James Randi - Investigating Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Claims

oh I oh I seen full houses before but isn't ridiculous we'll have to have to take your heads off or something it looks far too populated but nonetheless helps you but I can do with it my name is James Randi who probably guessed and I am I have to disappoint some folks that are here this evening I know that they were looking forward to this number but I will not be doing my my naked dance on fire as a matter of fact I must confess to you that there hasn't been that much call for in later years some people are clamoring for it but you'll have to miss that now I'm a magician by profession as you've been told by also introduced me in it thank you for the introduction a magician by profession no what does a magician do a magician is a performer a performer who goes out and full of people and lies to the people but makes it very clear that they're being lied to there's an expertise in the magic profession that maybe you don't recognize I know how people can be fooled and I know how they fool themselves the second part is even more important than the first part you can be fooled ladies and gentlemen you already have been fooled and you've been fooled not a couple of different faces here I like them walking out here and I took the microphone I didn't really need it it's simply a beard trimmer this pipeline does not work by the way thank you for your services but miltank I have the microphone concealed here underneath the beard somewhere I always have a hard time finding it takes me two or three days sometimes now I'd say that you can be fooled and I prove it to you by demonstrating how you have been fooled okay but you can fold on another basis too for example I walked out here I managed to avoid the tripod there and I struggled over to the desk because my eyesight is really rather poor I normally use glasses oh these are not glasses no these are just empty frames now why would a grown man I'm certainly growing well not up that way but in age why would he step out in front of you and wear nothing but frames for glasses to prove the point to you i oh god they're ugly I didn't know that now I can see you hi there I use a couple of bits of deception like this regularly to show you that you can be fooled very subtly now no one suspected that I wasn't using the virus one that I held in my hand and turned out to be a beard trimmer I use it for bird coming is he not too many people here have a requirement for that there's a gentleman down there it certainly does thank you sir glad you showed up make me feel more secure but you see it's a bit of a trick that is done inadvertently I don't have to come out here and say I'm speaking into this microphone now to talk to you it's amplifying my voice through the electronics it no and I'd have to say oh I'm looking at you through my glasses no I didn't have to deceive you about making a statement I allowed you to believe what I wanted you to believe and that's very much a lot of the way the magician's professional magicians were professional magicians are very respectable people they are entertainers they are actors playing the part of real magician so I often use the term conjurer which is used in the UK as I say I just came back from the UK and they understand what I'm talking about it with conjurer and many Americans audiences don't know and they don't care now I want to discuss with you the attitude and the conclusions of average persons when they're subjected to certain sensory input you see that people don't react the same way necessarily generally speaking yes but suppose you're you're sitting out a bit of a park then in a small town that you haven't been in before you're waiting for somebody to come along to pick you up or whatever and you know that there's a Writing Academy around the corner and you're relaxing on the park bench you hear hoofbeats now they're reasonably intelligent folks I assume that much and I had every good reason to believe it hearing the sound of hoofbeats coming from around the corner what do various kinds of people expect you would expect it I would expect a horse a rational person will say oh there's a horse somewhere around you but there are irrational folks out there and some of these people they will go for the wildest explanation they can hear up or even imagine I can see one turning to the other and saying ooh did you hear that yeah I wonder what it is it must be zebra not very likely there are too many Canadian zebra that I know of but then the real wolves that's a term I use for people who believe in anything if a celebrity tells them and they'll believe it if anybody who has allowed enough voice or is politically connected tells it to them and looks at them very endearingly and ask them to believe it and vote for them at the same time I'm sure these woowoo people will not even save zebra they go a step further they turn to others and say what could that be oh it must be a unicorn so you see the difference there are three grade rational people ordinary folks you know that bits think logically and then the people who think a little far out and then the woo-woos and the world is full of the woo-hoos i can tell you that they're all over the place particularly on the media oh I can tell you lots of stories on that now you were told that we have a million-dollar prize at the James Randi Educational Foundation we refer to that affectionately as the J ref JREF this prize had been offered to so-called psychics and prophets and paranormalists and whatnot for many years now for 11 years matter of fact the third nobody has come anywhere in there and taking if there are two stages the first stage is the preliminary stage that's a good name for it don't you think and no one is even past the preliminary stage in which the standards are very low you don't really have to be a wonderful performer you know tight rope stuffer and