Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Magicians Who Endorsed Psychic Phenomena by George P. Hansen
James Randi is at it again, with the familiar skeptic meme that magicians are really in the know when it comes to exposing woo for the sham trickery it is. The logic in that perspective seems to be "since it can be faked on stage it's all fake." Scientists can learn much from this factoid, according to Randi, since magicians are trained to spot tom foolery and fakers, while scientists are not. Randi would have us believe the majority of magicians are on his side. However, George Hansen points out that not all stage magicians follow the Randi party line:Magicians Who Endorsed Psychic Phenomena by George P. Hansen (Much thanks to The Daily Grail for links.)
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It is tiresome to hear Randi say this over and over and over again, but I think you unfairly characterise the argument.
> since it can be faked on stage it's all fake
The psi proponents claim they're measuring something real, not a mere deception. But if magicians can reproduce the effects, the experimenters have to tighten up their protocols to eliminate that possibility -- even if psi is real. If we can't tell fake from real, the experiments are worthless.
So it's a little more subtle than you make it out.
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