Another Silly Dowsing Rod, Statue of Stature, Support from a Bishop, Progress North of the Border, A Squirming Astrologer, Good Ammunition, Astrology for Airlines, God In Orbit, The BBC “Responds,” The Usual Tirade, A Quick and Desperate Response, Asking Those Awkward Questions, True, Pity Kramer, and A Wonderful Closer for This Week….

Table of Contents:

ANOTHER SILLY DOWSING ROD

Here is the letter – Certified Mail #7003 0500 0002 3034 8263 received on August 8/05 – that I wrote to the CEO of a company selling a device he calls the Sniffex, a hand-held toy which is the same as the Quadro Locator and the DKL LifeGuard. Do a search on our site for references to those frauds.

Paul Johnson, Sniffex, Inc.
S5215 North O'Connor Blvd.
Suite 200
Irving, TX, 75039

Dear Mr. Johnson:

This is a formal offer to you and your corporation from the James Randi Educational Foundation. We stand prepared to award you our million-dollar prize for a successful demonstration of the Sniffex device that you market.

Details on this offer can be found at www.randi.org/research/index.html on the Internet. For your convenience, I have enclosed a printed-out application form. Simply fill this out and return it to this Foundation, and we will immediately begin arranging a simple protocol – in line with those which you say were done at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

We await your response.

Well, yes, we await a response. But we’ll move on with our lives while waiting….

Go to [www.sniffex.com] tinyurl.com/c8nz and notice how fuzzy the letterhead is… I’m currently looking into that performance report, which has no date, and the grammar and spelling are shaky. So far as I can tell, New Mexico Tech – where I visited last month – can’t verify that they did any testing of this device. The report even misspells the name of the Sniffex as “Snieffix.” The engineer who they say invented this wonder, Bulgarian Yuri Markov, is said to have been “a satellite connection consultant to the Deutsche Telecom over the past 10 years.” How that qualifies him as an expert in explosives, I cannot tell.

In any case, Yuri and Paul claim that the Sniffex can detect a sample of explosive “several meters” away, in steel- or concrete-shielded casings. I propose a test – for the JREF prize – from just half a meter away, the explosive contained in a simple paper bag. That should be very interesting to Paul Johnson, but I guarantee that it won’t; it would show that the Sniffex is a fake, a fraud, a scam.

You have my address and telephone number, Mr. Johnson….

Hello? Paul? You there?

STATUE OF STATURE

Reader Chris Montanaro reports to us on yet another of the perceived “miracles” over which the media never fail to gush, and the public enthusiastically gobbles up. The last one in this country was a goo-stain of questionable origin in a Chicago underpass that looked either like Mother Mary or an incredible/edible Shmoo, depending on the viewers’ needs and/or preferences. The latest one in Italy was a Mary figure that had legs that became flesh-colored and moved. Now it’s a plaster Christ – probably made in Korea – salvaged from a trash can by Julio “Sly” Dones, that has the faithful oohing and ahhing once more:

I thought this story might interest you. It concerns a statue of Jesus in Hoboken, NJ, that has miraculously "opened" one if its eyes and is now drawing large crowds. God used to part the seas, but apparently this is now the best He can muster: [www.nydailynews.com] tinyurl.com/86hjg.

I first learned about this "miracle" while overhearing a local news program that mentioned it. One of the journalists mentioned that skeptics had accused someone of painting a fake eye on the statue, which was obviously not the case since the eye in the statue appears to be made of glass, and is clearly embedded in the statue itself. The assumption that the eyes on the statue were originally closed is a false one, since the unaltered eye is also open, just to a much lesser degree. However, the journalist's comment serves to paint the skeptics as desperately clutching at straws to come up with an explanation, when it's obvious that the material above and below the eye has been scratched away by a finger or a tool.

I think the 14-year-old girl who is quoted in the last paragraph of the article sums it up nicely: "It's just a sculpture," said Wanda Aldea, shaking her head. "I think somebody just scraped its eyelid off." Leave it to a child to be the only one with enough courage to reveal that the emperor has no clothes.

What’s more astonishing to me, Chris, is that the news program ran Wanda’s opinion – unless it was to establish that our rebellious younger generation has abandoned miracles in favor of rationality. And, since only one holy eye is open, perhaps we’re actually being winked at…? My illustration here indicates that the statue was simply struck, breaking away the right eyelid from the glass eye beneath. I just dubbed in the eye as it originally was – pre-miracle.

SUPPORT FROM A BISHOP

You’ll recall the exchange between reader Shawn Bishop and columnist Judyth Piazza at www.randi.org/jr/072205meters.html#12. Here’s the – probably final – exchange between these two. First, Ms. Piazza’s rejoinder to Shawn, just as the journalist wrote it:

I would like to say thank you for your concern in regards to my journalistic integrity. Currently, I am a senior at the University of Central Florida and all feedback that I receive is essential in the development of my journalistic ability.

As shown on Randi's website in the article "She Ain’t Gonna Budge" there was some question to why I requested Shawn Bishop s credentials before speaking to him. I feel that this was not an unreasonable request whereas there are many people out there that may not have the best intentions. Because of that, I will continue to request credentials and biographical information from anyone that may be requesting commentary or services from myself.

At the beginning of my career, I quickly found that topics of importance did not generate the interest that national enquirer type stories do. However, I would like to mention that true or false, accurate or inaccurate, explained or unexplained or even a fancy word such as hypothesis as in there self do not prove anything. What is certain is that you obviously have an interest in the paranormal and that the U.S. government up until 1995 spent about 25 million dollars on the topic (RV) [remote viewing]. Anyone with an interest can validate this information by taking the time to go through Government expenditures.

My point is, as a fledgling writer you want to get your name out there and have as many people read your work as possible. Obviously, I have fostered the reaction I was looking for. But, my question to you is, rather than scrutinizing my integrity, why not take the time and energy to uncover the mystery yourself. I will make this promise to you...I am going to take another look at remote viewing whereas, I have more time, resources, experience, and skill to cover this story in a much more in depth manner. 

