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Challenge Question...

JNieporte

New Blood
J
Joined
Apr 17, 2010
Messages
3
If the Million Dollar Challenge were to be won, what would happen to it? Would it disappear since the money was awarded? Would a further $1,000,000 be deposited? Would a new Challenge be thought up?
 
Excellent question. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But that's a long, long drive.

Ward
 
Nobody has thought of this before? I figured there would be some sort of idea on what would happen.

Aside: I don't think it will be won. I'm pretty darn sure there's no such thing as psychic powers, ghosts, etc.

But, it surprises me that there's no real answer my for my question. It seems like something that would have been discussed.
 
There's a million dollars. Once it's gone, it's gone. It would require another rich benefactor to donate another million dollars to reinstate it. But I don't think it would be necessary, since by winning the million dollars, someone has conclusively demonstrated that paranormal abilities actually do exist.
 
JNieporte said:
It seems like something that would have been discussed.
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What's to discuss? It's a prize for the first person to demonstrate the existence of the paranormal, of course it will end if someone wins it, like the prize for the first person to fly across the Atlantic ended when someone won it.
 
Makes sense. I was figuring that if somebody won it by "proving" the existence of telekenisis, then it might be open (refilled? rewritten?) to another applicant who could "prove" ESP.
 
However the whole question is hypothetical. No-one has come close to winning it so it is reasonable to assume that it will never be won.
 
JNieporte said:
Makes sense. I was figuring that if somebody won it by "proving" the existence of telekenisis, then it might be open (refilled? rewritten?) to another applicant who could "prove" ESP.
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The prize is not technically winnable. That's not to say it's a sham, that's just how reality is. Magic doesn't exist.

If magic did exist, we'd have much better things to worry about. Mostly, how can we use magic to make the world a better place?
 
JNieporte said:
But, it surprises me that there's no real answer my for my question. It seems like something that would have been discussed.
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There might be a real answer (i.e. an official answer), but it does not appear to ever been announced. While I strongly suspect that the previous posters are absolutely correct, the only way to know for sure is to write the JREF; Challenge officials virtually never read this sub-forum.

While the JREF money would go away, I am very confident that other monies would be available for people who could demonstrate psychic powers - Nobel Prize money, academic grants, etc.
 
Ladewig said:
There might be a real answer (i.e. an official answer), but it does not appear to ever been announced. While I strongly suspect that the previous posters are absolutely correct, the only way to know for sure is to write the JREF; Challenge officials virtually never read this sub-forum.

While the JREF money would go away, I am very confident that other monies would be available for people who could demonstrate psychic powers - Nobel Prize money, academic grants, etc.
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In fact, Nobel Prize money is a real possibility. If someone wins the JREF prize, then the JREF is likely to win a Nobel for discovering that the paranormal is real. So, if someone wins with ESP then the JREF can replace the million with the substantial money from the Nobel Prize and they can then award that money to a future telekinesis winner.

And when I say "a real possibility" I mean the same possibility as someone having paranormal powers.

Ward
 
Maybe it will revert to a $1000 prize, like it originally was. With the proven "paranormal" ability being excluded as no longer paranormal.

IXP
 
wardenclyffe said:
In fact, Nobel Prize money is a real possibility. If someone wins the JREF prize, then the JREF is likely to win a Nobel for discovering that the paranormal is real. So, if someone wins with ESP then the JREF can replace the million with the substantial money from the Nobel Prize and they can then award that money to a future telekinesis winner.

And when I say "a real possibility" I mean the same possibility as someone having paranormal powers.

Ward
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Actually the Nobel prize can only be won by an individual or a small group of people. It cannot be won by an organisation.
 
arthwollipot said:
But I don't think it would be necessary, since by winning the million dollars, someone has conclusively demonstrated that paranormal abilities actually do exist.
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Not really. Most claims of the paranormal are completely separate. If someone proves they can make someone urinate with the power of their mind, that says absolutely nothing about other people's claims to speak to the dead. If anything, the challenge would be needed even more after it was won than it is now, since so many people would use the "The paranormal has been proven" line to tout their still entirely unsupported claims.
 
Cuddles said:
Not really. Most claims of the paranormal are completely separate. If someone proves they can make someone urinate with the power of their mind, that says absolutely nothing about other people's claims to speak to the dead. If anything, the challenge would be needed even more after it was won than it is now, since so many people would use the "The paranormal has been proven" line to tout their still entirely unsupported claims.
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an interesting observation
 
anglolawyer said:
Because it would mean all the skepticism was wrong and woo is real.
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But skepticism isn't the position that certain things are untrue, it's the approach that things must provide strong evidence before they are accepted as true.

