Why did no one ever win the Randi Million Dollar Challenge?

Yeah the simultaneous boasting or at least strong belief in abilities and then not actually being open or rational about it is at this point a big part of why I just blanket dismiss the whole thing. It's become pretty clear to me that the whole enterprise is focused on emotional coddling, there is some good stuff there, but all the useful stuff largely already exists in normal psychology. Its all the irrational nonsense which is unique to and thus defines any given spiritual or religious doctrine. So what's the point of any of it? I'm reminded by the statements of a researcher who I don't want to doxx, that when they asked if they could test the claims of, what I think were some transcendental meditators if I remember correctly, they "acted like we were coming at them with a flamethrower". As far as I'm concerned, such people deserve only mockery and disrespect. To make such strong confident claims, then run away at the idea of them being actually tested, there's no excuse. I've seen this same thing over and over and over again in various forms and at this point I've realized that that's what spirituality is. That's the very core of it. It's basically pure escapism, and until I see evidence to the contrary, I will continue to think that.

I think the whole spirituality and religious endeavour has held back psychic development more than we realize. I'm not sure that was intentional.initially but it sure turned out that way. Ideally I'd love to see it all fade to nothing and be replaced with philosophical education and development so that people can put together and deconstruct complex arguments and ideas as well as just real world evidence. And use that along with their own observations throughout life to create their own personal motivations, values, etc. Yeah I'm probably biased because that's what I try to do and I've seen the positive results compared to the alternative but that is what I'd like to see.

I do think a better version of a psychic challenge, maybe not for proof but certification, would actually go a long way towards that, because once such a challenge exists, it can be slapped in the face of the spiritualists and they can either put up or shut up. I know that I wouldn't be able to pass any such test right now, except maybe something relating to self heling or energy transmission, but even those. And I'm okay with that, I'd stil want such a  challenge to exist.

I think the intertwining of psychic development and religion/spirituality is more complicated that the latter being a clear detriment to the former. Psi and Survival do seem to interweave with spirituality at least to some extent, with some of the best historical work on paranormal research coming from religious or at least spiritual persons.

The occultist who claims they have powers they cannot demonstrate is often laughable...if not disgusting when they prey on those seeking comfort/guidance/community, but there is also the simple fact that even people who can demonstrate their physical prowess can be weak in spirit. 

Not everyone is even seeking power of kind, and use spirituality as a means to navigate their life...some of these people end up displaying paranormal powers like the levitation of Joseph of Cupertino.

I do like your ideas about philosophical study combined with mental training, but I don't know if this is the only or even best avenue to understanding the paranormal. We simply don't know enough about Psi or Survival to definitively know what path will ultimately yield fruit.

"Everyone has his own customs, his own...practices...We look up at the same stars, the same sky covers us all, the same universe encompasses us all...Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret."
 -Symmachus

Someone near and dear to me told me recently that I am wasting my time recommending a certain Netflix series (Surviving Death, I think it was) because there could not be anything shown that would change his mind. When I suggested that he is closed-minded, he told me that was an insult.

I don't want to get into politics or religion but I often watch and listen to people and am astonished that they cannot see the obvious. Perhaps it is me who can't but I will repeat what I have said over and over, here and elsewhere: in the face of determined scepticism, I go out of my way to fact-check, rationality-check, bias-check and reason-check what I consider to be pretty good evidence. We, as proponents, are often accused of being irrational and prone to confirmation-bias - indeed my near-and-dear one (above) used the latter against me too. Thus is it imperative that we do our best to avoid those pitfalls. The religious don't need proof or even irrefutable evidence because they have faith. The materialists are convinced that they have the weight of science on their side (they actually don't but hey-ho) and can therefore afford to be arrogant and dismissive. Neither camp believe they can be wrong but I think that many of us here are entirely willing to consider the possibility that we might be wrong. 

I don't think I'll ever persuade my nearest and dearest about psychic things, and yet she has taken on a few psychic concepts such as

Cats and dogs that know when their owner is coming home. We had a cat who almost certainly had this ability. Our other cats have equally clearly not had that ability.

I think the trick is to introduce the ideas but not press them much - even though not believing in Materialism represents a gob-smacking change of viewpoint. It is definitely better not to get into an argument.