If you can be of any assistance, I welcome your cooperation. However, please remember that James Randi as well as myself owes our popularity to the exact type of people that you accuse me of being. (Gullible, skeptical, curious, intuitive, adventurous, tenacious, and reliable) in other words human.

Shawn answered:

You raise an interesting point in regards to requesting credentials of persons before you correspond/speak with them. On April 21 I sent you an email in which was included my answer to your request of my credentials. I went on to further explain what my real interest was in contacting you regarding your internet article on Operation Stargate; namely, that I was critical of the credulous manner in which your article presented this so-called research and, in particular, one Joe McMoneagle. In that email I also provided you with references to read what other people, outside SRI, found when they toured the SRI labs and, as if that were not enough, I also provided you with the information by which you could contact one of those persons directly; namely, links and email address of James Randi.

After I answered your request for my credentials and provided you with additional information and personal contacts that would shed more light on your investigations into SRI 's past, you promptly disengaged from further correspondence, as I heard nothing back from you. I can only assume that because the information I provided you was not what you wanted to hear about SRI, that is, it was not information that cast SRI in a positive light, you wanted nothing more to do with it.

You are entirely wrong, Judyth, to say that I have an interest in the paranormal. I do not. Perhaps on the surface, in the few emails we have exchanged, it may appear this way, but then I would suggest to you to read what I have to say much more carefully. I have no interest in the likes of McMoneagle insofar as their claimed abilities are concerned, because it is self-evident that such people are charlatans and scam artists. The real interest I have is in the psychological and societal aspects of why it is so many seemingly intelligent people are able to fall hook, line, and sinker for the lies, games, and scams that such persons as McMoneagle and his ilk pull off on an unsuspecting, credulous journalists and the public.

You suggest that I "uncover the mystery." To what mystery are you referring? If you are suggesting that RV'ing is a mystery, I wish you all the best in spending the rest of your days being fooled by unscrupulous persons such as McMoneagle who prey on the vulnerability, naivety – and in some cases outright stupidity – of uncritical people who gladly swallow any pill of lies they are fed in the hopes they will feel better for it. The only mystery in any of this, Judyth, is how any rational human being could willingly be conned into accepting such fantastical claims without so much as questioning in the slightest way whether any of it could really be true.

That the US government spent any money on this "research" is of little importance or consequence in respect to the veracity of McMoneagle's claims, or of those claims by any of the researchers at SRI [Stanford Research International]. Governments spend millions every year on foolish, nonsensical "scientific research."  If you wanted to really dig into your government's books, you would probably find hundreds of millions of your hard-earned tax dollars being wasted on perpetual motion machines, anti-gravity, and RV'ing. Does this money spending mean that any of these things are "true"? Hardly so. It only proves these things "true" in the same sense that the Tooth Faery is proven "true" to a child who wakes up in the morning to find his tooth has been removed from under his pillow and replaced with pocket change. If you found your government spending millions of dollars on tracking down a giant rabbit because the nation's children all declared themselves to be finding chocolate eggs in their rooms on a specific day of every year, would you then conclude that there must be truth in the Easter Bunny fable? The money wasted on these foolish projects does underscore, however, what we already know about legislators: a) most are not scientifically literate and b) most dole out cash on many occasions just to ensure themselves votes at the next election. In short, the willingness of a government to spend money on projects such as these show that credulity and stupidity run deep in any institution where the basic tenets of science are unknown or ignored.

Your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs speak volumes, Judyth, to your journalistic integrity. You do no justice to your profession by admitting that you are quite happy pandering to the bottom-feeder fauna of society. (Your honesty in the matter is, however, appreciated). If I read your words in their correct context – I might be misreading them, as they are not terribly clear – they read to me as saying that you, bluntly put, don't give a damn about the honesty, accuracy, or veracity of that which you publish – much like those who write the dross published in National Enquirer. If that be, then I would challenge you to ask yourself what motivates you to go into journalism, because, it seems to me, journalists can only do one of two things with their work:  inform the public, or misinform the public. If you are happy to write dross so that your name becomes known, then you do a disservice to society. You have the opportunity to spread the light of knowledge and education upon the minds of society, and you have the choice to gravitate down to the bottom-feeder fauna of our society just to make some quick cash and get your name known. In what circles do you want your name to be known? Those of the ilk of Jerry Springer, et al, or those educators, scientists, and people of affluence who do what they can to make our world a better place?

Finally, a few sentences on your closing regarding Randi. James Randi, though I go out on a limb here in "speaking for him," does not owe his popularity to anyone. If you took the time to research the man, that would become self-evident to you. Randi does what he does because of something that is foreign to most people, and to the minds of most journalists: altruism. Yes, in his early career, he sought popularity as a professional conjuror/magician. However, unlike how you describe yourself in paragraphs 2 and 3, Randi has never sought popularity in what he is now doing. It has come to him by virtue of what he presents to the public in his knowledge, integrity and his candor. And if there was ever a lesson for a fledgling journalist trying to get their name known, it would be in seeing his example: that one can write about the hard facts of reality without pandering to the dross of society and make for themselves a well-known (infamous!) career and held in the highest respect by ones peers as an educator and decent human being.

Popularity should be the result of a job well-done, not the result of pathetic appeals to the credulity and ignorance of the public; a public you could instead be seeking to educate and inform about the fantastic wonders of the scientific discoveries occurring every day around you.

Randi comments: While I appreciate the designation of myself as an “altruist,” I must deny that label. An altruist would be doing this work without thought of any reward; to be frank, I receive great rewards for what I do. The appreciation from those who have been helped by what the JREF publishes and promotes, the letters of thanks that arrive from individuals who are now better able to present their own skeptical notions to those they believe have been wronged or hindered by belief in supernatural notions, and the support given the JREF through donations, grants, and attendance at our functions – these all add up to my great satisfaction, I assure you. But I’ll share with you how I cautioned a reader just today when he thanked me for helping him to “see the light”:

Eric, thank you for your encouraging note. Much appreciated, among the insults and threats that pepper my mail box….!