Even if a particular bit of what is now considered woo finally shows real evidence, that doesn't mean it was wrong to demand evidence before accepting it.

And as others have said, the challenge being won wouldn't confirm that all woo is real, just one claim. If someone can levitate, that doesn't make all the breatharians who lied before no longer liars, it doesn't make homeopathy suddenly work, or the dowsers and psychics who couldn't find anything or read any minds suddenly correct.

The challenge being won means one of two things. A very good trickster has cheated it (very possible). Or skepticism is working as it should and our view of the world is changed by evidence provided for a specific claim.
 
Cavemonster said:
But skepticism isn't the position that certain things are untrue, it's the approach that things must provide strong evidence before they are accepted as true.

Even if a particular bit of what is now considered woo finally shows real evidence, that doesn't mean it was wrong to demand evidence before accepting it.

And as others have said, the challenge being won wouldn't confirm that all woo is real, just one claim. If someone can levitate, that doesn't make all the breatharians who lied before no longer liars, it doesn't make homeopathy suddenly work, or the dowsers and psychics who couldn't find anything or read any minds suddenly correct.

The challenge being won means one of two things. A very good trickster has cheated it (very possible). Or skepticism is working as it should and our view of the world is changed by evidence provided for a specific claim.
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OK I will take the (probably) weaker side of this argument. The challenge is essentially a bet that there is no such thing as levitation, telepathy, spoon bending etc. It's more than just affirming skepticism in general, it is positively asserting something, implicitly. If someone wins the bet then Randi is wrong and there do in fact exist unexplained forces, mental powers or what have you so you can all STFU.

Furthermore, being kinda new here and having read many people say this is a skeptics' forum I challenge the whole idea that such a thing even deserves a name, as if the rest of the human race goes round just believing stuff without any evidence, reason, logic etc. I don't understand this category of 'skepticism' at all and I repudiate the entire cult! So there!
 
anglolawyer said:
OK I will take the (probably) weaker side of this argument. The challenge is essentially a bet that there is no such thing as levitation, telepathy, spoon bending etc. It's more than just affirming skepticism in general, it is positively asserting something, implicitly. If someone wins the bet then Randi is wrong and there do in fact exist unexplained forces, mental powers or what have you so you can all STFU.

Furthermore, being kinda new here and having read many people say this is a skeptics' forum I challenge the whole idea that such a thing even deserves a name, as if the rest of the human race goes round just believing stuff without any evidence, reason, logic etc. I don't understand this category of 'skepticism' at all and I repudiate the entire cult! So there!
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The challenge isn't a bet, as there is nothing for Randi to win and no condition to conclusively prove the negative that NO paranormal powers exist.

But I'll give you that the existence of the challenge represents a position that these paranormal powers often claimed do not actually exist. I think if the challenge were won, the specific conclusions of many if not most skeptics may be disproven. But a that wouldn't really mean skepticism as an approach was wrong, anymore than it would have meant science was wrong if that particle that seemed to travel faster than light speed hadn't been a measurement error. The need for evidence wouldn't be any less just because some claims that failed to provide it finally did.

Randi (and most skeptics) would be shown to be incorrect in his conviction in general, but not at all in his approach.

As for your second point, have you talked to people? Take a look at these poll results:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf

Look at the size of the homeopathy industry. Look at the fact that the majority of the word believes that one of a handful of books written centuries ago by middle eastern goat herders contain the secrets of the universe.

This is not to say that those here are naturally better at being skeptical, but like all people in AA are in recovery and all Christians and "sinners" trying to be better, so skeptics are people who recognize that humans are full of bias and consciously try to get better at critical thinking.
 
Cavemonster said:
The challenge being won means one of two things. A very good trickster has cheated it (very possible). Or skepticism is working as it should and our view of the world is changed by evidence provided for a specific claim.
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Well, there is a third way: statistical. Suppose, for example, that someone claims to be able to identify zener cards with 80% accuracy. I think such a claim would qualify for the challenge. There is a tiny chance that the challenger would succeed. It is a very, very small chance but it is non-zero.
 
Cavemonster said:
The challenge isn't a bet, as there is nothing for Randi to win and no condition to conclusively prove the negative that NO paranormal powers exist.

