http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html
1.1 How long has this Challenge been open?
The Challenge was first introduced in 1964 when James Randi offered
1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal powers in a controlled test. The prize has since grown to One Million Dollars.
1.2 How many people have applied for the Challenge?
Between 1964 and 1982, Randi declared that over 650 people had applied. Between 1997 and 2005, there had been a total of 360 official, notarized applications. New applications for the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge continue to be received every month.
1.3 Has anyone ever passed the preliminary test?
No.
1.4 Has anyone taken a formal test?
Yes. However, the vast majority of applicants and claimants for the Million Dollar Challenge have not taken a formal test, because none of them have passed the preliminary phase of the Challenge.
![1,000 of his own money to the first person who could offer proof of the paranormal. During a live radio panel discussion, James Randi was challenged by a parapsychologist to "put [his] money where [his] mouth is", and Randi responded by offering to pay](http://theskepticalzone.fr/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-ec92d1d7fdf8658bb2bb4d7995abaab6_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
1,000 to anyone who could demonstrate paranormal powers in a controlled test. The prize has since grown to One Million Dollars.I would generally think in light of this, paranormal phenomenon are mostly non-existent. I have a lot of skilled gambling friends (some have made millions) and the question of prayer or paranormal phenomenon occasionally comes up when they consider it as a possible angle to make more money. The consensus is that no skilled gambler made money using the paranormal or prayers.
Nevertheless, there are surprisingly modest numbers of Christians who are skilled gamblers who use mathematics to extract advantage in the gambling world. Perhaps the most known names are Doyle Brunson (became a Christian after miraculous healing) and Kevin Blackwood, the others are anonymous for good reasons.
It doesn’t seem that miracles follow any formula, but it seems there are events way out of expectation which some could call miraculous, imho. There was some paranormal phenomenon in my family. I don’t like to talk about it too much because it was creepy. Materialism was in many ways a safer place to be psychologically for me, and hence my interest in science rather than seances, but I think there is a sinister spiritual realm out there for sure which generally eludes the scientific method.
If there is an active spiritual realm out there, it is taking great pains to elude James Randi’s challenge, otherwise James Randi is right, there is no paranormal realm. Analogously, if there is an Intelligent Designer, like paranormal phenomenon, He is avoiding direct means of communicating His existence and has chosen to leave designs and remain mostly out of notice ever since the act of creating the designs. If the Intelligent Designer communicated through the heavens as in the account of Moses, we might not be having the debates we’re having…
I think highly of James Randi’s challenge and for its exposure of many charlatans. I think most religious beliefs are rooted in superstition, coincidence, irrationality and gullibility. I especially saw the casinos profiting from these human weaknesses, and I admit I indirectly profited by other people’s gullibility since I preyed on the casinos who preyed on the gullible.
That said, neither can I run away from personal experience or observation. I briefly met astronaut Charles Duke when he spoke at Campus Crusade for Christ. He walked on the moon, was an Annapolis Naval Academy and MIT Engineering graduate. He was a skilled fighter pilot and then found fame and fortune before becoming a Christian. After his conversion, he testifies of having his prayer for a blind girl answered by when her sight was restored. He probably wouldn’t pass the James Randi challenge either, but neither, given Duke’s career accomplishments, does he have much incentive to be making up fanciful stories, especially in an increasingly anti-Christian climate.
The most successful gamblers I know hate superstition and use of intuition, they love cold hard numbers and rationality. But still, many of the highly successful professional gambler’s I know are split over whether they believe in the paranormal or not. It seems this question is something all their high powered math cannot conclusively answer given the little evidence we have in hand.
Anecdotal “I though I saw a ghost, prove me wrong” is not evidence and therefore does not need to be rebutted. Is there any pseudoscientific woo you won’t swallow?
The whole concept of positive evidence seems to be beyond your limited scientific understanding.
No, he isn’t. That’s what he says he’s doing, but he isn’t. And you don’t, in any case “scientifically rebut” “data”. You rebut a conclusion, or sometimes, an argument, or sometimes, you show that the data is erroneous.
Yes, I’ve looked through his web-book, and it’s just handwaving, William. For instance:
No references, just assertion. Anecdote, iow.