Please bear in mind that I’m not the only individual waging this battle. Michael Shermer and CSICOP fight the same foes as the JREF does – in differing styles, it’s true, but toward the same goal. I hope that you’ll not only continue to check in at our web site, but will also consider subscribing to the online Skeptic newsletter – and their magazine! – by going to join-skeptics@lyris.net and requesting to be put on their list. Also look in at www.csicop.org/list/#subscribe and send CSICOP your name – and of course ask about Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Though your note specified that you’d freed yourself of religious beliefs, remember that we at the JREF are not primarily concerned with that aspect; we fight superstition in general, concentrating on the aspects that we can directly show to be fraudulent and dishonest.

So, I’m no saint, but I have good companions on this battlefield who just might qualify….!

Returning to Shawn: When you write, “Governments spend millions every year on foolish, nonsensical ‘scientific research,’" I get a bit uncomfortable. Yes, your statement is true; consider the present example: a fortune was spent on the “remote viewing” notion, and it should have cost not more than about $30,000 to obtain a good-sized data base to establish whether or not there was any substance in those claims. The end result of the overly-funded research was that further investment in the idea was just not a good investment, and that there had been no significant results obtained. The agencies involved understandably turned to other matters.

However, Shawn, even before the money was dedicated to that research, it was very obvious that there was no precedent in science for such phenomena, no theoretical framework existed upon which to place the claims, no hard evidence was in place to support those claims, and only the nagging fear that other governments might find something in it to their advantage, impelled our government to put up the funding. Yet there actually was a good reason to look into the notion, simply because there just might exist a new force, or a hitherto-unsuspected sensing mechanism, or some other subtle ability, that could account for the reports. If Henri Becquerel had ignored the unexpected fogging of a photographic plate, or Fleming had tossed out moldy Petri dishes, we’d have delayed the discovery of radioactivity and of penicillin; for a scientist, “unlikely-to-be-true” is not a feature that should discourage curiosity.

My point is that such weird, unfamiliar, foreign claims can and should be properly investigated, and just as Nature Magazine called in a magician to aid in their investigation of bizarre claims made by a French researcher back in 1988, scientists would do well to look beyond academe and enlist specialists who do not necessarily place letters after their names….

PROGRESS NORTH OF THE BORDER

Reader Ken Hamer informs us that two Canadians – Michael Reynolds of Toronto and John Armstrong of Penticton, B.C. – have been charged with selling a bogus cancer treatment to hundreds of sick patients. They were arrested last week for allegedly peddling the benefits of a phony cancer therapy and bilking millions of dollars from patients worldwide. Using seminars, brochures and telemarketing techniques, the suspects told cancer victims and their families that their treatment – known as “cell-specific cancer therapy” or “Zoetron therapy” – could selectively kill cancer cells without harming healthy ones. They claimed to have treated 850 patients around the world, charging each of them as much as US$20,000, and they are now each charged with ten counts of knowingly or recklessly making false or misleading representations to the public.

It’s estimated that patients were swindled out of some $12,750,000 from August/96 to February/03. Investigating authorities doubted that many victims of the scam would even be still living at this point. Outpatient clinics were run by Reynolds and Armstrong in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Switzerland, and Spain, promising treatment of lung cancer and cancer of the brain, breast, colon, prostate, and skin. Part of their scam was to place patients on beds and pass them through machines outwardly similar to those used for MRIs, but those devices couldn’t do any of the kinds of things that they claimed.

News of the allegations angered a health-care watchdog group. "To have somebody that is doing this at this time of people's lives, preying on them both financially and...offering them false hope in this way, is just unconscionable," said Joel Alleyne, executive director of the Canadian Health Care Anti-Fraud Association. A couple of questions, Mr. Alleyne: Does Canada also countenance the prescribing and sale of homeopathic preparations? Do fortune-tellers openly diagnose ailments and sell magic charms to the naïve? And do faith-healers in public venues in your country slap their victims on the forehead and declare them to be healed by appeals to a deity? Yes, Mr. Alleyne, those farces also take place in Canada – and most other countries of the world. Has anything been done about those swindles by the Canadian Health Care Anti-Fraud Association? I’d like to know why “Zoetron therapy” got such headline attention and action, yet the other scams are still flourishing….

A SQUIRMING ASTROLOGER

Reader Oke Millet came upon the website [crawfordperspectives.com] http://tinyurl.com/7o9zo that says it’s a

…financial markets advisory service utilizing “technical analysis” and “planetary cycles research” to determine effective market-timing strategy.

Arch Crawford, the astrologer who provides this service, was contacted by Oke by e-mail and made aware of the JREF prize:

My name is Oke Millett & I am a member of the James Randi Educational Foundation. I thought I would let you know about a $1 million dollar prize that could be awaiting Mr. Crawford should he apply for and succeed in winning the JREF challenge. Details are at this link, including application forms: www.randi.org.

The JREF supports and conducts research into paranormal claims, and Mr. Crawford's financial astrology that I read about in a Yahoo! News item piece could qualify for the prize. In any event, I pass this information on to you for information only. While I am a member of the JREF I am not directly affiliated in any way and you'll need to follow the instructions on the JREF website to apply for the prize.

Mr. Crawford responded by jumping through what appears to be the favorite escape-hatch for those who find their claims in jeopardy, followed by astonishment that a mystic hasn’t already carried off the trophy, and then an offer of the “obvious” reason for this failure :

We do not claim any psychic or paranormal abilities.

We run statistical studies comparing planetary contacts with DJIA back to 1915, and attempt to project forward what might happen under various combinations. We back that up with Technical Market Analysis of data actually generated by markets, such as Volume characteristics, New 52-week Highs & Lows, Advances/Declining stock issues daily & weekly, support and resistance levels, etc.

Also, there are strenuous complexities about Randi's methodologies which I find unnecessarily constricting. Since no one has won, there is obviously an extreme bias, and these people have not hesitated to attack good work in a spurious and underhanded manner.