But I'll give you that the existence of the challenge represents a position that these paranormal powers often claimed do not actually exist. I think if the challenge were won, the specific conclusions of many if not most skeptics may be disproven. But a that wouldn't really mean skepticism as an approach was wrong, anymore than it would have meant science was wrong if that particle that seemed to travel faster than light speed hadn't been a measurement error. The need for evidence wouldn't be any less just because some claims that failed to provide it finally did.

Randi (and most skeptics) would be shown to be incorrect in his conviction in general, but not at all in his approach.

As for your second point, have you talked to people? Take a look at these poll results:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf

Look at the size of the homeopathy industry. Look at the fact that the majority of the word believes that one of a handful of books written centuries ago by middle eastern goat herders contain the secrets of the universe.

This is not to say that those here are naturally better at being skeptical, but like all people in AA are in recovery and all Christians and "sinners" trying to be better, so skeptics are people who recognize that humans are full of bias and consciously try to get better at critical thinking.
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On the second point, humans are fundamentally skeptical. Fundamentally. If they were otherwise they would all have charged over a cliff aeons ago like lemmings in the belief it would bring them eternal life. Sure, lots of people choose to affect to believe in funny things but I suggest that, for most of us most of the time, we get through our everyday working, family and social lives in a sensible and skeptical enough way. Mostly, even religious folk don't expect the good lord to provide while they sit around on their asses all day doing nothing, as with the loaves and fishes. They get up, go to work, attend to the necessities of life and allow themselves the luxury of believing something stupid on which their lives certainly do not depend while they are doing it.

What I am saying is that claiming to be a skeptic is not claiming very much, only that you don't take too much on trust (although I might introduce a third argument here that, perforce, even the most skeptical person is obliged to take vast amounts of things on trust without personal verification of the underlying science, history, geography, biochemistry or whatever specialism s/he is depending on at any particular point - like taking a plane trip for instance). Big deal.

And the challenge is a bet. Randi is staking his reputation and obtaining the right to call 'fraud' if the challenge is taken unsuccessfully. If the challenge is won, and let's allow it to be won so thoroughly as to leave no room for doubt that forces beyond our comprehension and beyond science (including even that of the person who beats the challenge) are at work, then I suggest the implications would be very profound. The God squad would be able to say, 'See, smartass? Not so clever now are you?' And what would you answer?

And by the way, this sentence of yours is ambiguous:

But a that wouldn't really mean skepticism as an approach was wrong, anymore than it would have meant science was wrong if that particle that seemed to travel faster than light speed hadn't been a measurement error.
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Did you mean 'the scientific method' or 'our present state of scientific knowledge and understanding'? If the latter then science would be wrong and if the former than you aren't really saying anything since no one has a better method for understanding the universe and making stuff that works than the scientific one.

Until someone beats the challenge and, say, teleports to the Moon or something. Then, we're back to square one.
 
anglolawyer said:
On the second point, humans are fundamentally skeptical.
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You're conflating the broad concept of "skepticism" as in lack of complete credulity, with the word as used by, (and I sort of hate the phrase) the skeptical movement.

People who self identify as skeptics don't do so simply because they refuse to believe everything they are told, but because, as I said before and you seem to have chosen not to read, they put special effort to studying things like cognitive biases, logical fallacies and the epistomological basis for accepting claims. That's saying a bit more than not taking too much on trust. I don't really care how much of a big deal you consider that to be.




anglolawyer said:
And by the way, this sentence of yours is ambiguous:
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Not if you read context cues.
 
Cavemonster said:
You're conflating the broad concept of "skepticism" as in lack of complete credulity, with the word as used by, (and I sort of hate the phrase) the skeptical movement.

People who self identify as skeptics don't do so simply because they refuse to believe everything they are told, but because, as I said before and you seem to have chosen not to read, they put special effort to studying things like cognitive biases, logical fallacies and the epistomological basis for accepting claims. That's saying a bit more than not taking too much on trust. I don't really care how much of a big deal you consider that to be.
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OK, so this is a forum for people studying 'cognitive biases, logical fallacies and the epistomological basis for accepting claims'. Very fancy. Then what am I doing here and where are the threads discussing these no doubt very important subjects? Or, its a place where people use their brains and common sense. Less fancy and nearer to my no doubt peculiar experience here.

