By Richard Milton
James Randi's "$1 million challenge"
Most people have heard of the challenge by James Randi offering $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate psychic powers.
On the face of it, Randi's challenge must be a good thing mustn't it? There's a million dollars just sitting there waiting to be picked up, and all anyone has to do to win it is perform under controlled conditions the kind of claim we read about every day in the newspapers -- spoon bending, mind-reading, remote viewing.
So doesnt the mere fact that no-one has won Randi's challenge prove that such things are impossible? As usual in the murky world of "skepticism", things are not exactly what they appear to be.
Randi's $1M challenge was unveiled on 1st April 1996. You can read its terms in full at the website of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) the organisation administering the challenge.*
A quick glance through the provisions seems to show an eminently reasonable and fair challenge. But now go back and look again a little more carefully, this time with the kind of critical eye that Randi brings to exposing cheats and frauds. What you find are some ambiguities that are likely to make any serious claimant uneasy to say the least.
The first such ambiguity is contained in the preamble where it says, "Since claims vary greatly in character and scope, specific rules must be formulated for each applicant."
This means, quite reasonably, that the rules for any particular attempt cannot be finalised until a claimant steps forward and announces what he or she is going to do -- bend spoons, read minds or walk on fire. But it also means that Randi will fomulate the rules for each individual attempt at his challenge on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, the claimant has to agree to these ad hoc rules. If he or she does not agree, the contest will not take place at all.
The second ambiguity is in Clause 4, which says that "Tests will be designed in such a way that no "judging" procedure is required. Results will be self-evident to any observer, in accordance with the rules which will be agreed upon by all parties in advance of any formal testing procedure taking place."
This means, quite reasonably, that there will be no interminable arguments by 'experts' over statistical measurements. Either the spoon bends or it doesn't: either the claimant reads minds or he doesn't. The written rules, agreed up front, will decide.
But it also means that there will be no objective, independent judging or adjudication, by scientific criteria, carried out by qualified professional scientists. Randi alone will say whether the terms of the challenge have been met -- whether the metal was bent psychically, or the electronic instrument deflected by mental power, or the remote image was correctly reproduced. In the event that the claimant insists the written terms have been met, but Randi disagrees, then it will be Randi's decision that prevails.
Not only will Randi be the sole judge of whether the claimant is successful, but even if a claimant appeals on scientific grounds that he has met the agreed terms of the challenge, Randi will be the sole arbiter of any appeal as well. Randi says there will be "no judging". In reality, he is both judge and jury -- not only of the claimant's cause but of his own cause as well.
With these two major ambiguities in the rules it would not be surprising if Randi never found a serious claimant to accept his challenge. Any potential claimant who reads the rules carefully will be concerned about two things.
First that the terms enable Randi to draw up specific rules that are unwinnable -- and hence that no claimant would agree to -- and then enable him to claim that "no-one has won the prize".
Second there is Randi's own objectivity. His position can be understood from his own writings such as this.
"The scientific community, too, must bear the blame. When a Mississippi inventor obtained the signatures of some thirty Ph.D.'s (most of them physicists) on a document attesting that he had discovered a genuine "free-energy" machine (essentially a perpetual motion device), and when the U.S. Patent office issued a patent in 1979 to another inventor of a "permanent magnet motor" that required no power input, there was little reaction from the scientific community. The "cold fusion" farce should have been tossed onto the trash heap long ago, but justifiable fear of legal actions by offended supporters has stifled opponents." [Click here for the real scientific facts].
"These absurd claims, along with the claims of the dowsers, the homeopaths, the colored-light quacks and the psychic spoon-benders, can be directly, definitively, and economically tested and then disposed of if they fail the tests."
It doesn't seem to have occurred to Randi that the thirty Ph.Ds who attested to the new machine might know a little more about physics than he does.
Given uninformed and prejudiced views such as these, the concern will be that Randi, as sole judge of success, will never accept that paranormal phenomena have been demonstrated because his position is that he knows on a priori grounds that the paranormal is impossible and hence whatever the claimant has demonstrated must be merely an unexplained trick of some kind.
I put these ambiguities in the rules to James Randi. He dismissed them, saying only that I should "read the rules", and suggesting that I am a "nitpicker" and "pedant".
Randi is a non-scientist who has announced that -- by some undisclosed but non-scientific means -- he knows that such anomalous claims are farcical and 'absurd', and should be 'tossed on the trash heap.'
The real facts are that Randi is doing exactly what he has accused some scientists of: he has conducted no properly designed experiments, has published no empirical results (reproducible or otherwise) and has not submitted himself to any peer-review process. Yet he expects us to accept his conclusions as having some scientific significance and meriting attention.
Randi says, "There seems to be a certain quality of the human mind that requires the owner to get silly from time to time. Sometimes the condition becomes permanent, a part of the victim's personality."
