• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Monetary Prizes Offered for Proof of the Paranormal

L

linesmachine

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 23, 2003
Messages
876
Hey all, a quick call out for some comments/assistance.

I've been doing some research into prizes that are out there for evidence of the paranormal. It's actually back ground work for an ongoing piece I'm writing on the Paranormal Camping website (first part here if interested http://www.paranormalcamping.com/news.html).

For a comprehensive list see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal

What I'm finding really strange is that almost all the prizes awarded are not with a positive intention of actually finding good evidence and promoting the paranormal. In actual fact it's pretty much all about debunking. I wondered if anyone else knew of any awareds given with a purely pro-paranormal intent?

Thanks.
 
Maybe no one's ever thought of it.

You can imagine the problems though. If you're actively seeking to give the money away as a public statement of confidence in a thing being proved, you open yourself up to the all the sneering and ridicule the sceptic "community", press and like minded scientists can heap on you for your lack of controls, poor judgment , gullibility and whatever they can throw at you. You'll be poorer with only a bad rep to show for the cash.

Wheras from those seeking to do the proving..."proper" scientists wouldn't go in for a cash prize over peer reviewed publication, and joe public who believes he has a special gift will often be the unhinged, the self promoting or the fraudulent. I don't mean there are no such powers, but rather that such cash challenges would likely attract those type of people...the organisers of such a prize would have to be every bit as mean minded and suspicious as Randi to avoid being thought a laughing stock for giving it out to the wrong people.
 
gattino said:
You can imagine the problems though. If you're actively seeking to give the money away as a public statement of confidence in a thing being proved, you open yourself up to the all the sneering and ridicule the sceptic "community", press and like minded scientists can heap on you for your lack of controls, poor judgment , gullibility and whatever they can throw at you.
Click to expand...

This is an excellent point, and one that I rather embarassingly had not yet hit on myself. It seems blindingly obvious.

That said, if done right, surely a pro paranormal organisation could offer a prize if it ensured it used just as stringent scientific principles as the debunking organisation awards?
 
But the debunking organisations which give awards are in the minds of the press and public just one.. Randi. No other is known to people or, I imagine, would get much attention if it gave out money after annoucing "well we're convinced!" And it has never been accused of stringent scientific principles..quite the reverse. By all accounts they indulge in evasion and subterfuge and just plain fabrication to avoid testing people. In other words they don't set a standard to follow which some imaginary court of public opinion could judge an alternative award against.

Reduce it to individuals. Rupert Sheldrake says "the great gattino has proven his skills to my satisfaction and I've awarded him a cash prize!" Should anyone pay the slightest attention the press would then go along to a Richard Dawkins or a Richard Wiseman who would counter "no he hasn't. It's just really bad science. The man's a gullible fool."

The public would be no wiser, Sheldrake would be poorer, and nothing will have been solved.

Cash prizes only seem to exist as a rhetorical device for the sceptics to use to bash parapsychology with.."why haven't they claimed the prize?" ...rather than serving any practical purpose.
 
Last edited:
As you can imagine, Randi's org gets a considerable number of applications every year. Therefore, many skeptic organizations offer preliminary challenges as a step up to the million dollar challenge. Perhaps you have not seen the live paranormal challenges. They are not debunkings, they are tests with mutually agreed upon conditions. It takes many days of negotiation and the claimant assures the JREF reps (not Randi himself) that he/she is comfortable with the conditions. But often, the publicly proclaimed paranormalists will be arrogant, demanding the money based on their own supplied and very poor evidence. The deal is to be tested. Objectively.

If you are interested in the links to see the live challenges, at least two are online on YouTube in full. Having attended one, I can tell you it is silent and riveting. Everyone feels for the claimant who certainly has considerable confidence but ends up sorely disappointed. He/She is graciously thanked and applauded for the effort.

While some skeptics may be dismissive and debunking, there is a true curiosity and interest in paranormal phenomena from many of us and we are not the nasty strawmen so often portrayed. The Challenge is a true challenge. If you have such power, it should be able to be exhibited. It hasn't. For YEARS. That says something very important.
 
