The problem with Mitch Horowitz was that he embedded his valid criticisms of Randi with his believer nonsense. When doing something like that, you should check your emotion at the door like you have. Believers can’t do that. That piece is mostly believer tear nonsense that undercuts his valid criticism. One of his intellectual heroes is famous fraud J.B. Rhine, not a good look in my opinion. Just my view.
That’s true, I feel bad for using the word “fraud” because I don’t really think he was either, but my general point was that I didn’t agree with the general vibe of Horowitz's article as it just boils down to taking a side (which of course it led to people doing) that being “Randi was wrong about everything paranormal and he hurt parapsychology which is 100% true and psychics who were always 100% real and made the world a worse place” which I feel is a preposterous and unnuanced worldview that I’m sure you can agree with. One person I recall from the time also described the essence of the piece as something to the affect of “someone annoyed that their particular brand of pseudo-science was laughed out of existence by Randi” which while harsh is to a degree a valid characterization. No matter how you slice it, such a thesis, I think, undercuts the real criticisms of Randi we can make, which Horowitz only sort of does through the lens I’ve described. I much prefer the more nuanced and educated view that you have shared which is while yes, Randi did great work in debunking frauds and helping people out of harmful belief systems, he also said just as many wrong and stupid things which you highlight. If that makes any sense.
I think this is a very sweeping characterisation of parapsychology and not one I recognise as accurate.
It is perfectly reasonable to lack belief in paranormal or supernatural claims. I do too. But that is not the same thing as saying the study of paranormal claims, experiences, beliefs, fraud, error, perception, testimony, and anomalistic experiences is “bs.”
This is actually one of the problems I have often criticised within organised skepticism - a tendency to treat the subject itself as contaminated, rather than asking careful questions about what is being claimed, what is being tested, what the evidence shows, and what else might explain the experience. You can reject supernatural explanations without dismissing the entire field of inquiry as fake.
There have been serious discussions and debates between anomalistic psychologists and parapsychologists about the relevance and differences of both fields of research, and the consensus tends to be that they both work better when they work in tandem. People like Caroline Watt have actually pioneered (in my opinion) the use of open research methods to ensure transparency of research findings.
There is also a difference between saying “some researchers have used poor methods,” which is true of many fields, and saying parapsychology as a whole is essentially fraudulent. That is a serious accusation, and it needs more than assertion. Psychology has had reproducibility problems. Medicine has had fraud. Physics has had fraud. None of that means the entire field is therefore illegitimate.
My own interest in this subject is not based on assuming paranormal claims are true. It is based on the opposite: taking claims, experiences, witnesses, contexts, methods, and explanations seriously enough to examine them properly.
So, by all means be skeptical of paranormal claims. I am. But skepticism is not the same thing as blanket dismissal, and it is not improved by caricaturing an entire area of study.
I’ve read your comment a number of times and I do want to push back on a few things here, because I think this comment illustrates part of the problem I was writing about.
Firstly, Jimmy Savile has nothing to do with this piece. Bringing him into a discussion about James Randi’s stated views on disabled people, “stupidity”, reproduction, and social worth does not clarify anything. It shifts the subject into a general conversation about “problematic celebrities” and fandom, which is not what this piece is about.
Secondly, I strongly disagree with the idea that “we’re all products of our era” is a sufficient explanation here. It is often used as a softening phrase, but it risks making harmful beliefs sound inevitable or normal for the time.
They were not.
Eugenicist ideas have always been resisted by the people they dehumanised, and by others who recognised them as dangerous. Randi was not merely reflecting some quaint outdated prejudice. He expressed views that placed some people’s lives and choices below others, and that matters.
I am also wary of moving too quickly from “this person held harmful views” to “fandom is complicated.” Of course people are complex. Of course legacies are complicated. But complexity should not become a route back to admiration without properly sitting with what was said, who it harmed, and what it reveals about the values of the movement that celebrated him.
You say “Cosby, I ditched. Randi, I still admire. We are all complex.” That may be where you land personally, but it is not a neutral conclusion. It is a choice about which harms affect your admiration and which do not. Sorry, but that choice deserves scrutiny too.
My point is not that nobody may ever read, cite, or discuss Randi again. It’s that if skepticism means anything, it has to include applying the same critical standards to our own icons that we apply elsewhere. Admiration should not be the default position we retreat to after briefly acknowledging harm.
So yes, humility is important. But humility here would not just mean saying “Randi made mistakes.” It would mean asking why the instinct is still to preserve admiration for him, and whether that instinct is compatible with taking those views seriously.
I don’t think this is quite the rational argument you seem to think it is.
My point was not that Randi and Cosby, Savile, Feynman, or anyone else are equivalent. Nor was it that people must engage in all-or-nothing thinking about public figures. My point was specific: Randi expressed views which, in the taped interview I refer to, he himself agreed amounted to Social Darwinism. I am not putting that description on him, I am using his own words as taped by Will Storr during their in-person interview, which Will played to me over the phone back in the early 2010s.
A lot of your response moves away from that evidence and into broader arguments about fallen heroes, historical context, fandom, and moral complexity. Those things may be interesting, but they do not answer the central issue.
The question is not whether Randi did good work, or whether other people have done worse things. The question is why skepticism is so often more comfortable contextualising its own heroes than sitting seriously with what they actually said.
I think that's something for you to reflect on personally, not here in the comments section of my blog. I am staunchly anti-fascist and find hand wringing over fascist ideology so, so gross.
