This diatribe arrived on October 18, 2005, along with the applicant's resume and other assorted sundries.
Dear Mr. Randy,
I am very happy to take on your $1,000,00 challenge. However, I have a new set of rules, because I believe your contest is mostly a hoax. Your disclaimer even states no special rules will be made and I believe it's because you're afraid of admitting you're a snake oil salesman. People like you and your friends Penn & Teller like convincing people that they're lunatics but you are afraid to admit that maybe, just maybe there's a scientific explanation for astrology, feng shui, and the placebo effect. I think it's time you come clean and admit there's scientific, logical or at least religious reason for most of the things you claim to be scientifically invalid. The charlatans don't come forward because they like making money off the sheep but you turn away the people who are actually scientists and continue to make publicity and money off the poor and dumb folks who claim to predict events but have no experience with setting up a scientific experiment. Yes, people should not believe in sorcery and tricks but they also deserve to know the truth that you and the magicians of Sin City keep them in a state of non-full disclosure.
Here is my background, with an enclosed copy of my resume. I am a biologist with a B.S. from Drexel University and an M.S in microbiology from Thomas Jefferson University. I have a minor in psychology, have had a significant amount of statistics, have done coursework at Oxford University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Gwynned Mercy College. I am also very spritiual and was raised in a religious home.My only request is that you keep my identity a pseudonym. I also have limited resources so this challenge will have to be conducted from a distance via the internet or some other means necessary.
The following are areas of physics/astronomy/other branches of science or mathematics I will not challenge:
1. Ability to manipulate matter such as bending spoons with my mind.
2. Ability to contact UFO's and aliens (I don't believe in them).
The first thing I want to make clear is the distinction between a forecast and a prediction:
1. A forecast is something that is done with a reasonable amount of certainty such as I forecast with 65% certainty without the aid of any weather equipment the weather will be really bad between the dates of October 13-15.
2. A prediction is something that your contest focuses on with 100% certainty. Such as I predict with 100% certainty that Oct 13 or 14 the weather will be very violent in New York City. Even in statistics the best you can hope for is 99% certainty.
The 2nd thing I want to make clear is the difference between the paranormal and religion:
1. A Paranormal event is something that is beyond what science can explain such as when a person claims to see ghosts or talk to the dead. This is what your organization seeks to disprove.
2. Religion is an absolute belief in the paranormal such as feng shui, angels that are either the spirits of the dead or spirits that were never human to begin with. This is what your contest won't touch.
For these two basic reasons, I am calling your bluff and that of Penn & Teller's show BULLSH*T that you have set yourself up for never handing over the million dollars.
If you set up a double-blind experiment with a .05 or whatever else we establish it at with a sample population size of an agreed upon statistically valid number then I want to challenge you on the existence of the following:
1. Future events such as the weather, the stock market, wars, elections, etc. can be forecasted. That is because history always repeats itself in a set cycle, it just takes someone with a history, psychology, mathematical, scientific, and political background to discern the trends.
a. Nostradamus was more correct when he gave specific dates. For example he forecasted that we'd be headed into WWIII about this time. America would be allies with Russia, and the conflict would arise out of the Middle East. As far as I can tell he's rather accurate on that one. We got pulled into the jihad by Islamic fundamentalists from the Middle East and Russia has just declared herself an ally of America. All of the movies coming out next year deal eith heading off to war.
b. George Orwell wrote in 1984 that we'd be controlled by Big Brother and all be doped up in the future. Not too much different from what Frank Baum wrote in The Wizard Of Oz and there's just a man behind the curtain pulling the strings and we'd be doped up on poppies. Ever notice how many people in America are taking mind altering drugs by prescription or choic or how few people have real influence over the government, big corporations, education and other elements of society? Bill Gates and Michael Eisner are today's equivalent of Walt Disney and Henry Ford. Same goes for people like James Dobson or James Randy or Penn & Teller.
2. Reincarnation is basically a religious perspective of what happens to our soul when we die. A soul is something that isn't made of carbon, hydrogen or other elemennts. Going back as far as the Ancient Greeks and before we have never been able to explain this. So how can you discount the existence of angels and demons? Perhaps our personality is just a manifestation of something locked in the introns of our DNA that gets awoken at different points in our lives because it's an animal instinct that was initially a learned or maybe inborn behavior. (A good episode of Star Trek, or Nex Generation.)... To tie in religion & science, I say talking to the dead or being possessed by the dead could be tapping intos omeone who lived 10,000 years ago or even a short time ago and their personality gets locked in our subconscience, just as Freud and Jung talked about, until ready to awaken. For example I was named after a prophet who lived in Ninevah, same city as Jonah and in the current location of Iran/Iraq. I have recently tapped into the events that my prophet (or as we would call him today a quality assurance scientist) lived through and his personality....sort of like a seperated at birth identical twin study. I have already found one person on the internet and it turns out we are both saxophone players and of the same religion.
3. Faith Healers such as chiropractors and hypnotists work by two mechanisms:
a. The body can heal itself if it wants to be healed. This has to do a lot because of the relationship of stress and the immune system. But also because we need something to live for such as a religious belief that makes us want to stay healthy.
b. Through spinal manipulation pressure points or something else perhaps Palmer discovered something that the people from the easterrn countries have known for years: that there are areas throughout the body at extreme levels of stress or positive or negative energy (because of sodium/potassium channels) that affect the general health of the rest of the body.
4. I also believe that there is a rational explanation for many other things you and your magician freidns discount including; feng shui, color/aura therapy, and astrology. Remember, religion is basically a foundation for science, history, weather and other things that affect our lives but only religion, and not science can really unlock what the Greeks described as the impetus, as in what caused the Big Bang or what causes there to be both matter and antimatter.