Randi was questioned by a friend who asked him what he would do if he ever had to pay up. He said that he would "wriggle out of it somehow". The dice are loaded.
 
Spudrick68 said:
Randi was questioned by a friend who asked him what he would do if he ever had to pay up. He said that he would "wriggle out of it somehow". The dice are loaded.
Click to expand...
Reference Please.
 
Read the FT article, I really can't be arsed to find it oh smug one.
 
Nice avoidance then. You made the claim, dude.
 
The most damaging and comprehensive dismantling of the myth of Randi's prize is Chapter 15 of Will Storr's book the Heretics, which investigates the multiple backand forth claims by and about Randi and people who've tried to take up the challenge. What is indisputable by the end of it is that the great man himself appears to be a compulsive fantasist and thug who lies the way some of us breathe. Interestingly reviews and responses to the book n the online chatter of the skeptical groups were mostly concentrated on the damage done by J.R's open admission to being a social darwinist (and his later defence that he'd never heard the term before and didn't know what he was saying...despite being a multi-level genius by his own accounts). The whole book, and certainly the whole chapter are really worth getting hold of. But much of the more shocking revelations about JREF's founder and guiding light in Storr's book are quoted directly in the review on Michael Prescott's blog. Here:

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2013/03/wow.html

And what of the value - in all senses - of the prize itself? The very useful www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org gathers together published and online articles that look into the behaviour and claims of celebrity skeptics and debunkers and contains a number which take a detailed look at the JREF million dollar challenge.

The most detailed is probably this one http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.o...skeptics/randi-james/james-randis-foundation/

A much longer and more detailed examination of the prize by the same author is on another site
http://www.dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-million-dollar-challenge

A potential challenger's account of trying to communicate with JREF:
http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.o...randi-james/james-randis-skeptical-challenge/

An argument against the intellectual/evidential value of the prize:
http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.o...i-james/james-randis-challenge-a-big-so-what/
 
Sharon Hill said:
Reference Please.
Click to expand...

I'm happy to help. The slight - but only slight - misquote is of the cofounding member of Csicop, Dennis Rawlins, who wrote up the scandal about the skeptic movements first and only foray into research - gaugelin's astrological claims. I'm sure most people are familiar with it (CSICOP/CSI had the misfortune to successfully replicate the frenchman;'sfindings and so decided to lie about it..which blew up in their face and they've never, as far as I know, indulged in actual research since.). Anyway Rawlins , along with founder Marcello Truzzi left the organisation because of this behaviour and in his published account of events Rawlins includes the following paragraph:

"Next Randi (and soon afterwards Bob Sheaffer) tried to get me involved in new projects, i.e., diversions. As part of this effort Randi asked my advice on the Helmut Schmidt parapsychology experiment which some CSICOPs had been investigating. I simply urged that it be approached with all the caution KZA had thrown to the winds in 1975 and 1976. He assured me how cautious he was in the testing for his well-publicized $ 10,000 prize for proof of psychic abilities (for which he acts as policeman, judge and jury -- and thus never has supported my idea of neutral judgment of CSICOP tests. "I always have an out," he said."
 
There seems to me, quite apart form any issues Randi may have, to be a logical impossibility about the reward scenario.

A paranormal event, by definition, is not capable of evaluation by normal science - and if it was, it would cease to be paranormal.

If I was a scientist, I would be highly interested in paranormal events, because they are a potential expansion of te scientific understanding of the cosmos. But it would appear the majority of scientists are not interested in discoveries which might cast doubt on the assumptions they already make.

As I'm not a scientist, just an engineer, I'm happy to go with 'sometimes weird stuff happens'.

