How to Overthrow the Illuminati

[American Dream]

slad, still thinking about the details of negotiating a ceasefire- need to process things a bit more. I could pm you later or maybe tomorrow...

[Sounder]

AD wrote...

...... it wouldn't be hard for them to guess why I might feel a bit alienated after all that water under the bridge.

Could it be that you feel a bit alienated because you are basically a JREFer hanging out on a deep politics forum?

It's useful to observe, at any rate, the degree to which normative thinking has a leg up in our 'color the context' game.

[American Dream]

AD wrote...

...... it wouldn't be hard for them to guess why I might feel a bit alienated after all that water under the bridge.

Could it be that you feel a bit alienated because you are basically a JREFer hanging out on a deep politics forum?

It's useful to observe, at any rate, the degree to which normative thinking has a leg up in our 'color the context' game.

No- In the conspiracy realm lean somewhat towards the rigour of a Peter Dale Scott "Deep Politics" position but with added interests in psychedelics, occultism, MKULTRA and various other topics. And then I want to combine all that with left politics and various other things that go beyond the conspiracy sphere...

[Wombaticus Rex]

Could it be that you feel a bit alienated because you are basically a JREFer hanging out on a deep politics forum?

I...what?

I realize Certain Recent Events might overshadow this at the current time, but AD has made huge, huge contributions to our deep politics dialog here.

(I also think we're doing ourselves a huge disservice by reducing JREF to an epithet -- their style might be abrasive, but they are on the side of factual reality often enough to make demonizing them slightly absurd. You're gonna find yourself defending all kinds of odious horseshit if you take the reflexive position JREF is always wrong.)

[seemslikeadream]

James Randi really is the Flim-Flam man.

A Skeptical Look At James Randi
by Michael Prescott
Michael Prescott is a well-known novelist based in the United States
© Michael Prescott
Back to...Examining Skeptics

Michael Prescott


Years ago, when I was a full-fledged skeptic, atheist, and rationalist, I read James Randi's 1980 book Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions. Randi is an accomplished magician and a professional skeptic, dedicating to disproving any and all claims of what he considers pseudoscience. In line with this agenda, and as its title suggests, Flim-Flam is a concerted attack on miscellaneous purported irrationalities - everything from the pop-culture writings of Erich von Daniken to the more serious investigations of professional parapsychologists. I enjoyed the book, which reinforced my belief system at the time.


Recently I picked up Flim-Flam again. Having changed my mind about many things over the past twenty years, I responded to it much differently this time. I was particularly struck by the book's hectoring, sarcastic tone. Randi pictures psychic researchers as medieval fools clad in "caps and bells" and likens the delivery of an announcement at a parapsychology conference to the birth of "Rosemary's Baby." After debunking all manner of alleged frauds, he opens the book's epilogue with the words, "The tumbrels now stand empty but ready for another trip to the square" - a reference to the French Revolution, in which carts ("tumbrels") of victims were driven daily to the guillotine. Randi evidently pictures himself as the executioner who lowers the blade. In passing, two points might be made about this metaphor: the French Revolution was a product of "scientific rationalism" run amok ... and most of its victims were innocent.

Still, the tedious nastiness of Flim-Flam does not tell us anything about its accuracy. Intrigued, I decided to check out a few of Randi's claims in detail.

I chose to focus on Chapter Eight, Randi's dissection of the experiments of Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, two well-known parapsychologists. Randi calls them "the Laurel and Hardy of psi" and proceeds to argue that their experiments were a tissue of ineptitude, gullibility, and dishonesty.

The first thing I noticed was that Randi never gives any indication that Targ and Puthoff have any scientific credentials or accomplishments. The casual reader could be forgiven for assuming that they are not "real" scientists at all. For the record, Targ is a physicist credited with inventing the FM laser, the high-power gas-tranport laser, and the tunable plasma oscillator. Puthoff, also a physicist, invented the tunable infra-red laser and is widely known for his theoretical work on quantum vacuum states and the zero point field. (see The Field, by Lynne McTaggart, for an overview of Puthoff's work in quantum phyics.) If these two are "Laurel and Hardy," at least they come with good résumés. Randi, by contrast, has no scientific training.

Randi starts off by telling us how Targ and Puthoff took a professed psychic, Ingo Swann, to Stanford University, where, they said, Swann used his psychic abilities to affect the operation of a magnetometer. According to Randi, "the report was all wet." He knows this because he contacted Dr. Arthur Hebard, "the builder of the device, who was present and has excellent recollections of what took place." Hebard, Randi says disputes the Targ-Puthoff account. He is quoted as saying, "It's a lie. You can say it any way you want, but that's what I call a lie."

This is pretty compelling stuff. But is Randi's version of events accurate? Let's take a look.

First, he seems to make a rather basic error when he says that both Targ and Puthoff were present for this experiment. As best I can determine, Puthoff conducted the experiment, which took place in June, 1972, without Targ's assistance. Targ had met Puthoff prior to this time, but their work together apparently did not begin until a few months later.

That's a small point. Far more important is the matter of Dr. Hebard's testimony. There's another side to the story, which I found in Chapter 17 of Psychic Breakthroughs Today ( Quoted by Uri Geller ) by D. Scott Rogo. Rogo, who died in 1990 at the age of forty, was a prolific journalist and researcher of psychic phenomena. He wrote numerous popular books, some of which have been used as college texts. He also published research papers in peer-reviewed parapsychology journals. Although Rogo was sometimes criticized for tackling overly esoteric subjects, he had a reputation for honesty and was respected for his willingness to do hands-on investigation and field work, rather than relying on armchair appraisals. A Scott Rogo tribute and bibliography can be found at http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOn ... goObit.htm

Rogo writes, "There obviously exist several discrepancies between Dr Puthoff's views on what happened during this experiment, and what Randi claims Dr Hebard told him. So to clarify the matter, I decided to get in touch with Dr Hebard myself. I finally tracked him down at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was very willing to discuss the Swann magnetometer demonstration with me, and professed to be very interested in parapsychology." Hebard's interest in the paranormal contradicts Randi's statement that Hebard, "not being a reader of far-out literature," was unaware of Targ and Puthoff's claims.

