James Randi
James Randi
James Randiis a Canadian-American retired stage magician and scientific skeptic who has extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Randi is the co-founder of Committee for Skeptical Inquiryand the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation. He began his career as a magician under the stage name, The Amazing Randi, and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively calls "woo-woo". Randi retired from practicing magic aged 60, and from the...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionMagician
Date of Birth7 August 1928
CityToronto, Canada
CountryCanada
The New Age? Its just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.
... We in the USA have been depending on prayers, pleading, and self-abasement to a deity to bring us magical advantages, and have been encouraged to attribute our prosperity and general success among nations, to that sort of action. In my opinion, hard work and dedication to logic and reason ought to be recognized as the reasons for our achievements, not appeals to a mythical friend-in-the-sky. We got where we are in spite of, not because of, those incantations.
We owe it to our kids to inform them and train them how to think, not what to think.
No amount of belief makes something a fact.
There was a small boy on crutches. I do not know his name, and I suspect I never will. But I will never forget his face, his smile, his sorrow. He is one of the millions robbed of hope and dignity by charlatans discussed in this book. Wherever and whoever he is, I apologize to him for not having been able to protect him from such an experience. I humbly dedicate this book to him and to the many others who have suffered because the rest of us began caring too late.
To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous, bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comic-book character worthy of laughter and derision.
Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand.
People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.
Religion is based upon blind faith supported by no evidence. Science is based upon confidence that results from evidence - and that confidence can be modified and/or reversed by further observations and experimentation. Science approaches truth, closer and closer, by hard dedicated work. Religion already has it all decided, and it's in the book. It's dogma, unchangeable, and unaffected by reality and whatever facts we come upon in the real world.
Blind belief can be comforting, but it can easily cripple reason and productivity, and stop intellectual progress.
There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.
Magicians are the most honest people in the world; they tell you they're gonna fool you, and then they do it.
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.
A lot of people hate my skepticism, and I think I understand why. The psychics offer wonders and endless possibilities in a world that often seems difficult and mundane. They promise health, wealth, wisdom, eternal life. But if you examine the record, it's not the psychics but the hard-nosed scientists who have actually delivered the things that improve human life. And, to me, science describes a world far more interesting than any psychic fantasy. It's a good world -- not perfect -- but it's ours. So we'd better learn to live with it, the way it is.