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James Randi Psychic Surgery- Video

Good stuff.

Wonder if you can get some nice 'Richard Saunders on sunrise' clips, I've seen one where our australian hero face a "psychic' and one with a cerologist who claims that there are scientific proof that the crop circles aren't man made (yeah right). Dunno if they are youtubed legaly though.
 
Do people actually believe this stuff? I mean, seriously... even *I* could do a more believable hoax than that first fellow....
 
Mouthfire said:
Do people actually believe this stuff?
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Yes, yes they do.

What's worse is, even when you show someone how one thing is a sham, they tend to just find some other sham to be taken in by.

Most of us know that Peter Sellers bought into psychic surgery, and it hastened his death. But ask yourself, is psychic surgery really any worse than things like the kelley/gonzalez treatment?

http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/04/orange-man.html
 
Randi did say that actor Peter Sellers believed in psychic surgery, and died as a result of going to these quacks. As as side note, I once asked a friend why actors buy into nonsense like this, and he came to their defense and said "they're imaginiative", I think I'd replace "imaginiative" with just plain stupid.
 
http://www.filipinoreporter.com/archive/3327/headline03.htm

This guy was caught conducting a few hundred "operations" over the course of a weekend.

I truly wish that there were a good psychic surgery census, but things like this flourish where oversight is poor.

I found 1 self-report where the "doctor" reported doing 1,000 to 2,000 "operations" between 9am and noon every day. I can only define that as "lol-tastic". I guess that when you're not doing anything, it doesn't take very long!
 
I remember the first time I saw a psychic surgery video. I was incredulous. How is that possible?!? I thought.
I guess at that time, I was under the impression that you couldn't just go around scamming people out of money, in public.
But I was friggin' 15.

I had a friend who despised Randi. When I asked him why, he said it was because a professor of a class he was in had shown a video where Randi was in some third-world country "cruelly" rationalizing away the people's native beliefs. (I think he considered it a kind of cultural imperialism.) I tried to tell him that Randi does a lot of good, and he said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he does a lot of good stuff, too, but I just don't like some of the stuff he does, and I don't like his attitude." Then he would refuse to talk about it anymore.

People don't really understand the importance of Randi's work until they see him take on psychic surgeons or other faith healers.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
I had a friend who despised Randi. When I asked him why, he said it was because a professor of a class he was in had shown a video where Randi was in some third-world country "cruelly" rationalizing away the people's native beliefs. (I think he considered it a kind of cultural imperialism.) I tried to tell him that Randi does a lot of good, and he said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he does a lot of good stuff, too, but I just don't like some of the stuff he does, and I don't like his attitude." Then he would refuse to talk about it anymore.
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He wasn't critisizing James Randi's statements that babies shouldn't be raped under the mistaken belief of curing aids, was he? False beliefs which lead to more harm are what I've usually noticed him targetting, at least to the individuals directly.

Axiom_Blade said:
People don't really understand the importance of Randi's work until they see him take on psychic surgeons or other faith healers.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it takes a lot more than that with some people, with no amount of proof shaking the faith of some wooers.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
I had a friend who despised Randi. When I asked him why, he said it was because a professor of a class he was in had shown a video where Randi was in some third-world country "cruelly" rationalizing away the people's native beliefs. (I think he considered it a kind of cultural imperialism.)
Click to expand...

Some people would defend the medicine men in India, that keep kids from getting antivenom when bit by snakes, on the grounds that this is a cultural tradition. Some people would defend female genital mutilation in Africa on similar grounds. Is it really that cruel to rationalize belief?
 
Didn't Andy Kaufman die shortly after consulting a woo whack-job of the "psychic healing" variety in the Philippines?
 
Rustle said:
Some people would defend the medicine men in India, that keep kids from getting antivenom when bit by snakes, on the grounds that this is a cultural tradition. Some people would defend female genital mutilation in Africa on similar grounds. Is it really that cruel to rationalize belief?
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It's a Western thing, I think. The idea that only Western culture is flawed (and should be raked over the coals until the end of time for even the slightest mistake and/or flaw) but the rest of the world's cultures are unassailable, no matter how brutal, cruel and backward some of their practices are. "Political correctness" is just a catch-all term for this mindset, and I think it goes deeper than simple tolerance.

The irony of that viewpoint is that saying a culture can't improve and adapt is more intolerant than simply pointing out another culture's shortcomings.
 
This strikes me as a little racist, or something. "Oh, yes, their ways are just so quaint, we can't tamper with them in any way."

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we should force anybody to accept our ways.
But there's nothing wrong with arguing your beliefs. I think you have the right to try to convince anybody who will listen. That's not "tampering with culture", that's sharing information. That's a fundamental human right.
 
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