Nice sweater, Larry.
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I, Alphonsus the Psychic, will predict that Larry will wear that very sweater again on his show some time in the next week. Actually, I don’t think he’s changed out of that sweater since he started his show.
I love magic, and I love the Amazing Randi. Whether he considers himself a debunker or not, that’s exactly what he is. Not that the people who need to hear him will ever listen to him, of course.
I wonder what James Randi’s religious beliefs are.
@alphonsuspeck
Randi is an atheist. He does not practice any religion or hold supernatural beliefs.
Sure, the sweater’s nice, but about those glasses! There’s more glass in the Hubble Space Telescope! Babe magnet!
Is this the guy that debunked homeopathic medicine in a video you showed a while back?
This is really off topic, but I’m requesting you to help me deal with an over-confident religious bigot gone by the internet alias “Venomfangx” (http://www.venomfangxsite.com/).
He believes he has the proof that god exists, and feels he is superior because of that “proof.”
I’d love you to do a big project on ALL The failure of his logic and site, but since you probably can’t, I’d love if you could do a few of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX19MrhlE0c&feature=channel_page
http://www.venomfangxsite.com/index.php/faq/1-VenomFangX%20Site%20FAQS/43-How%20do%20I%20disprove%20evolution?.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX19MrhlE0c&feature=channel_page
His ideas are simply idiotic.
Please, help me escape the utter stupidity!
Randi has a website: The James Randi Educational Foundation which should be linked on every blogroll on blogs like this one. Excellent resource for debunking grand claims. He has a standing offer of a million bucks to anyone who can prove the supernatural. He bamboozled Australians with “Carlos,” just to show how people will believe anything if it’s packaged right. Search for “Carlos James Randi” on Youtube and go from there. Enjoy.
“This is really off topic, but I’m requesting you to help me deal with an over-confident religious bigot gone by the internet alias “Venomfangx””
Pass.
We have our own Nutjobs, no need to try rounding up another.
Zach:
I believe Venomfangx is an extremely well-known Internet nutjob. I think he’s been banned from just about every major atheist site in existence for trolling/godbotting. Why in the world are you interacting with him?
Oh, so he’s a big well known troll already?
I just found his site recently, didn’t know that :P.
My bad, never mind then :).
Also, for those of you who aren’t aware, James Randi is one of the most well-known skeptics on the planet. He started his career as a magician, and has spent most of his life exposing frauds and charlatans. His book, Flim-Flam!, is one of the seminal popular books on skepticism and pseudoscience. He’s been around for a long time and used to be a regular on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson back in the 80s. Just do a Google search for him if you want to know more.
McBloggenstein:
That must be it! I knew I recognized the guy. Charming old chap, either way :)
Zach:
Haha, aw, VenomFangX.. He’s really a hoot.
As you said, it is off topic, but if you want some counterpoints to his arguments I suggest you go to
http://fstdt.com/fundies/search.aspx
Search for venomfangx in the “fundie” search box. You’ll get a choice list of quotes from him, and there is a whole lot of comments on them. A lot of those comments contain some intelligent argumentation. The rest are just rude and/or funny.
Zach:
Yeah he’s been around for a few years. Just google his name and you’ll find a lot of blog posts and articles about his particular brand of insanity ;)
Venomfangx bothering you?
There are entire series of videos on YouTube specifically dedicated to alternately debunking his “arguments” and laughing at him.
Search for the YouTube user Thunderfoot. Show a few clips of that to Venomfangx, and he should be thoroughly apoplectic.
I keep finding myself venturing back to his site, hungry to disprove him.
It’s his cockiness that bugs me the most. I just wish he would shut up and listen for once.
Oh well, I guess if none of the other genius’ on the net couldn’t do it, I definitely can’t. I’ll check out thunderfoot though.
“Oh well, I guess if none of the other genius’ on the net couldn’t do it, I definitely can’t. I’ll check out thunderfoot though.”
ehh.. Zach = Venomoronx?
What I meant is, theres probably tons of people who tried to explain to him how wrong he is, and that it’s kind of pointless for me to try if everyone else (by what I can see) basically gave up on him :).
Tons of people more qualified than myself*
Actually the Randi Foundation withdrew the one million dollar challenge for various reasons.
1) It was intended to expose major frauds, like Sylvia Brown, but none of them would ever come forward and take the challenge. After all every good fraudster knows they are a fraud and are not going to stop the gravy train a coming.
2) The only people who were trying to take the test were delusional or in some cases actually crazy. The rigorous requirements of the challenge often left some less stable people even more unstable, the challenge was frequently encountering people who required professional help.
The challenge itself was very good. It required the entrant to come up with a falsifiable method of testing their abilities. A third party was contracted to oversee the course of the testing and make sure that neither the examiners nor the challenger could intervene in the procedure.
It was a well intended experiment. But unfortunately human nature kind of destined it to fail. No fraud would voluntarily expose themselves. The few psychics that did get shot down were so low profile that no one noticed.
Hmmm…
My understanding is that the million dollar challenge still exists, but it is now invitation only.
You’re right, a million no-name charlatans and/or crazy people submitted for the challenge every year, and most fell apart long before any actual testing could be done. It became a huge task to manage it.
But they still want (is my impression) the big stick of the challenge to use on high profile cases.
@ Random Guy & Ty
I was fortunate enough to meet the incomparable Mr Randi at a lecture he did for the New York Skeptic Society in October last year where he did indeed explain how the million dollar challenge would end “soon” for those very reasons.
As @Rik has pointed out, the million-dollar challenge does still exist, but not for much longer.
@zach, VenomfangX was exposed as a liar and a buffoon by plenty of folks, but the pwnage was particularly sweet when it was delivered by Thunderf00t, as someone else pointed out. I highly recommend Thunderf00t’s 28-episode YouTube series, “Why People Laugh at Creationists.” Several of them dealt directly with the sheer stupidity of VenomfangX.
In a strange twist, VenomfangX went all single-white-female on Thunderf00t, got his videos temporarily banned from YouTube for unfounded DMCA reasons, and filed a complaint with the DMCA. However, Thunderf00t didn’t take that sh*t lying down and, in the end, VenomfangX had to publicly retract all of his lies and apologize to Thunderf00t, I suspect because if he hadn’t, Thunderf00t had him by the legal short-and-curlies. There’s a “VenomfangX apologizes to the Internets” video on Thunderf00t’s YouTube site where you can enjoy a nice dose of schadenfreude watching him fess up to his dishonesty.
I am a great big fan of James Randi. Though I do not accept his theological conclusions I do accept his findings with regard to frauds of all types which of course include religious frauds.
I am convinced that if Randi had a semi-regular program it on television today, it would be quite popular.