{"id":890,"date":"2008-04-20T08:57:57","date_gmt":"2008-04-20T07:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=890"},"modified":"2008-04-20T08:57:57","modified_gmt":"2008-04-20T07:57:57","slug":"an-evening-with-james-randi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=890","title":{"rendered":"An evening with James Randi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, together with friends Eric, Andy, Nick and Toni, I was at a fascinating and fun event at the Conway Hall in London organised by “The Skeptic magazine”<\/a> and Skeptics in the Pub<\/a>. There were six interesting speakers:<\/p>\n

Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertford<\/b> [biog here<\/a>]
\nIncredibly funny and witty, he hosted the evening and entertained us with some of his magic tricks which encouraged us to think of issues like perception and deception.\nProfessor Chris French of the University of London<\/b> [biog here<\/a>]
\nHe outlined the sceptic scene in the UK and made a number of references to the problem of false memories.<\/p>\n
Dr Simon Singh, an author and television producer<\/b> [biog here<\/a>]
\nHe has just co-authored a book on complementary medicine called “Trick Or Treatment?” and described the astonishing popularity of so-called alternative medicine.<\/p>\n
Dr Ben Goldacre, a writer, broadcaster and medical doctor<\/b> [biog here<\/a>]
\nHe argued that the real story is often more compelling than the falsehood and instanced the remarkable power of the placebo effect which we need to understand better.<\/p>\n
Dr Susan Blackmore, a writer, lecturer and broadcaster<\/b> [biog here<\/a>]
\nShe confessed very honestly to many years of being a believer in psychic phenomena and outlined her academic attempts – all failures – to prove that psychics could produce results which were outside the range of mere chance.<\/p>\n
James Randi, Canadian sceptic and magician<\/b> [biog here<\/a>]
\nThis diminutive, elderly man with a huge white beard was the highlight of the evening and described as “the most famous sceptic in the world”. He illustrated the methods he uses to expose charlatans by showing two video clips.
\nThe first exposed the fakery of the so-called faith healer Peter Popoff in a clip similar to this one:<\/p>\n
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