A slender reed

A couple of days ago a press release from 2004 was brought to my attention. It claimed that someone in Indonesia had actually won James "the Amazing" Randi's million-dollar Challenge by proving psychic powers - but that Randi had refused to pay up.

Intrigued, I did a little Googling on the subject. I found that there's a lot less to this story than meets the eye.

First, the press release, exactly as issued:

Million Dollar Challenge Winner Proclaims James Randi Fraud

For years the Randi organization has pretended to offer a bogus million dollar reward to any person who can successfully demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability. This has naturally generated a lot of publicity and profit for the lead charlatan of the Randi organization, former sleigh of hand con artist James Randi. That is until the Yellow Bamboo organization from Bali INDONESIA called his bluff and actually demonstrated paranormal ability in front of scores of independent witnesses and a media representative from the Radio Republik Indonesia broadcasting network

Singaraja, Bali, INDONESIA (PRWEB) February 24,2004--For years the Randi organization has pretended to offer a bogus million dollar reward to any person who can successfully demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability. This has naturally generated a lot of publicity and profit for the lead charlatan of the Randi organization, former sleigh of hand con artist James Randi. That is until the Yellow Bamboo organization from Bali INDONESIA called his bluff and actually demonstrated paranormal ability in front of scores of independent witnesses and a media representative from the Radio Republik Indonesia broadcasting network On 14 September 2003 Mr. Nyoman Serengen, the founder of Yellow Bamboo (with over 40,000 members) successfully slammed down, without touching, the Randi representative Mr. Joko Tri clearly demonstrating extraordinary paranormal ability. Once the demonstration was successfully carried out James Randi frantically scrambled to concoct a phony pretext not to pay.

For many years, Mr. James Randi has successfully scammed the public into believing he would actually pay one million dollars to anyone successfully demonstrating any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability.

Once the Yellow Bamboo organization actually scientifically demonstrated paranormal ability Randi went into panic mode and was seen grasping at any straw available to induce his congregation not to realize he is a fraud. The fib he concocted was convincing at first but upon closer inspection is impossible to be true.

Con man Randi claimed he believed that Mr. Serengen used a taser or stun gun and successfully bamboozled his flock this was the pretext why he did not pay up as promised. Randi has no proof or witnesses but is just going on his “intuition”. Pretty funny to be using intuitive powers for someone who claims to debunk intuitives. Maybe he should apply for his own challenge.

The Yellow Bamboo organization has researched the use of stun guns and tasers thoroughly (see http://home.howstuffworks.com/stun-gun.htm) and this specious theory is impossible to be true for a multitude of reasons including but not limited to:

1.Eyewitnesses and the independent journalist who were within 2 meters of the demonstration would have seen any stun gun or taser employed and would have seen on the video.
2.Taser guns shoot darts which would have left holes in shirt and the witnesses would have seen the wires.
3.Stun gun must have physical contact but the Randi representative Mr. Joko Tri never touched Mr. Serengen.

Immediately after Randi fabricated this falsehood he promised the Yellow Bamboo organization he would travel to Indonesia to personally conduct another test. So far he has failed to show up and the Yellow Bamboo organization is still waiting for him to arrive. But given his history of falsehoods they are not holding their breath

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Dr Alvin G Donovan III
Yellow Bamboo Organization
Intl + 62 812 365 2355 (best time 7PM to 11AM NY time)
www.YellowBamboo.com

Now, I'm not a fan of Randi, but the claims of the Yellow Bamboo organization don't seem very strong to me.

Evidently what happened was this: Yellow Bamboo claimed that Serengen could knock down an assailant by means of psychic force. JREF representative Joko Tri agreed to test this claim. He would run at Serengen in a threatening way, and Serengen would knock him down without physical contact.

But the test protocol was not followed. Instead of taking place in good light, the test was done after dark, under poor viewing conditions. Instead of Joko running alone, three or four Yellow Bamboo members ran with him. The test was captured only by a cheap digital camera that was not equipped for night photography and shot very low-quality video.