When someone publishes a proper scientific study that appears to show psi effects, the way to test it is to replicate it. That is Randi’s challenge.
But that won’t work for Zammit’s challenge because the challenge is:
It could not be more different. Indeed, the only way to “rebut” such evidence is to ask Zammit to provide replications for each piece of evidence he considers valid. Which is what Randi does.
Adapa,
Ah, so you cannot prove that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ghost didn’t shake Zammit’s hand during a seance, and yet you don’t believe he did? Selective hyperscepticism!
phoodoo,
Have you ever studied logic Phoodoo? Do you know what a universal negative is? Based on your ill informed comments, you haven’t and don’t.
EL said:
Yes, he is.
Oh, for god’s sake. Thanks, Captain Obvious.
The Pye Laboratory tests conducted by Colin Smythe and Peter Bander
Konstantin Raudive’s EVP and Radio ITC Recordings
1994 ITC experiments
Radio Luxembourg experiments
Klaus Schreiber ITC experiments
Kubris and Macy 1995:14; Locher and Harsch-Fischbach 1997 ITC experiments
the Scole experiments
The Afterlife Experiments
A Perceptual Channel for Information over Kilometer Distances – http://www.espresearch.com/espgeneral/IEEE-329B.shtml
These are just a handful of the references available in the book that refer to scientific experiments many of which included published papers, one of which I linked to above.
I don’t know how to charitably characterize EL’s insistence that there are “no references, just assertion, only anecdote” in the book. Obviously, that is an entirely untrue perspective.
Well, I certainly didn’t read the whole book. The pages I read had no references, and what I mean by references, is a proper citation so I can actually find the paper.
So sure, maybe there are some scientific papers in there. I certainly know of a body of psi experiments done in reasonably reputable labs.
My point remains: the challenges are not symmetrical. The way to “rebut” (let’s call it “falsify”) the scientific findings presented is to perform a replication – i.e. to use Randi’s method. Note that Randi will pay up if just ONE experiment can be replicated.
Zammit’s challenge is to ask the entire body of “evidence” to be “rebutted”, but not apparently by replication (which would be clearly impossible) but post hoc, by trying to explain retrospectively, the evidence he presents. Which does indeed include anecdotes.
No, it’s not. Several such papers have been published, describing the success rate of a chance hypothesis as 25%, and the result of experiments ranging from chance to 35%+ success. If the claimed norm is between a 28% to 35% success rate, then a true test would be one that followed the protocols that have been developed over time to provide (1) a suitable environment for the medium/telepath that meet the best profile for success, and (2) eliminate, as much as possible, the chance for a compromised experiment (which is why triple and even quadruple-blind protocols have been developed by Bieschel), and (3) account for the actual vagaries of the phenomena being tested.
IOW, insisting that psi applicants meet a 70-75+% hit rate is a fraudulent requirement for success given what the current state of psi research indicates can be expected. Demanding that it meet Randi’s personal idea of what a psi operator “should” be able to do is nonsense.
OK, William, give me a proper citation to just ONE of the several papers you have in mind. Choose the one you find most persuasive, and I’ll take a look at it.
EL admits:
And yet you felt qualified to authoritatively assert what Zammit does and does not provide in the book? How does that work, EL?
But, I didn’t say he provided “references”, now did I, EL? I said:
He does in the book exactly what I said he did; I didn’t claim he provided “references”; I claimed he refers the reader to the actual research, which is exactly what he does. Looks like I was spot on when I said: “…you must not have read through his book.”
Since I never claimed the challenges were “symmetrical”, your point is irrelevant.
From “No references, just assertion. Anecdote, iow”, and “No, he isn’t. That’s what he says he’s doing, but he isn’t. ” to “I didn’t read the whole book” and (to paraphrase) “there is some anecdotal information in there”.
I expect this kind of thing from others here, EL. I really didn’t expect it from you.
The fact that there is some anecdotal information in the book (such as supportive quotes from many of the foremost scientists of their times, and narratives attested to by scientific luminaries) is entirely irrelevant. The book wasn’t written specifically to be the basis of the challenge; he wrote the book in support of his perspective that psi/paranormal/afterlife was real and referred readers to the scientific evidence where it existed. When he made his challenge, he referred to his book as the referential source for what scientific evidence there was that needed to be rebutted to meet the challenge.
