Uri Geller - What do you think?

And the rest of us are somewhere in the middle

Nice to know that you're in the middle!

Anyone else,wonder if Geller and Randi are not two sides of the same trickster coin?

I am not sure if anyone has seen it but there was a very interesting old article in the New Scientist about how Geller might have cheated in the experiments.

It is here:

http://www.urigeller.com/new-scientist/

Please see the section "Hearing with a tooth".

Geller's mentor Andrija Puharich invented a unique hearing aid device that could operate as a miniature radio receiver.

Puharich is a medical electronics expert who developed a radio receiver which can be hidden in a tooth. It must therefore be considered plausible that Uri has a miniature radio receiver concealed on his person. Even if it is not hidden in his teeth, it could easily be hidden in his hair or in a wristwatch which he presses against his chin to hear. The possibilities are limitless, especially if Uri is not carefully searched. Because Uri constantly runs his hands through his hair and across his face, no one would notice him listening to his Dick Tracy wrist radio – nor, because of the direct nerve stimulation, would anyone else hear it.

There are two small pieces of evidence that give some credence to this suggestion. The most obvious is that all of Uri’s drawings are representations of words which would describe the target drawing, and thus are consistent with radiocommunication. These cond occurred in January when Puharich was telling me that in any test Uri should be “properly examined” for hidden devices. But then he suddenly added:

“But I know Uri will not submit to excessive examination like, total body X-radiation”. In other words, Uri will not permit the only test for a Puharich implanted radio receiver.
To some measure, SRI has protected against radio transmission by working with shielded rooms for the picture drawing tests. But have they succeeded, or is it possible to penetrate the room to a radio?

To answer this question, I consulted Robert King, a senior lecturer at Imperial College, London. King wrote the specifications for all three shielded rooms in the College’s Electrical Engineering Department. King was dogmatic: “I could get information into any shielded room.” The reason, he explained, is that shielded rooms are simply not designed to protect against secretive attempts to get information through.
The SRI paper gives only vague information on the room in which most of the tests were done (SI in the Table, p 179)-it says only that it is “a double walled steel room, locked by means of an inner and outer door”. The second room (S2 in the Table, p 179) is a “double-walled, copper-screen Faraday cage” which “provides 120 dB attenuation for plane wave radio frequency radiation over a range of 15 KHz to 1 GHz. For magnetic fields the attenuation is 68 dB at 15 KHz and decreases to 3 dB at.60 Hz.”

King said that this is typical of screening for shielded rooms, and provides the key to getting data inside in this case. Attenuation drops off very rapidly at the very small wavelengths about 1 GHz, he said, so that microwaves of 10 GHz or more provide a good possibility.

In regard to Laird's earlier statement, this is a possibility of fraud/sensory leakage that was not ruled out.

As there are possible naturalistic explanations we should not be advocating the paranormal for Geller's results. I suggest a read of the above article.

[Laird]

I am not sure if anyone has seen it but there was a very interesting old article in the New Scientist about how Geller might have cheated in the experiments.

It is here:

http://www.urigeller.com/new-scientist/

Please see the section "Hearing with a tooth".

Geller's mentor Andrija Puharich invented a unique hearing aid device that could operate as a miniature radio receiver.



In regard to Laird's earlier statement, this is a possibility of fraud/sensory leakage that was not ruled out.

As there are possible naturalistic explanations we should not be advocating the paranormal for Geller's results. I suggest a read of the above article.

I suggest a reading of the article all the way to the end, after which you will find this:

Uri Geller had his teeth examined after this incredible story,
this is what the dentist had to say :

“I can attest to the fact that clinical and radiographic examination of Geller’s mouth, teeth and jaws reveal no foreign objects implanted such as transistors, metal devices, etc.”
John K. Lind, D.D.S.
(Harkness Pavilion, New York City)

I suggest a reading of the article all the way to the end, after which you will find this:

Yeh I did read that. The problem is that it is irrelevant... his teeth were examined well after the experiments were done. He could have removed the device anytime before... also the device didn't have to be placed in a tooth it could work on other parts of his body. It is a very clever little device.

[Laird]

Yeh I did read that. The problem is that it is irrelevant... his teeth were examined well after the experiments were done. He could have removed the device anytime before... also the device didn't have to be placed in a tooth it could work on other parts of his body. It is a very clever little device.

I predicted that response. Here's the problem with the hypothesis: many of the types of experiments conducted on Uri were double-blind, so communication would have been of no help, and, most importantly, one of the drawing experiments (in the preliminary experiments shown on video) was double-blind, and Uri did just as well on that as on all the others that weren't double-blind. So, radio communication can't explain his results. Also, in those preliminary experiments, even the drawing trials that weren't double-blind were blind to everybody other than the experimenter who looked at the drawing before resealing it and entering the room - so even in those cases, radio communication would have been of no help.

