James Randi and Project Alpha

Project Alpha was a famous hoax orchestrated by famous magician and skeptic James Randi. It involved the "planting" of two fake psychics, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards, into a paranormal research project who became convinced the pair's psychic powers were real. The hoax was later revealed publically, leading to a backlash against the entire paranormal field. This is an interview with the men involved.

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[golgo monaas]

I really hope james randi is leaving a good number of disciples who know the tricks and gimmicks behind all those paranormal hoaxes and keep his leagcy alive for eons to come . Scientists are ill equipped to catch those charlatans, you need master trickesters to catch those dishonest trickesters.

[Sakura ShinRa]

James Randi has been old forever, I think he may actually be a Timelord. He looks like one LOL

[Manpoweredfilms]

Looks like they got the lower thirds wrong, confusing Mike and Steve.

[bersa888]

The world is clearly divided into people who believe - or want to believe or love to believe or are forced to believe - psychics (and astrology, card readers, prophets, religions, cults, elves, etc.) and people who don't. Soooo glad to belong to the latter group...

[Onii Chan]

was this filmed with a toaster. thumbs up if u agree

[Shaun Godbold]

ha, great video, this needs to be done in 2012 and im loving of in related videos i see "Extreme Idiots Compilation" XD

[Alex Murdoch]

Understand, also, that it was the researchers themselves who went to the media initially to discuss their conviction of their findings.

[Alex Murdoch]

Fantastic, please provide a link.

It sounds like post hoc rationalization to me. You might be interested in the book "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.

[1990heleen1990]

I found this citation on the internet: "Researchers involved in the original project have defended themselves and claim that the story has been distorted. They point out that they were only fooled by preliminary testing and that more formal testing failed to show supernatural ability. However it does seem clear from interviews at the time that researchers were, at best, gullible and quick to support unverified conclusions."

[Alex Murdoch]

You've been repeating the same thing throughout our conversation. You still haven't provided any evidence to back up your statements, though. Could you provide anything more robust than:" In an interview in 2010 Michael Edwards himself said that..."? Without citations, these are little more than anecdotes.