Back in the 1980s James Randi was on a TV show called "People Are Talking", where he debunked all sorts of psychic nonsense. In the clip below he debunks telekinesis, Uri Geller, spoon bending, and more.
The appearance was to promote his wonderful book Flim-Flam!, which is as good a read today as it was when he wrote it. The chapter on dowsing was particularly fun. Sadly, the second part of this video ends in the middle, but you’ll get a good taste of what’s what.
Randi is a wonder to watch; he cracks me up. At the James Randi Educational Foundation in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, there is a treasure-trove of videos he has made or of TV shows he’s been on. A lot of these videos are being put up on YouTube, and I expect my readers will have quite an enjoyable time browsing through them.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I can’t hear it, is it me or the video?
December 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Amaz!ng!
AaronB, it’s your computer.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Does the Amazing Randi ever debunk the fads and fallacies of contemporary science?
December 5th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
When I learned about the infamous million dollar challenge for the first time, that was a massive nail in the coffin (in my mind, anyway) when it came to psychic claims. What better way was there to say “prove it!” to some of these clowns?
It’s really cool to see some of this other material come up; I’m glad to see the Foundation putting it out for everybody to see.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I saw several Randi Lectures back in the 80s, they were always a blast, very entertaining, and the highlight was usually when he demonstrated Psychic Surgery!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I saw this gem a while back on the JREF channel. It’s epic coolness. Since we’re sharing cool videos, judging from your previous posts you will enjoy:
(I hope that worked)
December 5th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
OilisMastery said,
Do you?
December 5th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Here are quotes of Uri getting as close to admitting he is not psychic as I have ever heard:
“I thrive on controversy, looking back on my career, I called myself a phsyic, I constantly need to re-invent myself, you will not get a straight answer…I cannot bend spoons like some of the magicians, you, can, it blows my mind when I see that, I have no idea. I had the idea and cheekiness to call it physic, in fact all I wanted was to be rich and famous, I wanted to buy my mother a TV”
See more at:
http://itricks.com/news/?p=5572
December 5th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
No OilIsMastery just beleives fads and fallacies of contemporary pseudoscience.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
TheChemist: Yes.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
This is the second part of that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQyxUbIR9fI&feature=PlayList&p=C10B63B9A8F8D3D4&index=1
The end was just too awesome!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Is it me or does Randi look exactly the same as he does now? He is certainly well preserved indeed!
Pete
December 5th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Anyone remember when Randi was on an episode of Happy Days doing magic?
Is there a clip of that bit?
Aaaaaaaay – thanks!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Kenneth (If that is your name),
There is indeed a clip of James Randi on Happy Days.
Have a gander:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/176-james-randi-on-happy-days.html
December 5th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Fad and Fallacies of Contemporary Science == Anything that science says that contradicts my closely guarded delusions and needs for comfort
Even OilISMastery would have to think someone a loon if they continued to rail against the theory of relativity as ‘fad or fallacy of contemporary science’. After all the evidence is for it is totally solid. But only because it doesn’t rub against his need to believe in various pseudoscientific notions.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
AaronB Says:
I can’t hear it, is it me or the video?
If you’re using FIREFOX, you may have problems with it, but I just switched to using IE TAB and got full level of the audio.
J/P=?
December 5th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
@TheChemist
Brilliant.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The video works just fine for me (on Linux) with the caveat that the sound is all coming out of the right speaker. If, for some reason, your computer is only playing the left channel (due to bad speakers) or you are deaf in the right ear or whatever, that would be why it’s silent.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
James Randi is a treasure.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
The Chemist: Awesome video. I think the best time I ever had in class was with during a religion course in university that I took as one of my non technical electives. You would have thought I kicked them all in the face when I said one thing in the discussion period:
“Ok, so if you believe that homosexuality is wrong because of the bible, why are 90% of you Christan men not circumcised?”
It was hilarious – we never got to tick people off in class back in my faculty! I had about three fundies jump on me saying that the New Testament explains why all of those things are okay now (nevermind the fact that in the New Testament it still says that a woman should cover her hair).
Believe it or not, I’m a Christian too.
As for the Randi video… I got ticked off because he didn’t explain the key trick. How is that debunking anything?
December 5th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Sadly, that figure is a LOT lower…. at least in the US. Are you in the UK?
If you watch carefully, right after he grabs the key and is saying something about the colored tabs, he “adjusts” his seat. While he does this, he is bending the key. Notice that after that moment, you do not see the full key until the very end. He just slowly uncovers more and more of the key, making it seem as if he was bending it.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Aww, rats. The quotes didn’t work. Good thing there’s no preview button, now I can blame it on that!
