The issue here is not really about Randi. Anyone can perform a scientific experiment even if they’re not “scientifically trained”. If you have a psychic ability and you don’t trust Randi then do it yourself or find another scientist to do the testing. Just make sure the experiment is very well controlled.
Scientists are skeptical not because they’re stubborn and don’t want to look at the “evidence”. They’re skeptical because there is so much BS out there where people skew the results in their favor or they run shoddy, uncontrolled experiments.
Erin mentioned that John Edwards participated in some studies at a university and I wanted to expand on that a bit. John Edwards participated in a study at the University of Arizona run by Gary Schwartz. I think he participated in the After-Death Communication study but I could be wrong on this. The media cited this study as proof of life after death but as Steve pointed out in his health food blog you can’t trust the media. The media likes to pick-up studies and run with them before other scientists have a chance to verify the results.
The After-Death Communication study was funded by HBO which was making a “documentary” on the survival upon death. There was also insufficient control in the experiment to rule out cold-reading among other things.
After-Death Communication Studies by Gary Schwartz (Skeptical Inquirer November 2001)
I think you’ll find many cases similar to this with other famous psychics. They subject themselves to testing but only on studies that have a vested interest in or are setting out to prove a certain result. They’re much less likely to submit themselves to stringent controlled studies. They do this mainly because when you obtain negative results (as is often the case) but have a vested interest in the positive result, the results of the study often do not get published. Negative results on a controlled study that has held up to peer review could destroy their careers.
On another note in regards to one of Randi’s experiments mentioned in this thread, here is a word from ex-parapsychologist Susan Blackmore on a similar experiment she ran:
Quote:
The other key to my failures seemed to be belief. I was told that I didn’t get results because I didn’t believe strongly enough in psi, because I didn’t have an open mind! But what could I do about that? I couldn’t just change my beliefs overnight or test ten subjects while believing and another ten while not! I argued that in the beginning I had believed in psi and still had got no results, but I couldn’t prove this against the counter-argument that I had never really believed at all.
However, I did have an idea. There were still things in which I did believe. I could test the Tarot. In my preoccupation with everything occult, I had been reading Tarot cards for about eight or nine years. They really did seem to work. People told me that I could accurately describe them using the cards, and this was, naturally, gratifying. I even thought it might have a paranormal basis. So I set about testing the cards, doing readings for ten people, keeping the procedure as close as possible to a normal Tarot reading, but isolating myself, as the reader, from the subjects. They then had to rank all ten readings to see whether they picked their own more often than chance would predict (Blackmore 1983).
It worked! The results were actually significant. You can imagine my excitement—perhaps I had at last found something. Perhaps there was no psi to be found in the standard laboratory experiments, but something paranormal could appear when the conditions were closer to real life. But then I talked to Carl Sargent. He pointed out that all my subjects knew one another, and if they knew one another their ratings and rankings could not be independent. So I had violated an assumption of the statistical test I was using.
This seemed so trivial. Their knowing one another could not help them pick the right reading, could it? No it couldn’t; but this meant that the estimate of probability was inaccurate—and, after all, the results were only marginally significant. So I repeated the experiment twice more with subjects who did not know one another. I expect you can predict the results I obtained—entirely nonsignificant.
You may choose to interpret these results in different ways. Some parapsychologists have claimed that the first experiment found genuine psi and that the later ones didn’t summon the same attitude, the same novelty, the same enthusiasm, that made psi possible—or even that psi itself doesn’t like being replicated. But I think I had finally reached a stage where I no longer felt it was worth pursuing such arguments. I chose this point to say: "I think that, however many more experiments I do on psi, I am probably not going to find it.”
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Susan Blackmore
Despite the large body of current evidence, paranormal abilities could be legit. Erin and others on this forum could genuinely have these abilities. I just hope that once their skills have been honed, they are willing to devote some time to doing some serious experiments. You could improve the lives of many and make one scientist the happiest person in the world as his name is immortalized in all the history books. Or on the other hand you could run the risk of losing your credibility. It’s a big gamble but worth it IMO if you believe in what you’re doing.