From a programming point of view, if you are under time pressure to complete a project and every time you enter the name Kevin Philips-Bong in beta testing it goes wrong, you do a quick bit of programming to handle Mr P-B specially, rather than revisit first principles. So I do understand the issue about questioning assumptions - we are all under pressure of one sort of another - but the difference is your typical scientist would, it appear, prefer to pretend that the aforementioned Mr P-B doesn't exist.
 
gattino said:
I'm happy to help. The slight - but only slight - misquote is of the cofounding member of Csicop, Dennis Rawlins, who wrote up the scandal about the skeptic movements first and only foray into research - gaugelin's astrological claims. I'm sure most people are familiar with it (CSICOP/CSI had the misfortune to successfully replicate the frenchman;'sfindings and so decided to lie about it..which blew up in their face and they've never, as far as I know, indulged in actual research since.). Anyway Rawlins , along with founder Marcello Truzzi left the organisation because of this behaviour and in his published account of events Rawlins includes the following paragraph:

"Next Randi (and soon afterwards Bob Sheaffer) tried to get me involved in new projects, i.e., diversions. As part of this effort Randi asked my advice on the Helmut Schmidt parapsychology experiment which some CSICOPs had been investigating. I simply urged that it be approached with all the caution KZA had thrown to the winds in 1975 and 1976. He assured me how cautious he was in the testing for his well-publicized $ 10,000 prize for proof of psychic abilities (for which he acts as policeman, judge and jury -- and thus never has supported my idea of neutral judgment of CSICOP tests. "I always have an out," he said."
Click to expand...

I was looking into this actual quote last week. if you delve deep enough you will find that what Randi claims he said is basically "I always have an out; IM RIGHT". So he feels the reason he won't have to cough up is not because of anything but the fact he is confident about his understanding of the world. It doesn't appear that actually he's just offering a fraudulent prize with no intention of paying; he wouldn't have gone to the lengths he has done to secure the $1m if he were.
 
What lengths has he gone to?

If you read those various article links above you'll have little doubt there is not chance in hell of anyone getting near claiming that in effect purely theoretically million dollars.
 
The "what I actually said was I always have an out, I'm right!" sounds like a very typical Randi self congratulatory revisionism. All of the accounts and sources I've seen suggest he does it between breakfast lunch and dinner.
 
Wouldn't a prize like this just serve to bring out the deluded and mentally unwell from the woodwork anyway? Who else would put themselves through such scrutiny knowing they were going to fail? If I had some kind of provable paranormal ability, I would rather eschew the chance of a million dollars and the inevitable media typhoon and have a quiet life.
 
I'm fully aware of all the scrutiny and lambasting regarding the Million Dollar Challenge. Several people have an ax to grind either against Randi personally or are committed to defending their work which they believe shows a paranormal effect. There is no doubt the MDC is a publicity ploy. And it works. It's the number one reason people come to the JREF site and the most often mentioned feature of the org that I've seen on social media. (Disclosure, I currently manage the JREF website.)

The bottom line is, it's a real test, not scientific, but a good test. And if someone were to actually pass it, imagine the uproar whether or not the money was awarded. So far, no one has come close to passing it and NOT because it's been rigged against them, but because it's been stringent (as it should be for such claims.)

The trials and tribulations of the 2014 James Randi Educational Foundation's Million Dollar Challenge.

The basis remains - paranormal claims have not passed muster in mainstream science after centuries of trying. Perhaps tomorrow someone will invent the device that can measure psi and a fulfilling explanation for it will come forth (that does not overturn our knowledge of the universe) but I'm going to go on as if it doesn't exist because there is no good reason presented to me that it does.

Regarding the mentally unwell, yes, indeed. There are very many deluded people in the world. That is a whole other aspect of the challenge, and a difficult one to deal with.

If you hate the MDC, I'm not going to convince you otherwise. So be it. Just note that ad hominem attacks on Randi's person are something separate from the proposed testing of paranormal claims. It's an error to conflate them.
 
Ad hominem attacks? I'm not aware of any. If you mean my repeating and summarising the assertion that the individual whose name your body carries has a demonstrable detachment from truth with regard to his and hsi foundations interactions with those in the field in question, then are you saying those assertions are untrue? That Randi isnot a compulsive liar as all of these people claim? If so please correct the falsehoods listed by Storr etc. Or are you accepting he is a compulsive liar about his and JREF's activities but htat that is irrelevant to...er..Jref's activities?

