14 Dec 10
Originally posted by ChessPraxisI'll violate my pledge to not respond anymore in this case 🙂
Yes, astrology one of the pseudo sciences, I am not saying astrology is "real."
Let me use an example. This in a nutshell is just what is going down.
I am the great Axis, I have set up the Axis foundation and I will award anyone $1,000,000,000.00 US who can disprove anything I believe in.
I set up the tests and experiments, you can take them or lea ...[text shortened]... show the trickery? The answer is, he can't possibly know all the tricks, just most of them.
Let's say that Randi did as you said... allowed the claimant to define the test. Then the claimant is the one who defines success and the criteria for it. So Uri Geller could just say that the test succeeds if he can bend a spoon that he himself provides without any inspection. That's an easy bar - Geller has no incentive to provide a real skeptical test. Randi at the very least has to have the ability to set a standard for proof.
The claimant does have to have input to the test and the process and according to Randi's test at least - they do. It's not just take it or leave it and after all, Randi doesn't go and solicit specific people - they go to him to take the challenge.
The thing is, there have been a number of people who have accepted the tests and still failed to prove their ability. If I was claiming to have supernatural powers then I wouldn't agree to a test that I wasn't sure was a legitimate test and that I could pass it.
Randi, like all of us, is not perfect and there may be times that he puts the bar higher than many would like - especially the astrologers of the world.
I like him primarily because he does a pretty good job in promoting skeptical thinking and from the tests that I have seen him do seem to me to be pretty fair. Of course I haven't seen them all so there could be some that he's not quite as fair. I just haven't seen much actual evidence of him tricking people.