no nothing like that you just have to be able to do what you say you can do if you do that hey you passed the preliminary stage now we tighten things I'm getting a little worried my million dollars might be out the window it's not my billion dollars it was given to the foundation I must say so I don't care you want a million dollars here no not quite I wouldn't want to lose that money I can assure you but the final stage the second stage of the challenge procedure the protocol and such would award the million dollars if the person would pass the test but no one has ever gotten to that point we've never had to do the tests because they all fail in the first aspect of it and the very first half day we're going to go to a few of the details on that now Swift if wi ft named dr. Jonathan Swift that very famous gentleman from many many decades back who challenged people with his satire you all know of Gulliver's Travels I don't know if you know about the rest of colorburst travels aside from Laputa and a few places like that but I can tell you you should read it it's really very stimulating and thought-provoking now Swift as I say our web page gets approximately 9000 hits a day internationally that's a lot and we've had our systems slowed down and stopped on weekends sometimes when something exciting happens in the news and I'll give you some examples of the things that have gotten people's attention over the years about which they've asked us questions I happen to be wearing Florsheim shoes Florsheim shoes it's brand brand new shoes it's been around for something like hundred twenty years now the family has I'm very happy with the success of the company of course and I wear them almost uniformly and they're very satisfactory good product really good product one with a lot of integrity very carefully designed and manufactured and then Florsheim family sold the company to an entrepreneur oh my stand back that can be very dangerous within a matter of a couple of months people in the storage will be in the Florsheim stores for being offered Magnum force shoes ooh that sounds powerful well it costs $25 a pair more to have them equipped with the Magna force device it turned out that all it was was a set of three magnets one of the toe one at the instep one in the heel little neodymium magnets inserted into the sole of the shoe you paid as I say 25 dollars more for that and they said that this would help circulate the hem 11 around your body da imma Logan has Fe iron that is as part of its formula but it doesn't react to magnets they said that you know the stagnant blood in your legs would rush out of your feet I wonder if it would stay there they didn't say anything what happened to it after but these were the Magna force shoes and they were widely advertised oh but they were endorsed also by a PhD ooh that's got to get your attention this PhD is named Gary Null and you ll appropriately named and Gary no it turns out got his PhD for $40 from a diploma mill but for a time didn't know that so they hired him to make the statement and he endorsed the whole thing oh he gave a wonderful physical theory about how well Magda force shoes work well the first time company found out about this rather quickly they bought the company back and they're back in the saddle again and you cannot buy anymore magnet for shoes I hate to disappoint you but you cannot get magnet for shoes then gravity do fire shoes what they simply have Springs in the heel so as you bounce along you're doing that's a you look a fool looks if you're walking on carbon tax or something they don't help you how could Springs in your heels help you increase your power of the Walker or it simply doesn't happen energy doesn't come from nowhere it comes from somewhere and there's no energy being added in there the Q ray oh the Q ray is a wonderful but that's still doing very very strongly this is a simple little u-shaped piece of metal it comes in gold and gold plating and silver and various other metals I just learned - probably somewhere along the line and it's supposed to help golfers particularly well it helps the manufacturer but I don't think it helps the golfers one bit we have all kinds of gas savers that is petrol savers for your car they are simply a string of magnets that you tie it around the carburetor carburetor of your car it doesn't do a thing for it and that's been tested endlessly but the American government I don't know about the Canadian government but the American government is not going to be able to do anything to get the lost of market because every time they get a complaint against them they change the IRA charging very slightly they just put a hyphen in or something like that they change the advertising there are water purifiers run by magnets now the magnetic picture into which you can pour your water and leave it for 20 minutes or so and it's my favorite lines up there at the molecules and they the graphics on the first floor whatever I don't know supposed to anyway now this is this is a serious thing when I was a kid my parents found out about radon water now radon gas is radioactive comes from radium and other elements of that nature and it is extremely dangerous and yet radon water my parents almost bought it it was too expensive which made me very happy they couldn't afford it but people in their day about the time that I was born were buying pictures that had magnifiers of some kind in them and radon water and chemicals you put into the water these people literally eventually literally glowed in the dark and died shortly after there were thousands of deaths due to imbibing radon water now this is something I'm sure you've all seen your pet blankets go into any pet store you'll get a real kick out of this just don't giggle too loud they throw you out right away giggle a little later are softer and they won't throw you up well maybe not pet blankets with magnets buried in them and your pet rests