Rogo acknowledges that Hebard's account differs in some respects from Puthoff's. "Dr Hebard denied in no uncertain terms, however, Randi's claim that Swann was never asked to 'stop the field charge' being recorded from the magnetometer. He easily recalled that he had suggested that it would be a fascinating effect if Swann could produce it . . . which, of course, he actually did soon after the suggestion was made. Randi also directly quotes Dr Hebard as calling some of Targ and Puthoff's claims 'lies'. Dr Hebard was very annoyed by this claim since, as he explained to me, Randi had tried to get him to make this charge and he had refused. Dr Hebard later signed a statement to this effect for me." (ellipsis in original.)

As for the discrepancies between Hebard's and Puthoff's accounts, Rogo reports that in a subsequent meeting with Puthoff, he was shown "the actual graphed print-outs given by the magnetometer during the Swann demonstrations. The records supported Dr Puthoff's contention more than they did Dr Hebard's."

So far, then, the best we can say is that Randi's criticism of Puthoff (and Targ, who apparently wasn't even involved in the magnetometer experiment) is far from the last word on the subject.

Randi proceeds to launch a comprehensive critique of Targ and Puthoff's article "Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," which appeared in the October 18, 1974, issue of the respected journal Nature. The article details experiments involving, among other participants, the professed psychic Uri Geller.

Randi's take on this series of experiments is withering. He skewers Targ and Puthoff as "bunglers." He reports that their experiments were conducted in a chaotic atmosphere conducive to cheating. He says that a hole in the wall of Geller's isolation room enabled him to spy on the scientists during their ESP experiments. He says that Targ and Puthoff falsified the results of the tests by omitting failed experiments that would have lowered Geller's averages to the level of chance. Further, he says that the scoring of Geller's performances was mishandled, generating higher scores than Geller deserved.

The question naturally arises: How does Randi know all this, since, as he admits, "I've never even set foot on the sacred grounds of SRI [Stanford Research Institute, where the experiments were conducted"? He explains that he was given inside information by "an individual" who claimed to represent dozens of SRI scientists. This group, which worked in secret and even adopted a code name (Broomhilda), passed the information to Randi.

Unfortunately, Randi never names this individual or any other members of the Broomhilda group. He says that "Broomhilda verified for me much of the information that I had been holding on to for years," but where did he get this earlier information in the first place? "That data," he says, "now moved from the status of hearsay to documented fact." But documented is hardly a term applicable to either the initial information, which is never specified, or the Broomhilda information, which came from an anonymous source. He adds, "Additional facts were elicited during conversations and correspondence with individuals. Many of these persons were not aware of Broomhilda and were acting on their own. Their completely independent input supported Broomhilda's charges. Taken together," he concludes, "the information from all sources amounted to quite an indictment."

Maybe so, but it's an indictment that would never hold up in court. The reader is expected to take Randi's word that his unidentified sources are trustworthy - and that the sources themselves are well-informed about experimental procedures they may or may not have witnessed.

Thus when Randi alleges that "hundreds of [failed] experiments that were done by SRI ... were never reported," we must take the statement on faith, as it is unsupported by any documentation. Similarly, when Randi says definitively, "All the other tests [i.e., the successful ones] lacked proper controls and were useless," we search in vain for any footnote to back up this assertion.

A posting http://www.psicounsel.com/ I found on a message board sums up the situation nicely: "Claims of poor scientific method leveled at the experimenters have been shown to be mainly unsubstantiated personal opinion and second-hand 'Chinese Whispers.'" (Chinese Whispers is the British equivalent of the American game, 'Telephone'.) It might be worth adding that critics of paranormal phenomena, like Randi, are forever decrying any reliance on "anecdotal evidence," which is precisely what the bulk of Randi's argument consists of.

Randi does produce two individuals willing to go on the record - Charles Rebert and Leon Otis, both of whom were SRI psychologists. Rebert and Otis apparently disagreed with the Targ-Puthoff conclusions; indeed, Randi tells us that "a horrified Rebert also heard that Targ and Puthoff were going to proclaim these erroneous findings before Stanford University's psychology department, and he forbade such a blunder. The talk was canceled." But this only tells us that there was a dispute among the scientists at SRI. Rebert and Otis ran some unsuccessful tests with Geller and decided that he was a fraud. Targ and Puthoff ran what they regarded as successful tests and decided that, in some areas at least, Geller had legitimate psychic powers. Nothing in Randi's text establishes which conclusion was correct.

Randi goes on to report that after he had criticized Geller in an earlier book, Targ and Puthoff "issued a 'fact sheet' in rebuttal to twenty-four" of his points. According to Randi, "This attempt was a failure, and in response to one claim that the SRI tests were done under tight controls, a scientist who was there declared flatly, 'This is b.s. As far as my colleagues and I are concerned, none of the experiments met accepted scientific protocol. "I will not burden you," Randi concludes, "with the other twenty-three points; they are as easily demolished."

Well, hold on. A quotation from yet another anonymous source ("a scientist who was there") hardly constitutes a demolition job, especially when the scientist's argument consists of an unsupported assertion ("none of the experiments met accepted scientific protocol"). Personally, I would have welcomed the "burden" of the other twenty-three points and of Randi's detailed and carefully documented rebuttals.

Some idea of the counter-arguments to Randi's claims can be obtained by taking another look at D. Scott Rogo, who earlier showed the initiative to track down Dr. Hebard. Unlike Randi, who, as we have seen, had "never even set foot" inside the research facility, Rogo visited SRI on June 12, 1981. He found that Randi had misrepresented the hole in the wall of the isolation room through which Geller was supposedly able to spy on the researchers. The hole, a conduit for cables, is depicted in Flim-Flam as being three and a half inches wide and therefore offering a good view of the experimental area where the researchers were working. Rogo found, however, that the hole "is three-and-a-quarter inches [wide] and extends through a twelve-and-a-half inch wall. This scopes your vision and severely limits what you can see through it. The hole is not left open either, since it is covered by a plate through which cables are routinely run. Dr Puthoff and his colleague were, however, concerned that their subject might be ingenious enough to insert an optical probe through this hole, so they monitored the opening throughout their telepathy experiments."

