James Randi Famous Quotes
Reading James Randi quotes, download and share images of famous quotes by James Randi. Righ click to see or save pictures of James Randi quotes that you can use as your wallpaper for free.
People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.
A quick example of that is a woman who said she'd been healed of throat cancer where the faith healer admitted he touched her on the forehead.
Nostradamus himself confessed that the vague manner in which he wrote his "prophecies" was so that 'they could not possibly be understood until they were interpreted after the event and by it.'
The problem with experiments has always been that human beings make the decisions on whether or not the animals have benefitted from the treatment.
Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand.
I am in a very peculiar business: I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know.
One thing that has made a big comeback just recently is this business of speaking with the dead. To my innocent mind, 'dead' implies incapable of communicating.
Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence.
The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.
I want to be cremated, and I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes.
I do not expect that homeopathy will ever be established as a legitimate form of treatment, but I do expect that it will continue to be popular.
There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized… patent offices handle an endless succession of inventors who still produce perpetual-motion machines that don't work, but no number of idle flywheels will convince these zealots of their folly; dozens of these patent applications flow in every year. In ashrams all over the world, hopping devotees of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will never abandon their goal of blissful levitation of their bodies by mind power, despite bruises and sprains aplenty suffered as they bounce about on gym mats like demented (though smiling) frogs, trying to get airborne. Absolutely nothing will discourage them.
I was not surprised by the results of the Horizon experiments, but I remain willing to observe and consider any and all other tests that are done under similarly precise conditions.
Uri Geller may have psychic powers by means of which he can bend spoons; if so, he appears to be doing it the hard way.
I would put my million dollars up as well.
No evidence against a firmly-held belief, no matter how good or abundant it may be, will sway the true believer.
Magicians are the most honest people in the world; they tell you they're gonna fool you, and then they do it.
To recognize that nature has neither a preference for our species nor a bias against it takes only a little courage.
Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.
Nature doesn't cheat - people do.
A lot of people hate my skepticism, and I think I understand why. The psychics offer wonders and endless possibilities in a world that often seems difficult and mundane. They promise health, wealth, wisdom, eternal life. But if you examine the record, it's not the psychics but the hard-nosed scientists who have actually delivered the things that improve human life. And, to me, science describes a world far more interesting than any psychic fantasy. It's a good world
not perfect
but it's ours. So we'd better learn to live with it, the way it is.
I don't expect that the million will ever be won, simply because there is no confirming evidence for any paranormal claims to date.
No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived.
We have fought long and hard to escape from medieval superstition. I, for one, do not wish to go back.
I want to be, if I can, as sure of the world
the real world
around me as is possible. Now, you can only attain that to a certain degree, but I want the greatest degree of control. I've never involved myself in narcotics of any kind, I don't smoke, and I don't drink because that can easily just fuzz the edges of my rationality
fuzz the edges of my reasoning powers
and I want to be as aware as I possibly can. That means giving up a lot of fantasies that might be comforting in some ways, but I'm willing to give that up in order to live in an actually real world, or as close as I can get to it.
I believe in the basic goodness of my species, because that appears to be a positive tactic and quality that leads to better chances of survival- and in spite of our foolishness, we seem to have survived.
They would have been very let down if they had to leave the theater and he had missed. He would feel badly. Everyone would feel badly. But he never let them down.
There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.
Feeling better is not actually being better.
Expose every belief to the light of reason, discourse, facts, scientific observations; question everything, be sceptical because this is the only chance at life you will ever get.
Paranormal phenomena have a habit of going away whenever they are tested under rigorous conditions. This is why the $1,000,000 reward of James Randi, offered to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal effect under proper scientific controls, is safe.
Yes, I'm a materialist. I'm willing to be shown wrong, but that has not happened - yet. And I admit that the reason I'm unable to accept the claims of psychic, occult, and/or supernatural wonders is because I'm locked into a world-view that demands evidence rather than blind faith, a view that insists upon the replication of all experiments - particularly those that appear to show violations of a rational world - and a view which requires open examination of the methods used to carry out those experiments.
Though all the Protestant denominations have historically condemned the veneration of holy objects (relics) and their use in healing, the Catholic church - until recently - preferred to depend entirely upon the magical qualities attributed to the possessions or actual physical parts of various saints and biblical characters for healing. The Vatican not only permitted but encouraged this practice, which entered history in the third century. Catholic churches and private collections still overflow with hundreds of thousands of items. Included are pieces of the True Cross (enough to build a few log cabins), bones of the children slain by King Herod, the toenails and bones of St. Peter, the bones of the Three Wise Kings and of St. Stephen (as well as his complete corpse, including another complete skeleton!), jars of the Virgin Mary's milk, the bones and several entire heads and pieces thereof that were allegedly once atop John the Baptist, 16 foreskins of Christ, Mary Magdalene's entire skeleton (with two right feet), scraps of bread and fish left over from feeding the 5,000, a crust of bread from the Last Supper, and a hair from Christ's beard - not to mention a few shrouds, including the one at Turin.
Gods are children's blankets that get carried over into adulthood.
Blind belief can be comforting, but it can easily cripple reason and productivity, and stop intellectual progress.
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.