True-Gossiper said:
I just read in skepticreport.com a respond to excuses like “James Randi won’t let me take the challengeâ€
It is a phenomenon that JREF simply doesn't test for.
"JREF will NOT accept claims of the existence of deities or demons/angels, the validity of exorcism, religious claims, divine healing, cloudbusting, causing the Sun to rise or the stars to move, etc."
Why is that? Why wouldn’t JREF do tests on exorcism, religious claims, and divine healing? What factors does JREF got I mind that they refuse to have them in the challenge? I would really need to know all the reasonings, cos almost all of the psychic claim I would be dealing here are those kind of religious belief and practices. Should I be cautious, if yes, then why?
These are claims that are entirely improvable, that could happen by chance and therefore would require significant long term study to prove, or that have such a high chance compared to probability that no effect could be proven.
I am no representative of JREF, but it seems to make sense to me.
We could take them one at a time.
exorcism: This would involve removing a demon spirit from a person. Neither demons nor sprits have been scientifically proven to exist. Furthermore, no known scientific device is known to be capable of measuring the presence or absence of demons, spirits, or angels (because they have not been proven to exist). Therefore, no test can be conducted to prove the exorcism of demons, devils, or what-have-you until such entities are proven to exist and can be measured for presence or non-presence.
religious claims. These are highly controversial. I think this is to avoid an all out war between science and religion (which are not necessary opposed. Obviously this is here to guard against an onslaught of wackos. Personally, I’d like to se JREF take on religion. At least take on what some religious people claim. I’d love to see test of the causal effect of prayer. When prayers don’t come true, I hear “God works in mysterious waysâ€. Well, if God is going to work in his own mysterious ways despite our prayers, then why pray?. I’d be happy if the challenge extended to any religious belief that any religious belief, prayer, worship, ceremony, anything could have a direct causal effect on anything. Seems paranormal to me. I think JREF just doesn’t have the balls (and maybe rightly so) to take on such a huge volume of believers).
divine healing. Typically un-testable claims. Medical conditions change over time by them selves. Unless a “divine healer†can generate immediate results (such as a huge gash in my arm is within 5 minutes closed and cured with no scar, or my x-rayed lungs show disease on an x-ray but after ten minutes of “divine healing†show perfectly healthy, of a corrupted and diseased liver after ten minuets of healing reveals no detection of liver ailments) then the claim cannot be easily tested. Most claims of paranormal healings require significant time and have subtle results. These are both difficult to test and could result in people not getting proper medical treatment. I would think JREF would be willing to test any claim of “immediate†divine healing that would not interfere with traditional scientific medical treatments. Because medical conditions can change rapidly, proof of this type of claim would require numerous tests. Of course, if someone were capable of such a effect, the JREF million would be a pittance to the billions that could be made. The truth is that most divine healing claims are so subtle that they cannot be distinguished from natural healing (because they in fact are not) that it is impossible to test such claims without risk to patients.