I predicted that response. Here's the problem with the hypothesis: many of the types of experiments conducted on Uri were double-blind, so communication would have been of no help, and, most importantly, one of the drawing experiments (in the preliminary experiments shown on video) was double-blind, and Uri did just as well on that as on all the others that weren't double-blind. So, radio communication can't explain his results. Also, in those preliminary experiments, even the drawing trials that weren't double-blind were blind to everybody other than the experimenter who looked at the drawing before resealing it and entering the room - so even in those cases, radio communication would have been of no help.

There is a problem, skeptics such as Paul Kurtz, David Marks, James Randi etc dispute that those studies were truly double-blind. I guess we need to look at some of their statements on this. Let me get back to you on that.

But are you saying cheating was impossible? How do you know for sure he did not cheat?

Do you actually believe Geller has psychic powers? Or are you just leaving it open that you do not know how he passed those tests.

[Laird]

Here's my position for the record: based on the evidence I've read and seen, I've personally concluded that Uri Geller has psychic powers. Is it possible that I'm wrong? Is it possible that he cheated? Sure, but you could say that about almost anything. It's possible that I'm wrong that the country Spain actually exists - I've never visited it for myself. Am I as convinced that Uri has psychic powers as I am that Spain exists? Not quite, but it is my (provisional) conclusion.

There is a problem, skeptics such as Paul Kurtz, David Marks, James Randi etc dispute that those studies were truly double-blind. I guess we need to look at some of their statements on this. Let me get back to you on that.

But are you saying cheating was impossible? How do you know for sure he did not cheat?

Do you actually believe Geller has psychic powers? Or are you just leaving it open that you do not know how he passed those tests.

Oh, you mean this James Randi:

[snip]
In 2011, I travelled to Las Vegas to Randi’s annual fan convention, The Amaz!ng Meeting, to ask him about several of these claims of dishonesty. He countered most either with denials or appeals to the fact that the events happened a long time ago. When it came to Sheldrake he said, “What specific experiments are you referring to?”

“The ones you told Dog World magazine you’d done,” I said. “In New York. The owner was killed, the dogs are in Mexico and you lost the files in a flood.”

“That was one of the hurricane floods,” he nodded.

So what prompted these tests?

“I must admit to you that I don’t recall having said that these tests were even done. But I’m willing to see the evidence for it.”
I handed him the emails Sheldrake provided.

“Oh,” he said.

Pressed about his treatment of Sheldrake, he insisted he didn’t lie because when he made the offer to send the data it hadn’t yet been destroyed by Hurricane Wilma. It was only after our meeting I realised Wilma took place four years before he stated that the data was available. But before we parted, I told him my research painted a picture of a clever man who is often right, but who has a certain element to his personality which leads him to overstate.

“Oh I agree,” he said.

“And sometimes lie. Get carried away.”

“Oh I agree. No question of that. I don’t know whether the lies are conscious lies all the time,” he said. “But there can be untruths.”

It was a brave and surprising moment. Even more surprising, though, was what Randi had to say when challenged about his wish to see survival of the fittest being allowed ‘draconically prove itself’ on drug users. It sounded a lot like Social Darwinism. “The survival of the fittest, yes,” he said. “The strong survive… I think people with mental aberrations who have family histories of inherited diseases and such, that something should be done seriously to educate them to prevent them from procreating. I think they should be gathered together in a suitable place and have it demonstrated for them what their procreation would mean for the human race. It would be very harmful.”

More recently I’ve begun to wonder about his educational foundation, the JREF, which claims tax exempt status in the US and is partly dependant on public donations. I wondered what actual educative work the organisation - which between 2011 and 2013 had an average revenue of $1.2 million per year - did. Financial documents reveal just $5,100, on average, being spent on grants.\

There are some e-books, videos and lesson plans on subjects such as fairies on their website. They organise an annual fan convention. James Randi, over that period, has been paid an average annual salary of $195,000. My requests for details of the educational foundation’s educational activities, over the last 12 months, were dodged and then ignored.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/...nkers.html

Oh, you mean this James Randi:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/...nkers.html

Why is it you point out negative things about skeptics but when it comes to mediums or psychics you only cite positive things?

But seriously sounds like a clever man to me average annual salary of $195,000 ? Do you earn that much? I bet nobody here does. So what has that got to do with anything? Should I be talking about Geller's income?

Nobody is perfect... everyone makes mistakes. You seem to have a grudge against only skeptics. Do you acknowledge Randi has done some good things? So he made a mistake with Sheldrake or told a lie but what about all his good cases?

He debunked the fraud James Hydrick on live TV:



We should give credit where it is due...

On topic... here is Randi debunking Geller



Do you accept Geller's spoon or key bending was done by fraudulent methods? Randi replicated them all.

Also see 6:50 in the above video. When Geller could not touch or use his own objects in an experiment for the Tonight Show he could not move the objects and the whole thing was a failure. What do you think about that? You see it is easy to mention negatives!

Your evidence against Randi seems to be that he lied about something and he made a lot of money? Is that why you hate Randi?  How do you comment about the good things he has done?