This particular thread is concerned with someone beating the challenge and I am defending the extreme proposition that the forum's days would be numbered if this happened. We are to assume someone turns up and, in a way that nobody understands, beats the challenge and wins a million bucks. That is, in accordance with all tests known to science, they demonstrate the existence of, say what, telekinesis. Let's permit them to do so spectacularly by levitating a main battle tank before our very eyes purely by thinking about it. What has this to do with cognitive biases and the rest? Er, nothing at all. It has to do with there being unexplained things in the universe that defy reason and our understanding thereof and makes all explanations, from woo to your and my untestable hypotheses, equally meaningless. Cue the triumphant God squad pronouncing 'miracle'!

Not if you read context cues.
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Maybe you could simplify it for me because I missed the clues.
 
arthwollipot said:
There's a million dollars. Once it's gone, it's gone. It would require another rich benefactor to donate another million dollars to reinstate it. But I don't think it would be necessary, since by winning the million dollars, someone has conclusively demonstrated that paranormal abilities actually do exist.
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Honestly, if someone won the MDC, I would be very very curious about the situation, and I certainly would think it deserved further attention, but it would be far from conclusively demonstrated. I'm able to be convinced, but it's going to take more than one reputable test to do so. I suspect that you (and the bulk of the skeptical JREFers) would likely react in the much same way.

I'd be far more inclined to think that it was a particularly clever cheater or a test that was flawed in some way rather than someone who can actually read minds. Heck, if I were a betting man, I'd put money on Randi intentionally throwing the contest over actual paranormal stuff. Neither is likely, but there are a whole lot of people who have done a whole lot of crazy, unexpected stuff, and there are still zero people who have shown themselves to be psychic.
 
anglolawyer said:
...This particular thread is concerned with someone beating the challenge and I am defending the extreme proposition that the forum's days would be numbered if this happened. We are to assume someone turns up and, in a way that nobody understands, beats the challenge and wins a million bucks. That is, in accordance with all tests known to science, they demonstrate the existence of, say what, telekinesis. Let's permit them to do so spectacularly by levitating a main battle tank before our very eyes purely by thinking about it. What has this to do with cognitive biases and the rest? Er, nothing at all. It has to do with there being unexplained things in the universe that defy reason and our understanding thereof and makes all explanations, from woo to your and my untestable hypotheses, equally meaningless. Cue the triumphant God squad pronouncing 'miracle'!
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I see you are admitting this is an extreme position so I'm answering in that spirit.

Another reason that the forum's days would not be numbered, is a little different than the reason stated earlier about one ability not proving/disproving another. Let's say for example some paranormal healing ability were to win. How would the general public be able to tell which healers are real, and which, claiming the exact same thing, are not? I think discussion in these kinds of forums would still help to find good ways to tell the difference and 'out' the fakers. Which given the sudden interest by the world in such healing after a real win, could be more important than ever.

Again... given the spirit of the thread ;)
 
Denver said:
I see you are admitting this is an extreme position so I'm answering in that spirit.

Another reason that the forum's days would not be numbered, is a little different than the reason stated earlier about one ability not proving/disproving another. Let's say for example some paranormal healing ability were to win. How would the general public be able to tell which healers are real, and which, claiming the exact same thing, are not? I think discussion in these kinds of forums would still help to find good ways to tell the difference and 'out' the fakers. Which given the sudden interest by the world in such healing after a real win, could be more important than ever.

Again... given the spirit of the thread ;)
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Well, the OP hypothesises that someone wins the challenge. That is already pretty extreme even if all they do is make a die roll 6 more than 1/6th of the time over enough rolls to be statistically significant and not qualitatively different if they manage to levitate a battle tank so long as no doubt is left in either case that nothing other than mental forces were in play.

In either case, someone has demonstrated an ability to move an object with their mind, contrary to all known laws of physics or biology or whatever science we care to name. In other words - a miracle. Inherently inexplicable unless you have some new science handy that no one has never heard about. This is fracture in the wall of reality, not just some quirk which lets you carry on as normal pretending it didn't happen and any so-called 'skeptical' statement you want to make can be met with 'yes, but what about the guy who lifted the tank, Mr know-it-all. Explain that!'

All the doubtless considerable collective mental powers of the members of this forum would be confounded. We would be forced to reposition ourselves radically. Our heads would explode. The religious folk would have no more or less right to offer an explanation than the mighty brains here.

You guys haven't thought through the implications imho.
 
anglolawyer said:
OK, so this is a forum for people studying 'cognitive biases, logical fallacies and the epistomological basis for accepting claims'. Very fancy. Then what am I doing here and where are the threads discussing these no doubt very important subjects?
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Almost every thread started by someone claiming the existence of the paranormal contains umpteen posts by sceptics describing cognitive biases such as confirmation bias, pointing out logical fallacies and discussing the sort of evidence necessary to accept claims, all of which are completely ignored by the OP.
 