Given the darkness and the number of people surrounding Joko as he ran, it is entirely possible that one of the Yellow Bamboo members shocked him with a stun gun. The small crowd could have obscured this action from an onlooker. (It also appears that most of the "eyewitnesses" were Yellow Bamboo members.)

Yellow Bamboo makes much of the fact that Joko and Serengen were not in physical contact. But that is not the issue. The issue is: Was one of the Yellow Bamboo members who ran alongside Joko able to make contact with him? Even a split second of contact would be enough to shock him into immobility.

Yellow Bamboo claims that they "won" the million dollars. This is clearly untrue, since this test was only a preliminary trial. It was not the Challenge itself, just a qualifying event.

They also claim that Randi is obligated to go to Indonesia and test the claim personally. He is not. According to the terms of the Challenge, the person being tested must travel to Randi (in Florida). They go to him; he doesn't go to them.

Finally, it is not really accurate for Yellow Bamboo to refer to Randi as a "former sleigh [sic] of hand con artist." He was a professional magician who made no secret of the fact that his job was to fool people for entertainment purposes.

I think there is much to criticize about Randi and the super-skeptics in general. But Yellow Bamboo is a pretty slender reed to lean on. 

Comments

I disagree. If Randi has the ability to dismiss the results of his tests by merely showing how claimants *could* have cheated, what would prevent him from doing this if a claimant succeeded through truly paranormal means? Since Randi apparently takes no pains to ensure that his tests are properly controlled and conducted, plausible fraud scenarios will never be very difficult for him to come up with. Hence, even if the paranormal exists, his challenge will never be won.

[Michael Prescott]

>Hence, even if the paranormal exists, his challenge will never be won.

I agree that the Challenge will never be won, and that Randi has stacked the deck in his favor. Personally I have no doubt that some paranormal phenomena are real. But they have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In this case, Yellow Bamboo handled the preliminary test so poorly that I think Randi is justified in saying they've proved nothing.

But is his ability to dismiss tests justifiable? I don't think it is since, as I said previously, if Randi can do this to Yellow Bamboo, he can do it to any claimant who succeeds, regardless of whether fraud was actually used or not. To clarify: I don't think the Yellow Bamboo people have proven their claim, but I also don't think Randi is justified in being able to dismiss his test of it.

[Michael Prescott]

>if Randi can do this to Yellow Bamboo, he can do it to any claimant who succeeds, regardless of whether fraud was actually used or not.

That's true, and it's one of several reasons why I think the Challenge is worthless.

For a good critique of the Challenge, see:

http://www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm

[Michael Prescott]

Having thought about this some more, I now agree with the commenter who wrote:

"If Randi has the ability to dismiss the results of his tests by merely showing how claimants *could* have cheated, what would prevent him from doing this if a claimant succeeded through truly paranormal means?"

This is true. Ex post facto explanations can be invented to "explain" anything. The bottom line is that Yellow Bamboo claimed they could knock a Randi representative to the ground without physical contact; the test was carried out; the rep was knocked to the ground and was unaware of any physical contact. (This is not to say that no contact occurred, only that he didn't perceive it.) Therefore Yellow Bamboo passed the preliminary test. It does no good to come up with ad hoc explanations after the fact. Randi should have invited Yellow Bamboo to Florida for a decisive test, rather than cavalierly dismissing their claim on the basis of a mere supposition.

[mark dunn]

I have fully followed the randi scam- no where in the agreement between yb and randi does it even SAY it has to be videod.

1. It was videod and it was getting dark because RANDIS person was late not yb.

2. Joko testified that he was knocked down and not know how it was done.

3. Randi has a journalist sitting 3 meters from the test- if anything was amiss we would have heard from the journalist.

Anyone is invited to go to bali to try it themselves. at yellowbamboo.info there is video fo people from all over the world doing the knocking down in bali