Tuesday, April 20, 2010

James Randi's Fiery Takedown of Psychic Fraud


Filmed Feb 2007; Posted Apr 2010 on TED
Legendary skeptic James Randi takes a fatal dose of homeopathic sleeping pills onstage, kicking off a searing 18-minute indictment of irrational beliefs. He throws out a challenge to the world's psychics: Prove what you do is real, and I'll give you a million dollars. (No takers yet.)

9 comments:

  1. Who will take Randi's mantle up when he dies?
    We need more like him.

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  2. There's no one quite like him, is there... and he's so old :(

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  3. R€LIGION $TINKS OF MONE¥April 21, 2010 at 3:37 AM

    Indeed and people like him deserve more air time.

    This was music to my ears and he´s right it´s all about the MON£¥.
    We need to go after the sponsors.

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  4. Neil degresse Tyson I think is a very good science promoter...

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  5. The million dollar challenge is a great way of bringing people to schepticism. Some have seased on this stratigie by comming up with there own "challenges". They are a pinicle to incredulousness. in particular Kent Hovind has a 250,000 chalenge in which he asks for prof of evolution:

    I have a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.* My $250,000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.<sup></sup><span>[</span>50<span>]</span>
    *NOTE: When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:
    1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.3. Matter created life by itself.4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

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  6. Aw, Sean, bless your heart.  Kent is making up a false definition about the biological term of evolution and offering someone a quarter of a million dollars to prove evolution fits his bogus claims.  His ignorance, while well-funded, is just plain silly.  

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  7. That overdose joke was friggin brilliant.

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  8. I really love Randi, but its too bad that he has the same speech for years now. Anyway, my complaint is also a compliment, because it means, that I have heard all his speeches posted on this site. :) Its still not boring, but new stuff would be better.

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