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RIP James Randi

 
 
 
:(

Went to a couple of his Amazing Meetings skeptic conventions. Those were great times
 
I remember watching him (and Carl Sagan) on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. According to the Wikipedia, he did 32 appearances on the show over the course of 20 years.

Why? Well a few years ago I had a long conversation with Bob Uecker, who had done over 100 appearances. We talked about that, and according to Bob, if Johnny liked you on your first time out, he'd have you back. It didn't matter if you were promoting a book or a show or nothing at all. If Johnny liked you, he'd have you on the show.

Johnny Carson apparently liked Randi quite a bit.
 
Ford said:
I remember watching him (and Carl Sagan) on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. According to the Wikipedia, he did 32 appearances on the show over the course of 20 years.

Why? Well a few years ago I had a long conversation with Bob Uecker, who had done over 100 appearances. We talked about that, and according to Bob, if Johnny liked you on your first time out, he'd have you back. It didn't matter if you were promoting a book or a show or nothing at all. If Johnny liked you, he'd have you on the show.

Johnny Carson apparently liked Randi quite a bit.
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My understanding is that Johnny had been a stage magician before becoming a TV host, so he had a professional admiration for Randi. He consulted Randi before having the psychic charlatan Uri Geller on his show, and for some reason Geller was unable to perform any of his amazing feats for Johnny.
 
I just watched him eat an entire box of sleeping pills during a TED talk and supernaturally survive the homeopathic overdose.
 
Psychic Already Sick Of Spectral James Randi Ragging On Her From Afterlife

MIAMI—Struggling to mentally close herself off from the recently deceased skeptic, local psychic Rosemary Shanley confirmed Thursday she was already sick of James Randi’s specter haunting her place of business and ragging on her from the afterlife. “I’m sitting here with my crystal ball trying to see into the future, and it’s hard enough without the ghost of James Randi hovering in front of me and whispering that I’m a fraud and a huckster,” said Shanley, adding that she tried to banish the spirit of the famed debunker and stage magician by sprinkling holy water throughout the room, but the Amazing Randi just scoffed and called the ritual “easily disproved theatrics.” “What’s worse is that he’s taken to appearing before my clients and showing them how he can do everything I can do using nothing more than simple trickery. I was impressed when he first showed up and appeared to roll a pencil across my desk using only his mind, but then he insisted it was basic misdirection and called me a dumbass for believing in psychic powers. That dude needs to get off my case and go heckle some other clairvoyant.” At press time, sources from the beyond confirmed Randi had taken possession of Shanley’s body and was attempting to locate Uri Geller.
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I think Mr. Randi would appreciate this.
 
Rebecca Watson has discussed some of James Randi's legacy.

Saying Goodbye to James “The Amazing” Randi – Skepchick
"This week on the Skepchick podcast, Rebecca chats with A Sigler and Maria D’Souza about how James Randi brought them all together, and the complicated legacy he leaves behind."

They talked about how they got started with skepticism - from being fans of James Randi. RW then got onto the James Randi Education Foundation's Forum to find out about how to officiate a marriage. Then how they got active and not just passive. Also about going to TAM's - The Amazing Meeting, get-togethers for JR fans.

A big problem: nearly all of JR's fans were male. Though RW then got into a cruise-ship trip that some JR fans once arranged. Including doing a card trick even though she hadn't done magic in some years. JR nevertheless liked it. JR was very funny and approachable. He liked to do magic tricks, and he liked storytelling. JR looked a lot like Charles Darwin in his old age.

Then about the recent disputes in the skeptic movement about feminism and progressivism and the like. James Randi seemed to be on the wrong side from RW and others. Like defending Michael Shermer for being obnoxious lechery. For the podcast's participants, the skeptic community was like home, it was their community, then this dispute happened. RW liked the community as a place where one could safely criticize religious stuff.

RW recalled someone saying that he was going to TAM to grope RW, something he posted under his real name, and TAM's management didn't do anything about that. RW recalled Penn Jillette being strongly opposed to an anti-harassment statement -- such a statement was too much for him, even though RW and her interviewers considered it common sense. Some of the male participants seemed unaware that such things happen.

Then TAM as about skepticism and nothing else. No other issues. Why apply skepticism to Bigfoot but not to the Xian God. Also issues like climate change. Skeptics in the community came around on climate change, though not about women's issues. "Founders' syndrome". Issues like filling out a time sheet at JREF. What happens when the founder dies or becomes irrational or incompetent.

On a more positive note, many of their friends became friends because of a shared interest in JR and what he did.
 
