The man who destroyed skepticism

https://boingboing.net/2020/10/26/the-man-who-destroyed-skepticism.html

by kimi • 6 years ago

27 18 6 years ago

jonny_eh• 6 years ago

This is a disgusting hit piece on the recently deceased.

Veen2• 6 years ago

I'm somewhat surprised that BoingBoing published this. It's a slimy hit-piece by a man whose writing includes such gems as "How to Attract Money," which includes advice on becoming rich through visualization and learning "how your mind is a channel of the Higher Mind of the universe". Other titles include "The Power of Sex Transmutation : How to Use the Most Radical Idea from Think and Grow Rich".

He's a less successful Rhonda Byrne. In other words, exactly the sort of person you would expect to have a dim view of Randi.

himinlomax• 6 years ago

I used to read Boingboing daily up to about 10 years ago. They then started getting completely insane, and so did Xeni Jardin, personally.

mrgreenfur• 6 years ago

They really went to the monetization town

aaron695• 6 years ago

I stopped reading about the same time I think because their style which was brilliant stopped working due to the internet evolving. Which is fine, their brilliance was they were part of a culture at a certain time.

I assumed they would have jumped the shark and become insane by now, but when I go back every now and again I don't see it. Just a little boring. But if you have links it'd be interesting.

If you think about what they (we) did back them, it was pure evil by today standards. But that's ok. When the internet was a teenager it had to explore.

I assume it is these reasons, to me, Boingboing hasn't gone crazy, both a learned experience over the Twitter "you're told how to act" and Boingboing has a dark past which could be dug up.

smabie• 6 years ago

Instead of focusing on the person, maybe focus on the article? It seems to be well written and contains some valid points.

Veen2• 6 years ago

Which valid points? Its overarching point is that Randi was contemptuous of people who spent their time "studying" ESP, precognition, and other nonsense, with a few attempts to smear him with spurious comparisons to McCarthy. Of course James Randi was contemptuous of those people, and of course they hated him for it. But that doesn't make merit a vulgar character assassination a week after his death.

Plus, the article does precisely what you have just asked me not to do: it attacks the man and his character without making the slightest argument as to why he was wrong to dismiss ESP and occult research.

He was to skepticism what Senator Joseph McCarthy was to anticommunism — a showman, a bully, and, ultimately, the very thing he claimed to fight against: a fraud.

I find it perverse that someone who makes a living touting the power of positive thinking to reshape reality and make you rich believes he speaks for the "real skeptics". It's tendentious nonsense from the first word to the last.

XMPPwocky• 6 years ago

Why does it matter how well-written it is? Shouldn't it just matter if the points are valid or not?

disown• 6 years ago

It seems to be well written

It is well written or it isn't. What's with the "seems" business?

contains some valid points.

Does it? Then why did you fail to mention a single one in your comment?

Lammy• 6 years ago

and learning "how your mind is a channel of the Higher Mind of the universe".

I mean, yeah?

KorematsuFred• 6 years ago

how your mind is a channel of the Higher Mind of the universe

However trashy these headlines might sound, I will not dismiss them as junk without actually reading the article. (Again, I do not mean to say his article was not trashy, just that I wont judge it based on headline alone.)

For example millions of people do Yoga which literally means to "join" where the joining implies joining with "cosmic self" which is the the supreme objective of Yoga. People can benefit immensely from Yoga despite not having belief in any kind of cosmic self. In fact people claim to benefit from all 8 limbs of Yoga (Yama, Niyama, Dhyana, Asana, Pranayama, Dharana, Pratyahar, Samadhi). Plenty of people benefit from Kundalini Yoga though the ideas that there is a snake like thing in our backbone that can rise to head is purely nonsensical in scientific terms. I think the article on Randi, does summarize a lot of problems with modern skeptics. They dismiss things their own prejudices and premises can not explain without bothering to reach out to other side.

I think someone like Nissim Taleb has a far better perspective on these sort of things.

peterpeppers• 6 years ago

This is a great piece that provides a much needed look at the "other side" of James Randi.

Many will claim that it is not right for the author to speak ill of the dead but in this current climate it is best for us to see Mr. Randi and by extension ourselves for who we really are...

We and our heroes are fallible human beings driven by our own desires. We are both capable of great harm and good. Let's not hide our darkness but bring it to light.

dkonofalski• 6 years ago

What makes this a great piece, in your opinion?

