This evening I visited the yearly "Huuhaa"-award ceremony of Finnish Skepsis society. The guest speaker this year was Mr. Randi.
First, from my point of view the ceremony happened on the worst possible night since I have a hard deadline tomorrow morning (I have reserved time from a bookbinder to finally get my Licentiate's Thesis between hard covers) and I still had quite a bit work to do this evening. So, I couldn't stay after the ceremony for another minute as it had already run 40 minutes overtime.
The "Huuhaa"-award (translates quite directly to "woo-woo") went to Minä Olen magazine and especially their internet store.
After the award ceremony it was time for Mr. Randi's lecture. This was the first time I ever saw him live, and I have to say that he is a very good presenter.
In the lecture he started by talking how we all make some assumptions and showed a couple made by the audience (namely, that he was using a microphone and that he was wearing his glasses) be false. He talked about differences between science and religion, and between reality and fantasy. He devoted quite a bit of time for homeopathy and faith healing as well as psychic surgery. He also gave a couple of examples of people who come to take a challenge, like one man who had claimed to glow in the dark.
In the middle he replicated two "Geller effects": he bent a spoon and changed the time on a wristwatch. Unfortunately, I was seated so that I couldn't really see the spoon after it was bent, but I had a clear view at the watch. He was very explicit in not accusing Geller of trickery.
He made also a couple of magic tricks during the presentation. Before he did the first he mentioned that he did it to baffle any magicians in the audience. In this one he correctly guessed two zener cards that one member of audience had chosen. I know quite little about magic tricks and I don't have any idea what methodology he did use. I don't know whether the 4-5 professional magicians who were present were baffled.
Then he made a book test and revealed a word choosen by another audience member from a book I know several ways how that trick might have been done, but I don't know how he actually did it.
Then there was a simple trick with a matchbox (make it stand on the hand) that he showed as an example of a trick that had fooled many very intelligent people. I think he used the expression: "If you throw a dead chicken in there, you'll hit a PhD or two" to describe the laboratory where it happened.
Then he made the matchbox vanish and later he released himself from a tied rope. The final trick was "Out of this world" with one member of the audience.
First, from my point of view the ceremony happened on the worst possible night since I have a hard deadline tomorrow morning (I have reserved time from a bookbinder to finally get my Licentiate's Thesis between hard covers) and I still had quite a bit work to do this evening. So, I couldn't stay after the ceremony for another minute as it had already run 40 minutes overtime.
The "Huuhaa"-award (translates quite directly to "woo-woo") went to Minä Olen magazine and especially their internet store.
After the award ceremony it was time for Mr. Randi's lecture. This was the first time I ever saw him live, and I have to say that he is a very good presenter.
In the lecture he started by talking how we all make some assumptions and showed a couple made by the audience (namely, that he was using a microphone and that he was wearing his glasses) be false. He talked about differences between science and religion, and between reality and fantasy. He devoted quite a bit of time for homeopathy and faith healing as well as psychic surgery. He also gave a couple of examples of people who come to take a challenge, like one man who had claimed to glow in the dark.
In the middle he replicated two "Geller effects": he bent a spoon and changed the time on a wristwatch. Unfortunately, I was seated so that I couldn't really see the spoon after it was bent, but I had a clear view at the watch. He was very explicit in not accusing Geller of trickery.
He made also a couple of magic tricks during the presentation. Before he did the first he mentioned that he did it to baffle any magicians in the audience. In this one he correctly guessed two zener cards that one member of audience had chosen. I know quite little about magic tricks and I don't have any idea what methodology he did use. I don't know whether the 4-5 professional magicians who were present were baffled.
Then he made a book test and revealed a word choosen by another audience member from a book I know several ways how that trick might have been done, but I don't know how he actually did it.
Then there was a simple trick with a matchbox (make it stand on the hand) that he showed as an example of a trick that had fooled many very intelligent people. I think he used the expression: "If you throw a dead chicken in there, you'll hit a PhD or two" to describe the laboratory where it happened.
Then he made the matchbox vanish and later he released himself from a tied rope. The final trick was "Out of this world" with one member of the audience.
