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

This is one of those areas which I recall hearing about as a child at school, maybe when I was ten years old. I didn't know what to make of it then and today I'm still undecided. Certainly I've seen some video demonstrations which I reasoned could be simple deception. But that doesn't automatically mean there might not be something worth considering in other cases.

Well if remote viewing and OBE's can see real things in the real world. What is blind sight beyond just a short ranged application of that? We already know one works, so there's not much reason to doubt the other is possible.

I always liked the idea of the Randi Prize, though obviously its implementation was extremely biased and set up to fail, some of which is discussed in the video. I have zero respect for spirituality or the beliefs thereof, I care about what actually works in the real world, not how it makes people feel. And putting a bold challenge out to the true believers to prove that they're not just more feelz>realz weaklings is a very good way to go. After all, if its as real as they say, they should be able to prove it. I would love to see a similar challenge brought back, however, only if it was set up with trials designed ahead of time so that things weren't so loosey goosey or prone to all the problems the Randi Prize was.

I don't share your dismissive attitude toward spirituality in general, but I do agree it gets annoying when people seem to both brag about their abilities *and* then try to talk about spirituality as an excuse for why they can't do more than alter probabilities...which could just be a matter of luck.

I also think it'd be great if someone like Bigelow offered a prize for proof of the paranormal. I don't think it is the standard for whether the paranormal is real or not but it does prevent charlatans from making claims about their power.

I don't share your dismissive attitude toward spirituality in general, but I do agree it gets annoying when people seem to both brag about their abilities *and* then try to talk about spirituality as an excuse for why they can't do more than alter probabilities...which could just be a matter of luck.

I also think it'd be great if someone like Bigelow offered a prize for proof of the paranormal. I don't think it is the standard for whether the paranormal is real or not but it does prevent charlatans from making claims about their power.

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.

With respect to Lulova, there is good evidence for "eyeless sight" from a few paradigms, such as the following: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...perception. Lulova could've had or maybe still has a real paranormal ability--I don't see how her mentor's tendency to make incredible claims rules that out. But one way or the other, I don't think it's too relevant. What is relevant is that Randi had no difficulty subjecting a candidate for his prize to abusive, bullying treatment to make inconvenient evidence disappear. If that isn't indicative of severe bias calling the entire prize process into question, I don't know what is.

I looked on the Internet for more information about the case from Watkins' obituary and it is described in detail by the person that was in conflict with Randi here: http://www.theblindcarefoundation.com/Randi-eng.html This person seems to on his website claim that he can teach anyone to see without their eyes. http://www.theblindcarefoundation.com/index.html That doesn't seem credible to me. It is possible that there could be some people that has the gift to see without their eyes, but I find it very difficult to imagine that it is something that anyone can learn by methods that this person has managed to discover. I think it is more likely that the girl never had any paranormal ability and that this person that wanted her to take part in the test is insane. After all, although there are people with real paranormal abilities, there also exists insane people that thinks they have paranormal abilities or can teach others paranormal abilities.

I reread this post I had written, and realized that it can be interpreted as me expressing myself disrespectfully. @RViewer88 is right that the evidence for dermo-optical perception gives good evidence for "eyeless sight". There are of course also all the laboratory experiments that has been done with clairvoyance and remote viewing, which are also evidence of normal people, not just mediums and psychics, seeing without their eyes. 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.

Just look at history - some of the most supposedly ardent believers of a faith are the most zealous about persecuting heretics.

I don't think this example is equivalent to the situation with Randi. Religious fanatics that persecute heretics do this because they don't want to risk that the heretics spreads their views to other people. If there, like with the randi million dollar challenge, was a test for whether the views of the heretics were correct or not, the religious fanatics would not worry about the possibility that the views of the heretics would turn out to be correct.

If we were to take this reasoning to its logical conclusion, we'd decide that we almost never need to worry about conflicts of interest. The tobacco lobby people sure look like they're convinced that cigarettes don't cause cancer. So why worry about whether or not the studies they sponsor are fairly designed tests of the hypothesis that cigarettes are carcinogenic? Being so persuaded of the safety of cigarettes, surely they wouldn't be motivated to bias their studies to get results favorable to the pro-tobacco position. Clearly this line of reasoning can't be right, because it leads to such an absurd conclusion.