much easier that's my beer isn't it the other thing that I'm sure you got to be familiar with for a while at least his laundry balls oh my they were made for 85 washes and 450 washes two different prices they were taken apart they had nothing in them but regular water plastic balls that just pushed around in the washer and you had to count the count very carefully on a piece of paper there how many times you used it because the first one was only good for 85 washes and a second for 150 live you could have used those things as tennis balls or for anything else you could have used them a thousand times they wouldn't do anything for your wash but they were taken apart and the Drug Administration in the United States looked at them will live simply simply tap water with blue food coloring in it nothing else and yet these things sold for a very large price different prices in different parts of the country the smarter image is a chain of stars of the United States that sold them they've now gone out of business and it couldn't happen to a nicer folks so I deal a lot with religious claims but I want to make one thing very plain to you the James Randi Educational Foundation is not an atheist organization I am an atheist yes and they theists to the second kind I say that I can't prove that there is no God and I don't see any definitive evidence to prove the existence of any deity that doesn't mean I say God God doesn't exist or that any God don't exist because I can't prove it I also can't prove that there isn't a unicorn someplace in South Africa but that doesn't mean there are or aren't at a unicorns I think it's highly doubtful but what do I know now I just recently had a heart operation it seems to work rather well I think it was a cardiac bypass a triple as matter of fact and them I survived it very nicely I I always tell people that there is no homeopathy used there was no acupuncture I know praying or chanting or incense or anything like that I use the thing that you may have heard of which the oh yes medical science you've heard of that I hope that you keep that in mind ladies and gentlemen they saved me from not being here tonight and at the same time I had chemotherapy for six months for another condition I'm doing very well in 82 hey so in another 15 years I expect to be invited back okay I must tell you that when I I do these lectures and I do them all over the world I am on the way to Australia next as a matter of fact and he kind of do it to Australia that's a big jump and culturally yes as well but I will get into that now all Australia you know I love the country that I love the people as I do you folks here of course that this is where my roots are but boy are there differences between the two of them one is a cowboy country and the other one is Canada but but there are really people of great integrity and I really love them and I do everything I can for and with them now as I say I do these lectures all over the world and I often get the academics coming to me afterwards and they say they say things like you know these people that believe in this or it nonsense Randy they must be really stupid now that triggers my defense mechanism and I say wait a minute really do you think the people would believe in this sort of thing are stupid well it must be pretty dense so then what I do is I show them some sort of a brain buster a bit of mentalism of some kind you see and that usually makes them we are back and say wow and I say wait a minute are you dumb are you stupid can you apply that to yourself because you got fooled by something like a simple magic trick I'm going to do something for you now so you're the kind of thing that I would do to try to convince you people they shouldn't think of other people as being so stupid I talked to a young lady in the audience and I big audience here I can't find out where is the young lady that I but where that is yes hi put your hand up again to the okay now I'm going to you don't have a microphone and I do so there ha but I'm so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to tell the folks here that the arrangement we made okay I went out into the hall and I saw you standing there looking pretty and I thought well I probably took advantage the shot no I didn't say I know I didn't what I said was would you like to participate in a small experiment and you gracefully agreed and I asked you to the book was I don't have the book I don't know where it is but it's a guide to Montreal am I correct yeah yeah oh no don't know oh no no the one you eventually used what was that that leaf that it was well it was oh beef that we got from the University here anyway something was in circulation around there and I asked you and you'll correct me if I'm wrong I simply asked you to turn to any page in there and to run your finger over the page and and I don't open it up don't open that up no no no don't let anyone see it no please you you remember what it is I'm sure and so I asked you just to run your finger around there and stop at any word not a word by if for but or something like that little mercy given that word perhaps now this experiment is one of those things it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't work all that well so we'll give it a try but it's called mentalism I apologize for the result if it's wrong but I'm going to step to the board over here and I have a Oh someone picked up the big magic marker it was on the floor here where is it oh it popped it flew you see a miracle how do these things happen I just don't understand I'm going to go to a blank page here and I'm going to start writing but I'm not going to look at the young lady because if I do I might be getting body language they say body language is that if I'm right she goes and if I'm wrong shooting so I'm going to try not to get any body language one you should start writing here and see if I can come up with something that might be