No, James Randi Didn't "Destroy Skepticism" By Being Skeptical - YouTube
with transcript at
No, James Randi Didn't "Destroy Skepticism" By Being Skeptical | Rebecca Watson on Patreon

Praised the NYT's obituary of him: James Randi, Magician Who Debunked Paranormal Claims, Dies at 92 - The New York Times - "Known professionally as the Amazing Randi, he dedicated his life to exposing seers who did not see, healers who did not heal and many others."

Back to RW.
And there was some bad! Randi wasn’t perfect. As we discuss in that show, Randi didn’t really care about making the skeptic movement safe or welcoming for women, and he also didn’t really care about his foundation, the James Randi Educational Foundation, becoming an actual educational foundation or continuing on without him after his retirement. Which all sucks! Because the JREF was so great back in the 2000s, and there was a large and growing population of people who Randi inspired to get actively involved in helping the world think more critically.

So Randi’s legacy is complicated, despite all the great memories I will always have of him, and of my unending gratitude for Randi setting me on this path and introducing me to so many wonderful people.
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Then on how JR exaggerated some of his accomplishments, like his "Carlos" hoax.
I’m not saying that Randi was right to exaggerate his accomplishments, but I am saying that it’s not a huge shock. He wasn’t a scientist, he was a performer. Performers perform. Every story that came out of Randi’s mouth had details that were way more interesting than what had actually happened. It’s who he was.
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RW then mentions something about psychic researcher Joseph Banks Rhine.
In science there’s a phenomenon known as the “file-drawer effect,” so named for the habit of a less-than-ethical scientist who gets results he doesn’t like quietly slipping them into a file drawer, never to be published or seen again. JB Rhine literally had a file drawer that he specifically used as a receptacle for results he didn’t like. He believed in ESP so strongly that when subjects didn’t do well on ESP tests, he assumed they were using ESP to purposely fuck with him. He buried the negative results and published the positive results.
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Linking to Extrasensory Perception (ESP) | in Chapter 04: Senses

How James “the Amazing” Randi hindered his skeptic movement.
I first heard of Randi, who died at the age of 92 on Oct. 20, when I was working in a magic shop while attending college in the late ’90s. I was a fan of Penn & Teller and they were fans of his, so I learned all about him: a magician who had once escaped from a straitjacket while dangling over Niagara Falls and had entertained Johnny Carson. By the time I learned about him, Randi had already retired, turning his talents instead to exposing frauds who took advantage of a gullible, uneducated, or simply unsuspecting public. He offered a million-dollar check to anyone who could scientifically prove they had paranormal abilities, and he became the bane of people like the spoon-bending Uri Geller or the gravel-voiced Sylvia Browne, who would confidently and dispassionately tell the parents of missing children that their kids were dead (when occasionally they would turn up very much alive).
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That reminds me of someone I once knew who worked for Psychic Friends. As "evidence" for his powers, he noted some things about me that he could easily learn online. I asked him about things that I don't go online about, like what I'd named by computer's main disk drive, and he didn't response. It should be easy for him to read my mind and find out -- if he had that ability.

About JR and TAM gatherings, "Randi would often joke that a conference full of statistics nerds was the only gathering in which Las Vegas casinos lost money, because we took advantage of all the free drinks and cheap hotel rooms without bothering to lose money on games with terrible odds."

Reminds me of a relative who liked to gamble. He gambled as entertainment, and he recognized that he loses money on it, so he allotted himself some amount to gamble. When it was used up, he'd stop.

RW wrote back in 2012, Sexism in the skeptic community: I spoke out, then came the rape threats. - "It Stands to Reason, Skeptics Can Be Sexist Too"

Privately, Randi apparently complained to mutual friends about me pushing feminism, trying to change the culture of the movement that he had fostered for the past few decades. He thought that by asking skeptics to be better, I was making the movement look worse.
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Then the decline of TAM and JREF. The site JREF - Home still exists, though in "About": "On January 1, 2016 the Foundation ceased being a public charity and became a private non-operating foundation. The JREF is no longer soliciting donations and any donations made after January 1, 2016 may not be fully tax deductible"
We went years without speaking. The last time I saw him was at a mutual friend’s New Year’s party to ring in 2018. I was nervous but decided to say hello. He gave me a big hug and a smile. I don’t know if it was genuine or if it was simply Randi’s incredibly well-honed ability to make everyone feel seen and appreciated in his presence.

Back when things were good between us, I was so proud to be a part of what I thought was a movement with truly unlimited growth. ...

I mourn for Randi, but I also mourn for what could have become of the movement he fathered. ...
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