Connection:

This video is connected to perception and observation. In most of what James Randi does he is educating people on being able to see through the illusions, or the magic. He presents a simple magic trick that can possibly be explained several ways but he never explains exactly how he does it. Because of this he deliberately creates mystery, which is one of the items on the pseudoscience watch list. Many people who say they have special powers use this mystery to gain power over others and take their money. Randi is a skeptic and presents this trick as a proposition to the crowd, what are the odds of him knowing the correct cards? He throws out some red herrings asking which math people are using, and if they have considered all the variables. He rapidly offers ideas and adds more and more layers to consider but in the end its all red hearings. The odds of him being correct are 100% since the entire exercise is pre planned by him. He wants the audience to stay skeptical because after all this was all an illusion, there is no reason to believe he has special powers because the entire scenario is designed to create mystery for the audience. Much like most people promoting special powers or magical abilities. 

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This article is interesting because it is written in such a way as to compare skeptics at a convention for skeptics to a cult with James Randi as its leader. There people are not tricked though, they are following the truth they find through the scientific method. I wanted to write about how we could discern red flags and reasons for belief as to why these people treat Randi like a messiah but it doesn't apply here assuming everyone is truly a skeptic. One of Randi’s critics says most people are religious and that Randi and his skeptics are a very small minority. This is the critic confusing Skepticism with an ideology. Suggesting that ideology is a red flag against skeptics is very clearly ignorance on their part. 

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Psychic surgery is a pseudoscience that James Randi has debunked. It is still practiced around the world to make money literally pretending to help people. It's clear to see this is pseudoscience as it involves money for results that cant be verified while playing on people's emotions, faith and belief. One of the reasons people believe in this is its simplicity. Sick people get psychic surgery and some of them survive if the original illness was not that severe. People seeing this are experiencing confirmation bias. They are not thinking about all the people who still die of illnesses they didn't get properly treated. The fact that people are magically doing surgery with their hands is a clear sign of some mystical energy. This is an easy red flag for anyone to see. Psychic surgery does not stand up to simple skepticism. 

http://skepdic.com/psurgery.html

This video is a TED talk where James Randi talks about various irrational beliefs. James starts the session by taking a full bottle, thirty-two tablets of Calm Forte which is a homeopathy sleeping pill. Then, he goes on to talk about how magicians depend on people making assumptions to which he is correct as the audience assumed the beard trimmer that he was holding was a microphone and the glasses he was wearing were real when they did not have any lenses. James Randi spends most of the TED talk speaking about paranormal believes focusing the most on mediums. He targets Sylvia Browne intensely. He debunks homeopathy using the sleeping pills he ingested as an example which had no effect on him whatsoever.  James Randi finishes the lecture encouraging people to look at his website and foundation, the James Randi Educational Foundation.

 

Connection 

In this video James Randi addresses popular beliefs among pseudoscience and the paranormal. It connects to the lecture content in many ways. Firstly, the video connects to the pseudoscience watchlist Results can’t be reproduced or verified because he addresses Sylvia Browne and his challenge towards her to test her psychic abilities, but she never performed the test. Also, this part of the video connects to the Reasons for belief Emotional Connection because mediumship is very entwined with the emotions of the one getting the reading which causes them to be more inclined to believe what they are being told. Another connection for this part of the video is the ESP ability Mediumship because James focuses this ability and its potential harm it can cause to people. This video directly connects to the medical pseudoscience homeopathy as James Randi starts the lecture by ingesting thirty-two tablets of homeopathic sleeping pills. Then, he continues the lecture for ten minutes before addressing the fact that the medicine does not work. He finishes the lecture several minutes later and showed no signs or symptoms throughout the entire session. 

This is the official James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) website. This website details everything there is you need to know about the JREF. The JREF was founded by James Randi in 1996 to help people understand and combat pseudo-scientific and paranormal claims. The website has information on James Randi’s life, news items referencing James Randi and the JREF, and educational material on critical thinking. 

