Jonathan Frakes is the only skeptic I need
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I thought of Wilson as soon as Randi’s death came up, because RAW certainly did lay into him on a few occasions. But I think the ultimate goal of RAW’s Randi-baiting was to encourage a meta-skepticism so that his readers didn’t simply “stop” with Randi and CSICOP and the idea that they might actually possess any objective knowledge. Ultimately I don’t think RAW was particularly bothered with the goal of debunking as much as he was with the process and concept of debunking.
They’re an interesting pairing, because while I think they would have shared the same ideas and approaches on a lot of topics, they were also polar opposites in some important ways; Randi’s characteristic certainty on the paranormal was something RAW could never get behind, regardless of the subject. RAW wasn’t defending the paranormal in criticising Randi, he was defending his own brand of universal agnosticism.
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You know, I was open as a skeptic to have my mind changed about James Randi. Like I’ve lapped up every show of his I’ve seen, etc…
But halfway through I realised that dismissing someone’s assertions about parapsychology out of hand is not an unreasonable thing to do.
After all, something that is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Love you, James Randi.
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Wow.
I have no idea how the BoingBoing squad decides what to publish or not publish, but I suppose I would understand it if “they” said “Hey! Let’s toss this article out there and watch the fur fly!”. You know, as entertainment.
The Covid numbers in the US are high only because we test more. Huh. Oh, OK…
Two things:
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I believe that no one would have been happier than Randi to have someone come in and win the $1M prize - legitimately. Can you imagine how exciting that would be, to have a scientifically demonstrable ESP/telekinetic/etc. power? Randi would have flipped out (in a great way). And then the world would have gone nuts (ok, more nuts). Try Vonnegut’s “Report on the Barnhouse Effect”. Great short story.
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No one would have been happier than James Randi to have had Mr. Horowitz sit across from him in an open forum to discuss the issues that Mr. Horowitz has taken up with Randi and his pretty relentless pursuit of truth vs. charlatanism. But that didn’t happen while Randi was alive and able to defend his position, now did it?
If one was trying to garner attention in the authoring biz, especially as it relates to a book you’ve recently finished, this would be the approach - go after arguably the leading skeptic/investigator in the very arena you are writing about. Nice.
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I’m not sure it’s a decline, or if it’s just becoming more blatant about what it’s always been - I remember Mark F, a long time and two or three comment systems ago, attacking a Food Safety Microbiologist who showed up and very patiently and politely explained that he was completely wrong about raw milk. Nor is it the only woo or woo-supporting post I’ve seen over the years.
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This piece might have landed differently if it had offered up just a single example of something Randi had debunked which was later de-debunked through the kind of rigorous scientific evaluation he eschewed in favor of simple practical demonstrations that could be easily understood by everyone.
Mr. Horowitz presumably has his Ouija set up to receive Mr. Randi’s rebuttal. There may be some who interpret the silence as an admission of defeat from the dearly departed. I suspect there may be another explanation, however, and I’m grateful for people who, like Randi, will be happy to point it out.
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Hmm.
So I reread the article in the expectation of finding some quotes to support my idea that that the main argument made in the article was “we should not forget to remain sceptical of our sceptically established conclusions”, which is what I got from it on first reading. I failed. I guess the coffee had not yet kicked in when I first read it this morning… Instead, exactly as you say, a (very) thin veneer of “don’t censor eccentricity” covers the underlying “Randi unfairly and maliciously denigrated the importance of serious parapsychological research”.
Which is to say, I stand corrected 
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Same here.
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No worries. I am often the one who is responding to an article before my coffee and have the same reaction hours later. Which is to say, I’ve been there.
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What’s really amazing is, the article didn’t have to be so terrible and offensive.
The author could have made the same point without trashing Randi and effectively saying Randi was worse than McCarthy, etc.
He could have made the point that an unfortunate side effect of Randi’s work to expose con artists and cheats was that people closed their minds to the possibility of real psychic phenomenon, and that closed mindedness is not a good thing. Pretty simple.
But the real irony is, even that premise is flat out wrong. I think no one made more people OPEN to the idea of psychic phenomenon than James Randi. His takedowns of fake psychics made the idea of real psychic powers seem so cool, and made me very interested in any and all paranormal phenomenon. I would watch his shows HOPING that one of the psychics would pass his tests. I was rooting for them!
At the same time, I knew that there were fakers out there and that nothing should be accepted at face value because of James Randi.
Randi did a great thing by making sure Universities across the country weren’t spending millions “researching” fakes like Uri Gellar at Stanford. That was a real possibility in the early 70s, and Randi’s work put an end to that.
But our minds are not closed. If real psychic phenomenon comes along, we won’t be blind to it, because we are all interested in it—often because of Randi. At the same time we won’t be fooled, also because of Randi.
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So glad to see this essay get the dragging it deserves. I’m not sure why it got a green light in the first place, but at least the boingboing community has given it an appropriate reception.
