Randi seems very unreasonable and dogmatic. Have you read about his interactions with Rupert Sheldrake?
http://www.sheldrake.org/reactions/james-randi-a-conjurer-attempts-to-debunk-research-on-animals
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Randi seems very unreasonable and dogmatic. Have you read about his interactions with Rupert Sheldrake?
http://www.sheldrake.org/reactions/james-randi-a-conjurer-attempts-to-debunk-research-on-animals
Hi Ken. Yes, actually I was thinking of including that in an additional reading section in the article. There seem to be several cases where people confront Randi about his deception and he says "yeah... I lied." He apparently thinks that it's fine to lie to people because he's promoting a greater truth. I don't think he is.
Yes. It's unfortunate and ironic that so many "skeptics" buy into his BS. They see him as some kind of authority on science and reason, when he's neither a scientist nor all that reasonable.
Did you happen to listen to the recent episode of Joe Rogan with Graham Hancock and Michael Shermer? Great debate. Shermer is the editor of Skeptic magazine. He and one of his writers were shown to be very biased and deceptive in an article they published about Hancock. There was nothing Shermer could do but apologize and promise to retract the article. It was brilliant.
When "skeptics" are shown to be disingenuous and deceptive, we've got to realize it's because they're invested in these phenomena not being real, and more often than not dismiss any evidence without even actually investigating it.
That's awesome, I haven't heard that one yet.
Yeah if you call yourself a skeptic you get a free pass on a lot of things. Seems like Randi knows that and has pushed its limits. But people won't be fooled forever
Exactly. He knows how easily people can be fooled, but instead of fooling them with fake psychic abilities, he's fooling them with fake skeptical abilities. A brilliant angle to take, as the fake psychic market is saturated.
So who are the reasonable skeptics? Michael Shermer seemed semi-reasonable and was willing to change his position after being proved wrong. I'm sure there others, but they're probably a lot more low key than people like Randi.
Yes. One thing I notice sometimes, in the moment someone can say "Oh I've been proven wrong" and then later they change back to how they were... Everyone's guilty of it a little. Hopefully Shermer doesn't do that.
Sheldrake talks about a skeptic who he admires a lot, but I can't remember the fellow's name. They've worked together and shared a stage. The guy doesn't believe in psi phenomena at all, but he's always open-minded to consider other ideas. I'll see if I can remember his name.
Yes, I've read that too, and I can't remember his name either.