Pixel42 said:
Almost every thread started by someone claiming the existence of the paranormal contains umpteen posts by sceptics describing cognitive biases such as confirmation bias, pointing out logical fallacies and discussing the sort of evidence necessary to accept claims, all of which are completely ignored by the OP.
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OK, I recognise your characterisation of the usual course taken by the discussion once someone posts some nonsense. I had not consciously associated the ensuing discussion with cognitive bias particularly (as opposed to calling BS) but I suppose the general trend of these discussions is to debunk whatever the claim is, so, OK. I still don't see any big deal about the deployment of basic common sense in the face of outlandish claims.

But OK, so it's a skeptics forum and skepticism in the special sense referred to upthread is a real, valid thing deserving of its own 'ism' due to epistemological and cognitive things, or whatever. This improves my argument considerably because when the challenge is beaten the result will be to place something fundamentally inexplicable before the Foundation (sounds like Asimov) and will eliminate any distinction that exists between you, er us, and the pedlars of woo. Hence the forum must shut down, there being no longer any meaningful distinction between us and them.

If that's wrong, please say how skepticism will deal with the new phenomenon any better or differently than any other approach, such as some kind of mystical one? You must accept the premise that the event will be of such a kind as to undermine fundamentally our comprehension of reality.
 
anglolawyer said:
I still don't see any big deal about the deployment of basic common sense in the face of outlandish claims.
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"Basic common sense" is what the wooster calls on to justify their claims. In the "Proof of the afterlife" thread Robin specifically gives "common sense" as the reason why she believes that her experiences can't possibly be due to sheer coincidence. I replied: "Common sense says the earth is flat". It requires a knowledge of cognitive biases to understand why common sense is, in fact, wholely inadequate when evaluating outlandish claims.

when the challenge is beaten the result will be to place something fundamentally inexplicable before the Foundation (sounds like Asimov) and will eliminate any distinction that exists between you, er us, and the pedlars of woo. Hence the forum must shut down, there being no longer any meaningful distinction between us and them.
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The meaningful distinction is, and will remain, the reliance on objective evidence rather than subjective experiences when evaluating claims.

If that's wrong, please say how skepticism will deal with the new phenomenon any better or differently than any other approach, such as some kind of mystical one? You must accept the premise that the event will be of such a kind as to undermine fundamentally our comprehension of reality.
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Collecting and evaluating evidence enables us to understand reality. If new evidence suggests that our previous understanding was faulty, we adjust it accordingly. An example of how sceptics would deal with the new phenomenon better than woosters - by accepting the demonstrated claim but still requiring evidence for the rest - has already been given.
 
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anglolawyer said:
[...]This improves my argument considerably because when the challenge is beaten the result will be to place something fundamentally inexplicable before the Foundation (sounds like Asimov) and will eliminate any distinction that exists between you, er us, and the pedlars of woo. Hence the forum must shut down, there being no longer any meaningful distinction between us and them.
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If a paranormal claim is proven true, new knowledge has been added to science. Why would that mean that any distinction that exists between us, and the pedlars of woo is eliminated? All the other woo claims will still not be automatically true, and scientific, skeptical thinking will still be the best way of dealing with new claims.

I do not see why the forum should close down because science has been enriched.
 
steenkh said:
If a paranormal claim is proven true, new knowledge has been added to science. Why would that mean that any distinction that exists between us, and the pedlars of woo is eliminated? All the other woo claims will still not be automatically true, and scientific, skeptical thinking will still be the best way of dealing with new claims.

I do not see why the forum should close down because science has been enriched.
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This is a reply to Pixel 42 also. OK, I am making the point more extremely and then will come back to what we are discussing. Suppose Jesus landed, gave adequate proof of his existence, levitated a tank and said 'everything you see, I made and I can unmake, every scientific law is not a law at all but something I can change, destroy, reverse, annul, erase etc. There is no reality except the one I put in your heads to keep you (and me) amused.'

How often do we hear that scientific laws are in fact no more than repeated observations of the same effect following the same cause, allowing us to frame the law: if A then B? If only once B did not follow A then that law would fall and everything contingent on it would fall with it.

