Joe Nickell's Death

I disagreed with him on a lot of issues, but, as with anybody who does the sort of work he did, there's a lot to agree with him about and appreciate as well. Since there's so much that's false and fraudulent in religion and the paranormal, anybody who gives so much of his life to opposing that sort of thing is going to do some good in the process.

One of my memories of him is an appearance he made on "The Sally Jessy Raphael Show" in the 1980s. He was part of a panel with Ed and Lorraine Warren, Ed sitting next to Joe. You can watch it on YouTube. Go here for a segment in which Joe commented, "I've not met a house that I thought was haunted. I think the Warrens have never met a house that they didn't think was haunted." That's hyperbolic as far as the Warrens are concerned, of course, but it's a memorable way of expressing something that's true. Ed and Joe both went too far, in opposite directions.

You can read my response to Joe on the Enfield Poltergeist here. He called the magician Milbourne Christopher "one of the greatest influences on my early career as a magician turned paranormal investigator". Christopher visited the house where most of the events of the Enfield case occurred, and he probably witnessed some paranormal events while he was there. Some of those experiences were recorded on audio tape. You can read about Christopher's visit to the house and his involvement in the case more broadly here. It's a lengthy article, but you can go to the shorter section focused on Christopher to read the most relevant material.

Nickell's prominence in skeptical circles is reflected in some comments Robert Price made fifteen years ago:

"In appealing to the universal facts of human experience, Hume is being neither deductive nor circular. He is merely appealing to what everyone knows: the frequent reports of the extraordinary we hear from UFO abductees, Loch Ness Monster fans, people who see ghosts or who claim psychic powers, always seem to turn out to be bunk upon examination. Ask Joe Nickell. Ask James Randi. Ask the evangelical stage magician Andre Kole, who exposed Filipino 'psychic surgeons.'" (John Loftus, ed., The Christian Delusion [Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2010], 277)

Nickell, Randi, and Kole are all dead now. There was already good evidence for the supernatural before any of them were born. There's more evidence for the paranormal now than there was then. (See, for example, here and here.) Looking to such people to debunk the paranormal as a whole has always been a false hope.

Randi's Million Dollar Challenge And The Eisenbud Challenge

James Randi did some good things, and he ought to be getting some positive coverage in the context of his death earlier this week. But the coverage has been far too positive, which is unsurprising in light of the media's biases. You can read our archive of posts on Randi here. While the media give so much attention to Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, keep in mind his failure to meet a challenge in the other direction:

Nevertheless, with his usual bluster, Randi accepted a $10,000 challenge (a considerable sum in those days) to duplicate the Serios phenomena and make good on his claim.

Of course, confidence is easy to feign, and Randi does it routinely in his role as magician. He also cleverly takes advantage of the occasional high-profile case he successfully exposes as fraudulent, by publicizing those successes and creating the impression that he's a generally reliable guide when it comes to the paranormal. So Randi's dismissal of the Serios case was all it took for those already disposed to believe that Serios was a fake, and it was probably enough even for those sympathetic to parapsychology but unaware of Randi's dishonesty....

What the TV audience never learned was that when the show was over and Randi was pressed to make good on his wager, he simply weaseled out of it. To keep that side of the story under wraps, Randi prohibited publication of his correspondence on the matter. That was undoubtedly a shrewd move, because the letters show clearly how Randi backed down from his empty challenge. However, Randi's original letters now reside in the library at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and researchers, finally, can easily confirm this for themselves. When Serios's principal investigator, Jule Eisenbud, died, I was assigned the task of going through his papers. I collected all the material relevant to the Serios case and deposited it in the Special Collections section of the UMBC library. (This includes correspondence, the original photos and film, and signed affidavits from witnesses.)...

But there's no documentary evidence of Randi having even attempted to duplicate the Serios phenomena under anything like the conditions in which Serios succeeded, much less evidence of his having actually pulled it off....

