http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html
1.1 How long has this Challenge been open?
The Challenge was first introduced in 1964 when James Randi offered
1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal powers in a controlled test. The prize has since grown to One Million Dollars.
1.2 How many people have applied for the Challenge?
Between 1964 and 1982, Randi declared that over 650 people had applied. Between 1997 and 2005, there had been a total of 360 official, notarized applications. New applications for the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge continue to be received every month.
1.3 Has anyone ever passed the preliminary test?
No.
1.4 Has anyone taken a formal test?
Yes. However, the vast majority of applicants and claimants for the Million Dollar Challenge have not taken a formal test, because none of them have passed the preliminary phase of the Challenge.
![1,000 of his own money to the first person who could offer proof of the paranormal. During a live radio panel discussion, James Randi was challenged by a parapsychologist to "put [his] money where [his] mouth is", and Randi responded by offering to pay](http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-ec92d1d7fdf8658bb2bb4d7995abaab6_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal powers in a controlled test. The prize has since grown to One Million Dollars.I would generally think in light of this, paranormal phenomenon are mostly non-existent. I have a lot of skilled gambling friends (some have made millions) and the question of prayer or paranormal phenomenon occasionally comes up when they consider it as a possible angle to make more money. The consensus is that no skilled gambler made money using the paranormal or prayers.
Nevertheless, there are surprisingly modest numbers of Christians who are skilled gamblers who use mathematics to extract advantage in the gambling world. Perhaps the most known names are Doyle Brunson (became a Christian after miraculous healing) and Kevin Blackwood, the others are anonymous for good reasons.
It doesn’t seem that miracles follow any formula, but it seems there are events way out of expectation which some could call miraculous, imho. There was some paranormal phenomenon in my family. I don’t like to talk about it too much because it was creepy. Materialism was in many ways a safer place to be psychologically for me, and hence my interest in science rather than seances, but I think there is a sinister spiritual realm out there for sure which generally eludes the scientific method.
If there is an active spiritual realm out there, it is taking great pains to elude James Randi’s challenge, otherwise James Randi is right, there is no paranormal realm. Analogously, if there is an Intelligent Designer, like paranormal phenomenon, He is avoiding direct means of communicating His existence and has chosen to leave designs and remain mostly out of notice ever since the act of creating the designs. If the Intelligent Designer communicated through the heavens as in the account of Moses, we might not be having the debates we’re having…
I think highly of James Randi’s challenge and for its exposure of many charlatans. I think most religious beliefs are rooted in superstition, coincidence, irrationality and gullibility. I especially saw the casinos profiting from these human weaknesses, and I admit I indirectly profited by other people’s gullibility since I preyed on the casinos who preyed on the gullible.
That said, neither can I run away from personal experience or observation. I briefly met astronaut Charles Duke when he spoke at Campus Crusade for Christ. He walked on the moon, was an Annapolis Naval Academy and MIT Engineering graduate. He was a skilled fighter pilot and then found fame and fortune before becoming a Christian. After his conversion, he testifies of having his prayer for a blind girl answered by when her sight was restored. He probably wouldn’t pass the James Randi challenge either, but neither, given Duke’s career accomplishments, does he have much incentive to be making up fanciful stories, especially in an increasingly anti-Christian climate.
The most successful gamblers I know hate superstition and use of intuition, they love cold hard numbers and rationality. But still, many of the highly successful professional gambler’s I know are split over whether they believe in the paranormal or not. It seems this question is something all their high powered math cannot conclusively answer given the little evidence we have in hand.
Nonsense. Party tricks and illusions are entertaining.
Can you support your assertion that they are parlor tricks and illusions?
Absolutely not. You can secure the room the medium is located in against sensory/information contamination for the test and still make it non-threatening/friendly. You can eliminate the problem of mental interference by using automated, computerized testing instead of negative (or positive) – minded testers; you can find and use the most psychologically-promising candidate mediums without it being a problem at all for the testing procedures. None of that reduces the capacity to run an effective test.
How do you know it doesn’t happen?
This is actually the default explanation. Careful experiments with strict protocols must rule it out to be regarded as successful. We know from common experience that stage magicians can levitate, walk on water and bend spoons telekinetically when they themselves control the conditions.