Randi also indicates that the hole is stationed 34 inches above the floor. Not so, says Rogo. "It isn't three feet above the floor, but is located only a little above floor level. The only thing you can see through it - even under optimal conditions - is a small bit of exterior floor and opposing wall. (The viewing radius is only about 20°, and the targets for the Geller experiments were hung on a different wall completely.) I also discovered during my trip to SRI that an equipment rack was situated in front of the hole throughout the Geller work, which obstructed any view through it even further. I ended my little investigation by talking with two people who were present during these critical experiments. They both agreed that wires were running through the hole - therefore totally blocking it - during the time of the Geller experiments."

It would appear that the hole in the isolation booth's wall poses considerably less of a problem than the holes in Randi's arguments.

By now, I felt that Randi's credibility was in doubt. He had committed careless errors of fact, had quite possibly misrepresented and misquoted Hebard, and had made unsupported assertions based on rumors. I wondered what Targ and Puthoff have to say about all this. The only responses from either of them that I could find online were part of a long essay by Winston Wu, 'Debunking Common Skeptical Arguments Against Paranormal and Psychic Phenomena' http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/winston.html , the relevant part is Argument 18 Puthoff is quoted as saying the following:

"In Flim- Flam, [Randi] gives something like 28 debunking points, if my memory serves me correctly. I had the opportunity to confront Randi at a Parapsychology Association conference with proof in hand, and in tape-recorded interaction he admitted he was wrong on all the points. He even said he would correct them for the upcoming paperback being published by the CSICOP group. [He did not] ...

"The truth of the matter is that none of Randi's claimed suspected inadequate controls actually had anything to do with the experiments, which of course Randi was not there to know of. This has been independently reported by Scott Rogo somewhere in the literature, who came out specifically to check each of Randi's guesses about inadequate controls and found them inapplicable under the conditions in which the tests were conducted. In fact, all of Randi's suggestions were amateurish compared to the sophisticated steps we took, suspecting as we did everything from magician's tricks to an Israeli intelligence scam....

"In case one thinks that it was just a case of our opinions vs. his opinions," Puthoff continues, "we chose for the list of incorrect points only those that could be independently verified. Examples: [Randi] said that in our Nature paper we verified Geller's metal-bending. Go to the paper, and you see that we said we were not able to obtain evidence for this. He said that a film of the Geller experiment made at SRI by famed photographer Zev Pressman was not made by him, but by us and we just put his name on it. We showed up with an affidavit by Pressman saying that indeed he did make the film."

There is no way for me to verify Puthoff's statement that he tape-recorded Randi's concession of defeat "on all the points." This has to stand as an unsupported assertion, just like Randi's own arguments. But it is possible to take a closer look at Puthoff's last two claims.

First, Puthoff insists that his and Targ's Nature article does not endorse Geller's alleged metal-bending. This is accurate, as you can see for yourself by reading the article http://www.heart7.net/mcf/hambone/g3.html . Puthoff and Targ write, "It has been widely reported that Geller has demonstrated the ability to bend metal by paranormal means. Although metal bending by Geller has been observed in our laboratory, we have not been able to combine such observations with adequately controlled experiments to obtain data sufficient to support the paranormal hypothesis."

On the other hand, I have not found any statement by Randi in Flim-Flam to the effect that Targ and Puthoff "had verified Geller's metal-bending." He attacks the Targ-Puthoff experiments on other grounds. Of course, he may have made this statement elsewhere, but as far as I can tell, Puthoff is rebutting a point Randi never made.

How about Puthoff's second claim, regarding the SRI film? Randi certainly does make this an issue in Flim-Flam. Targ and Puthoff, he writes, "appended to [the film] - without his knowledge or permission - the name of Zev Pressman, the SRI photographer who had shot the film.... Pressman, said Targ and Puthoff, was present during [a particular series of] experiments. Not so, according to Pressman.... Most damning of all, Pressman said to others at SRI that he had been told the successful [tests] were done after he (Pressman) had gone home for the day. So it appears the film was a reenactment ... Pressman did not even know that Targ and Puthoff were issuing a statement, he did not sign it, and he did not give them permission to use his name. He knew nothing about most of what appeared under his name, and he disagreed with the part that he did know about." [italics in original]

Here we have Randi saying that this photographer, Pressman, was duped and used by the experimenters, while Puthoff says that Pressman signed an affidavit swearing that "indeed he did make the film." Is there any way to resolve this?

A further Web search turned up Chapter 14 http://www.uri-geller.com/geller-effect/tge14.htm of The Geller Effect. Part One of this book is written by Uri Geller. Part Two, which includes Chapter 14, was written by Guy Lyon Playfair. Living up to his name, Playfair offers an even-handed presentation of the various controversies surrounding the flamboyant and eccentric Geller.

Playfair writes, "[Randi] turned, in a later book, Flim-Flam, to the professional photographer who had made the film, a Stanford employee named Zev Pressman, with an extraordinary series of unfounded allegations....

"Pressman flatly denied all of Randi's allegations in two public statements, neither of which was even mentioned in the 1982 re-issue of the book. 'I made the film,' said Pressman, 'and my name appeared with my full knowledge and permission . . . Nothing was restaged or specially created . . . I have never met nor spoken to nor corresponded with Randi. The 'revelations' he attributes to me are pure fiction.'"

It is true that no mention is made of these "two public statements" in Flim-Flam's 1982 edition - the edition I own.

For corroborating testimony, I turned once again to the indefatigable Scott Rogo, who investigated this claim just as he had looked into Dr. Hebard's testimony and the infamous hole in the wall.

Rogo writes, "I spoke directly with Mr Pressman on 5 January 1981 and he was quite interested when I told him about Randi's book. He denied that he had spoken to the magician. When I read him the section of Randi's book dealing with his alleged 'expose' of the Targ-Puthoff film, he became very vexed. He firmly backed up the authenticity of the film, told me how he had taken it on the spot, and labeled Randi's allegation as a total fabrication. [His own descriptive language was a little more colourful!]" Rogo also reports that Puthoff showed him Pressman's signed affidavit.

