James Randi's $1 Million Dollar Challenge

I'm sure all the people here have heard of James Randi, a skeptic towards all the Psyhic stuff. Anyway, he has a challenge that, if somebody can prove to him that say, auras or telekinesis or whatever is real, he will give them $1 million dollars. The terms of what counts as a "win" or "lose" are agreed between both parties.

Quote:

---

The $1 million challenge

In the conditions and rules governing his US$1 million challenge, Randi has plainly stated that both parties (himself and the party accepting the challenge) must agree in advance as to what conditions of the test constitute a \"success\" and what constitutes a \"failure.\" This stipulation is seen by skeptics as the reason why many self-proclaimed practitioners of paranormal abilities refuse to take part in the Randi Challenge. Nevertheless, Randi's detractors claim that the offer is insincere, and that Randi will ensure he never has to pay out. He was quoted in the October 1981 issue of Fate magazine as allegedly saying \"I always have an out;\" however, this magazine article was written as a result of political infighting among the members of CSICOP. Observers of the ongoing debate between skeptics and their detractors believe this quote is being misapplied, and that it refers to the fact that Randi employs safeguards against cheating. The money is known to exist and is held in a Goldman, Sachs & Company account, and withholding payment would legally constitute fraud on Randi's behalf.

Parapsychologists generally try to downplay the Randi challenge because of these attacks on Randi's character, and also because of his harsh, uncompromising style of writing and presentation, which has won him enemies among those who claim to be paranormal experts. Randi's supporters note that there are other skeptical organizations that have their own similar standing offers to prove the existence of paranormal abilities, and anyone claiming to be an expert in their field of the paranormal can easily apply for any of these other prizes, avoiding Randi altogether.[/b]

---

Nobody's done it yet, and I figured alot of you here can do this stuff, so why haven't you tried?

...Or, at least, I'm sure this could become an intresting topic of discussion. (Wikipedia's article on James Randi)

Wow, I'm falling in love with this guy. As I've always believed: If so many people can do so many paranormal things, why isn't there any proof? Some people here claim they can create fire, shoot sparks from there hand, move things with their mind, etc. But when it comes down to testing it properly in a lab, they always fail.

that' swhat I'm wondering too. If I get one of those powers, the first thign I"d do is tell it to the newsreporters

^Good luck. :D

Meanwhile, stuff like this is why I'm skeptical about psi powers, not because I'm "closed-mided" or "unaccepting" or jealous that I can't do them (I can blow out a match if I want to put it out, thank you very much. ;)). All I'm saying is that if people really do have mind powers that can affect the physical world, then there's absolutely no reason why there isn't any solid proof out there. I'm not talking home videos that can be faked/tempered with. More like a frontpage news article proclaiming that some scientists witnessed, recorded, and documented an act of something-kinesis, and were then able to explain how and why it's possible. Another thing, if the powers are real, why don't one of you just step up to the $1m challenge and beat it? You know you want the $$$$$$$!

:oops: Uhhh.... Who in the hell is James Randi? Well anyway this just give me another reason to prove to most of the world that psi powers are real.

James Randi is the founder of the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation); he is an atheist, and enjoys to show up quackery and physic powers as just being an entire made up thing. After reading his site personally, I can say I'm defintely going to be buying his books. Somebody with the same stance as me on this topic is a refreshing thing to have.

As for the Million Dollar Challenge, you can apply for it at any place, any age, any time. Just drop him an e-mail and let the communications begin. What have you got to lose? You people talk so often about making things appear in here out your palms, or vampiric whatsists.

Here is the application form.

The JREF itself does not do the testing, an 3rd party will do this so that there's none of the "JREF RIGGED!!!111one" arguments, other than "help design the protcol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place".

So, I'm sure you should all be able to do this easily. You do talk about it so much.

Well finally someone has put down the challenge, thrown the first punch to say.

I want to see someone bend a spoon in front of a live audience, then my scepticism will be a little lighter.

Good post Kaniaz.