Arch finds “strenuous complexities” with our “unnecessarily constricting” methods, when he hasn’t even applied or discussed any protocol! Perhaps whatever “spurious and underhanded” methods he might have divined in my methods, were arrived at through astrology, though they’re not specified by him, of course; in astrology, they give hints, clues, or suggestions, never a direct statement. However, Arch has only come to our attention once before, at www.randi.org/jr/021502.html – do a search for “Crawford” – and he dropped from our sights at that point. Now, it appears that he has been waiting patiently for me to send him the prize check – despite his having forgotten to fill out an application – and he assumes that I’ve been hanging on every word he’s obtained from his crystal ball:

They used to attack [my work] by calling great attention to some minor weekly or monthly opinion that did not work, and totally ignore my prediction of the TOP DAY and CRASH in 1987. There are many others, many of which have appeared in popular print well before the events transpired. Randi has not exactly beat [sic] a path to my door to proclaim me the winner.

He will fight with every underhanded trick he knows, and he knows many, to keep from paying his money out. I make a very nice living doing what I love to do, and I don't need the aggravation of his brand of cracked pot.

Your last correct guess was in 1987? Gee, Arch, if you think I’ve been monitoring your meanderings for the last eighteen years hoping to find a prediction that was right, I have a shock for you. Be a good chap: fill out the application, we’ll really bend over backward to not “constrict” you, we’ll abandon each and every one of our “spurious and underhanded” methods, and you just do your thing. Win the million. Oh, you’ve a closing comment?

They at least quit writing me up after several attacks, when several of my projections made the popular press before the events.

Yes, you’ve got the process straight, Arch: you have to “project” “before the events”! At risk of being constricting, I must inform you that we gave up even thinking about you way back in February of 2002. That’s 42 months ago – when Saturn was in Ophiuchus – which is on the zodiac, but conveniently ignored in your “art” – and Pluto was in Taurus. You didn’t even know there was a trans-Plutonian planet. Those “several attacks” you cite must have been by other sensible persons.

GOOD AMMUNITION

Professor Louis A. Bloomfield knows how things work, and reader John Raynor of the University of Virginia found out about that:

I stumbled across this web site this morning and was quite pleased to see it (I graduated from the Physics Dept. here at UVa): http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/ It's quite a long page and I've only had time to read about 10% of it so far, but it seems to be very informative and interesting. A funny quote (but not the reason I'm writing to you):

Let's start with the differences in types of radiation. Basically, anything that moves is radiation, from visible light, to ultraviolet, to X-rays, to microwaves, to alpha particles, to neutrons, and even to flying pigeons. These different radiations do different things when they hit you, particularly the pigeons.

A “funny quote,” John? Not to the pigeons, I’ll bet. But continue.

Anyway, here is one of the questions with the complete answer to it. After all of the claims for free energy I've seen reading back through your commentary archive, I thought you might like this additional source from which to quote. I like the idea that it breaks things down and relates them to simple math, which, hopefully, most people can handle.

Q: Why are physicists so skeptical about peoples' claims to have invented motors that provide mechanical power without consuming electric power or generators that produce electric power without consuming mechanical power from the systems that turns them? I'm asking myself this question.

A: While it may seem as though there is some grand conspiracy among physicists to deny validation to those inventors, nothing could be farther from the truth. Physicists generally maintain a healthy skepticism about whatever they hear and are much less susceptible to dogmatic conservativeness than one might think.

However, physicists think long and deep about the laws that govern the universe, especially about their simplicity and self-consistency. In particular, they learn how even the slightest disagreement between a particular law and the observed behavior of the universe indicates either a problem with that law (typically an oversimplification, but occasionally a complete misunderstanding) or a failure in the observation. The law of energy conservation is a case in point: if it actually failed to work perfectly even one time, it would cease to be a meaningful law. The implications for our understanding of the universe would be enormous. Physicists have looked for over a century for a failure of energy conservation and have never found one; not a single one. (Note: relativistic energy conservation involves mass as well as energy, but that doesn't change the present story.)

The laws of both energy conservation and thermodynamics are essentially mathematical laws – they depend relatively little on the specific details of our universe. Just about the only specific detail that's important is time-translation symmetry: as far as we can tell, physics doesn't change with time — physics today is the same as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow. That observation leads, amazingly enough, to energy conservation: energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only change forms or be transferred between objects. Together with statistical principals, we can derive thermodynamics without any further reference to the universe itself. And having developed energy conservation and the laws of thermodynamics, the game is over for free-energy motors and generators. They just can't work. It's not a matter of looking for one special arrangement that works among millions that don't. There are exactly zero arrangements that work.

It's not a matter of my bias, unless you consider my belief that 2 plus 2 equals 4 to be some sort of bias. You can look all you like for a 2 that when added to another 2 gives you a 5, but I don't expect you to succeed.

About once every month or two, someone contacts me with a new motor that turns for free or a generator that creates power out of nowhere. The pattern always repeats: I send them the sad news that their invention will not work and they respond angrily that I am not listening, that I am biased, and that I am part of the conspiracy. Oh well. There isn't much else I can do. I suppose I could examine each proposal individually at length to find the flaw, but I just don't have the time. I'm a volunteer here and this is time away from my family.

Instead, I suggest that any inventor who believes he or she has a free-energy device build that device and demonstrate it openly for the physics community. Take it to an American Physical Society [ APS ] conference and present it there. Let everyone in the audience examine it closely. Since anyone can join the APS and any APS member can talk at any major APS conference, there is plenty of opportunity. If someone succeeds in convincing the physics community that they have a true free-energy machine, more power to them (no pun intended). But given the absence of any observed failure of time-translation symmetry, and therefore the steadfast endurance of energy conservation laws, I don't expect any successful devices.

Professor, you won’t be surprised to learn that when I respond similarly to those who inundate the JREF with earnest descriptions and explanations of free-energy devices, I get the same enraged conspiracy/bias objections, but in my case they also add that I’m not a scientist, and just don’t know about these matters. Now that I know how to reach you, I’ll be sending all these people to you.