How could Randi's conversation with Pressman be so different from Rogo's? The truth is, Randi does not appear to have had a conversation with Pressman at all. Take another look at the quote from Flim-Flam. The key words are: "Most damning of all, Pressman said to others at SRI ..."

Evidently, then, Randi's source is not Pressman himself, but unnamed "others at SRI" who passed on this information to Randi. Another round of Chinese Whispers, it seems.

At this point Randi ends his discussion of the Geller experiments and proceeds to criticize Targ and Puthoff's later work, as well as the work of another researcher, Charles Tart. Dealing with these criticisms would require another essay of equal length to this one, so I will stop here. The reader who wants to go further is invited to read Randi's Flim-Flam and then click on any of the links inserted throughout this essay and listed below. Or just search the Web for the keywords Randi, Targ, Puthoff, etc., and see what comes up.

Before I began this modest online research project for a rainy afternoon, I had mixed feelings about Randi. I saw him as closed-minded and supercilious, but I also assumed he was sincere and, by his own lights, honest. Now, having explored his contribution to the Targ-Puthoff controversy in some detail, I am thoroughly unimpressed. Randi comes across as a bullying figure, eager to attack and ridicule, willing to distort and even invent evidence - in short, the sort of person who will do anything to prevail in a debate, whether by fair means or foul.

The title of his book thus takes on a new and unintended meaning. From what I can tell, James Randi really is the Flim-Flam man.

NOTE: James Randi responded to this article, and Michael Prescott then responded to James Randi. To read this ongoing controversy, see http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm
Michael Prescott is a New York Times bestselling author. His published works include: Comes the Dark, Stealing Faces, The Shadow Hunter, Last Breath, Next Victim and In Dark Places. His latest book is Dangerous Games

More on James Randi
James Randi Biography
The Randi Prize The Challenge
The $1M Challenge So What?
Randi's Dishonest Claims The Research That Never Was
Ted Dace reports on the Amazing 3 Conference Skeptical of the Skeptics

[seemslikeadream]

Is it not somehow troubling that an organization built on rooting out fraud had, in its midst, a man allegedly committing fraud at a federal level? And there is nothing from Grothe on the seriousness of the charge? Nothing about waiting for the process to play out before reminding us of “Jose’s” accomplishments?

We all search for something to believe in. And while those who chose James Randi believe themselves to be above the rabble who get taken in by street-side fortunetellers, I believe they simply fell for a hoax of another kind. In Fringe-ology, I write at length about what I consider the most irrational moments in Randi’s rationalist career. So I won’t get into them here. But Randi is a fount not so much of critical thinking but critical gaffes: Rupert Sheldrake, Zev Pressman, Arthur C. Clarke, Gary Schwartz (and Loyd Auerbach), Dennis Rawlins and Dennis Stillings have all, at one time or another, fallen into the gap between Randi and reason.

And Randi himself clearly enjoys his own shapeshifting. On the Skeptic Zone podcast, he talks at length about the title of the forthcoming documentary about his life. It's called An Honest Liar, and the conceit is that, as a magician, Randi's job is to deceive and misdirect and create illusions.

JAMES RANDI—SKEPTICISM'S GREAT ACHILLES
I have long felt that the skeptical community has a James Randi Problem.

At one time or another, seemingly every professional skeptic offers thanks and praise to Randi, lauds his Million Dollar Challenge and/or joins his self-named foundation (JREF). They applaud him for forty years spent debunking all things paranormal, line up in droves to attend his annual Amazing Meeting—“a celebration of critical thinking and skepticism sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation”—and they rarely, if ever, engage in any critical thinking about Randi himself.

Thus far, they seem unmoved even by the specter of “Jose Luis Alvarez.”

I put the name in quotes because Randi, a Plantation, Florida resident, has lived and worked with “Alvarez” for roughly 20 years, even traveling the world together to debunk psychics and stage mediums. But the feds, this last September, arrested “Alvarez” and charged him with stealing another man’s identity—obtaining passports and getting paid under the name of the real Jose Luis Alvarez, a teacher’s aide in the Bronx.

So, who is the man who has been living in Randi's home and working with him for 20 years? According to the Sun Sentinel, Alvarez is actually Deyvi Pena, who came to the United States from Venezuela in the mid-80s on a student visa to study at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. And now? The questions about Pena extend from his identity to his age to how the feds have come to accuse him of stealing the name, date of birth and social security number of a New York man, back in 1987, in order to travel internationally with Randi. And it is this relationship—the long partnership between Alvarez/Pena and Randi—that should now concern the skeptical community.

In short, what did Randi know and when did he know it?

The answer would seem to matter—a lot.

The identity Randi puts forward for public consumption is truth seeker. His professional role, at least on the surface, is to unmask hoaxers and charlatans—not live with them, or abet them. But as I write in Fringe-ology, Randi strikes me as proving, at best, a highly problematic spokesman for a movement purportedly engaged in truth telling. In fact, I would argue, the now 83-year old Randi, a one-time stage magician and long-time skeptic, has always been too consumed with the prospect of claiming total victory to be bothered overly much by more nuanced truths. But let’s back up a step.

Judging by what has been written about the case thus far, those who know Randi’s partner, who we’ll call Pena/Avarez, like him. They describe him as having arrived in America, in the mid-80s, with serious ambition to further his art. He has since had gallery showings in New York and San Francisco of what the Sun-Sentinel describes as “colorful, modernist” paintings. Operating under his allegedly assumed name, he gave a lecture, in 2011, at the University of California in Berkeley, billed in fantastic terms and garbled syntax: “Utilizing the concept in theoretical astrophysics of parallel universes and space as a continuum membrane with no beginning or end, Alvarez will place his cast of characters as a stand-in for the strong human desire for knowledge and transformation and his continued visual inquiry into the realms of the fantastic and the philosophical."

Pena/Alvarez remains best known, however, for his late-80s work with Randi. He took the stage as “Carlos,” a supposed mystic channeling the spirit of an ancient seer, while Randi oversaw production of what proved to be an elaborate hoax. The idea was to educate people by fooling them: Get audience members and the media to believe in “Carlos” the psychic, then tell them the truth: They had been fooled.

See? Randi argued. All you have to do to convince people you’re a psychic is proclaim yourself one—and act the part.

