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From: kdo@edsel (Ken Olum)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article (fallout...)
Message-ID: <1217@edsel>
Date: 29 Jul 88 00:00:12 GMT
References: <1911@aecom.YU.EDU> <6445@megaron.arizona.edu> <492@metapsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: kdo@lucid.com
Organization: Lucid, Inc., Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 38

In article <492@metapsy.UUCP> sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:
>Randi already "knows" that nothing unusual could ever happen.  He is
>no scientist, nor does he have the spirit of the true scientific
>investigator, in my opinion, which is a committment to discover the
>truth, whatever it be.  Instead, he is committed to debunking.  He
>commits the same error as he imagines to be committed by those he
>attacks -- starting out from a determination to prove a particular
>point and then twisting the facts to fit that viewpoint.  He, and his
>fellow "CSICOP" professional debunkers, are, in my view, doing the
>scientific community a disservice by intimidating and ridiculing ...

Why do you say that Randi isn't committed to the truth?  Every time he
goes to investigate some claim of paranormal phenomena the claim turns
out false, but perhaps that's because they are actually all false,
rather than because Randi is biased.  The debunkings of CSICOP have
always seemed correct to me -- do you think that they are "twisting
the facts" to accomplish their debunking?  Also I don't understand how
CSICOP is intimidating people -- their techniques usually seem pretty
straightforward.

I agree that CSICOP ridicules people with paranormal claims, and
probably they shouldn't do this.  On the other hand, the hundreds of
deliberate hoaxes in this field do tend to discredit its proponents.

As Hugh Lamaster says in another posting, Randi is not setting out to
be a scientist.  I believe his role is to check for cheating and
self-deception -- to throw things out that are bogus, rather than to
search for the truth.  As long as he only debunks things that are
actually bunk, this is an important service.  If the Nature article
research is not bunk, then Randi should not be able to debunk it.

> ... those who have unusual ideas that could lead to major breakthroughs
>in unimagined areas.

Unusual ideas are dirt cheap.  There's no shortage of people who have
unusual ideas, and those who are unwilling to research them
scientifically are worse than useless to any possible breakthrough.

					Ken Olum