The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science (54 page)

273
calculus:
Jeanne Malmgren, ‘The “quack” hunter’,
St Petersburg Times
(Florida), 14 April 1998.

273
astronomy … psychology … hieroglyphics:
Paul Vallely, ‘Now he sees it …’,
The Times
, 5 February 1987.

273
fifteen when he committed his first public debunking:
Chris Dafoe, ‘Magician spearheads war against supernatural claims’,
Globe and Mail
(Canada), 29 May 1987.

273
At seventeen … never walk again:
Patricia Orwen, ‘The Amazing Randi’,
Toronto Star
, 23 August 1986.

273
(or, in a later account, walk
straight
again):
Interview with author.

274
achieved ‘mediocre’ results:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

274
‘This is a premise I cannot support’:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

274
‘signed Randall James Hamilton Zwinge’:
Interview with author.

274
refusing to take any more tests:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

274
Still seventeen, he joined Peter March’s Travelling Circus:
Patricia Cohen, ‘Poof! You’re a Skeptic: The Amazing Randi’s Vanishing Humbug’,
New York Times
, 17 February 2001.

274
he took a job writing newspaper horoscopes:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 62.

274
saw two office workers:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 61.

274
or … two prostitutes:
Interview.

274
or … a waitress:
Daniel B. Caton, ‘Life Is Really Not In The Stars …’
Charlotte Observer
(North Carolina), 26 September 2006.

274
‘I could not live with that kind of lie’:
Interview with Scot Morris,
Omni
Magazine, April 1980, p. 77.

274
habitually pick up the telephone before it rang:
Wessley Hicks, ‘Snoops on Minds’,
Toronto Evening Telegram
, 14 August 1950 (reprinted in James Randi,
The Magic of Uri Geller
, Ballantine Books, 1985, p. 304).

274
‘Certain perceptions have been given me’:
Wessley Hicks, ‘He Sees the Future’,
Toronto Evening Telegram
, 28 August 1950 (reprinted in James Randi,
The Magic of Uri Geller
, Ballantine Books, 1985, p. 305).

274
Japan … Halifax harbour:
Virginia Corner, ‘Debunking myths is magician’s game’,
Toronto Star
, 15 June 1987.

274
twenty-eight jail cells in Canada and the US:
Patricia Orwen, ‘The Amazing Randi’,
Toronto Star
, 23 August 1986.

274
sometimes he says it was twenty-two, ‘all over the world’:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

274–75
underwater casket … above Broadway:
Patricia Orwen, ‘The Amazing Randi’,
Toronto Star
, 23 August 1986.

275
out of helicopters:
Michael J. Ybarra, ‘The Psychic and the Skeptic’,
Los Angeles Times
, 13 September 1991.

275
top of Niagara Falls:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

275
won a Guinness World Record:
Claim confirmed to author by Guinness World Record Organization.

275
toured with Alice Cooper:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

275
got to know Salvador Dali:
Chris Beck, ‘On The Couch’,
The Age
, 26 June 1993.

275
radio show in 1964:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 252.

275
humiliated the celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller:
St Petersburg Times
(Florida), 24 July 2007.

275
‘the true danger of uncritical thinking’:
James Randi Million Dollar Challenge FAQ. JREF.org.

275
‘one of America’s most original and fearless thinkers’:
Patricia Cohen, ‘Poof! You’re a Skeptic: The Amazing Randi’s Vanishing Humbug’,
New York Times
, 17 February 2001.

275
‘I xerox everything and send it to the FBI’:
Paul Vallely, ‘Now he sees it …’,
The Times
, 5 February 1987.

275
‘I don’t answer the door’:
Sven Nordenstam, ‘Mystics can pocket a million – when pigs can fly’, Reuters News, 3 December 2004.

275
a new dark age:
Patricia Cohen, ‘Poof! You’re a Skeptic: The Amazing Randi’s Vanishing Humbug’,
New York Times
, 17 February 2001.

275
‘It’s a very dangerous thing to believe in nonsense’:
Sven Nordenstam, ‘Mystics can pocket a million – when pigs can fly’, Reuters News, 3 December 2004.

275
‘It’s the simplest challenge in the world’:
Bryan Johnson, ‘Claptrap or an unknown world?’,
Globe and Mail
(Canada), 13 April 1985.

276
‘I am an investigator’:
‘The $18,000 question’,
Straits Times
, 30 May 1991.

276
often get called ‘grubbies’:
James Randi, ‘A Champion Grubby Speaks Out’,
Swift
blog, 22 April 2009.

276
‘We will give away the million dollars when pigs can fly’:
Sven Nordenstam, ‘Mystics can pocket a million – when pigs can fly’, Reuters News, 3 December 2004.

276
‘Why isn’t someone like Sheldrake coming after it?’:
Interview,
Skeptiko
podcast, 1 April 2008.

277
‘a man of very doubtful character indeed’:
Rupert Sheldrake, interview with author.

277
‘One shot, to the chops’:
James Randi, ‘A Champion Grubby Speaks Out’,
Swift
blog, 22 April 2009.

277
‘I want people to consider my point of view’:
‘On The Couch’,
The Age
, 26 June 1993.