Well, go on then! You’ll be the marvel of the modern world. Start a PSI school!
Or does someone else actually have to, ahem, do the actual work here?
If I were you I’d get cracking! Your Nobel awaits good sir!
Soceity as a whole has decided this, some time ago. Hence its reduction to a side-show amusement at the end of the pier.
If such things were possible at this point they’d be commercialised like any other commodity, however shy their prerequisites were. Not to speak of the military applications.
Even Uri gave up the game a while ago and admitted it was actually all parlor tricks. He soon recanted, but his own words are there should you want to go and seek them out, if you are actually interested.
Is Santa real William?
WJM said:
OMagain replies:
So, no.
Piotr responded:
So, no.
double post
Omagain said:
Someone else is already doing the work of establishing those protocols and conducting the experiments. Try to pay attention.
keiths:
William:
As OMagain says, what are you waiting for? You can be the guy who finally demonstrates that this stuff is for real! Propose a protocol that isn’t vulnerable to fraud, run the experiments, get others to replicate your findings, and collect your Nobel!
Meanwhile, some amusing snippets from Zammit’s website:
See, it’s a safety issue! You skeptics are so thoughtless.
And:
And:
What a hoot.
WJM – you could be like Dr. Xavier from ‘the Xmen’, except his handicap was physical.
Rich,
Did you see William’s comment about ‘big-boy pants’? 🙂
So, yes. The psi crowd have not presented anything that couldn’t be easily replicated by professional illusionists. By the way, psi performers are usually one-trick ponies while professonal illusionists are far more flexible and their tricks are bolder and more spectacular. For example, Dynamo (Steven Frayne) can both levitate and walk on the Thames in broad daylight, in the presence of numerous witnesses, whereas spiritualist media prefer to emit their ectoplasm in a darkened room before a small group of fans, and Uri Geller’s psychic powers were mostly expended on spoon-bending. The burden of the proof is on the proponents of psi phenomena, and poorly-designed experiments won’t convince anybody apart from those already convinced.
And in your opinion do these experiments demonstrate the existence of PSI or not?
So, yes. It’s just a fact, you can’t deny it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship
Yes, mediumship fell into disrepute and has been there ever since.
Funny how you’ll make up additional words that I did not say and dismissively quote me, but wont’ say if you think a fair die exists or not. What are you scared of, exactly?
keiths asks:
As I told Omagain, it’s already being done. Also, I have zero interest in conducting such research. Once again you seem to forget: I don’t really care if it actually occurs or not. It makes no difference to me.
OMagain said:
As if I said there has never been any frauds in the history of psi/paranormal research. There have been frauds and bad experiments throughout all scientific endeavors. Just because there may be a considerable amount of fraud or bad experiments uncovered in a scientific enterprise does not indicate that the entire enterprise is nothing but fraud and error. Again, try to stay on track.
So what’s your point? A public service announcement?
This is why I keep asking you – do you personally think there is research that supports the PSI.
Nobody disputes that such research is going on. Did you miss that memo? Try to keep up.
Hence my question – do you think the items you have raised in this thread are convincing evidence of PSI? Have they convinced you?
Then why are you bothering to join in the conversation if your only input is going to be that such research is happening and not give your opinion on said research?
Piotr said:
That a thing can be replicated by a professional illusionist is not evidence, or even a sound argument, that the original thing was in fact a fraudulent illusion. That’s like saying that if I can fake the results of someone else’s experiment, the results of the original experiment have been positively proven to have been faked. That makes zero sense.
Do you try these arguments out in your head before you commit them to public scrutiny? Perhaps you should.
Well, that’s not true. http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/examining-skeptics/skeptics-concede-evidence-for-psi/
As that page indicates, at least some of the people that the experiments “won’t convince” are those that are psychologically committed to a worldview where psi/the paranormal doesn’t exist. Some skeptic have grudgingly admitted that according to the normal standards of scientific evidence, at least some psi phenomena have been demonstrated.