Just kidding! Hold those rocks!

ASTROLOGY FOR AIRLINES

Our friend in the Netherlands, Jan Willem Nienhuys, is concerned about the KLM airline and its current fascination with nonsense. “IT” refers to “Information Technology.” He writes:

KLM using astrology sounds a bit scary, but what happened was that after the fusion of KLM and Air France, the IT-departments of both organizations had to learn to cooperate, understand each other's company culture, and work out some kind of division of labor. The vice-president of KLM 's IT-division then tried to use astrology, using the horoscopes of KLM, of Air France, and of the merged entity and of the people in his IT-department, to work out the strong and weak points of all parties involved. The IT-people themselves were, as the vice-president said, “curious and derisive.”

Randi comments: No, you read that “horoscopes of KLM, of Air France” correctly. Business astrologers determine the futures of business organizations by using the date of incorporation of the company as the “birth” date, and calculate the positions of the celestial bodies for that date to divine that information. No, this isn’t April 1st, it’s the middle of August…. Back to Jan Willem:

Our author doesn't comment much about it, except that later on he says people in business astrology (excepting the financial astrologer) themselves see their craft more as a belief than as a science.

The author also says that astrology isn't much better than throwing a die, and that usually the business astrologers have some decent knowledge outside of astrology as well. He doesn't say explicitly that a “business astrologer” might prefer not to say “You are lazy/incompetent/too old/quarrelsome, and you’re fired,” but “Your Jupiter is square the company's Mars, so I cannot see how you can fit in well.” Unpleasant truths can be made a little more palatable in this way.

It is left to the reader to figure out for him/herself that someone in the personnel management sphere who has to rely in this way on an astrologer or any other kind of pretentious guru, just isn't very good.

I agree….

GOD IN ORBIT

Reader Mike Cunningham of Santa Ana, California, is surprised, as I am:

I was perusing a story about the current space shuttle mission when I ran across this unbelievable quote. Apparently the shuttle crew were individually offering remembrances about the Challenger [Columbia, actually] disaster and the crew who were unfortunately lost.

Now, I had always understood that the cause of disaster was that a chunk of foam from the external fuel tank had broken off and struck the shuttle during take-off. At the time there was no procedure to physically inspect the shuttle while in space, and the photo evidence during take-off, while showing the chunk of foam breaking off the tank, was apparently inconclusive as to whether it could have caused enough, or even any, damage to the shuttle that would jeopardize its re-entry. With that as reasonably factual background, we have this quote from crew member Charles Camarda on the current shuttle mission:

Tragically, two years ago, we came to realize we had let our God down. We became lost in our hubris and learned once more the terrible price that must be paid for our failures. In that accident, we not only lost seven colleagues, we lost seven friends.

I read that and I was, literally, dumbstruck for a few seconds. My first thought was to wonder how on earth someone with this mindset could possibly be chosen to participate in what can only be described as a highly technical, highly scientific assignment. What would his response be to a crisis while on this mission? Suppose the shuttle sprang a leak and began losing its air supply. Would the other astronauts be trying to remedy the situation with critical thinking and tested, proven procedures while this true believer was sitting in the corner saying "Oh Lord, we are good souls. Please fix this leak for us"?

It is astonishing that someone with this level of disdain for science could be chosen for this line of work.

That’s a bit hard, Mike. I can believe that a very religious person can be logical, rational, and realistic in the real world; that’s proven to us every day. What I find alarming here is that Camarda has taken the Columbia disaster as an intervention by a vengeful, cruel, capricious deity against seven humans who surely didn’t all deserve such a horrid death – but Camarda has no problem accepting that act. How he manages that, I can’t imagine. In any case, our Discovery crew is safely back on Earth after a highly successful 14-day mission. I suspect that they got back due to technology, courage, skill, and attention to detail, not due to prayer.

(What you read above was seen here the first day the page was up. I immediately began receiving messages from alarmed readers who suggested that I’d been rash in not examining more closely that quotation from astronaut Camarda. Our friend Avital Pilpel was the first to notify me. He wrote:

It is very likely that this quote is what a journalist LISTENING to Mr. Camarda thought he said, not words actually typed by him. It seems reasonable that what he actually said was, "we came to realize we had let our GUARD down", and the reporter misheard "God" for "guard". This hypothesis is supported by:

1). The similarity of the words "God" and "guard" in spoken English.

2). The context: to be "lost in hubris", Mr. Camarda's next sentence, means precisely to let one's guard down out of overconfidence.

3). Linguistic probability: to "let one's guard down" is a well-known and common expression, while people usually do not refer to "our God" but simply to "God". (ie: a believer would have said "we let GOD down", not "our God").

4). How believers behave: if he said "God", then Mr. Camarda is saying that the loss of his seven friends is a punishment by God for their hubris. It is true that believers often attribute disasters to "God's anger" at sin, but they usually don't go so far as saying the death of THEIR OWN friends is a punishment for THEIR OWN sins.

All this taken into account, I would give Mr. Camarda the benefit of doubt, at least.

I heartily agree, and I apologize for my error.)

THE BBC “RESPONDS”

Reader Chris Green in the UK made some inquiries:

I am a great admirer of [the JREF] work. Thank you for helping me to develop my critical thinking skills and I look forward every week to reading your informative newsletter. I thought I'd send you a copy of an email I sent to the BBC regarding a “psychic” guest on one of their radio programs who made the usual incredible claims without challenge. Hopefully it will raise a giggle for you as well as bringing to your attention how a respectable organization such as the BBC gives a platform to these people. The program is Johnnie Walker's drive-time show which is broadcast between 5pm and 7pm every weekday. This show was broadcast on Thursday 4th August. Enough, here's the email:

I regularly listen to your excellent drive-time show and I'm writing to you today to express my concerns about an interview with so-called "clairvoyant" Martha Thompson. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to address my concerns?

First, why is BBC radio giving credence and air-time to these kinds of people? The BBC is funded by license payers and I think it is highly inappropriate to have a public service being used to further the spurious – indeed, some would say dangerous – claims of psychics.