significant oh are you breaking up the funeral kind of walked out here I thought it was the funeral I wasn't too sure and it may be okay I'm going to start writing here and I won't look at the young gate and I'll just make some wild guesses here now this doesn't know this may be one case where it's not going to work and I have to apologize in advance No well very bad magic marker what noise no waiver possibly I don't know well young lady where if you go over there sorry well if I walk back for our cross the station after you won't be over there you'll be there right I should I could know geometry enough to figure that out all right would you tell the audience please what was the word that you chose had random from off that page really as you doing on the page I want to know what that all about well obviously oh wait a minute wait a minute I've done this before and when it happens I'm really astonish come on I don't like and tear the paper I'm not that weak that was delicate I got it upside down now folks the young lady was not in cahoots with me she didn't cooperate in any way what I told you about what she did was absolutely correct and she is not a Confederate of mine I just took her out of the crowd there who was waiting to be let in the maddening crowd they say and she volunteered to do it she is not a Confederate but many people say always got to be a Confederate wouldn't who worked otherwise and that was one word taken from quite a few thousand and the only restriction I made was don't make it and or but or something simple like that and she chose a doozy didn't she yeah I wasn't expecting that at all okay this is what they called mentalism it's simply a magic trick that appears to be done entirely with the brain wrong there are all kinds of things that can be used in doing mentalism you're familiar with Darren brown are you are you from the UK well you may have seen some of this performances that are really quite remarkable I know Darren very very well and my good friend Banacek who was one of the Alpha kids of that's another story altogether but you can read my web page and find out about it if people are mentalists and they are magicians there are conjures if you will and they're very honest folks because they tell you I'm going to fool you and I'm going to use trickery to do it how'd they go right ahead and do it as I just did here I use this this example of doing mentalism to show you again that you can be fooled and some other people are being fooled all the time this is scary to tell you about I got to do a little demo for for you here this this is an invention Polly came up with it's called the counterfeit detector pen ooh that sounds of its handy it'll detect counterfeit bills oh yes it will we were told all about that already might I have a wallet in here and I I hope I have some money in it all this would I don't have the Canadian money in here thank her do I know oh did I oh wait a minute yes yes I think I put in here something I'll be with you in a minute I got to search around find oh I've gotten myself all messed up again here no that's not it come on my note but it off there you fool I talked to my props a great deal did he get in there or not I guess it didn't well I think I just have to pass up that demonstration I'm sorry I didn't have them I wanted to have an American builder to show it you with but the driver pen is patented to detect kind of money what it is is made by the DRI mark pen company and it simply has in it iodine law things teacher of iodine it's that simple now if you stroke it on a bill and the bill turns black that is where you stroke it they say that means it's counterfeit oh really is it mine how do you prove that well they say that counterfeit bills are printed on cheap paper come on friends would any counterfeiter print a bill on cheap paper when he's going to turn it into a hundred-dollar bill let's get real you would spend the best money for that particular paper regular currency in any country in the world will not react to this pen of iodine because iodine turns black but it hits starch regular paper ordinary note paper does have starch in it called sizing and the sizing that's in there is put there in order to make it be handled better in duplicating machines and such and when it goes into the duplicating machine it slides around much easier it it functions much easier that's why they put it in there and it turns black when you stroke it with it where the pen filled with iodine but that's the only function that this pen has it doesn't detect counterfeit money at all I called the Secret Service in the United States they handle that sort of thing counterfeit money and I asked him but I said does it work he's a wig I'll have to look it up in the book anyway a trip through the book and he came up with the answer he said sir it is not dependable much dependent does that mean it doesn't work he said well you did you could say that but I told him I said well why don't you say that he says not in the book after all he is an employee of the American government he wants to be perfectly correct he doesn't do anything that's not strictly kosher with the American government that's a good excuse of it no I don't think that's much of an excuse but things like counterfeit pen detectors are sold all the time they're in every market they're on television constantly but wait a minute does that mean that we're being let down someplace yes at a certain level we are being let down and on many aspects of being let down it lies with the scientific community I got a call two years back my office assistant answered and but the handle the phone said HC it's a laboratory in California I said okay I'll pick up the one I pick it up gentleman said mr. Andy and I said yes he said I'm speaking to you from Lawrence Livermore laboratories now Lawrence Livermore Laboratory believe me are very very prestigious I swear you can go there and throw a brick in