The Myth of the Million Dollar Challenge (JRandi)

The Myth of the Million Dollar Challenge (JRandi)

dailygrail.com

For ten years, the modern skeptical movement has wielded a cudgel against claims of the paranormal: the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge. In many debates over the possibility of psi abilities, the Challenge provides a final word for one side... [Randi's Million] "has so-and-so applied for the Challenge?" The financial reward offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation is seen by many skeptics as providing an irresistible motivation for anybody with paranormal ability - after all, if someone could genuinely exhibit such powers, surely they would step forward to take the million?

However, after ten years, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) says nobody has even got past their preliminary testing. Furthermore, none of the 'big fish' - medium John Edward, spoon-bender Uri Geller, psychic Sylvia Browne - have applied. And now, perhaps as a result of that fact, James Randi has announced that the Challenge will come to an end in two years, on March 6th, 2010.

But does the challenge really make a statement about the existence of the paranormal and/or psi abilities? According to paranormal investigator Loyd Auerbach (who, like Randi, is a member of the magic fraternity):

The suggestion that ending the Challenge after 10 years supports any statement that psi does not exist or someone would have won the challenge, is absurd on many levels.

The procedures for the Challenge included several hurdles in favor of, and multiple "outs" for Randi and the JREF that any discerning individual capable of any kind of extraordinary human performance would think twice about (and here I'm not just referring to psychics and the like).

What are these hurdles that Auerbach refers to?

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.abovetopsecret.com

Interesting article, if you've ever heard skeptics say well if that were true JREF would give you a million dollars. The money will never be claimed because science never deals in absolute proof. Rather, science is a consensus of opinion that seems to fit the universe at a particular time. It is a means of human understanding that seems to work, but can never be absolutely proved. And if hard physics, chemistry and biology can never be absolutely proved, the paranormal has no chance. He demands million to odds. Maybe it is not quite as fair as it is reported to be?

I don't know, what do you think?



dailygrail.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
He demands million to odds. Maybe it is not quite as fair as it is reported to be?

I don't know, what do you think?

Not normally million to one (assuming that's what you meant). Science tends to use statstics that show significance of 5 in 100. That is, that a particular set of data has only a 5 in 100 chance of being a chance occurance (probability of 0.05).

But even if a study shows such a level of statisitical significance, that is never the end. Because for every 100 experiments, we would expect 5 to be chance at this level of significance. However, many statistical results show even higher levels of signficance (e.g. probability of up to .001)

But replication of results is essential (ABE: and this is probably why Randi asks for higher levels of p).

The evidence that psi appears to be non-existent is that positive results tend to fail replication, use poorly constrained experimental procedures, can be fraudulent (e.g., Soal-Goldney), and also that these studies have been going on for decades without any real reliable evidence. Even the PEARS institute has given up, and so have the military by all accounts.

As for absolute proof, yeah, science doesn't deal with that. It deals with levels of certainty by gathering empirical evidence to support hypotheses, essentially by trying to show them wrong. So, all parapsychology needs to do is gather reliable and replicable data that supports their hypotheses, and then provide logically consistent explanations.

Sean Carroll (a physicist) has had a couple of posts related to this issue over the last week or so.

American Association for the Advancement of Pseudoscience

Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory

You'll find polarised positions in the comments.

Anyway, saying all that, I'm open to these ideas. However, it appears to be a very unproductive field of research at the current time.

[edit on 2-3-2008 by melatonin]

It did not take a psychic to figure out that Randi and his group never had any intention of paying out that million dollars, regardless of what evidence was offered to them. The whole thing was nothing more then a publicity stunt.

so you would get on there, even if you are a ET hybrid an can bend spoons or whatnot everytime you did it you would be told that was prolly something wrong with the spoon or the air or the humidity or no no wait it was michael he prebent it behind stage to mess with us, lol

Every time you did something he would prolly pull our long shot chances.....

No one is gonna give away Free money..... You have to sell something to get it... LOL your life, you privacy, your mind.

It was always more a media thing than a science thing. Even if someone passed it, it wouldn't give the data scientific respectability. As it would need to written up and published.

The issue here is the problem of spurious results. I suppose Randi feels he has to protect himself against such an event. So, as noted earlier (and in the article), science uses p=.05, but this means for every 100 experiments 5 will likely be chance events.

So, at this point he's done about 1000? So he would on average have come across 50ish experiments that were possibly chance at p=.05. I'm sure you can agree that to give the money away for such an event would be inappropriate.

Moreover, replication is essential in science. So, lets say that we would like to see a number of experiments replicated by different research groups to really validate an effect, using .05 as the level of significance...

For two replications: .05 x .05 = .0025 (2.5 in 1000)
three: .05 x .05 x .05 = .000125 (1.24 in 10,000)
four: .05 x .05 x .05 x .05 = .0000063 (6.25 in million)

So, he appears to be extending the level of significance to reduce spurious results. And to be giving away $1,000,000, why not? No-one forces people to take the challenge, and the people who do are obviously confident they can achieve what is required.

Even at the .001 level for the preliminary he leaves himself open to one chance event in the 1000 challenges taken. Yet none passed.

But in the end, as noted by defcon, the challenge was always more publicity than real science.

[edit on 2-3-2008 by melatonin]