December 5th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
How apropos, I just received copies of Flim Flam! and Death from the Skies! (the only two books in my library whose titles end in exclamation marks, odd) from Amazon on Wednesday.
Here’s the companion video to the one BA posted. It is the one that Randi refers to when he says he debunked an individual on “That’s my line!”
December 5th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Mus said: “Sadly, that figure is a LOT lower…. at least in the US. Are you in the UK?”
No Canada…. apparently its just under 10% here. America is above 50%… or so the interwebs tells me. But thats all babies born, not just Christians. I’m sure that is MUCH lower.
And thanks for explaining the trick to me – I’m a little slow! lol.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Hey, I was on People Are Talking once as a kid! I realize that’s only interesting to me, but I got excited.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Yeah, part 2 ended beautifully! It was one of Randi’s guys who was the psychic and the ladies were completely fooled! So frakkin’ cool! Perfect! I’ll bet, however, that the ladies still think it was magic…
December 5th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Would someone look at 3:05 in the video and tell me what Randi is doing. He reaches and puts something in his pocket during the key trick, but I’m not sure exactly what he is doing.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Has anyone noticed that it is mostly men who believe in UFOs/Chem-trail Conspiracies/Moon Hoax/Electric Universe crap, but mostly women who believe in Psychics/Astrology/Faith Healing/Supernatural crap?
December 6th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Great stuff! I just finished reading ‘Flim Flam!’ — everything in it still holds true and it’s sad that, despite all of the debunking he does, the silliness of psychics, astrologers, tarot card readers, dowsers, etc, still continues to this day.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:47 am
AH, the Randi ’80s,,, I remember them well,,,
As one Randy old goat
said to another,
“I stink. Therefore,
I ram,,,”.
(GRA 1998)
Sorry. I just couldn’t help myself,,,
IVAN3MAN:
It probably has something to do with the right hemisphere thing,,,
GAry 7
December 6th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
To Shawn S., in response to:
“Even OilISMastery would have to think someone a loon if they continued to rail against the theory of relativity as ‘fad or fallacy of contemporary science’.”
You are absolutely correct. Anyone who accuses Einstein of being contemporary is a loon. He was first half of the 20th century and pre-Space Age. The second half of the 20th century was the beginning of the Space Age. There have been many observations since beginning of the Space Age that prove that pre-Space Age mathematical models are absolute primitive garbage. Welcome to the 21st century.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Oills:
Those are dogmatic statements. Show me evidence. I gave up on dogma 52 years ago.
GAry 7
December 7th, 2008 at 1:40 am
OilISMastery said: “There have been many observations since beginning of the Space Age that prove that pre-Space Age mathematical models are absolute primitive garbage.”
But quotes from pre-space age scientists and philosophers are valid?
You also seem to admire Immanuel Velikovsky (I had a peek at your blog), my friend this is anti-science at its worst.
December 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Does anyone in North America know the story of Mr Randi’s appearance on the Don Lane Show here in Oz in the late seventies/early eighties? Don Lane, a tall expat Texan who called Melbourne home used to host a twice-weekly (9:30 PM Mondays and Thursdays) national talk/variety show along the lines of Merv Griffin and similar shows in the U.S. Don was renowned for giving air to woowoos of all descriptions, and also had a semi-regular segment on weird and unusual happenings, presented by Kevin Arnett. It was with this in mind that the Australian Society of Skeptics invited Randi to visit Australia and go on the Don Lane Show, masquerading either as a magician or a psychic. So Don introduced “The Amazing Randi”, who did a couple of quick stage magic or mind tricks, then he revealed his real mission as a skeptic. This took Don Lane back a bit, as his guest was not who he said he was, but then Randi mand the mistake of talking about the tricks of people such as Uri Geller or Doris Stokes. Trouble was, Don at the time was very taken with both these people; he had had Geller on the show at least once, and Doris Stokes twice. To Don, Doris Stokes was a kindly old woman with an exceptional gift, which she used to give comfort to people upset by the death of a loved one – and here was this upstart of whom he had never heard, calling her a charlatan and a liar. Well, Don hit the roof. He started yelling all sort of invictive over the top of Randi’s attempted explanation, and ended the segment by saying “We’re gonna take a break and you can p*** off!!!”, sweeping Randi’s props off the coffee table onto the floor as he got up. To Don’s credit, he apologised for his behaviour on the following show, but he was unshaken in his belief about Mrs Stokes. On a more recent retrospective show, hovever, he at least hinted that he may now be sceptical of Uri Geller.