And, more importantly, for it to be proven in an much more controlled, reliable envirroment (such as the one outlined on James Randi's site). Television shows these days are packed full of lies, such as the "Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna". Apparently he can hypnotise people just by touching his shoulder and saying "sleep, sleep sleep sleep". The people suddenly do things that they would "never do in real life". You have to watch the show to fully understand comprehend how fake it is; just by looking at the "random people from the auidence" and their faces should give the game away.

And yeah; I suppose this is the "first punch" in the "Physic Stuff is Real" debate. I can't see why anybody would pass up this oppoturnity to use their physic powers to their advantage. Nevertheless, I have a pretty damn good repitore of counterarguments for exscuses such as "It happens to go away when somebody watches, I don't need the money, Spiritual stuff cannot be proven", so on and so forth.

I've gathered that alot of you here, such as wer, can "do" physic powers pretty easily. You can make the match go out, right wer? Well, a suitable test they could give you is a room with absolutely NO breeze, and the match placed just far enough away from you so you couldn't possibly blow it out without being seen. Then you perform your "blahkinesis" and make the match go out.

Then you do it several more times, say about 1,000, to get a decent result that couldn't of been skewed by chance. If 85% of the time you managed to put the match out, then the money would be coming your way. The money does exsist, and it would be fraud on Randi's part to not give you the money if you "won", and if so you could easily sue him for $1 million. Face it, that's a pretty good damn way to get 1 million bucks. If you didn't want the money, we just take it away and you could go do the tests anyway to prove to us it works anyway.

I've just invited you all to prove me wrong, show me that physic powers are real, and win $1 million while you're doing it. What have you got to lose?

P.S: I suppose that, if none of you attempt this competition, that they are indeed not real.

Put the match in a glass resting on something with holes, then try to make it go out. I think I'm going to show my mom this site, she's been really into this holistic medicine crap. The propogandist at the store she visits tells her that doctors don't really do anything to stop the cause, but just temporarily treat the problem... Now here's the worst part- she sells my mom a wooden egg attatched to a string, and is told that when she holds the string and places it over her hand, if it rotates, that means she's healthy. If it doesn't rotate, she needs to buy more of their crap products to treat her 'illness'. I'm thinking about going over there and decking that bitch for exploiting gullible people like my mom. To try and prove it to my mom that it was her moving the string, I attatched it to a stick, hung it on a non-moving object, and told her to put her hand under it, of course it didn't start rotating. Then she pulls some of that classic back-door crap where she says she needs to hold it herself for it to work. Also note: the string was threaded in such a suspicious way- it forms a spiral when let go, but of course my mom relies on somebody's biased word, rather than a legitimate experiment. Magical healers, psychics, holistic medicine, etc. deserve to have a foot up their ass. Psychic Cleo and John Edwards especially deserve to have an SUV rammed up their ass. Taking advantage of the gullibe for 29.99 a reading is not morally right. If they actually had these powers, they wouldn't be the douche bags they are. I hope you people realise that some people get killed because they don't go and see doctors to treat their illness, and instead rely on cow testicle juice to treat their brain tumour. I need some suggestions on how to prove to my mom she's fallen into the dumbass trap, because lately she's been stirring up some nasty ass shakes with some horrible smelling green powder that's supposed to make her stop aging.

Yeah, that's quackery, where people set up shop acting as a "alternative health" store or whatever. It's been around since medieval times, quackery, and it's basically just one giant con. Wikipedia's Article

And before anybody start shouting at Death-Wuad for saying his opinon in an, er, original form, I can fully understand why he did, as I would be using bad language about these sorts of people too - espcially if they had conned out one of my close relations. :)

Oh, and on a side note, James Randi is happy to let all "alternative health" medicines go under $1 million dollar challenge too. Maybe you should mention this to this magical perpetrator of cures.

This is the machine that supposedly measures the vibrations of her cells http://www.randi.org/jr/061104the.html#3 HAHAHA... This guy took his explanations out of the "Physics of Star Trek" book most likely. On his web page: http://www.theqxci.com/ it is mentioned that such things as:

Quote:

---

1. Subspace Link. *
2. Body digital to computer digital link. *
3. Cybernetic link of diagnosis to treatment auto focus bio-resonance. *
4. Fractal analysis of Xrroid data. *
5. Fourier analysis algorithms for bio-resonance data analysis. *
6. Tri-vector system - to mention just a few [/b]

---

are not available to the public. How quant; Who knew that anybody but Captain Kirk used subspace as a means for transferring information?

