News:

Welcome to our site!

Main Menu

The James Randi Paranormal Challenge

Started by PickelledEggs, September 10, 2014, 03:28:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

PickelledEggs

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Quote
Static
Written by JREF Staff    



The Foundation is committed to providing reliable information about paranormal claims. It both supports and conducts original research into such claims.

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant."

To date, no one has passed the preliminary tests.

I thought it might be a nice thread to start so we can point any theists to the James Randi Paranormal Challenge next time we get one in here. Just a suggestion! haha

williemack

Has anyone taken a shot at the money yet?
Remember, we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of rocks.

PickelledEggs

Quote from: williemack on September 23, 2014, 12:25:15 AM
Has anyone taken a shot at the money yet?
Many people have. And like the theists that come in here on occasion, the evidence they think they have is not in any way observable.

SGOS

Randi seems more interested debunking tricks than performing them.  I don't think I've ever seen him do a magic trick.

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: williemack on September 23, 2014, 12:25:15 AM
Has anyone taken a shot at the money yet?

There's an entire tv-show in which people came on and randy debunked the shit out of them. I think they were going for the challenge.

"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Solitary

Quote from: SGOS on September 23, 2014, 06:07:39 AM
Randi seems more interested debunking tricks than performing them.  I don't think I've ever seen him do a magic trick.
This is one of his best magic tricks: http://youtu.be/AfZDwDE1yr8
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

SGOS


Solitary

What's really funny, is if you make the same movements he does you could do the same trick. It just appears he is tied up. I love magic tricks.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Desdinova

#8
Kreskin just called.  He wants his spoons back.

or was that Uri Geller?
"How long will we be
Waiting, for your modern messiah
To take away all the hatred
That darkens the light in your eye"
  -Disturbed, Liberate

Solitary

 In January 2007, Randi announced a major change in the rules:

    As of April 1, 2007, we will require two major qualifications of all those who will be eligible. First, any applicant will be required to have a media profile. By that, we mean that there must be some media recognition â€" a television interview, a newspaper account, some press write-up, or a reference in a book, that provides details of the claimed abilities of the applicant....The second requirement will be that the applicant must provide an endorsement of an academic nature. That means some sort of validation from an appropriately-qualified academic....

    Once these qualifications have been offered, we will follow up on them, asking for validation; we’ll require that the cited authorities verify that they did make such a statement about the applicant, or that they hold such an opinion, and that they still stand by that statement. Anecdotal material will not be accepted.

    We may be prepared to possibly waive the requirement for a preliminary test as soon as these two qualifications have been validated. In such a case we will be prepared to move right into the second phase: the formal test.*

Another major change in the million dollar challenge is that the JREF plans to:

    regularly and officially highlight well-known persons in the field and challenge them directly by name. Those challenged will then have a six-month period during which they may respond; during that period the JREF will heavily publicize the fact that such a challenge has been issued, we will issue press releases on the matter, and we will be frequently asking that those challenged make a response. Tentatively, we will begin by formally challenging Uri Geller, James Van Praagh, Sylvia Browne, and John Edward, on April 1st.

In January 2008, the JREF announced that the offer of the million dollar prize will cease on March 6, 2010. However, the prize is still being offered. Click here for the rules.

There are others offering prizes to anyone who can demonstrate psychic powers. After collecting the million dollars from Randi, successful psychics might go to India and contact B. Premanand who will pay Rs. 100,000 "to any person or persons who will demonstrate any psychic, supernatural of paranormal ability of any kind under satisfactory observing conditions." Also, "Prabir Ghosh will pay Rs. 20,00,000* to anyone who claims to possess supernatural power of any kind and proves the same without resorting to any trick in the location specified by Prabir Ghosh."

The Australian Skeptics offer $100,000 (Australian), $80,000 for the psychic and $20,000 for anyone "who nominates a person who successfully completes the Australian Skeptics Challenge." If you nominate yourself, and are successful, you get the whole hundred grand.

The Association for Skeptical Inquiry (ASKE), a U.K. skeptic organization, offers £12,000 for proof of psychic powers.

The Independent Investigations Group "offers a $50,000 prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event."

The North Texas Skeptics offer $12,000 to any person who can demonstrate any psychic or paranormal power or ability under scientifically valid observing conditions.

The Quebec Skeptics offer $10,000 to any astrologer who can demonstrate her craft according in a formal scientific experiment.

The Tampa Bay Skeptics offer $1,000 to anyone able to demonstrate any paranormal phenomenon under mutually agreed-upon observing conditions.

A group in New Zealand calling itself "Immortality" is offering a prize of $NZ2,000,000 to anyone "who can display an actual paranormal ability, under controlled conditions." One million goes to the successful applicant and one million to the charity of his or her choice.

Finally, conjurer Chris Angel offered $1,000,000 of his own money to Uri Geller and Jim Callahan if they could psychically determine the contents of an envelope he held in his hand. The offer was in response to Callahan's claim that his performance of a trick on a TV show called "Phenomenon" was aided by spirit guide.

The offer of cash prizes as an incentive to so-called psychics to prove their claims is not new. In 1922, Scientific American offered two $2,500 awards, one for the first person who could produce an authentic spirit photograph under test conditions and the other for the first medium to produce an authentic "visible psychic manifestation" (Christopher 1975: 180). Houdini, the foremost magician of the period, was a member of the investigating committee. Nobody won the prizes. The first to announce she was ready to be tested was Elizabeth Allen Tomson, but after she was caught with twenty yards of gauze taped to her groin, flowers under her breasts, and a snake in her arm pit, she was never formally tested (Christopher 1975: 188). The honor of being the first medium tested by the Scientific American team went to George Valiantine. He didn't know that the chair he sat in during his séance in a completely darkened room had been wired to light up a signal in an adjoining room every time he left his seat. Oddly, phenomena such as a voice speaking from a trumpet that floated about the room happened only at the exact moments the signal lit up.