 

Connection

This website connects to the course content because it has a lot of information about critical thinking and James Randi’s experiences with pseudoscience and the paranormal. The website directly connects with Skepticism because the foundation is geared towards helping people defend themselves against pseudo-scientific and paranormal claims. The website includes many educational materials on critical thinking to help people better understand extraordinary claims and increase their skepticism. I believe this website could also connect to the pseudoscience watchlist Often appeals to emotion and Convinces by faith and belief because someone will be more inclined to read and learn about critical thinking if they had a bad experience with a pseudo-scientific or paranormal claim. Also, someone that has a firm faith or belief will be more inclined to not belief the evidence that appears on this website. 

This picture of James Randi is from one of his infamous record-breaking feats. James Randi survived being encased in a block of ice for fifty-five minutes. This picture could have been taken before or after the performance. 

Connection

This picture connects to critical thinking and skepticism because it requires to you analyze the image and data to determine if his actions were real or a trick. Why did he encase himself in ice? How did he do it? How could he survive that long in ice? How did he not get hypothermia? These questions and many others are what goes through one’s head upon analyzing this image. You can apply Skepticism to this image to determine how it was possible for him to achieve this feat, not develop hypothermia, and if he was even encased in ice at all. Also, I believe this picture connects to the Unexplained because the tricks to this magic are unknown to the viewer which will enable them to draw logical or illogical conclusions.  

This photo shows a book written by James Randi. In this book he talks about his hatred for faith healers and describes how they use tricks and religion to convince their clients and audience that they have healing powers given to them by god. 

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James Randi used critical thinking and his knowledge from his years as a magician to debunk the faith healers discussed in his book and talked about the how they use religious belief to appeal to their audience and make them more trusting.

This website talks about how James Randi’s hatred of tricking people led to him becoming a “prototype for modern day skeptic magicians”. Randi said that he was inspired to do his work due to an experience he had while he was a teenager, he walked into a church while the preacher was pretending to read the audiences minds but through critical thinking and skepticism he saw through the scam. He said that “seeing people believe it made him angry” and he saw people getting emotionally disturbed because they thought that he really had supernatural abilities. Randi interrupted the performance, walked up on the stage, and told the audience how the preacher was performing the trick. The preacher’s wife called the police and he spent 4 hours in a cell and while he was there, he decided he wanted to eventually have a credible platform to be able to debunk fake fortune tellers and people who stage similar scams.

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This article shows how religious beliefs, and people in positions of leadership can prevent victims from thinking critically or skeptically about the situation and instead will accept whatever they are told as the truth because why would someone you trust lie to you. 

In the Video they talk about Uri Geller who was a self-proclaimed spoon bender, telepath, and remote viewer who feuded with James Randi. Geller was so convincing that he became famous around the world for his “abilities” he was even apart of the US governments remote viewing focused stargate project. James Randi, who was a magician and escape artist, dedicated his life to proving pseudoscience abilities like Geller’s to be fake and raising awareness to deceitful acts like Gellers. Randi was able to indirectly embarrass Geller while he was performing on the Tonight Show with Jonny Carson. When the shows producers reached out to Randi for suggestions on how to prevent any trickery from taking place he told them to use their own props and not to let Geller near them until the show starts. When asked to perform during the show Geller made up excuses to explain why he might not be successful such as, he needs to be in the right mood and the time constraint of the show might make it difficult for him to demonstrate his abilities. By the end of the show Uri Geller did not demonstrate any of his abilities. But It was not enough to expose the telepath as a fraud, and he continued to be guests on shows such as the merv griffin show. James Randi later published a book trying to expose Geller. Their rivalry continued for decades. Geller later commented saying that James Randy was responsible for some of his success saying he was “my most influential and important publicist”.

Connection:

A connection for this video would be appeal to authority because by having Uri Geller on a talk show with a famous host and introducing him as a telepath you are priming the audience to be bias toward believing he is the real deal. Another connection for this video is skepticism and the critical thinking done by the production crew of the tonight show as well as James Randi.