But the problems with any Randi-led narrative begin immediately. For starters, the media saw right through Carlos. So when Randi goes around saying how easy it is to fool people, using Carlos as an example, he is propagating a myth. The Carlos hoax largely backfired—as these pieces from the Grail and The Skeptic (click The Second Coming, "Skepticism," here) neatly attest. And of course, the layers of mythmaking where “Carlos” is concerned now seem endless. In fact, the false “Carlos” narrative hides Randi’s actual inability to hoax the media. And “Carlos” himself was less person than Chinese box, hiding “Alvarez,” who allegedly hid Pena.

Identity theft is a serious federal offense.

Randi’s partner, who renewed the “Alvarez” passport as recently as 2008, faces a sentence of up to 10 years. His attorneys have notified the court they intend to plead guilty. And while a plea agreement would likely land him a far shorter sentence, he could also face deportation if he is here illegally.

At first blush, there are good reasons to root for someone like Pena: I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who feels they might find a better life for themselves in the United States. And while I’ve never been in that position, I believe I understand how the desire to take part in all America offers could lead someone to take tremendous risks and even break the law.

The problems with extending too much sympathy to Pena/Alvarez is that the real Jose Luis Alvarez has faced myriad inconveniences, indignities and hardships in the years that someone else has been using his identity. According to the complaint filed against Alvarez/Pena, the real Alvarez was not surprised someone had stolen his identity. He had spent years enduring hassles with the IRS and credit card companies.

As the Sun-Sentinel reports: “Alvarez, a teacher's aide from the Bronx, said he has suspected for several years that someone had stolen his identity — … that he's been dunned by the IRS for taxes he didn't owe on income in Florida, that his bank account has periodically been frozen and that he had difficulty renewing his driver's license. He's had to repeatedly prove he is who he says he is, brandishing his New York driver's license and a birth certificate, as well as his employment record.”

Recently, when the real Alvarez tried to obtain a passport to travel to his sister’s wedding in Jamaica, his application was pegged as potentially fraudulent—because, after all, someone else had already been traveling the world with a passport bearing all the same information. Sadly, the real Jose Luis Alvarez was not able to work the matter out in time to attend his sister’s wedding at all.

Events like family weddings don’t reoccur. And if Pena/Alvarez is guilty as charged, he stole that event from the real Jose Luis Alvarez and severely compromised his quality of life for many years. Worse, according to the affidavit of the special agent in the case, when Pena/Alvarez was questioned, he allegedly tried to do still more harm to his victim. Pena/Alvarez told the agent “he was aware that an individual was using his personal information in New York City.”

Certainly, then, if Randi did know the man he lived with was living under someone else’s name, this is a sad aspect of his legacy. But thus far he has remained mostly mum on the subject—a real change of pace for the usually irrepressible, irascible and outspoken skeptic. “I’ve been advised silence is the way to go,” he told the Sun-Sentinel.

Even worse for the reputation of the great Truth Teller, when the Sun-Sentinel asked him what he thought of their conclusion that “Alvarez” is really Pena, he didn’t take the traditional, and dignified way out, and simply say “I have no comment.” Instead, he offered this meek obfuscation: “Well, if that’s who you think he is.”

There is, however, a trail of facts that critical thinkers might pursue in order to come to their own conclusions. The Sun-Sentinel has done a diligent job of pursuing the story, and their coverage offers up a timeline that figures to grow clearer as legal proceedings continue.

1984 — Deyvi Pena moves from Venezuela to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida under a student visa. His listed age is 22.

1986 — Randi wins a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, for $272,000 and hires Pena as an assistant. Pena starts appearing around town with Randi and is known to associates as Deyvi or David. In 1986 a Toronto Star reporter shadowed Randi at La Guardia airport, while researching a profile, and wrote: “A few feet behind him, David Pena, a young man of about 20, struggles with three large suitcases.”

1987—Pena allegedly becomes Jose Luis Alvarez, applying for a U.S. passport using the name, date of birth and social security number of a man living in the Bronx, New York. The newspaper cites one person who knew Pena/Alvarez around that time saying he needed a new identity and did not have legal identification.

So, Pena allegedly becomes Alvarez—and performs on and off as “Carlos.” A quick look at the JREF site shows Alvarez is mentioned there 9 times—though nothing (outside the message boards) I could find in connection with the legal charges he faces and nothing on Pena. Is it possible that Pena/Alvarez was confiding his situation to a friend, but not Randi, the man he worked for and ultimately lived with?

There are some telling details. Pena would now be 50, and Alvarez’s listed age is 43, a seven year difference. And intriguingly, the Sun Sentinel found, when Alvarez first performed as “Carlos” Randi billed him as 19 years old—the same age as the New York man whose identity was allegedly stolen by Randi’s partner. Further, in this video, recorded in 2009, Randi says, around the 2:40 second mark, that one worry they had before they put Pena/Alvarez on stage as “Carlos” is that his “Bronx” accent might creep through.

Really?

The real Jose Luis Alvarez is from the Bronx. But the man by Randi’s side, who had allegedly adopted that identity, was from Venezuela.

Had Pena/Avarez somehow known, from the moment he met Randi, that he would one day adopt the identity of a man from the Bronx, and fooled the incredible skeptic by adopting a Bronx accent? Or was Randi just continuing to perpetuate Pena/Alvarez’s cover? Does he himself not know the difference between Venezuelan and Bronx accents? We await the answer. And at this stage, answers are finally forthcoming: Alvarez/Pena has admitted in court that his real name is Deyvi Pena. A court hearing is set for March 14, and Pena's defense attorneys has claimed the whole truth will be revealed, which she bills as a “compelling story”. But clearly, in the meantime, this whole episode looks awfully bad for Randi—and I expect it will look bad for many in the skeptical community when all is said and done.

Why?

Because, if the last months are any indication, the skeptical community will largely ignore or rationalize the story as they have done thus far.

Just recently, in fact, Richard Saunders, host of the Skeptic Zone, spent a half-hour fawning over Randi, the legend, without asking him a single question about the Alvarez kerfuffle.

Has Richard Wiseman weighed in, on his site? Nope.

Nothing at U.K. Skeptics.

Or Ben Radford.