Nobody claimed that everything in the book was scientific evidence or referred to it, only that the book contained summaries and referrals of the body of scientific evidence that exists.
What is obvious to me and, I think, any objective observer, is that you (and others) failed to do a good faith reading of the material before passing judgement in accordance with your a priori ideological commitments on both Zammit’s character and the book’s contents.
Then it should be easy for you to provide those published scientific references here. The way you keep squirming and deflecting is the worst form of intellectual cowardice.
This seems very fair. Your best evidence, William.
Sorry WJM but the one “scientific” paper you actually referenced was debumked way back in the 70’s shortly after it came out.
You’ve never met any woo you didn’t like.
I was trying to illustrate the difference between the challenges, William. I was not asserting what he did and did have in the book. I gave an example of what he does provide on at least one of the web pages. Which is anecdote and unreferenced science. And his challenge is to “rebut” the lot.
ergo, it involves rebutting anecdote. Which is the example I gave.
In that case I misunderstood his challenge. He says
Which sounds like you only get it if you “rebut” the lot, to me.
And in any case, as I’ve explained, the only way to “rebut” a scientific demonstration is to attempt to replicate it. Which is Randi’s challenge.
From the challenge EL quotes above:
EL said:
What part of “rebut the substantive objective evidence” do you not understand? Do you think “substantive objective evidence” is synonymous with “anecdotes”?
What scientific demonstration has Randi’s challenge ever attempted to replicate?
This just gets better and better 🙂
WJM said:
Adapa responds:
That response implies Adapa has read the book by Zammit and has gone over the referred evidence, dismissing it as anecdotal stories and “woo”.
I respond with small, partial list of the actual experiments that have collected data as evidence for PSI, one of which I look up and find a link to the actual peer-reviewed, published scientific article: A Perceptual Channel for Information over Kilometer Distances – http://www.espresearch.com/espgeneral/IEEE-329B.shtml
Adapa responds:
But wait … what did Adapa originally say about the book?
Adapa, have you read the book? Have you investigated all the evidence that Zammit has referred to in that book?
I assumed his anecdotes were include in the substantive objective evidence, as they are included in the book he cites as the source.
Randi asks claimants to replicate their claimed phenomena. One example was the dowsing example I quoted. Whether anyone has presented an actual lab demonstration to Randi, I don’t know, but it would be a good idea. He is a good experimental scientist.
So, William, are you going to give me a citation to one of the papers on psi that you find persuasive?
WJM, you forgot to provide that scientific evidence you claim exists.
This is a discussion forum. provide your evidence and we’ll discuss it. Pointing to supposed “research” second hand you found in a woo book won’t cut it. The one supposed bit of research you did provide a first-hand link to was debunked almost 40 years ago.
“I believe in this woo, you should too” may work for you at UD but it’s a non-started here.
EL said:
I see. So this is you saying that you think “anecdote” falls under the category of “substantive objective evidence”?
That’s not what you said. You said: “And in any case, as I’ve explained, the only way to “rebut” a scientific demonstration is to attempt to replicate it. Which is Randi’s challenge.”
But that’s not Randi attempting to replicate a scientific demonstration, now is it?
Where did I say I found any of the papers persuasive?
After some people made demonstrably false claims about Zammit’s challenge, my claim was that Zammit refers to the existing scientific evidence in his book. You and others, without even reading the book, characterized him negatively (a loonie) and made false assertions about what was and was not inside the book. I called you on it and you doubled down, then I provided some of that scientific evidence in the book and you backtracked, admitting you had not read “the whole book” and that you were not used to “references” being presented the way Zammit does in his book.
I’m totally satisfied with the current state of this argument 🙂 All of my argument goals have been achieved. Your participation has been genuinely appreciated.
William J. Murray,
Fighting retreat. 2/10
Adapa said:
You don’t even know what the argument is about. I was not making an argument that anything in his book proved that such things were real. The totality of my argument here has been about (1) the fraudulent nature of the Randi challenge, (2) that the Zammit challenge deliberately, contractually mirrors the Randi challenge in the way I stated for the purposes of bringing the nature of the Randi challenge to light; (3) That the Zammit challenge requires someone to rebut the current scientific evidence (“substantive objective evidence”) referred to in the book; (4) that the book factually refers to such evidence and not just “anecdote” and “stories”.