Your friend in the keystone state,
Nicole Spiese
Dear Mr. Randy,
I am very happy to take on your $1,000,00 challenge. However, I have a new set of rules, because I believe your contest is mostly a hoax. Your disclaimer even states no special rules will be made and I believe it's because you're afraid of admitting you're a snake oil salesman. People like you and your friends Penn & Teller like convincing people that they're lunatics but you are afraid to admit that maybe, just maybe there's a scientific explanation for astrology, feng shui, and the placebo effect. I think it's time you come clean and admit there's scientific, logical or at least religious reason for most of the things you claim to be scientifically invalid. The charlatans don't come forward because they like making money off the sheep but you turn away the people who are actually scientists and continue to make publicity and money off the poor and dumb folks who claim to predict events but have no experience with setting up a scientific experiment. Yes, people should not believe in sorcery and tricks but they also deserve to know the truth that you and the magicians of Sin City keep them in a state of non-full disclosure.
Here is my background, with an enclosed copy of my resume. I am a biologist with a B.S. from Drexel University and an M.S in microbiology from Thomas Jefferson University. I have a minor in psychology, have had a significant amount of statistics, have done coursework at Oxford University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Gwynned Mercy College. I am also very spritiual and was raised in a religious home.My only request is that you keep my identity a pseudonym. I also have limited resources so this challenge will have to be conducted from a distance via the internet or some other means necessary.
The following are areas of physics/astronomy/other branches of science or mathematics I will not challenge:
1. Ability to manipulate matter such as bending spoons with my mind.
2. Ability to contact UFO's and aliens (I don't believe in them).
The first thing I want to make clear is the distinction between a forecast and a prediction:
1. A forecast is something that is done with a reasonable amount of certainty such as I forecast with 65% certainty without the aid of any weather equipment the weather will be really bad between the dates of October 13-15.
2. A prediction is something that your contest focuses on with 100% certainty. Such as I predict with 100% certainty that Oct 13 or 14 the weather will be very violent in New York City. Even in statistics the best you can hope for is 99% certainty.
The 2nd thing I want to make clear is the difference between the paranormal and religion:
1. A Paranormal event is something that is beyond what science can explain such as when a person claims to see ghosts or talk to the dead. This is what your organization seeks to disprove.
2. Religion is an absolute belief in the paranormal such as feng shui, angels that are either the spirits of the dead or spirits that were never human to begin with. This is what your contest won't touch.
For these two basic reasons, I am calling your bluff and that of Penn & Teller's show BULLSH*T that you have set yourself up for never handing over the million dollars.
If you set up a double-blind experiment with a .05 or whatever else we establish it at with a sample population size of an agreed upon statistically valid number then I want to challenge you on the existence of the following:
1. Future events such as the weather, the stock market, wars, elections, etc. can be forecasted. That is because history always repeats itself in a set cycle, it just takes someone with a history, psychology, mathematical, scientific, and political background to discern the trends.
a. Nostradamus was more correct when he gave specific dates. For example he forecasted that we'd be headed into WWIII about this time. America would be allies with Russia, and the conflict would arise out of the Middle East. As far as I can tell he's rather accurate on that one. We got pulled into the jihad by Islamic fundamentalists from the Middle East and Russia has just declared herself an ally of America. All of the movies coming out next year deal eith heading off to war.
b. George Orwell wrote in 1984 that we'd be controlled by Big Brother and all be doped up in the future. Not too much different from what Frank Baum wrote in The Wizard Of Oz and there's just a man behind the curtain pulling the strings and we'd be doped up on poppies. Ever notice how many people in America are taking mind altering drugs by prescription or choic or how few people have real influence over the government, big corporations, education and other elements of society? Bill Gates and Michael Eisner are today's equivalent of Walt Disney and Henry Ford. Same goes for people like James Dobson or James Randy or Penn & Teller.
2. Reincarnation is basically a religious perspective of what happens to our soul when we die. A soul is something that isn't made of carbon, hydrogen or other elemennts. Going back as far as the Ancient Greeks and before we have never been able to explain this. So how can you discount the existence of angels and demons? Perhaps our personality is just a manifestation of something locked in the introns of our DNA that gets awoken at different points in our lives because it's an animal instinct that was initially a learned or maybe inborn behavior. (A good episode of Star Trek, or Nex Generation.)... To tie in religion & science, I say talking to the dead or being possessed by the dead could be tapping intos omeone who lived 10,000 years ago or even a short time ago and their personality gets locked in our subconscience, just as Freud and Jung talked about, until ready to awaken. For example I was named after a prophet who lived in Ninevah, same city as Jonah and in the current location of Iran/Iraq. I have recently tapped into the events that my prophet (or as we would call him today a quality assurance scientist) lived through and his personality....sort of like a seperated at birth identical twin study. I have already found one person on the internet and it turns out we are both saxophone players and of the same religion.
3. Faith Healers such as chiropractors and hypnotists work by two mechanisms:
a. The body can heal itself if it wants to be healed. This has to do a lot because of the relationship of stress and the immune system. But also because we need something to live for such as a religious belief that makes us want to stay healthy.
b. Through spinal manipulation pressure points or something else perhaps Palmer discovered something that the people from the easterrn countries have known for years: that there are areas throughout the body at extreme levels of stress or positive or negative energy (because of sodium/potassium channels) that affect the general health of the rest of the body.
4. I also believe that there is a rational explanation for many other things you and your magician freidns discount including; feng shui, color/aura therapy, and astrology. Remember, religion is basically a foundation for science, history, weather and other things that affect our lives but only religion, and not science can really unlock what the Greeks described as the impetus, as in what caused the Big Bang or what causes there to be both matter and antimatter.
Your friend in the keystone state,
Nicole Spiese