Fact check: Randi and P&T

[IllegalArgument]

I'm a regular reading of Overcoming Bias blog.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/

Saturday they posted part of a conversion between Penn and Randi.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/02/the_more_amazin.html#more

One of the comments caught my attention.

Can anyone help me rebut these links?

Randi's problem is he already "knows" what is real and what cannot possibly be. At some level this makes him willing to play fast-and-loose with the truth in the interest of "winning". I.E.:

http://www.sheldrake.org/controversies/randi.html

and

http://dailygrail.com/node/1311


I'm not sure that Teller is much better. For example:

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2005/10/of_mediums_and_.html

 

[baron]

Can anyone help me rebut these links?

As opposed to establish their veracity?...

 

[IllegalArgument]

As opposed to establish their veracity?...

Fair enough

I just need pointers or a description of why those links are false.

 

[Moochie]

Wow, such luminaries! Sheldrake! Schwartz! Prescott! The entire galaxy of...

M.

 

[Alan Heap]

there wouldn't be much point in randi doing what he does if he was to not able to scientifically disprove a fraud. it's how debunker's makes their point and how fraudsters continue to fool people.

it's impossible for a paranormal event to disprove science, simply because of the definition of science and paranormal, but this is also why people who claim paranormal activity are fraudsters. you can not break the laws of nature.

from what i remember, michael prescotts blog is full of NLP and hypnosis crap. and if penn or any of them lost their cool, i wouldn't blame him as these people ignore scientific evidence and continue to rant.

on the schwartz thing, ray hyman did a piece debunking his life after death research. i can't post urls yet, so instead go to "the afterlife experiments" on wikipedia and see the references. baffles me how some people get degrees. it's standard debunking really, nothing amazing.

in conclusion these critics are trying to justify fraud, whether they really believe in paranormal or not.

edit galore, such a dope

 

[CurtC]

Michael Prescott, in your link, quotes Schwartz at length about his experience on this O'Donnell TV show. Can we fact-check that in any way? The show was never aired. I wouldn't put it past Schwartz to misinterpret the conversation he was having.