David

Using presumed bias as an excuse to avoid these challenges smacks of intellectual cowardice. If a phenomenon is genuine, it should withstand scrutiny. Hiding behind criticisms of the tests, without actually engaging with them, is an easy way out of having one's beliefs challenged.

I think Valmar's point is that a lot of these prize challenges aren't rigorous but arbitrary. Plenty of people claiming psychic powers of various sorts have agreed to be tested in laboratories, and some have come through successfully.

The problem is, you can get tested and tested and tested, and nobody takes any notice, but fail just once and your name is mud.

I'd suggest reading this book by Rupert Sheldrake:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Delusio...1529393221

He started out life as an academic at Cambridge University (UK) but now espouses some very non-materialistic ideas.

David

@Wanderer 

>I want to clarify that it was not my intention to imply that people that claims that anyone can do what Lulova ostensibly could do would be insane. It was rather the way that the person on his website claimed that exactly everyone that went to his school has successfully learned to see without their eyes, that it was scientifically proven that his techniques does cure diseases like alzheimers and autism, that the IQ of those that went to his school has doubled, etc, that seemed very incredible to me and made me question his sanity.

I agree that these various claims are incredible. As I said before, Lulova may or may not have or have had a paranormal ability. My argument wasn't that she was definitely the real deal, but only that Randi's way of dealing with her suggests massive bias on his part and unfairness in the prize process. I think there's little doubt that someone who truly had paranormal ability would be at serious risk of being unable to demonstrate it if they were getting bullied the way Randi bullied Lulova, especially if they were a child as Lulova was.

>I don't think this example is equivalent to the situation with Randi. The tobacco lobby people may look like they're convinced that cigarettes don't cause cancer, but I definitely thinks that they are aware that cigarettes do cause cancer. They are just consciously lying about it. On the other hand, my impression is that Randi really is convinced that paranormal phenomena cannot be real.

The tobacco example isn't meant to be exactly analogous to the Randi situation. It's meant to highlight why it isn't a good idea to assume that people will fairly test a hypothesis that they're strongly opposed to just because they seem or are confident in their rival hypothesis. It's easy to assume that tobacco lobbyists are all liars but some may be consciously honest yet deluded. That aside I'm sincerely not persuaded that Randi was absolutely certain of his skepticism. He might have been, but that he may have had distinct awareness that there was a bigger chance he was wrong than he wanted to admit publicly would help explain some of his behavior.

@Wanderer 

>I want to clarify that it was not my intention to imply that people that claims that anyone can do what Lulova ostensibly could do would be insane. It was rather the way that the person on his website claimed that exactly everyone that went to his school has successfully learned to see without their eyes, that it was scientifically proven that his techniques does cure diseases like alzheimers and autism, that the IQ of those that went to his school has doubled, etc, that seemed very incredible to me and made me question his sanity.

I agree that these various claims are incredible. As I said before, Lulova may or may not have or have had a paranormal ability. My argument wasn't that she was definitely the real deal, but only that Randi's way of dealing with her suggests massive bias on his part and unfairness in the prize process. I think there's little doubt that someone who truly had paranormal ability would be at serious risk of being unable to demonstrate it if they were getting bullied the way Randi bullied Lulova, especially if they were a child as Lulova was.

>I don't think this example is equivalent to the situation with Randi. The tobacco lobby people may look like they're convinced that cigarettes don't cause cancer, but I definitely thinks that they are aware that cigarettes do cause cancer. They are just consciously lying about it. On the other hand, my impression is that Randi really is convinced that paranormal phenomena cannot be real.

The tobacco example isn't meant to be exactly analogous to the Randi situation. It's meant to highlight why it isn't a good idea to assume that people will fairly test a hypothesis that they're strongly opposed to just because they seem or are confident in their rival hypothesis. It's easy to assume that tobacco lobbyists are all liars but some may be consciously honest yet deluded. That aside I'm sincerely not persuaded that Randi was absolutely certain of his skepticism. He might have been, but that he may have had distinct awareness that there was a bigger chance he was wrong than he wanted to admit publicly would help explain some of his behavior.