277
One extraordinary tale comes from Professor George Vithoulkas:
My account of this long, complex and fraught process was reconstructed from Randi’s various blog postings as well as direct communication with George Vithoulkas, Maria Chorianopoulou, Althea Katz and Gabor Hrasko.

279
Randi reported that the magnetometer’s inventor:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 132.

279
reports that these tests had been replicated were ‘a lie’:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 133.

279
But a journalist named Scott Rogo:
Michael Prescott, ‘Flim-Flam Flummery’,
http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm
.

279
‘outright lies from a sensationalist’:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 135.

280
You can say it any way you want, but that’s what I call a lie’:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, p. 133.

280
‘masterpiece of evasion and license … Zev Pressman’:
James Randi,
Flim Flam
, Prometheus, 1982, pp. 144–45.

284
Randi’s account of his meeting with Veronica Keen:
James Randi,
Swift
blog, 15 August 2003.

284
I also found a rebuttal:
Accessed at:
http://www.victorzammit.com/articles/montaguereplies.html
.

287
Some of the past applicants of the Million Dollar Challenge:
Compiled from the ‘Previous Applicants’ section on the JREF website.

287
‘made-up mystical BS’:
The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe
podcast, 339, 14 January 2012.

288
Wealthy televangelist Peter Popoff … Professor Chris French:
Interview, Chris French and James Randi, YouTube, April 2008, on behalf of
The Skeptic
magazine.

289
As usual, Randi took to the Internet to protest:
James Randi,
Swift
blog, 8 April 2005.

289
‘
Or just a plain old LIE?’:
James Randi,
Swift
blog, 11 May 2001.

291
‘the family couldn’t really understand him’:
Patricia Orwen, ‘The Amazing Randi’,
Toronto Star
, 23 August 1986.

292
recently, in 2010, that Randi publicly came out as gay:
James Randi, ‘How To Say It?’,
Swift
blog, 21 March 2010 12:37.

293
I have found a second interview from the same period:
Patricia Orwen, ‘The Amazing Randi’,
Toronto Star
, 23 August 1986.

293
‘We at JREF have tested these claims. They fail.’:
Dog World
, January 2000.

294
Randi sent an email explaining that, regretfully, he couldn’t supply the data:
Email, 6 February 2000.

294
But he subsequently went online and
attacked
Sheldrake:
Brandon K. Thorp, ‘The Sheldrake Kerfluffle’,
Swift
blog, 2 December 2009 [which quoted Randi, ‘earlier this afternoon’].

Epilogue: The Hero-Maker

[Many of the statements and quotes in this chapter are restatements from earlier in the text. References to these points can be found in their appropriate places.]

302
in most of your conversation:
Michael S. Gazzaniga,
Human
, Harper Perennial, 2008, p. 96.

302
‘Astro’, the Australian horse:
‘Sinking horse pulled from mudflats in Australia’, BBC News, 29 February 2012.

302
$48,000 of US taxpayers’ money was once spent:
Dan Ariely,
The Upside of Irrationality
, HarperCollins, 2010, p. 249.

302
the birth of silent cinema:
David Denby, ‘The Artists’,
New Yorker
, 27 February 2012.

302
humanity’s earliest stories sought to explain the world:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 13.

302
Rituals developed around them:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 61.

302
The historian Mircea Eliade writes:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 55.

302
Sigmund Freud believed:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 93.

302
the psychologist Otto Rank:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 94.

302-303
the mythologist Joseph Campbell:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 106.

303
we experience the tales that we immerse ourselves in:
Annie Murphy Paul, ‘Your Brain on Fiction’,
New York Times
, 17 March 2012.

303
We feel the heroes’ feelings:
‘“Losing Yourself” in a Fictional Character Can Affect Your Real Life’,
Science Daily
, 7 May 2012.

303
‘contagion is at the heart of emotion’:
Bruce E. Wexler,
Brain and Culture
, MIT Press, 2008, p. 34.

303
‘a capacity for surprise is an essential aspect’:
Daniel Kahneman,
Thinking, Fast and Slow
, Penguin, 2011, p. 71.

303
‘a surge of conscious attention’:
Daniel Kahneman,
Thinking, Fast and Slow
,
Penguin, 2011, p. 24.

303
‘a story begins with some breach’:
Jerome Bruner,
Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life
, Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 31.

303
By the age of five:
Jeremy Hsu, ‘The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn’,
Scientific American Mind
, 18 September 2008.

303
Professor of Psychology Keith Oatley has observed:
Jeremy Hsu, ‘The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn’,
Scientific American Mind
, 18 September 2008.

304
Evolutionary psychologist David Sloan Wilson has compared:
Mark Pagel,
Wired For Culture
, Allen Lane, 2012, p. 150.

304
Marxist philosopher Georges Sorel believed:
Robert A. Segal,
Myth
, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 128.

304
Professor Paul Bloom has observed:
Paul Bloom, ‘How do morals change?’,
Nature
464, 25 March 2010, p. 490.

308
‘dangerous people, from playground bullies to warmongering dictators’:
Roy Baumeister,
Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty
, Barnes & Noble/W. H. Freeman, 1997, p. 135.