Hmmm thinking
Maybe it is crazy, but if you say you want somebody to prove something, and you will give them a million bucks to do so, and you get to decide what is proof, why not just state clearly the test for each power, event, or ability?
Why involve them in some long drawn out protocol first? Why not start with a test you have designed, or used before, and work out any sticking points about that? I mean it. C'mon, what is up with the very nature of the challenge having to be hammered out?
If you are just going after the celebrities in the paranormal world, like Sylvia, it should not be that hard to do a first draft of a protocol based on the public claims she has already made. Make a protocol designed to test whether she can actually talk to the dead. Then you say to her, "You say you can talk to the dead. Let's test that. You do X, Y, and Z and I'll give you a million dollars. If you can't do X, Y, and Z, tell me what you can do and we'll change the test."
Wow. How cool is that?
And it was not just useful to win arguments with idiots, but even more so with intelligent people who could comprehend the extent of the woo failure to take the Challenge.
I'm sceptical of many of the claims made about "winning" arguments, based on something not done by somebody I don't know, about something that is not clear.
I'm not sure there is any winning when it comes to arguments with people who believe in something not proved. From a scientific point of view, everything not proved is still open to research, testing, theory, and mental rumination. Of course some people think if something has not been observed then it doesn't exist, but history shows a continous stream of discoveries about things that didn't exist at one time. In fact, most of the stuff going on in the Universe can't be observed, but is believed to exist.
At least I believe in it, based on data from instruments that can detect invisible stuff. As far as I can tell, gravity is real, but nobody has ever observed it, we don't know how it works, and it doesn't seem to work at very tiny levels. Only on really big stuff. (Of course we observe the effects, but that is not the same thing as observing "gravity", which could be a warping of space-time, for all we know, and gracity doesn't even exist.)
heh
But I digress.
I think that there is no paranormal stuff. But I also think there is some really strange stuff going on, based on my scientific observations, over a period of 40 years. While I agree with the basic premise that a lot of stuff is woo, just not happening, I know from experiments that the stuff that IS happening, is really strange, and needs scientific investigation to be observed. Including instruments to detect invisible events.
But I don't think the MDC is about that. In fact, I just read it is about publicity for JREF. And exposing frauds. From my experience, you can show somebody the absurdity of a "paranormal" event, and it doesn't seem to make any difference at all. But to be fair, you can also show a sceptical scientist something that seems to go against "accepted" knowledge, and they won't believe it either.
It seems to be human nature.
Just thinking about the MDC again. So very interesting.
.