Also I have to wonder why Randi never went for a more serious and devastating debunking. Why not get high-profile parapsychologists and skeptics together to agree on the design of some gold-standard scientific test of the psi hypothesis, one that would put psi in serious doubt even for many believers if no evidence turned up? Maybe Randi just wasn't smart or knowledgeable enough to think to do that. Or maybe on some level he was afraid of giving psi a fair shake because of his own, even perhaps unconscious, doubts.

The big shame about Randi's legacy is that the first and usually only argument that armchair skeptics have towards psi abilities is still "why hasn't anyone won that million dollar prize?".

The fact is that Randi wasn't, as the documentary about him claims, "An Honest Liar" - he was a full-on, pant's on fire, liar. Yet he's still revered by his followers in a way that reminds me of the way that followers of another famous, narcissistic liar are able to turn a deaf ear to all the self-serving mendacity.

The big shame about Randi's legacy is that the first and usually only argument that armchair skeptics have towards psi abilities is still "why hasn't anyone won that million dollar prize?".

The fact is that Randi wasn't, as the documentary about him claims, "An Honest Liar" - he was a full-on, pant's on fire, liar. Yet he's still revered by his followers in a way that reminds me of the way that followers of another famous, narcissistic liar are able to turn a deaf ear to all the self-serving mendacity.

I wish one of the researchers testing people with psychic abilities should have invited Randi along to view the experiment and explain what was wrong.

The whole idea that an 'expert' should just give a thumbs up or down like voting on a singing performance is crazy (and absolutely nothing to do with science).

David

Randi and other pseudoskeptics are religious fanatics who don't want people to believe in the paranormal. [I don't think this by necessity means they are 100% confident there are no paranormal phenomena, but rather this is what they have decided is the correct party line toward the public.]

Even one of the founders of CSICOP said he felt many of his fellow pseudo-skeptics would cover up evidence that would show UFOs or the paranormal were real. I reference the scandal in this thread.

You seem to be saying that if there was perfect proof of the paranormal you trust that Randi would accurately report it...but we know he lied about conducting a test that would debunk Sheldrake's work on animal telepathy.

Your position [as far as I understand it] seems to come down to having faith in people who've shown dishonesty which includes a variety of pseudo-skeptics but also Randi himself...

I didn't mean that one should trust Randi, or that he would accurately report proofs of the paranormal. I just meant that I thought that Randi wouldn't have any reason to use the loopholes in the rules to stop people from winning if he was 100% convinced that paranormal phenomena are impossible and that it would be impossible to win anyways, no matter whether Randi used the loopholes or not. However, the arguments @RViewer88 has provided has now convinced me that someone like Randi could still have reasons to want to use the loopholes.

Even one of the founders of CSICOP said he felt many of his fellow pseudo-skeptics would cover up evidence that would show UFOs or the paranormal were real. I reference the scandal in this thread.

That sounds interesting. Could you please link to the post where you wrote about this?

Even one of the founders of CSICOP said he felt many of his fellow pseudo-skeptics would cover up evidence that would show UFOs or the paranormal were real. I reference the scandal in this thread.

That sounds interesting. Could you please link to the post where you wrote about this?

I think this was it:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-w...1#pid54421

One thing that really bugs me about Randi is his takedown of scientists.  He had no problem destroying reputations on the grounds of things he himself knew nothing about.

https://skepticalaboutskeptics.org/inves...ical-look/

I chose to focus on Chapter Eight, Randi’s dissection of the experiments of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, two well-known parapsychologists. Randi calls them “the Laurel and Hardy of psi” and proceeds to argue that their experiments were a tissue of ineptitude, gullibility, and dishonesty.

The first thing I noticed was that Randi never gives any indication that Targ and Puthoff have any scientific credentials or accomplishments. The casual reader could be forgiven for assuming that they are not “real” scientists at all. For the record, Targ is a physicist credited with inventing the FM laser, the high-power gas-tranport laser, and the tunable plasma oscillator. Puthoff, also a physicist, invented the tunable infra-red laser and is widely known for his theoretical work on quantum vacuum states and the zero point field. (see The Field, by Lynne McTaggart, for an overview of Puthoff’s work in quantum phyics.) If these two are “Laurel and Hardy,” at least they come with good résumés. Randi, by contrast, has no scientific training.