I can find nothing from Michael Shermer on the topic, or Mike Hutchinson, and—well, this is what we humans tend to do on behalf of the people and beliefs we’ve come to revere. And in this case, too many of the people who drape themselves in the cloak of “Critical Thinking” have willingly, I would argue, pulled the wool over their own eyes when it comes to James Randi.

The JREF message board is a case in point. They deserve props, I suppose, for leaving this long thread in place for people to monitor developments in the case and discuss it. But JREF’s president D.J. Grothe strikes a sour note in his post on the subject: “We at the James Randi Educational Foundation are shocked by the sudden arrest of James Randi's beloved longtime partner, Jose Alvarez,” he writes. “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.”

Is that what it comes down to? Which side we’re on?

Is it not somehow troubling that an organization built on rooting out fraud had, in its midst, a man allegedly committing fraud at a federal level? And there is nothing from Grothe on the seriousness of the charge? Nothing about waiting for the process to play out before reminding us of “Jose’s” accomplishments?

We all search for something to believe in. And while those who chose James Randi believe themselves to be above the rabble who get taken in by street-side fortunetellers, I believe they simply fell for a hoax of another kind. In Fringe-ology, I write at length about what I consider the most irrational moments in Randi’s rationalist career. So I won’t get into them here. But Randi is a fount not so much of critical thinking but critical gaffes: Rupert Sheldrake, Zev Pressman, Arthur C. Clarke, Gary Schwartz (and Loyd Auerbach), Dennis Rawlins and Dennis Stillings have all, at one time or another, fallen into the gap between Randi and reason.

And Randi himself clearly enjoys his own shapeshifting. On the Skeptic Zone podcast, he talks at length about the title of the forthcoming documentary about his life. It's called An Honest Liar, and the conceit is that, as a magician, Randi's job is to deceive and misdirect and create illusions.

All I can say is that, after the Jose Luis Alvarez case shakes out, there might be a great jumping off point for a second documentary.

[American Dream]

Is all this critique of James Randi somehow supposed to vindicate Illuminati theory?

Because I don't think it does...

[American Dream]

Illuminati

The Illuminati was a small freethinker society founded in 1776 in Bavaria. In the universe that rational people agree to recognize as reality, the Illuminati ceased to exist by 1789.

In the parallel universe where the likes of Henry Makow and David Icke hang their hats (and the snakes living therein), they not only have continued to exist, but have developed such enormous capacity for secrecy, power, and control that the complete absence of evidence for their existence, power, and control ...proves their existence, power, and control.

The legend

The spread of the Illuminati legend and continued belief in them today can be traced back to the book Proofs of a Conspiracy by John Robinson, a 1798 anti-Freemasonry book (the Freemasons and Illuminati are often regarded as one and the same by conspiracy theorists). Proofs of a Conspiracy has become a source of inspiration to many conspiracy theorists since its initial publication and has been reprinted by, among others, the John Birch Society. Many modern variations of the Illuminati conspiracy have them being a controlling influence in the New World Order.

Keeping the fire alive

The alleged continued existence of the "Illuminati" looms large in many conspiracy theories, tall tales by evangelical Satanic Panic-fakers like Mike Warnke and John Todd, crank anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic writings, pseudolaw theories, etc. Depending on which version of the "Illuminati" story one believes, they are either a Satanic, Masonic, Zionist, atheist, reptilian,[3] or secular financial conspiracy. Despite the many different versions of the conspiracy, each version claims to have evidence that they are correct. They secretly control world events and their symbol, the all-seeing eye, is on the back of the U.S. $1 bill. This belief, in whatever version, is patently ridiculous but it persists. When the Founding Fathers designed the Great Seal, the all-seeing eye was proposed by members of design committees who were not Freemasons (since conspiracy theorists regard Freemasons and the Illuminati to be practically the same). It was also not named the "all-seeing eye," as the cranks believe, but rather the "eye of providence."[4][5]

Several 20th century conspiracy theory books such as those by William Guy Carr and Des Griffin combined John Robinson's allegations about the Illuminati and Freemasonry with those of the hoax book, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, to come up with an explicitly anti-Semitic version of the Illuminati theory. Jack Chick and Alberto Rivera on the other hand promoted an anti-Roman Catholic variant of the theory, alleging the Illuminati was a creation of the Vatican.

Pat Robertson's version, on the other hand, is just plain weird since it somehow touches on both the French Revolution and gay marriage.[6]

Robertson, it seems, has company among other theocratic media weirdos personalities. Rick Wiles is under the impression that the Illuminati is not only linked to the 9/11 attacks but that the new One World Trade Center is actually a tribute to what he terms the "Free Mason/Illuminati New World Order."[7]

The liars get on board

Mike Warnke and John Todd, mentioned above, are two fake "ex-Satanist" Protestant evangelists. They have both described the Illuminati as the highest level of Satanism. Warnke claimed he learned of the Illuminati when attending a high-level conference of Satanists and Witches, shortly before he dropped out of Satanism to join the Navy and convert to Christianity. Todd claimed to have been a member of the Illuminati himself, which he said was a high council of druids secretly working to destroy Christianity and make witchcraft the official religion of the United States. Belief in the Illuminati as a Satanic conspiracy continues to be held by many evangelical Christians, despite both Warnke and Todd being exposed as frauds.

To the true believer, exposing them as frauds only goes to show how far the Illuminati are willing to go to malign opponents.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Illuminati

[Searcher08]

Is all this critique of James Randi somehow supposed to vindicate Illuminati theory?

Because I don't think it does...

I think what it does do is suggest that the idea of "now and then we need a good does of Randi to provide balance with conspiracy theory" doesnt hold water.

Let's make this personal (in a positive way).

My issue with pseudoskeptical thinking and the organisations like JREF and CSICOP and Prometheus ties into it are NOT based on saying logical-negative thinking is bad. It isnt - FFS many years ago I used to work in software testing - looking for fault, testing for logic is great.

My issue with JREF is that TOO much of that, especially when combined with a reflexive feeling based response of "BULLSHIT!" to things they actually just dont like at all, followed ONLY by critique can really squash creative thinking - analysis is digging the same hole deeper, creative thinking is digging another hole.
Another part of thinking that JREF simply doesnt do is logical-positive - where one focuses on a feature and spells out why it is of benefit.

