A skeptic on Sheldrake

This person -- blog author of Pharyngula -- really, really doesn't like Rupert Sheldrake. Hat tip to The Daily Grail.

JREF Bigfoot Links

Two new links to the JREF (James Randi Forum) on dissing Bigfoot: one on the BBC and Yeti, one on Grassman on MonsterQuest. That makes, I do believe, 18 threads on that forum about how Bigfoot doesn't exist.

A Quote From Torchwood

I love the BBC show Torchwood. For emotional impact, it succeeds X-Files. That's not to say X-Files still isn't the best, but it's not a contest. Anyway, like this quote:

Gwen: But hold on, if no one can see it when the lift's coming up, there's a great big bloody hole in the floor. Don't people fall in?
Jack: That is so Welsh.
Gwen: What is?
Jack: I show you something fantastic; you find fault.

Amazing Randi on “Geller in Turkey”

I’m disappointed; Randi didn’t heed my plea to leave Uri alone already.

It’s not that I’m particularly defending Geller. Like those who attack Scientologists with a vengeance (all the current mass hysteria “anonymous” anti-Scientiology pomposity) there’s something jarring and a little scary about those who attack others with such a . .. . well, pettiness, to be sure, but it goes beyond that. Positively pathological, in Randi’s case.

In Randi's latest SWIFT issue, he can’t resist a slam against Uri, just as an appetizer. He quotes from an interview Geller gave:

Do you feel injured if someone calls you a charlatan?" – Interviewer
“Yes...." – Geller

And Randi comments:

That brings up a good question. Do bank robbers get their feelings hurt if someone calls a bank robber a bank robber?

I just love it when skeptics get all hyperbolic and all, don’t you?

Then Randi launches into more I Really Really Really Hate Uri Geller attacks. He calls Uri a lair because Uri says he doesn’t know where his “powers” come from. Any person who’s had psychic, mediumistic, etc. things happen don’t know where, or even why, it happens. But according to Randi, we’re “liars.”

Randi comments that Geller says people in Turkey are more open to these kinds of experiences. (I imagine this includes UFOs, certainly the Turkish researcher Farah Yurdozu would agree)
but Randi denies this:

Umm, not all Turks, Mr. Geller. Most are well-educated enough to see through the flummery you bring to their TV screens, and they regard you as the clown you are. You’re a conjuror, nothing more, and your pretenses are getting more transparent every day, especially when you make those ridiculous claims that have been so thoroughly demolished, years ago.

Well, unless Randi’s conducted some kind of survey with all kinds of fancy statistical data on pretty bar graphs, we really don’t know that either; it all remains a matter of personal opinion.

(Randi goes on to say that Geller’s claims he was a CIA spy, etc. have been debunked. Maybe Geller’s full of it, maybe he’s partially full of it, who knows. Maybe Geller and others are unwitting dupes in some bizarre global mind control operation. )

Again, my point is, not that Geller, Scientologists, are above reproach, or even for real. I’m far more fascinated with the fanatical and thuggish vehemence of people like James Randi, than I am with individuals like Geller.