That worldview commitment against even the possibility that psi/the paranormal actually exist is quite evident here, where incredibly bad reasoning leads people to leap from inferences to the possibility of error and/or fraud in serious research to the conclusion that such inferences are the same as positive proof of error/fraud and that psi/the paranormal in fact doesn’t exist. That a priori worldview commitment against psi/the paranormal is also evidenced where blanket, unsupportable denials and negative characterizations are utilized to demean, diminish, and denigerate anyone involved as if they are all must be either fraudulent or incompetent.
Wrong. Both James Randi and I are preprepared to accept it’s existence.
You say that, but refuse to say which, if any, of the demonstrations of PSI you have provided are personally convincing to you.
So perhaps if you were to stake a claim…
Which specific demonstrations? Are those the ones you find personally convincing?
Omagain said:
I think the point of why I am bothering is glaringly obvious: to demonstrate that the anti-psi/paranormal position here is selectively hyperskeptical and rooted not in any factual nature of the existing research to date, but rather in an a priori worldview commitment that insists that such things do not occur.
The group here utilizes unsupportable, worldview-based blanket assertions (like Alan Fox’s “It doesn’t happen,”); blanket negative characterizations of and assumptions about researchers, their work, and those they are testing; you (the general you here) make unfounded and irrational leaps from inference of the possibility of fraud/error to conclusion of fact of fraud/error (as long as it supports your worldview, like keiths did); you’ll refer to a stage magician’s non-scientific, self-serving publicity stunt challenge which he has a huge vested interest in as if it served the interests of honest, neutral scientific inquiry when his attitude and public ridicule of that which he is testing most obviously does not; when directed to evidence/supporting information that supposedly conflicts with your worldview assumptions, you make factual assertions of that information in line with your worldview without even reading it (like EL did when I referred her both to Zammit’s challenge and then his book); etc.
All of this points directly to a selectively hyperskeptical, worldview-based a priori commitment against the idea that psi/paranormal events, such as described in this thread, occur at all. Whether or not psi/paranormal actually exist, or has actually been positively evidenced by some research, is entirely irrelevant to the point of my arguments here.
I’ve already given my opinion on the research, Omagain. I don’t personally find any research anywhere about anything, scientific or not, either convincing or compelling. That’s not how my system works.
Your demand for positive proof of error/fraud is just plain silly. No-one can positively prove that N-rays never existed, that all observations of N-rays were erroneous. However, by far the most probable explanation is self-delusion on the part of Blondlot et al.
So you have read that page. Good, so you have read why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence: Bayes` Law.
The fact is that any time the protocol is sufficiently rigorous to eliminate fraud, the size of any PSI effect drops to the level expected of statistical artefact.
Every.Single.Time.
This curious “shyness” of PSI effects is very telling, as is the way that PSI researchers love to focus on observations that are famous for their susceptibility to confirmation bias: your dog knows when you are coming home, you think of someone just before they telephone you, and the sense of being stared at. Really?
You are welcome to provide a counter-example that you personally find convincing. The last time you tried this, your example was a video of a professional illusionist bending a spoon with his hands, which demonstrated your gullibility, nothing else. So I understand your reluctance to offer up any evidence, your retreat to “oh I`m not trying to convince anybody of anything”.
Ok.
Again, this is why you are an ID supporter. Actual evidence is irrelevant.
The problem with psi is there’s never been a well constructed experiment that got positive results and could be independently replicated. Not one. I’m going to ask again about Rhine. Do you see anything conceptually wrong with testing thousands of people and finding several with consistently above chance performance, and calling them psychic?
You forget one thing. The only experiments in which psi phenomena have manifested themselves above the level of statistical insignificance have been those with protocol problems and faulty control. In other words, deliberate fraud and/or self-deception have not been ruled out. Replication with stricter controls yields zero effect (just like the performance of self-styled psychics when a professional magician is watching their hands).
Also the metanalyses that have reported positive results are flawed in various ways (usually by including unreliable experiments or failing to include some negative results). Therefore, the null hypothesis (positives due to trivial factors: flaws, fraud or observer bias) has not been rejected.
DNA jock said:
If one is going to assert a conclusion of error/fraud in research that on it’s own demonstrates the likely existence of a phenomena, positive evidence of error or fraud must be tendered. Because fraud/error exists (in all scientific endeavors) and is possible in all experiments (no experiment is perfectly immune against fraud/error) is no reason to conclude that fraud/error produced the results.
