01-14-2007, 03:28 AM
by Paranormal Magazine
Super-skeptic James Randi, founder of the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge that promises "a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event," just dropped the "anyone" part. Apparently his organization has grown bored of the people who actually want to take his challenge and they want to focus on those high-profile psychics who don't. After ten years of the challenge, they are enacting changes which will take effect April 1st. The biggest change is that they are closing the doors to anyone who does not have a "media profile" - television reports, newspaper articles, etc. - chronicling their paranormal abilities. They're hoping that the resources freed up by dropping low-profile cases will enable them to pursue the big dogs. Officially they have targeted psychics John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Uri Geller, and James Van Praagh, all of whom have expressed no desire to humor the man. The other major change, according to Randi, is that an applicant must have some sort of "academic to endorse their claims." The academic also has to stand behind the endorsement when contacted by the skeptics. Two thoughts off the top of my head: 1) If they are actively pursuing specific high-profile psychics that don't even want to take their test, how are they getting around their own rule that an academic must endorse them? If the psychic doesn't want to take the test, they're certainly not going to go looking for an academic sponsor. 2) Skeptics have been using this challenge for years as pseudo-proof that paranormal abilities do not exist. They naturally wonder: if one had these abilities why not take the challenge and win the million bucks? Of course it was never really proof to begin with, just evidence that the paranormal doesn't happen under certain "observing conditions". Most reported paranormal phenomena are spontaneous cases that never make it to a lab. Some observing conditions have even been clinically shown to prevent certain types of paranormal phenomena. Proof was always a misnomer. But now that the challenge is officially non-inclusive, it can finally be dropped from its over-inflated status as proof. After all, it's feasible that someone might have paranormal abilities and no media coverage, or no academic sponsor.
http://www.paranormalmagazine.com/
More on the changes.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72482-0.html
Super-skeptic James Randi, founder of the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge that promises "a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event," just dropped the "anyone" part. Apparently his organization has grown bored of the people who actually want to take his challenge and they want to focus on those high-profile psychics who don't. After ten years of the challenge, they are enacting changes which will take effect April 1st. The biggest change is that they are closing the doors to anyone who does not have a "media profile" - television reports, newspaper articles, etc. - chronicling their paranormal abilities. They're hoping that the resources freed up by dropping low-profile cases will enable them to pursue the big dogs. Officially they have targeted psychics John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Uri Geller, and James Van Praagh, all of whom have expressed no desire to humor the man. The other major change, according to Randi, is that an applicant must have some sort of "academic to endorse their claims." The academic also has to stand behind the endorsement when contacted by the skeptics. Two thoughts off the top of my head: 1) If they are actively pursuing specific high-profile psychics that don't even want to take their test, how are they getting around their own rule that an academic must endorse them? If the psychic doesn't want to take the test, they're certainly not going to go looking for an academic sponsor. 2) Skeptics have been using this challenge for years as pseudo-proof that paranormal abilities do not exist. They naturally wonder: if one had these abilities why not take the challenge and win the million bucks? Of course it was never really proof to begin with, just evidence that the paranormal doesn't happen under certain "observing conditions". Most reported paranormal phenomena are spontaneous cases that never make it to a lab. Some observing conditions have even been clinically shown to prevent certain types of paranormal phenomena. Proof was always a misnomer. But now that the challenge is officially non-inclusive, it can finally be dropped from its over-inflated status as proof. After all, it's feasible that someone might have paranormal abilities and no media coverage, or no academic sponsor.
http://www.paranormalmagazine.com/
More on the changes.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72482-0.html