Whenever I see/hear anyone say "BULLSHIT!" my thinking radar starts considering Really?


Put it this way, if I followed you around calling "BULLSHIT!" and posting pseudoskeptic sourced stuff most times you wanted to talk about (for example) the Occult - that would be fine on JREF, that is the culture; but on RI, that would be me acting a royal pain in the ass.

Let me call out (in a positive smiley way) JR, bph and c2w? - I have great respect for them of them because of generally NON-pseudoskeptic detailed analysis AND detailed pure 'fact finding' they can bring. Mr Riddler's writing on pseudoskepticism was so full of clarity and light it was like eating wonderfullly orchestrated haute cuisine; bph's deep research on the context of Sounder's quotes was, for me, fabulous. c2w? has a brain the size of a planet and a heart the size of fakkin London bus... these folks are not MiB or Conspirituality or Illuminutti types.

95% of my engagement with you has been around doing three things -
Firstly to be seek specificity and clarification - also explicitly sharing my own understanding of what you are saying - a LOT of the time you seem to take this as some form of either dissing you or applying some nasty NLP technique with a hidden agenda, when FWIW it is about trying to comprehend...

Secondly to give feedback on what I see as a exquisitely counterproductive communications process that is happening re SDI / 'TheList' -
What has all the CopyPasta et al achieved except an ongoing retaliatory system?
Is it just going to be a polemic CopyPasta conflation cannonade for ever - which wastes EVERYONES time and attention and goodwill. Things are now at a point of temporary ceasefire / truce which is why I am writing this, in the hope of building goodwill.

Thirdly to try and engage in a productive shared activity which plays to both of our skills.

Why dont you write a completely logical+positive (spelling out logical features and specific benefits) piece on Icke and I will create a completely logical-negative (critical analytical) one?

[American Dream]

Yes to going beyond dichotomies, to claiming logic and to embracing high strangeness- and everything else within and beyond those categories.

That said, I don't think I'll be endorsing Illuminati theory, Archon theory, Rothschild Zionism theory, or anything like that. There's simply no good evidence that I see.

So yes, to speculating on what could be possible, to owning a hypothesis- even a wild, wild hunch- and checking it out. Yes to imagination. Yes to revery and madness and dreaming. Yes to science fiction.

If we want to get beyond dichotomies, it is up to all of us- not just those people...

[Searcher08]

There is lots of that which *deeply* resonates with me

[Sounder]

wombat wrote...

I...what?

I realize Certain Recent Events might overshadow this at the current time, but AD has made huge, huge contributions to our deep politics dialog here.

You are correct, but mostly it’s done despite himself.

(I also think we're doing ourselves a huge disservice by reducing JREF to an epithet –

I checked out JREF a bit to see what they are about. I very much enjoy the skeptical approach, however I also think that skepticism as expressed here by various valued posters is more substantive than is a skepticism that displays a rigid belief set centered on the non-existence of the ineffable.

(My opinion is that study of liminal space, and the means by which the pre-manifest comes into manifestation will be the basis for the next substantial developments within science.)

their style might be abrasive, but they are on the side of factual reality often enough to make demonizing them slightly absurd.

I do not mind abrasiveness if the presenter has something to back it up with, like mulebone, but abrasiveness as a reflection of ones insecurity and intellectual pompousness, not so much. I think my attitude is one of disparagement rather than demonization and I do agree that energy spent trying to expose charlatans is useful.

You're gonna find yourself defending all kinds of odious horseshit if you take the reflexive position JREF is always wrong.)

Fortunately I would never do that, you know, -because I am not an either/or kind of guy.

This guy says it pretty good. I like to think that folk on both ‘sides’, (that is ‘here’ not there), can endorse this kind of thinking.


http://jerome23.wordpress.com/category/atheism/

"And sometimes he's so nameless"
Is it time to give up on “Skepticism”?


Today I’m recovering from a rather unpleasant patch of illness that has left me drained, tired and at times irritable — and has prevented me posting the following thoughts for over a week. As I can’t see anyone caring anyway, the following post can be seen as a sort of note to self — but hopefully in future rows I can refer people here. I was awaiting the chance to read Daniel Loxton’s piece on scepticism – I often agree with him on much – but in the end have seized the opportunity to write my own thoughts here. I shall adopt a short, simple and hopefully clear style, rather than my usual one.

So, I don’t want to be called a “skeptic” any more. Or even a “sceptic”, though I think I prefer that, it having the advantage of being spelt correctly in the British English I speak. Of course, if you go to the Greek — but either way, the issue is sceptic does not work for me. I even think it’s potentially harmful. We might need to lose it.
I know a bit about ghosts. I know people experience ghosts. I’m still fairly ambivalent about what ghost experiences represent and whether science can currently explain them. (I think not all). I am therefore surely not a sceptic?: I am open to “paranormal” beliefs.

Or am I? Skip back to 2006 when I joined the JREF forum, Randi’s place. People were just as belligerent and rude there back then as today (and some, indeed many, just as ace) and I soon ended up trying to explain that I saw Scepticism as a methodology, a critical process of investigating facts and assessing evidence, rather than a simple process of nay saying. I argued many posters at the JREF were “a priori skeptics” – that is that they knew say the paranormal was all bunk, therefore there was no need to address paranormal claims. (And such opinions still appear there today). APS, a priori skepticism can be defended as a tactic, but is irrational (in the technical sense) as an actual worldview.

I guess I had best defend that last statement. OK, imagine tomorrow we prove that some phenomena that occurs in paranormal books – take Giant Squid as that happened – really exists. Giant squid were staples of 70′ paranormal books. Therefore to APS they can not be real because they are/were paranormal. Now you can presumably if you are an a priori skeptic move things from the “paranormal” to the “real” category — but how remains rather obscure, because once you allow that it removes any justification for the APS of paranormal claims in the first place. Luckily most people who adopt APS are not concerned with epistemology or consistency, only in sneering at anyone who lacks their extreme faith-based beliefs. (I’m sure I don’t have to explain why APS is faith based?)