The Reverend Josie K. Stewart also failed to produce handwritten messages from the dead brought to her by her spirit guide Effie. The committee members marked their cards and she failed three times before declaring success at the fourth trial. But, since the messages she produced were not on the cards that had been supplied by the Scientific American committee, it was determined that she had tried to trick them! What a shock.

Another contestant, Nino Pecoraro, claimed to have Eusapia Palladino as his spirit guide. He was doing well fooling some of the committee members until Houdini showed up during a séance. Houdini took the sixty-foot long rope being used to tie up Pecoraro and cut it into many short pieces and tied up "the psychic's wrists, arms, legs, ankles, and torso." Houdini, the master escapologist, knew that "even a rank amateur could gain slack enough to release his hands and feet" when tied with a long rope (Christopher 1975: 191). The great Pecoraro couldn't perform that night.

The fifth applicant for the Scientific American prize was Mina Crandon, known in the occult world as "Margery." She didn't collect the prize, either. (For more on "Margery," see the entry on ectoplasm.)

In the 1930s, Hugo Gernsback offered a $6,000 prize for any astrologer who could accurately forecast three major events in one year. He never had to pay anyone a cent.*

One would think that after more than 150 years of scientific testing of psychics, there would be at least one who could demonstrate a single psychic ability under test conditions. Parapsychologist Dean Radin claims the evidence for psychic phenomena is so strong that only bias and prejudice keep skeptics from accepting the reality of ESP or PK. Why doesn't he claim the million dollar prize, then? According to Radin:

    for the types of psi effects observed in the laboratory, even a million dollar prize wouldn't cover the costs of conducting the required experiment. Assuming we'd need to show odds against chance of say 100 million to 1 to win a million dollar prize, when you calculate how many repeated trials, selected participants, multiple experimenters, and skeptical observers are necessary to achieve this outcome, the combined costs turn out to be more than the prize. So, from a purely pragmatic perspective, the various prizes offered so far aren't sufficiently enticing. (Radin 2006: 291)

The fact is that most parapsychologists have given up trying to find a single person with a single paranormal ability. They study groups of people and collect gobs of data, hoping to find a statistic not likely due to chance, which they then declare to be evidence of psi because it is their hypothesis that if the statistic is not likely due to chance then it is reasonable to conclude that it is due to psi. In other words, they've gone from being duped by con artists to duping themselves.

http://youtu.be/c0Z7KeNCi7g

http://youtu.be/M9w7jHYriFo
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Mister Agenda

Quote from: SGOS on September 23, 2014, 06:07:39 AM
Randi seems more interested debunking tricks than performing them.  I don't think I've ever seen him do a magic trick.

Well, he's like, 86, dude.
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

racunking

its time for truth iam sun gods the alfa and omega iam establishing my kingdom on earth right now  surender to the thing taht are reel and truth of you will vanish from existance
realities of the Prophetic Kingdom Seekers of The Heart, The Lovers of the Prophetic Reality As ancient as time itself , seek to be a servant of the light and lovers ... all » Praise and Glory.The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
_Dr. MLK, Jr...
atheism monotheism polytheist is all just dangerous supertition
the thing that will vanish from our society
with the change of consciousness
Newtonian psysique
the theory of Darwin
genitic  control of life
the notion of random evolution and coeincidence
its the rise of the 7 intergalactic rainbow alliance the world will soon be a a enchanted kingdom happy happy soon all will be smile as a non ending joy awake in all people of the world  a blessing from the racun king the 7 king of sanity  ,love and justice

THE RAINBOW REVOLUTION IS COMING -THE FUTURE IS OURS!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1staQsXkmMM

INTERSTELLAR!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E7B9klx9HY&list=UU9OM-qeiYIPtAkBe9veG5uw

why the revolution cant be stop is that the idea of truth freedom love and justice as come

http://www.freedomslips.com/
http://truthfrequencyradio.com/listen-live/

marc Chauvette mystical and holistic life. oneness
the return of the earth keeper
we are the immortal that are bringing the golden ages  gerald donnell . simran singh . llewellyn vaughan lee eric pearl
sonia barrett . mitchell gibson ,janny Llyod, lynne mctaggart, lenon honor, caroline myss, hira hosen

IN LAKESH namaste

want to disern from reality and the dream dead human loive in unaware of there slavery study max plank nikola tesla carl jung joseph campbell




Desdinova

"How long will we be
Waiting, for your modern messiah
To take away all the hatred
That darkens the light in your eye"
  -Disturbed, Liberate

GrinningYMIR

Greetings religious man, I greet with with this image of Michelle Jenneke and her bouncy pre run dance
The reason being, I would rather look at her, an obvious beauty, and all of here inherent athletic ability and general hotness for multiple hours than watch either of the vids you have posted, because I am a man of irreligion, not the opposite as you seem think believe.

Feel free to gaze at her as I do
"Human history is a litany of blood shed over differing ideals of rulership and afterlife"<br /><br />Governor of the 32nd Province of the New Lunar Republic. Luna Nobis Custodit

PickelledEggs