What Do You Think About Famous Debunkers / Skeptics Houdini and James Randi?

Question

What Do You Think About Famous Debunkers / Skeptics Houdini and James Randi?

Answer 1

What to think? They both were/are paragons of reason. Houdini's approach was particularly interesting in that he went into his investigations with an eye to actually contacting his departed mother. He had an extremely open mind, but he found that everything he witnessed that was supposedly communication with the dead, he could easily reproduce physically (i.e., through trickery). He served on the Scientific American Committee which (in the 1920's) offered a $5,000.00 reward to anyone proving the ability to communicate to the dead. The preferred method at that time was the "seance". As a side note, it is also interesting that the seance has given way to the "100 questions" method of talking to the dead that the John Edwards, James van Pragh (spelling?), etc. prefer today. I think this is because the use of physical mechanisms such as table rapping, ectoplasmic discharges, and flying objects are too easily exposed!



James Randi, of course, offers a VERY large prize for the same reasons (and more) that the Sci-Am Committee offered and no one has collected on that, either.The rules, contrary to popular myth I've seen many times here, are fair and necessary to avoid trickery. You'd think, that if someone could move objects with their mind, dowse, read minds, remote view, etc., then the prize money would be snapped up fast. Either these things can be done, or they can't. Seems to me they can't!



Keep up the good work, Randi.

Answer 2

I think they both are Great thinkers. I would also like to ask Military supporter why any of the other challenges are never won.

As a veteran, I hope military supporter would do me the honor of answering the question.

Answer 3

I don't really care for her, and i tend to agree that she's not genuine, but it is sometimes harder than it seems to prove that sort of thing. It's very easy to explain away most of the supernatural. I'd prefer, however, that the psychic comunity be held to some kind of standard. If someone hasn't been proven a fake (nor proven to be legit), then great. they can keep at it. But if someone HAS been proven a fake (I'm looking at you, John Edwards) then the whole community ought to throw them out on their ear.

Answer 4

I think they were both ahead of their time. Even now with the current mediums and psychics that have had their gifts for years are ahead of the times. Think about this........if 2012 is suppose to be the end of the world (I don't believe that) couldn't it be that it would be the end to what we know as our world to be?



That the other visions of what the psychics.and mediums have been speaking about and seeing will come into focus for others who are the skeptics. The believers will see what they want, the skeptics may have their eyes opened and the ones that think this is just nonsense will be left to decide.

Answer 5

Randi and Houdini are/were more skeptics than debunkers. But keep in mind that you can't debunk something that isn't bunk to begin with.

Answer 6

James Randi is the biggest liar in the world.Anyone who falls for his spiel is an idiot and probably mentally deficient.There is no intention of ever paying the $1 million. He is the judge of the evidence and has no qualifications to judge an ESP experiment. The Rhine Institute is the best qualified group to decide. They will never be chosen because of people who don't want the truth known.

Answer 7

Algol is right on both accounts, Houdini was an only child and was devastated at the loss of his mother, especially as he was away on one of his world tours at the time.



It was his good friend Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle (Sherlock Holmes author) a keen spiritualist that suggested that he contacted a medium.



Just like Randi, being a magician he could see instantly that these mediums were using simple conjuring tricks to extort money from often bereaved and gullible people, he didn't give up though he went to another and another but never found a genuine one, he then spent the rest of his life debunking fake mediums all over the world during his magic tours.



Interestingly he told his wife long before his untimely death, that when he did eventually die she would be inundated by messages from these debunked mediums saying that they had talked to him in the spirit world and that he was very sorry for what he had done to them while alive, and that they were right after all.



Houdini however, open minded to the last, gave her a code word, and said that if any medium came to her with a message from him they would use this code word first.



As you might expect, when he did die, all these debunked nediums crawled out of the woodwork with the messages that Houdini had predicted, NOT ONE knew about the code word.



I've met James Randi and he is amazing, he performed the Uri Geller spoon bending trick in front of my nose and I couldn't see how he did it, thankfully he is carrying on where Houdini left off, he's been looking worldwide for a genuine one for the past 60 years.



The application form for his challenge is unambiguous and quite clearly followed for those who thinks his challenge is not genuine.



Any 'genuine' mediums out there who don't like our answers, here's the details for you.



http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-application.html



EDIT: Randi is not the judge MS, have the decency to read rule 6 in my link before going in for puerile personal attacks.





EDIT2:There are plenty of other similar organisations around the world that offer similar (if not as generous) prizes, with similar conditions, are they all liars also?



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