any direction and hit a PhD in physics not that you want to necessarily but it may be a public service you can't tell so fellow said I'm sure you have lost year a million dollars I said really and I trembled of course yeah sure and he said we have a fellow here named Ronnie Marcus and I said on what does my mr. Marcus do he said he can do miracles that we have no explanation for and where PhD physicists well I would suitably impressed her first and I said what can he do it he who well one demonstration that he does consistently is he takes a bottle of matches about Boxford new bottle a box of matches Reger wooden matches right this kind of a thing and he can make it do wonderful things you see he said we went out to a grocery store and he asked us to get them box like this and we we bought 24 in a package this is science now remember they don't buy one box they well they can't for one thing that they bought 24 of them and then they took them back to the lab and mix them up to randomize them and they took one at random without looking that's a science and then they weighed it very very carefully to within my programs and they took out one of the matches and they stroked it to make sure that it lit Oh at lights so it's an ordinary match at guard a match box and they gave it to mr. Marcus and mr. Marcus they accepted a gratefully and he said I'm going to do something with this that match boxes should not do this is what he did he sat it on the back of his hand like that and he'd just gestures and it stood up on the back of his hand and then he relaxed a bit and it went back down again and they said now we have examined it with with polarized light and infrared light and the whole thing and we have x-rated we've examined it very very thoroughly but every time you puts on the back of his hand he stands up and then it goes back down again and I said well but at that time I was also signaling to my office assistant who went into the next room and picked down from the shelf Martin Gardner's book of impromptu tricks because he was an amateur magician he knew the trick very very simple trick I don't know how it's done my job but I'm working on and we found the trick in the book is a and he turned to the page and he went to the to the coffee machine he copied the page of the book because he knew what I was going to do and I said dead to the scientists in California I said you have a fax machine there he said oh yes hit me I had the number I gave it to Andrew and I said I just said no go go so he went to the fax machine he laid it down he dialed the number and the fellow on the phone said oh the fax machine is starting to buzz right now and I said read what comes through there and then let me have your opinion this is a simple trick ladies and gentlemen you simply leave the Box open a little bit like that when you lay it down on the back of your hand okay then when you close the box you pinch some skin from the back of the hand and then it goes up to you and then it goes back down again when you relax that but it goes up at your will they learn that astonishing this is a kid's trick and impromptu trick right lay down gave yourself that up there oh hey so the physicists on the other end of the phone started to read it and I heard him reading it and I say glued to the receiver and he said Martin Gardner's and say I see a box of matches has to take out some of the matches huh I said well oh he said oh I'm I'm here I'm here all right click he hung up the phone but he saw how naive he had been not stupid no just naive he didn't know how these things were done I don't expect a scientist to know how magic tricks are done but I do expect scientists when they get into trouble by examining so-called psychics to call a magician experienced qualified magician and ask them if they have any opinion Johnny Carson did that with me and I gave him the opinion he was a good amateur magician so but some of those things puzzled him what do you want to know he called me but large little worm has never called me back I don't know why it's very strange and don't you think now I have to show you something which you it's a slightly different model from the a de 561 sounds Larry no of course not it's a dowsing rod it detects explosives oh wow well the American government spent 1.2 billion that's were the be billion dollars of American tax money that's some of my news he spent that to give it to the Iraqi so they could detect bombs and explosives well they came in to their area and I have a contact who I I won't even tell you about agencies he's with but he keeps me up on this sort of thing and he said not too long ago a big armored truck drove him they didn't check it for explosives they just used a silly thing like this a dowsing rod oh they always much bigger than this hey this is the real thing this isn't one of your amateur machines you see and it has a switch on the front here you turn it on you turn this one on and the needle jumps up and a little light lights here looks impressive that I'm waiting for the floor down here looks impressive I'm not yeah sure it does and it's got a rotating angle but see when you hold it by the handle here it'll swing all over the place and it's indicating me for it over there I can make it indicate any damping I want you see oh look at that in getting the job sir you're being indicated I think you're in explosives now wait a minute I'm going to unscrew a piece on here so you can explain or understand a little bit more this is the brass receptacle at the bottom it said you must not undo this or the warranty is void so I can't get my money back this was actually sent to me by somebody who is swindled by it and we put it into our our Museum of curios there's a little brass container on the bottom here and it does screw apart with great difficulty and I scooted apart to look inside and guess what was in there Green aquarium sand that's all it was half full with green