In fact, the history of parapsychology chronicles some remarkable examples of dishonest testimony and other reprehensible behavior on the part of skeptics....

Skepticism is just as glib and dishonest now as it was in 1882 when the British SPR [Society for Psychical Research] was founded. In fact, despite sensible and careful dismantling of the traditional skeptical objections, the same tired arguments surface again and again. And those arguments all too easily mislead those who haven't yet heard the other side of the story or examined the evidence for themselves.

(Stephen Braude, The Gold Leaf Lady [Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2007], 22, 34, 126)

See my post here about how other magicians have misled people about the paranormal.

Are Magicians Misleading You About The Paranormal?

Yesterday, I posted an article about what skeptics of the Enfield Poltergeist actually experienced when they visited the house where the poltergeist was centered. Part of that post addressed the experiences of Milbourne Christopher, a famous magician who visited the house. Prior to visiting, he had researched paranormal cases for decades and had been a skeptic of the paranormal, and he was a skeptic of Enfield. The evidence suggests that he experienced paranormal events at the house, some occurring right in front of him, his arguments against the case are bad, and he never even attempted to explain (publicly, at least) the best evidence for the case. Yet, skeptics have been citing Christopher's comments on Enfield for decades.

We've discussed other examples of magicians who have behaved similarly. See here, here, and here regarding James Randi. And here on Joe Nickell. Go here for something on Richard Wiseman. And see the section of the post here on the Gold Leaf Lady and a magician who appeared on a television show about that case.

There's some value to the debunking work magicians have done on paranormal issues. But we need to keep in mind that magicians have biases and other weaknesses of their own. It makes sense to apply scrutiny to paranormal claims. Magicians can be, and often are, helpful in that process. But scrutiny needs to be applied to them and their work as well.

How amazing is Randi?

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-6/

A few of quick observations:

1. Scientist Rupert Sheldrake is less enthusiastic about Randi's debunking bona fides:

https://www.sheldrake.org/reactions/james-randi-a-conjurer-attempts-to-debunk-research-on-animals

2. While a magician has a useful skill set for exposing certain types of charlatans, there's a lot of evidence for the paranormal that's not easily reducible to parlor tricks. For instance, has Dembski studied the research of Stephen Braude? 

https://userpages.umbc.edu/~braude/index.htm

3. Finally: 

Randi is an equal opportunity skeptic. He has no specific animus toward Christianity. To him, Christian belief is no more realistic or defensible than any other supernatural claim. 

While I'm sure Randi is hostile to religion in general, there's a difference between generic theism and Christianity. The Christian faith includes sexual ethics. Randi is an active sodomite. So I expect he does harbor personal animus towards Christianity. It's not an abstract philosophical construct like perfect being theology, but a living religion with personal ethics, social ethics, and social policies for the church and culture.

Scientific Experiments On Janet Hodgson's Paranormality

Guy Playfair and Maurice Grosse wrote:

Carrying out fully controlled experiments in somebody else's home is not easy, especially when the home is suffering from poltergeist activity. However, at least one fully instrumented experimental PK [psychokinesis] session was held under the supervision of David Robertson with Grosse as witness. Janet was asked to deform a piece of 'unbendable' eutectic alloy without contact. On separate occasions, a pulse counter and a three-channel chart recorder produced readings that could not be accounted for. The metal sample broke while under observation. (Playfair 1980, ch. 9).

With the cooperation of Professor J. B. Hasted, it was possible to carry out a fully controlled experiment in a laboratory. Janet was taken to Birkbeck College for an experiment in which she was seated on a specially constructed weighing platform and asked to alter her weight. She was one of three subjects out of more than 20 tested who managed to produce anomalous chart readings. (Journal Of The Society For Psychical Research, vol. 55, 1988-9, "Enfield Revisited: The Evaporation Of Positive Evidence", p. 213)

I've already discussed the experiments on Janet's ability to bend metal. Watch here until 19:13. But what about the "fully controlled experiment in a laboratory"?

