JREF changes the $1,000,000 challenge

pH

It appears that JREF is making big changes to how the $1,000,000 challenge works.

A challenge that was meant to call out the Uri Gellers and Sylvia Browns of this world has for a long time been bogged down in ludicrous claims from nobodies. Some of these people clearly are borderline delusional, and testing them has been doing neither JREF nor the applicant any good.

Starting then [April 1], the challenge will be closed to undiscovered psychic talent; to submit an application, the aspirant will have to demonstrate a "media profile" -- television reports, newspaper articles or a reference in a book that chronicles his or her extraordinary abilities.

"We're going to pick people every year and hammer on them," says Wagg. "We're going to send certified mail, we're going to do advertising. We're going to pick a few people and say, we are actively challenging you. We may advertise in The New York Times. This will make the challenge a better tool, to be what it is supposed to be."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,72482-0.html

bonkey

Unfortunately, I can't see this significantly helping their case.

Obni

The purpose of the prize fund is not to find a person with psychic or supernatural abilities. It is a tool for challenging people claiming such abilities whose claims are deliberately false or mistakenly false. If the aim is to debunk false claims in public, then the bigger the name the greater the impact of a successful debunking or a refusal to be tested.

pH

Do you think James Randi should be worried?

BABY psychic Derek Ogilvie is gunning for a $1million prize – and the chance to finally shoot down his critics.

http://icrenfrewshire.icnetwork.co.uk/pde/news/tm_headline=guess--who--wants--to-be-a-millionaire-&method=full&objectid=18503047&siteid=63858-name_page.html

Zillah

EDIT: Well, I'm an idiot.

bonkey

pH wrote:

Do you think James Randi should be worried?

Worried that the guy could hit the mark through sheer luck, yes....but only to whatever odds he calculates that to be.

From the link you posted wrote:

“It depends on the child. I’m totally unscripted and totally rely in the spirits coming through to me,” he said.

“It just like someone’s computer system going down. If it doesn’t work then you are left sitting there like a dunderheid!

Paraphrased:

Even if I fail this test, its not because I'm not the genuine article, its because I can't turn on my mystical powers on demand. So they mighn't work when I'm being tested.

My expectation is that he'll fail the test, and some time later will give an interview / publish an article explaining how the spirits have told him that they don't like or appreciate skeptics trying to empirically test them and chose not to cooperate.

He may go one step further, and explain that the same should be true for all spirit-contacting mediums and that their repeated failures to satisfy the Randi test in teh future will, in fact, "prove" that the spirits told him this.

ronbyrne2005

The million dollar offer guy was on larry king on cnn last night(show title:"have psychics gone too far?") with some well known american psychic with an english accent. She would'nt accept his invitation to do the test and he came out of it better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nqBNUDxzk8
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=james+randi