James Randi

From Citizendium
Revision as of 05:15, 28 February 2021 by imported>John Stephenson (death; slight rewrite)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-born magician, escapologist and a skeptic of paranormal, supernatural and pseudoscientific claims whose stage name was "The Amazing Randi". Randi famously exposed a large variety of purported psychics, faith healers and supernaturalists including Peter Popoff and Uri Geller. He was also involved in investigating Jacques Benveniste's claims about homeopathy and the "memory of water". For many years, Randi offered a $1 million prize to whoever could demonstrate psychic or supernatural powers in a scientific test situation. Needless to say, the prize was never successfully claimed. This skepticism was the impetus for a number of books, including The Faith Healers, The Truth About Uri Geller and Flim-Flam!