James Randi, the guy who came up with it, was literally a climate denying pedophile
I’m unsurprised that someone born in the twenties with an identity built heavily around being skeptical of anything without a lot of concrete evidence, a stage magician whose whole thing was being angry about psychics, mediums and the like defrauding people would require extraordinary evidence to believe in climate change.
Especially given we’ve been 10 years out from irreversible catastrophe since the 70s, according to various high ranking UN officials with positions related to the environment/climate. When that time passes, releasing a new statement claiming it’s another ten years out and pretending the previous one never happened. For someone like Randi, that’s got to set off the same bullshit detectors that religious leaders predicting apocalypse do.
I’d never heard the claim he was a pedophile before though, at least not outside the same circles accusing him in hushed tones of theft, tax evasion and being a Communist. Got a decent source on that one?
James Randi served as the primary science advisor on the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, basically they were this organization that pushed the idea that there was a disease called “False Memory Syndrome”
What’s False Memory Syndrome? A disease that causes you to randomly remember things that don’t happen, like say being sexually abused by a parental figure or close friend.
The foundation was kind of disbanded, in 2019, when its board was revealed to have basically no evidence that False Memory Syndrome was real, actively discouraged victims of abuse from seeking therapy (for fear that Psychologists would use hypnosis to “Implant a false memory”), and were pretty much all credibly accused of some kind of abuse… Investigations into the foundation showed it didn’t really do any research into the syndrome it claimed to exist, it mostly just built legal defenses for scum bags by sending people to court to say “She says was she was raped, but she’s obviously completely insane and thus probably making it up. Source: Trust me bro”
Birds of a feather flock together… Now it’s possible he joined as a kneejerk response to the Satanic Panic (When people were being coached to say they were molested in the glorious name of Satan as children, claiming “Resurfaced Memories”), but one would think that he would have sounded the alarm when he realized was a science advisor that didn’t do any actual research, just picked up paychecks to say “False Memories are totally a thing, I’m James Randi, do you not believe my appeal to authority claim?”… but he didn’t. Weird.
It’s also sus that Randi was a Science Director of ANYTHING considering he literally was a high school dropout with no science training (Something that honestly casts doubt on the Million Dollar Challenge’s legitimacy if you ask me, now keep in mind, showing Randi as a charlatan does not exonerate the frauds he caught. It merely proves this to be more of a Dexter situation; Dexter being a show in which a serial killer catches other serial killer, Randi being a scammer catching other scammers) I’d compare James Randi’s fraud busting as being similar to a case when Police catch the right guy, but fail to read him the Miranda or respect the 4th Amendment.
Recorded phone sex tapes of Randi speaking with young boys, James Randi claims that he was working with police on a sting operation, but that explanation makes no sense since if teen boys are calling him up for sex… What crime are the teen boys committing? It honestly sounds like they’re the victims of grooming here… So the better question is, how did these young men even get this number in the first place?
So why haven’t you heard of this before? Quite simply JREF has the resources and motive to protect the image of its founder, and since Randi’s reputation is largely positive with most people against him being scam psychics thoroughly debunked as scammers. Making it kind of easy to just claim anyone against Randi is for the likes of Geller or Browne, or is one of the religious fanatics that claimed he was, as you said, an Anti-American Communist… Just play the “No U” card and the skeptic community takes the bait, of course mainstream outlets aren’t going to say this and get these communities out for their blood…
James Randi, was a pseudo-skeptic who liked 'em young.
I’m unsurprised that someone born in the twenties with an identity built heavily around being skeptical of anything without a lot of concrete evidence, a stage magician whose whole thing was being angry about psychics, mediums and the like defrauding people would require extraordinary evidence to believe in climate change.
Especially given we’ve been 10 years out from irreversible catastrophe since the 70s, according to various high ranking UN officials with positions related to the environment/climate. When that time passes, releasing a new statement claiming it’s another ten years out and pretending the previous one never happened. For someone like Randi, that’s got to set off the same bullshit detectors that religious leaders predicting apocalypse do.
I’d never heard the claim he was a pedophile before though, at least not outside the same circles accusing him in hushed tones of theft, tax evasion and being a Communist. Got a decent source on that one?
https://news.isst-d.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-false-memory-syndrome-foundation/
https://timesupfoundation.org/the-danger-behind-the-false-memory-myth-2/ (The Time’s Up Foundation site seems to be down, sadly enough)
James Randi served as the primary science advisor on the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, basically they were this organization that pushed the idea that there was a disease called “False Memory Syndrome”
What’s False Memory Syndrome? A disease that causes you to randomly remember things that don’t happen, like say being sexually abused by a parental figure or close friend.
The foundation was kind of disbanded, in 2019, when its board was revealed to have basically no evidence that False Memory Syndrome was real, actively discouraged victims of abuse from seeking therapy (for fear that Psychologists would use hypnosis to “Implant a false memory”), and were pretty much all credibly accused of some kind of abuse… Investigations into the foundation showed it didn’t really do any research into the syndrome it claimed to exist, it mostly just built legal defenses for scum bags by sending people to court to say “She says was she was raped, but she’s obviously completely insane and thus probably making it up. Source: Trust me bro”
Birds of a feather flock together… Now it’s possible he joined as a kneejerk response to the Satanic Panic (When people were being coached to say they were molested in the glorious name of Satan as children, claiming “Resurfaced Memories”), but one would think that he would have sounded the alarm when he realized was a science advisor that didn’t do any actual research, just picked up paychecks to say “False Memories are totally a thing, I’m James Randi, do you not believe my appeal to authority claim?”… but he didn’t. Weird.
It’s also sus that Randi was a Science Director of ANYTHING considering he literally was a high school dropout with no science training (Something that honestly casts doubt on the Million Dollar Challenge’s legitimacy if you ask me, now keep in mind, showing Randi as a charlatan does not exonerate the frauds he caught. It merely proves this to be more of a Dexter situation; Dexter being a show in which a serial killer catches other serial killer, Randi being a scammer catching other scammers) I’d compare James Randi’s fraud busting as being similar to a case when Police catch the right guy, but fail to read him the Miranda or respect the 4th Amendment.
There’s also this matter - https://youtu.be/5khkDtUzAlc
Recorded phone sex tapes of Randi speaking with young boys, James Randi claims that he was working with police on a sting operation, but that explanation makes no sense since if teen boys are calling him up for sex… What crime are the teen boys committing? It honestly sounds like they’re the victims of grooming here… So the better question is, how did these young men even get this number in the first place?
So why haven’t you heard of this before? Quite simply JREF has the resources and motive to protect the image of its founder, and since Randi’s reputation is largely positive with most people against him being scam psychics thoroughly debunked as scammers. Making it kind of easy to just claim anyone against Randi is for the likes of Geller or Browne, or is one of the religious fanatics that claimed he was, as you said, an Anti-American Communist… Just play the “No U” card and the skeptic community takes the bait, of course mainstream outlets aren’t going to say this and get these communities out for their blood…
James Randi, was a pseudo-skeptic who liked 'em young.