Secondly, the claims being made by this individual are incredible and I cannot believe these claims were allowed to be made without challenge by your good self. She claimed to able to diagnose medical conditions by palm-reading, to be able to communicate telepathically with children (indeed, you stated that "children are telepathic") and most amazingly of all, that she can communicate telepathically with gorillas! You accepted all of these claims without offering one single challenge. Do you not think it prudent that independent studies into her abilities should've been asked for? Because if her claims are true, then the advancement of her craft, of medical science and of course, child psychology will take a quantum leap. Unfortunately, a quantum leap of faith is all that is required from people to believe in her claims and it is a leap my intelligence will not allow me to make. Can you please explain why you accepted her claims without challenge? Because in refusing to challenge such assertions, passive acceptance is generated. Passive acceptance in dealing with these subjects is dangerous, as I'll explain now.

Thirdly, these claims are dangerous. Medical science has much more of an understanding about genetic disposition to illness - unraveling of DNA is regarded as a medical miracle. It can pin-point genetic disposition to illness with great accuracy. Your guest claims to able to demonstrate the same understanding by reading palms yet no concrete, independently verified study was offered as proof. Poor doesn't quite cover this. Moreover, some listeners who maybe hard of thinking may actually believe that people such as your guest can offer more hope than medical science, a belief which could cause them significant harm. Again, for a public organization such as the BBC to give such people a platform where they can spout their "psychic gifts" without challenge is highly irresponsible. Your guest's medical knowledge is also somewhat comical. How you resisted the urge to laugh out loud when she confidently declared: "Hands are formed in the womb" I do not know. I was certainly in tears of laughter at this point. Where else would they be formed? In the left leg? Utterly hilarious!

Finally, something your guest will find interesting I'm sure. If her claims are true, your guest can claim the princely sum of ONE MILLION DOLLARS from The James Randi Educational Foundation – http://www.randi.org. Its founder, Mr. James Randi, will present this prize to any psychic who can, under independent observation undergoing controlled tests agreed in advance by all parties concerned, demonstrate their psychic claims to be true. Your guest has a great opportunity to create a better life for herself, or, she could use the money to fund further research into psychic phenomena. She could even give the lot away to charity. Please pass on this information to her so she is aware of this. However, as no psychic has ever proved their claims, I doubt she will take up the challenge. Should this prove to be true, it does not make me psychic so no need to invite me as a guest on your show!

The website for the Randi Foundation is here and I suggest you and your researchers should make use of it and offer at least a basic challenge to the highly dubious claims made by deluded psychics you invite as guests on your usually excellent show. And yes, I will still be listening despite this very poor piece of radio broadcasting.

Chris sent this in, then waited. A few days later…. 

Amazingly, the presenter has responded. It's below FYI. I don't think the content will come as a surprise.  Ah well, I tried! I'll keep soldiering on come what may!

The skeptics have ruled all forms of media for hundreds of years, is it really so dangerous for one clairvoyant to have 15-20 minutes to talk about what they believe. What are you so scared of?

Johnnie Walker

ps:  this is a personal reply and not on behalf of the BBC

As we might imagine, Chris answered back:

That is a simplistic and disappointing response.

Perhaps skeptics rule because they use their rational minds? Minds which have taken mankind quite a long way.

The issue isn't whether psychics should have the right to believe and appear as guests on your show to discuss their beliefs. It is more about offering challenge and research into their claims so that understanding can be developed and to also ensure that such beliefs cannot harm people who are easily led. The attitude of passive acceptance given to psychics is a luxury not given to medical science. There is good reason not to, obviously. 

Surely, it isn't too much to expect for someone in your position to at least offer a basic challenge to claims such as "gorillas are telepathic," "children are telepathic" and the quite ridiculous "genetic defects can be detected by palm-reading"?

My concern isn't that you have psychics on your show, it is that they are allowed to present dubious claims without offering any proof whatsoever. That isn't being skeptical, it is exercising common sense. Otherwise, stupidity reigns and we lead people down paths filled with illusion, false hope and empty promises.

Well said, Chris. But don’t stand watching your mailbox for another response from Mr. Walker…!  

THE USUAL TIRADE

Go to [www.jimclass.com] tinyurl.com/872yx and see how desperate this “Callahan” guy is about the JREF prize. He writes: “It is my sincere intent to make $1,000,000.00 off of [sic] James Randi and his foundation.”   As expected, he tries to rewrite the rules and protocol to suit his carnival approach. Won’t work, Jim. “Sincere” or not, apply like anyone else, or go away. We’re not playing showbiz games here; we’re serious.

Callahan expresses his belief in the efficacy of numerology and “card reading.” He runs on about those other guys who are fakers – but not him, of course. Well, we got your number, Callahan, and we’re eagerly awaiting your threatened “sincere intent” to win the million.

A QUICK AND DESPERATE RESPONSE

Last week we sent the following e-mail letter to Mr. Srajan Ebaen, publisher of the site at 6moons.com. He published a glowing review of the “Golden Sound Ultra Tweeters” which you can find at [6moons.com] tinyurl.com/9cbqo in all its glory. Since these “tweeters” seem to us to be paranormal, we of course made sure that Mr. Ebaen and the reviewer Mr. Micallef were aware of this opportunity to take our million-dollar prize. The manufacturer of these remarkable devices says that they

…operate at extremely high frequencies – much higher than the audio band – actually in the microwave band above 1 Gigahertz. The Ultra Tweeters are connected to the output terminals of existing speakers with speaker cables -- preferably light, flexible ones – since the Ultra Tweeters themselves are quite light. The Ultra Tweeter principle of operation is very unconventional. They don't generate sound in the audio band or even in the 20-100KHz band like super tweeters. They function in the Gigahertz band normally used for satellite and microwave communications. Ultra Tweeters organize and improve the energy flow in signal conductors as well as the internal wiring of speaker drivers, making the audio system perform more efficiently and synergistically.