aquariums and I know because I go to the aquarium store and I showed him he said oh yeah that'll be the stuff here and they gave me an identical sample of it green aquarium sad apparently can pick up explosives next drink I had no idea that it would do that sort of thing and wait a minute you saw the little light go on here didn't you yes a little red light okay let me show you what's inside this and it says right on here very clearly there are no user serviceable parts inside that's true opening the case were void any warranty or guarantee or return option I'm going to be out seven hundred and forty bucks to buy one of these things and we gave 1.2 billion dollars to Iraq to buy them all open it up let's see what we find in here oh it looks very impressive what I prefer to screw in here let me just take that out and there we go put that aside and old circuitry look there's electric stuff in here well we looked at there what this this particular printed circuit is it's dated 1979 and it has condenser capacitors and things like that on it and lots of little resistors we looked up the serial number on it is part of an early TV remote control device and that detects explosives oh wait a minute you see the red and rainbow wire here connected to nothing it's glued on to the other side of the board with hot glue it's not even connected so there is a circuit in here with the switches like all it does is like the light on the outside of the machine here that little red light that you see there that all it does it's not connected in any other way we spent one point my American government mind you 1.2 billion but wait a minute it was sold in Canada to under a couple of different names exactly the same instrument it does not work dowsing is a complete total farce and a delusion now we have offered our prize our 1 billion dollar prize to dowsers all these years and they always oh yes this will be a hundred and all this will be successful home mr. Andy you've lost your mind there's no question of it and they take and they can't do what they say they can do it's what we call the ideomotor reaction it doesn't mean idiots no ideomotor reaction the ideomotor reaction is such that when you have one of these unstable systems in your hand and by the slightest little slope of your hand her turning of it or twisting you can make it move in any direction you want you tend to do that when you know what the answer is you know that the thing you're looking for is sitting over there the rod will swing right around and face to it and you'll have found it but what it's blinded and you don't know where it is in the audience it will not swing to point to it because you don't know where it is and the ideomotor reaction doesn't take place that's a swindle now in Iraq and all over that area of the world people are dying every day because this is the stupid thing they use to detect bombs and they don't detect bombs this I almost mention the agency this fella that I know over there and one of the American agencies a major one he told me that just the day before that they had lost eight soldiers in a Jeep they were pedaling along the highway and they had been tested to see if anybody had planted bombs honor any although you're perfect are right hundred years down the highway boom the whole thing went up they were all children that's what happens every day from these quacks these fakes these frogs and in England the a de 561 was manufactured there and shipped all over the world they've now prohibited from being exported of course there are ways of doing it and it's done every day and they're still showing up in Iraq it's criminal it should not be allowed but there's another thing that's quite criminal to and I'm sure you're much more familiar with this homeopathy now I don't see a show of hands how many people think they might be able to give some Tory of a description of what homeopathy is supposed to do let's see hands oh right now all right this gentleman down here with the attractive bird ow in a good loud voice would you tell us what you think homeopathy probably is yes what is it consist of how does it work or does it work so I secured like yes that's correct something poisons you okay that's very good description I think it yeah like cure is like this was originated by a fellow an Austrian fellow who lived in Switzerland in Switzerland most of the quackery we have Jay comes from Switzerland I hate to accuse of that but it does that's on the record well Hahnemann said that like occurs like what that means is that you take a very very small amount of the substance that could produce the same symptoms in your body and you take that very small amount very very highly diluted or you have no idea how much diluted and you administered to the patient and the patient is cured really well let me give you some facts the most popular of all of the homeopathic medicines you can buy in pharmacies all over the place is a compound made to relieve the symptoms of flu and it's made from duck-liver they could make plenty of homeopathy medicine from one duck liver duck livers are very small little kind of guys like this the duck may be allowed to die of old age or kindness or something like that doesn't have to be slaughtered Tec there we go alright you take that good healthy phase one okay I'm up hello alright I'll talk very slowly then now with one duck liver now this is a fact ladies and gentlemen hope is it nothing oh I've got something else in there hello yes I have somebody else in my pocket which was touching this which your your I apologize to you sir great and we should all applaud the gentleman he wasn't doing that I thank you now you can make from one duck liver enough of these pills of your passive pills are you ready you're all seated good well the people in the back may fall down with the Sun at the center of a big sphere and the orbit of Pluto which used to be a planet way on the outside and then a