How to Avoid the Challenge

[sadluxation]

Was searching some bits through google and found this funny message board and a few links.
The entries are a bit old, but the reasoning is very funny.

Tarra!

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=805


http://www.h2net.net/p/nslade/Papers/paranormal.html

[kookbreaker]

When they go running for their Zammit, my eyes go into autoroll.

[sadluxation]

Here's an even funnier "out" for this persons invention. Whatever it may be.
http://www.gocs1.com/challenge.htm

[Kopji]

Surely there is a worthy charity or scholarship fund that could benefit from the million dollar prize. I have not seen anything in the rules that says applicants must use the money on their own self.

It makes me sad all these psychics out there can do useless things like twirl paper and bend forks, but their power cannot be used to benefit others in a measurable way. This seems fundamentally, well... selfish.

[The Informant]

Of course Randi claims that people (such as Sylvia Browne) are trying to avoid taking the Million Dollar Challenge in order to avoid being proven wrong, humiliated, etc.

On the other side of the debate are people (like that remote viewing guy) who claim that Randi has been trying to avoid testing claimants in order to avoid losing his million.

From where I sit, it's all looking like a game of "he said/she said".

[aggle_rithm]

Originally posted by The Informant
Of course Randi claims that people (such as Sylvia Browne) are trying to avoid taking the Million Dollar Challenge in order to avoid being proven wrong, humiliated, etc.

On the other side of the debate are people (like that remote viewing guy) who claim that Randi has been trying to avoid testing claimants in order to avoid losing his million.

From where I sit, it's all looking like a game of "he said/she said".

Randi avoids testing claimants that are a complete waste of time. Otherwise, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to deal with them.

Of course, "waste of time" is a subjective thing, but what would you call someone who wanted an in-depth analysis performed on a blurry video of a bird flying past the World Trade Center?

[Zep]

To my mind, there seem to be a number of constant excuses from these people who won't take on Randi's challenge. They are:
[list=1]
Randi deliberately skews the challenge so he keeps the $1M.
Randi deliberately "modifies" the testing so it can't be "won" anyway.
Randi refuses to consider them as valid candidates.
"Established science" won't let them win because it does not want to lose face.
[/list=1]
Obviously these people haven't read the actual wording of the challenge personally, so it makes me wonder where they got these invalid ideas from in the first place. They do seem to be consistent, so I suspect there was one source, and they now simply share these excuses around.

So has anyone actually gone to these people and confronted them with the reality of Randi's challenge rules?

Zep

[aggle_rithm]

Originally posted by Zep

So has anyone actually gone to these people and confronted them with the reality of Randi's challenge rules?

Zep

They wouldn't listen anyway.

[synaesthesia]

Originally posted by The Informant
On the other side of the debate are people (like that remote viewing guy) who claim that Randi has been trying to avoid testing claimants in order to avoid losing his million.

From where I sit, it's all looking like a game of "he said/she said".

The sides are not equivalent. First of all, these guys claim to have incredible, mind-boggling, earth shaking powers *but have never once proved them in a legitimiate scientific test*. That is damning to their credibility, I would fall out of my chair in shock if they have any magical powers of any sort.

Secondly, they persistently and blatently misrepresent James Randi's position. (http://www.randi.org/jr/091302.html) Mr. Randi has not returned that insult.

Hardly credible people.

Why should we believe the sincerity of such dubious charaters when they can't agree to submit themselves to testing.

I notice that whenever the claimant is willing to do a scientifically acceptable test, Randi will play ball. Do you honestly think that Randi is worried that these people will succeed if he has no evidence that they can?

In this case, taking an agnostic stance would seems rather silly.

[The Informant]

While that may sound logical, that position is just an appeal to authority melded with an argument ad hominem.

Essentially the driving point of your position is "Do we trust our friend Randi here, or do we trust those people who have never been able to prove their claims?"

The inability of other, different claimants to prove their claims in the past is completely independent from a claimant's willingness to take the challenge and the lengths that he or she will go to in order to avoid it, especially since all of the claimants who are allegedly avoiding the challenge have never taken it before.

Therefore, you cannot argue that one person is lying based upon the previous failures of others.

As for Randi, he may appear to have credibility, especially to his fans, but where, then, does this credibility come from? One cannot prove Randi's integrity. Randi may provide a service to society, he may be a nice guy, he may do or be one of many good things, but that is all completely independent of the accusation that he is lying about his willingness to offer the challenge. Many otherwise decent, upstanding personalities have lied, such as Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon.

Therefore, you cannot argue that Randi is not lying based upon his previous track record in which his integrity did not come into question.

Furthermore, we have no example of Randi's willingness to offer the challenge versus the claimant's willingness to take the challenge that is not also in question, so we have no credible information from which to draw a conclusion regarding their willingness to go through with the challenge.

Hence the neutral viewpoint is still the most logical one.