So enough of APS: it is still a minority position. Most sceptics I spoke to agreed with my 2006 definition of scepticism as a process: a way of looking at the world. Now I spent a lot of 2008-2010 reading philosophy of science, as I kept finding myself puzzled by things I experienced in sceptical circles (people used “rationalist” to mean something other than “argument based on deduction, not sense-observation” for example — and they used “empirical” to include mathematical proofs which are not empirical but rationalist, as well as conflating “rational” and “true” and “irrational” with “false”. I was irritated at times by what seemed to be the exuberance and bull headed self confidence of people who thought they were clever, yet often struck me as not actually knowing what they were talking about. Rather than fight over misappropriation of philosophical language, words can change their meanings and usage after all, I however noted something quite clear —

There seemed little difference between a process sceptic (or methodological scepticism) and normal scientific methodologies.

Yes I really did just write that in red bold. Methodological Scepticism and Science are one and the same thing. If you disagree with me, as I’m sure someone must, then please do comment, and tell me how they differ. Both begin by asking questions, and usually involve attempting to falsify a hypothesis. Both involve ending up making a judgement regarding the strength of the evidence, and if the research supported or opposed certain conclusions. Science like Scepticism can be performed by people irrespective of their personal ideological baggage – even Richard Dawkins has been able to perform science successfully despite his clearly strong ideological biases.

In process Scepticism paranormal belief is perfectly compatible with said scepticism, if that is what the empirical evidence leads you to. And hence the strong scepticism among many spiritualist circles, and large numbers of scientists I think who sit in such circles – they have a very anti-faith and evidence based mindset, and spiritualism provides what appears to be empirical proof, or so its adherents profess.

Now I’ve bolded that last paragraph cos I want to look at it more. I’m not a spiritualist, and immediately my instinct is sod “process scepticism”/”scientific methodology”, they are all deluded or being defrauded. Yet I immediately stop myself – because that claim is absolutely unfounded. I have certainly seen fake mediums – and ones who were convinced of their own abilities too – but I certainly have not seen enough to know they were all fakes, even if the Problem of Induction allowed one to make such grandiose claims. I have certainly know enough intelligent critical people who think they have encountered empirical evidence of the persistence after death of loved ones to realise my reaction is emotional, and far from sceptical.

As a sceptic I should do the work: conduct some experiments, investigate the evidence, and not draw conclusions beyond what the evidence permits. To allow “scientific cultures” sneering contempt for mediumship to influence my thinking is clearly seriously unscientific; and when I turn to the arguments most commonly brought against studying such things as impossible, I find most of them are of the category “belief claims for a materialist philosophical worldview” rather than actually anything to do with Science.
If Scepticism is as I propose simply synonymous with Science, it must remain as neutral as possible in framing the questions and conducting the research. If Scepticism is not Science, but instead something more akin to the philosophical defence (apologetics) of materialist, reductionist, and eliminative philosophies then it should be honest that it is that – faith based teaching, a form of apologetics, and state so.

So to go back to those spiritualists — I must adopt an open minded approach as far as I can, given my prejudices, to the phenomena. I must attempt to be objective. If strong belief either way is allowed to interfere with my reading of the data, my science will be flawed. I will want to render the whole research as transparent and objective as possible.
So why disguise my Scientific investigation as something else, dressing it up as “sceptical”? If that term says nothing about my final position (which will be evidence based) why use the misleading “sceptic” term? I’m assuming that no one thinks one can scientifically investigate spiritualism’s reality with the conclusion already written – that would be appalling science – so why take on a label that seems to suggest one is doing exactly such a thing?

Furthermore, imagine you think you have seen a ghost, or a bigfoot, or somesuch. You look in the phonebook – there is the local woo group with their YouTube video series, or the local SCEPTIC. Who will you go to? I doubt it will be the sceptic – even if you are unsure about exactly what you experienced, sceptic implies someone who won’t believe you.
Science is methodologically rigorous, critical thinking, and evidence based. Why do we need to add a Skeptic label?

We don’t. I suggest “Skeptics” stop trying to promote “scepticism”, and promote simpler easier to sell virtues, Truth and Science. No one will react badly to you promising to use science and objectively look for the truth. They may even support you.

I can only think of four reasons why the term Sceptic may be used…

1. It may be employed by people who feel insecure about their credentials for doing science. Don’t. You do not need to wear a white coat or have a PhD in a Scientific discipline to do science. If you aspire to do science, people will help you. Choose a simple research topic, think of an experiment, and try and ask a few folks to check out your methodology before you start. Make sure your ethics are good. And publish your results, if only on the web

2. It might be employed by people who think researching say ESP or Lake Monsters without setting out clearly they think it is all bunk will damage their university careers and funding. If so I sympathise, but your publications can speak for themselves, and I think the contrary implication that you are researching topics with your mind already made up as to the outcomes might do you rather more damage in much of academia than a predilection for studying slightly offbeat things.

3. It might be employed by people who genuinely believe there is a difference between sceptical and scientific methodologies, and that the former is superior. If such a position is held, please do explain it to me.

and finally 4. Some people may like calling themselves skeptics because it sounds clever. I have often found skeptics to be fairly intellectually self-assured. I don’t think advocating Science is any less clever though.

So seriously, this whole skeptic thing, it has got so much baggage attached. Stuff it. You find great papers and poor papers in the journals, and whether written by sceptics or believers is irrelevant. Evidence and sound analysis — good science – is what matters at the end of the day.

[Wombaticus Rex]

^^That is an excellent piece. Thank you.

I don't think you're the type to be out shopping for Binary Traps, but I also don't want to see JREF become some kind of bete noire here.

[brainpanhandler]

Why dont you write a completely logical+positive (spelling out logical features and specific benefits) piece on Icke and I will create a completely logical-negative (critical analytical) one?

That's an absolutely fantastic idea. It's what I try to do in my head. Sometimes it's a fun exercise and sometimes it's a chore. When it's a horrible chore I get lazy and look for shortcuts.

[minime]

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." —Francis Bacon (1605) The Advancement of Learning, Book 1, v, 8

Effective rhetorically. But I have my doubts.

Lapsed skeptic's desperate epitaph...

Nothing
is carved
in stone.