I feel like it's kind of cheap and doesn't really back up any of the criticisms it seems to level against him. It makes claims that he's hindered "serious" academic research regarding ESP but doesn't really back that up with any kind of evidence that shows the research is serious (how serious can it be if it hasn't produced any evidence?).

I don't disagree that Randi wasn't flawless or perfect but this kind of hit piece is both silly and pointless.

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

What other side? The ESP-believers? Because Randi made it hard for 'legitimate' researchers to get funding, he's somehow bad? Are you kidding me?

Fraudsters and criminal con men were exposed by Randi. I have no sympathy for them, as they had no sympathy for those they bilked.

throwaway85202• 6 years ago

Thank you for speaking your mind, even though you're being downvoted. We need more people to come forward and speak openly, anonymously or not.

People who are militant-debunkers have made lives hell for people who are genuinely experiencing different things. Be it general public or researchers. This topic needs to be researched, not shunned or ridiculed.

Real science is not based on ridicule or praise. It is not based on ego or status. It is based on data, and an honest determination to increase our understanding of the world.

throwaway85202• 6 years ago

Throwaway account because I want to keep my identity hidden.

It is very difficult to talk openly about this for many of us, especially on places like HN, where the overwhelming majority already has a very fixed mindset (a far cry from critical thinking, ironically).

I'll tell you a different point of view here.

There's a lot of mockery and ridicule about this topic in the world, and in the academia. This has hindered the scientific study on this topic for many decades now. This happened due to many factors, but some are highlighted in the article above.

This is similar to "war on drugs" propaganda, the effects of which is still intact today. So don't underestimate how science can be hindered, or simply denied.

There are a lot of us that directly experience the so-called "paranormal" phenomena, or psychic "gifts", et cetera. But we can never talk about it because most people are not actual critical thinkers. People are often extremely aggressive in trying to invalidate you, ridicule you, or "debunk" you, even if you are actually a software engineer working for $BIGTECH, and not someone sitting in a tent trying to "scam people." They've made up their mind - their thinking cannot be changed.

And this is how people become the very thing they're opposing: Blindly following a figure or a movement without critical thinking, without being open to other possibilities, by having a very rigid world view and a very fixed mindset which cannot be changed.

Eerily similar to many religions, don't you think?

I'd instead suggest you to be a true skeptic. This is the very ideology people tried to follow in the first place, but without the corruption that it got entangled in.

Very few people are actual skeptics. Very few people are willing to look at both sides of the story without any preconceived notion. This is evidenced by many comments on HN (and in other places), where people are very quick to accuse the author of the article, instead of focusing on the information presented objectively. They're acting from their deeply-held beliefs which cause strong knee-jerk reactions without reason or logic. They've become the very thing they're opposing.

Simply look at the downvoted comments. Did they have to be buried down, shunned? Did they not have a right to exist as a different point of view? This just shows the hypocrisy. This shit-slinging cannot be something you stand for.

And this is not how science or critical thinking works.

As I mentioned, there are many of us that experience these "phenomena." And they're only called "phenomena" because our current scientific model isn't sufficient enough. When scientific understanding increases, these things will no longer be "super"natural (as they never actually are), but they'll simply be a part of the modern sciences.

Now, do you actually want to advance our civilization, and enable the scientific studies on the leading edge of modern sciences, or do you simply shun it with simple ridicule, and look the other way and pretend none of it is worth researching?

You can't actually do the latter, because these topics and these "phenomena" is never going to go away. In fact, it will become more and more relevant, simply because you can't shun anything that is real, and experienced by many. (But don't believe my word for it)

Just like many scientific breakthroughs and ideological movements, a new paradigm is always met by incredible resistance. But this resistance is only temporary, until the new paradigm becomes widely accepted. This simply points to how narrow human thinking can be. I'd like you to be aware of it, and rise above it.

But of course, as I said, don't believe anything just because I said it is real. I don't want you to do that at all. But I do want you to be open to the possibility, and to become more aware of your own line of thinking and emotions. So, read up scientific studies on it with an open mind, but most importantly, with an open heart. Because without an open heart, you'll just shun everything without using your mind.

freemint• 6 years ago

In case you log back into this throw away. Can you point me to reproduce experiments of phenomenas that challenge the current mainstream model of physics?

rasz• 6 years ago

Why would any ESP "researcher" need external grants when they could just arrange a simple demonstration to cash in $1Mil straight from Randi himself?

The man who destroyed skepticism

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