As James Randi continues his recovery from heart surgery, he's asked Hal Bidlack to line up some stellar guest writers for Swift.
This Week's Swift was written by Hal Bidlack and Rebecca Watson.
Once again, welcome to Swift for March 24, 2006. I am pleased to begin by mentioning that Mr. Randi gave me a call a few days ago. He called, he reported, for two reasons: the first was to extend best wishes on the anniversary of my birth some 48 years ago. The second was to announce his great delight in having his first real bath since becoming ill. I suspect one never really appreciates the simply joy of self-cleansing until denied that bliss by forces beyond your control. So, I’m a year older, and Mr. Randi is clean. A good day all round.
This week I thought I’d offer a few comments to provide a framework for the insights and thoughts of other folks. As I’ve often said, one of the many joys of becoming involved with the JREF has been the extraordinary people with whom one may interact. I scroll through my outlook contacts folder, and am reminded how many really cool people are attracted to things Randiesque. I muse over the four Amaz!ng Meetings thus far, and remember the delight in getting to know both the renowned and the nowned, the famous and the regular folks, all of whom bring such value to the organization.
I think of Mr. R, of course, but beyond that I think of people like the saintly Linda. I suspect too few appreciate the role she plays: without Linda there is no TAM. I think of people like Jeff Wagg, the heart and soul of the JREF internet presence, who even as I type these words I can almost sense trying to figure out if “nowned” is really a word. [Jeff Wagg notes: Not according to Darat's Oxford Dictionary.] I remember Kramer, who can casually mention playing guitar in front of 160,000 people. My largest audience has been my kids, and they were forced to listen. And I think of others who have worked with the JREF, of Andrew Harter and Jeff Kostick. Good ones all..
I think of Scott Romanowski, whom I called upon a few years back to head the volunteer program for TAM. Each year, I take all the credit, and he does all the work, it’s an excellent situation. I’ll admit to being a tad star struck from time to time. Jamy Ian Swiss is as kind in person as he is gifted in magic. And he is very gifted indeed. I think of Penn and Teller, who are as nice, as kind, as passionate as can be, and of their staff, and always with respect and affection. And the beauty of the JREF is, you can be a “Friend of Randi” too. Indeed, simply reading this column makes you part of the JREF family. Welcome!
Most importantly of all, however, when I think about the JREF, I remember the regular folks, wonderful in their own ways if not celebrated by the national media, whom Mr. Randi has touched. Mr. Randi is, I’ve decided, a searchlight. He stands astride mountains of foolishness and indifference, and his light sweeps the horizon, looking for chimera and character. But as a searchlight, he is also a beacon. Those of us who may feel trapped by the nonsense showering down from the media, from strangers, from friends, from family, can feel trapped in the dark. And, often, quite alone in the dark. But if we glance up, we can see this light. It seems dim, but only because it is piercing so much darkness. And as we move toward it, the world becomes a bit brighter. And, as we near it, we find others on the same path. Together, we find strength, pleasure, companionship, and a sense of belonging. Also, we get to learn some cool magic tricks.
You are already part of the JREF family. If you haven’t been to TAM yet, if you haven’t posted on the Forum, if you haven’t thrown a rabbit into a wood chipper (when next in Vegas, be sure to see the P&T show!), it doesn’t matter. The only criteria for being part of the JREF family is giving a damn. If you do, you are already our friend. We happily await meeting you.
There are, as I said, quite a few paths to our common ground. And, happily, there are many sources of information. If you are a regular reader of Swift, you have recently seen the insights of Dr. Michael Shermer (www.skeptic.com), and have pondered the information on his web site. Similarly, the gifted Dr. Phil Plait offers help and wisdom at www.badastronomy.com. Dr. Bob Carroll’s terrific www.skepdic.com should be on everyone’s favorite list. If you google the word “skeptic” you get about 12,000,000 hits. The first two, however, are Shermer and Carroll. If you google “astronomy” you get 289,000,000 hits, and Plait is number 6!
Beyond looking for websites, how can a proto-skeptic find comrades? Well, there are lots of resources. A very important one lives right here on the JREF website. Many readers are already familiar with the JREF Forum. If you haven’t visited it (forums.randi.org), I urge you to do so. Think of the forum as a series of conversations on a wide variety of subjects. Topics are roughly grouped into things like science, politics, and such, as well as a community forum designed for folks to talk about, well, almost anything. The forum’s great value, I think, is twofold.
