davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) (05/24/85)
In article <611@digi-g.UUCP> brian@digi-g.UUCP (brian) writes: > >Sure. The same way Uri Geller (remember him?) used to bend spoons. >Fraudulently. Any professional magicians present? > >Merlyn Leroy, > who can bend his mind with a fork. Uri Geller has been known to fake things quite often. However, I would love to see a professional magician do what some friends of mine have seem him do. He was giving a talk in Houston and agreed to come to Austin to be interviewed. My friends drove him here from Houston (140 miles) and decided to eat at their favorite Mexican place (La Tapatia for those here in Austin.) The waitress led them to the table and left. Quite unexpectedly, one of my friends noticed that his fork in the table in front of him was MOVING! It was bending slowly to an acute angle. He made a yelp and commented on what was going on. Then the person accross from him noticed that his fork was bending as well. The waitress soon came back in - saw the bent forks and started apologizing while picking them up saying she was sorry she didn't notice the silverware was bad before she showed them the table. One of my friends quickly grabbed his fork and asked her if he could keep it. She relented (and probably thought he was nuts.) Now I presume Uri could have dropped some sort of chemical on the forks while he was passing by since no one was prepared to watch for any shenanigans. He certainly wasn't handling the forks while they were bending as any magician would have to do. Also a magician could not make the forks keep bending while not under some constant pressure. Fork substitution is a remote possibility but its hard to believe he goes around with all these forks hidden in his pants. Finally, I doubt if any chemist/physicist/scientist could show me a fork which after it leaves their presence would start bending a minute later and continue to bend for a time without any indication of acid, heat, or deformity to the lateral width (cross section) of the metal in the fork. To make this more bizzare, that same evening Uri was caught putting a picture into an aquarium. He was going to claim he had materialized it, I suppose. His ego seems to demand that he be proving his powers to others, even if he needs to fake it. There were several other things that happened which are just as bizzare. I will only mention one more I would like to see a magician do. As I said before Uri was giving a talk in Houston. It happened that the then Mayor of Houston decided on the spur of the moment to give a key-to-the-city to Uri. He was at his office when he decided this and had his aid bring one along as they were to meet Uri at theAstodome where the talk was scheduled. The mayor met Uri outside and told him he would receive the key-to-the-city. The key was in an elongated cardboard box with a clear plastic top. Uri told the mayor to put his hand over the box (it had not been opened yet) and then held his own hand over the mayor's. After a short time Uri told the mayor to remove his hand. The key was noticibly bent and everyone was quite shocked. Substitution before the event is the only way a magician could have accomp- lished the same thing. (Nobody seemed to have examined the key before it was presented.) I find it highly unlikely that Uri had any way of 1) knowing beforehand that he would have gotten the key 2) arranged to have a bent duplicate of the key-to-the-city made and ) somehow switched it with the real thing. Obviously 3) is easy to do and 2) is not easy but possible if you have several days to prepare. Item 1) above is the real clincher since the mayor did not decide to do this until the last minute. Uri has bent some metal in a lab and the bend-point was examined with an electron microscope revealing a fracture which cannot normally be created. Of course scientist can be as fooled as anyone else. But a EM is a little harder to fool. I'll give more details if there is interest. Uri's a good showman and its easy to dismiss everything he does as fakery. But I think there is more to it than that. Dave Trissel {ihnp4,seismon how they think Uri could have aco "close your eyes and mind but it won't go away"
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (05/26/85)
James Randi has a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who demonstrates a "psychic" phenomenon that Randi cannot duplicate by using good old-fashioned chicanery. If Uri Geller could actually do the things he claimed, don't you think he would have snarfed the ten grand by now?
davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) (06/04/85)
In article <3759@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes: >James Randi has a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who demonstrates >a "psychic" phenomenon that Randi cannot duplicate by using good >old-fashioned chicanery. > >If Uri Geller could actually do the things he claimed, don't you >think he would have snarfed the ten grand by now? I think the situation is a lot more complex than this. First Uri claims not to exactly control what's going on. He often has people hold things in their hand while he holds his over theirs. Most of the time nothing happens. But when something does it may be one of several things and he seems not to know what to expect. Example: several times he had my friend Kathern hold various objects in her hand (this was at her and her husband's apartment.) For about and hour of this nothing happened at all. Then her husband, Ray, noticed that one of the pieces of turquoise she held earlier and had since laid down was an ugly shade of dark blue. Notice that this was seen after it had been put down and Uri (if he was a good magician) could have possibly handled it without their realizing. The question is what could he have done to have caused the change? The turquoise was Indian jewelry (a man's neck piece) positioned in silver and quite expensive. The two were quite upset when it dawned on them that they just had an expensive item destroyed, although the circumstances would be something unique to tell grandchildren. Unlike the other events I gave earlier concerning Uri, I know nothing about turquoise and there may be some easy way that a chemical could cause discoloration and thus an easy fake to be had. So, the first problem is Uri's taking a test and failing would not necessarily disprove anything unless a lengthy and drawn out series of experiments were to be done - something I doubt either Randi or Uri would put up with. The second problem is deciding what constitutes proof of a paranormal event. If Uri cannot control exactly what happens how do you test for a range of unexpected events and conclusively prove it was paranormal. S.R.I tried keeping a video camera on him for a long length of time but "things" only happened when the camera was not pointing directly at them (such as objects moving by themselves or seemingly teleported from one side of the room to another.) To Randi this is proof of fraud since the events, if real, should happen regardless of where the camera is pointing. But the shoe can be put on the other foot. I have yet to hear of Randi or any other magician making forks and spoons bend the way Uri does. It's one thing to claim that Uri is using tricks for everything he does, but quite another to find that the bending exhibited has yet to shown by a magician. (Randi has many times shown metal bent covertly but NEVER has shown metal objects given to him by someone else [a non-plant in the audience of course] curling up and twisting the way Uri's effects do.) BTW a little sidetrack here on Randi. Well known for his anti-paranormal stance I was quite shocked 2 years ago to see him publish a book on "Testing Your ESP." It had the standard ESP card deck (circles, squares, e.t.c) and had statistical information on how to evaluate card guessing as being statistically significant. I had heard he had found a child who seemed to demonstrate ESP ability at predicting the cards in his presence and he was weakly admitting that there may indeed something to all this ESP nonsense. The book would tend to confirm this since why bother if there is no ESP to start with. (Interestingly he had holes in his test procedure. For instance I think one of his procedures would possibly allow the subject to see the cards reflected in glasses if worn by the tester. This quite astonished me that he would have such a glaring goof.) Anyone know what his current attitude is? Dave Trissel {seismo,ihnp4}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet "Film at 10:00" (We're on CDST)
phco@ecsvax.UUCP (John Miller) (06/05/85)
>Then her husband, Ray, noticed that one of the pieces of turquoise she held >earlier and had since laid down was an ugly shade of dark blue. Notice that >this was seen after it had been put down and Uri (if he was a good magician) >could have possibly handled it without their realizing. The question is >what could he have done to have caused the change? > >The turquoise was Indian jewelry (a man's neck piece) positioned in silver >and quite expensive. The two were quite upset when it dawned on them that >they just had an expensive item destroyed, although the circumstances would >be something unique to tell grandchildren. Unlike the other events I gave >earlier concerning Uri, I know nothing about turquoise and there may be some >easy way that a chemical could cause discoloration and thus an easy fake to >be had. Turquoise is quite porous and very easily discolored by dyes, oils (including those in human perspiration), and acids. Even plain water can cause temporary alteration in color. Depending on the quality of the turquoise, Geller may not have needed to even touch the stone; if her hands perspired, that by itself might be enough to cause temporary discoloration. -- John Miller (ecsvax!phco) Dept. of Pharmacology, Univ. of N.C.-Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 966-1153
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (06/07/85)
In article <440@oakhill.UUCP> davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) writes: >I think the situation is a lot more complex than this. > >First Uri claims not to exactly control what's going on. He often has people >hold things in their hand while he holds his over theirs. Most of the time >nothing happens. But when something does it may be one of several things and >he seems not to know what to expect. > This actually sounds like a very old type of trickery. In fact he could be combining two related srts of misdirection here. First, this could easily be a variant of the old "Change a trick in the middle if it doesn't work right" trick. That is it is a wonderful way of taking advantage of *whatever* happens and claiming he is responsible for it! This is why Randi *insist* upon stating ahead of time what one is going to do. Secondly, this is a good way of excusing failures, if it doesn't work just claim "I have no real control", and to add credibility to this pretend to be surprised by what happens when the trick actually works(I mean why should I believe *anything* Uri says since he is a proven faker.) And you are trying to use this sort of garbage as evidence in *favor* of Uri Geller! >So, the first problem is Uri's taking a test and failing would not necessarily >disprove anything unless a lengthy and drawn out series of experiments were to >be done - something I doubt either Randi or Uri would put up with. > Oh, I think Randi would put up with almost any properly designed experiment, even if it required numerous tests. But it would have to be set up very rigorously, so that th e statistical results would be meaningful. It is very easy to misuse statistics if you are not properly trained in interprating such evidence. >The second problem is deciding what constitutes proof of a paranormal event. >If Uri cannot control exactly what happens how do you test for a range of >unexpected events and conclusively prove it was paranormal. > It is called statistics, and given the motivation it should be possible to devise a statistically valid test for variable PSI phenonema, but it *must* have adequate controls and a very large sample size, at the very least. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) {trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen