James Randi letter to Daredevil

[Tomtomkent]

Interesting. I've been reading vintage Punisher, and there's an issue featuring a thinly-disguised Jim Jones and his cult. The character is shown to be a fraud in terms of motive, but (surprisingly) they never debunk his 'healing touch', which appears to actually heal the Punisher of a bullet wound. Wolfman again perhaps?

The Cult leader returned to team up with Jigsaw and raise the devil in a South American drug farm/temple iirc. The Punisher just shrugged the satanism off as another mutant power, as he didnt buy into that.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Thank you; I really look forward to reading it.

Here's the letter:

"Dear Me Lee,

I was shocked to find an episode in Daredevil that featured the Israeli conjurer, Uri Geller. Such exposure of Geller only helps to promote the impression that he has genuine supernatural powers, and I am sure the Marvel folks do not wish to perpetuate the myth that he has built up around himself by means of his sleight-of-hand tricks.

Uri Geller claims to be a man with divine powers. In my book, The Magic of Uri Geller, I have shown beyond doubt that he is employing a simple magician’s tricks to hoodwink the world. In his own country, he was convicted in court of the same kind of thing we here in the USA have been paying him fortunes to fool us with.

Magic, as a profession, in an honorable one that I have pursued with distinction for several decades. I resent the Gellers who take money for the performance of supposedly supernatural feats which are only common tricks. I believe that Marvel should set the record straight on this matter

James Randi
Rumson, NJ"

The letter from Mark Evanier is much more scathing. If I get the chance I'll type that one up...but it's a bit long!

 

[Rrose Selavy]

The letter from Mark Evanier is much more scathing. If I get the chance I'll type that one up...but it's a bit long![/FONT][/SIZE]

no need, look what I just found:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlanod/22351458/in/set-517484

 

[JohnG]

Thanks for the link!

It's fascinating to see how much attention the issue garnered with skeptics and believers at the time.

 

[Rrose Selavy]

This blurring of reality and fantasy reminds me of a letter published In Fantastic Four shortly after in response to the story in FF 98 (May 1970)
about the FF getting rid of a nasty Kree Sentry on the Moon , with a mission to repel human visitors, hours or so before a manned moon landing. Supposedly from named Apollo astronauts annoyed at the idea that they would have needed help to land. The Editor noting with suspicion, the wrong postcode for the letter received rather than that expected from NASA.

http://marvel.wikia.com/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_98

While I'm in the mood for searching :

http://cyberspacecomics.com/blog/2011/12/famous-fanmail-92-neil-armstrong/

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

no need, look what I just found:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlanod/22351458/in/set-517484

Tidy - saves my fingers... or potching around with my scanner!

 

[Lusikka]

Hasted is, as I recall, the remarkably credulous physicist who wrote a book called The Metal Benders. He experimented with children a great deal, since children "wouldn't cheat"....

I actually read the thing, and I believe (it's been a while) that Martin Gardner wrote an article dissecting the book.
Among the wonders found by Hasted was that his children couldn't perform while being observed... They only produced results when allowed to work with the test items alone. He dubbed this the "shyness effect".....

Your memory is rather prone to choosing. You remember much better what Gardner has written compared to what Hasted has written. Hasted observed a lot of successful bending and even recorded the strains with a plotter.

I recall one of the experiments involving the children trying to bend metal wires inside a glass sphere. They couldn't do it. Perhaps the glass resisted their psychic powers? So, in order to allow the magical whatevers to flow, he allowed a small hole in the sphere.
Amazingly, the children (in secret of course) could now "scrunch" the bits of wire.
Hasted found this convincing.

I agree, Hasted was too credulous, especially in the case of paperclips in the glass spheres. It is easy to see from his photos the method how the scrunches were made. Somebody showed him how to do it successfully, but he still believed the boy used his psi-powers. He said the boy was too quick to make the scrunches.

 

[wardenclyffe]

Just found this 'blog post which explains some of the background of this particular issue of the comicbook:

http://www.theothermurdockpapers.com/2008/10/origin-of-uri-geller/

Ward

 

[wardenclyffe]

And there's also this interview with Wolfman in which he discusses the Geller affair:

http://www.manwithoutfear.com/daredevil-interviews/Wolfman

Ward

 

[Lusikka]

Hasted is, as I recall, the remarkably credulous physicist who wrote a book called The Metal Benders. He experimented with children a great deal, since children "wouldn't cheat"....

I actually read the thing, and I believe (it's been a while) that Martin Gardner wrote an article dissecting the book.
Among the wonders found by Hasted was that his children couldn't perform while being observed... They only produced results when allowed to work with the test items alone. He dubbed this the "shyness effect".....

Well, what Martin Gardner has written is the final truth here, it seems. I have never seen him being criticized here. Factually Gardner carefully chose his facts, twisted the facts and even wrote outright lies. Some examples:

Martin Gardner (1981/1989), 'Science; Good, Bad and Bogus', (p. 93) about the experiments John Taylor made with child metal benders:

Oddly, Taylor never sees anything bend, …" (italics MG).

John Taylor (1975), 'Superminds' (p. 74):

I saw a strip of silver bend up and flop over on being rubbed gently by one subject.

Although Taylor was remarkably scanty with details, this was what he wrote and Gardner had read it, I assume.

Martin Gardner (1981/1989), 'Science; Good, Bad and Bogus', (p. 205) about the glass spheres of Hasted:

Other experimenters have had no difficulty twisting paper clips and pushing them into such globes where they intertwine to form tight scrunches, and to do it in just a few minutes.

It is absolutely certain there have never been such experimenters.

Martin Gardner (1983), 'The whys of a philosophical scrivener'. New York, Quill:

How can the public know that for fifty years skeptical psychologists have been trying their best to replicate classic psi experiments, and with notable unsuccess? It is this fact more than any other that has led to parapsychology's perpetual stagnation. Positive evidence keeps coming from a tiny group of enthusiasts, while negative evidence keeps coming from a much larger group of skeptics.

Charles Honorton has commented this here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_n2_v57/ai_14890637/pg_1

Gardner does not attempt to document this assertion, nor could he. It is pure fiction. Look for the skeptics' experiments and see what you find.