The country’s leading parapsychologists paid tribute to James Randi at London’s Conway Hall in April during a rare visit by the celebrated magician-sceptic to these shores. What parapsychology and the sceptic movement share is the application of rational thinking and scientific testing to the claims of self-professed psychics, and to the anomalous experiences reported by the general population. Indeed, Randi is probably most famous for his long-standing offer of a million dollar reward to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities under laboratory conditions.
‘I remember reading James Alcock’s book Parapsychology: Science or Magic? in the 1980s,’ said the evening’s first speaker, Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London.‘It altered the course of my life and made me a sceptic. I remember there were lots
of mentions in there of James Randi, who emulated the so-called psychic abilities of Uri Geller using magic tricks.’
‘It’s a great time to be a sceptic in the UK,’ French continued. This event sold out within days, the prize-winning Skeptics in the Pub group is growing from strength to strength, and there are a spiralling number of related interest groups, including Skepchicks and UK Brights. ‘Anomalistic psychology is also found in a growing number psychology degree programmes and is a great way to teach critical thinking,’ French said.
Later, the medic and‘Bad Science’ columnist Ben Goldacre took the stage, explaining how James Randi had taught him that when it comes to unusual phenomena, it is the real story that can be so much more beautiful and interesting than the false account.
‘Consider the placebo effect,’ Goldacre said. ‘It’s relatively unexplored and it’s about so much more than the power of a sugar pill - it’s about our expectations.’ Research has shown that four sugar pills are more effective than two for treating gastric ulcers; saltwater injections are more powerful than sugar pills; and pink sugar pills are more effective as a stimulant than green ones. Even placebo pacemakers can be effective!
But Goldacre said he had also learned that we can never win: ‘The dark powers are too strong, well-organised and funded.’ Early in the 20th century the American medic and charlatan Albert Abrams marketed his ‘oscilloclast’ box, which he claimed could treat all known diseases. It turned out the box contained nothing more than a few pointless electronic wires. Fast forward to last year and the BBC broadcast a serious news item about a ‘bioresonance’ treatment for stopping smoking - it was essentially Abram’s machine reborn. ‘So we’ll never beat them,’ Goldacre concluded, ‘but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a lot of fun trying.’
The evening also saw the return of independent psychologist and writer Sue Blackmore to the sceptics’ fold, having taken time off to pursue other projects. Blackmore told how an evening of drug taking at university in 1970 led to an out-of-body experience during which she looked down on Oxford for hours. ‘After this, I was determined to prove scientists wrong,’ she said. ‘I set about becoming a parapsychologist and conducting experiments to prove the paranormal exists.’
Years later, havingtested telepathy in adults and children and even twins, after exploring the Ganzfeld technique, and after testing Tarot reading and dream prediction, Blackmore had uncovered not one iota of evidence to suggest that the paranormal exists. She became a ‘rentasceptic’, with her expert comments often appearing in the press, but the price was mountains of venomous hate mail, and seven or eight years ago Blackmore decided to hang up her parapsychologist’s hat. ‘But I’m delighted to be back,’ she told the capacity crowd.
The evening closed witha talk from James Randi himself, who announced that his million dollar challenge will be withdrawn in just under two years because ‘it’s just too much trouble to administer.’ Has anyone come close to winning the prize? ‘That’s like asking Are you pregnant?’
Randi said. ‘You either are or you aren’t.’ Randi said he was astonished that in the 21st century people still believe in ‘gods and demons’ and that the USA is effectively ‘living under a theocracy’. Randi showed a video of the Evangelist Peter Popoff, whom he had exposed many years ago as a fraud (Popoff’s wife relayed the personal information of audience members to him via a hearing aid). Yet despite being caught out, Popoff has bounced back, earning 10 million dollars more last year thanin the year he was exposed. ‘They’re unsinkable rubber ducks,’ Randi said. ‘They all are - it’s shameful.’ cj
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