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"Fakers and innocents..." by James Randi

Questioninggeller

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"Fakers and innocents: the one million dollar challenge and those who try for it"

James Randi describes some of the difficult, innocent, and impossible people who apply to be tested for his foundation's $1 million challenge for evidence of paranormal powers. (James Randi Educational Foundation)

From: Skeptical Inquirer | Date: 7/1/2005 | Author: Randi, James

I am going to describe difficult, impossible, and unknowing contestants who've applied for the James Randi Educational Foundation's million-dollar prize. I can say this from the very beginning: give me a faker, give me some one who appears before me and is lying, who is attempting to fool me, to deceive me, or to deceive anyone else, the media, or other scientists. Please don't give me the innocent who really believe they have the powers. They're the difficult ones to handle; a true believer is a terrible enemy, but the fakers I can handle. Those people I can come out against, I can confront them, I can show what they are doing, and get rid of 'em.

Now, of the people who apply for the million-dollar challenge of the James Randi Educational Foundation--and I'm sure you all go to my Web site regularly, right? It's www.randi.org. All right. You will find, reading over the archives on that Web site, that about 80 percent or more of the people who apply are dowsers, or diviners. That is, people who, with a forked stick or with a pendulum or with some sort of wire stretched out in front of them, believe that they can find water, gold, oil, lost jewelry, children, anything.

One man even told us that he had a particular, specific ability. This dowser lived in Kentucky, and said that he had the ability to find lost hunting dogs; that was the only thing he could find. He was very sensitive to that, and if you were able to give him a little hair from the hunting dog, he would put it on the end of his dowsing stick and it would lead him directly to the dog.

...
Well, then I decided to test the man to see what his observing powers were, so I said, "Let me demonstrate." I reached into the bag and I took out a ball with number 3 on it, and I said, "That would be ball number 3." He said, "Yes." I put it aside and said, "Now I will choose ball number 5." Ball number 5!

He was astonished. Of course, now he assumed that I had psychic powers, too, you see? Well, I'll tell you the secret, it's very simple: when i reached in, I took two balls. One here, and one down here [shows hand] and I looked at both number 3 and number 5, and I said, "Number 3"--having the number 5 ball still in my hand--then I reached into the bag and came out with number 5. That's what had astonished him.
...
Click to expand...

Full article: Source
 
Dont visit the source link, within seconds I got a pop-up asking me to install a damn spyware checker of some kind that is undoubtedly a vector for ever virus and malware on the net.
 
I got a warning, and stopped the program from auto-installing. I use McAfee FYI. Probably without protection, it would have installed within a second, without my knowledge.
 
I got the popup, clicking cancel took me to the application's site. I didn't get to look at the article for more than a few seconds.
 
DON’T CLICK THAT LINK!!!

It’s infected with some kind of spyware. It tried to autoinstall something called “drivecleaner.”
 
The offending party is here (don't click the link if you are not protected)

WARNING! THIS IS THE DANGEROUS LINK->http://www.errorprotector.com/free/...d=cert9inx_rdt&aft=cert9inx_rdt_in2&lft=keyin

It tries to get you to install a program, Winfixer. Not a good thing, according to McAfee and other sites that I trust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFixer
WinFixer, WinAntiVirus, ErrorSafe, SystemDoctor and DriveCleaner are identical or similar computer programs available only for Microsoft Windows that claim to repair computer system problems. They are forcibly installed on the victim's computer by the SysProtect vector by exploiting a vulnerability in Sun Java 1.4 and earlier versions. They display false information with regards to a user's computer, thereby confusing said user into believing their PC is infected with viruses, spyware and/or other forms of malware. The adverts pop up a display with notifications to convince the user that something may be amiss with the computer, or run a fake diagnostic. The program repeatedly prompts the user to purchase a licensed copy of the program. Computers infected with this trojan also exhibit sluggish performance. Due to these problems, WinFixer and its sister applications are generally considered scareware spyware, through misleading popups and forced downloads.
Click to expand...

See also - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1911061,00.asp
 
Last edited:
robinson said:
The offending party is here (don't click the link if you are not protected)

WARNING! THIS IS THE DANGEROUS LINK->http://www.errorprotector.com/free/...d=cert9inx_rdt&aft=cert9inx_rdt_in2&lft=keyin
Click to expand...

How can a link be dangerous? I click on it and get an image. Then if I click on a very specific spot on the image, I can download, and then later, if I want, run the program. But if I get that far, it's no the link that is dangerous. And what does this all have to do with the original encyclopedia dot come source link? I'm going to go cry alone in my room now.
 
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