I read it and disagree with it; it’s an irrational bulwark against against evidence that merely contradicts an a priori worldview. It is, essentially, a formalization of selective hyperskepticism http://www.uncommondescent.com/atheism/darwinian-debating-devices-12-selective-hyperskepticism-closed-mindedness-and-the-saganian-slogan-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence/
No, that”s not a “fact”. You’re utilizing a negative characterization and a blanket assertion. As I’ve already pointed out, changing protocols so that there is a negative result may or may not be the same as providing a “sufficiently rigorous” protocol appropriate to the phenomena being tested. We are, after all, talking about mental phenomena that may not adhere to the standard conceptualization of testing and results, much like what occurs in many quantum physics experiments where the nature of the test can alter the results regardless of how stringent the protocols are.
You are misrepresenting what occurred. I never said I found that video convincing and I didn’t represent it as convincing evidence. I said that the reason I hold that real spoon-bending occurs at least as it is commonly referred to is because I have done it. I also linked to a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3X9h1WlQpA of some show where Michael Shermer went to a spoon-bending party and he and most everyone there at least appeared to have pretty much the same experience I had.
I’ve provided many links and reference to the evidence in appropriate threads, including this one. However, you seem immune to the point of my providing such evidence. You think I’m trying to prove the actual, real existence of a thing. Of course I’m not because I have no expectation that any amount of evidence or logical argument can convince the regulars here of anything due to their worldview commitment otherwise.
William J. Murray,
You can’t spare us the vision of Kairosfocus mumbling to himself? We all know his criterion of selective hyperscepticism: “monks can’t fly”.
As for your PK party link, spoon and fork bending would be more impressive if the benders used only their minds and kept their hands, fingers and thumbs away from the cutlery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_bending#/media/File:RandiFork.jpg
No, I am not. You specifically offered up the video of the illusionist as “evidence”. Adding the qualifer “convincing” after the fact, when you maintain that
does not strike me as…err, y’know, compelling.
Which you can simply refute by providing a counter-example. None of your ” many links and reference to the evidence” achieve this. As kf would say, telling.
Hey, WJM, I have a spoon here on my desk, in front of me. Can you bend it?
Piotr said:
I haven’t forgotten that claim; I’ve addressed it at least twice now, and continuing research is also addressing the issue of proper protocols. However, once again, no experiment is perfect; they all are subject to error and fraud. Assuming that changing the protocols so that there is a negative result = better protocols is not a safe assumption; what matters is if those changed protocols are instantiated in a way that actually interferes in the phenomena itself.
Bieschel addresses this very thing here: http://www.skeptiko.com/51-dr-julie-beischel-responds-to-critics-of-psychic-medium-research/
About midway through she explains how she explains the problem of some the way some blinding protocols are implemented:
After instituting a quintuple blinding protocol that also maximized the comfort/familiarity setting of the medium (without compromising the process) Bieschel got a 81% hit rate from the mediums. That’s far beyond chance. So the claim that success rates have only gone down with “better” protocols is apparently false; it depends on how the blinding protocols are instantiated, not “if” they are instantiated, and not “if” they reduce the chance for error/fraud.
Great. So when can I expect to go down to the shops and get a reading to a certain +/- accuracy?
William J. Murray,
Beischel is referring to this 2007 study:
http://www.windbridge.org/papers/BeischelEXPLORE2007vol3.pdf
(which the authors call “triple-blind”).
Do you feel like discussing it in more detail?
ETA: The spoon on my desk remains unbent.
DNA_Jock claims:
I responded:
DNA_Jock doubles down:
The thread in question: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=4516&cpage=12#comments
My post where I introduced the video in question:
Later on that same page in the same thread I say:
So yes, DNA_jock, you have not only misrepresented what occurred, but after I corrected you you doubled down without even double-checking. Now, put on your big-boy pants and admit you in fact misrepresented what actually occurred.
Piotr,
I never claimed I could bend a spoon at a distance or without touching it at all.