This is very obviously in the paranormal realm. My e-mail letter to publisher Ebaen:

Hallelujah! At last this Foundation has the opportunity to present its million-dollar prize!

Your reviewer Ken Micallef is surely our winner. He can claim the prize following a simple yes-or-no series of tests of the Golden Sound Ultra Tweeters! This should take less than 30 minutes of his time. This is a serious offer, made by our foundation in all sincerity, and thoroughly backed by us. Under his own operating parameters, if Mr. Micallef can tell whether or not the Golden Sound Ultra Tweeters are in operation, he will win this prize.

We invite Ken to submit his application – see www.randi.org for the details, after which we will arrange for the test – at Mr. Micallef’s convenience, and under his conditions.

Mr. Ebaen responded – within minutes of receiving my e-mail! – with this brilliant riposte:

Right, Randi. Sorry, you'll have to continue your fishing expedition elsewhere. We're all out of wanna-be millionaires. We are publishing opinions, Randy. Personal opinions of audio hobbyists, shared with other hobbyists who pay nothing for our content. You are the guy insisting on "facts" and "obligations". Our obligation is to call 'em like we hear 'em. No more, no less. Anyone expecting more is barking up the wrong tree, something we've stated ad infinitum on our site.

No surprise here. This is the usual fatuous refusal to show their consumers that there is any value to their detailed reviews, or any truth in them. This statement is simply saying: “We don’t care whether we’re telling the truth, we have no interest in integrity or content.” Relax, Mr. Ebaen, I caught my fish, and he’s now stuffed and hanging on the wall for all to see. And Ken Micallef is sighing with relief that you’ve saved his job for him; he can continue living a farce.

Of course we now have no problem about whether Mr. Micallef will rush to apply to the JREF in order to be tested before Dr/Major David Morehouse, Ph.D., snaps up this prize for his “remote viewing” skills, as featured last week. We won’t have to decide who gets to be tested first!

I must mention that we’ve had difficulties trying to discover where Dr/Major David Morehouse, Ph.D., earned his degree, and we cannot find any record of his holding the rank of Major in any of the US Armed Forces, either. Perhaps he’s a Major in the Canadian or Australian Army? Inquiring minds want to know….

ASKING THOSE AWKWARD QUESTIONS

Reader Alex Dering of Princeton, New Jersey, wrote this letter to Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund at Syracuse University about the item we ran last week:

I was recently made aware, via the James Randi Educational Foundation (http://randi.org/jr/080505potential.html#16) that Syracuse University has named Douglas Biklen as dean of the School of Education.

You are quoted in the Syracuse University Web site as saying that "This ability to appoint Doug Biklen to the deanship of the School of Education is an exquisite opportunity."

You are also quoted as saying "Doug brings international renown for his scholarship, and his passion for the school is truly inspiring. Under his leadership, the possibilities for the school will be limitless. I am delighted that Doug will have the opportunity to serve as dean during the 100th anniversary of the school to which he has dedicated his professional life."

Dr. Freund, four questions:

1. I saw the television reports debunking "facilitated communication" and it sickens me to think that this is the level of scholarship that is getting promoted in the American academia. Do you, as an academic, stand by that work, which has been thoroughly discredited?

2. If you don't, why was this person given a position of greater authority and influence?

3. In my own version of a $1 million prize Mr. Randi has offered for years to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities, I will offer $1,000 to Syracuse University if Biklen's "facilitated communication" can be demonstrated to work under mutually agreed upon proper control conditions (double-blind trials properly supervised to prevent trickery). I say "facilitated communication" is a proven scam.

4. Why is a university declining an offer of money?

Then Alex asked me:

If similar offers of money to Syracuse University are made by readers of your Web site, would you consider posting the total "pot" being offered?

Yes, Alex, of course – though it would seem that Syracuse University might be happy enough with a mere million, if they’d ever get Biklen to try for it – which they will not.

But look at www.csmmh.org tinyurl.com/7m993 if you want to see how this kind of a campaign – which was launched right here on this site! – can get academic interest worked up! I cannot imagine that Syracuse University can continue in their madness. My thanks to all the academics who signed on and I urge them to follow up with the university!

TRUE

Reader Robert Woodhead gives us evidence for the need for good proof-reading….

In a discussion of religion and geopolitics on an excellent mailing list I frequent, one of the contributors rapped out: “By control, I mean that the government is run by men who prey at that sect's church.”

In Typo Veritas, indeed.

Robert adds:

My superpower is an uncanny ability to drive right to the absolutely best available parking space. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to figure out how to use this power to fight crime.

Work on that, Bob.

PITY KRAMER

If you’ve never felt sorry for our Kramer, you should read the following and know that it’s the sort of thing he handles every day. He has to figure out what’s being offered, and how to respond. Give him a kind thought when you have a chance. Here’s what he got recently, exactly as it arrived, and probably the result of processing by one of those translating programs. We’re not making fun of the writer, merely pointing out one of our problems:

Supplementary job. Main for you. May be I am the man which lose little unconsciousness. I am  in epilepsy may be. Do I colling you in underground? To be worded to say I am rumor, may be. What I may expect  from your address, telephone, e-mail? Half time: guest 0 home 3 and win 7:3, only is in virtual reality (VR). This is for compatible. I say that all. Deed you see how I come out on end with this. I say that all and we have many  ways to organize ourselves. Is it in America : go, go, go, money, money, money. We may talk about money. I am brather with that money. Rest  is Nobel price for stupidity. For rest  this is illusion. Illusion we may buy it. Illusionist must have clean hands. I am mindful too. What is on your mind? To mind one's own business. May be to be social sociologist in our to be task force. May be sacred duty. Cheque payable to bearer. Faust sell is soul for life. I have life. I am your "The James Randi Educational Foundation", reward. I am in possibility fulfilment of a task. I may feeling good after this. Feeling good with you. That is in your manner. Help yourself and God will help you. Best regards! From Slobodan Kapor

Sigh.

