James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge , the August 7th 1928 with Toronto, Ontario, Canada), more known under name Randi the narcotic (The Amazing Randi), is a professional illusionist. He is in particular known as being a débunker, i.e. a demystificator of the Pseudo-science paranormaux S and other phenomena. He is, through his James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), one of the heads of file of the Mouvement contemporary skeptic.

Biography

Starting from 1946 James Randi worked like illusionist under his name of birth Randall Zwinge. Early in its career it carried out turns which consisted in being released from safe or cells of prisons. James Randi receives his American naturalization in 1987.

Career of Illusionist

Career like skeptic

Founding member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (committee for the investigation skeptic) in the past Committee for Scientific Investigation off Claims off the Paranormal (Committee for the investigation scientists of allegations to the paranormal). It is known for its challenge called the One Million Dollar Challenge , via which its foundation, the James Randi Educational Foundation will award a prize of a million USD dollars to any participant who will be able to show the reality of paranormaux events (in France, Henri Broch organized a similar price, the international Défi zetetic between 1987 and 2002, within the framework of the Zététique, which is the French-speaking form of the Mouvement contemporary skeptic). Nobody still passed successfully a preliminary test of the One Million Dollar Challenge .

It is also at the origin of the Projet Alpha, where it infiltrated two young illusionists in a laboratory of parapsychology, in order to show that the protocols to detect the juggling acts were largely insufficient. For this reason, associations skeptics have a Prestidigitateur in their team when they test a person claiming to have paranormaux capacities.

James Randi appeared in the television programs " The Tonight Show" and " Bullshit! " (two popular emissions with the the United States), accommodated by comrades skeptics and the magicians PEN & Teller. It is also known to have exposed fraudulent curative arrangements of the reverend Peter Popoff, evangelist televised, in 1987.

An experiment organized by James Randi with 19 waterfinders showed that with a rate from approximately 52% of success, they were not able to do better than a choice randomly to detect objects or water.

Criticisms

Others

Sources

Publications

  • Flim-Flam! , 1982, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-198-3

  • The Magic off Uri To freeze , 1982, ISBN 0-345-24796-5 (Republication: The Truth Uri Butt To freeze ISBN 0-87975-199-1)
  • The Faith Healers , 1987, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-369-2. (ISBN 0-87975-535-0 1989 edition) (Foreword by Carl Sagan)
  • The Mask off Nostradamus: The Prophecies off the World' S Most Famous SEER , 1990, Charles Scribner' S Sounds ISBN 0-684-19056-7 gold ISBN 0-87975-830-9.
  • Conjuring , 1992
  • Year Encyclopedia off Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes off the Occult and Supernatural , 1995, St Martin' S Close ISBN 0-312-15119-5 (Online Version)
  • James Randi: Psychic Investigator , 1991, ISBN 1-85283-144-8

in French

  • the true face of Nostradamus of James Randi, Editor: Balzac it Griot editor (1993), Collection: Memory of man

External bonds

  • critical of the work '' The Mask off Nostradamus '' by Igor Ziegler - SPS n° 195, January-February 1992

  • James Randi Educational Foundation

Vidéos

  • James Randi, PEN & Teller one skepticism (first part)

  • James Randi, PEN & Teller one skepticism (second part)

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