little bit beyond that you would make a sphere that could be filled with homeopathy pills made from that one duck liver the dilution is so great you have no idea now I'm going to illustrate for you just how how big it is I lost my pen again where is my pen here it is someplace and you know I've lost a pen currently where did I put this all these things there we are thank you now this is the mathematics lesson 10 to the power 1 is 10 we all know that ok 10 to the power 2 or 10 squared is 100 it's the number of zeros after the 1 ok and 10 to the third of course is 1000 etc now they will use dilution do what they do is that the rule of homeopathy you take one part of the active substance whatever that may be and you have to shake it up in 10 parts of water but it has to be also shaken in three different directions ten times ten is the magic number that we use don't look at me I didn't make it up so you take the compound you put it in there and you shake it 10 times this right 10 times this way and 10 times this way that's a one solution that's one part in 10 that's what you would call a one solution now you make a two solution by taking one part of that water and putting it in ten parts of water and tribute to virtue you do the same thing all over again in three different directions that gives you a two solution a donation C of three singles are oh they don't use these dilution to talk are you ready they start using the delusions at 10:00 look to the power of 34 that is 10 followed by 34 zeros if you think I'm going to write a note I'm not I can assure you but that is well beyond what they call Avogadro's limit which is 10 to the 23rd what that means is when it's diluted that much to 10 to the 23rd there's only a possibility of there being one molecule or atom of the original substance there when you do it one more time there's one chance in 10 of their being 1 out of our molecule and it keeps on going 10 to the 24th a very dilute but oh wait a minute they do it all the way up you see did good all the way up to 10 to the power of 1500 incredible incredible that's the dilution of course there's not a trace of the original substance in there but the vibrations are there oh boy vibrations these people if you gave them this whole auditorium full of vibrations they wouldn't know what they were or what to do with them or what they look like they just don't know and the latest thing in the quackery field is quantum vibrations that's obviously much more powerful even now a fellow named Jacques benveniste a French gentleman whoops I turn to pages sorry Jacques penguinese came up with a wonderful idea he founded a company called did you buy oh now I must tell you and you probably heard of they award every year out of her they award the egg Nobel Prize and Jacque benveniste is the only man who ever won it twice what it is thinking he wanted first time for this whole theory and homeopathy and then then he wanted for this circuit I hope you're ready for this very bad artwork here I apologize for that these are two beakers of water okay this one over here this is homeopathic that's been treated looks there you go it's been treated the right way so that's the powerful stuff this plain water boo hiss nothing there just ordinary water right out of the tap so what you do is you make a circuit like this there's your batteries there's a switch here and you remember I said that 10 was the magic number in homeopathy so you run the wire up here and you run 10 turns a wire around here you'll need a cross over here you run ten turns and wire around there and then you connect it over here like that and then you close the switch here for how long sake ten seconds you see they can be instructed yes it really quickly pick it up quick like that yes ten seconds and did you buy Oh will do this by credit card of course or you can send them a check in advance it's got to be a registry check of course but they will do this and that makes this water over here the ordinary tap water into homeopathy water now I do agree that they both have the same power to cure it's called zero because you cannot tell the difference all I did a test two homeopathy with the Royal Society in the UK and with the BBC we did a test and I I thought I would give the million dollars I'd waived the preliminary test but if they could win this test I'd give it to them directly I was committed legally to do it I gave him the account number the whole thing they had access to it and they did it has two homeopathy it came out absolutely negative and the homeopaths who designed the test and approved of the protocol so Edward Gorey verse different oh we are going to win the prize no problem whatsoever Howell Ouya yeah right they didn't win the prize they immediately lit up and said oh well there was something wrong with the test and because we know that homeopathy works this is the kind of people these folks are homeopathy is a total delusion at a faith it does not work and I have offered the million dollar prize for eleven years now to any homeopathy or anybody else who can prove that there is a difference between ordinary water and homeopathic water they should be lined up at the door out here beating on the door they should be lined up with the size and pitchforks of the churches as they did in the Bride of Frankenstein remember no rioting go to your homes there is no beast wrong there is a beast and it's called homeopathy this is a silly thing sure it's a silly thing but we're stuck with it we are stuck with these medicines that are in pharmacies all across this country and the United States and certainly in England where it's very big even Prince Charles said that it was good and we know well it's got to be good if Prince Charles says it is would he make a mistake who yeah now I have them I heard a sad tale from you see they say that that you've got to be very careful about homeopathy you you could take as much of it as you want but that you've got to take on a regular basis in Section this fella in Florida poor man he he died of an overdose he forgot to take it I'm glad you got it died of an overdose I never liked it say yet to work on it now they say that it's natural you see that's the word that they all use in all this quack medicine it's natural bird poo and gravel are natural too and I don't eat them do you but they're natural so they must be okay for you now who's responsible for all this nonsense we're going through here I'll tell you in one word the media because they don't care they don't give a damn one way or the other whether what they say what they publish hurts people or misleads them or cost them money or their emotional security as long as the sponsors are happy Montel Williams you know who Montel Williams okay he's off the air now on his regular program but he supported Sylvia Browne this harridan of a woman there who was carrying on and taking all of his his support and all business and he was raving over her and he appeared on a radio program I've got the tape I've got the audio tape of it and he was asked until do you believe in psychics he said no especially not Sylvia Browne if I said but you have her on your program all the time he said oh yes she brings me sponsors bottom line now that kind of a person ladies and gentlemen pardon the expression but this is what they're known as they're known as the of the media business they will do anything in order to please the sponsors the people who pay them money they don't care whether it hurts people or not now PBS was the Public Broadcasting System in the United States of America and they regularly have people like Gary Nall he's the fake PhD that I told you about Wayne Dyer Deepak Chopra oh there's a winner for you these people he they use them during fund pleadings and that's a very important part of she be a PBS's business to try to keep operating very important for them I gave up contributing to them a long time ago when they started to use these quacks and these nonsense purveyors Deepak Chopra I have a challenge with any reporter if we're near a bookstore I take them to the bookstore and I say go to the Deepak Chopra section it's huge just huge hundreds of books I said take any book off the shelf turn to any page and within two pages on either side I'll show you a scientific howler because Deepak Chopra doesn't know science in any respect whatsoever but he's getting fabulously rich doing this or anything now I have sent out my challenge to all these people for the million dollars you know the name John Edward of course you've seen him on television I'm sure he's the one who talks to the audience we talked to the dead I too can talk to the dead do they answer no why because their day and I thought a mystery to me but John Edward I sent him a personal notarized certified copy as a matter of fact of the challenge saying we would pay him 1 billion dollars if you could prove that what he was doing was the real thing well we didn't hear from him we did hear from his his agent a the letter was very brief mr. Randy not even dear mr. Randy can you imagine I knew this was heavy he said mr. Randy John Edward does not respond to criticism yours truly can you answer I mean when the Dean calls you up and wants to discuss something with you I don't respond to criticism Dean Thank You Tobias I wouldn't try that if I were you and Larry King she told Mary King so we rounded that she didn't know how to find me when she was supposed to answer the challenge she agreed to do the challenge oh yeah for the billion dollars she agreed on his program in front of a huge audience internationally she agreed to do it but then she said she couldn't find me wait a minute she talks to dead people and I'm alive and I'm in the phone book as well I'm sure she finds a phone book someplace if she looks hard enough and Google has one point four billion references to be in my foundation so I think she could probably find a way of contacting me somehow ladies and gentlemen I've got to tell you how grateful I am to you to invite me back to McGill after 15 years I've been through a lot since then heart bypass cancer chemotherapy the whole thing medical science as I said earlier it saved me from not being here and I would like to do that again another 15 years would be a good timing I think ho ho ho I'm 82 now so you do the mathematics point is that I'm very very grateful for the committee having invited me there and I hope that I have caused you to learn something to set up and pay attention you must know and that's my my bottom line here that you can be swindled easily if your up against technology that you don't understand if you believe the media if you believe the people have advertised these things you're doing yourself and your family are great to service be more critical critical thinking is the thing that's going to save you from making big big errors in your life please keep going and you can get results if you write to television programs and to other branches of the media who would present these things to you without criticism be critical make your voice heard you're in a democracy after all and that democracy should speak we're now going to take a round of a question from the audience there are microphones sitting up here in the middle of the eye just make your way to the microphone we'll handle you one at a time and just make your way over there fight step on people it does make a difference just be ruthless just to get that thank you very very much children's oh thank you thank you okay thank you ladies go practice very well Frank

Channel: Barry Belmont

Views: 243,689

Rating: 4.8863707 out of 5

Keywords: James Randi, Pseudoscience, Nonsense, Nonscience, Junk Science, Paranormal, McGill University, Lecture, Lorne Trottier, Science, Science Education

Id: DRqlvqHBVCg

Length: 56min 44sec (3404 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2011