http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Klass

the “talk” section was rather pointed.

http://www.discord.org/~lippard/kammann.html

Guess I’ll never know.

http://www.matarese.com/matarese-files/3782/crybaby-philip-klass/index.html

When you say one source of evidence, do you mean Rawlins? I’m open to reading what anyone has said in defense of CSICOP regarding his arguments…

My opinion is: of around 6 billion people living on earth now, not one have produced any evidence of being able to control anything other than her/his body with the mind, unaided by technology.

Again, you only use one source of evidence. Have you looked through the commentary archive on the JREF site?
http://www.randi.org/
I recommend it, he is truly going after people who is trying to con other people.

I’m interested to find out why you said that about PEAR. Have I missed something? I’m truly interested, as it seemed that they had some fairly valid statistics. (Note: I’m studying pure math, not statistics, so it’s entirely possible my impression is incorrect).

The only reason I give Dr. Rawlins credence is his voluminous documentation, and the somewhat dispassionate way he relates the incidents. The sum of the incidents is clearly not an isolated instance of accidental happenings; it’s a clear pattern of incompetent (at best) or egregious (at worst) behavior. It’s clear to me that he’s qualified to speak about the subject at hand, and unless Kurtz et al. have a really convincing explanation as to why all his requests and warnings were ignored, their behavior indicates the antithesis of a scientific attitude. Have they ever addressed these claims? If so, I’ll peruse the reply immediately. I rather suspect not, since it would be very difficult for them to explain away his written documentation. But if so, please inform – I’ve been wrong before.

Anyone with a sound mind would distance themselves from PEAR.

Yes, it sure does. Randi, although coming off as either a flake or (possibly) just noncomittal – doesn’t hold a candle to the orthodoxy of Kurtz and Abell. And, as I found out awhile ago, Rawlins is hardly the first real scientist to leave that organization in disgust.

My gut feeling is that if a lot of the “honorary” members were aware of the total lack of objectivity, they’d quickly divorce themselves from that parody. I find it disappointing that an organization which so boldly claims to be objective, scientific, and worthy of our trust should behave in such an egregious manner. After having read Rawlins account, it no longer suprises me that they willfully ignore things like the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab.

I really didn’t have an opinion one way or the other about James The Amazing Randi until I read the account; now it seems that he’s simply one of a bunch of ersatz skeptics with an agenda – self promotion.

And about it being just one side of the argument – I’m really eager to see how Kurtz, et al. can distance themselves from this one, given the documentation that Rawlins has provided.

You have to remember that article is one side of the argument. While it certainly paints a bad picture of CSICOP and several key players (Randi included), it is just one person’s account.

I look at the bulk of work to which I know and evaluate it all as a whole. And from what I read in that article, it speaks far more about Kurtz and Abell than it does Randi.

Phil,

Before you go overboard for this guy (Randi), you might want to take a look at what a fellow astronomer and skeptic thought of Randi’s CSICOP organization and some of their tactics -

http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html

I downloaded like crazy.

Send me $1000 and I’ll do your horoscope, if you enclose a spoon I’ll be very happy to bend with my mind and send it back to you (enclose another $500 for the spoon bending).

This isn’t about whether Uri Geller has the ability to pull off magic tricks via supernatural power or anything. This is about the dangers of “magical thinking.”

Even what Uri Geller was saying himself can be very dangerous when logically applied to various ends. In the posted video clip, he was saying that we just need to “want” something done and it will be done. We can just “want” the broken radio to be fixed and it will be fixed, etc., etc.

The problem with this isn’t so much that people will be sitting around with broken radios, but that people will take this to the next logical step and apply this sort of thinking to cancers and diseases, even to the point of foregoing medical assistance that may help or at least alleviate the pain.

Also, you run into problems with claiming that all you need to do is “want” something hard enough. Okay, so maybe I can’t muster up enough “want” to make my radio work again, but I will definitely “want” my cancer to go into remission. And what about all the people who are starving in the world? Do you think that they do not “want” food and survival with all of their being? How is it that their unyielding “want” is not satisfied?

And what of those caught in war zones? They “want” a life of peace, where they can go about their business and not be terrorized constantly. Even if you pit the “want” of the terrorized people against the “want” of the people doing the killing, it’s definitely arguable that the “want” of the people being terrorized is far greater than the “want” of the people causing the terror.

This is the danger of magical thinking and why it is not harmless for Uri Geller and those like him to go around performing magic tricks and preaching his philosophy of “all you need is to want.”

The “Christian” following Geller in the clip was truly following in Geller’s philosophical footsteps, taking magical thinking to the next level.

I apologize, though, picking on you for misspelling Randi’s name was a cheap shot, especially when you provide so much other fodder.

#1 – bending keys: I would guess that the cross on the chain was made of gold, a very soft metal that does not take very much force at all to bend, depending on how thin the specimen was. However, beyond that, without a verifiable reference, your claim is hearsay.

#2 – the spoon bending: if any kid could run up to Geller on the street and he could bend the spoon, why couldn’t he do it on the Tonight Show?

#3 – mind reading: can you provide references to this story? If not, then we have to take you on your word, and I’m afraid that I’m not prepared to do that.

Can you provide actual references that are not simply repetitions of what you have just claimed? That is, experiment methodologies, data collected, data analysis methods, hypotheses, and conclusions?

And now to see if you’ve actually read my comment: if you make a claim–any claim–and somebody says, “I don’t believe you” (which is what we’re saying), then the burden of proof is on you. Castigating us for not accepting items which are not proof is not going to make us change our minds. We tell you exactly what we expect by the way of proof but you and those like you consistently fail to provide it. We are actually making this as easy for you as possible: we are saying, “Prove it, and this is how I will be convinced.”