Whether or not it is good scientific evidence, convincing scientific evidence, or scientific evidence that has already been criticized by other published papers, and whether or not I personally find it compelling … all of that is entirely irrelevant to the consistent train of argument I’ve been making in this thread.
But, beyond all that, there were other points I was hoping to make about the nature of debate to be found here. Those points were, IMO, clearly demonstrated.
William, if someone presents discredited and anecdotal evidence alongside possibly more “scientific studies” and issues a completely meaningless challenge (he can’t even specify what the challenger needs to rebut) then, it is perfectly fair to decide, without reading exhaustively through his hideous website (why do loonies all have hideous websites? Does good graphic design require non-crankery?) to see if there are any half-way decent studies in there.
I have read a good number of published studies on purported psi effects, and they have all been either methodologically flawed, or reported such small effect sizes that replication would be essential to confirm the finding.
If Zammit thinks that any of his evidence will bear replication, he can respond to Randi’s challenge, and replicate it under controlled conditions. Simply challenging “skeptics” to “rebut” his “substantive” evidence in its entirety is meaningless and, frankly, scientifically illiterate.
But Lizzie, William uses ‘post-materialistic science’
No, really!
oh, right.
Well, I don’t see any reason why psi effects can’t be investigated by normal scientific methodology.
Elizabeth,
The same reason unicorns can’t. Sure, you can check each horse for a horn….
LOL! Again we see the bog-standard WJM backpedal:
“I didn’t say that and if I did say it I didn’t mean it, and if I did mean it then you misunderstand the position I’m weaseling out of now:”
You’re nothing if not consistent WJM.
Elizabeth,
I have been asking evolutionists here for a year to provide me one paper that provides the best evidence for undirected evolution and they go mum when asked (or they obfuscate on what undirected means..).
The standard answer is, go to a university and study it.
No Randi SAYS he will pay up if just one of the experiments can be replicated.
Why do loonies believe everything Randi says?
The present argument by the loony skeptics seems to be, “Yes, you are right we can’t refute any of the scientific studies which provide evidence for psi activity-given the requirement of that challenge.”
I think that is what people have been saying about Randi.
So I will give a million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate that Darwinian evolution or undirected* evolution is true. Maybe I will even start my own fake website like Randi to promote it.
*Arguing that you don’t know what undirected means won’t get you one million dollars.
That’s because there is no one *best* piece of evidence for evolution. The strength of evolutionary theory – the reason it’s the scientific consensus of 99.9% of all professional life scientists – is the consilience of millions of pieces of evidence. Independent cross-correlating and collaborating evidence from dozens of different scientific disciplines. Asking for the best piece is an stupid as asking for the best piece of a million piece jigsaw puzzle.
That statement only highlights your pitiful scientific misunderstanding. What people have actually been saying is “there has been no scientific evidence for psi or any other paranormal woo presented. Therefore there is no need to present any rebuttal”.
Now you know.
phoodoo,
Dunno about the best, but this one’s been around for 63 years:
Lederberg experiment
I expect you’ll say “lol that’s not evolution because they didn’t turn into monkeys”, but it is what you asked for.
I will give you one million dollars if you can prove this.
Its is another lie.
I have to admit though, that is a convincingly large cheque Zammit is holding up in the video. It’s going to look stupid with ‘Applicant’ scribbled out though. And (I know it’s irrelevant) I can’t take my eyes off his syrup.
Allan Miller,
Where is the evolution? They have just shown that the penicillin resistant bacteria ALREADY existed. Nothing new has been formed.
If I present a study which shows that people developed disease resistance after taking a designed vaccine , which is made by people and which is administered by people for the expressed purpose of gaining disease resistance have I just demonstrated that Intelligent Design evolution is a fact?
But, if that’s the best you got….still no million dollars. Gee this Randi stuff is even easier than I thought. I don’t even need to ignore the people.
Your statement only highlights your pitiful scientific misunderstanding. What people have actually been saying is “there has been no scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution.” But I would give you one million dollars if you could prove there was.