The problem with Mitch Horowitz was that he embedded his valid criticisms of Randi with his believer nonsense. When doing something like that, you should check your emotion at the door like you have. Believers can’t do that. That piece is mostly believer tear nonsense that undercuts his valid criticism. One of his intellectual heroes is famous fraud J.B. Rhine, not a good look in my opinion. Just my view.
I would characterise Rhine as credulous certainly, and unable to replicate his results, but a 'famous fraud' is an incorrect statement to make.
That’s true, I feel bad for using the word “fraud” because I don’t really think he was either, but my general point was that I didn’t agree with the general vibe of Horowitz's article as it just boils down to taking a side (which of course it led to people doing) that being “Randi was wrong about everything paranormal and he hurt parapsychology which is 100% true and psychics who were always 100% real and made the world a worse place” which I feel is a preposterous and unnuanced worldview that I’m sure you can agree with. One person I recall from the time also described the essence of the piece as something to the affect of “someone annoyed that their particular brand of pseudo-science was laughed out of existence by Randi” which while harsh is to a degree a valid characterization. No matter how you slice it, such a thesis, I think, undercuts the real criticisms of Randi we can make, which Horowitz only sort of does through the lens I’ve described. I much prefer the more nuanced and educated view that you have shared which is while yes, Randi did great work in debunking frauds and helping people out of harmful belief systems, he also said just as many wrong and stupid things which you highlight. If that makes any sense.
I think this is a very sweeping characterisation of parapsychology and not one I recognise as accurate.
It is perfectly reasonable to lack belief in paranormal or supernatural claims. I do too. But that is not the same thing as saying the study of paranormal claims, experiences, beliefs, fraud, error, perception, testimony, and anomalistic experiences is “bs.”
This is actually one of the problems I have often criticised within organised skepticism - a tendency to treat the subject itself as contaminated, rather than asking careful questions about what is being claimed, what is being tested, what the evidence shows, and what else might explain the experience. You can reject supernatural explanations without dismissing the entire field of inquiry as fake.
There have been serious discussions and debates between anomalistic psychologists and parapsychologists about the relevance and differences of both fields of research, and the consensus tends to be that they both work better when they work in tandem. People like Caroline Watt have actually pioneered (in my opinion) the use of open research methods to ensure transparency of research findings.
There is also a difference between saying “some researchers have used poor methods,” which is true of many fields, and saying parapsychology as a whole is essentially fraudulent. That is a serious accusation, and it needs more than assertion. Psychology has had reproducibility problems. Medicine has had fraud. Physics has had fraud. None of that means the entire field is therefore illegitimate.
My own interest in this subject is not based on assuming paranormal claims are true. It is based on the opposite: taking claims, experiences, witnesses, contexts, methods, and explanations seriously enough to examine them properly.
So, by all means be skeptical of paranormal claims. I am. But skepticism is not the same thing as blanket dismissal, and it is not improved by caricaturing an entire area of study.
Thanks for reading and commenting on this piece.
I’ve read your comment a number of times and I do want to push back on a few things here, because I think this comment illustrates part of the problem I was writing about.
Firstly, Jimmy Savile has nothing to do with this piece. Bringing him into a discussion about James Randi’s stated views on disabled people, “stupidity”, reproduction, and social worth does not clarify anything. It shifts the subject into a general conversation about “problematic celebrities” and fandom, which is not what this piece is about.
Secondly, I strongly disagree with the idea that “we’re all products of our era” is a sufficient explanation here. It is often used as a softening phrase, but it risks making harmful beliefs sound inevitable or normal for the time.
They were not.
Eugenicist ideas have always been resisted by the people they dehumanised, and by others who recognised them as dangerous. Randi was not merely reflecting some quaint outdated prejudice. He expressed views that placed some people’s lives and choices below others, and that matters.
I am also wary of moving too quickly from “this person held harmful views” to “fandom is complicated.” Of course people are complex. Of course legacies are complicated. But complexity should not become a route back to admiration without properly sitting with what was said, who it harmed, and what it reveals about the values of the movement that celebrated him.
You say “Cosby, I ditched. Randi, I still admire. We are all complex.” That may be where you land personally, but it is not a neutral conclusion. It is a choice about which harms affect your admiration and which do not. Sorry, but that choice deserves scrutiny too.
My point is not that nobody may ever read, cite, or discuss Randi again. It’s that if skepticism means anything, it has to include applying the same critical standards to our own icons that we apply elsewhere. Admiration should not be the default position we retreat to after briefly acknowledging harm.
So yes, humility is important. But humility here would not just mean saying “Randi made mistakes.” It would mean asking why the instinct is still to preserve admiration for him, and whether that instinct is compatible with taking those views seriously.
I don’t think this is quite the rational argument you seem to think it is.
My point was not that Randi and Cosby, Savile, Feynman, or anyone else are equivalent. Nor was it that people must engage in all-or-nothing thinking about public figures. My point was specific: Randi expressed views which, in the taped interview I refer to, he himself agreed amounted to Social Darwinism. I am not putting that description on him, I am using his own words as taped by Will Storr during their in-person interview, which Will played to me over the phone back in the early 2010s.
A lot of your response moves away from that evidence and into broader arguments about fallen heroes, historical context, fandom, and moral complexity. Those things may be interesting, but they do not answer the central issue.
The question is not whether Randi did good work, or whether other people have done worse things. The question is why skepticism is so often more comfortable contextualising its own heroes than sitting seriously with what they actually said.
I think that's something for you to reflect on personally, not here in the comments section of my blog. I am staunchly anti-fascist and find hand wringing over fascist ideology so, so gross.