Uri Geller - What do you think?

If you think I'm going to design an experiment for Geller, you're going to be disappointed. It could be done... but it's a harder task as he's a magician, is he going to go through with a rigorous debunking experiment... probably not... so it's probably a nonstarter anyway.

My point was I didn't understand what the issue was you had with the double blinded experiments they did administer. Since you clearly did have an issue, I was wondering what your issue was, aside from mentioning the combination lock or the two signatures...but it doesn't appear that you want to continue this convo, so I guess we're done.

Geller was mentioned in another thread but I didn't want to derail that so I thought it might be interesting to open a new thread in case anyone has studied the guy. I've been aware of him since he hit the headlines in the 70's but have vacillated between being impressed and feeling conned.

There! You had the answer all along.

[Laird]

If the person under study is a magician, and is therefore out to trick you, one needs to take extra special precautions during any experiment to avoid being tricked... for instance in the room temperature water inside the metal canisters trick... whose canisters were they? who was allowed access to them before the trick? how were they inspected? why was the chosen canister and lid not set aside for analysis afterwards... (i.e. Geller muddled them up at the end so they could not be identified - typical of tricks where you don't want people to inspect the item afterwards). Was any of that done? I don't know

saying something is 'double-blinded' is not some stamp of confidence... if Geller uses his own canisters, or anyone has access to them, or Geller can switch them... etc etc that's the type of magic tricks I learn't as a child, so if you want to debunk Geller, you're going to have to have incredibly strict conditions prevent all these usual magicians tricks.

Bear in mind that one of the two primary investigators, Russell Targ, was an (amateur) magician too. Pretty sure these guys are cannier than you give them credit for. You've done nothing more than Leuders has done - make unproven "suggestions" i.e. muddy the waters enough to introduce unwarranted doubt.

Finding a way to simulate a phenomenon isn't evidence that it was actually done that way though. In fact, I'd say it's more likely that a person who was a magician would be able to make provision for it when testing.