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21 November 2005 Psychic investigator to speak at Longwood University to help open new science center
Randi, who calls himself “the world’s leading psychic investigator and skeptic,” will speak Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 4 p.m. in Jarman Auditorium. His talk, Search for the Chimera, will be an overview of how science has pursued magic and miracles in the 20th century and into the 21st century, including such topics as UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, Erich von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” theory and the lost continent of Atlantis. Admission is free, but a ticket, which can be obtained at the Jarman Box Office, is required. Longwood’s new science center will be officially opened at 5:30 p.m. that day in a ceremony in front of the building, which is next to Jarman Hall. Randi, a former magician and escape artist, has for decades been tireless in his campaign to investigate—and subsequently, debunk—psychics, faith healers, mediums and others he considers charlatans. While appearing on a live radio panel discussion in 1964, he was challenged by a parapsychologist to “put (his) money where (his) mouth is.” He responded by offering to pay $1,000 to anyone who demonstrated a paranormal power under satisfactory observational conditions. The award, known as “the Challenge,” currently is up to $1 million. He heads the James Randi Educational Foundation, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which is “dedicated to critical thinking about the paranormal” and funds “carefully selected original parapsychological research.” He was a co-founder, along with prominent members of the science community, including the late astronomer Carl Sagan and the late writer Isaac Asimov, of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. A high school dropout who once performed under the name “Prince Ibis,” Randi has written nine books, received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship, lectured and/or performed at the White House and at several leading universities and for such organizations as NASA, the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation, and appeared on numerous television programs. “Acceptance of nonsense as a harmless aberration can be dangerous to all of us,” he has said in explaining his quest for scientific truth. “We live in a society that is enlarging the boundaries of knowledge at an unprecedented rate, and we cannot keep up with much more than a small portion of what is made available to us. To mix that knowledge with childish notions of magic and fantasy is to cripple our perception of the world around us. We must reach for the truth, not for the ghosts of dead absurdities.” For more information on James Randi, visit his web site at: http://www.randi.org/ |
James Randi, who has gained an international reputation for his investigations of psychic, paranormal and supernatural claims, will help Longwood University celebrate the opening of its new science center.