I guess Randi's not so amazing after all

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Page30.htm

Charismatic miracles

This is a sequel to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/denying-undeniable.html

Since, by definition, cessationists reject modern charismata, I will use "charismatic miracle" as a convenient designation to refer to the type of modern miracle which MacArthurite cessationists deny. 

The challenge facing the MacArthurite cessationist is to define miracles in such a way as to include any and all biblical miracles while excluding any and all postbiblical charismatic miracles. 

From what I've read, Fred Butler offers two criteria for miracles:

i) Public

ii) Naturally inexplicable

By implication, his criteria yield a fourfold classification scheme of events:

i) Public and naturally inexplicable

ii) Public and naturally explicable

iii) Private and naturally inexplicable

iv) Private and naturally explicable

On the face of it, the public criterion and the natural inexplicability criteria are different types of criteria. The public criterion is an epistemological criterion. An event (miraculous?) must be public to warrant our belief in the event. 

The natural explicability criterion is a metaphysical criterion: an event must defy natural explanation to be miraculous. 

Presumably, Fred doesn't think the public nature of an event is a sufficient condition of a miracle. After all, most public events aren't miraculous. 

To take a comparison, both the Sermon on the Mount and the multiplication of fish are public events, but I assume Fred only regards the latter as a miraculous event. 

When I say "naturally inexplicable," I'm not defining that category on my own terms, but in terms of how Fred seems to define that category, given his examples (e.g. Mt 8:23-27; 12:9ff; 14:23-33; Mk 2; Mk 8:22ff; Jn 2; 6; 11; Acts 4:16).

Evidently, Fred is using some biblical miracles as his standard of comparison to evaluate reported modern miracles. However, Fred only uses some biblical miracles as his standard of comparison. That generates a dilemma:

i) If he's saying only events which satisfy both criteria (public, naturally inexplicable) count as miracles, then his criteria exclude many biblical miracles.

ii) But perhaps his intention is to select certain biblical miracles as paradigm-cases of the miraculous, then use that as his frame of reference for judging reported modern miracles, without prejudice to all the other biblical miracles which don't measure up to his twofold criteria.

If, however, that's his unstated principle, then that's too loose to exclude modern miracles which don't meet one or both criteria. 

Finally, let's apply his criteria to some Biblical examples:

1) The burning bush (Exod 3:3) is naturally inexplicable, but essentially private. Moses was the only human witness. 

2) The metamorphosis of a staff into a snake and vice versa (Exod 4:2-4) is naturally inexplicable, but private. Moses was the only human witness.

3) The special creation of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:7,21-22) is naturally inexplicable, but private. There were no human witnesses to either event. 

4) Jonah's survival inside the fish (Jonah 3) is naturally inexplicable, but private. He's the only witness. 

5) Balaam's talking donkey (Num 22) is naturally inexplicable, but private. He's the only human witness. 

6) Conversely, natural disasters like the flood (Gen 7), destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19), plague of boils (Exod 9), plague of hail (Exod 9), and plague of locusts (Exod 10) are public events, but not naturally inexplicable, inasmuch as these employ natural mechanisms. 

7) The she-bears attacking the hecklers (2 Kgs 2:24) is public, but naturally explicable. These aren't supernatural bears. 

8) The multiplication of food and oil, as well as revivification of the widow's son (1 Kgs 17; par. 2 Kgs 4), are private, but naturally inexplicable 

9) Elijah's answered prayers for drought and rain (1 Kgs 17-18) are both private and naturally explicable. He's the only witness. Both rain and drought are natural meteorological phenomena. 

10) The exorcisms of Christ are public, but naturally explicable (i.e. psychosomatic). 

I could give other examples. Remember where Fred set the bar: something that even James Randi couldn't deny. 

Question is: could Randi either deny that these events ever happened, or assuming their occurrence was undeniable, deny that they were naturally inexplicable?