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This.
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Except he didn’t say promoting, he said research, and there is a distinct difference.
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Amen to that.
I had to push myself to read on past
making it more difficult for serious university-based and academically trained researchers to study ESP and mental anomalies
because that’s such horseshit. We don’t need to do even more research into esp, because it has been proven bullshit over and over again.
I’m glad most people seem to agree this essay is at best a waste of time and at worst a smear on Randi.
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I started this article with a pretty big open mind. I didn’t know who Randi was (I’d heard the name) and I’m very sympathetic to the idea that people often use “skepticism” as a name for their arrogance and mean-spiritedness.
But lamenting that major universities won’t fund research into mind reading?
Major universities also don’t fund research into the raisin bun model of the atom. It’s not that research shouldn’t be conducting in such things. It’s that is has been conducted. It’s a settled matter.
There probably is plenty more room for research into the workings of what skilled mind readers really do. There are a set of techniques that magicians and mentalists use to create the impression that they are reading people’s minds. Some of those practices (which are obviously very reproduceable since they reproduce them in front of crowds) are very interesting and probably still contain untapped insights into how our minds actually work.
But studying actual psychic claims is studying the cover story that people use to convert real, teachable skills into scams to take people’s money.
If a person says:
“Pick a random person. I’ll be able to, within the span or a minute or two, figure out a relative of theirs who has died, gather enough biographical information about that relative to convince that person I knew them, and discern from their character a message from that dead relative that will be strongly emotionally affecting. All the while this person will not realize they’ve given me this information.”
That says something about us, that we aren’t the way we think we are. It’s interesting, maybe there is something worth studying there (though I’m sure lots of people have already done so).
But if the same person says, “Hey, I can talk to ghosts!” then why on earth would you study that claim?
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thadboyd,
I appreciate the thoughtful message (minus condescending attitude displayed by some other commenters)
What may not have been clear in my initial comments is that I was making a (slightly clumsy) observation about the tone and intolerance displayed in a slew of the early comments. I had thought that the Boing Boing culture was open and tolerant of some fringe exploration. Equating URi Geller spoon bending with attempts at serious research into the unknown of our own infinitely complex physiology and calling all “Woo”. That is being lazy
Yes I agree Bob In later years tempered his enthusiasm for those early wild days as I have myself, being from the same generation, and experimenting with psychedelics and reading Lilly,Leary, RAW and their ilk, but my impression was, even back then, he held skepticism about the reality of some of those episodes (as do I). But I also think he would still push back against some the vitriol expressed in the comments to this article, and held there was untapped and undeveloped human potential to be discovered.
I also think he would still crack on Randi for some if his tactics and I believe Randi would take it in stride, even posthumously, as he dished it out. But again, I’m not attacking Randi here in any event and do applaud his unmasking of charlatans.
As for the A.C.C quote, it was a clumsy way of saying,” There is a shit ton we don’t know about the universe and there are current codified “Laws” that will be amended”. And I would still bet good money that some element(s) of what is considered parapsychology will be shown to have a physiological mechanism, as opposed to woo woo spiritual magical.
There is still a shit ton we don’t understand about the human subconscious and the myriad data points logged outside our conscious mind. With enough data and processing power, AI has made big strides in predictive modeling. And some form of observable but yet unexplained predictive mechanism does appear to exist in nature.
To me there is a visceral, strident quality to those opposed to a anything than even hints at parapsychology that goes beyond upholding the empirical, and that exhibits a distinctive emotional/psychological profile (as does those who uncritically embrace magical thinking ). My quotes were too broad to convey my thrust, that some humility is required when approaching what we don’t know.
William
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In principle, maybe. In practice, less so.
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How dare people in 2020 react badly to those demanding that we consider explanations for completely non-existent phenomena? It’s even more outrageous when we’re reacting badly when those making the demands are defaming those who oppose them and doing it in part to sell something. /s
Both sides! Both sides!
[When it comes to to spirited discourse on scientific research, there’s a qualitative difference between those who try to uphold the empirical and those who engage in magical thinking]
Apologies for the “visceral, strident quality” of this response. I’m just fed up with grifters promoting pseudo-science, whether they’re in the White House or doing guest posts on BoingBoing’s front page. If you think it’s no big deal, I’m not going to try and change your mind…
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Promote scientific process! Dissing Randi by comparing his rejection of Para-science’s lack of scientific method to the need for “modern skepticism” of PizzaGate/misinfo/propaganda is comparing apples 'n oranges. I am very surprised to see BoingBoing rejecting the foundations of science.
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Yeah absolutely. I’m actually a scientist; I work on statistical methods for estimating the effects of climate change on threatened and endangered species. When I think about how limited funding is for things in my own field and how many talented young scientists have their careers ended prematurely due to lack of funding, the idea that we should be devoting money to researching phenomena that contradict our current understanding of physics and have little to no evidence supporting them just elicits a hearty “lol fuck no” from me.
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