Not to sidetrack the discussion , but re: Tomkins and his performance on reddit – Sal seems to have taken Tomkins’ claimed performance there at face value. Of interest, upon re-visiting the conversation there, I noted that Tomkins had linked to two pages on his ‘designed-dna.org’ page to bolster his assertions. Funny thing – those pages are now defunct. One has to wonder why Tomkins – the world’s greatest geneticist (if we accept the hype) – would take down two pages that ‘proved’ he was totally right on the issue…
Any chance of an opinion on if there can be such a thing as a fair die? Go on, be brave!
I’m sure you can’t (and that you have no psi powers whatsoever, for that matter). Please, have a look at the linked paper by Beischel and Schwartz, and tell me if their 2007 “triple-blind” study (“81% hit rate from the mediums. That’s far beyond chance”, as you put it) looks properly designed to you and if the results are properly reported. Can you identify any protocol problems?
Thank you William, for the trip down memory lane. That was a particularly funny thread.
I withdraw the phrase “after the fact”, as you did use your universal “not-that-I-have-an-opinion” let-out when you posted the video.
The rest I stand by. You did offer up the video as evidence for the existence of “Category B” phenomena. I did make the point that all you had demonstrated was your gullibility, nothing else.
Piotr,
I’m not arguing that the research is not flawed. I’m not arguing that the research demonstrates the existence of psi. I’m not arguing that there is any scientific value to it whatsoever. I’ve explicitly described what I am arguing about a few posts back. Did you miss it? Did you have trouble understanding it?
Regarding that point, DNA_Jock has provided another crucial bit of evidence. Why is it that DNA_Jock remembers the post in question in a way that is completely the opposite of what actually occurred? Why is it that I remembered it accurately? Why is it that I took the time to search it out and double-check the actual thread and the posts before responding, and DNA_Jock obviously did not, and was so committed to his faulty memory that he was willing to double-down on his misrepresentation without even checking to make sure he was correct after I contradicted him on the matter?
From wiki:
We’ve seen several examples of blatant confirmation bias in this thread alone, DNA_Jock being only the latest example. This confirmation bias stems from the a priori worldview commitment to materialism which all these errors of reading, logic and recall serve. Note: they do not just make errors of reading, logic and recall; they have all made egregious errors in favor of their materialist views.
I point this out not in the expectation that any of them will realize they have made such errors and think to ask themselves, “Why did I remember that so erroneously” or “Why do I jump to that conclusion when it’s obviously not warranted” or “Why am I making blanket assumptions and negative characterizations” or “Why did I assert facts about a book I did not even read?”, but rather for objective viewers who might still have the capacity to recognize the blatant worldview bias when it is pointed out.
And look – even though he has been obviously exposed, DNA_Jock is tripling down on his blatant misrepresentation! Oh, my.
Yeah, we all get it William. You don’t care if PSI is real or not, you don’t have an opinion on it one way or the other but if SOMEONE SHOULD DARE TO SAY THAT THERE ARE FEWER VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE NOW THEN THERE WERE BEFORE OF PSI then you’ll hang on like a terrier with a rabbit until they admit they were wrong.
So with all the people (and there must be lots) who believe in magic, how come there is no one in the paranormal community capable of doing competent science?
And so many capable of fraud?
I have the skeptical position as my default for the simple reason that in 70 years I have never met anyone online or off, who has experienced anything paranormal.
That, and there is no consistency or coherence in the claims of paranormal phenomena. It’s a really big tent..
If that was me, I admitted a while back that there are lots of videos (and audios). What there isn’t is anything very interesting that could be used to support a claim against Randi.
Randi’s challenge requires a well designed demonstration. (this thread is about Randi, isn’t it).
Not just people who believe in magic but people who make claims about anything psi-like.
Rupert Sheldrake’s primary problem is that he is a really incompetent experimental scientist. I have yet to read one of his supposedly “significant” findings without finding methodological holes you could drive a herd of elephants through.
Generally speaking, the better the study, the smaller the effect, no matter what you are looking for.
So if psi is a small effect, then its proponents need to do much better studies.
I believe it was, but it does not matter. William has chosen to fixate upon the least relevant aspect of the discussion, a semantic issue.