Here, at least, are words that no-one can disagree with.
James Randi's "$1 million challenge"
On the face of it, Randi's challenge must be a good thing mustn't it? There's a million dollars just sitting there waiting to be picked up, and all anyone has to do to win it is perform under controlled conditions the kind of claim we read about every day in the newspapers -- spoon bending, mind-reading, remote viewing.
So doesnt the mere fact that no-one has won Randi's challenge prove that such things are impossible? As usual in the murky world of "skepticism", things are not exactly what they appear to be.
Randi's $1M challenge was unveiled on 1st April 1996. You can read its terms in full at the website of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) the organisation administering the challenge.*
A quick glance through the provisions seems to show an eminently reasonable and fair challenge. But now go back and look again a little more carefully, this time with the kind of critical eye that Randi brings to exposing cheats and frauds. What you find are some ambiguities that are likely to make any serious claimant uneasy to say the least.
The first such ambiguity is contained in the preamble where it says, "Since claims vary greatly in character and scope, specific rules must be formulated for each applicant."
This means, quite reasonably, that the rules for any particular attempt cannot be finalised until a claimant steps forward and announces what he or she is going to do -- bend spoons, read minds or walk on fire. But it also means that Randi will fomulate the rules for each individual attempt at his challenge on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, the claimant has to agree to these ad hoc rules. If he or she does not agree, the contest will not take place at all.
The second ambiguity is in Clause 4, which says that "Tests will be designed in such a way that no "judging" procedure is required. Results will be self-evident to any observer, in accordance with the rules which will be agreed upon by all parties in advance of any formal testing procedure taking place."
This means, quite reasonably, that there will be no interminable arguments by 'experts' over statistical measurements. Either the spoon bends or it doesn't: either the claimant reads minds or he doesn't. The written rules, agreed up front, will decide.
But it also means that there will be no objective, independent judging or adjudication, by scientific criteria, carried out by qualified professional scientists. Randi alone will say whether the terms of the challenge have been met -- whether the metal was bent psychically, or the electronic instrument deflected by mental power, or the remote image was correctly reproduced. In the event that the claimant insists the written terms have been met, but Randi disagrees, then it will be Randi's decision that prevails.
Not only will Randi be the sole judge of whether the claimant is successful, but even if a claimant appeals on scientific grounds that he has met the agreed terms of the challenge, Randi will be the sole arbiter of any appeal as well. Randi says there will be "no judging". In reality, he is both judge and jury -- not only of the claimant's cause but of his own cause as well.
With these two major ambiguities in the rules it would not be surprising if Randi never found a serious claimant to accept his challenge. Any potential claimant who reads the rules carefully will be concerned about two things.
First that the terms enable Randi to draw up specific rules that are unwinnable -- and hence that no claimant would agree to -- and then enable him to claim that "no-one has won the prize".
Second there is Randi's own objectivity. His position can be understood from his own writings such as this.
"The scientific community, too, must bear the blame. When a Mississippi inventor obtained the signatures of some thirty Ph.D.'s (most of them physicists) on a document attesting that he had discovered a genuine "free-energy" machine (essentially a perpetual motion device), and when the U.S. Patent office issued a patent in 1979 to another inventor of a "permanent magnet motor" that required no power input, there was little reaction from the scientific community. The "cold fusion" farce should have been tossed onto the trash heap long ago, but justifiable fear of legal actions by offended supporters has stifled opponents." [Click here for the real scientific facts].
"These absurd claims, along with the claims of the dowsers, the homeopaths, the colored-light quacks and the psychic spoon-benders, can be directly, definitively, and economically tested and then disposed of if they fail the tests."
It doesn't seem to have occurred to Randi that the thirty Ph.Ds who attested to the new machine might know a little more about physics than he does.
Given uninformed and prejudiced views such as these, the concern will be that Randi, as sole judge of success, will never accept that paranormal phenomena have been demonstrated because his position is that he knows on a priori grounds that the paranormal is impossible and hence whatever the claimant has demonstrated must be merely an unexplained trick of some kind.
I put these ambiguities in the rules to James Randi. He dismissed them, saying only that I should "read the rules", and suggesting that I am a "nitpicker" and "pedant".
Randi is a non-scientist who has announced that -- by some undisclosed but non-scientific means -- he knows that such anomalous claims are farcical and 'absurd', and should be 'tossed on the trash heap.'
The real facts are that Randi is doing exactly what he has accused some scientists of: he has conducted no properly designed experiments, has published no empirical results (reproducible or otherwise) and has not submitted himself to any peer-review process. Yet he expects us to accept his conclusions as having some scientific significance and meriting attention.
Randi says, "There seems to be a certain quality of the human mind that requires the owner to get silly from time to time. Sometimes the condition becomes permanent, a part of the victim's personality."
Here, at least, are words that no-one can disagree with.
