Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!news.dfn.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!arizona.edu!zippy.Telcom.Arizona.EDU!skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu!lippard Newsgroups: sci.skeptic Subject: Re: Randi in Australia:A report. Message-ID: <5JUL199319443769@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu> From: lipp...@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard) Date: 6 Jul 1993 02:44:38 GMT References: <1993Jun29.083411.13518@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> <20se1k$849@sndsu1.sinet.slb.com> Distribution: world Organization: University of Arizona NNTP-Posting-Host: skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Lines: 112 In article , war...@nysernet.org writes... >In col...@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes: > > What I'm trying to say is that if he does not examine the > evidence in a fair way, how do we know what he found? If > he catches them cheating on videotape, we can all see the > evidence, but what if he doesn't? What if he says he did > and we can't trust him because he's said all along that > everyone is a fake. Could we trust him to keep the > videotapes where he couldn't fakery and let other people > see that he failed to prove them as fakes? > >If you think that Randi has missed a genuine psychic, please tell us >about this person. Otherwise go away. This seems to me to be an unfair evasion of a legitimate point. If there is evidence that a critic of the paranormal would not admit the existence of evidence for the paranormal even if he found it, or that his examination of the evidence is somehow biased or unfair, then what credence should be placed in any particular claim of that critic that X is not evidence of the paranormal, or that X is a fake? Now I question the claim that Randi has "said all along that everyone is a fake," but I am more open to the possibility that he may not be the most reliable source of factual information about claims of alleged paranormal phenomena. I posted the following earlier today on the BITNET SKEPTIC list: Date: 05 Jul 1993 09:16:08 -0700 From: "James J. Lippard" Reply-to: SKEPTIC Discussion Group Message-id: <01H06FEXUU0M95N...@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU> There is more to say about Project Alpha than Randi has said. Randi's first published accounts are quite reliable for what they say: James Randi, "The Project Alpha Experiment: Part 1. The First Two Years," _Skeptical Inquirer_ vol. 7, no. 4, Summer 1983, pp. 24-33. ---, "The Project Alpha Experiment: Part 2. Beyond the Laboratory," _Skeptical Inquirer_ vol. 8, no. 1, Fall 1983, pp. 36-45. Though some details are omitted, see: Michael A. Thalbourne, "Phillips's 'Straight Spoon,'" _Skeptical Inquirer_ vol. 9, no. 2, Winter 1984-85, pp. 187-188, and Randi's reply on p. 188. Marcello Truzzi, "Reflections on 'Project Alpha': Scientific Experiment or Conjuror's Illusion?" _Zetetic Scholar_ nos. 12/13, 1987, pp. 73-98. Randi's more recent descriptions of "Project Alpha" have diverged somewhat from his original account and the details in the Truzzi article and in Thalbourne's letter and his reply to it. For instance, at the 1992 CSICOP Conference in Dallas, at the Awards Banquet, Randi made it sound as though he exposed Alpha just in time to save McDonnell Lab director Peter Phillips from publishing an article concluding that Michael Edwards and Steve Shaw had genuine psi abilities, when in fact Randi awarded Phillips a "straight spoon" award for using well-controlled experiments under which Edwards and Shaw were unable to perform. There was an initial set of uncontrolled experiments in which Edwards and Shaw were very successful. Videotape or film of this was shown at a meeting of the Parapsychological Association (which Randi attended), and the audience laughed aloud at what they saw. After that, the carefully controlled experiments were begun. The people who continued to be duped until (and perhaps even after!) Randi exposed Project Alpha were Berthold Schwartz and Walter Uphoff, who did some experiments of their own with Shaw and Edwards independent of the McDonnell Lab. Schwartz was a member of the Parapsychological Association; Uphoff was not. Truzzi points out that rumors circulating in the parapsychological community after the McDonnell Lab's films were shown included one that the films were so bad that Peter Phillips of the Lab and Randi must have been collaborating with some kind of hoax. Truzzi also points out that Project Alpha spawned a counter-hoax against Randi by Dennis Stillings of The Archaeus Project. Stillings sent a phony issue of his newsletter to Randi announcing that he had just received a grant of $217,000 for research into psychokinesis. He also wrote a letter to Steve Shaw saying that since he was fake he should not bother to apply for any of the money, and in the previous real issue of his newsletter, published a warning about the hoax. To Stillings' surprise, Randi awarded a "bent spoon" award "To the Medtronics Corporation of Minneapolis, who gave $250,000 to a Mr. Stillings of that city to fund the Archaeus Project, devoted to observing people who bend spoons at partes. Mr. Stillings then offered financial assistance to a prominent young spoon-bender who turned out to be one of the masquerading magicians of Project Alpha-- a confessed fake." This was Randi's 1983 "Uri" award in the funding category, announced in a _Discover_ press release. Randi made a number of errors, as you can see: he wrongly identified the source of the nonexistent grant, he changed the dollar amount, and he incorrectly stated that funds had been offered to Shaw. Stillings and others published a number of articles about how Randi had been hoaxed, and the Uri award list published in the _Skeptical Inquirer_ ("Uri Awards: A Straight Spoon Joins Three Bent Ones in '83," vol. 8, no. 1, Fall 1983, pp. 9-10) simply omits the funding category without comment. (And the "straight spoon" listed is not the one awarded to Phillips, but one awarded to Elsie Hill and her cousin Frances Way for admitting that the Cottingley fairies were a hoax.) Randi sent a letter of apology to the Medtronics Corporation, and a letter admitting his mistake to Stillings (who wrote to Randi under an assumed name in order to get it), but to the best of my knowledge has never made any public statement about his error. (I also don't know if anyone published his complete "Uri" award list.) Jim Lippard Lipp...@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU Dept. of Philosophy Lipp...@ARIZVMS.BITNET University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721