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Randi agrees that non-paranormal claims can win the prize.
3rd Nov. 2006 |
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My Claim
My claim is a simple response to statements made by James Randi and various challenges issued by him.
Consider Randi's words in Swift dated
August 4 2006: "This is the most pervasive of the delusions that dowsers have and promote endlessly, that there exist vast rivers of fresh water that run deep in the ground and can be easily tapped. There are large reservoirs of water there to be accessed, it’s true, but they are certainly not “flowing”; they’re pretty well stationary."
How strange. I never knew that water flowing underground is particularly unusual. I always thought it a perfectly normal, natural phenomenon. James Randi, however, doesn't believe me when I say that. He considers me "delusional" for saying that. Well, I'm willing to take his test and show water flowing underground to any geologist. If you believe Randi, by demonstrating that, I have demonstrated dowsing's most pervasive delusion to be true. That has got to be worth a million.
Consider also a lecture delivered at Caltech given on
April 12, 1992, in which Randi said the following: "I challenge all the dowsers in a similar way. Since 94 percent of the Earth's surface has water within drillable distance my challenge is to find a dry spot! They don't want to do it. Why? Because they only have a six percent chance of success."
Again I am taken by surprise. I was always under the impression that finding underground water requires extremely specialized geological knowledge and a detailed survey. I always thought that drilling by someone that doesn't know what they are doing is really pretty likely to hit a dry spot. Certainly the odds are a lot greater that 6%. So, I'll accept the challenge that he has issued on so many occasions. The dowsers he has challenged have refused his test, but I'm not a dowser and I accept. That ought to make Randi happy. I should succeed, not through paranormal ability, but simply because dry spots are more common than thought at the JREF.
These are not offhand remarks made in a careless moment. James Randi has been saying them for at least 25 years. Almost every time he speaks on the subject of dowsing he trots out these same canards and misconceptions. When I attempted to point out his errors, he dismissed them as mere "canards taken from the extensive attacks of the grubbies," and has continued to churn out the same stuff. See the
next page for a partial list of his comments. He is full of pseudoscience and wrong ideas. The trouble is that many sceptics accept what he says uncritically. I believe that his nonsense has harmed the sceptical movement far more than it has stopped dowsers.
James Randi does not believe my claims. He has issued a public challenge to prove them. I am entitled to accept his challenge and his dare and take the prize when I succeed.. For a quarter century he has stated that underground channels don't exist. He's either right about that, or he is wrong. If he is right, then my claim is pseudoscience, and thus a legitimate matter for the prize. He can test me in perfect safety, and laugh at me when I fail. Or, should I succeed in locating one, then it is a genuinely paranormal event and I am entitled to the prize. If he is wrong, then he has been profiting by spreading the most appalling pseudoscience for decades, and deserves to be hoist with his own petard.
Either way, carrying out this test will expose a fraud to public scrutiny, whether that fraud is me or him. All sceptics, therefore should support this test happening. Please write to him and demand that he carry out the challenge that he issued. His contact details may be found on his
website.
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| This article copyright by Peter Morris all rights reserved. |
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