Now you know, dope.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent
You lose. You can send the check to the NCSE but we both know you’ll welsh on the bet.
Common Descent?? You mean you want to prove the existence of intelligent design? You better call Randi.
Now about that evidence for Darwinian evolution dope?
Told you you’d welsh on the bet you lost. You clueless IDiots always do.
I think Adapas post does a great job of highlighting just how little the skeptic loonies have thought about how meaningless the Randi challenge is. They believe, well, all you have to do is just throw out any old website link to any evidence of psi and bingo, Randi hands over the money.
Look how easy it would be to prove Randi wrong, they say!
Adapa has provided the best insight into the mind of the typical science skeptic.
You’re welcome to provide your scientific evidence for psi or ghosts or the Intelligent Designer or any of the other paranormal woo you believe in. WJM sure couldn’t.
But you won’t.
Adapa,
He already did, much better than you evidence for Intelligent design.
But alas, you are just another in a long line of looney scientific skeptics. I enjoy when you post, because then others get to see how weak your movement is.
Richardthughes: Sure, you can check each horse for a horn…
Maybe you should check each hom for a horse.
LOL! Why is it not surprising a scientifically illiterate IDiot supporter thinks a link to a woo woo website is “scientific evidence” for his paranormal beliefs?
phoodoo,
They showed that mutations weren’t produced in response to a need – to be resistant to penicillin. Do you think that mutations aren’t evolution? Or if they happened prior to the experiment’s commencement they didn’t really happen, or something?
Then there is the Lenski long-term evolution experiment, which shows much the same thing, but with frozen histories. Of course, they don’t have the generation in which a given mutation occurred, with it actually occurring while they peered down a microscope. And yes, ‘they are still bacteria’.
So whaddya want? A whale evolving in a bathtub? Gibbons crawling out of Lenski’s 12 flasks?
Allan Miller,
Which of these studies would pass the requirements of a Randi like need for proof of Darwinian evolution and a one million dollar prize.
Isn’t it telling that you have this theory theory that Adapa calls the most true scientific theory ever, accepted by 99.9 percent of the life sciences community (a lie of course), and yet it is a giant struggle (I don’t know about the best, you said) to find ONE convincing paper that would fulfill Randis requirement. And yet you all are going on and on about how easy it should be to force Randi to pay.
Heck, Lizzie can’t even offer ONE paper on evolution which could do this.
phoodoo,
Randi is doing the equivalent of asking someone to replicate the Lederberg experiment, not ‘prove evolution’, or the Zammit version.
There is a clear difference between someone supporting their personal claim that they have at other times read minds, pushed pencils mentally or whatever, and proving evolution to your satisfaction (using single studies, yet!). That is, indeed, an impossible task. All you need say is “still don’t believe it”, and your million stays intact.
Even if we sat for a million years and saw new species emerge by the bucketload, you would not be convinced that (for example) man is an ape by descent. You would simply say “yeah, so evolution works sometimes“. On the other hand, if someone can reproduce a psi phenomenon directly, under mutually agreed conditions, that would make Randi a million dollars poorer, as far as I can see. They might have to do it a couple of times, just to make sure, but if you can do it, what’s the problem? I can push pencils with my fingers. If someone were to offer me a financial incentive to demonstrate that, I’d be happy to do so, and would not be whingeing about the conditions unless they directly restrained me from using ‘finger power’.
Allan Miller,
Allan,
Are you suggesting that the lederberg experiment meets the requirement of proving Darwinian evolution is true? I think you are quite right that anyone can simply respond to this by saying, no all you have proven is that some bacteria have a different physical chemistry to other bacteria, one of which is less likely to die from exposure to penicillin.
Which would of course NOT prove the theory of evolution, so once again,the criteria that you think should be easy to fulfill for Randi, can not be met by evolutionists.
One explanation for reported psi effects in published lab experiments is, of course, publication bias.
I suggest that anyone interested in investigating psi effects does what drug companies are supposed to do, and register their study, in advance, in a public registry.
That way, we don’t get results filtered by the p<.05 filter. Or someone could do a systematic review and meta-analyses and see what the funnel-plots look like.