From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Jan 02 2006 - 21:39:24 MST
Damien Broderick wrote:
>
>> http://www.randi.org/research/
>>
>> I withdraw my "It takes money to psi make money" qualifier as well.
>> This million seems pretty easy to reach, even allowing psi researchers
>> to set the preconditions.
>
> No, sadly. Randi, unlike professional parapsychologists, is not a
> scientist, he is a showman. If you think his offer is genuine, you're
> more gullible than fudley's caricature of a parapsychologist.
Although I'm pretty damn sure that psi is not real, I cannot claim
Randi's unclaimed prize as support. Randi has crossed the line in his
attempts to promote public disbelief in parapsychology:
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/resources/articles/rawlins-starbaby.htm
http://www.discord.org/~lippard/jjl-on-mars-effect.txt
Randi is not an unbiased tester. I do not think anyone could claim
Randi's prize even if they had medium-effect real psi. If they can
levitate Randi, they *might* be able to claim the prize regardless - but
apparently Randi is *not* cooperative with wannabe prize claimants,
perhaps because they are presumed to be bad guys.
CSICOP is a committee for skeptical investigation, not a committee for
scientific investigation, no matter what they claim in the acronym. You
can't be both; you have to choose one or the other. Good guys are
rightly held to higher standards than bad guys, and CSICOP doesn't pass.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://intelligence.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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