A WONDERFUL CLOSER FOR THIS WEEK

Folks, the following exchange was forwarded to me, and I had to share it with you. It’s taken from a site known as “Dave Farber's Interesting People” and this part was written by Steve Champeon, about whom I discovered there is much data on Google. I reprint it here with his permission

Steve was making the point that establishing a genuine debate between ID proponents and evolutionists is not as direct a project as we might think. I’ve never seen that argument made any better than this:

[Re: Science is for Pansies – REAL Men believe in Genesis!]

It's not a debate – it's a querulous mob looking for comfort. And no amount of pretending that "intelligent design" is anything else will bring forth a "debate." You cannot reason with those to whom reason is a stranger, or with those driven by fear and ignorance. You can only, at best, make a contrasting emotional appeal, one which is likely to fail due to the underlying fact of the matter, which is that many people hold ludicrous beliefs; those beliefs are not remotely systematized nor falsifiable, and ultimately in any honest person must be shed as the comforts of a younger and more ignorant child, species, culture, or community.

I've spent a long time trying to argue with people and wasted many long hours before realizing that I approached many of those arguments with an implicit assumption about the rules of the game, all too often not shared. This assumption? That both parties understood that the processes and techniques may be manifold, but that the final goal was to obtain a better understanding, or a belief worth holding, even if that meant shedding or reexamining other, perhaps cherished, sets of beliefs, sadly founded on nonsense.

Science's attempt to survive (later mirrored by theology's attempt to do the same) by splitting off questions of fact from questions of faith is coming back around on us now, where education has actually made it possible for the average person to be exposed to questions and proposals that were once the realm of the natural philosopher and gentleman scholar and don.

Naturally, the dishonesty of science's (and theology's!) attempt to sweep under the rug the fundamental relatedness of the basic questions asked, and often answered, by both, is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for very long. Unfortunately, for someone to whom the theological answers are more familiar, more deeply ingrained, the instinct is to defend the old, rather than to examine either, or welcome the new.

I don't know if "evolutionary theory" is true, or sound. It seems to me to make much more sense than the Genesis story. As with all science, future discoveries may require its extension or modification or that it be discarded like Newton 's physics or Scholastic mathematics or Aristotelian dentistry. But I do know that "intelligent design" is Creationism drawn not from the wells of honest inquiry, but from the fear of modernity and ignorance of logic and language, and precedes not from a fact to belief in a Creator, but from a belief in a Creator to a desire to see science dethroned.

As an old friend of mine used to say: "It's too bad ignorance isn't painful." We might be encouraged to educate ourselves instead of remaining in bliss.

An answer came in:

If, as educators, you really believe that intelligent design is bunk, then use the tools of education to fight that battle. Ignorance is curable. But dismissing your opponents as uneducable and unlearned by making dismissive remarks about the quality of their teachers serves no useful purpose. Show the folly in your opponents' arguments. But then be prepared to have your arguments examined with the same scrutiny.

Come ... let us reason together ...

Steve responded:

You've missed the point. Yes, ignorance is curable, if the patient will submit to the appropriate regimen.

Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated countless times throughout history, long past and recent, religious beliefs have had a dreadful effect on the ability of those who hold them to "reason together."

Part of this effect is due to the lack of basic understanding or acceptance of logic, the scientific method, and so on. The usual "and then a miracle happened..." line.

Part is due to the lack of applicability of the scientific method and the principle of falsifiability to esoteric beliefs in such as a Creator who stands outside space and time, or a Messiah who can bend physics to his will, or for that matter a Prophet who listens to an angel and in the process is delivered the Qur'an.

But in the long run, for those who have been indoctrinated in a belief system that involves fairies or angels or a life everlasting dependent on a violation of physics, faith in a book and a deity and a church that stands against science over and over again, it is not possible to "reason together," for those so exposed have been damaged irreparably by their exposure. Reason is not possible, for at the heart of their sense of reason is a myth that disallows reason's findings, a myth that has been so tightly wound round one's hopes and fears and condition that to reject it is to reject all that is tied to it, to question all you've been told by those you've trusted and loved.

That is what this "debate" is, not an honest examination of evolution, but a fear-driven rejection of science based on an excess of emotional appeals masquerading as religious belief.

The wheel has come round again, from the tragedy of the "reconciliation" of science and religion (and, more importantly, of the necessary attitudes of scientist and believer) which was at its heart a farce decided by the leaders of both camps in order to allow religion its continued hold over morals and science its utility in politics, war, industry, and economics. Now, instead of the leaders deciding to make peace, it is the masses (represented by the woefully ignorant school boards of places like Kansas ) who are following their heart and rejecting their children's minds in the name of a fear of the void.

If we had any leadership in this country worthy of the name, they'd be standing against the destruction of our educational system. Instead, George Bush thinks we should allow so-called "intelligent design" into the classroom. Yale and Andover aside, he knows where his power base lives and how they feel (not think) about the matter.

In no sense can it be said that "debate" is the desired outcome here – more likely, we'll see other cultures not so bound to the stupidity of the perceived need to "reconcile" faith and science, simply take over the mantle of intellectual and scientific leadership, if they haven't already, and we'll have nobody but ourselves and our shared history to blame.

I close this week’s page with great satisfaction…

Some of you have noticed that Webmaster Wagg and I have been heeding your comments on new treatments of this web page. For one thing, each new page will now “go up” at midnight ET on Thursday, so that accessing the new material will be better spaced-out on Fridays; there was such a heavy demand on our server that everything slowed down noticeably. You may find that access is faster and easier now. And, we’ve been experimenting with various fonts and color combinations that we hope will improve clarity in several respects.

The Encyclopedia online has been gangbusters! Just do a Google search for “Encyclopedia Randi online” and see the incredible 158,000 “hits” you’ll get – a good percentage of them referring to us. We’re adding new data and illustrations every week, to make this a rich source of data for everyone.

Next week you’ll read about a new Scientology scandal in NYC, a woman with ten demons inhabiting her body, more big lumps for Dr. Biklen, and Phil Plait will have comments. I’ll bet you can hardly wait!

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