I'm not being remotely facetious, I genuinely can't work out if you're dismissing the claim or accepting the claim and dismissing its relevance.

You make an extraordinary assertion. "paranormal claims have not passed muster in mainstream science after centuries of trying". According to whom?

The centuries in question are littered with succesful , and yes repeated, scientific experimentation into the existence of such phenomena. So I assume you mean that it has not done so to the satisfaction of....well...who, precisely?


What I mean is who do you have in mind by mainstream science? There being no official council or body called Science with a capital S, who are you suggesting has ruled out or failed to rule in "psi"? Is it a democratic procedure you have in mind? I'm aware - and if challenged I shall have to search but am willing to do so - of I think 3? surveys of professional scientists on whether they believe psi to be likely proven, all of which show a clear majority do. If I'm wrong and you have counter evidence please correct me. So if a majority of scientists were to say they accept it does that mean Science accepts it? If not...if you suggest majority opinion is irrelevant, as its not a popularity contest - then we're back to square one. Who do you mean by mainstream science who has found the evidence wanting? The Big Brains perhaps, the celebrity geniuses? You'd be on hiding to nothing there. When flavour of the month in the isn't science wonderful pantheon, Alan Turing, writes "These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one’s ideas so as to fit these new facts in." is his opinion relevant or not? I would suspect you would say not - argument from authority! inadmissable! - and you would be quite right. If a Nobel Laureate like Josephson accepts the case for psi its no reason why I should. But then if a stage magician, a webmaster, or a journalist refutes the case for psi, should I..or the public..or science..given them any greater credence? Isn't saying "Randi/Jref hasn't been convinced!" an argument from authority too and much less impressive authority at that?

Or am I wrong?
If we rule out majority opinion among scientists (or do we? Will such a statistic sway you in any way?) and we rule out he considered opinion of those "big brains" who turn their mind to it, then what exactly is this muster you have in mind that has not been passed? The suspicion is what you mean is that the evidence hasn't convinced you personally. Which is fine and dandy..but how relevant is that to any other individual, to the public, to science, or to the experiences of those who have them?
 
Last edited:
Well Susan Blackmore spent a while investigating before she gave up:

It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.
Blackmore, S. (2000). "First person—into the unknown". New Scientist4: 55.


I recommend The Meme Machine:

Blackmore's treatment of memetics insists that memes are true evolutionary replicators, a second replicator that like genetics is subject to the Darwinian algorithm and undergoes evolutionary change.[20] Her prediction on the central role played by imitation as the cultural replicator and the neural structures that must be unique to humans in order to facilitate them have recently been given further support by research on mirror neurons and the differences in extent of these structures between humans and the presumed closest branch of simian ancestors.

But I would quibble at her conclusions.
 
If you take that at face value, then it simply confirms what I said above - the paranormal redefined as 'science' - although the 'science' is purely theoretical.

Randi argues from the specific - some paranormalists (and I personally have no time for mediums, for example) are fakers, therefore all paranormal events are fake. This is logically incorrect.
 
ramonmercado said:
Well Susan Blackmore spent a while investigating before she gave up:

It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.
Click to expand...


An investigation into Susan Blackmore's "research"..... http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.o...cs/susan-blackmore/susan-blackmores-research/
 
gattino said:
An investigation into Susan Blackmore's "research"..... http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.o...cs/susan-blackmore/susan-blackmores-research/
Click to expand...
I sometimes find that someone who is skeptic of skeptics, is just as unwilling to accept evidence that is contradictory to their believes and just as close minded as they often accuse the skeptics of being.
P.s. it is standard academic practice in the publication of any research to include possible limitations of the research.
 
Loquaciousness said:
I sometimes find that someone who is skeptic of skeptics, is just as unwilling to accept evidence that is contradictory to their believes and just as close minded as they often accuse the skeptics of being.
P.s. it is standard academic practice in the publication of any research to include possible limitations of the research.
Click to expand...
So are you skeptical of skeptic skeptics then?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top