I am suggesting that a genuine, verified, repeatable (not essential but desirable for doubters) and unfalsifiable phenomenon that called into question the existence of fundamental physical laws would not allow you to retreat to a small corner of the universe and pretend everything was still valid in that corner. It would force you to deconstruct most of what you know and, like events before the big bang or in regions of space-time forever separated from ours, you would never be able to explain the phenomenon whatever degree of epistemological what-not you brought to bear on it.

Whenever you said 'the laws as we know them do not allow for this' a wooster could answer 'well you don't know ****!' and your answer would be ... what?

It would be like the last meeting of the Flat Earth Society that would have to close down when Magellan or whoever it was hove into view on the western horizon having disappeared over the east, except worse.
 
Well, yes, it's true that science is built on the observation that physical laws appear absolutely consistent. If a genie popped up and said "only kidding - the world is actually completely arbitrary and I've only been making it look consistent for a few centuries to make you waste your time trying to figure out what the rules were", then we'd have to accept science wasn't dependable.

But there doesn't appear to be much risk of that happening, as the world appears to work so consistently that we've been able to invent all sorts of cool technology that depends on its being perfectly predictable, and that technology actually works.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Well, yes, it's true that science is built on the observation that physical laws appear absolutely consistent. If a genie popped up and said "only kidding - the world is actually completely arbitrary and I've only been making it look consistent for a few centuries to make you waste your time trying to figure out what the rules were", then we'd have to accept science wasn't dependable.

But there doesn't appear to be much risk of that happening, as the world appears to work so consistently that we've been able to invent all sorts of cool technology that depends on its being perfectly predictable, and that technology actually works.
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Yes, but in this thread we are assuming that someone wins the million dollar challenge by proving the existence of some psychic force. The OP asks what would happen then and I am arguing we would all have to pack our bags and go home. What would Randi say? He would be forced to admit that, while there are a lot of fakers out there there are also powers beyond our understanding capable of truly magical things = woo = forum shutdown.
 
anglolawyer said:
Yes, but in this thread we are assuming that someone wins the million dollar challenge by proving the existence of some psychic force. The OP asks what would happen then and I am arguing we would all have to pack our bags and go home. What would Randi say? He would be forced to admit that, while there are a lot of fakers out there there are also powers beyond our understanding capable of truly magical things = woo = forum shutdown.
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No, it would be ONE thing previously beyond our understanding that we now have the amazing opportunity to learn more about.

And as we continue to study the tank levitator, things could go a couple ways.

1) It is shown to be a trick of some kind, is not replicable or otherwise does not transform scientific knowledge.

2) We discover how it harnesses physics we're familiar with in new and unexpected ways. Great! That's how science and human knowledge move forward!

3) We discover that it contradicts known physical laws consistently. Even better! Physics was rewritten by Einstein and now we'd be rewriting it again! Nothing that breaks skepticism.

4) We fail to discover how it works. No problem. Lot's of mysteries take time. Science often takes decades to answer questions, some may take centuries. There is no time limit. One thing that will always be true is that very little is discovered by throwing up your hands and saying "It's magic"! We continue to study and maybe someday incorporate it into a useful model of the world.


No matter how the rules of physics and logic change or are revised from observation, some things are true and some things are not- it is the job of skepticism to rigorously discover and hold to the best strategies for finding the truth and rejecting what's false. Whether those effective rules are science and logic, or unicorns and magic spells, as long as truth exists, there will be more effective ways to reach it. The content of the JREF may change, but the guiding principles will always have merit.

The only universe where skepticism would be irrelevant is one where everything experienced is arbitrary and unpredictable. But knowledge of such a state is a logical contradiction. You can't logically conclude that nothing can be logically concluded. And even if it were possible to arrive at such a state, it would take much more to even approach it than a floating tank.
 
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anglolawyer said:
Yes, but in this thread we are assuming that someone wins the million dollar challenge by proving the existence of some psychic force. The OP asks what would happen then and I am arguing we would all have to pack our bags and go home. What would Randi say? He would be forced to admit that, while there are a lot of fakers out there there are also powers beyond our understanding capable of truly magical things = woo = forum shutdown.
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If someone ever does perform some seemingly impossible task, it would open up a whole new direction of research to work out whatever phenomenon it was they had actually demonstrated, and how it might work.

If someone demonstrated, say, a mindreading trick, that doesn't necessarily mean that all logic suddenly flies out of the window and dragons, fairies and bigfoot would come out of hiding and dance in the street.

If someone had demonstrated X-ray photography 200 years ago, scientists would have been astonished. They might even have bet that it couldn't be done.

It doesn't mean everything you think you know is wrong, it just means you don't know everything, and we already know that.
 
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