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JREF Swift Blog
Swift, named for Jonathan Swift, is the JREF's daily blog, featuring content from James Randi, the JREF staff, and other featured authors.
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Swift
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Written by Jamy Ian Swiss
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New York City, 1994, and I answered the ringing telephone. “I’m a producer,” announced the caller, “at WNBC Live-at-Five on Channel Four, and we’re having a psychic spoon-bender on today. Would you be willing to come in and bend spoons on the air?”
Just another day in the life of a skeptical magician. The psychic spoon-bender had come to the United States from Israel (no, not that psychic spoon-bender) in March of 1994 to try to garner support and belief in several American scientific and academic institutions. The psychic claimant’s name was Ronnie Marcus – a South African native who allegedly practiced faith healing and other psychic skullduggery in Jerusalem. I seem to recall he had a credulous physicist in tow, who apparently believed in Marcus’s supernormal abilities and had helped pave the way to arrange meetings and tests, including in Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Nevada, and elsewhere. (From spiritualism to psychokinesis, physicists often find themselves on the front lines of believing and promoting goofy stuff. [Paging Sir William Crookes!] There are reasons for this, but that is, as they say, another story.)
But upon arriving at American shores, an interesting phenomenon had promptly unfolded. Unlike in the 1970s, when Uri Geller’s psychic tableware modifications were big news, in 1994 we had something new: email. Magicians and skeptics were able to track and swiftly respond to Marcus’s travels and claims, and it became difficult for scientists and parapsychologists to ignore the clamor of such observers offering to take part as informed observers and protocol designers. Thus, for example, even though physicists at Berkeley declined to use protocols suggested by veteran parapsychology expert Ray Hyman, nevertheless, other procedures still managed to thwart Marcus’s attempted magic tricks.
As a result of these swift and decisive failures, Marcus cancelled his remaining appearances and elected to beat a hasty retreat. However since he was flying through New York City on his way out of the country, he had managed to obtain one more television booking on the way out of town and collective memory.
However, a skeptical producer at the station (which was a local NBC affiliate), on learning of Marcus’s planned appearance later that day, put a phone call in to his friend, the late Charles Reynolds, a highly regarded magician, illusion designer, and magic historian. Charles was a lifelong friend of James Randi’s and a friend of mine as well, and he passed my name along to the producer.
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Swift
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Written by D.J. Grothe
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Crispian Jago, the UK-based skeptical blogger at The Reason Stick and co-founder of the Hampshire Skeptics Society and Winchester Skeptics in the Pub, has just published a fantastic Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense. Yes, he says it is a "gross over simplification," but I have to love how the perfect intersection of religion, medical quackery, the paranormal and of pseudoscience appears to be nothing other than Scientiology.
Be sure to check out Jago's other projects, like the Skeptic Trumps cards (a few years ago, he did one for Randi and one for me, among many other folks), and fun resources like his Modern Science Map, his Handy Alternative Therapy Flowchart and his Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense. The man sure knows how to communicate important information with smart graphic design.
D.J. Grothe is president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. |
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Swift
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Written by Sharon Hill
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As the editor and creator of Doubtful News, the critical thinking newsblog, I'm pleased to announce the completion of the Media Guide to Skepticism.
This original document was created for the purpose of providing a clear, easy-to-read guide about the “Skeptical” viewpoint as subscribed to by many who might call themselves Skeptics or critical thinkers. While it was mainly geared towards the media who are interested in providing a "skeptical" viewpoint to their stories, the goal was to explain the difference between practical Skepticism and those that say, “I’m skeptical.” It also clarifies the confusion about "skeptics" versus "denialists" and "truthers" as well as other misconceptions. It turned out to be a good, overall, explanatory piece that even the paranormal crowd appreciated.
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Swift
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Written by Barbara Drescher
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We often talk about the need to learn the process of science, rather than simply memorizing the things that science has discovered. In fact, “science literacy” is defined by most as a combined knowledge of process and information. Indeed, the national science education standards state that “A literate citizen should be able to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it.”
Evaluating the quality of scientific information is not easy, especially in areas in which the methods are complex. In my own field of psychology, most undergraduates are terrified of the core requirements for the major: intermediate statistics and research methods. These are notoriously difficult courses, but without them it is nearly impossible to evaluate the quality of any study in the field.
So if college students have a tough time understanding the scientific method or how to use knowledge of it to properly evaluate claims, how can we expect middle school students to learn this?
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Swift
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Written by Jamy Ian Swiss
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What’s it mean to be “an honest liar?”
The magician Karl Germain, a famous American stage performer at the turn of the 20th century, said that: “Conjuring is the only absolutely honest profession – the conjuror promises to deceive, and does.”
Germain nailed it. Once I use the word “magician,” I’m saying: I’m going to fool you. But that’s okay – it’s my job.
Whereas a self-proclaimed psychic who is aware of his own deceptions – and you can’t bend a spoon with sleight-of-hand without knowing that you are doing so – is being a dishonest liar. He’s lying about the fact that he’s lying. He’s saying: No, honest, I’m telling you the truth: It’s not a trick. I have supernatural powers.
Well I say: Screw that lying SOB and the unicorn he rode in on.
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