Scientific Skeptic

For those of you who don’t know, James Randi is a professional stage magician who goes by the moniker The Amazing Randi.  He is exceptional at what he does, but he is even more exceptional at his “side project”, which is debunking the paranormal.  As a magician, Randi knows there is no such thing as real magic, and that all of his tricks are illusions intended to deceive the audience into believing something that isn’t real, solely for entertainment purposes.  Unfortunately, many of his peers are less scrupulous on the subject, and they claim to have real “magic” powers – paranormal abilities that allow them to talk to the dead, predict the future, bend spoons with their minds and what-not.  Gullible folk believe in this stuff, and waste huge amounts of effort and money in vain.  It is not harmless.  In fact, it is very harmful, so James Randi has been waving the bullshit flag for over 3 decades now, and waving it hard.

Since 1998, Randi has offered a million dollar prize (for nearly twenty years prior to that, it was $10,000) to any paranormalist who can prove their abilities under controlled conditions, using the rules of scientific experimentation designed to remove cheating from the equation.  Since paranormal powers are not real, of course, nobody has ever claimed the prize.  In fact, Randi has debunked so many charlatans that most so-called “psychics” and other paranormalists steer as far clear of Randi as possible, inventing every lame excuse under the sun why their powers mysteriously disappear under controlled conditions.  (There is actually no mystery – it’s because their “powers” simply aren’t real.)  Randi has really only tested self-deluded types who have fooled themselves:

It was March 6th, 1998, when the JREF Million-Dollar Challenge first came into existence. That’s almost ten years ago. It’s always been a simple, direct, matter: do what you claim you can do of a paranormal nature, and walk away with the prize. Our expectations at first were that we’d attract major personalities by this means, but they’ve avoided having to take the test by simply not applying; those who have actually applied are generally honestly self-deluded persons who have difficulty stating what they can do, which can be understood if they really don’t know what they’re experiencing; we at JREF have gone through involved procedures to help them recognize their problems. Usually, they have indicated that they don’t know what real scientific rules are, when it comes down to their actually being properly tested.

After 10 years, Randi has decided enough is enough, and he is rescinding the challenge as of 2010:

The JREF Million Dollar Challenge

The James Randi Educational Foundation Million-Dollar Challenge will be discontinued 24 months from this coming March 6th, and those prize funds will then be available to generally add to our flexibility. This move will free us to do many more projects, which will be announced at that time.

This means that all those wishing to be claimants are required to get their applications in before the deadline, properly filled out and notarized as described in the published rules.

Now, we’re sure that there will be those who will offer all kinds of objections to this decision – though they could have simply applied and won the prize. There will be accusations that the JREF is concerned about the safety of the prize money – which was never any sort of concern, I can assure you – and there will be more claims that the money was never there in the first place. I can see the professionals out there sighing in relief that they no longer have to answer questions about why they won’t take the prize, and they’ll just wait out the remaining period that the prize is available. All that’s to be expected.

Ten years is long enough to wait. The hundreds of poorly-constructed applications, and the endless hours of phone, e-mail, and in-person discussions we’ve had to suffer through, will be things of the past, for us at the JREF.

Those who believe they have mystic powers now have two full years to apply… Let’s see what happens.

And why not rescind?  The prize will never be claimed.  Randi has more than proven his point.  Regarding any claims that “the prize cannot be had”, that’s right, but not because the challenge is fraudulent. It’s because Randi has made a sure bet – paranormal trickery is simply that - trickery – and there’s no way to perform it under controlled conditions using the rules of scientific experimentation.

(Actually, I can think of one reason not to rescind the offer.  Its very existence serves as a constant reminder of the fakery of such claims; it is something that one can point to and say, “If your claims are valid, why not go and win the prize?”  Alas, I suppose it will have to suffice to point to it in retrospect and ask why the prize was never claimed.)

As a tireless advocate of reason and critical thinking, James Randi is a hero of the highest order.  He is a man who has devoted thousands of hours to a cause very near and dear to his heart, trying to prevent harm from coming to others through fraud, to no particular benefit of his own.  I applaud his efforts to educate the masses, and I hope he’s helped a life or two here and there.  As to the frauds he works so hard to uncover, shame on you, every last single one of you.  You know that what you’re doing is nonsense, but since you have the moral scruples of the common thief and petty liar, you are perfectly willing to do it anyway while taking advantage of vulnerable people for monetary profit, which makes you a pathetic loser who is unable to make his or her way in the world by honest means.  I’m looking at you, Sylvia Brown, Uri Geller and John Edward, among hundreds of others.  Lastly, to those of you who are genuinely self-deluded and are not especially trying to scam anyone, I’m sorry you can’t see what you’ve fallen prey to.  You are, in fact, scamming yourself, wasting time better spent on more worthwhile pursuits.  The sooner you reconsider, the better off you’ll be.

Here are some classic Randi ownage moments for your amusement and education:

Uri Geller Fails on The Tonight Show
James Randi on Astrology
James Randi demonstrates how to fake psychic powers
James Randi exposes James Hydrick
James Randi tests an aura reader
James Randi, Penn & Teller on skepticism Part 1
James Randi, Penn & Teller on skepticism Part 2

Michael J. Fox is an actor of considerable talent, who in recent years has been struck down and out of his profession by Parkinson’s Disease, a disease that has taken much more from him than just his career, and which may eventually take his life (although PD is not in and of itself classified as “fatal”, it can lead to complications that can lead to death, and overall life expectancy for PD patients is lower than for people who do not have the disease).  And it’s not so much that what he has to say about it is profound – although it really is – but that it’s “regular”, and real.  He could be your next-door neighbor, and he doesn’t put on any masks, and that may be what I respect the most about him.

