.

(Paul Willis) CSICOP decided to have a crack at The Mars Effect as their first investigation of paranormal and astrology, but from what I've read the initial attempts were sort of botched or buggered up by CSICOP and if anything, made the whole matter worse. What exactly happened?

(Randi) I'm no longer connected with CSICOP; we had a bit of a falling out some years ago. I must say that my personal opinion, having been there at the time that all this happened, was that CSICOP didn't take it seriously enough. I think that was a big mistake. George A. Bell, the astronomer and now deceased, was a very close friend of mine and a very active member of CSICOP, and he admitted in a full public apology to the people who were behind The Mars Effect and to Michel Gauquelin himself, he apologised years later when he realised that this man was a legitimate researcher, and should have been given at least a certain amount of respect and that his data should have been examined.

George just tended to ignore it, and therefore CSICOP ignored it. But I think that CSICOP in general thought it was just so juvenile to believe such an effect, but they didn't pay enough attention to it. There's an accusation going around that CSICOP tried to cover it up. If you can call ignoring the thing and hoping it would go away a cover up, then perhaps they're right. But I don't call it a cover up at all.

(Paul Willis) And what was the final outcome?

(Randi) The final outcome of the thing was and has been up to date, that there has been no successful replication of The Mars Effect, and I think that CSICOP had that wound and justly deserved the bruises it got because it didn't take the effect seriously.

You sometimes think you're spinning you wheels. Somebody says they can fly by flapping their arms; are you going to go and investigate them? No, I would send a friend of mine around and say, 'Tell the guy to fly around the yard for you once, and if he does it, I'll come down and we'll do a thorough investigation.' This was not something where you would spin your wheels; it was a legitimate piece of research that should have been more seriously considered.

Originally posted by Total Package
Perhaps this will help you.

cura.free.fr...

Is that enough "backing up" for my "accusations".

Let me guess... you think psychics are all bunk because they can't urinate in a test tube and prove to you via science that they are real? You're just another one of the closed minded scientific community.... that are too busy looking after their own ass.

Here is another video for you.... called Science and the Taboo of PSI. Rather scathing of your "scientific community" you seem to so much adore.

www.youtube.com...

[edit on 15-10-2009 by Total Package]

I could have used my powers of deduction to know you would bring up the Rawlins side of the story. I should probably say psychic powers so I could get a bit more respect out of you. There are numerous links for the CSICOP side and yes, Rawlins had issues with the original test methodology. It's all documented on both even for the intra-CSICOP side. Both sides never got anywhere, you think we will be able to? As I've stated after that debacle, other groups have tried to reproduce the results that Gauquelin produced and have yet to verify them. You would have thought will all the time that has passed someone would prove Gauquelin right.

Thanks for trying to build a straw man for me but allow me to correct you. I do not believe that all paranormal phenomenon is bunk as you say. I do believe that those that claim to have such powers should make themselves available for scientific scrutiny. The hope is to prove not disprove. You also resort to the typical straw man attacks on science and scientists by calling them close-minded, then again I guess it's an easier way out than admitting all the great things science has afforded us.

I've watched that video before and it's quite amazing. I admit there is a taboo in the scientific community for the paranormal but perhaps it's a bit understandable when you look at how many frauds have attempted to misuse science for their own gains. Once again, I believe that Randi and other skeptical organizations aid with reducing the signal to noise ratio. Isn't this a better thing for those that wish to promote the paranormal? Less frauds and more serious cases that can be examined. I'm sure you will disagree. Good luck with your paint by the numbers/cookie cutter routine.

[edit on 15-10-2009 by 1llum1n471]

FWIW, drawing upon my personal observations, nonphysical beings operate, function and exist via nonphysical mechanisms. The less physical they are; the higher up in frequency they are, the more their lack of mass is compensated for by emotion. They construct what they need by visualization and desire as we build things here with our hands. Endeavoring to squeeze the round peg of thought-driven energy into the limited confines of mortal "science's" square hole is laughable.

There are a whole host of elements that need to be added to the periodic table in order for what typically passes for "science" to be able to add 2+2. Don't fret however, because we have some pretty smart people walking around down here. The vibrancy of life that exists just a shade beyond your physical vision is not unknown nor unrecognized nor uncategorized, it is simply unpublicized... and for your own good.

Thanks for trying to build a straw man for me but allow me to correct you.

Wrong fallacy.

I do not believe that all paranormal phenomenon is bunk as you say.

I don't either, but I think we are miles and miles away from research as we have not observed enough to form a hypothesis, nor do we have tools to measure, or a statistical precedence.

Hence, I believe what you refer to as "the paranormal" cannot be proven or dis-proven at the moment.

I do believe that those that claim to have such powers should make themselves available for scientific scrutiny.

Several universities have ongoing studies that people should participate in, not present themselves to a circus of scrutiny by people unqualified to evaluate--of course, given the nature, very few people would be qualified to evaluate it.

You also resort to the typical straw man attacks

Wrong fallacy

on science and scientists

Randi is not a scientist, nor are many of the members of the organization. I've yet to hear anyone call Carl Sagan an ignorant rube. They called James Randi an "idiot".

by calling them close-minded, then again I guess it's an easier way out than admitting all the great things science has afforded us.

You are also succumbing to fallacy.

I admit there is a taboo in the scientific community for the paranormal

No, there isn't...

but perhaps it's a bit understandable when you look at how many frauds have attempted to misuse science for their own gains.

*sigh*

Once again, I believe that Randi and other skeptical organizations aid with reducing the signal to noise ratio.

I think they add to it.

Isn't this a better thing for those that wish to promote the paranormal?

Impartial scientific studies run by institutions like JHU do just that.