Take this quote for example

Quote:

---

Professor Nelson works on the Apollo project where he learns the value of: *

Electronics and tri-vector shape theories of topology. [/b]

---

I like how he uses big words to make himself sound legitimate. I'm willing to bet that most people don't know what "tri-vector shape" actually means. What a douche bag. I'm gonna go to that store with my mom and trick that biatch into admitting she's a lying whore, like this: I will go in and express my amazement that something like this is possible, I throw in hint that I drink a ton of caffeine, then express a curiosity of what my 'caffiene levels' are. Assumably she'll say I have high caffiene levels, but that's pretty much a gimme, considering everybody drinks too much caffeine... except for me, because I stay away from anything that has caffiene (soda, coffee, chocolate, etc.)

Now I'm pissed- my mom pays $100 for every reading by this machine. Why so much? Douche bag scam artists, it's that simple.

Don't be put off by Death-Wuad. I'm still waiting for some real replies from you guys about this challenge.

First let me say that I'm not claiming anything in this post. I do believe in the possibility of psychic or magical or whatever powers. To completely deny a something is possible just because one hasn't witnessed it is as unscientific as blindly believing it.

But strictly hypothetically, if I did have some sort of supernatural power I don't think I'd reveal it, even for a million dollars.

I have grown up in a psychic family. For one thing I'm pretty discontent about the whole psychic world in the first place. It is filled with a bunch of fakes people that are really just trying to survive.
But honestly I have experienced true psychics, telekenesis maybe, auras, well there is Kirellian photography.
Mainly what it comes down to is someone that has a nice big filter to this kind of stuff on themselves is not going to see it. Even if someone levitated this Randi dude and he begun seeing a field of light around him in the mirror. He'd probably just start taking a nice powerful anti-psychotic pill every night and swear it was all a dream.

hahahaha

Well until someone does levitate him, i will be the one to be on the critics team thankyou. Prove it and stop winging.

bump.

C'mon, physics! I mean, a chance to prove all the skeptics that they are all wrong and physic powers are real, increase world awareness tenfold and get $1 million dollars in the process, and probably get another $1 million more from press and crap.

Quote:

---

But strictly hypothetically, if I did have some sort of supernatural power I don't think I'd reveal it, even for a million dollars.[/b]

---

Why?

(Double post, but I can't quote somebody and edit the first post. Or something confusing like that, anyway).

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Glowchub


* * * *I have grown up in a psychic family. For one thing I'm pretty discontent about the whole psychic world in the first place. It is filled with a bunch of fakes people that are really just trying to survive.

---

At the expense of others. There's alot of experiences where people have gone to one of these people and ended up making whatever ailment they have worse.

Quote:

---

* * * * * * * * * * *But honestly I have experienced true psychics, telekenesis maybe, auras, well there is Kirellian photography. *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * Mainly what it comes down to is someone that has a nice big filter to this kind of stuff on themselves is not going to see it. Even if someone levitated this Randi dude and he begun seeing a field of light around him in the mirror. He'd probably just start taking a nice powerful anti-psychotic pill every night and swear it was all a dream.[/b]

---

If you read the forms and application properly, you'd understand that he dosen't do the tests. A 3rd party does. There is a contract, so if you did something that the 3rd party said "Yeah, dude, that's solid proof of physic powers, you outlined it in the contract", and then James Randi denied it, you could sue him for fraud. He couldn't use any sort of loophole because otherwise his reputation in the skeptic community would become crap, and his career probably ruined.

And James Randi isn't stupid enough to waltz into a contract then deny it all like that. The money is in a bank and can be confirmed. So, basically, I squashed your excuse.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaniaz
Why?

---

Well it would depend on even more hypothetical circumstances I suppose. If I could for example, only spin a small wheel with telekinesis or freeze water under controlled conditions with my mind I may take the million dollars. But if I could perhaps throw a flaming ball of death that could reduce a man to a smoking pile of ash, taking James Randi's challenge would get me a bit too much unwanted attention. Hypothetically.