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.

Perhaps he often felt justified in his lies and distortions because of his deeper certainty that any paranormal claimant "must be wrong somehow," whether Randi could figure out how or not, so better to keep the masses from being duped by "harmful primitive superstition" through a lie than admit a mystery and lose people to "irrational magical thinking." This would be the skeptic's version of a "pious lie." On the other hand Randi may simply have been an immoral person who really didn't care about what was true, about being honest, or whatever.

These arguments, however, I do think are very good. I can definitely imagine that Randi could be thinking in these ways, and that if someone would be close to winning the prize, he would just think that the applicant that is trying to win the prize must somehow be cheating, even though Randi does not understand how. In that situation I can easily imagine Randi trying to use the loopholes in the rules of the challenge to make sure that the applicant doesn't win the prize. And like you say, the only way that we can determine whether Randi really is thinking in these ways is by looking at his behaviour, since we cannot in any other way know what he really is thinking. And indeed, his behaviour shows that he probably is thinking in these ways.

I hope this is not too far off-topic but I remember a long-running thread on Skeptiko about the early testing of Uri Geller. I think @ersby looked into it in detail and reported back to that thread. Sorry if my recall is faulty but I came away with the impression (not from @ersby who remained sceptical, I think) that Geller might have had some genuine abilities.

Make no mistake, I think that Geller was first and foremost a showman and a trickster but I do wonder if he evolved his stage show on top of his natural abilities which were never reliable enough to reproduce at will and consistently. This might be the case with a lot of Clairvoyants and Mediums who need to make a living.

One last point: I somewhat take exception to the conflating of spirituality with religion because I consider myself spiritual - in that I accept the evidence for a spiritual reality - but I am adamantly non-religious and a critic of religious orthodoxy.

I don't think this example is equivalent to the situation with Randi. Religious fanatics that persecute heretics do this because they don't want to risk that the heretics spreads their views to other people. If there, like with the randi million dollar challenge, was a test for whether the views of the heretics were correct or not, the religious fanatics would not worry about the possibility that the views of the heretics would turn out to be correct.

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...

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 agree that Randi, like many others who deceive people for a living (including most stage magicians), absolutely believed that anyone claiming paranormal abilities must be a charlatan - it takes one to know one, doesn't it? But his use of deception stretched into his efforts to prove his point (JREF) and I am sure he got carried away with his popularity among the skeptical community and, I'm pretty sure, milked them for contributions for his own personal benefit just like certain well-known politicians do. So who are really the gullible ones?

I have seen so much stuff like this before that was easily debunked once the trickery was revealed. 

That may be a useful rule of thumb to teach to children to avoid them being sucked into some sort of cult, however mankind would not have developed science if they had followed your rule of thumb!

I see the internet as a source of much nonsense, but in among the nonsense are genuine phenomena - phenomena that get filtered out by the prevailing materialistic mindset of the modern world.

One of the scenes from that video, was of remote viewing training. RV makes no sense from a materialistic perspective, but there was a US military program that ran for years, produced some very interesting results, and was ultimately closed down or sucked into a more classified part of the system.

I used to have a couple of links to this phenomenon (full vision, not just colour perception), which I can't find right now, but I once woke up in my darkened bedroom, and could see clearly with my eyes still closed. It only lasted a few seconds and I suppose it could have been a hypnopompic illusion of some sort - but I remain very intrigued.

David

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 agree that Randi, like many others who deceive people for a living (including most stage magicians), absolutely believed that anyone claiming paranormal abilities must be a charlatan - it takes one to know one, doesn't it? But his use of deception stretched into his efforts to prove his point (JREF) and I am sure he got carried away with his popularity among the skeptical community and, I'm pretty sure, milked them for contributions for his own personal benefit just like certain well-known politicians do. So who are really the gullible ones?

Yeah I am not against the idea of a challenge, especially if someone like Bigelow with his essay judges did it. And in certain contexts I do think it is valid to ask the question, "If your powers are genuine and so reliable as to charge large sums of cash, why haven't you won the Bigelow Prize?".

To me skepticism is a tool to prevent an individual from being taken in by frauds. But it should also apply to materialist dogma and fundamentalist atheism. Psi can be real while the X-men remain fiction, Survival can be real even if there are fraudulent mediums.