My concern is that, in their zeal to debunk charismatic miracles, MacArthurite cessationists are implicitly (albeit unintentionally) attacking the integrity and credibility of biblical miracles. 

Skeptical Scandals

I saw Michael Prescott link something I thought I'd pass along. Here's a post by Greg Taylor, concerning recent scandals involving some high-level skeptics (charges of rape, sexual harassment, etc.).

Newsweek's Irresponsible Article On James Randi And The Skeptic Movement

Newsweek just published a story on James Randi and the skeptic movement surrounding him. The author describes himself as "largely on board with Randi’s worldview". Too bad Newsweek doesn't get more people "largely on board with a traditional Christian worldview" to write its stories on Easter, Christmas, and other such issues.

The story about the skeptic movement says nothing about how Randi and his colleagues have been debunked on so many occasions. Here's the closing line:

"And it occurs to me that Randi’s [same-sex] marriage, long prevented by a legal adherence to religious dogma and superstition, is something of a victory for skepticism."

Search the Triablogue archives for our posts about Randi's homosexual partner and his legal troubles. Newsweek says nothing about the subject. And you can search our archives for many arguments against same-sex marriage that aren't "religious dogma and superstition".

Here's a recent post by a critic of Randi who was interviewed by the Newsweek reporter. As far as I can tell, nothing significant that was said by the critic made it into the story.

Something else that stood out to me was how the skeptic movement comes across as so angry, disrespectful, and overconfident. The story is laced with profanity, including from the author himself. At the same time, some skeptics are cited expressing their concern that the movement needs to be more friendly, that it needs to watch its tone. And they use profanity in the process of expressing that concern.

Debunked Debunkers

Alex Tsakiris recently interviewed Daryl Bem on his webcast. Among other topics, they discussed skeptics of the paranormal, like Richard Wiseman and James Randi. Here are some of their comments:

A Discussion About The End Of Infidelity

There's an ongoing thread at TheologyWeb about The End Of Infidelity.

Update On The Identity Theft Case Associated With James Randi

Here's an update on a story I posted about last month. It looks like James Randi was aware of the identity theft of his companion before he was arrested:

James Randi's Companion Accused Of Identity Theft

See here and here for a couple of stories about the alleged identity theft committed by a man Randi has been living with for two decades. Randi's level of involvement in the case is unknown at this point. We'll see how the story develops from here. It may reflect poor judgment on Randi's part, if not something worse. It should be noted that Randi's companion didn't just have a personal relationship with him. He also assisted Randi in some of his debunking work. D.J. Grothe, the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, commented:

We at the James Randi Educational Foundation are shocked by the sudden arrest of James Randi's beloved longtime partner, Jose Alvarez. Many of us have known Jose for years, both as a friend and as an ally to our cause who has traveled around the world to promote skepticism and critical thinking. Our thoughts are with Jose and Randi in this difficult time, and we hope they will be quickly reunited. (source)

We've written about some other problems with Randi elsewhere, like on pages 142-143 of The Infidel Delusion and here.

The flaming Randi

James Randi came out of the closet. He also has an interview where he apparently elaborates. I haven't listened to it.

But I wonder if this doesn't in part explain his lifelong "skepticism" (to put it mildly) toward religion, particularly Christianity? For example, his Wikipedia entry notes:

In his essay "Why I Deny Religion, How Silly and Fantastic It Is, and Why I'm a Dedicated and Vociferous Bright", Randi, who identifies himself as an atheist,[1] has stated that many accounts in religious texts, including the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus Christ, and the parting of the Red Sea by Moses, are not believable. For example, Randi refers to the Virgin Mary as being "impregnated by a ghost of some sort, and as a result produced a son who could walk on water, raise the dead, turn water into wine, and multiply loaves of bread and fishes" and questions how Adam and Eve "could have two sons, one of whom killed the other, and yet managed to populate the earth without committing incest." He writes that, compared to the Bible, "The Wizard of Oz is more believable. And more fun."[57]