To expand on my last post:

I consider myself a skeptic but I'm not biased towards complete non-belief either. To me that's the same as believing in something blindly. But I'm repeating myself here... My problem with James Randi isn't his skepticism, it's the idea of the Million Dollar Challenge. Let's play pretend again... say I'm a multi-billionaire athiest. I take several billion dollars and send out press releases and notifications to all religious organizations, saying that if they can prove conclusively that there is some sort of deity or deities they will recieve all that money. When no one is able to do it, I safely conclude there is no God(dess)(e(s)) and laugh maniacally as I roll around in a pile of gold coins.

This isn't sound scientific method, or a sound philosophical method. Some may be saying, "Well psi abilities are different than God, they can be measured with fancy instruments and junk." Can they? How do you know? When did you measure one? Science isn't a bunch of big words in books that are written in stone, its a way of thinking. A search for answers, not waiting for answers to come to you.

Quote:

---

Well it would depend on even more hypothetical circumstances I suppose. If I could for example, only spin a small wheel with telekinesis or freeze water under controlled conditions with my mind I may take the million dollars. But if I could perhaps throw a flaming ball of death that could reduce a man to a smoking pile of ash, taking James Randi's challenge would get me a bit too much unwanted attention. Hypothetically.

---

That is a nice point - but what kind of attention: while spinning a small wheel, the press might just run a small thing in the corner saying \"PHYSIC POWERS PROVEN\", but if you could do something like reducing men to smoking piles of ash, you'd probably get so much press attention you'd be rolling in money. And no matter what anybody says, money isn't a bad thing to have, right?

Quote:

---

say I'm a multi-billionaire athiest. I take several billion dollars and send out press releases and notifications to all religious organizations, saying that if they can prove conclusively that there is some sort of deity or deities they will recieve all that money. When no one is able to do it, I safely conclude there is no God(dess)(e(s)) and laugh maniacally as I roll around in a pile of gold coins.

---

James Randi, and skeptics, don't rule out anything, ever, completely. Even if we safely know that gravity can pull us back down when we jump, for example, skeptics won't say \"There's a 0% chance of it not working.\" They might say \"There's a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000(lots more zeros)1% chance of it not working.\"

But until it is proven, wouldn't it be more logical to not believe in it?[/quote]

Kaniaz, 'physic' refers to tangible things. PSYCHIC is what the James Randi $ Prize refers to.

Death-Waud, it sounds like you've got a problem with these fake-healers, I dont wanna dispute that, but I thought I'd raise a cool issue.

If you're told (and you believe) that holding an egg on a string above your hand will tell you whether you are healthy or not, your subconscious can twist the string and reveal whether or not you are in fact healthy (or maybe it will reveal some kind of inferiority complex...)

Kaniaz, the point that Uriel raised about James Randi being levitated doesn't have to apply to James Randi. There are a lot of people (including all kinds of 3rd parties) that are biased.

Quote:

---

P.S: I suppose that, if none of you attempt this competition, that [psychic powers] are indeed not real.

---

Let's say no one from this forum attempted Uriel's hypothetical competition about the existence of God(dess)(e(s)). Would you think this reason enough for someone to disbelieve in God(esses... blah)?

At the moment Im gonna go search for a documented case of someone applying for the JR Prize. Should be amusing :P[/quote]

Quote:

---

At the moment Im gonna go search for a documented case of someone applying for the JR Prize. Should be amusing :P

---

[/quote]

Hehe sounds fun. post it here if you find it

(Please note, I'm not necessarily against psychic powers)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by LewisM
Kaniaz, 'physic' refers to tangible things. PSYCHIC is what the James Randi $ Prize refers to.

---

My spelling isn't great. I know what they are though. I R TYPO K. :P

Quote:

---

Death-Waud, it sounds like you've got a problem with these fake-healers, I dont wanna dispute that, but I thought I'd raise a cool issue.

