Gr8wight said:
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I don't think there is a single person here who actually disagrees with anything you say.
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My perception is very different, and I think that many DO disagree with MUCH of what I say.
The "problem" seems to be my intellectual curiosity and how much it annoys people with an irrational bias that "they know", in the absence of tested evidence, anything about Michael, or anything about GSIC, or anything about neurophysiological tests that work.
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The simple fact of the matter is, none of it is in any way relevant to what is going on here. The JREF one million dollar challenge is not an avenue for legitimate scientific study. It is an enticement for those who would normally eshew any type of scrutiny.
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I *might* accept that from James Randi, if he cares to boil it all down to such a declarative statement. It would make me feel, I guess, just a little bit disappointed. If the Randi Challenge is just a curious social anomaly designated to jerk around dowsers, and offer no other useful scientific implications, then most of us are wasting time here. (I am not, indeed, claiming that you -- Gr8wight -- make that assertion *specifically*, so I do not attribute a straw man argument to you. It might be possible to infer that by going one or two steps forward, however, which isn't necessarily your intention, or fault.)
Furthermore, if one suggested that the Randi Challenge has absolutely no legitimate scientific significance, that seems to me to contradict the evidence given in the careful recounting of Randi's involvement in scientific tests via his published books and articles on this site, as well as his participation in "Nova" investigations of paranormalism in Russia.
I tend to believe that he has a broader view than what you say, and understands the larger perspective. He has analyzed the potentials for the possibility of losing the million dollars, and very intelligently weighed those possibilities against paranormal claims, which so far seem to be clumsily and ineffectively tested only by "paranormal investigators", including some academic psychologists: the only ones seemingly able to offer any argument, let alone evidence.
These people are so stuck "inside the paradigm" that they have difficulty employing rational skepticism, applying controls, and doing unbiased analysis of results.
My impression in reading Randi's books over the past twenty years (and those of his friend and colleague Martin Gardner) is that he is an expert in misdirection and chicanery who has come to learn that this is the trick most often employed by charlatans; and he knows how to suggests controls to neutralize it.
When his control protocols are employed in scientific tests, misdirection and chicanery tend to be eliminated.
So far, the scientists and investigators benefiting from his advice have not succeeded in confirming paranormal claims; ergo there is no prize awarded. That is about all a scientist could claim for the absence of a "win", as the Randi Challenge is not equivalent to the same exhaustive process that has, for example, tested Slipher's and Hubble's red shift observations over the past 80 years.
But, give him credit that is due: Randi is one helluva smart guy -- and a very warm and humane one -- and I admire him. I think he is doing good things, and will be remembered for that.
What Randi seems to have done is to offer a kind of amateur scientific prize, in parallel -- say -- to the Nobel prize. And the means to acquire the prize is the sought-after jumping of the yawning chasm before us: into the realm of unexplained, or misexplained phenomena and self-delusion. As a matter of fact, only recently have physicists begun to explore ASPECTS of that chasm, via string theory, multiple universes or dimensions, propositions of actions at a distance by means of quantum superposition, and so forth. But their studies are so arcane, at present, that the general public does not typically understand them, and can't be deeply interested in explanations and evidence offered only in complex equations and mathematical constructs.
I personally conclude that the motivations are to increase the rationality present in the world, and at the same time to decrease the irrational, nonverifiable mythologies, and thereby advance useful scientific knowledge that can help promote social progress.
I tend to feel that by summarizing Randi's prize and Challenge in a very narrow pathological manner, isolating it from scientific intellectuality, is an incomplete view of it.
I have not found evidence from Randi, directly, that has convinced me that it is a negative process, perforce designed essentially to damage the comfortable smugness of sincere Believers, or the scams of con artists, but otherwise accomplish nothing else.
The Randi Challenge, so far, has not been accepted by reputed scam artists and cons, for obvious reasons: therefore, its existence acts as a moral moderator and standard. It demonstrates that con artists, liars, and frauds -- all of whom are greedy -- have no tools with which to acquire the $1,000, 000, some of them being probably so sociopathic that they might -- under certain conditions -- STEAL this money, if they could.
Since they cannot steal it, nor persuade the Foundation to turn it over based on mythological untested assertions and propaganda (aided by misdirection and chicanery), they don't win the prize. That is a kind of "given" and was figured into the original concept.
A second group of potential applicants is the confused and/or sincere Believer, who does not intentionally cheat but is merely incompetent (possibly also deluded.) The prize motivates them to discipline themselves to try an unusual challenge the like of which they have NEVER before submitted to in life. Rarely, an applicant presents a useful and acceptable protocol; rarely does a test occur; and never has the prize been awarded. EVEN THEN, some of these Believers have not learned anything about themselves, their systematic errors, their self-delusions.
The third group of persons "involved" in the Randi Challenge, and with James Randi's remarkably clear powers of expression, are onlookers who are interested in the issues upon which JREF and Randi focus. Some may be upset; some may feel validation; some may receive tools of logic by which to think themselves into a change of mind, acquiring greater insights. This group is far larger than the relatively tiny number of "tested dowsers" and "never-tested con artists", and Randi obviously wants to communicate with this vast public.
He does it with with, cleverness, open-minded freshness, and patience.
Many in the public, worldwide, have learned something from James Randi et al., with rational knowledge advanced and human reasoning improved...by a step at a time.
PianoTeacher