First, it is a terrific resource for people looking for information. A person just starting off in his or her skeptical education can ask questions, request information, or make an argument for the purpose of debate. So it is a great place to get particular information. Recently, for example, one person posted why she thought the forum had value:
I'd say I get great support with my UFO work. I couldn't answer questions about UFOs if it were not for the expert help I get here. Recently I needed the answer to some electricity questions. Within a few hours I had great responses that satisfied my questioner that he did NOT experience anything paranormal after all. Without the forum it would take so much more time looking things up on line, or going to the library.
Another observed:
The forum has been an invaluable resource of information, entertainment, and friendship for me. The pages and pages of threads with their tons of information on the Intelligent Design debate was such a help when I wrote my paper on it for my Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing class. The teacher positively commented on all my research, research that I'm not sure would have been so good had I not already known where to go. I'm not sure that were it not for the threads, I wouldn't have so easily known which main points to hit on the subject. Hence, no easy A.
Not only that, I get my ass called to task by moms, scientists, lawyers, and anyone who says, "Hey, that's not quite right." Slowly, I'm learning to refine and improve my style of argument and thinking.
TAM is really the culmination of the forum. Not only do I get to hang out with cool people whom I consider friends, get entertained, but I get to learn more neat stuff.
This is where I come for information on any science subject, or for help on debunking the nonsense my New Age friends come up with. It's really helped me sharpen my critical senses, and encouraged me to speak out. For instance, on a New Age forum I'm on, people have posted about their health problems and asked about herbal remedies, spells, spiritual healing and whatnot to make them feel better. While other posters are guessing about the cause and giving their favorite alternative remedies, I've charged in and told the poster to stop being so stupid and go see a doctor before asking medically untrained strangers for a diagnosis. I've never had any follow-up, but the posters have all subsequently gone very quiet. And too, thanks to the vaccination threads on here, I've been able to educate these people on the facts about vaccines. Maybe, just maybe, I've helped to save a life, thanks to JREF....
Also…
The forum has given me a personal relationship with many interesting and intelligent people I would never have known otherwise. I have had my biases challenged; my debating techniques refined; and my ass handed to me on occasion. I have learned new and interesting things every step of the way. I have grown as a person in ways that I never could have foreseen. We have created a virtual community where nonsense never goes unchallenged. Here ideas are questioned under the harsh light of empiricism; and the religious are never given a free pass to define us as they seem to freely do elsewhere.
The JREF itself is the sword; the weapon in the war against bias, credulity, and nonsense. The forum is the grassroots skeptic community. We are representative of the people who need that sword; and will carry it against the con artists and creduloids of this world. As such the forum represents those people for whom Randi created JREF in the first place. From atheist to Christian, scientist to layman, and confused thinker to critical thinker, we are a clearinghouse of competing ideas. Everyday in this forum the virtues of critical thinking are objectively demonstrated. That's some powerful good right there!
And…
This forum has been instrumental in helping me shape my current perceptions of the world and how it works. I had a wide circle of new-age peers, but they didn't like to think about things when I asked questions. I belonged to several other forums and was frustrated at the same attitude. I came here as a skeptic (in that I questioned everything about my beliefs and the world) and also as a believer (in spirits, Spirit, taoism, complementary 'medicine'). I encountered people who, on both sides, were willing to hear my questions, and help me find answers. I am still a skeptic - I think skepticism is a trait like eye colour - but my belief systems have changed dramatically, and I am more at peace. I can now live my life in an appropriate balance.
Secondly, it is a wonderful community of thinkers. You can post often, rarely, or just read and never post, and you will still be part of a group. The opinions vary widely, and debate is often energetic. But at its core, the Forum is made up of hundreds of people interested in talking about interesting things. The Forum is also international, with a world-wide audience and perspective.
The Forum was very important in getting us moving to have the first Amaz!ng Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, and next year will see us hosting our fifth Amaz!ng Meeting. We are already hard at work on the speakers list. It won’t be long before I start taking credit for Scott’s hard work with the volunteers. TAM has grown from 130 or so folks at the first meeting, to roughly 800 in Las Vegas last January.
Thus the Forum is an important tool of both insight and community. You can ponder the great questions of the universe, or talk about how much better/worse the new Family Guy episodes are. You can argue politics, physics, and get dating advice. You can argue with homeopaths, debate religious doctrine, and learn all about favorite children’s books. In sum, it is a community. There is noise, knowledge, nonsense, and good sense. If you are reading this Swift, you are already part of the group. Swing by forums.randi.org and dip a toe in the water. Lots of nice people are waiting to meet you. And heck, you are already their friend.
In closing for this week, I think the prose below may illuminate the totality of my ramblings above. If I had to sum up the two thousand or so words thus far typed, I’d have to say that you are not alone, you are already with friends. Often, I think, skeptics come to think of themselves as outsiders, as outcasts. It is easier, to be sure, to not base one’s thinking on logic, evidence, and reason.
