...he conjures his way into my blog yet again.
I wanted to alert readers to this week’s Nature podcast, which features an interview with Randi from our recent drinks night.
Here’s a transcript of the interview by Charlotte Stoddart. For comments from Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, and much more besides, go get the podcast.
Charlotte Stoddart: Every couple of months Nature Network, the social networking forum for scientists, holds a drinks event in a London pub. This evening we’re in the Rugby Tavern and we are honoured to welcome a very special guest, well-known magician and investigator of pseudoscientific claims, James Randi. Hello James!
James Randi: Hello there! We are sitting outside the pub let’s say and we’re freezing, but the noise level inside is a little bit of a competition to us.
Charlotte Stoddart: Well, that’s right. There are lots of people here tonight inside and enjoying themselves. Now James, you are normally based over in Florida.
James Randi: That’s correct, yes.
Charlotte Stoddart: So what are you doing here, this side of the Atlantic, in the UK?
James Randi: Well, I had been invited over here to consult contracts, possible contracts to do a series about the Million Dollar Challenge that the James Randi Educational Foundation offers and brining it to the UK, liable liable so to speak, it should be very interesting.
Charlotte Stoddart: So tell me a bit more about your foundation and this million-dollar challenge.
James Randi: Well, the foundation is an educational foundation and we are devoted not to debunking, no, just investigating so called things of the paranormal, occult and supernatural and we tried to bring a little bit of enlightenment to the public in general and information about what these things really are or not. There is a widespread belief all around the world that there is a supernatural world, a paranormal and occult world. I rather doubt that and I’m willing to be shown—I’m a million dollars worth of willing to be shown, because we offer this prize.
Charlotte Stoddart: And has anyone come close to winning the prize money yet.
James Randi: Well, it’s like being pregnant. You can’t come close to it. You either are or you are not. So, we designed the rules and the protocol in such a way, with the agreement of the person who is answering the challenge, we designed it in such a way that it’s extended up, at the end of the test you will know yes or no, whether they succeeded or failed. And so far they all get exactly what would be a chance of expectation.
Charlotte Stoddart: Now James, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning your age, because you are in your 80th year now.
James Randi: Right!
Charlotte Stoddart: So I’m just wondering what it is that keeps you going, keeps you travelling and talking about science?
James Randi: Well, it’s not the expectation, as some people have thought that I’m going to find a genuine psychic. My expectation after 80 years of into this is that there probably isn’t such a thing as a psychic power. Now I don’t say there isn’t and I never claim there is not such a power. I am really saying I am an investigator and I am willing to be shown, but it is a very active field and I find that people all over the world are either being deceived or deceiving themselves about belief in the paranormal.
Charlotte Stoddart: You started off life as a magician, so how did you become more interested in the paranormal and pseudoscience and investigating these areas.
James Randi: Well, as a magician, that is a conjurer more correctly. As a conjurer, travelling all over the world, I find that the so called psychics are using exactly the same tricks that we magicians use, mis-directions and the half statements and what not. It’s rather distressing to see this sort of thing done because they are in effect vultures working on the gullibility and the need and the sensitivity of these people who need some answers, are not going to get them from the psychics in my opinions.
Charlotte Stoddart: Now you’ve come along to these drinks tonight with Sid Rodriguez and you are both part of a sort of growing band of people who are investigating paranormal claims and homeopathy and that kind of thing. Could you just tell me a little more about this sceptic community?
James Randi: Well, its rather surprising that you know, I travel to foreign countries all the time and not too long ago in Denmark, I was walking on the street and I heard a shout from across the street, “Mr. Randi!” and a fellow came running through traffic and shook my hands, smiled at me. He said I am sceptic too and I looked him up and down, I said, “I doubt that,” just to keep in character, you see. But there is a sceptical community all around the world now which is growing bit by bit and there are sceptical organizations. Now scepticism is not cynicism. Cynicism is a different thing altogether. We are honestly sceptical and I think justifiably sceptical about claims that we encounter. Homeopathy is one of the silliest claims that you can possibly entertain as possibly being real. People are taking homeopathic medicines and they don’t know unless they study it that they are getting zero dosage. A friend of mine actually calculated the effect that with the sleeping pills that I take at every one of my performances. I always swallow a huge handful of sleeping capsules and I always survived, as you may have noticed. He calculated one time, that in order to get at least one molecule of caffeine because that is the active ingredient in a sleeping capsule and don’t ask me how that is, I would have to eat 16 average swimming pools, full of pills, that’s a big dose.
Charlotte Stoddart: It is. So, it’s not going to be a homeopath, who wins your prize.
James Randi: No, I very much doubt it.
Charlotte Stoddart: James, thank you very much. I know there are lots of people, upstairs in the pub, who would like to talk to you. So we’ll go back to the drinks now.
James Randi: Thank you so much and I am frozen! So get me into the warm.
Charlotte Stoddart: Let’s get into the warm. Thank you.
James Randi: Thank you. Bye Bye!