If you're told (and you believe) that holding an egg on a string above your hand will tell you whether you are healthy or not, your subconscious can twist the string and reveal whether or not you are in fact healthy (or maybe it will reveal some kind of inferiority complex...)[/b]

---

You know with the Ouija boards? There's something about subconscious guiding of the little thing you spin to get the letters. I think the same would apply for the sort of \"hold this thing\" \"push this thing\" stuff.

Quote:

---

Kaniaz, the point that Uriel raised about James Randi being levitated doesn't have to apply to James Randi. There are a lot of people (including all kinds of 3rd parties) that are biased. [/b]

---

Once again; if the 3rd party were biased, you could sue them. The contract is wrote out and signed by everybody. I don't know why a 3rd party would be stupid enough to waltz into a contract if they were gonna deny it later.

Quote:

---

Let's say no one from this forum attempted Uriel's hypothetical competition about the existence of God(dess)(e(s)). Would you think this reason enough for someone to disbelieve in God(esses... blah)
[/b]

---

I'm basing it on that I've never seen a single physic [sp?, i'll learn it later] thing happen, all the obvious old frauds, etc. I'm not drawing just on this to reach my conclusion. But it's pretty damn good proof, regardless. I'm not foolish enough to say to some religious bloke:

Me: Is god real? prove it.
Religious Bloke: um. can't.
Me: Oh, well, god isn't real then. Bye.

Quote:

---

At the moment Im gonna go search for a documented case of someone applying for the JR Prize. Should be amusing :P[/b]

---

He gets lots of people, but nobody has ever took the "main" test. (there's a "first test" to see if they're just wasting their time, i think). If you read Randi's commentary section thingy, you can see some of the claims that were made. He probably has a section for all of them though.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by LewisM

Let's say no one from this forum attempted Uriel's hypothetical competition about the existence of God(dess)(e(s)). Would you think this reason enough for someone to disbelieve in God(esses... blah)?

---

This comparison seems to be brought up a lot, however it doesn't quite match the psychic situation. Even the most religious people out there (those who retain their sanity) know that there might not be a god, and it's actually impossible to prove that there is or isn't a god if one never shows itself to us (even then it might be a fake or illusion of some sort). But, in the case with psychic powers, it's a different story completely. If the people who claim to have them do have them, and because they supposedly affect the physical world and can actually be manipulated by humans, then the proof is right there waiting to be brought forth and documented. So why hasn't it been? There's just no reason why psi powers haven't been proven, given that people claim they can make them come and go, appear and disappear at will. Also, nobody ever claimed they could make god appear at will.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Stevehattan+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stevehattan)</div>

Quote:

---

If the people who claim to have them do have them, and because they supposedly affect the physical world and can actually be manipulated by humans, then the proof is right there waiting to be brought forth and documented. So why hasn't it been? There's just no reason why psi powers haven't been proven, given that people claim they can make them come and go, appear and disappear at will.[/b]

---

You're right in that individuals making claims to psychic or psionic powers can be disproven. But how many disproven individuals negates or proves a theory? 10? 10,000? To satisfactorally disprove the existence of any such power you'd have to actively test and retest a very wide demographic, not just kooks trying to bend spoons an make a quick million. I think the idea of the million dollar challenge attracts more would-be con artists than anyone sincere, even if the sincere people fail too.

If you don't like the God example there are plenty of others that fit. The prize could be for proving there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, inventing time travel, curing cancer, inventing cold fusion, et cetera. Just because no one can present these things when I wave huge amounts of bling under their noses doesn't mean those things or theories are wrong and will never ever happen.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaniaz@
but if you could do something like reducing men to smoking piles of ash, you'd probably get so much press attention you'd be rolling in money. And no matter what anybody says, money isn't a bad thing to have, right?

---

Sure isn't, I love money, but some things just aren't worth it. You'd be watched constantly. You'd be living your life like a goldfish in a very small bowl. But at this point this is becoming a completely different discussion about whether you'd trade happiness for fame and what kind of life you want for yourself.

<!--QuoteBegin-Kaniaz
But until it is proven, wouldn't it be more logical to not believe in it?

---

No, I think it would be more logical to not believe either way and take the word of believers and nons with equal grains of salt, because these days everyone has a book to sell.