But, as you have seen, you are not alone at all. I’ve asked another friend of Randi, Rebecca Watson, to write a few words about her journey toward the search light. Rebecca describes herself as:
…the founder of Skepchick (www.skepchick.org), an online magazine focused on women and critical thinking. Her articles and essays have appeared online and in newspapers and magazines across the United States. Her daily ramblings can be found at www.skepchick.org/blog. She occasionally wears goggles.
I will add to this by saying that Rebecca is skilled at thinking, at communicating, at living. And, she was quick to volunteer her services during Mr. Randi’s illness. Here is her story.
At the age of ten, I ran a casino. I dealt blackjack, rolled craps, and I even had a roulette wheel I picked up during a lucky night in an amusement park arcade. My best customers were two kids my mom regularly looked after as a favor for a friend — Alicia was about my age, and her brother Scott was a few years younger. Scott was a true gambler. I made some decent money off him (and so rarely needed to fix the games) before my mom caught on and threw us outside to go climb trees, ride bikes, swim, and engage in all the other activities that normal children enjoy when not indoors bilking one another out of cash.
We all grew up and grew apart once the need to be babysat was past. They went to different schools, so I didn't see them much. Shortly after I moved away to college, my mom called to tell me that Scott had been killed when a drunk driver struck his school bus.
It was sudden and senseless, and Scott's family was devastated.
I had been an atheist for just a short while, and I had been having difficulty with the idea of death. I would lay in bed at night and just try to imagine nothing. Not space, not blackness, just nothing. An infinity of nothingness scared the crap out of me, and seriously brought to mind the question that I think many of us struggle with eventually: what's the point, then?
Scott's death gave a reality to my metaphysical panic attacks. What was the point of such a random end to everything?
At the time of Scott's death, I worked at a magic shop and was dating a fellow magician. A day or so after I heard the news, we were walking down the street and I said to him, “You know, I think I’ve changed my mind about the afterlife — I think there very well may be something.”
I told him that I was watching TV earlier and saw a guy who claimed to be able to talk to the dead, named John Edward. He told families things that he shouldn’t have been able to know. “It seems so possible,” I said. Maybe there was more to life than a sudden stop at the end. Maybe we go on living in another world — granted, a world in which you can't even quite remember your own name.
My then-boyfriend looked at me in horror. “It’s what you do,” he said. “It’s a magic trick. Cold reading. You know cold reading.”
Of course I knew cold reading. I was studying magic and psychology, and using some of the same tricks I told people things that in less enlightened times I'd have been burned alive for. Edward just wrapped it up in a shiny new presentation. So why was I, a magician and long-time student of frauds and lies, so easily taken in?
The only difference was that I desperately wanted to believe in it. I wanted Edward to look into the camera and say, "I'm getting an 'S'… he's saying something about loaded dice, does that make sense?" But it wouldn't happen, and deep down I knew it. Falling from that ever so slight peak of manufactured hope left me dazed and broken, as though Scott had just died a second death.
Researching Edward later, I came across the James Randi Educational Foundation. I knew about Randi as a magician and already had a vague idea about the purpose of the JREF, but it hadn't really interested me before. I suppose I just hadn't seen the point until then.
People often ask how I first got involved in skepticism. I feel like they expect something dramatic that might inspire me to angry retribution, but a psychic didn't kill my dog and I didn't have a brother who overdosed on homeopathy. My short stock answer is that I was a magician and a fan of James Randi, through whom I discovered the JREF. But I guess the more complex answer is that I truly became a skeptic the moment immediately after I became a believer. It was a laughably short time to believe in a fraud, but it was enough to show me the overwhelming power of self-delusion.
So, as you can see from my comments, and Rebecca’s journey, the important role Mr. Randi and the JREF can play. If you feel alone, if you feel overwhelmed by the nonsense and drivel that often pass for intelligent discourse these days, remember Rebecca. Remember Scott, and Phil, and Michael, and Bob, and Penn, and Teller, and everyone else. And remember there is a man with a beard in Florida. He’s resting for a bit, but while he’s recovering (and, thank goodness bathing), the glow from his searchlight continues to sweep the horizon. If the darkness seems too thick, please know that just over that next hill, you can see the light. Oh, and all your friends are there waiting for you.
Rumor has it that the TAM 4 DVDs are well underway. We may have pre-orders ready soon..stay tuned. Also, cabins on the Amaz!ng Adventure continue to sell well. If you have any questions about this event, please e-mail jeff@randi.org.