What I’ve Learned:  Michael J. Fox

“That’s one of the things the illness has given me: It’s a degree of death. There’s a certain amount of loss, and whenever you have a loss, it’s a step toward death. So if you can accept loss, you can accept the fact that there’s gonna be the big loss. Once you can accept that, you can accept anything. So then I think, Well, given that that’s the case, let’s tip myself a break. Let’s tip everybody a break.” 

My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.” 

He’s not trying to be deep, he just is.  Thanks for the wisdom, and I wish you all the best, Michael.

I don’t want to get too political on this blog, but I thought this article was too good to pass up:

The war on terror(TM), so far

Just sayin’…

It’s amazing.  Simply amazing.  Here we are in the 21st century, surrounded by the fruits of science and technology.  We human beings benefit from the discoveries of science and the advancement of technology every day, from flying in aircraft that carry us long distances in short amounts of time through the air, to watching moving images on a box that receives signals invisibly from distant locations, to talking with people across town or across the world on small devices that fit in our pockets.  All of these technologies, and thousands upon thousands more, are available to us and taken for granted by us, due entirely to the scientific method.  The scientific method, simply put, is a sure-fire process for arriving at truths about nature.  It is sure-fire for two reasons:  it is self-correcting, and it demands rigid empirical support for scientific claims.  It overcomes all the problems of personal politics, idealogy, ego, human error and the like, because experimentation and verification are part and parcel of doing science.  There are no conspiracies in open science.  Science is not perfect, not least of all due to the failings of the humans that perform it, but the process itself works in the end, because of the built-in self-correcting mechanisms of constant evaluation, peer review and revision.  There are no “sacred cows” in science.  It is the best tool we have for discovering the secrets of the universe around us, and every day, we profit from the simple brilliance of it in the form of technology that would seem magical to people who lived a hundred or a thousand years before.

So how is it, here in the year 2007, long after the unbridled superstition and suffocating religious dogma of the Dark Ages have supposedly come and gone, when we can all clearly see the fruits of science and the technology it spawns, that we can have a man of such small-minded, intentionally ignorant intellectual values as Don McLeroy appointed to the most powerful position in the educational system of the largest state in the union?  Bad Astronomy delivers this very bad and disturbing news:

Texas:  Doomed
Texas:  really, really doomed

I can think of very little that is more disturbing than listening to the man who has just been appointed to head the Texas State Board of Education prattle on at great length about religion and anti-science, and how it relates to public education.  This is scary stuff, and I agree with Phil at Bad Astronomy:  we cannot talk about this enough.  Religious fundamentalism and the anti-science that comes of it is a huge threat that reasonable, modern-age people should not ignore.

Not convinced?  Here is McLeroy’s own home page.  “The key to “Clear Thinking” is a mind filled with knowledge and facts.”  No, Don, actually the key to clear thinking is learning how to think critically, so that you can determine which “knowledge and facts” are actually true, and once having done that, determine how to use them.  Facts are, of course, important, but they are as useless without critical thinking skills as the best fishing pole in the world is in the hands of someone who does not know how to fish.  A master fisherman, on the other hand, can get by with a stick and string, but McLeroy disagrees:  “Problem solving and critical thinking are secondary skills.”  And extreme fundamentalists wonder why thinking adults everywhere consider them “backwards”.  You can always learn new facts, but critical thinking is a singular skill, the foundation upon which you’ll build the application of those facts, and will apply to every fact you learn in the future.  Besides, without critical thinking skills, how can you ever know if the facts you’re being fed are correct?  McLeroy himself serves as the best example that his philosophy is flat-out wrong, seeing how poor of a critical thinker he is and where that leads him to.  Perhaps if he were more of a critical thinker, he’d be less likely to buy into the unmitigated hokum that is “intelligent design”.

For a professional educator, this is simply inexcusable.  This is a guy who I not only don’t want teaching my kids, but I don’t want him teaching yours either.  Such anti-intellectual poppycock should not be allowed to reach the highest position in education anywhere, and it’s simply a tragedy that this man has done just that.  Christians should be especially concerned, because men like this give reasonable Christians (who I know are the majority of the religion) a truly bad name.

The governor of Texas appointed this man.  Speak up here:

Citizen’s Opinion Hotline: (800) 252-9600
[for Texas callers]

Citizen’s Assistance and Opinion Hotline: (512) 463-1782
[for Austin, Texas and out-of-state callers]

Office of the Governor Main Switchboard: (512) 463-2000

Office of the Governor Fax: (512) 463-1849

Mailing Address
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428

http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

I have a fascination with animals which seem like they should only belong to the annals of science fiction, but which actually exist (especially when said animal was thought to have only existed in science fiction, and then is later found to be real).  Creatures from the ocean depths seem particularly qualified for this distinction, perhaps none more than the giant squid.  Giant squid?  Yeah – they’re real.  And every once in a while, one washes up on shore:

Rare giant squid washed up in Australia

The squid, the mantle or main body of which measured two-meters (6.5 feet) long, was found by a walker late on Tuesday on Ocean Beach, near Strahan, on the western coast of island state Tasmania.

“It’s a whopper,” Tasmanian Museum senior curator Genefor Walker-Smith told local media on Wednesday. “The main mantle is about one meter across and its total length is about eight meters (almost 30 feet).”

Have you ever seen the beaks and teeth on one of these things?  It’s a good thing they like to stay deep – you wouldn’t want to meet one in the open ocean.